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Gemini VII Air-to-Ground Transcript Volume I: 5011500_VolumeI

· 341 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This is Volume I of III of the Gemini VII voice communications transcript, covering pages 1 to 337 and marked Confidential. It records air-to-ground, ground-to-air and on-board exchanges beginning at lift-off. Early passages cover staging, orbit insertion and stationkeeping with the booster, which the crew reports is venting heavily, and they photograph it. Later passages near 116 hours hold the crew's detailed descriptions of airglow, stars and a sunrise seen from orbit.

  • p. 57 …The crew status report from the Lovell house remains at three. 06:19:40 C Thank…
  • p. 72 …In a minute, we will have Lovell. Stand by. 21:42:05 C Ready. 21:42…
  • p. 73 …That last urine dump was the courtesy of Lovell, at about 21:40. 21:44:48…
  • p. 93 …26:23:53 C Lovell at 06 plus 53 with minus 4; Borman was minus 10…
  • p. 127 …It says: "Astronauts Borman and Lovell report all is well aboard their Gemini VII." You know…
  • p. 139 …08:14 C Negative, because the CM2, Jim Lovell, is going to be doing them both.
  • p. 149 …48:26:38 P Lovell dumping urine this time. Not too much of it; most of…
  • p. 167 …The signal ceased at 4:51 pm Eastern Standard Time and Sir Bernard Lovell, Observatory Director…
  • p. 169 …53:38:56 C On the S-8/D-13, Lovell missed 8 and Borman missed…
  • p. 172 …getting in preparation for a urine dump. Lovell will be dumping first. ## COASTAL SENTRY QUEBEC 55…
  • p. 184 …The headline over the Gemini VII story today says, "Lovell orbits in underwear". ## CONFIDENTIAL
  • p. 187 …68:30:03 P This is Lovell dumping urine ... 68:30:23 P There she goes…
  • p. 226 …Boreman mis sed 7 and Lovell missed 11. 75:15:41 CC Roger. 75:15:43…
  • p. 234 …Borman missed 7, Lovell missed 11 this morning. 77:34:32 CC Repeat that last again…
  • p. 240 …s approximately 1 minute. P Standing by. Lovell's going to dump urine. P There's…
  • p. 302 …Borman was -8, Lovell -7. 100:49:04 CC Roger. 100:49:06 C Okay. We…
  • p. 307 …That's right. 101:49:31 P And I will authenticate same. Lovell dumping urine. ## CONFIDENTIAL
  • p. 311 …Borman minus 11, Lovell minus 6. 103:00:16 C Borman dumping here. CANARY 112:05…
  • p. 320 …They want to discuss Lovell getting back into the suit and Borman getting out. Did you…
  • p. 330 …Does he have first of all, is he thirsty? 115:54:18 P This is Lovell…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

# CONFIDENTIAL

We would like you to tape-record, with your onboard recorder, your thoughts on the stationkeeping task which you did.

44:53:16 P Will do.

44:53:20 CC On your next pass, I'll give you a report on the news.

44:53:23 P Thank you.

44:53:27 CC Okay. Should be receiving some music pretty quickly.

The stationkeeping task was, I thought, relatively easy. The one thing that complicated it, in this case, was the venting booster. It was receiving continuous Delta-V from quite a large vent on the autoxinous line. We came off the booster, just as planned, drove up - pitched up rather - 180 degrees, fired back to the booster for approximately 5 seconds, the way we practiced in the simulations, and I thought that the sumulations and the actual event were very, very, close together. The task we're not able to use the platform forward because of the fact that the booster ended up a little bit above us and when we put it in platform, the spacecraft started to pitch down out of view of the booster, so then went to pulse and, finally, in some cases, I had to go to direct in order to get back to the booster. From then on, it was relatively simple to stay in there. I think, with a stabilized vehicle, it should be a task of no great concern. However, the continual pulsing of the booster plus the continual venting of the booster, plus its rolling, made it a little bit fuel-consuming. I would estimate that we went within 100 to 50 feet of the vehicle most of the time.

44:53:48 CC Are you receiving the music yet?

44:54:07 CC Gemini VII, the music should be coming up pretty quickly.

## CONFIDENTIAL

Cases discussed

About this file

Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 341 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.