Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

This is a preliminary transcript of Part I of the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight crew debriefing. The Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division prepared it on June 16, 1965, from recordings of the debriefing held aboard the USS Wasp on June 9, 1965. In it, astronauts McDivitt and White describe the mission from an operational viewpoint, covering countdown, powered flight, insertion, orbital operations, reentry, landing and recovery. According to the preface, visual sightings were left for a later part.

From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: 6/9/65, North Atlantic Ocean. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part I) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 4 flight crew debriefing taken aboard the recovery ship, USS Wasp, on June 9, 1965. Astronaut Ed White recounts seeing “sparkles” during the flight.

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98
McDivitt
White
say we h~dn I t done to ffi3" sati.sfacti.,_.,n t"le fi.r;;t
time ,1as t:J check the inlet ann doing r 10 tn; 'lg ex•)ept pc,~par.ine for EVA,
aJ1.11 we dldn ' t quite gHt thA job done . I ca11 ' t
believe that we could ·'lA.ve poss ibly flown
f o:-mation w:i. th the booster and taken pictures
of it and all the other thi 'lgs t:i.at we had
and even comH close to compl-?ting it .
Well , the way we wo11ld h'3.ve had to do it, would
have been witho11t a checklist . I would h~va had
to just go ahead :.md ~1:>ok c~verything •..p . I
think tl'J could 111-w-3 do,w it satisfact)rily l-i
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