Documents / Official release
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.
112 McDivitt CDr ◄ FIDiNI IAJ.. there . I knew Jim was doing his job holding attitude for me . Let me comment on the attitude- holding right now. Initially we started out in blunt-end forward. banked to the left about 30 degrees or so . This happened to be the attitude we were in . We wanted to be bl u:~t- end- forward for the sun . and they told me it didn ' t make any difference what attitude that we were in when we opened up the hatch . We had originally planned on opening the hatch toward the ground. I was CRlled by some station that said it didn't make any difference what attitude I was in when I opened the hatch . We opened the hatch . We opened it in that particular attitude, and I held the attLtude for the f irst portion of the time that Ed was out . When you had th" gun you managed to stay reasonably well out in front . I held the sp~cecraft essentially stationary with respect to the local horizontal . After yvJ. ran out of f uel in the gun yo'J. were on top of the spacecraft all of the tim~ . I felt that unless you really had to have the thing stablized , to maintain your S•?nse of balance or EO~~FIBf~TiAL
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 340 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.