Documents / Official release

Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965-06-09 · 340 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

Open the PDF at page 122 Original source ↗

“Harder”5 pages

  • p. 149 …I did notice that the suit was a little harder. I felt this type of suit…
  • p. 150 …You mean with the harder suit I was stiffer? Harder . And your. arms were stiffe:::- a…
  • p. 186 178 €0NflDENitM White McDivitt White McDivitt any harder . No . I think that shouli be t he…
  • p. 318 …We hit ten times harder than I expected to hit . The altimeter was set at the…
  • p. 320 …We really seemed to hit hard, harder than I thought EO~ ◄ Flt,Et~TI.A"L
114
White
couple of the axes at the same time . Here again
before the flight we discussed the axis system.
Ed selected the spacecraft as his axis system.
It didn ' t a:;:>pear that he was having a bit of
trouble with i t . He was maneuvaring with
respect to it , regar,lless of what the earth ,
sun , moon , a~d stars were doing . It was
pretty ob\·i,..,us to me th:l.t was exactly what he
was doing .
Well , when I came back the firs t tims to ·~he
spacecraft with the gu-:r-- I had used the tether
to bring me back-- I did go back up on the
adapter area. This is the first time it had
happened . I said , "All right . I ' m ~omL'1g
back out again." This is one of the most
impressive uses of the gun that I had . I
started back out with that gun, and I decided
that I would fire a pretty good burst too . I
started back out with that g.m , a.~d I literally •
f lew with the gun right down along the edge of
the spacecraft , right out to the front o~ the
nose , a..'1d out past the end of the nose . I then
actually stopped myself with the gun . Tha t was
easier than I thought . I must have been fairly
tD~L

Cases discussed

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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.