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 124 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
116 l~CONEJDtNI-
McDivitt
all the way back. So , I ran ou~ of air with
the g~n ani I reported this to Jim . I didn ' t
attempt to take al}Y p-Lotures while I was
aotually maneuvering with the gun. The
techniq·.1e th;,.t I used with the gun W 3.S tne
te:.!h.aiq 1e ~hat we developed on the air- bearing
platform. I kept my left hand out to the side,
and the gun as close to my cente::- of grcrrity
as I could . I think l;hat the training I had ,)n
the air- bearing tables was very representative ,
especially in yaw and pitch . I felt quite
confident with the g.m in yaw a:u pitch , but I
f elt a little l ess confident in roll . I f elt
that I would have to use too mich of my fuel .
I f elt that it wo~ld be a little more difficult
to control and. I didn ' t ,,,ant to use my fuel
to take out my roll combination with the yaw .
We divided our plan so tha.t I would havd a part
of it on the ma.YJ.euver and a part of it on the
tether . I don't know how far along we were
whP.n the gun ran out .
Right on schedule when the gun ran out . We
planned f ollr minutes for the gun port ion of it .
We were just abQut on schedule .
GeN FID ENTIA-l

Cases discussed

About this file

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.