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.

  • 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
140 CO i'<I FIf)EMlt:itt
McD:ivitt
White
White
McDj_vitt
White
That would ·:iave ·j'.lSt taken longer . It wo'.l.ld
have taken precious seco::ids out of the very
few thA.t we had anyway . I th i.nk y0u sho'..lld ha•re
j 1st unhook.~d it and throW!'t the g'1fl ::;,w:~y .
This was probably the thing that I was most
irritated with not completing. I dii.1 ' t .feel the
pictu.ces were satisfactory with the can,~ra out
side. But I think the reason was that my camera
was not in a position so 1 could use it adeqciat
ely . But coming back in was the last thing . As
a matter-of-fact , before I dismounted the movie
camera A-nd dismounted the urnb ~lic:,,1, I folded th,,
gi.ln .
I took the l::;,nyard off with the camera on it, and
handed Jim the gun and the camera .
A.11d I stuck it d:,wn between my legs .
Tha t was thfi first thing that I handed in . Then
I handed in the 16 mm -~am•=ra , and then I threvt
away the umbilical . Thls wa8 where the fun
s l;,,u· ~..::.1. I f1)11nd it wa.r:i ::;, 1 )t mo:-::-e difficult
coming b.3.ck in tha.::i I had :remembered in the zero
g training. It seemed like I was contacting both
sides of the hatch at the same time , much firmer
than I had in the zero--g ai cplane .
co~~FIOENflAl

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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 340 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.