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
141
McD.ivi tt
White
McDivitt
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
You mean you were hitting the hatch o~ one side
and the hatch opening on the other side.
Coming back in, I was conta~ting the side of the
spacecraft o~ both sides .
Yes, that 's right.
Yo•.l weren't really hitting the hatch on both
sid,=.is, you were ht t ting the hatch opening on both
sides.
Yes. I was coming down through there. I felt a
much fit'mer attachment wedging in there than
I 'd remembered from the zero-g training. I think
this might be associated with the extr a 7/10 or
8/10 pound of pressurization on thf.l suit. I
just mi6ht have been a little fatter. I did
notice that the suit was a little harder. I felt
this type of suit before during my pre-work, so
this wasn't a su£p=ise to me at all . But I did
feel like I was a little fatter getting in and
wedged a little tighter.
I really don't think Ed was ari:y fatter. I think
that link in the suit holds the suit to whatever
volume it's going to go to. And I don ' t th'ink
a couple psi are going--.
Well, I felt like I was hitting a little more as
-

Cases discussed

About this file

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.