Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

168
McDivitt
self by holding onto the hat ch. It was also
surprising to me how much force it took to open
the h.:i,tch the first time against the p·!'eload and
the actuaters , due to the seals. One other very
good decision was to have me wear the heavy suit
and Jim the light suit. I think thi~ was one
of the thine-s that made our opera.tio;1. easier. It
certainly m~de my getting back in the spacecraft
a::1d Jim 's assista.1ce in closing the h;~tch much
easier for him , Hlso , I was handing him things
in a"'.ld out . He was performing quite a bit
of coordination in the operation with pieces
of equ.ipt1ent thA-t were going in 'ind o·.1t of the
spacecraft , and I l:>elieve t hat by being in
that 1ight s:.ii t he ·11as able to do this tni.1,::h
easier than if he had been in a heavy suit .
I might make a comment on that suit, too. When
we opened up t he hatch we were in~ vacuum .
n::iticed that the temperature of thA suit dropped
slightly so thci.t the suit was a little bit
cooler inside . I was w)ndering if I was going
to get too cold through the suit , but the rest of
the time we were out the the temperature never
changed . I don ' t remember looking ~t the s uit
I