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
178 €0NflDENitM
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
any harder .
No . I think that shouli be t he third recommen
dation and it should be corrected .
I think we could spare a couple of extra po1.1.-.ida
of weight there , just for the pilots ' peace of
mind .
That 's right . Take the time it takes to put a
new attachment on there . They told us they
d.idn ' t want to do it beca~lse they ' d have to re
rig it . I ·~hink t hey ' d better re-rig it and take
the tim~ to put a good attachment o~ there.
4. The final thing really doesn ' t fit in with
the first three recommendations , but I would
sure like to have the opportllnity to use that
gun 9gain with about a 10-times supply of
oxy~n in a great big canister. I think
that maybe this is one of the items wa could
carry in the back of the aiapter. We could
use a small supply to provide t ~e means to
go back there to get a great big canister.
Then we ' d have a :mit that we co'.lld actually
do s ome maneuveri ng with .
That ' s r ight . I think that , in essence , we
proved the usef ulness of a self-stabilized or a
~OENflAl

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.