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
179
White
McDivitt
Whi. te
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
eQN=F19-ENTIAL
man-stabilized maneuvering unit-
Yes .
- -rather than o.na that is gyro- stabilized with
automatic stability features. I think that al
tho'.lgh you did·'.1 1 t burn up a lot of fuel , you
certainly p~oved the feasibility of this type
of ma.neuveri ng unit .
We had a1 awfully small amcr.1i.'1t . We j..lst had the
6 feet/second--
We p~oved , in my mind , that I had the capability
to go .fr om Point A t::> Poi nt B with that mr1.neuver
ing U."lit .
Let me ask you thi8 question , a.."ld be ho::1est about
it . Would yo'.l detach yo'..lr tether and _go without
i.t? Don ' t be too optimistic , because other
people ' s lives may depe::1d on it.
I think that we probably have not done enough
investigati on to do that at this time , but I
fee l we are p:.:-ogr essing toward the point . We
made the f irst , say 50 percent , of th~ step
toward being able to detach the tether and go.
I don ' t believe that I wouli deta:::h the tether
aJld 5o ·,.ii.th that 6 feet/seco::1d-- .
Oh , no . I didn' t mea."l t hat . I mean with that
-,Qt\lFtDENflAb

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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.