Documents / Official release
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.
“Harder”5 pages
190 White McDivitt White McDi vitt White McDi vitt White McDivitt eorqFIDENf~L wher e we thought we were seeing the booster , right where it was low on the horizon , as you would expect to see a booster . That old thing was flickering away like mad . I think that was Venus , too . It was t he planet that was tra i ling the sun by just a very slight amount . I made it a point to check during the remainder of the flight , two or three times to see if that thing flickered as it came up . It r eall y did . So , the more I saw it flicker the more I began to doubt that we had really seen the booster on that second pass . Maybe we did , and maybe we didn ' t . Well, it's not r eall y too impor tant . No , it ' s not . But the fact is , that little plan et was flickering away like mad . Let me ask you one more question about the flick er . Did you see it coming up through the air glow? Was that where you felt it flickered? Yes . Everytime it was above the air glow it was loud and clear to me . Yes , except that you couldn' t see t he air glow as the sun was setting. -COMFID'ENT~
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.