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. 219 …1 off, becaus e you wer e g 0i r,g t o go to bed…
2 11
CO~lf.ll:lE~TlAL-.
Whi t e
McDi vitt
White
McDivit t
for a peri od of about eight or Len hours. Then
when 1 went to sleep t he second Lime , we tur ned
N) . 1 on and No . 2 of f , whi ch is the way i t s hould
ha ve bPen . Bu '.; as soon as I wok8 up, we t uraed
No . ? on agai n and No . 1 off, becaus e you wer e
g 0i r,g t o go to bed . Now you •iidn' t go right
back to sleep again so I have a note here, "We
h'l ve t o t ur r. or. No . 1 as soon as he .,_,akes up . fl
We did . Ran No. 1 r o' awhile with No . 2 off .
We t u.med them bot h back on, and 1 eft t hem r ur1-
ning f or the r emainder of the flight . Wha t we
di d i s t h9,t we pi ck '=d up a cushi on of about eight
hour s on each -recorder and .let them r.un th,? r es t
of the flight . The D- 8 Experiment a t 2300 ho'..lrs-
Ed w1.s a s l eep then . I t ol d t hem t hat Ed was
s l eeping and coul dn' t make it .
Ri ght . I t hink I probably di d t hat later on .
Tha t ' s right . Remember we discuss ed t h~ t you
would turn o~ thP- experiment later on when you
went through the Sout h Atlant ic Anomaly?
Right .
You plotted it out on the map a nd turned it on
your self . The port ion of the fli ght plan at 31

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.