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. 224 …I got another update that said : "Over Cairo on the 26th Rev I ' d have rny…
  • p. 225 …Well, anyway, Cairo and Alexandria were both clear , but this was the first time we'd…
  • p. 255 …I did the second one on Cairo . This was a good run . I went through some…
216
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
GO t ◄f-tB ENTIltt-
We didn't do any of the Orbit Nav Checks with fuel
so it was just a matter if you could see the
ground you did one. They called up some more
S-6 information for me, but I wasn ' t to use any
fuel on it . They said I was to pass Typhoon
Babe at 06 : 06, point of closest approach , and
there was a new storm brewing. I ' d have rny
closest approach to it at 06 : 13 . Oh, yes . I also
have a period that Ed slept here .
Which time was that?
Well, you got up at 08 : 15, Zebra time . That 's
about 40 hours and 30 minutes elapsed time . I
drifted around to where I could see Typhoon Babe,
but there wasn ' t anything to take a picture of ,
There was just a mass of clouds down below; smooth
tops and nothing worth even a frame . I got another
update that said : "Over Cairo on the 26th Rev I ' d
have rny closest approach at 07 13 37 . It would
be 90 miles slant range on the closest approach.
Don ' t use any fuel . We were just supposed to look
at it. We did pick up Cairo and Alexandria both .
I think you were awake at that time, weren't you?
It was the tail end of my sleep cycle .

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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.