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.

17
2.1 Lift- Off Cues
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
€Ot ◄ Fl9ENllAl
2.0 POWER FLIGHT
CAP COM gave lift-off, about as good a cue as you
can get .
Wasn't any question either. Boy, you could feel
the first little motions of the booster as it
went up . It was really great!
I think you could feel the acceleration at re
lease. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that we
were loose.
That 's right. I don't know if I could feel the
bolts or hear them.
As a matter of fact, it seemed to steady out a
little bit. The vibrations seemed to decrease
a little. Pretty impressive!
Not much vibration at lift-off. Very low.
Very low. I got vibrations later on, though,
didn't you?
Yes .
Noise. There wasn't much noise, was there?
No. There was less than I had expected.
Noise wasn't a cue to lift-off. Noise was there

Cases discussed

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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.