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.
275roNE,IQENTIA::~ - McDivitt White McDivi";~ White McDivitt Mcnivi ";• Your view of the ground is considerable at minus 30 degrees, a~i it did seem like I could see the spacecraft actually slow down . I don't know what the magnitude of the g's was during retrofire. We were super- sensitive , I'll tell you that. We'll get to that later. As a matter of fact, later on when I was debating about whether or not the g meter worked , I stopped and hit the reset button, and it did ·:1 come down . It came down f:r, ~ic. something less than oL-s· to zero . I 'd say bet;.reen 2/10 of a g and 1/2 g dtiring" retrofire . 'I 'd guess something about that order too . It sure seems a lot . Your cues a=e really up,,fo r the g's. You've been at zero e for so long, anything feels like it ' s a lot . I was at zero rates ani in the proper attitud~. I was in Rate Command when the retrorocket s fired . I maintained the attitude very well. It was very ea$y. There ·were no deviations at all . Ed was standing by on the roll rate gyro --COl>al~IDENl lAL
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.