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.
279 fl McDivitt Wh1te McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt 1100 psi? Yes . I'll tell you one thing about the out-the window view at 30 degrees pitch-down attitude . You're really pitched down at 30 degrees . That's another thing that I noticed. I was looking out the window, and I s~rely wasn ' t obse~ving much in the way of a horizon . I was looking at the ground . The top · 2 inches of the window has the hori zon in it . So , if you really had a bad r etro and you get scr ewed up a l i ttle bi t , you coul d lose your horizon. You could lose your horizon , but I think you've got a good enough view of the motion of the ground az1d an object on the ground. I thl.nk you could do a ver y effective job . If I really hai to do a..~ out-the-window retro I ' m 11.)t even sure that I ' d look out and use the hori zon. I think I ' d pick a spot on the ground . That ' s the point I was maki ng. You ' d put a grease pencil on your window. You'd have to use both . @9NFll:)ENtL~L
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 340 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.