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. 306 …It was just jer king a l l around . It was fast , but I don ' t…
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

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.