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.

Open the PDF at page 293 Original source ↗

“Harder”5 pages

  • p. 149 …I did notice that the suit was a little harder. I felt this type of suit…
  • p. 150 …You mean with the harder suit I was stiffer? Harder . And your. arms were stiffe:::- a…
  • p. 186 178 €0NflDENitM White McDivitt White McDivitt any harder . No . I think that shouli be t he…
  • p. 318 …We hit ten times harder than I expected to hit . The altimeter was set at the…
  • p. 320 …We really seemed to hit hard, harder than I thought EO~ ◄ Flt,Et~TI.A"L
285
CONFtDENTl;ttt-
I didn ' t think there would be any aerodynamics
at 400 000 feet . But it was turned around 180
degrees and was perfectly stable with the whip
antenna sticking out , which at that iime was up
to the right .
White Yes .
McDivitt We were upside down. It sure was a funny look~
ing sight.
White It sure was . It was really pretty.
McDivitt And it was as stable as a rock and very slowly
d:t'ifting behind us . As a matter of fact , for
a while I thought that our opening velocities
were too slow, and I thought it would just
come back and hit us . But , it just stayed out
there, a nd we started our rolling reentry there .
We were coming on down and we were rolling
around and before I got any noticeable g ' s at
all--Isn' t that right--before we got any notice
able g ' s it s t arted burning?
White Okay. We saw the reddish pink layer come a
round the spacecraft--
McDivitt Well, didn ' t we see the retropack start burning
before the- - ?
-CONFtDENllM

Cases discussed

About this file

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.