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.
287 McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt CONf-H~ENl-lAL-- lower altitudes . ... started glowing and burning and it was as stable as a rock as long as I could see it . Did you ever see it tumbl e? No , never did . Okay. It was behind us and it looked like it just ate the front tight off, and I guess when we first saw it , it was on the order of 200 feet , maybe? Yes . And the last time I saw it , it looked like it was about 3/4 .. .. That was about the position that I saw the booster for the first time . I think you ' re right . I guess we could see the dome on it and all that stuff . As a matter of fact , it was a pretty good reentry shape . It looked stable as a rock . I t stabilized right out . So , we finally saw it drop behind us and burn up . As it finally started drawing behind us . We started to get The first thing I saw was the orange flame- - the - CONFl0ENTl~t-
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.