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.
White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White 321<IFIOEmr~r then, we never would have gotcen it out. But we turned the RCS thrusters off at about three or four thousand feet. So they definitely weren't on. That ' s right . And we turned all the circuit breakers off on the RCS thrusters , so they shouldn ' t have been firing from shorts. The prop valves had been off at about 25 000 feet. So we had everything the way it was supposed to be, and we didn ' t see anything leaking. I'll comment on this window. I saw the main chute floating right to the left of us . I think my window might have been a little clearer than yours. I jus t was going to comment on the windows. :rt, window was terrible! I couldn ' t see at all. Remember the helicopter was hovering around in front of us about 200 feet away and I never even saw it. You said, "Look at the helicopter!" He was a lot closer than 200 feet. He was right smack-dab in front of us. I never saw the helicopter. I couldn't see through the window. I'd estimate he was not farther out than 50 feet from us .
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.