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.
30 McDivitt White McDivitt that it was adapter batteries. That was the only abnormal type of indication we had in the systems. They were all real good . Well, we had good communications with the ground during powered flight. We had pretty good communications. I called the "Roll Program", and nobody answered me . I said, "Well , to heck with it, maybe they just aren't ge t;ti.ng through." Then I was just starting to call Roll Program complete when Gus called and said,"Did you get the Roll Program?" Now that was the only transmission I made that wasn't acknow ledged. Yes, I heard you calling, too. So , if they lost communications it must have been right at the 10-seconds t i me , and it should have been for l ess than 10 seconds. It couldn't have been for more than 20 seconds. I heard the count down to lift-off and I heard Gus call and ask me if I had the Roll Program started . This was a little bit less t han 20 seconds-- around 18 or 19 seconds. That is the only period of time I didn' t hear anybody I should have heard . So , if we lost communications, that was where it was.
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.