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.

38 ~O ► ~flDENTI~
3. 3 Insertion Activities
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
I
I
I thrusted and got off the booster. Then I went
ahead for just a short time, and then I started
to turn around right away. During the turn-around,
I j ettisoned the fairings. They went off with a
bang. I could see the fairing over the horizon
scanner go, but I never did see the fairing off
the nose go . I just assumed that it went. We
were already in just a mass of debris up there,
because when we se:p3,rated from the booster there
was stuff all over.
All over. It really flew by to the side of the
spacecraft.
Yes. It was all over the place. As we . were
turning around it looked like we were going
through a snow storm. There was stuff all over.
Finally we got turned around, in about a minute
and a half, and we could see the booster there.
There ' s one thing I would certainly like to see
somebody do--I'd have give my right arm to have
had a camera when I turned around and saw tbe
booster. I ' d like to see somebody carry a camera
in a semi-•stowed position so he could immediately
get it out and come around and take pictures of
•CO ► ~FIDE~~TIAL

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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.