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.

40
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
3omewhere.
I think you could . You could stow it beside you
in the seat . I think we over- emphasize the neces
sity , particularly for ejection, of having to have
everything stowed when you are only ejecting up to
12 000 feet and at very slow speeds. We certainly
have a heck of a lot more working against us in
our airplanes we ' re flying around .
That's right . I agree with you . I ' m just saying
this philosophy of being completely prepared to
reenter during that first orbit is in conflict
with doing this kind of stuff in the first orbit,
too.
We ought to get some of this, though. I think we
are missing things . I would have really--
Yes, I think so. We could have really had some
beautiful pictures of that booster when we were
close to it.
I also want to comment a little bit on the booster
itsel f . I looked as closely as I could at the
nozzle skirt and the aft end of the booster , and
I saw no damage whatsoever.
No, neither did I from our vantage point .
As far as I could see the nozzle skirt was com-
,CO I>~ 11;) El>fftAL

Cases discussed

About this file

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.