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.

42
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
cor<tFIDENTIAt
probably the fiftieth checklist we ' ve got there ,
and I don ' t think i t could have been arranged any
better for the two of us .
I knew Jim wasn't going to undo his seat belt har
ness and I knew I was going to have to because I
had to do certain things that he didn ' t have to .
The point that I ' m making is that the checklist
doesn ' t have to be accomplished item for item ,
completely done in numerical sequence .
Okay . I thi nk we ' ll revert back to the exact
subject of 3,3 now . Safetying the switches . I
saftied the swi t ches-- the BIA Squib Switch and
the four Retro Rocket Squibs Switches. I tested
the sequential l i ghts, but at a later time because
I was involved in turning the spacecraft around.
But X did test them . As far as stowage , I stowed
my left arm restraint and my D- ring , but I did
not put my saf ety pin in.
I went through and put my arm rest down , put my
safety pin in . That was one of the first things
I did .
I might comment that I never did put my safety pin
in . I never put the safety pin in the D- ring . I
felt the D- ring cover was adequate , and it was .
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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.