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.
56 White McDivitt White \ McDivitt I feet/second there . Here ' s where the numbers ge t a little vague . I thrusted down at it and I watched it go for awhile . I thought sure we 'd start closing on it again. We weren't closing, so I thrusted down on it again . I must have done this probably three or four times. I can't say exact l y. I don ' t remember, precisely, how many times you thri1sted . I was keeping my eyes on the booster . And i t was a lot t ougher to see when it was down with the ground as a background, I t hought, than with the sky as a background . During this period of t i me its rotational velocity picked up con siderably, and during this time Fd checked it and got eight seconds for a complete revolution. A complete revolution. Yes. This was an estimate . This meant that in the first three minutes after we were in orbit the thing had gone up to a rota tional rate of 40 to 50 degrees/second . I t seemed to stabilize at that rate . Its rotational rates stabilized but I don ' t believe its rotational mode ever stabilized. It didn't rotate in a plane as I thought a loμg body like that would rotate . It seemed to oscillate in just a random tumbling -CE7~1DENTIAL
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.