Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

This is a preliminary transcript of Part II of the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight crew debriefing, prepared by NASA's Spacecraft Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division, and dated June 18, 1965. The debriefing began aboard the recovery ship USS Wasp and ended at the Manned Spacecraft Center. In it, astronauts McDivitt and White discuss how the spacecraft systems performed, including the platform, OAMS, RCS and control modes. They also cover operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, mission planning and training, and give recommendations for future crews.

From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: 6/9/65, North Atlantic Ocean. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part II) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 4 flight crew debriefing taken aboard the recovery ship, USS Wasp, on June 9, 1965. Part II of this document contains the “Visual Sightings” section of the debriefing (pages 196-224), where astronauts James McDivitt and Edward White describe their observations while aboard the spacecraft.

148
McDivitt
pictures with the 200 mm ~ontarex . Since I
was actually ta~ing the pictures, I had to
divert my at;tention a little bit to the camera,
so I didn I t actually 1ook down, and, I didn I t
actually see the airport . But I had seen it
prior to that time, and I di d see it many times
afterwa-rds as we passed over . Thvie cam1;!ra. , and the fixed 200 m:n l ens on
the Contarex. We sta=t;;d o,1t with a time of
closest approach and a time we should have been
able to see the target . The only kind of
identification assist that we had at this time
was a piece cut out of a WAC Chart , that showed
El Paso International~and the world chart with
a gigantic scale on it . This made it a little
bit difficult from an acquisition standpoi~t .
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