Documents / Official release
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.
“The Advance”4 pages
150 for this kind of task . You need a contrast in color as you get from the White Sands to the surrounding d~sert . The best of all is a water land interface or border. As we came across the United States , I think we picked up El Paso just as we were over i.t , but we weren't pointed down at the town. We were still pointed well out in advance . The only clue t hat we were o·,er El Paso was that I could see the Gulf Coast. I lmew that when I saw the Gulf Coast we were probably too far along to pick up El Paso. Rather than just scrub the run, we went ahead :::ind made a run on a pair of sand spits with a channel between them in the vicinity of Corpus Christi. We picked up a target well in advance, and as I started t:q.L:lg to line up on the target, I found out that the g-~nsight had a light intensity and the gunsight was inadequate for a daytime tracking task; because as you pointed the sight down and h9.d a backgroan.d of clouds, you just absolutely could not see the sight . I didn ' t have any i dea in the world where it was p,-·i.nting, When you put it on the dark land, it seemed to be adequate, but I think we @8t Wt0et.s1I.IAJ:
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 290 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.