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.
11 White NcDivitt White McDivitt we were supposed to be at a certain attitude we weren't approaching it, I 'd start pulsing a little harder. You'd hear a series of about five quick pulses. It was a very economical control mode. The ma.ne·,..;ver controller worked the way it was supposed to. What about the deadband? Did you think the dead bands and breakouts were all satisfactory? Yes, just like the one we used in the simulator. You've got a lot of slop in it when you're making gross maneuvers because you're not fixing your elbow and manipulating around tmt point. You're fixing your shoulder and your whole arm, and it's just like shoveling coal--you've got about that much finesse to it . I don't think there's much you can say about it. The controls weren't too gross and they weren't too minor. The whole thing was adequate. We did have an inflight mal function, or irregularity. We were in Horizon Scanner Mode one time and Fd wanted to yaw around. He started to yaw and the thing rolled. The Horizon Scanner Mode fired the roll thrusters to level it back off--
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.