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.
White McDivitt • 15 I didn't think you noticed it earlier when we were working. Well, I did notice it a little bit in that first orbit, but it wasn't distracting at all. It would just drift off a little bit and I'd whop it and it would be back . At SEX:;0 + 30, I used the trans lation thrusters to damp the booster-spacecraft rates . One of them was a little higher than the other, although they were both down in the order of a half of a degree/second. I did fire one thruster one time or possibly two times to damp the rate. I don't know if it was pitch or yaw . You know, you are working in spacecraft pitch and booster yaw and spacecraft yaw and booster pitch. I was getting my coordinate system transformed around in my mind, going from booster coordinate system to the spacecraft . I don't remember whether it was yaw or pitch, but I did thrust once or twice. By the way , I could hear those thrusters fire. At SEC0 + 30 I said, "Thrusting, " and I started thrusting. "Separate" , and Fd punched the SPACE.CRAFT SEPARATE. We were in Direct and I thrusted straight ahead for about 5 seconds. Then I went back into Rate Command. Separati on was
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.