Documents / Official release

Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965-06-09 · 290 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 155 …We came across Southern California, and I could see the Salton Sea. I didn ' t track…
  • p. 157 …We came across Southern California, and I could see the Salton Sea. I didn ' t track…
  • p. 161 …Th8 Dead Sea was a good l~cation, and actually the city itself was located at…
  • p. 163 …I )icked np the Salton Sea and El Centro , just below the Sal ton Sea, and…
  • p. 164 156 River, which should ::>e a few miles to the east of the Salton Sea. There…
  • p. 167 …The local l andmarks were the Mediterranean on one side , the Red Sea on the other…
  • p. 168 …up the Red Sea, picked up the Suez Canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean…
  • p. 202 …Pretty soon I found the Red Sea about 30 degrees below the horizon or maybe a…
  • p. 223 …I could see the sea dye marker in the water. I could see the parachute in…
204 GOl>~FIDE~~TIAL
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
sun shining on them .
They picked the sun up .
They picked the sun up and reflected the rays . They
r eflec t ed t hem just as bright as stars, I thought .
Didn ' t they ! Well, you know the thing that was most
interesting to me was the time I called you and said
the sky was full of stars , and you said it wasn't ,
the sky. We were pointing down at the earth. That
was my first exposure to having your window in t he
daylight and mine in the dark . At this time we had
a l l the fuel particles from the fuel from the boosters
spewing out all over, and my whole view out t he win
dow was j ust completely full of these reflecting
particles . They looked kind of like one of the s t ar
fi elds we had past off on us as star fields . It
looked kind of like a star field, but it looked
kind of unreal , too . That's exactly what it was .
One of the prettiest things was when. we had a urine
dump at eunset,because we just had mil lions and
millions and millions of these fireflies or part icles
outside . When you put them all out like that with
the sun shining on them,as we 'd mentioned earlier ·
with the black background, it just l ooked marvelous.
As a matter of fact, we took some movies of them·,.
E..-01
RFIDE~~TIAE

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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 290 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.