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.
“Sea”9 pages
208 McDivitt White GQ ► •fiJDEN l -JA k~ down. lt' s much, much higher than the air glow that you see at night . If you're looking over at the daylight side, it looks l i ke the light tl..:ie , goes up probably three times as high as the air glow does. What do you think about that? Let me go into my impressions of the air glow in the evening. I saw the same thing you did, of course , and it looked like to me that the dark part was roughly t wo or three times as thick as the lighter air glow layer below it. We were both impressed with the phenomenon of the apparent rise in the air glow as you go from the daylight to the dark, and as soon as you get out in full daylight, the earth 's layer is all gone. But as you transition between the daylight and the dark, you see the layer start out and narrow down to what you see as you get into the dark side as the air glow layer . And when you initially get into the dark area, the air glow seems to disappear for a moment, and then the air glow layer pops out when you get into full dark, , very clearly.
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.