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…
213
White
10 .4 Reentry
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
long shot.
It was almost like a veil of silk. There was
no flame .
Well , in -:reentry we r olled . We didn't have any
trouble in seeing the· horizon as we went around,
but we were rolling all the way down .
We did see ourselves crossing the ground, since
wE'.l were heads-up a fair amount . We could look
out and could see anything we wanted to see.
saw the Gulf Coast , and then out across Florida.
A little bit of dizziness was associated' with
the rolling reentry as far as the visual--
Yes . It wasn't really dizziness . It was just
t he fac t that you could tell that you were going
around in a circle at a relatively high rate .
It didn't bother us. It's just t hat you could
feel it . The spacecraft didn't oscillate very
much during reentry. Anything else there , Ed?
No.
When we deployed the dr ogue, it really made the
ride interesting. I couldn't see the drogue
very well . Ed could see it probably better than
GO"' FI DEf'~TIAb...
I

Cases discussed

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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.