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.
“Nevers”40 pages
- p. 7 …didn ' t do it
BEF at all, did we? We never did cage in BEF.
- p. 8 …I
felt--although I never did this--that if I could
do that and then roll…
- p. 13 …down to 70 percent indicated
and we never got below 50 percent in four days.
I…
- p. 20 …toward the hori zon scanner although we
never got an unlock light . We wouldn ' t get…
- p. 29 …It never did go up except when
we'd go to o High Rate, when it…
- p. 51 …We never really did get it
up over 60 percent. That seemed to be where
it…
- p. 53 …I would never suggest that anyone
vent that cabin again without being fully suit
ed. I…
- p. 54 …That's something we never had
2
touched. It was a eage that we should have…
- p. 59 …what he was
talking about because we never needed them
again .
I think, again , I am…
- p. 62 …Yes, it never got off zero.
Okay, the coolant- the radiator operation config-
uration--I don…
- p. 63 McDivitt
White
never had to come off it again . We didn ' t get
any abnormal operation…
- p. 70 …We never had to use the Evaporator Fill Mode .
The Flush Mode,or the waste ·management…
- p. 110 …times to update that thing, and I never
got up with it any one of those…
- p. 111 …and the 88-
hour times and I never even read what it said .
I didn't…
- p. 113 …My Omega wrist wat ch that
I had set on GMT never lost a second, except…
- p. 131 …We never did get them back there.
There was no possibility to put them back there…
- p. 135 …I have a comment on the other little trash bag ,
I never used it .
Neither did…
- p. 136 …I never
took my life vest off my r estraint harness the
whole time. It wasn…
- p. 143 …I never did get a:ny shrimp. Boy, I bet it was in
that last day…
- p. 144 …wiggle around for about five
hours,but never did I sleep more than two hours .
You…
- p. 145 …First of all we always
fooled around and never really got the sleep that
we wanted…
- p. 162 …This is s~rmething that we really never got to
do. The original 243 ~argets were…
- p. 165 …in such a
manner that the gunsight never deviated from the
target by more than a…
- p. 169 …Now I ' d never seen the Basra
Airfield before ·I t r ied to take thi…
- p. 170 …Now if you have
never been there on t he ground and don't know
what…
- p. 188 …toward the sun, it never
really lost lock and it certainly never l ost
control . The…
- p. 200 …Although I never saw any individual houses , I
could see an industrial area with what looked…
- p. 213 …Well , I could never
see that . All I could see was the glow as it
came…
- p. 214 …I never saw one
above us , did you?
No .
Okay cloud coverage--
There was a lot…
- p. 222 …I never did see the drogue dereef.
I couldn't see up to the top to…
- p. 227 …t wind up too well, but it never did
jam up completely. I guess that sort…
- p. 235 …We changed the batteries and
bulbs from the cross-hairs and never could get
- p. 253 …We never really got it the "4''. configuration.
The one down at the Cape took too…
- p. 263 …We never did fly reentries
OOi'IFIO EttlJiA ~ ~.
- p. 266 …Another thi ng
that I 'll,for the life of me , never understand
is wher e…
- p. 271 …ing and the station-keeping that we never r eally
got a chance to perform in…
- p. 273 …at all the time, because you
can never go out at night and look at al…
- p. 276 …We never had any delay due
to these x-rays . We certainly all knew how to…
- p. 279 …people giving this information
in D- 6 never were with it--as far as get t…
- p. 288 …I t hink to try to conclude them all ,
we'd never get them.
220
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
Well , in the Air Force portion of it , we can start
right off by saying that the stars they wanted
Ui to run the operation on--I think , Series
No . 4--
No , that was the last one . They gave us Series 1
to start wi.th.
--which was the daylight . The daylight operations
didn't prove feasible at all . We couldn ' t see
the stars and if we could have , we didn ' t have
a good horizon to r un them on . So it became
apparent to us that that run was los t right in
the beginning,when we first came out of the
darkness and lost all the s t ars . We also got
t he big picture t hat t he sext ant was not going
to be too easy to use . It was going to be
impossible to use without using some fuel , and
it was going to be dam hard to use when we used just
pulses of fuel . We needed some kind of stabiliza
tion . At least I thought so .
We might say that the lightbulb in the cormter
readout for the angle was burned out .
That burned out within t wo seconds a fter we got
up there , I think .
About this file
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.