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.
237
to look at until 8 : 00 o'clock the night before the
flight . Consequently , we didn't have a l ot of
time to go through them the way we should have. We
should have had these books and charts in our hands
no later than two weeks before the flight . Here
again there were some extenuating circumstance, but
I 'm not sure that the circumstances were really that
great . I still think that we should have gotten
these out earlier. The people down at the Cape
doing these things worked themselves to the bone
night and da1,practically , to get these things done.
I have nothing but ~he highest praise for the people
from FCSD that came down to do this job , I just
sort of suspect that we should have gotten started
on it earlier and that maybe we should have had a few
more people down there doing it . Any comment on
this, F.d?
White No. This is the thing that I think I was harping
about a long time before the flight, because I saw
the same thing happen on GT-3 ,when the checklist
came in at the last minute . In fact, the last
night before the flight, I remember John walking down
the hall looking at hie flight plan and his check
list and commenting on this surprise and that
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.