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…
268
I
and we did indeed go make a couple of dry runs
and a couple of wet runs on the x-ray table to
make sure that we could get it done quickly.
think this paid off. We never had any delay due
to these x-rays . We certainly all knew how to
use the exerciser . And the phonocardiogram
needed no practice. S- 5 and S-6 did not r equir e
any training here on the ground , because these
were supposed to be photographs from orbit .
That thing was impossible to simulate on the
ground. The D-8 required no simulation , so it
boiled down to D-6, D- 1 , and D-9 as the exper i
ments that required simulation prior to flight.
As we said earlier, we felt that the. Translation
and Docking Trainer and the Martin Denver simu
lation for the D- 6 experimentwAre very valuab l e .
·They gave us the techniques that we needed to
perform this thing in space. Gemini Mission
Simulator was invaluable, too, for everything-
for experiments , operational checks and for the
whole mission.
White As far as any really D-9 work, though , with the
simulator , all we could go t hrough wer e kind of

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.