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…
278
White
14 , 13 Zero- G Fl i ght
McDivitt
White
~ Ji ilat.
think that during the flight it certainl y
proved that it was worthwhile, because that was
the way we got it, and we wer e able to get this
•information in a usable manner in a short time .
We didn ' t have to go over and over and over. I
don ' t have any other comment on that . F.d?
No .
The zero- g flights are the next topic . I sort
of feel that the zero-g flights were one of our
most valuable training tools , es pecially since
we were going to do the extravehicular activity
portion of t he flight . Without this we wouldn't
have had the confidence in ourselves in getting
in and out of the spacecraft and opening and
closing the hatch that was required , so that we
probably wouldn't have even done it . F.d , do you
have any other comments on that?
Concerning the little bit of a hatch problem
that we did have, I think that the work t hat I
had done on the zero-g airplane sur e prepared
me well to meet the problem t hat we had. I
recommend very highly that for any egress work,
in which we 're going in and out of the space-
JJit;FAO'~ -

Cases discussed

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.