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…
279
craft zero-g , that you get up there and work the
procedures out thoroughly between not only the
guy getting in and out but between the two guys
• that are sitting in the seats . This is the way
we flew it . We didn't go up there and fly just
one go.y jumping in and out the batch. We went
up there and flew wi t h the gu:y in both seats,
whether the man in the left seat actually worked
all the time or not. There were t imes when he
had to help , and in our flight it paid off,
because there was a time when Jim had to help,
and he knew exactly what the probl ems were and
was able to give the help necessary .
McDivitt Another thing that might have helped here was
that I ' ve been in and out of t hat right-hand
hatch almost as many times as F,d had .
White So we knew just what the pro.blems were.
McDivitt So we knew exactly what the problems were.
14 ,14· Flight Plan Training
McDivitt Next topic is Flight Plan Training. I think we
had such a great number of changes in our flight
plan that it ' s really no t fair to discuss this
in any great detail . The approach that we did
take , as I mentioned earlier, was t hat we would
>i::ut IFl □-ti --

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.