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…
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
53
•
We were able to turn the automatic part of it
off quite early in the flight, particularly
since this was the problem we were having.
We were getting--
That was something I wondered about . You
know , the t hing is marked , and we were always
instructed that when the thing got down below
38 percent we didn ' t need the heaters any
more . We shut the heaters off at 42 percent .
Right .
0bviously,the guy that told us to shut the
heaters off at 40 percent knew what he was
talking about because we never needed them
again .
I think, again , I am very suspicious of McDonnell
on the fix on that gage, and on setting that
pressure on 970 , and I'm going to get to the
bottom of it .
Yes , but I think, though,that the pressure
would have still built up even if we had the
relief set at 1050 or so. It would have still
built up .
It might have built up and stabili zed,
•

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.