Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

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.

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McJ)ivitt
White
McDivitt
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McDivitt
White
concerned about having to come down because we
didn't have any radios .
One thing that I'd like to say is, I would give
a good gold star to the controllers down there.
I thought their voice procedures were excellent
and their methods for giving us information were
all good . I had no comment , whatsoever, other
than I thought it was all very good .
That's right.
I had no objection . I thought there was no time
in the flight in which we got a cluttered voice
from anybody . Yes, I think that is pretty good
when you have that many people working the loop.
I think so too .
Okay, the voice tape recorder--let me vent my
wrath on this one.
Get ' em Ed, get 'em!
Right . This is another thing that should be fixed
before the next flight. I think we're going to
end up being very, very sorry. We're going to
end up losing valuable data from time to time .
This will be due to no reason other than a voice
tape recorder which is poO'r on all accounts.