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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McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
McDivitt
White
Experiment . You could have the tape stop in the
middle of the experiment and be lying on your
back looking out with the sextant. You haven't
got any idea in the world the tape's run out on
you .
Right.
I think that it's a ve-ry, vezy unsatisfactory sys
tem . It ranks right up along with the top ones,
and we ' ve already hit on some of them already.
The digital command system I · thought worked very
well. I thought the light in there gave U$ a
good indication of several things. It gave us an
indication of when the station was about to come
on and communicate with us. We used this as a
clue to turn on our UHF to warm our transmitter
up so we would be ready when the transmission came
up. I think updates from the ground came up in
a ve-ry orderly fashion. I don't have any objec
tion about that or any further comments . Do you?
Ed, I thought it was very good.
Handled in a very good manner.
I think so.
The only update that I have an objection to is