Documents / Official release

Gemini 4 Experiment Debriefing, 1967

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965 · 224 pages · text from the file's own layer

This NASA file from 1965 combines Mission Operation Report M-913-65-04 on the Gemini 4 (GT-4) flight with related correspondence. Memoranda from the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight describe the planned four-day mission with James McDivitt and Edward White, including a spacewalk, a rendezvous with the booster second stage and thirteen experiments. Later letters and telegrams from NASA's Manned Space Science office concern the astronaut debriefing and requests for GT-4 photography and film for scientific analysis.

From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: June 3-7, 1965, Low Earth Orbit. Gemini IV was the second crewed mission of the Gemini series. Astronauts James McDivitt and Edward White successfully completed the four-day flight between June 3 and June 7, 1965. The mission included the first American spacewalk. This collection of documents contains a transcription of the astronauts recounting their observations of bright particles outside the spacecraft, dated circa June 25, 1967, on pages 78-81, and page 101.

  • p. 20 …Figure 14 shows one of the photos taken by Gordon Cooper which is similar to the…
  • p. 91 3Belt 17 And I personally asked Glen, Cochran, Schirr a , a nd Cooper if they say…
  • p. 99 …Were Cooper and :·ic.:hi r.ra i n the d.::tyti!ne '! Go.w a…
  • p. 100 …And when Cooper woke up , he was mostly in the daytime. He (not iced) out on…
  • p. 132 …The point streaked through space on its Cooper had repaired his of closest approach to the…
  • p. 133 …tha~ barring Cooper reported that he had the day's assigned experi- At that time Cooper…
  • p. 134 …You look real Cooper and Conrad got a fine strange readouts" from their each, "pretty nearly…
  • p. 135 …Strong told the engi- perform." Cooper continued thge ah 3~~et b't the 32d with…
Belt 18 1
sticking ouL on th t spacecraft ; and if t h e s un is shining on
that nose , ,you know darn well it ' s based on it . Al so t he light on
t he nose •• 3 refl ected back int o the windows gives you a light . And
t here ' s a. 1ot of things 0 1 tside that window that gi ve light to your
eye s . We roun that th · r e W/lS a f'l i m on (trie cone?) t hat gave
1ight to .vo1,r (; y r:! :, . The r e a rc so rnany th ln1.'.,e; n:round the r e that would
gi ve you n. clu You could indeed be plo.(: ·•rt oi1 t into a ..... if you
tllk that same spacecraft and I knew there wasn ' t anything outside,
no day gl ow, just nothin g but an absolutely black sky up there, shining
l i ght on the spacecraft, I wou l d ge t the impres s ion that I was i n
the daytime . I hesitate t o lead you down the wrong p ath.....
Did you see stars in the daytime f'rom ins i de the spacecraft ?
At sunset and .;unrise that you c011ldn' t when you shaded b oth on e• s
s ' des . Herc n.p;ain it ' s the same kind of problem. We had something
or Llt wine tows; w had th _ rJl'.'ight nose of the spacecraft, the sun
was shining ori the spacecraft any1, Lu.ce 1 t event1 ally came into the
winclows ...... in the fo rm of money . And I , onc e or twice when we
were in free drifl. I could sees rneLhing bright up in the sky . I
coul n ' t Le t.1 you wheth r it was r1 _planet or whether it was a star
or an.vt.hine: . Rut ,you • ve got a loL of light c oming into the space
craf'L o n the drw :s · cte f'rom th sun .... d oe sn ' t have anything to do
w.. h who.t ' s out there . It ha~ t o do with the fact that you ' ve got
11 lot o nooe <; L.Lck·i nv. out , ,you ' V (' got a l ot of window there was
som('Lh11 t1.1. on -t,h • w·indov, , n.nd even u · the re "Wll.Sn ' t any thing on the
w nd ,iw , tl1c l i 1.r11 I. com0.s 111 l.h wi 11dow f rom the su n and is reflected
n ro 1ir1d i.11 :;iJ, l.11- ~pa era l. . Yo11 ' v got sources of li ght just all

Cases discussed

About this file

Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 224 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.