Documents / Official release

Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part II, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965 · 325 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is a preliminary Part II transcript of the Gemini 5 (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by the Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division and dated September 2, 1965. It records astronauts Cooper and Conrad at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy. They discuss how the spacecraft systems worked, including the platform and the OAMS thruster failures. The transcript also covers operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, training, premission planning, and medical aspects. It was originally classified Confidential.

From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: August 30 - September 2, 1965, Cape Kennedy, Florida. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part II) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 5 flight crew technical debriefing. NASA conducted this debriefing between August 30, 1965, and September 2, 1965, at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad described observing debris and “snow” and “all sorts of glittering pieces of this, that and the other thing” in the “Visual Sightings” section of the document (pages 157-220).

  • p. 119 …Waste disposal- pack harder. Yes . Pack tighter. That's a very grave problem, in the f…
  • p. 231 …It gets harder the higher they get. Especi ally the second stage. I got the first…
100
Conrad I had already busted my au.xiliary light a.nd if I would
have burned out the light on the right i :'.lstrument
panel, we would have had to rtm that center light a
lot, and I don ' t think that center light would have
lasted either.
Cooper No . I think that whole center console area is a very
weakly lit area. It could certainly stand a very, very
faint soft light. When you are rtmning 1mder night
light conditions you'd be able to see thn radio swit
ches and this type of thing. Let ' s see, indicators and
instruments--well t of course t a pet peeVE! of mine is
that we couldn' t get EL in the 8- balls . I still think
the 8- balls could certainly be lit a lot better, al
though they are satisfactory for what we ' ve got. I
think the--
Conrad We really didn't use that except during lift- off and
reentry, but it does shine. Mine shines in your eyes,
doesn ' t it?
Cooper Yes , there is a real bad f eature in the cockpit in
that a:ny lighting at all, either one of the right or
the left lights- say Pete turns his right light on,
particularly--if I'm trying to look through the reti
cle, it just zaps. It's gone. Can't see a thing in

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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 325 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.