Documents / Official release
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).
104 -€0i'IFID Ef~TIAt -
to figure out what the heck it was shinj ng out there
on the nos e . It finally came to me in a. flash that
the docking light was on. Now that is another thing-
I don ' t know how they covered that REP with the re
flective t ape , but, man, that thing wa s bright!
Cooper All you could see was the light.
Conrad No, I mean in the daytime.
Cooper Oh yes .
Conrad In the daytime with the sun shining on that thing, it
almost burned a hole in your head. Boy it was bright!
Cooper "{es, actually--
Conrad It looked like a little sun out there.
Cooper Pete went into it deciding that he was n~ver going to
see it in the daytime , and I think he ha1i a big sur
pri se. I was determined that we were go :Lng to see it .
Conrad .And we did see it in the daytime, several times after
i t had gotten a fair distance away from us, I ' d say
2 or 3 miles away.
Cooper It was bright. It was almost brighter on the day
s i de than it was at night . In fact, it was so bright
i t would blot out those blinking lights .
Conxad Yes, that ' s right . The REP, itself, was bright enough
and reflective enough that it would blot out the Not linked to a story yet.
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 325 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.