Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part II, 1965

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).

132
9,0 OPERATIONAL CHECKS
9 , 1 Apollo Landmark Identification
FCSD Rep
Conr ad
FCSD Rep
Conrad
FCSD Rep
Conrad
Cooper
Conrad
On these - let ' s try to get everything in that log
on these --it ' s going to take a little more time?
I think - -
Well , you want to take each Apollo landmark separa
tely? Is that what you want to do?
Yes . As your list - - go down and call out the ones
you did and whatever you have on your log there and
we' 11 put this in one neat l i ttle packag(?.
Well, the first one they gave us--you want to do
this exactly fully like - time , rev?
I ' d like to , yes , because we ' ve had an awful l ot of
trouble .
Okay, the first Apo l lo l andmark was 208 and it was
on day one at 09 : 27 and it was covered b;r cl ouds .
. .c
And it was Cape Rhir and we didn ' t get 1 ,,.
In fact , the clouds were right over the (?dge and
we didn ' t see anything until just about off the
land.
And the next one was - - Gordo , why don ' -~ you talk
about -- You took all these except--you -~ook them
al l , as a matter of fact, so why don't you give
them the business on that, I didn ' t even look at