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).

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“Cooper”60+ pages

p. 6 1 8.1 Platform Cooper 8.O SYSTEMS OPERATIONS By day we used standard procedure of…
p. 7 …use the same out the window reference. Cooper One thing that I think that should very…
p. 8 3 Conrad Yes Cooper I think this would be a tremendous benefit and shouldn't be…
p. 9 …off 4 or 5 degrees Cooper So, i t r eally looks like, when you fir3t…
p. 10 …are holding in the center pretty well. Cooper That's right, one thing that we found…
p. 11 6 , Cooper And i t takes t ime to do it and do a job on…
p. 12 7 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad to retro, we wanted to save as…
p. 13 8 ~NftDE~~TIAt·,_ Cooper I think either way (SEF, BEF) is good, both worked very a…
p. 14 9G©t◄ FIDl!~~TIAL Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad ,, Cooper Yes, for about 20…
p. 15 …anything . It's just beautiful . Conrad Yes . Cooper We did a burn right through each one…
p. 16 …spacecraft than it does in the simulator . Cooper That RATE COMMAND just flat snaps you in…
p. 17 12 • FCSD REP Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Cooper Conrad with how nice a control…
p. 18 13 Cooper .. Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad • You can't use the FDI 's or the…
p. 19 …didn ' t have to lead a :, much. Cooper That's right . The Direct system was a…
p. 20 15 • Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Direct uses quite a bit of fuel also. We did…
p. 21 16 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 8. 2 OAMS Cooper Cooper •i Q:Mf~Cf1stI IAla…
p. 22 …quit , within an orbit of one another. Cooper We had already run complete tests on it…
p. 23 …we'd have never froze them up. Cooper 'llie thrusters themselves were actually ·vorki ng because…
p. 25 …we already tol d them about that? Cooper Yes. We 'd already t old them about…
p. 26 21 Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Conrad Yes. That's when we came around on the…
p. 27 …it. I remember distinctly seeing gold balls . Cooper Great b i g balls of l iquid…
p. 28 …silver balls of either hydrogen or oxygen. Cooper Okay, well that was pretty well the background…
p. 29 …Conrad Yes Cooper Pitch up and pitch down seemed to work reasonably well all the time…
p. 30 Conrad Cooper Cooper Conrad Cooper Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 25 It ran down in the 48…
p. 31 26 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conr ad CO t--1 FID Et◄ :rIA~ ,; convinced that because we…
p. 32 27 Cooper We were using it for Attitude Hold and for getting pictures and to get…
p. 33 28 Cooper So then we asked again when we wer e in orbit, "About this under…
p. 34 29 Cooper And stop your rate at the back . Conrad As a matter of fact, that…
p. 35 30 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper shows that it is . The Pulse mode was very economical on…
p. 36 Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Conrad Cooper 31 I thought it held to about…
p. 37 32 Cooper Conrad Conrad good . Ther e again , it might have been a f unction of…
p. 38 33 Cooper I think we had some bias, just how much I don ' t lmow. The…
p. 39 …it out with the up- down thrusters . Cooper I think what you ' re going to have…
p. 40 35 Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper…
p. 41 …dropped out it also commanded some thrusting. Cooper We got some real good blips out of…
p. 42 FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Conrad Cooper Conrad everything was settled down . The Horizon Scanner .was working…
p. 43 …was sitting _r ight next to it . Cooper The blanket went out and was sitting ri1sht…
p. 44 …IR doors until the REP was out . Cooper I've said it before, and I also…
p. 45 …the cold IR doors right on tirre. Cooper I I d have been right exactly on…
p. 46 …Conrad It di d something like I 1 d never seen before! Cooper I 1 d…
p. 47 42 Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper out of plane , in…
p. 48 43 at this rate . Cooper We had a short discussion on t his and decided that…
p. 50 45 Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad Conrad FCSD r ep Conrad co~~r…
p. 51 Cooper Conrad FCSD rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper a couple of times. And…
p. 52 47 FCSD rep Conrad Cooper 8 .3 RCS FCSD rep Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD rep Cooper…
p. 53 48 Conrad We didn ' t even check reentry rate command- Cooper We used direct, UBed pulse…
p. 54 49GQt"EIDE~~TIAt FCSD rep Cooper budged it off there . RCS , I mean the rate command…
p. 57 52 FCSD rep Cooper one time I noted the RCS Ring B was up to 80…
p. 58 53 FCSD rep Cooper b4~1DEt ◄ TIAw r ight up just about that size--it grows…
p. 60 55a@8t ◄ ftef~tJtl Cooper Yeah, when you are sealed up in it it gives you…
p. 63 . 58 Cooper Humidity. The suit seemed to run :pre·;ty d:ry. I wasn't conscious…
p. 66 FCSD Rep Cooper all. Cabin temperature ran 70 to 75 degrees and humidity ran about 62…
p. 68 FCSD Rep Cooper yaw. Build up to any rate you wanted to . Over a period of…
p. 69 FCSD Rep Cooper • the Secondary O2 . Mine was ope:1, Pete' s was closed the whole…
p. 71 66 8,5 Communications Cooper Yes, we took it. It worked fine . It dries out very…
p. 72 FCSD Rep Cooper fine for two cartidges worth and then quit. Was i t two or…
p. 73 68 Cooper That's a drastic move to make , but just that one experience was just…
p. 74 69 Cooper FCSD Rep Conr ad damping those rates . But it sure was steady. We used…
p. 75 70 FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Conrad I looked down in there and I marked ·;he…
p. 76 …looking at lights all night because we Cooper They sure were ... . Conra d We had the…

157
Cooper
Conrad
Cooper
Conrad
Cooper
it was the clearest picture of the Cape.
Boy, that was beautiful. You coul d see every de
tail. You could see every causeway and every street,
everything that rode around the Cape, and buildings
all over the Cape.
All that was on the same day but it was another
orbit .
Celestial --
Gosh, we coul d see seventh magnitude stars--
Mercury never had a window. Our windows were filthy .
When we l ifted off it just absolutel y unforgiveable
how dirty they were. Yet there were many times the
magnitude of visibil ity the Mercury windows were .
We could see easil y seventh magnitude stars. Well,
in Orion we coul d see all seven stars in the belt
and we could see cl usters down the side of the leg ..
I've never seen those clusters before . I have seen
big bl owups of them, but you could definitely see
two good size cl usters. Celestial - -We saw a lot of
planets and we saw the moon under all kinds of con
ditions. We saw the sun. We took Polaroid testings
on the sun. We ran the Polaroid fil ters at differ
ent angles. It looks to me like the sun has circul ar
•

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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.