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).

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Cooper
Conrad
Cooper
Conrad
Cooper
Conrad
Cooper
The carrier was the one thing that it really
bothered us on . Two different days on the carrier
shots doggone it you could see one day-- for in
stance we saw the carrier wake and--
But the sunlighting was such-
The sunlighting and the--
You lose the wake and everything--
And then the scattered clouds, too were such that
you were kind of hunting for him in and around the
scattered clouds and sunlight angle was low on it
and we lost him.
The day we got him there were clouds b~ck there
but gee we could see him for 500 miles out and we
never lost t hem.
Just the lighting conditions were ideal t hat day
and he was also out in kind of an open area in
t he clouds .
Okay , horizons. The hori zons were of ~curse , a s
usual , I t hink day and night were fairl;r well defined "
except as you come into the- -as you go in out and
out of the terminator . Just at that p,~riod of time
where you ' r e going into t he l i ght or out of t he
light through the terminator it ' s a ve:-:y f uzzy