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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probably booken, and I began to look at them.
They looked good. I decided, well, it wasn't really
any problem, even if I had broken the lines. All
I had to do was reach up and deploy the emergency
main deploy if it departed, and we were still in
good shape, so--no problem on it. As a matter
of fact, the combination of when the drogue went
out and the RCS left us as stable as a rock.
We just came right straight down t he glide slope
and I don't think we had any oscillations of any
kind all the way down, other than these very very
minor little higher frequency ones t hat felt like
vibrations off the drogue lines.
Conrad There seemed to be more interaction between the
spacecraft and the drogue lines than anything
else.
Cooper Right. At the time that we came to the main
chute, when I pickled off the main chute, it
came out completely straight; we didn't oscillate
or swing on it at all.
Conrad Let 's backup one second . The best calculations
of m:ic.e and men were completely wrong though .
At 50 K we went on with full repress and o high
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