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…

"
13 . 5 Systems
Cooper
'l@ Ot~FIDE ►~TIAl
they did a fine job . I think they made a good effort
to salvage all we could ou of a poor situation . .
I think they really did a fine job . As a resul t
of what we found , and we didn't know before we got
into the real time situation; we discovered that the
people compromised are the flight crew. They
wound up cutting into sleep periods and certain
functions were performed at the wrong time for each
one of us. It could have been better planned as
for as who did what when.
Mission Control for syst ems . I think the biggest
handle you have on systems is right on board , and
I still think so . I think we had a good handle on
what was going on. The things that presented a
real question were the rate of decay , the rate of
dwindling, some of these cyros , etc . The ground
got a good handle on them and began to give us some
good informat ion on what we could expect. Although ,
I think some of them were new enough that the ground
wasn't aware of what was going to happen. For
example, they didn't know when they would vent and
when they wouldn't , what the rate would be when
they vented , etc .
£:Of4£10E~~TIAL

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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.