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).

  • p. 5 …257 MISSION CONTROL 13. l GO/NO GO ••. . ... •. ....... ... ... . . . . ...... •• •. •• • ... . 261 13. 2 FLA and CLA Updates .. .. .... ... ... ....... . .. ... .. . .. 261…
  • p. 275 I Conrad We didn't always agree with Mission Control. One example--! would have l oved…
  • p. 276 …Anything else on the fuel cells , batteries, or mission control? Conrad No . 13 . 4 F'light…
  • p. 277 …Cooper I do to , but we are talking here about flight plan changes in mission controlling…
  • p. 278 …Mission Control for syst ems . I think the biggest handle you have on systems is right…
26s ~EIDE~~TIAL
13 . 6 Experiment Real Time Updates
Cooper I think these worked out pretty well . We mentioned
about needing a platform before and abcut needing
attitude control . And our OAMS system got worse
and worse where we had no attitude cont rol t o speak
and weren't allowed to use any, I think, a great
many of these things that were put in ~ust hoping
we might drift through. They were sort of wasted .
It was a waste of time . They could ha.v-e saved
our time , theirs , the writing time , and. everything
involved, because trying to get some of these
experi ments while in drifting flight i~ completely
imp.ossible.
Conrad It was really funny. It couldn' t have been better
planned to work out opposite. They'd say get a
D-4/ D- 7, like the Milky Way--You ' d expect to
drift through the Milky Way long enougr. to get it .
Anytime we had the gear fired up we nev-er got
anywhere near the Milky Way.
Cooper No , we would always be pointing at the ground .
Conrad There was one time when I tried to do it . We were
pointed at the Milky Wa;y. By the time I found out
that we were going to drift through it and the t en
minute warm up time for the gear passed, we were
ct> ►,FfDE~~Th*lll. I

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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 325 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.