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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a strange vehicle, with strange control systems tha t
you've only simulated as about best you can , and no
visual simulation available for doing anything out
the- window; you just cannot expect people to stay
right on top of things when it occurs ir. the firs t
part of the flight . This is an ideal eYample ; we
had worked and worked and worked and worked and
worked to have our timing down just rigl:.t. If noth
ing had happened , we would have had our timing down
just right and everything would have gor..e just per
fect . Pete would have been right on hi~ checklist
and blown the cold IR doors right on tirre.
Cooper I I d have been right exactly on time on g·etting the
REP out and everything would have gone reach- keen .
Just that one thi ng , the Hori zon Scanner failure ,
really threw the skids to the thing and caused us
to be running s l ightl y late . There was added con
fusion in trying to f igure out how to get t hings
going and salvage the whole thing really threw the
skids to it .
Cooper The REP went out and it continued going out instead
of slowing down as it should. It cont i nued to move
on out at quite a separation r ate . The thing that
still has us a little puzzled , instead of slowing

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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.