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).

74
excellent on that.
Conrad They were great. Even the UHF worked wnll. I
mean HF .
Cooper Voice tape recorder. Then we were on. I just
covered tha t . It didn't work.
Conrad Did you cover the . .. the exact detail s on this
DCS? How we didn ' t get the light. The only time
we didn't get the light.
Cooper No, I didn't cover the details on that Eixcept just
that we had gotten DCS unforecast over Carnarvon
after when we already had our load in from Houston,
and then it came on unexpectedly, not ev-en checking
to see what mode we were in here, We we•re in re
entry mode and sent us this DCS updatin€' our TR
and updating our load, DCS load there, and just as
he said he was sending, why rapidly then we switched
out of reentry to prelaunch but never got any DCS
l i ght on either the TR or the load.
Conrad Yes , he s ent two s eparate commands, and theoretical ly
the light should come on each time but I never got
the lights, so I'm highly suspicious of what hap
pened and I've got to have an explana tion why this
load....
Cooper Which he verified to the cores and they checked out