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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Cooper It couldn't have worked better. It really
did.
Conrad The IGS Guidance was indicating everything that we
did. We knew that we were going to loft a little
bit and boy, it showed that we should pitch down
at second stage and RGS did pitch us down, and when
it pitched us down and put us on the IGS was
centered up. I never saw any big needle deviations.
I didn ' t see this big pitch transient at the end
of the flight. I think it did wander just a little
bit in pitch but none of this off the scale stuff.
It looked like it was on the money all the wey , am
I felt that if we ever switched we would be right
down the pipe with it.
Cooper Yes. I did too. Real good.
Conrad In the insertion, boy, that math flow 6 ca.me up
with all the right numbers. The numbers were just
right. You didn't read the numbers. Where the ta~e
began the numbers were on tbe money. Address 72
was 25,808. Address 94 R dot was plus 20 feet :pga
97 was plus 2 feet. 52 said we had a perfect
:insertion that we had no apogee adjust . At perigee
there was 00000 and then calculated , even though