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).

4
that way that platform isn ' t
i n roll or pitch.
off 4 or 5 degrees
Cooper So, i t r eally looks like, when you fir3t start
lining it up, it appear s to you that f ::-om the
left seat that you ' re actually rolled l eft ,
Conrad Yes, that's right .
Cooper And f r om your seat it would look l i ke j t
actuall y r olled right .
was
Cooper It doesn ' t look horizontal at al l, but that ' s due
to the fact t ha t you 're sitting off by thi s offset .
Conrad One other thing that you might say about platform
alinement is that if you ' re not on in roll and
pi tch, mainl y roll, t his really will ea t you up
in alinement time .
Cooper Roll and yaw are
you can be off a
out.
t he bad errors creator:, .
l ot i n and it' 11 corr ec:t
Pitch
r ight
Conrad Not if the other two (roll and yaw) are off .
Cooper But if you 're off in roll and/or yaw th€n it
really takes a long time and its real rcugh .