Documents / Official release
This is a preliminary transcript of the Gemini 7 technical debriefing, dated December 23, 1965, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It was made from tape recordings of the crew debriefing held December 19 to 21, 1965 at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. In it, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell go through countdown, powered flight, insertion, station keeping with the booster, systems, experiments and training. The table of contents also lists a section on visual sightings during orbital flight.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: December 19-21, 1965, Cape Kennedy, Florida. This document is a preliminary transcript derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 7 flight crew debriefing conducted December 19-21, 1965, at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Lights and flashes are mentioned and there is discussion about having proper illumination for vehicle docking. Borman and Lovell discuss celestial and terrestrial observational anomalies and note sightings of Mercury, meteors, aurora, and lightning. They also discuss not being able to see any stars once the Sun comes up.
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135 excellent viewing is where the ai:r is clear. It is the same way with airplanes. But, I think you ha.ve a better chance to look below than you do in an airplane. There is a better chance of seeing something, but you still have the haze problem. Borman When we first got up a.nd had a f'ull Moon, we did not see lDA1'cy' more stars than you see on an ordin&ry flight at thirty or forty thousand feet. However, during the latter pa.rt of the flight with a quarter Moon, we found that there were more stars visible. We have a d:rawing here of the number of stars we could see in the Pleiad.es, which b.&e been recorded. Lovell The big thing to remember here is the fact that the Moon has a big effect on the number of stars you see and which ones you can use for celestial navigation. Borman Right. Lovell If the M::>on is full, it is the predominant feature in the sky, and s:n:y stars near the M?on at the time are washed out; and they are very hard to use for sextant sightings. Borman Right. Same way with the Milky Way. It is not very appar ent when the M:>on is full. Lovell In reverse though, when the Moon is full the Earth is a very good reference. Borman That's right. It's a blue reference with white clouds, very
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 222 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.