Documents / Official release

Gemini 7 Technical Debriefing, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965 · 222 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 72 …The sea condition was very goon ; 2 to ,1. foot waves . We bobbed around, although I…
  • p. 132 …Borman The Red Sea area was one of the clear areas all the t i me…
  • p. 135 …The Suez Canal , the Red Sea, and the coast of Arabia were loud and clear the…
  • p. 136 …Lovell The Red Sea and the Gul f of Eden as it goes into the Arabian…
  • p. 140 …We evaluated them looking at the Cairo area and the Dead Sea, and I see no…
  • p. 146 …About the only area that was consistently clear was the Sahara and the Red Sea a…
  • p. 166 …You could pick out the area of the Salton Sea there even from where we were…
5
was giving for the entire l aunch. The needles were just
matched perfectly--nulled. I did not see any unusual
attitudes that some of the other people commented on.
2.4 Aerodynamic
Borman Age.in, we had had this described to us ma.ny times, and it
seemed to follow right along. In the maximum q region we
got some vibration and noise, but after we got through
maximum q it was just like going supersonic in a fighter.
You just slip through, and from then on it was just l ike
riding on a train.
Lovell I don't think it was bad either.
2.5 :ms
Lovell Pressure went up to 5.5 in the initial stoppage, and it
slowly leaked down to 5.1, and stayed there.
Borman I was cool during lift-off.
Lovell I was too. Comfortable.
Borman Comfortable. I mean cool in the sense that it means comfor
table. Of course we can not very well comment on the cabin
atmosphere because we were sealed.
2. 6 Maximum q
Borman We ha.ve already discussed this. There was some noise build
up and some vibration, but nothing to worry at all about or
even discuss .

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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.