Gemini 7 Technical Debriefing, 1965

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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Lovell After seeing GT-6 1 s film of our back area, the straps
hanging off our spacecraft looked like they were all
intertwining in that boom area. It could probably foul up
that boom somewhat in future flights. I mean in a
future flight if we still had t hat same problem it mi ght
foul up tha t boom and tear off tha t wire. There is a
wire that goes out to the end of that thing.
Borman All the experiments we talked about so far were well
presented before hand. We knew exac t ly what we were
going to do, and the only reason we weren't able to
uo it was 1) weather, 2) lack of fuel, and 3) in the
case of the D- 5, the equipment broke down. I think
we got a substantial amount of S- 5 and S-6 done.
As a matter of fact we got everything done that was
called up and we got a lot more done just in general
pho tography.
11.7 Optical Communications (MSC-4)
Borman Optical communications, MSC-4.
Okay, acquisition of the ground t arget. I have never
been bet ter locked in on White Sands in my l ife than