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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Borman I was really surprised at that.
14.5 Planetarium
Lovell The Planetarium is one which I have to admit I degraded
for the last trip. I said I didn't want to go and we
weren't going to go. Then we decided we'd better go,
and I think right now it was well worth it. The last
trip to the Planetarium was the best one.
Borman We got more dope on the actual orbit. We had settled
on our flight path, and they displayed it, and it was
amazingly accurate.
Lovell We worked out our initial burn at the Planetarium,
the stars we were going to burn on for our perigee
adjust burn. I took a cha.rt along that I ma.de up at
the Planetarium to use for the zero, seven, and four
teen days in t he celestial sphere. It worked
out fine. When you go there, that's what
you have to do. You have to take
the azimuth that you are going to
launch on, take all the charts that you are
going to have; and run through that type
of .mission. To go there and just learn all the stars
I
might be okay for basic training like we did several