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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to cha nge anythi ng, We coul d not put a lighted r et i cle
on the l aser .
:Borman In all f a i rness , we ought t o poi nt out about th e l aser
t oo, that i t was severely handi capped when we changed t he
l aunch a zimuth. Because i ni t i ally they had not planned
t o work anywhere except at Whi t e Sands . Then with t he
change in l aunch a zimuth , Whi te Sands went down t he tube
pretty well , then they ha d t o scrounge around a nd try
t o get t o Hawai i and Ascension.
The exper i ment equi pment, by and l arge , I thought was
r eadily ava i l able on this f light . Thanks mainly t o Lou
Allen and the pr es s ure he put on the people. Training
equipment was pr etty well availabl e , early in t he game .
14 , 8 Spacecraft sys t ems tests
Borma.n We covered a lot fewer of the spacecraft systeins tes t s
than previous spacecraft had, bas ed on our experience
on Spacecraft 4. Let me see exactl y wha t i t wa s .
Spacecraft test s , 169 hours and thi r t y minutes for t he
Prime Crew, and 193 hours and 30 mi nut es for the Backup
Crew. I do not thi.nk there i s any reason to cover t hi ngs