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.
“Frank Borman”10 pages
19 00,21. So when we reached this limit and we were in darkness, I ~~nt ahead and separated, thrustil:lg dawn. Lovell We actually separated earlier than 00: 25. We actv.ally separa ted at 00:-21. :Borman That is right. So we separated because we were in da.rlmess and because we had reached the limit on fuel. We had been in darlmess for awhile. One thing I di d notice was that the docking light was not particularly helpful on that stage of the business. I guess it is because we were not close enough to the booster. Lovell We tried but the docking light just did not work. :Borman I suppose because,a.gain,we were looking at a lighted horizon with the docking light , and it did not work as well as it did l ater on with Spacecraft b, The booster measurements went off. We got indications on the needle ,on the measure ment needle .. Lovell The recorder did not get on until 27 minutes. That is a guess. I am not too sure, but as I understand it, they had live transmissi ons up until th.at time, to Bermuda, 8Jld An t i gua., wherever it is, so we were okay there. Borman The booster measurements were normal. Again, the simulator was perfect for that. The lights. Jim McDivitt had made some comment about not being able to judge distance because
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 222 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.