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
that's eoinc to be it , and then the? came up wi th 35 degrees , 45 deerees, and I rnisinter~reted it ; I was a rgui ng with Prank e.fter r e t rofire ann he says no , that ' s 30 degrees-- 50 deerees. :3orr.ian 50 degrees . Lovell 53 decrees is what he ' s sayin[j . !-re ,ius t wan t s to ge t it down to a l ittle finer line . J\nd then Prank called bnck again An•i SR.id , "!'To , it wr-ts -i5 de£7ee s , " so I non ' t know what t he s t or;y w?. s there. Borman 'P.;e :-'DI as .fA.r as the r e trofire r,-oes , i t was r.o rrohlem . . .It worked out t:'ine , ano I jus t l ike to have I t h:ink .1 ' ' If you ren.1ly were forced into it you cot>ld <io i t on rate neerll.es , but you ' d have to have a lo t of confiiience in your ability to hold i t . T wou ldn ' t. want t o do it with out r:ate Command; and again , I did it in ;:ate r.omrnRnd . T' m not e ven sure how nuch the t hr usters we r e flrjnc -ivrinc ret rofire . DU you riotice? I was watchinc the b,·l l , f'.r rl I dUn ' t noti ce . Di d it light up the horizon pretty hadl~r? Lovell H WfW real ly r.ot too b~d . But ac t ually ; yeo , it ,iir1 , it lit i t up ouite a bi t . ;i'CSD !leo Okay . Lovell There was a point in the flight plan that they wanted the
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.