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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the LANDING SQUI:B a.t 100,000 feet and sat th.ere and watched.
it.
6.5 lOOK Feet
Borman I started losing it; I think we may have run out of RCS fuel
between 100,000 feet a.nd 50,000 feetJ at lea.st I thought we
had.
6.6 50K Feet
Lovel l Wel l, didn't you turn off the RCS?
Borm8Jl I didn't turn th&t off until a.fter we got on the drogue. We
were starting to build up the yaw and pitch rates. Then at
50,000 feet, I was anxiously a.wa.it :lng the drogue, because
these rates were building up a little. They weren't very
bad yet, though. I pushed t he drogue expecting it to de
crease, and all it did wa..s a.m.plify th.em. And we got a. .real
ride on the drogue for a. whil e, sounded like the one Jim and
Ed discussed. It was r e&ll y going pretty bad.
Lovel l Our angles were what? About 70 degrees. We pitched up?
Borman Oh no, I estima.te we were oscillating back and forth maybe
20 degrees.
Lo<rell From the drogue here pitching up we were rolling back a.:nd
forth more than 20 de.grees on that initial pa.rt.