Documents / Official release

Gemini 7 Technical Debriefing, 1965

National Aeronautics and Space Administration · 1965 · 222 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 25 15 Borman Could you identify any type of the debris? Lovell No, pieces.That is all…
  • p. 61 …LoveJl Frank thought it was in the reef ed con<lition for 3 months . Borman It…
  • p. 64 …Meanwhile , Frank ' s got the checklist out and the guys out there are putting on the…
  • p. 83 …Lovell We might mention here that both Frank and I think making adjust maneuvers without a…
  • p. 90 …We had no problems with air flow. :Borman It would have been a very, very difficult…
  • p. 93 …When I was out of the suit and Frank was in it, we put my suit…
  • p. 118 …Lovell Frank's was better than mine. Whenever I could I would give him the cameras…
  • p. 125 …Lovell It was a necessary evil, Frank. Borman We were a little concerned when we opened…
  • p. 141 131 Borman The reception on HF during the fl i ght was very poor. Lovell Right…
  • p. 172 …Lovell The magnitude of this laser is a lot less than either Frank or I suspected…
82
:Borman The temperature va.ried with the suits on and the suits off
operation. I have gone through my notes here, and I note
that it says when we both had suits on and we were just
barely cool enough with both suits on and the :B pumps run
ning. On the other hand, when we were both out of the suits,
the :B pumps only running, we were very comfortable. When
we were up working and opera.ting, we noticed that the temp
erature level in the cockpit was just right. We were run
ning most of the time with the suits full cold, the heat
exchanger full cold, and maximum air flow on both controls.
Then for several days when we went to bed, we left the con
trols that way, a.nd we would wake up very cool.
Lovell Well, there a.re several factors . I think the size of the
Gemini cockpit and the fact of & completely closed loop
system is very dependent on 2 factors. One was the heat
output of the people and two was the amount of heat you get
in through the windows due to the sun. At night our heat
output decreased, we put up shields on the windows, includ
ing some aluminiz~d foil to reflect the sun, and I think
the combination of both these things with the systems we had
during the day time really dropped the heat in the cockpit.
Then, during the day when we were active and had the windows
open a.gs.in, the temperature increa.aed inside the cockpit so

About this file

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.