Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

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297
McDivitt
6.7 50 000 feet
McDivitt
It went all the way back to about 96 000 feet
again, and then it started down again. The
second time it started down, it really started
down in a hurry, and I was sure that we were
still at 100 000 feet.
So , I waited until the g level got about 3, which
is around 80 or 90 thousand feet.
I started slow­
ing the roll rate there.
I wanted to get the
thing to a zero roll rate by the time we got to
40 or 50 thousand feet, certainly by the time we
got to 40.
We started gyrating around some more,
but I didn't think it was exceptional. The
Reentry Rate Command started firing.
As a matter
of fact, I said!'H?re comes the Reentry Rate
Command, " and then I was firing on top of .it so
that we really weren't oscillating too much.
Then we got to 40 000 feet and I put the drogue
chute out, and that's where things really got
exciting.
I put the drogue out at 40 000 feet.
We were nice
and stable as we went down.
We were a heck of a
lot more stable than we were when we put the
drogue chute out.