Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

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60
CO·N·F~DENTIM
White
McDivitt
rates that we already had.
We were into darkness
by the time that we got turned around, and I had
thrusted just two or three times at the booster.
We were still quite far above it--I would guess
now on the order of 2000 feet or more and it was
still dropping away from us rapidly; I had already
used about 25 or 30 feet/second to get toward the
booster.
I knew I had to catch it during the
night time because when we came out of the dark­
ness on the next pass, we had to be next to it ,
because we were supposed to take some photos of it
around that time .
So I thrusted some more right
at the booster trying to just overcome orbital
mechanics with brute force. It was too late to
start playing fancy games with the orbital mechan­
ics.
Finally, I got us down to what I considered
a good position, and this was prior to Carnarvon,
I believe.
Remember when we finally got it on
the horizon?
It looked like it had finally stopped.
The relative velocity had finally stopped.
And
let me now make a general comment about what I
thought of the lights on it.
We had two lights on
the booster that flashed and they were diametrically
CO~Fl0E~TtAL