Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

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McDivitt
White
McDivitt
booster orbit had changed so much with respect to
our orbit that if we really went down after it, it
might jeopardize our lifetime.
Honestly, I was concerned about that too , because,
remember, I called and asked what the heck our
orbit was right then.
The booster looked like it
was going down at such a rapid rate.
By the time
we got to the States I would guess it was
5
miles below us at least.
My
impression was even more . I thought maybe it
wasn't more a t the time but it was going more.
felt that if we really got back with tbe booster we
might have a pretty good orbit , but we would be
down in the neighborhood of 130 and this wasn ' t
the altitude we wanted to be, .,for. the six-day
lifetime that we wanted.
The other thing that bothered me was that we were
going toward perigee where we should have been
coming back together.
And we weren't. We were
pulling away so fast that it wasn't even funny.
Frankly, I just couldn't figure out what kind of
orbit the booster was in. It looked to me like ,
if we were having trouble , the place where we
should have been the farthest from it was at Car-
C.O f)J FID E~ttIAL
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