Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 1965

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74
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booster, the way we separated . Well, anyway, we
told Guaymas that we had to get resolution i mme­
diately if they wanted us to continue to chase the
booster because we had used a lot of fuel and we
weren ' t getting any closer and it was still
pulling away from us .
If they wanted to go for i t
they had to make up their minds and we would
really go after it.
But I didn ' t think it was
wise.
They confimed this and said,'Knock it off!'
For cloeing rates at rendezvous, I think you could
handle 20 , 30 , 40 feet/second if you are coming
at it , not if you are gomg away from it .
You
see we never got a chance to do a rendezvous .
We
never rendezvoused with it .
The best thing we
ever did was to get close enough to it where I
could at least say I was at the same al titude with·
it for a change. It was the fir st t ime I had
gotten back to tee same altitude since we left it
at insertion.
Yoo just can't equate it.
You
don't do an optical rendezvous with the booster
below you.
You try to put it above you so you
have the stars and the sky background. It was
below us .
You couldn't do any line· of· sight
nulling because there wasn't anything to null the