Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

Text

This text came with the file. It may have mistakes. When the text and the image disagree, the image is right.

16
White
McDivitt
just smooth--we didn ' t come off with a rotational
rate.
I think one of the things you mi ght commant on , Jim,
is that you fired most of those thrusters during
that initial time.
I 'm sure I fired the upward-firing thrusters a
number of times .
That isn ' t any more difficult
to control than t he other one.
Actually you can
fire these thrusters whether you are in Rate
Command, Direct or even in Pulse .
When you fire
them, you get a rate and you just damp the rate
out with the attitude controller.
When you are
firing the translation thrusters , th0 things t hat
you r eally hear are not the translation thrusters,
but the attitude thrusters.
Those translation
thrusters are really tough to hear, but the atti­
tude thrusters are very easy to hear.
I doh ' t
understand why.
They must be mounted differently
because their location isn't that much different.
I think I fired the aft-firing thrust ers a couple
of times and they didn ' t make any more noise than
the forward-firing thrusters, that I could tell.
The up and down and left and right ones were just
as easy to fire as t he other ones.
Our OAMS retro