Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part II, 1965

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EOMFtDEl-~Tt~l
don't know what it wasp'whether it was smoke or what
it wasn't fla.rne--you could definitely see it
trailing right along side our trail just like we
were leaving a con.
Cooper
Yes , you could see our con--it was kind of a light
color .
I wouldn't say it was a flame color--it
was kind of a light color. compared to everything else.
Conrad
We were looking at this in relation to what nobody
else hadseen it to .
We were still looking at this
down sun relatively nebulous horizon that you have.
We were looking at it ourselves, a trail back
there in the terminator.
Cooper
Into the dark.
Conrad
Yes.
And that ' s another thing.
A very important
point here--no kidding, saying this spacecraft's i n sunl i ght
doesn't
• mean anything? That' s ani ght retrofire.
And we didn't have a definable horizon to fly on
until we crossed the Mississippi River• .
That 's
way in the heck down the pipe on retrofire, because
that terminator is nothing.
Cooper
One thing I ' d like to add here­ -I really
think al l
.of us always sweat~d night ret rofire and it was a pi ece
of cake.