Gemini 5 Technical 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.

burned out again and then he was gone .
We could
have t racked him through second stage. If you
are going to get hi m on IR you better get him
coming off the pad because after that you can' t
follow them very well with the naked eye.
We had
two entirely different lighting conditions.
The first day we had them against the clouds and the
second day we had them against the land and water.
Cooper
We had him against that one string of clouds.
We lost him going against those clouds. If you
had a solid land water background I think you could
fol low him the whole way without any problem.
Conrad
The f irst day he didn ' t come up out of the clouds
but he did to us.
You know it was clear at Vandenburg
but the clouds were close enough to cut off our
angular view.
First, we saw him when he-­
Cooper
But we had good lighting conditions in spite of
his being above the clouds.
The lighting was such
that we could foll ow him real easy.
Conrad
But the second day I was looking right at the pad ,
and I saw the engine light .
There ' s no two ways
about it, I saw the engine light or whatever the
fire was coming out of the hole.
I don' t know how
they fired them, but f r om the time that flame was
~l'~EIQ6~,TIA1s