Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part II, 1965

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out of plane , in that it hung around us so darned long.
It stayed with us for 20 orbits !
We saw it until the light burned out .
I t was never
f ar away from us.
During five night cycles it was
close enough that the flashing light illuminated the
spacecraft .
At the proper times, when we would get
nodal crossing, when we turned around and actually
saw the REP it was very close .
We thought we were going t o hit i t .
It was bright enough t o illuminate the spacecraft and
the flashing light r eally impressed me .
Did you take pictures?
Yes , I think we have some 70- mm Hassel blad pictures
and I took 16- mm moving pictur es.
That was the last of the REP exercise .
I understand all t he movie film came out, too.
So
you ' ll have pictures of it.
At this point, we wer e rapidly running out of cryo­
genic fuel cell oxygen.
We decided t hio.t the only way
we were going t o salvage the f l i ght waE to stop
using it at this rapid a rate .
We had to make the
choice whether we were going to power down and con­
t inue the f light, or whether we were gcing to end
the flight very abruptly if i t continuEd going down
we@t.tf1!9l!l'it~~.