PURSUE-RELEASE-03 Serial d177e89d-7006-4256-b2a9-6a6b5b578993

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Changed by <signature> Date NOV 20

1973

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# PRELIMINARY

GT-4 FLIGHT CREW DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPI'

PART I

Prepared By

Spacecraft  Operations Branch

Flight Crew Support Division

June  16, 1965

This material contains information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws , Title 18. U. S. C Section 793 and 794 , the transmission or revel a tion of which in any manner to an unaut horized person is proh i bi ted by law.

Group  4:
Declassified  a fter  12  years

Downg r ade at 3 year intervals

NOTICE: This document may be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Infor- mation Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for its re. lease to persons outside the U. S. Government should be handled under the provisions of NASA Policy Directive 1382.2.

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# CONFIDENTIAL

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ТАПИЗОНИО

ЈАНИЗОНИ

# CONFIDENTIAL

TABLE OF  CONTENTS

Paragraph

Page Number

| 1.0 COUNTDOWN   | 1.0 COUNTDOWN   | 1.0 COUNTDOWN                      |    |
|-|-|-|-|
|                 | 1.1             | Crew Insertion....                 |    |
|                 | 1.2             | Communications....                 |    |
|                 | 1.3             | Crew Participation and Countdown.. |    |
|                 | 1.4             | Comfort....                        |    |
|                 | 1.5             | Environmental Control System       |    |
|                 | 1.6             | Sounds                             | 11 |
|                 | 1.7             | Vibrations                         | 13 |
|                 | 1.8             | Visual ....                        | 13 |
|                 | 1.9             | Crew Station Controls and Displays | 15 |

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COLLIDERUMI

COMUDEMINI

# CONFIDENTIAL

| 4.3   | Other Orbital Operations   | 186   |
|-|-|-|
| 4.4   | Preretro Preparations      | .250  |

| 5.0   |     | RETROFIRE          |       |
|-|-|-|-|
|       | 5.1 | T-36 Events        | 259   |
|       | 5.2 | T-22 Events        | 260   |
|       | 5.3 | T-13 R Events      | ..260 |
|       | 5.4 | T-12 Events        | .261  |
|       | 5.5 | T-5 R Events       | .265  |
|       | 5.6 | T-1 Events         | .270  |
|       | 5.7 | T-O Events         | ..273 |
|       | 5.8 | Retropack Jettison | .280  |
|       | 5.9 | Communications     | ..281 |

## 6.0 REENTRY

| 6.1   | Reentry Parameter Update   | .282   |
|-|-|-|
| 6.2   | 400 K                      | .282   |
| 6.3   | 0.4 g                      | .284   |
| 6.4   | Acceleration Profile       | ..290  |
| 6.5   | Spacecraft Control.        | .296   |
| 6.6   | 100 000 Feet               | .296   |
| 6.7   | 50 000 Feet                | .299   |
| 6.8   | Main Chute Deployment      | .302   |
| 6.9   | Communications             | 303    |
| 6.10  | Single-Point Release       | .305   |
| 6.11  | Postmain Checklist Items   | 306    |

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ЗАТИЗОЛИОЗ

ЗАПИВАННО

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3

were going to open the prevalves and stuff. I wasn't getting it from him. We were getting a lot of other information that made a lot of sense to the Booster Test Conductor, but not an awful lot to us. There were call-outs like "Sequence 05003 complete." Well, this just didn't mean any- thing to us. On top of this we had the Spacecraft Test Conductor calling out the times, and super- imposed on all of this was Al Shephard, the Cape CAP COM, calling out events that he was reading off that went on at certain specified times. He called out" Stage 1 prevalves" and we could hear the fuel gushing downstairs and the whole booster rumbling. He called out" Stage 2 prevalves" and you could hear the same thing all over again. I thought that was a lot more meaningful than the test conductor comments.

White

I think that was wrong, the way they were doing it.

I think we weren't supposed to be on any loop except CAP COM at that time .

McDivitt

Well, I think what happened was that we got this

thing over-coordinated. Al was going to give us all thi s information, but then as a result of GT-3, (Gus and Jolm said they didn ' t get enough

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information about the boosters) they put this in

formation on the test conductor ' s loop too . We ha.d too many guys talking . I think if just CAP COM talked from three minutes on down we would be all right .

White

McDivitt

This is the way I thought it was going to happen, and then from three minutes on down it really got busy with the yak, yak, yak of everybody talking. I don't know whether we got off the Booster Test Conductor's loop or not, but at final countdown, Al gave me 2 minutes, 1 1/2, 1, 30, 20, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I got a similar count from the Spacecraft Test Conductor but it turned. out that they were a second out of sequence on the countdown and Al was giving me 10 and our Spacecraft Test Conductor was giving me 9. So it' went ten-nine, nine-eight, eight-seven. They were at the same time. All I knew was that we were getting close to engine ignition and then it started. So, we got a little over-communicated there. I think they kept us adequately informed on the hold. As a matter of fact, I'd say we got over-informed there at the end. We had too many guys keeping us informed and I think the pendulum

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2.0 POWER FLIGHT

2.1 Lift-Off Cues McDivitt CAP COM gave lift-off, about as good a cue as you can get. White Wasn't any question either. Boy, you could feel the first little motions of the booster as it went up. It was really great!

McDivitt I think you could feel the acceleration at re- lease. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that we were loose.

White That's right. I don't know if I could feel the bolts or hear them.

McDivitt As a matter of fact, it seemed to steady out a

little bit. The vibrations seemed to decrease

a little. Pretty impressive!

Not much vibration at lift-off. Very low.

White Very low. I got vibrations later on, though,

didn't you?

McDivitt Yes.

Noise. There wasn't much noise, was there?

White No. There was less than I had expected.

McDivitt Noise wasn't a cue to lift-off. Noise was there

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cocked off the second stage.

3.2 SECO +20 Seconds

McDivitt We were going to$ay on the booster until SECO + 30 instead of SECO + 20 . At 20 seconds the IVI ' s started displaying and I read them off as 20 for ward, 11 right, and 5 down.

White

Right.

McD i vitt This was when we were still in the 90 degree bank position. Is that correct? Or was itafter I had rolled right-side-up?

White

McDivitt

It was after you had rolled right-side- up.

Okay. Well, then the IVI's displayed when we were still on our side. It seems to me they were about 25 feet/second forward , and some other numbers, but anyway they were low enough where I felt we were certainly in orbit. At least the IGS was telling us we were in orbit. During this time, as I said earlier, I tried to damp the spacecraft rates, the spacecraft booster rates which were quite low. I checked to see that the OAMS Power Switch was in ATTITUDE and MANEUVER , and to see that Eli had switched over to DIRECT . I told him I was going to do some thrusting but I wasn't going to separate yet, so that when he

€  0  ~~  FfDENT.I.Al

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CONFIDENTIAL

heard the thrusters go off he wouldn't push the SPACECRAFT SEP. Then we did separate the space- craft with the exact routine we practiced in the simulator. I said, "Thrusting, separate", and you punched the SEPARATE button and I guess you went to Rate Command. I thrusted straight ahead for about five seconds. This is where I think we came off crooked. This is the part Ed was men- tioning before. We didn't seem to come off straight ahead. We seemed to be getting some sort of an oscillation that got us going in a dif- ferent direction than what we had going on the booster.

It seemed,, like one side of the separation plane

White

came off with more force than the other .

Yes.

That's what it seemed like to me.

It separated at a bit of an angle.

McDivitt

White

McDivitt

White

That's  right.

We didn't separate fore and aft;

we separated with a lot of rotation to this side. Yes.

McDivitt Air-ground communications were all right. We were talking to them and they were talking to us. I never had any problem there.

White

Shortly thereafter they called up and told us we

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# CONFIDENTIAL

McDivitt

Your fingers sort of take th e place of the

White

spring and drive th is little pawl home .

This is the first time we actually tried this in a suit. It requires you to press up with your left arm to get at the gain pawl, and at the same time hold yourself down. And I think later on this was a source of some of our problems which I brought out now so that we can find out later on. I felt it start to engage, and start to ratchet the lugs out. Jim also verified that they were coming open. I backed them off, and I remember Jim saying "Ooop! Not so fast!", and at that time it popped. The hatch actually popped open, jumped open about 3 or 4 inches.

McDivitt

I was expecting the hatch t o come open with a

bang. Although we had the cabin to vent and it had bled on down to where there was nothing indicated on the Cabin Pressure Gage , we still really had the repress valve on. He was bleedin g right into the spacecraft. We never got down to a vacuum and even though we had a cabin pressure of only a tenth of a psi , we spread it over t he entire area of that hatch,

OONFl0E~TV\L

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and that puts a pretty good size forc e on it.

I had a real tight hold on the hatch closing device , and when it popped open I was able to snub it.

White

McDivitt

It didn't really open with much force, did it? Well, it did. It opened with a fair amount. It popped and I couldn't stop it the first inch or so. Then, of course, as soon as it opened that much pressure bled off. I just sort of snubbed the thing to keep it from flying all. the way open. Now if I hadn't been holding onto it, I don't think it would have gone open more than two or three feet.

White

This is another point too. There's more force. on the hatch actuator than I thought. I didn't just flip the door open with my hand. I had to actually forcibly push it open, similar to the force with which I opened the hatch laying on my back under one "g". That's about the force that I had to put on the hatch to open it. McDivitt This extra force that we are talking about is due to the O-rings they put in the pyros that are used for jettisoning the hatch. This is something that they put in just before the

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McDivitt Oh? Did you get it in your thighs or calves? White Both of the muscles in the back of my thighs. balled up in a ball and I thought, "Well, I have. to go back out and let them straighten up."

So, I straightened my legs out.

McDivitt We had that problem before in the zero-g air-

plane.

White

This is the time Jim said, "Hey while you' re up, why don't you throw the vlsor out?" I hesitated a minute because I thought, "Well, you son-of-a-buck, you might have problems here. You might have to be spending an orbit or so trylng to get in."

McDivitt No, as a matter of fact, I don't think that is when you did throw it out. I think you threw it out when you came back down and you started to close the hatch. You were having trouble. It wouldn't close, and you said, "I'm going to have to take this visor off so that I can see these things." And I said, "Listen, if we get this thing closed we're not going to open it again. Throw the visor away." White That's right. That was when I got the cramps, went back up again and then I came back down

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again, and said, "Hey, I can't see them. I'm going to have to take the visor off."

McDivitt No, it was a little bit later than that. You had all ready started to try to close it and you were having difficulty closing it.

White

Okay. Let's get the sequence out. We came down in. I got up to straighten my legs a little bit, went back up, then I came back down--.

McDivitt --with all your equipment on--.

White I hadn't held the handle yet, had I?

McDivitt No. You hadn't done a thing with it.

White So I got back down into position--.

McDivitt with all your equipment on and pulled the

hatch down.

White The hatch was down far enough to close at this

time.

McDivitt I thought it was.

White I did, too. I felt it was down far enough. I

can tell by looking right straight down at the

edge--.

McDivitt Yes. I can tell by looking up underneath the right-hand side to see where the dogs are. White Okay. So I thought the hatch was down far enough to close at that time. I reached up and

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McDivitt

Yes .

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