The Four Days of Gemini 4 (1965) - Gemini IV - NASA Documentary
Video from the channel Conrad Heil about Gemini IV, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 27:27. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
NASA film about the four days of the Gemini 4 mission, with James McDivitt as command pilot and Edward White as pilot. It combines footage of the preparation, the launch, the extravehicular activity, life on board and the recovery with recordings of the communications between the spacecraft and mission control. The reentry is illustrated with onboard footage from Gemini 2, an earlier uncrewed mission, sped up four times.
When and where it was filmed
It was filmed in 1965 around the mission itself: the liftoff from Pad 19 at the Cape on June 3 at 10:16 a.m. Eastern time, the tracking from the new Houston control center, which was directing a mission for the first time, and the splashdown in the Atlantic on June 7 at 12:13, with the aircraft carrier USS Wasp as the recovery ship.
Context
The spacecraft entered orbit at about 25,745 feet per second, with an apogee of 177.6 statute miles and a perigee of 100.8. McDivitt attempted to fly in formation with the launch vehicle's second stage, but the attempt was abandoned to save fuel. The extravehicular activity was postponed to the third revolution: the hatch opened at 2:42 and White spent 21 and a half minutes outside, attached by a 25-foot umbilical and maneuvering with a compressed-oxygen gun until it ran out. On returning, the hatch resisted closing, which was resolved because McDivitt had disassembled its mechanism in St. Louis during training.
The flight plan included eleven medical, measurement and photographic experiments, among them images of the Nile delta and of the Earth's limb, and all of them were completed. On the second day the mission broke the American record for duration in space. The crew had four meals a day of about 2,600 calories. On the fourth day the computer failed, and the flight director, Christopher Kraft, opted for a rolling reentry, which McDivitt flew manually.