Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 363
Document I-71
Document Title: NASA, “Gemini Contingency Information Plan,” 11 May 1966.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
Given the inherent riskiness of spaceflight, NASA officials understood that the potential
of loss of spacecraft and crew during flight existed. What should be done if this were to
happen? The first order, they found, was to impound all technical and other types of data
relating to the mission to help reconstruct how and why a failure had occurred. A second
action required obtaining statements from all individuals involved in the mission, which
would probably be only preliminary to more detailed debriefings to follow. The third step, and
one that was virtually as important as these others, required the management of the flow
of information to the public and other parties around the world. This plan, one of several
prepared prior to 1966 and similar to but less elaborate than those still in use by NASA for
more recent missions, seeks to ensure the appropriate release of details and the management
of information to the media and others.
[i]
GEMINI CONTINGENCY INFORMATION PLAN
MAY 11, 1966
Although extremely unlikely, situations may occur which could result in
aborting a manned mission.
Attached are suggested plans of action should a contingency occur.
Coordination by the Department of State with other governments, should it
be necessary, is covered in a DOS airgram of March 9, 1965, to appropriate posts.
NASA will remain the prime source of public information throughout all
contingency situations, with support from both the Department of Defense and
the State Department.
[ii]
INDEX
Pad or Close in Abort Pg. 1
In-Flight Contingency Pg. 3
Contingency Situation in Pre-Designated Landing
Zone (Other Than Area of Prime Recovery Vessel) Pg. 4