In their postflight debriefing, Borman and Lovell noted that the food rations had been generally of good quality, but they strongly disliked the freeze-dried protein bites and advised against them being included on future missions. They also suggested that more breakfast items would have been nice, to avoid including bite-sized food that could easily produce crumbs that get loose in the cabin, and improving the packaging of some items. Because of the lengthy mission, Gemini 7 had a significantly larger supply of food than previous flights, and the astronauts often found it difficult to remove the tightly-packed food containers, some of which had also not been stowed in the correct order for the day of the flight they were intended to be eaten. As part of the in-flight medical experiments, the crew were required to collect and save some of their bodily wastes for post-flight analysis, a task they described as less-than-enjoyable. The urine collection device proved particularly difficult and unpleasant to use, especially because of its habit of leaking urine, which happened several times during the flight. Borman suggested afterwards that a tube and valve mechanism be added to the spacecraft to simply release urine into space, an idea that would be realized on the Apollo command module. The crew also strongly objected to the requirement that they record every use of drinking water and argued instead that they could simply use the meter on the water hose to gauge the amount consumed. After five days, they had performed four orbital adjustment burns that put them in a circular orbit. This orbit would last for at least 100 days without decaying, more than stable enough for the passive target during a space rendezvous. On their 31st orbit, Gemini 7 observed the underwater launch and exhaust trail of a Polaris missile from the submarine off Florida. Gemini 6A was launched on December 15, after a three-day-long delay due to a malfunction and engine shutdown immediately after ignition. It entered into an orbit, and was briefly visible from Gemini 7 just after launch. Borman and Lovell were also able to see the contrail from the launch. The plan called for the rendezvous to take place on the fourth orbit of Gemini 6A. Their first burn came 94 minutes after launch when they increased their velocity by . Due to their lower orbit they were gaining on Gemini 7 and were behind. The next burn was at 2 hours and 18 minutes when Gemini 6A made a phase adjustment to put them on the same orbital inclination as Gemini 7. They now only trailed by . The radar on Gemini 6A first made contact with Gemini 7 at 3 hours and 15 minutes when they were away.