Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Apollo 13, Houston. We have a CSM state vector to send you. Request P00 and ACCEPT at your convenience.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay, Vance. There's P00 and ACCEPT.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

13, the computer is yours again.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay, going back to BLOCK.

Fred Haise (LMP)

Key moment The crew take some photographs of Earth: Looks like picture-taking time again.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay, Earth should be coming into view.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay. Stand by, Vance. 3, 2, 1 -

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Earth starting to look pretty small now?

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Well, looking at here, Vance, it's hard to be convinced it's even the Earth. All we see is water and clouds.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Well, I guess that's what we want. We want pictures of weather, right, clouds.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Yes, about half of it's covered with clouds.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

This is Houston. Go ahead.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay, Van. Ready to copy in the torquing angles of the P52 option 3?

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

That's affirm—that's affirm, but stand by.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay. We've got them. Go ahead with the torquing, Jack.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay. That was stars 20 and 27 and star-angle difference is five balls, and the time at torquing would be 10 hours 40 minutes 15 seconds.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

1 hour 40 minutes and 15 seconds; 20 and 27, stars; and five balls. Roger.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Time to look out your window for us again.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Jim, we're coming up on a handover between sites. You might lose COMM momentarily.

Jim Lovell (CDR)

Okay. Understand handover, we might lose the COMM.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

You should have the Earth coming into view here shortly.

Fred Haise (LMP)

We got a new CAP COMM now.

Jim Lovell (CDR)

Negative, Houston. Say again.

Fred Haise (LMP)

Hey, you still there, Van?

Fred Haise (LMP)

I guess the world really does turn. I can see some of my landmasses now. It must be Australia down near the bottom and I guess we haven't really figured out what's over the—to the left. It must be some part of Asia. China, probably.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Hey, maybe the fact that you verified that the Earth really turns, we can call this Haise's theory, huh?

Fred Haise (LMP)

Very good, Vance. Very good.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

No, seriously. Very interestingly, we can see on the map now that you're between Guam and Hawaii and a little bit north, and you're almost out 60 000 miles.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Yes. I just did a P21 and we had 55 900.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay. That's pretty good.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

I'll let you look at it again here.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Incidentally, we're looking at a replay of your TD&E stuff here and the TV looks pretty good. First chance some of us had had to see it.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay, Vance. In R1, there's our altitude in tens of miles, 55 290.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay. Looking at our computations back here, we show you about 55 450 and going out rapidly now.

Jim Lovell (CDR)

Well, Hal might be a little bit off.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

We have a sign underneath our LEB DSKY that “my name is Hal.”

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

I can't imagine how that got there. Just remember, you have to be nice to Hal.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

I think this PTC's going to work out good. I been watching it here for the last hour here.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Good. It's looking good here.

Unidentified crew member

(Music—Aquarius)

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

13, Houston. You're very weak. Please repeat.

Jim Lovell (CDR)

Vance, to my calculations, we have taken about 10 Earth window photography pictures. I see nothing coming up here except to close the waste stowage vent here in a little while. I was thinking about getting squared away to bed down for the evening pretty soon.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay. That sounds good, Jim. FAO here would like to request just one more picture before you bed down, if you don't mind.

Jim Lovell (CDR)

Okay. We'll come through with one more picture.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

A couple of items, Jim. The first is, the time for closing the waste stowage vent is 12:24. If you turn in before that time, why it's okay as far as we're concerned down here to close it before that time just before you go to bed. The second point, we have some results on the P23s, and, if Jack's interested, we could give him the corrected altitudes we're getting, and so forth.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Yes. I sure am, Vance.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay. This is preliminary results, but it will give you some indication. Corrected altitude is turning out to be 17 plus or minus 4 kilometers, and the fact that it's plus or minus 4 kilometers indicates that you're being very consistent in judging the altitude. The effective altitude is turning out to be 10 plus or minus 12 kilometers. Comments are that, as I said before, you're being consistent on the horizon selection. The substellar point error is averaging 15 arc-minutes and if you could hold the rates to a minimum, you might shoot for 5 arc-minutes. That's the only comment there. Over.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay. We'll try doing it better next time.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

But, they're real satisfactory.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

Okay, Jack, this is the last time for the Earth coming into view in about 1 or 2 minutes.

Jack Swigert (CMP)

Okay. I got my photographer looking out there.

Vance Brand (CAPCOM)

13, Houston. I just corrected. Actually, the Earth will come into view more times. It's just that we're … to the photography. Over.

Expand selection down Contract selection up

Spoken on April 12, 1970, 5:24 a.m. UTC (54 years, 7 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet