Spacelog Apollo 13

Right.

It doesn't work too well up in space, you can't comb your hair up here.

Well, I guess you have to give up something.

Well, at least it—it helps to try. We can see you trying to comb your hair there, Jim. It looks like your—your beards haven't come along to the point where you've had to use the razor though.

Well, we've been debating that. We thought we'd take care of our beards tomorrow and make that one of our daily routines.

I take it that was a subtle hint, Vance.

No, no. We're not commenting on your appearance, Fred. I mean nothing derogatory, understand.

And, Vance, thought we'd get a picture of Jack just so that all the girls know that he's still here.

(Laughter)

…

Yes, we—we appreciate that. There he is. Big Jack.

Jack, you're in the shadow right now; we have a little bit of interference from your window, which is very bright, so we can't—I think you're smiling, but it's a little hard to tell.

…

Hey, there we go. Incidentally, we've been getting all kinds of bits of information to pass up to you. We've had baseball scores coming in, basketball. Somebody said there's 220 days, shopping days left until Christmas.

Yes. Who won the Masters, Vance?

It was a tie in the Masters and stand by. It was a tie between Littler and Casper after 72 holes, and there is going to be a playoff Monday, we understand.

Oh. Sounds good.

One thing the world might be interested in knowing is what you do after the burn in the way of configuring switches back. We—We heard you go through the checklist. But, I guess right now, basically, you probably have all the switches back in position and you're in the mode to continue on with—Okay. What does the flight plans say? You're going to be doing cislunar navigation. So, Jack you're going to be down in the LEB. Is that correct?

That's right, Vance. Be going down there shortly.

Okay. The TV now is all but black. Looks like it must be pointing into a shadow.

What he's doing, he's trying to give you one more shot of the Moon, and right now I'm setting to maneuver pad and the optics calibration attitude.

Roger.

And what I wanted to point out, I don't know if it's apparent, but … to show the advantage of doing all the dumps just before the burn, we're looking again at the same scene over quad 1 at the Moon. And now you don't see all the sparkly frozen particles outside there any more. We've sort of run off and left them.

Roger. We—We don't see anything out there anymore in the way of particles leaving the spacecraft. We'd suggest, maybe you zoom the Moon in a little bit again so we can see the shape of it better.

Okay. That brings the Moon in. We can see the terminator at the top of the melon-shaped disk.

Okay. Now you can see a few of the spark—sparkling particles going across the screen. Those are being emitted from the thrusters. Jack's maneuvering the spacecraft now.

Okay. We can see those very poorly. Well, actually, they are coming in better now. It looks like little specks going from the upper left part of the screen across to the right, and understand those are from the thrusters.

That's affirm.

Okay, 13; Houston. Just as an item of interest, advise your speed with respect to the Earth is now 4667 feet per second.

Okay. Thanks, Vance.

Okay, Apollo 13; Houston. The Moon has been in and out of the—the—our screen here. Right now it's off at the bottom side, but we can still see the particles coming off of the spacecraft.

Okay. I am going to have to pull it out the window now, Vance. The Sun's coming up on the right side.

Roger. Understand. You —

Do you want to see any shots down in the LEB, Vance?

Say again.

Do you want to see any of the photographs or do you want the TV down in the LEB?

That's right, Jim. It would be good to see what you are doing down in the LEB or the far corner of the spacecraft where the optics are. Might be interesting to describe what you will do in the next few minutes in the way of sighting.

Okay, Vance. First we are going to give you a shot of the sleep station.

Okay. The camera's bounced around a little, but we can see the green computer come in every once in a while.

While Jack is getting the sleep station rolled up, I thought I would show you one interesting corner. We've got a temporary stowage bag here and that's where all our wastepaper and all that goes while we're—after every meal. It's in the right-hand corner down by our dump system.

Roger. Understand. We're looking at the wastebasket.

And the age-old question that is always asked us is how do we get rid of liquid waste and that line that you see, I think you can see it now, it goes right outside where we open up the overboard drain dump, and all of our waste products, liquid waste products, go out through that line and get dumped overboard.

Roger. Understand, and we can see somebody's foot, as well.

Okay. Fred is now going down there, and he is going to try to get underneath the sleep station on his side where we have a sleep restraint. And the whole object of that is to … to position the body between the—between the bottom of the spacecraft and—so it doesn't float up between that and the bottom of the couch.

Roger. The sleep restraint of the hammock is coming into view underneath the couch. It's the white object.

You perhaps can see the zipper of the hammock right now. It's the black lines in that white object.

Right. We can see it.

These hammocks, by the way, are very comfortable. When we first heard about them in the design of Apollo, we thought they weren't necessary, but they turned out to be very nice devices to sleep in.

I'm trying now to get down there with Fred to show you how it works. I keep floating up, though, but maybe we can get a little shot here.

Okay. We have somebody upside down in the photograph now. Realizing, of course, in—in space there is no really rightside up or upside down. It still looks that way to us.

Okay. That's—That's Fred now. I'm trying to put him rightside up, for you folks back there in the sleep station. Fred, would you move your hands there so the folks back home can see you?

Okay. That's coming in real clear, Jim. We see Fred in the sleep restaint—restraint.

As a matter of fact, Vance, I find my—I find Fred down there all the time.

Yes. I can see he appreciates that. Looks fairly comfortable.

Looks like there is a lot of room down there, considering all the boxes on the floor and underneath the couch.

It's surprising. There still is quite a bit of room down there even with the Hycon camera box down. And now, I'm going to bring the camera back up.

Okay, Vance. If there is no more that you would like to see right now, we'll terminate our little TV for you today.

Okay. Thank you very much, Jim. Appreciated seeing inside the spacecraft and getting a look at the Moon that you're rapidly approaching.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay. At your convenience we have an item to give you which will have to be copied. It's information on how to photograph Comet Bennett at time 32 hours GET. Over.

Okay. Stand by 1 minute.

Okay.

Okay, Vance. Go ahead.

Okay. Time 32 hours 00 minutes GET. Instructions at completion of P23, maneuver to following attitude: roll 101.0, pitch 090.0, yaw 000.0. High gain antenna angles will be: pitch minus 23, yaw 93. Use normal PTC procedures to dampen rates. After vehicle's stable, and before spinup, take photographs of Comet Bennett. Use the DAC on the sextant with magazine G. That is, very high-speed black-and-white film, right? That's the dim-light film. Take three photos, one each at 5-, 20-, and 60-seconds' time exposure. Use AUTO optics. NOUN 88 values are R₁ plus 34717, R₂ minus 08028; R₃ plus 35075. Take three photos one each at 5-, 20-, and 60-second time exposure using manual optics. Shaft will be 000.8 degrees, trunnion 12.5 degrees. Comment: Strip off about 50 frames; that is, 2 seconds of—at 24 feet per second before the first frame and after the last frame of the photos. That is, 2 second—2 seconds at 24 frames per second—before the first frame and after the last frame of photos.

And that's all.

Okay. The time is—The event will be at 32:00; and we're to maneuver to the following attitude; roll 101.0, pitch 090.0, yaw all zips. High gain angles will be pitch minus 23, yaw 93. And we're to use normal PTC procedures to damp the rates. And after damping the rates and before spinup, we're to put the DAC on the sextant with the magazine G, very high-speed black and white film. Then, we're to take three photos, one each at 5-, 20-, and 60-seconds' time exposure using audio—AUTO optics. Our NOUN 88 values R₁ plus 34717, R₂ minus 08028, R₃ plus 35075. Thence, three more photos, one each at 5-, 20-, 60-seconds' time exposure using manual optics. Shaft 0.8 degrees, trunnion 12.5 degrees. And we're to take 2—second bursts at 24 frames per second, before and after these pictures.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Jim, for PTC tonight, request that you disable quads C and D. That's the opposite of last night. Over.

Okay. For PTC tonight, disable quads C and D.

Roger. And advise in approximately an hour, we'll have some read-ups whenever you're ready to take them regarding solo book changes.

Okay. We'll be standing by for it.

Houston, 13.

Go ahead, 13.

Have you all got a chance to look at the data on the SPS yet?

Stand by 1, Fred.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead.

Fred, it looks good, but they haven't had a chance to evaluate everything. They'll probably be finished with looking at strip charts in about 15 minutes, and after that we'll try to get back with you.

Okay. Thank you.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead.

On the P33, just like to verify that you changed the NOUN 88 values for this last star. It looks like they haven't been changed. Over.

Okay, Vance.

That's better. Let's read you what we—what we have. We have what they had in the flight plan, and if it's been changed from the flight plan, we don't have it.

Stand by 1.

We think you're right, Vance. It looks like they used the same set of NOUN 88 for both stars by mistake.

Okay, Vance. That ought to complete the P23s, right?

Okay. Very good, Jack.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

We have some results on your—your first star, if you'd like to hear them. The rest of the stars we'll—we'll have to give you in a couple of hours. Over.

Go ahead.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay. We have several items, here. First, is a reminder on the PTC that R₁ should be 375—0.375 degrees as last night, to get 0.3-degree rotation rate. The second one —

Okay. Copy that.

Okay. The second one, at 32 hours looking at Bennett's Comet—we want the pictures taken when the spacecraft is as stable as it's going to be before starting PTC. The stability requirement is very high. We weren't sure if you understood that from what we passed up. In addition, the photographs might not show as much as the eye can see of the comet, so if you see anything interesting about the structure of the comet, why, sketching it is in order and is encouraged. Over.

Okay, Vance. What we'll do is, when we get to attitude, we'll disable the quads and do like we did last night; we'll let GUIDO and you people down there tell us when you think we are stable enough; then we'll do all this work with the DAC on the sextant, first; and then when we get that done, we'll go back and put the sextant eyepiece back on and see what we can observe visually.

Okay. That sounds good. Also, while you are waiting for the vehicle to stabilize, it might be interesting to have the eyepiece on and be looking at it visually. Okay. Next item: your SPS burn had no anomalies whatsoever. It was a very good burn.

Okay. Very good.

Next item: request hydrogen tank 1 HEATER OFF for balancing purposes.

And Apollo 13, another item: something that we have observed and you might be seeing is a slight TCE fluctuation on fuel cell 3. This fluctuation has been going from about 152 to 160 over a 37-second period. It has been seen on other flights in the past. No one is worried about it, but the usual fluctuation is about 1-1/2 degrees instead of 7 seconds, so I thought you should be aware of it.

Okay, Vance. And one other slight distinction we've noted is the flow of hydrogen versus the oxygen is not exactly matched on fuel cell 3 either.

Okay. We copy. And the last item: we'd like to send you an IRIG update, so at your convenience, request P00 and ACCEPT.

Okay. We are in P00 and ACCEPT, Vance.

Okay.

Quad C and D are disabled, Vance.

Roger. Disabled. And down here, we see that your hydrogen and oxygen on the fuel cell are exactly matched, so we suspect it's purely a spacecraft read-out problem.

Okay, Vance, let us know when you're through with the DSKY so we can load NOUN 88?

Roger. We'll let you know, Jack.

Okay. You're go for the pictures.

Okay, Vance. We tried our AUTO OPTICS and couldn't pick it up there. We're pointing pretty much right into the Sun, and things are pretty well washed out. And I've gone to MANUAL OPTICS and I'm trying to get 0.8, 12.5 on the shaft and trunnion, and I still can't pick it up. So—it's very light in the sextant, so I kind of think maybe we're too near the Sun to see it.

That's right, Vance. The sextant is all—it's—it's all milky and it—any comet that could be seen through there is just going to be missed in the background.

Okay, we copy that. We got some discussion. Stand by.

Okay, Vance, it isn't—we're not looking into the Sun—what we are getting is a large reflection from the Sun behind us off the LM; and it is—it is coming on that quad 1 there, and that quad is reflecting back into the sextant.

Okay, Jack. Understand. Just a question: if you look through the telescope, can you see the comet at all? Over.

No, I can't, Vance. It's—it's still too light.

Say, Vance?

Roger. Go ahead.

Are the flowers blooming yet?

Gee, I sure haven't seen any.

Okay.

Hey, we've—we've got quite a discussion down here on your trying to observe the comet, and this reflection is not unexpected. And give us another minute, and we'll be back with you on something on that.

Okay. I doubt very seriously though, if we take any photographs with high-speed black and white with the light coming into the sextant that you're going to get anything out of it.

Okay. Unanimous opinion is that you're right, and we'll scratch all of this Bennett Comet stuff on the way out, with the hope that conditions will be more favorable after TEI. Over.

Sounds good. Without the LM, we may have a better chance.

Roger.

And Apollo 13, you're GO for PTC. Your rates are very low according to what we can read.

Okay. Are you going to give a call on OMNI B, Vance?

Do you read, Vance?

Roger. Go ahead. Request OMNI B, Fred, and secure the high-gain antenna.

Okay. You got it.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Just something to think about. In about 30 minutes, we can generate the pads that we have yet to send up before the sleep period, so we could support an earlier sleep period if you so desired. And—but, it will take us 30 minutes to get that stuff. The other thing is any time you're ready to copy, I can read up the solo book changes. Over—And, also, two pages in the flight plan.

Okay, Vance. We're about ready to copy the solo book changes and the flight plan changes, and whenever your pads are ready, we'll take those. And as far as moving up the sleep period, that's fine, but we'll—if we don't go to sleep right away, we'll use it to get out some of our lunar maps and study them.

Okay, Vance, I'm ready to copy the solo book changes there.

Okay. First, turn to page 12. On the right-hand side of the page, starting from the middle of the page down, everything under “Cycle 5 frames, Replace dark side or dark slide” should be deleted until you get to the very bottom of the page where you have “Acquisition MSFN OMNI D” and that should remain in. Also, leave in “Remove window shades,” which is about the third line down from where you start.

Okay. Okay. Then from “Cycle 5 frames, Replace dark slide,” from there on down, delete.

That's everything from there on down, with the exception of “Remove window shades” and at the bottom “Acquisition MSFN OMNI D.”

Okay. Copy.

And that includes in the margin to the left, the “DAP load” that's at the very start there and the “0.0507” and “plus 0500,” farther down.

Okay. Got it.

Okay. Going to page 13.

Okay.

Okay, in the left margin, just below 105 hours GET, cross out the “0507” and the “plus 0500,” and below that, add in “DAP load” as follows: “10111 and 11111.”

Okay. Got it.

Okay. Now, next, at about 105:05, there's a “VERB 48.” That should be moved up to 105, and below that, the “VERB 49 maneuver” should be moved up, too.

Okay. That “VERB 48” should be moved up to 105:05 and also the “VERB 49.”

That should be moved up to 105:00. I'm sorry. Both.

Okay.

And what that does is give you more time to maneuver.

Okay. Next.

All right.

Page 14, right-hand side, near the bottom under “Orbital Science,” scratch out “Verify DSE ON,” and also delete “Visual target 3 on track 180 plus 19,” and cross out the penned-in “D5.”