Spacelog Apollo 13

Okay; probably okay, Fred. Read it nice and slow so we'll be sure to get it. Over.

Okay. Jack pushed in the 250 BAT A, BAT B entry breakers. He read battery bus volts as 32.3 on A, 37.0 on B. Then he pushed in the 275 breakers tying the BATs to the main buses. In this configuration, MAIN A is at 32.0 volts, zero amps; MAIN B is at 37.0 volts, zero amps. So it looks like the buses are okay.

Okay, Fred. Copy those numbers and thank you very much. I assume you got them off all right.

That's affirm. We got all the breakers pulled again.

Hey, Houston; Aquarius. How do you read?

Aquarius, Houston. Go ahead.

Okay. How did our … configurations appear to be working down there?

I'm sorry, Fred, but we got noisy again there.

Okay. Let me know when you want me to try it.

Okay. That sounds better already. Go ahead.

Okay. I'd just like to … how's—how's our lith-o cartridge setup … appear to be working down there.

We are reading 0.2 on our CO₂ sets here, and we're all delighted. It seems to be working fine.

Boy, that is great.

And Fred, Houston. In a little while here, I'm going to have a procedure that I want to read up to you and have you copy down for future use. It's a procedure for powering the command module main bus off the LM, and it's something that we feel that's going to come in real handy later on for such things as popping off the command module entry batteries, and also possibly for doing some preheating and preliminary powering up of the command module before we get rid of the LM. We'll have that for you in probably 10 or 15 minutes. Over.

Okay, okay, Joe. That's good. Sounds good.

Roger.

Aquarius, Houston.

Go ahead.

Okay, Fred. Our procedure-generating mill has generated another very short one for you here. It's a procedure for getting an onboard read-out —

Stand by 1, Joe.

Okay.

Okay, Joe. Go ahead.

Okay, Fred. This is a procedure for getting a read-out of the descent propellant tank temps. It's no big problem, but our LM people say that the bottom of the descent stage is probably cooling off, and we just want to verify that the descent water tank will be okay. Right now, it looks as though it won't freeze until several hours after it's empty, but we want to have you read these temperatures out to us so we can see how good our predictions are. The procedure is, on panel 16, close the PROPELLANT DISPLAY/ENGINE OVERRIDE LOGIC circuit breaker. Over.

Okay. The PROPELLANT DISPLAY OVERRIDE circuit breakers are closed. … the propellant.

Right, Fred. The next step is simply to turn the PROPELLANT TEMP PRESS MONITOR switch to DESCENT 1, read the fuel and OX temps, turn it to DESCENT 2, read the fuel and OX temps; tell us what they are.

Okay. On DESCENT 1, I get a fuel temp of 66.5 degrees, OX … on DESCENT 2, I get …

Okay, Fred. We're in noisy COMM here; I got DESCENT 1 fuel 66.5; stand by a second.

Okay. How do you read, now …?

That's better. Go ahead.

Okay. You got 66.5 on DESCENT 1 fuel temp, oxidizer temp is 66 degrees.

Okay. Copy —

On DESCENT TANK 2, fuel is reading 60—Okay. DESCENT 2 fuel is reading 68 degrees; oxidizer, 65 degrees.

Okay. Copy that, Fred. Thank you. We'd like you to pull the circuit breaker, and we'll probably come to you again in 5 or 6 hours for another check.

Okay. The panel 16 … … ENGINE … OVERRIDE is open.

Aquarius, Houston. Over.

Aquarius, Houston. Over.

Go ahead.

Okay. We're chasing a small glitch that we saw a while ago in the O₂ flow rate which is now normal again, but what we'd like you to do is, first of all, to tell us whether, during that canister procedure, you moved O₂ DEMAND REG A to any position other than CABIN, and then we'd like you to move it to OFF momentarily and back to CABIN for us.

Okay. To answer your question, Joe, it's no. I checked the CABIN all the time. Qualitatively, when we switched to this configuration, it didn't seem like the frequency or the suit fan noise … decreased … logged down a little bit, but I'll follow your procedure. You want me to take REG A, go to close and back to CABIN; is that correct?

That's correct, Fred.

Okay. We're in close.

Okay.

Now, I'm back to CABIN.

Okay. Thank you very much, Fred. I'll get back to you if we see anything.

(Music—The Age of Aquarius)

… Thank you.

That's pretty good, Fred.

Okay. Two things: first of all, we noticed a …

Gol darn it. Just as you started talking, it got noisy again, Fred; try it again.

Okay.

Try it now, loud and slow.

Okay. Jack had a question on how far out from the Moon are we now?

On how far out what?

From the Moon we are now?

Oh. Our little plot shows you just touching the 180-thousand-mile line. So you're about 40 K out from the Moon.

Okay. Okay. And the other thing is, we've noticed some fresh new particles floating around outside, so possibly the service module is starting to vent a little bit again.

Okay. Copy that, Fred. On the O₂ flow thing, we clearly saw the DEMAND REGULATOR go to OFF and back to CABIN. TELMU thinks that it's no big thing that you've seen a little change in flow due to the different resistance we've got in the circuit.

Roger.

Aquarius, Houston.

Go ahead.

Okay, Fred. Recommend you go to OFF on the BIOMED switch. We never did get any BIOMED and it might clear up the COMM a little bit.

Okay. How you read now?

Okay, Fred. That might be a little better.

We're on the 180—K line, right now.

…?

We're about 40 050.

… It's 550 over there.

Okay. It's … there.

Just split the difference.

Yes.

Okay. I got a copy of the … K …

Is that right?

EECOM.

That midcourse should be interesting. You know, the mode we're going to do it in.

Manual AGS … DPS burn. We're controlling … TTCA attitude. …

… down under …

Fortunately.

We can't help them too much. Actually it isn't bad … but … … goddamned unfortunate. In part, I get a feeling … now when I get … Just before … goes to zero in 1 second I'm going to pull them out …

Another burn that's never been done.

Go to the—Go to the technique for a lash and … it's the burn technique.

I'm sure they got something written out, maybe …

A what?

Well, hell, Jack. All you—you don't use a very good one … Just if you'll go … at your attitude reference for … and the g-meter backup. Because, really, you can almost … The command module and your odds are 60 to 40 that you're going to hit Earth blunt-end first, without any reference.

… I didn't realize that. That proves you've got a little bit above 50-percent odds that you're going to enter blunt end, and -

We made an entry like that in Apollo 8 in a … with Houston, ol' Buzz went and turned on the command module heaters and left them on. The activators, they went, “Shooo!” both tanks; we had no gas. Just had a real slow rate … We actually went out in the console and started debriefing, but left it running and watched it; and the son of a bitch did a hop-skipout, a hopout, underneath …, but not much, and then we did a long hop … but—The second reentry, also, it did one … both times. It lucked out twice and made a real peculiar … They went to zero g …

Yes.

Yes, we did, Jack. …