Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay. Thank you, Hawaii. How do you read?

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Hawaii, Houston Network. Voice check on GOSS Conference.

CommTech

Hawaii LOS. Unable to find.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Hawaii, this is Houston CAP COM. Over.

CommTech

Houston CAP COM, Hawaii.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Hawaii, Houston CAP COM. I would like to have a voice check.

CommTech

Roger. I read you loud and clear.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. I'm reading you loud and clear. I understand you have contact with the spacecraft. Is that affirm?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

I have uplink voice to the spacecraft; the downlink is too low in the mud.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Understand that you have good uplink, but your downlink is in the mud. You don't have any way of copying it either, is that correct —

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, Apollo 8. … again. How do you read?

CommTech

That is affirmative.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, Hawaii, we can hear Apollo 8, calling down. Would you answer and tell them that we did copy that?

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Spoken on Dec. 23, 1968, 12:19 a.m. UTC (55 years, 3 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

CommTech

Apollo 8, Hawaii M&O. Houston reports they copied your last.

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Hawaii, Houston Network, GOSS Conference.

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Hawaii, Houston Network, GOSS Conference. Your NET 2.

CommTech

Houston Network, Hawaii.

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Roger. Did you copy the CAP COM?

CommTech

Affirm. We copied the CAP COM.

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Is he keying the transmitters out there?

CommTech

He did key it one time, Network.

Milt Windler (FLIGHT)

Okay. I'm going to ask him to call the spacecraft again, and I would like for you to give me a report if he does not key the transmitters.

CommTech

Roger, Network. Is our NET 1 now conferenced up —

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Your NET 2 is conferenced to our GOSS Conference here.

CommTech

Roger. How about our GOSS Conference loop?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Your GOSS Conference loop is dead.

CommTech

Roger. We are GO for command. We were unable to transmit before.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

We transmitted to the spacecraft as per CAP COM and they acknowledged our transmission.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. We got back together again. You're loud and clear. We've been reading you. We have a problem down here on the ground getting our signal from MCC out to remote site.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8. Houston. I've got a ball score for you. It was Oakland 41, Kansas City 6 is the final score. That's 41 to 6, Oakland. We're trying to get some news releases over here for you. I suspect we're going to find that the staged TV show was probably the biggest news of the day.

Frank Borman (CDR)

I'm sorry that the TV lens broke down.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Well, we're working on that some more. I'm not sure that the whole thing is lost yet. It appears that our problem is one where the light intensity which is sensed by our light meter in there is picking up an average field which is much larger than the earth, and so it's sensing a great deal of deep space environment which is dark, and we're suspicious that this is probably opening up the lens aperture as wide as it will go, and then when you point the camera at the earth while the earth is only filling about 3 degrees of cone angle, whereas lens takes in 9. So it looks like you're probably just saturating the tube. Now we're playing around now with some —

Frank Borman (CDR)

We just lost you again, Houston.

Frank Borman (CDR)

I just lost your last transmission; you were clipped.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

0kay. Did you get any of my comments about the TV tube?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. What I—what we've got in mind here is that we are looking at some of the lenses you have on board for cameras, and we are going to see if one of them can possibly be used to attenuate some of this light so that you will be able to take one of these pictures, and we are running some tests now, and we'll let you know about those. I also have a maneuver PAD that I need to read up to you whenever it's convenient.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Let me get a pencil. Be fine right now.