Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Confirm that battery B is a little bit lower, and this is attributed to the parasitic loads that are on there.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. I just didn't see the same kind of drop for A. So if you think it's okay, it's fine.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirm. You don't have the same parasitic loads on that; B is actually drawing some.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. I guess that's the radiators, huh?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We've seen enough of the secondary evaporator. We would like for you to wait about 2 minutes between the time you go to RESET and the time you turn the pump off.

Frank Borman (CDR)

I agree; good idea. And we plan to leave the water control in AUTO.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Looking over the—our redundant component check, it appears we have not yet checked the integrity of the secondary loop radiators; and if you haven't done that, sometime we would like to open up the secondary radiators but not flow through them and just measure the accumulator pressure.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, we don't show that in our pre-LOI check, but we're willing to go ahead and do it if you want to.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roger. We just noticed that it isn't there, and, yes, we would like to. You understand that we are not proposing that you flow, but merely we check for any pressure decay.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. Wait till I get my trusty assistant here to help me.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay, Houston. We're going to blow the secondary, I mean, open the secondary RAD for 30 seconds now.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay. They're closed now.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Thank you. Looks good.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. No meteoroids yet.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. You take your tape recorder to stop, and we'll reset it then and give it back to you.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. We still need to talk about the REV 2 attitudes we're going to use here to work around the fact that you have a fogged center window. Whenever that's convenient, we'd like to go over what your thoughts are on the subject so we can make sure we can get our flight plan squared away.

Bill Anders (LMP)

My thoughts are to make—to do with the best with what we have. We are not interested in changing a lot of things right now.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. The one proposal that sounds like it has some advantage to it: if we let Jim do his evaluation through the telescope, you do everything exactly the same except you turn and roll over 180 degrees so that your head's up, and let Jim do his tracking through the telescope and you'll still be a yaw right when you go to pick up your TV and that type of thing. It looks like that probably will cover everything. We can do that or we can just go as is and just have to let some of that tracking evaluation go by. Another alternate would be to have Jim look out the right-hand rendezvous window, and you may have to change your attitude in order to get the same picture there also.

Frank Borman (CDR)

I think we'll try to do that, but I don't—this is one of the things that we'll work out when we get there.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. The reason we were looking into it in the flight plan is, if you do want to try rolling over and flying heads up or something of that nature, we can help Bill get a little more out of his photography by giving him some new film settings and that type of thing. We'll have something like that available; in case you do fly heads up, why, we'll have some numbers, we can call up for film settings.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. We are going to have to dump more urine here shortly. Will this bother your tracking?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, we're checking on that with the tracking people now.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, just give us the time when we can start on it, and we'll hold off until you say so.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, and you can anticipate a handover between stations here on the hour, and you might get a slight glitch as we go through. I'll give you a call when we get back.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Thank you, Ken. What station are we going to be going to, Ken?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. We'll be going to Honeysuckle.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. You're cleared for a dump at this time, and I understand this is the last gas station for a long time.

Frank Borman (CDR)

You mean you don't want us to dump after this for a while?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirm. Due to the tracking as you approach the LOI, they would like to minimize any of these type of perturbations.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston through Honeysuckle.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. Houston through Honeysuckle. We read you loud and clear.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Thought you went to sleep.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roger. Did that gas station call wake you up?

Bill Anders (LMP)

Man, I've been all eyeballs and elbows here for the last several hours.

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Spoken on Dec. 24, 1968, 2:55 a.m. UTC (55 years, 3 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

I'll bet. If you've got nothing else to do, I do have two charts in your LOI table that I need to give you some update numbers on.

Bill Anders (LMP)

We'll get our LOI tables man on the line here, Houston. Stand by.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay, Houston, CMP here. I understand you have some updates for me.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Yes, sir; I've got a couple of charts in your chart book under LOI, and I have some numbers to fill in, one of them being the chart of LOI DELTA-V magnitude versus abort DELTA-V.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay. Stand by, and I'll get it out.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay, I have the chart out. Go ahead.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Alright. Mode 1, 5 hours, roll 1.38, pitch 7.89, yaw 357.37. Mode 1, 15 minutes, roll 180.73, pitch 29.46, yaw 1.65. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. The new attitudes for the Mode 1, 5 hour Mode 15 minute are as follows: roll—for the Mode 1, 5 hour, roll 1.38, pitch 7.89, yaw 357.37; Mode 1, 15 minute, roll 180.73, pitch 29.46, yaw 1.65.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. That is correct. Now I also have to give you a couple of points to plot on that curve. The present curve you have drawn is based on a 60-mile perigee or perilune, and you right now have a 62-mile pericynthian; and the reason that your target is for 62 miles is to pass over the landing site, so I have five sets of coordinates for you to copy.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Is this to go on the same chart to redraw the curve?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. We'll go in on the LOI DELTA-V magnitude 1600, abort DELTA-V 2450, two-four-five-zero.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay. LOI DELTA-V magnitude 1600, abort DELTA-V 2450. Stand by just one. I have it; continue.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. The next one is the LOI DELTA-V 2000, abort DELTA-V 3130.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I've got that plotted.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

2400 LOI DELTA-V, abort DELTA-V 3880, three-eight-eight-zero.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

2800 LOI, abort DELTA-V 4700. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I have that one plotted, too.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Alright. The last one is LOI DELTA-V 2990, abort DELTA-V 5114. That is almost directly into the end of the present curve, 5114.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Say again the LOI DELTA-V magnitude, please.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. 2990. Okay. I have it plotted.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Alright. And on the next one, you should have a chart (number 10), and we have three numbers to go in there for a Mode 3 gimbal angle.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. Go ahead with the Mode 3 gimbal angles.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roll 180.87, pitch 42.31, yaw 1.65.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Mode 3 gimbal angles are as follows: roll 180.87, pitch 42.31, yaw 1.65.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Could you please send up a French curve for me?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

The only one I have is about 6 foot.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, could you give us some gimbal angles to point at the moon? I never have seen it the whole trip, and I'm wondering which way it is from us now.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Houston, Apollo 8. Radio check.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

We are getting ready to give you a rundown on your systems. We're going over all the final steps, and we will tell you what we see in the way of trajectory and systems information. And once again, Dr. Joe Kerwin has brought over all the latest news, and we can read that up to you a little bit at a time if you aren't going to sleep.

Frank Borman (CDR)

What's he going to do, read out of the AMA Journal?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Go ahead. We are all ears.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Here is one: the previously scheduled 72-hour cease fire by the Viet Cong went into effect today, 17 hours before the 24 hour allied truce was to begin.

Frank Borman (CDR)

You lost us on the numbers there. What was that again?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

The gist of it was that the VC went into a cease fire earlier than the truce that we had planned on, as a Christmas holiday type.