Spacelog Apollo 8

Roger.

We're mostly interested in looking at the secondary loop.

That's what I was going to say. I can't see any reason to check anything other than the secondary loop, can you?

That's affirmative.

Now in that cabin cold soak, we won't have any cabin fans.

Roger. I understand.

Jerry, this is Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, go.

Roger. I just got on the sextant and now looking at Texas, and the weather man is right, it looks like a pretty good day. Full of clouds down there, but not bad.

Real fine, Jim. Can you see the kids out in the yard waving?

Would you tell Pete Conrad to get his kids off my roof?

Wilco.

Jim, do you see the bright spot out in the Pacific Ocean through the sextant?

I'll try. We saw it, of course, through the windows and through the monocular. I'll see if I can spot it.

Roger.

Yes, Jerry, I can see the bright spot. It's—I guess it's the subsolar point. It's off of South America, it appears to me. It is a grayish spot compared to the blue waters surrounding it. It's undefined in diameter, though I mean, it's not a clear round spot at all; it's just a raggedy one.

Roger. That showed up real well on the TV's picture.

Apollo 8, Houston. We'd like to delay that request for a secondary loop check to a little better point as far as thrusting is concerned.

Fine. We can wait for a long time on that.

Okay.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. Jim, we've got some bird watchers in the viewing room.

Bird watchers, huh?

Roger.

Sounds good. Who are they?

Marilyn.

Oh, well, good. Say hello to her for me.

Yes, and she's got a few troops with her, too.

Did she see the TV, I wonder?

Affirmative. Barbara and Jay are with her.

Good.

Apollo 8, Houston. We're replaying your television pictures now. We can see the Chilean coast and Florida.

Very good.

That's a pretty good little television camera, isn't it?

It sure is. With the right filters on it, it's great. That was a Schmitt input.

He must be a Jack of all trades.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Bill would like to ask the friendly Flight Surgeon's permission to take a Seconal so he can sleep.

Roger. Copy.

Apollo 8, Houston. That's a “yes.”

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. Before Bill falls asleep, we'd like to have him go ahead and do that secondary EVAP check now at any time at his convenience, and if we don't happen to be able to monitor it with high bit rate, just let us know when you did it.

Roger. I'll tell him that evaporator check at any time.

Houston, Apollo 8. Over.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Good afternoon, Jerry.

Howdy.

Okay. Somebody said something about checking out the evaporator—evaporators. What do you want to do?

Roger. Before we get too far along, we'd like to see, essentially with the secondary evaporator check, what we got on the redundant components check.

Okay. Stand by.

Roger. EECOM says to be sure and let it go for at least 5 minutes.

Roger. Now you want to check out the primary evaporator also, or did you decide it's not necessary?

I guess they decided it's not necessary, Bill.

Okay.

Okay. Secondary glycol loops coming on the line.

Roger, Bill.

And the secondary evap's coming on the line.

Roger.

And it's stabilized the leg, oh, for about 5 minutes.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Alright. What do you have in mind here in the way of activating the secondary loop prior to separation? It looks like if we do have a cabin fan problem, we won't be able to do a full-blown coldsoak. Is there anything that we can do that'll do any good?

Well, right now, Bill, in the checklist, we're showing this activation at about minus 1 hour. Let me check with EECOM for a minute and see if they got any more words considering the cabin fan situation.

Roger.

Apollo 8, Houston. Looks like a good time. One hour before SEP—entry interface would be fine.

Okay. It won't do any good, then, to fool around with these cabin temp valves. …

Bill, stand by. You're—got a lot of background noise.

Go ahead now, Bill.

Read me now, Jerry?

Loud and clear.

Okay. This coldsoak is built around the premise that you've got a cabin heat exchanger, in my view; and if you haven't got a cabin heat exchanger, I'm wondering just what you can do.

He's thinking.

Apollo 8, Houston. We think it'll still do a little bit of good so we'd just as soon go through with it.

Okay. Even bypassing the suit heat exchanger and that part of it too, huh?

That's affirmative.

Okay.

Also, Bill, your secondary loop is looking good.

Okay. We just had 5 minutes. I'll deactivate it now.

Houston, Apollo 8. Over.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Hey, Jerry. When do you want to crank up the VHF, anyway?

Roger. VHF Simplex—well, we had that on the checklist for about minus 4 hours.

Okay. We wanted—we wanted to put it out prior to MAX range, don't you think? Get an idea of when we're picking it up?

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. Entry interface minus 4 hours is just about right for the VHF. That is about—oh, 142 GET.

Roger. Thank you.