Spacelog Apollo 8

Maneuvering now.

Thank you.

Houston, we made the burn at 7.7 plus X plus 00001 Y; and Z's are all zeros. Gimbal angles, roll 180, pitch 310, and yaw 020.

Roger. I copy plus X 7.7. Y 0.1; and roll, pitch, and yaw 180, 310, and 20.

Did you get that information, Houston?

Apollo 8, Houston. How are you reading?

Read you loud and clear. Did you get the information?

That's affirmative. I say again, we copied plus X 7.7, one-tenth in Y, no Z; roll, pitch, and yaw, 180, 310, and 020.

Roger. The burn was made at—initiated at 04:45.

Roger. Copy 04:45 —

Okay. Do you want us to transfer that to the CS—to the LM state vector or just leave it alone? You —

Affirmative, Frank. We would like you to transfer from the CSM to the LM state vector.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

How is that booster looking now? Is it drifting away rapidly, or how does it look?

Bill is the only one that can see it. Just a minute

We're 90 degrees from its X-axis, and we must be out 1000 feet and moving out.

Roger. Understand; 90 degrees from its X-axis and about 1000 feet and separating.

Plus or minus a couple of thousand.

Understand.

Houston, this is Apollo 8. I think we've got clearance now; we got a little behind on our P23's, but I suggest we go ahead and start those now.

Roger. Stand by.

We're well clear of the S-IVB now, Houston.

Roger, Bill. Thank you, and at your convenience, could you give us the PRD reading? And as far as the P23 goes, that's just fine to get started with it. It looks like your first star, which is number 14, should be good until about 05:15 GET. Over.

Roger. We'll start P23.

Houston, Apollo 8 with a PRD reading.

Go ahead.

Roger. At 4 hours 4 minutes, Commander is 0, CMP 0.64, LMP 0.02.

Got that. Copy left to right: 0, 0.64, and 0.02 at 4 hours and 4 minutes. Thank you.

Roger. At 04:53, it was 0.01, 0.64, 0.03, and negligible on the survey meter.

Roger. Thank you.

I have a beautiful view of the S-IVB and the earth here on one. I'll try and get a picture for you.

Hope so.

Apollo 8, Houston. We've got you about a minute away from the continuous vent open and 14 minutes away from the big dump, and we would like an estimate on your distance now if you can give it.

Stand by. Our distance is about 3000 feet we would estimate.

Thank you.

And we can see the vent.

Apollo 8. Houston. Say again.

We can see the vent.

Roger. Thank you.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Jim.

Boy, it's really hard to describe what this earth looks like. I'm looking out my center window, which is a round window, and the window is bigger than the earth is right now. I can clearly see the terminator. I can see most of South America, all the way up to Central America, Yucatan, and the peninsula of Florida. There is a big swirling motion just off the east coast, and then going on over toward the east, I can still see West Africa, which has a few clouds right now. We can see all the way down to Cape Horn in South America.

Good grief, that must be quite a view.

Yes. Tell the people in Tierra Del Fuego to put on their raincoats; looks like a storm is out there.

Roger. Will do. Do you care to give them a 24-hour forecast?

Houston, Apollo 8.

Glad to hear you've got four out of five, and your big dump will be coming up in 2 minutes or so.

Roger. We're standing by.

The S-IVB has started dump.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Apollo 8.

Roger. Mike, did you say star 14 was good till about 05:30 or something?

Yes. Stand by while I give you that time again. Star number 14 should be good for about another 8 minutes, Jim—7 minutes.

Okay. Now be advised, the optics calibration is very difficult to do because of all the other little stars floating here. I'm going to …, bypass it and do it at the end of this.

Roger, Apollo 8. Understand.

You should have the LOX dump now, Apollo 8.

Houston, this is 8. I'm looking through the scanning telescope and that LOX dump and just blanked out completely the entire scanning telescope.

Understand.

It's a fantastic sight, Bill. Looks like the S-IVB, a small attitude excursion while it's dumping.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger. I've got a flight plan update for Bill if he's ready to copy.

Stand by.

Stand by.

Ready to copy.

Okay. We are about 05:10 GET where we will record the BLOCK data TLI plus four and TLI plus 11. The TLI plus four PAD that we gave you before is perfectly all right. We will not require that one, and we will have the TLI plus 11 hour PAD for you shortly, then at 05:45 or 6 hours on that high-gain antenna checkout. Roger. Standing by.

We are on OMNI D, and we heard—we lost you after—TM plus four was okay.

Okay. The TLI plus 4 hour PAD is okay. We will have the TLI plus 11 hour PAD for you shortly, and at 05:50, for your high-gain antenna checkout, we would like you to leave that switch in WIDE BEAM with reference to our conversation the other day; leave it in WIDE.

Roger. Don't want to zap your receivers.

No, it has to do with some loss of tracking data, so it is better to leave it WIDE.

Houston, Apollo 8. Are you recording what we are getting out of 23?

Stand by one, Jim; I'll check.

That is affirmative, Jim; we are copying your P23.

Pretty big numbers there.

Well, we think that is because you bypassed the trunnion check.

Houston, we are getting some really big numbers in DELTA-R and DELTA-V.

Roger. Understand, Jim.

Do you want us to proceed with this, or should we just leave them alone?

Apollo 8, say again.

Do you want us to accept these, or should we leave them alone?

Stand by.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. We do not wish you to accept those marks. This is due to the fact that in bypassing the trunnion bias check, you still have big numbers left in those registers, so you go ahead when—after you do the trunnion bias check. Those numbers will become small later, but do not accept them right now.

Understand, Houston.

We have a TLI plus 11 hour update for you when you are ready to copy.

Stand by.

Roger. Ready to copy TLI plus 11.

Roger, Bill. TLI plus 11, and this assumes no midcourse correction number 1: it's an SPS/G&N; 63330 minus 163 plus 129. Are you with me so far?

Roger.

Okay. 013:56:47.59 minus 00489 plus 00000 plus 47250 177 144 000, not applicable, plus 00197 47253 554 47050 12 1278 256 023, up 265, left 18. Are you with me so far?

Roger.