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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. It looks to us like the S-IVB is behaving completely normally in regard to all the blowdowns and other sequential events that take place. It looks good.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Let's make that 80 kilometers, since there are some international aspects to this flight.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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It takes a lot longer to do it, though. I had to go to a star like Sirius to finally see it.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Understand. We are real glad you got that so we can get a horizon calibration to put in the computer.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Roger. Are you recording all of the data from 23, or do you want some read down to you?
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Stand by, Jim. We think we are getting it all. We are confirming now. That is affirmative, Jim. We are getting all that is coming down. How is it going?
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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It's working very nicely. I finished—one set was Sirius, three stars, and one set with Procyon, or two sightings; three sightings with Sirius and two with Procyon.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay, Houston. This is Apollo 8. We are ready to go to the PTC attitude.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. Understand. And we understand you've completed all sets, three on one and two on another in P23. Is that right?
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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That's affirmative. But we've finished the five sightings, three on 15 and two on 16.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. What we are doing down here is this. We'd really like the horizon calibration. We would like a total of 15 marks; you know, three sets on one star, two on the other. On the other hand, we are balancing that with the need to go to PTC, and we are not losing sight of the fact that you want to go to PTC right away. So if you will bear with us another couple of minutes, we are trying to decide whether to ask you to go back and do some more of P23 or whether to clear you at this time to go to PTC. Over.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay. We started maneuvering to PTC. We are getting kind of far behind, and what I am concerned about, Mike, Jim is now taking off his pressure suit.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Well, I would prefer to do that, but we will —
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We would like to hold off on the passive thermal control until 7 hours GET and, in the meantime, to get as many more P23 marks as we can, starting with the first star and doing two sets of three marks each, and then going to the second star we gave you. And concurrent with that, if possible, we would like Bill to run this high-gain antenna checkout if Lovell's attitude is compatible with that.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay. But they have not been to date. We are almost to the passive thermal control attitude now, and Jim is just halfway through taking his suit off.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. And the reason for this is the horizon calibration requires a number of points to give you good data for the onboard NAV coming on.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Roger. We understand. We will be right back with you; just have to wait a minute here.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Okay. Just a second; we will check on that. Then are you in a position where you can go back to the star sightings?
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Okay. We will stand, and you give us a mark on that. In just a second, I will check on the antenna. Okay. It looks like we are ready to go on the high-gain antenna check. And we can either go with commands called out from the ground, and you can monitor it, or you can be talked through it, whichever you prefer.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. Affirmative. We are getting your data, and we may have a beam width change, but stand by on that.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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We're on the PTC mode now waiting for Jim, and I noticed that out my window now I can see Orion very clearly, even though the sun is bright in the other window.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Speaking of the windows, the number 5 window is getting pretty well obscured and the number 3 window is unusable.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Understand; number 3 is unusable and number 5 is obscured. Can you make out any definition at all, or do you have a target to look at?
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Well, I can see the sun. Wait till it comes around the earth, and I'll give you a better hack on that.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. We're going to go ahead and try to dump your tape right now. Circuit margins aren't too good at our present configuration. We're going to take a look at it. If it doesn't work, we may have to dump it again at a later configuration.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Houston, this is Apollo 8. I'll do two more sets on 15, and then we'll do one set on 16.
Spoken on Dec. 21, 1968, 7:05 p.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet
