Spacelog Apollo 8

Key moment TV broadcast 1: views of the earth: Are you receiving television now?

Apollo 8, Houston. We just got it.

You are getting it?

Okay, Apollo 8. We have a good picture.

We're rolling a -

Okay. We're rolling around to a good view of the earth, and as soon as we get to the good view of the earth, we'll stop and let you look out the window at the scene that we see. Jim Lovell's down in lower equipment bay preparing lunch, and Bill is holding a camera here for us both.

Bill's going to take the camera down to the lower equipment deck with Jim.

Roger.

Okay. We're getting a pretty good picture, but if you'd move it a little slower—every time you move it around, it breaks up the scan.

We gotcha.

(Laughter)

This is known as preparing lunch and doing P23 at the same time.

You've got everybody standing on their heads down here.

How go—Has he got it turned upside down? You've got the wrong REFSMMAT.

Well, we all have our problems.

How is the picture now, Houston?

They are really good.

Okay. Now we are coming up on the view that we really want you to see. That's the view of the earth, and if you will break for just a minute, Bill is going to put on the large lens. So we will be right back with you.

Okay. Thank you.

Houston, we are now showing you a view of the earth through the telephoto lens.

Okay. We are not receiving a picture right now.

How about now?

Okay. We don't have a picture yet.

You seeing anything at all, Houston?

Okay, Apollo 8. We don't have a picture yet.

Alright. We will put the other lens back on, and we will show you that.

Apollo 8, how about standing by on that for just a minute. Let's check our ground link.

Apollo 8, we have a picture now.

Okay. Let's try the other lens again then, once again.

Okay. Thank you.

Do you have a picture now?

That's negative.

Apollo 8, …

Okay. Do you have anything. Houston? We have it on the earth.

We are having no joy.

Okay. Standby.

Okay. How about now, Houston?

Still no joy.

You don't have a lens cover on there, do you?

No. We checked that, as a matter of fact.

Anything?

Still no joy.

How about now?

Still no joy. There is a picture. We have a picture. Okay. It is a little difficult to see what we have.

That is the earth, but it is not the telephoto lens, unfortunately. It is just a regular inside lens.

Okay. It is coming in as a real bright blob on the screen. It is hard to tell what we are looking at.

You are looking through some haze on the windows too, unfortunately.

And the earth is very bright, besides.

Okay. We got the earth in about the center of the screen and a little bit low, and it looked like there were some objects that moved across it—the screen at the same time. Do you have any comment on those?

That is some of the water—ice coming off the vent nozzle.

Roger.

How does it look now?

Still the same thing; it is—the target is extremely bright, and it is very difficult to make out what we are looking at.

It is unfortunate that we do not have—we can't make the other lens work here. I don't know what the problem is.

Okay. Apollo 8, would you verify that the ALC is on?

We have tried it both ways.

Oh, okay; thank you. What we are getting now is a good picture.

Say again.

Okay. That's a—that's a real good picture. That is the best one that we have had. And how about going ahead and just leaving your pictures inside until we can think some more of what we can do to adjust for that light?

Roger. Jim, what are you doing here? Jim is fixing dessert. He is making up a bag of chocolate pudding. You can see it come floating by. Bill is coming up from the lower equipment bay. It is unfortunate that this telephoto lens. doesn't work. Show them the lens that's the culprit here, Jim. This lens doesn't seem to be working; I can't understand why we're not—perhaps it's a problem of light transmission through it.

This transmission is coming to you approximately halfway between the moon and the earth. We have been 31 hours and about 20 minutes into flight. We have about less than 40 hours to go to the moon. You can see that Bill has his toothbrush here. He has been brushing regularly. To demonstrate how things float around in zero g. It looks like he plays for the Astros, the way he tries to catch those things. I certainly wish that we could show you the earth. It is a beautiful, beautiful view, with predominately blue background and just huge covers of white clouds, particularly one very strong vortex up near the terminator. Very, very beautiful. Perhaps we will get some assistance from the people on the ground and be able to deter—to determine why this other lens is not transmitting properly.

Houston, did you get any light at all coming through that telephoto lens?

Apollo 8, we were getting what you were showing us on your normal lens, and I don't think we got anything on the telephoto. We are working on this now. One of the problems seems to be that it is a low light level lens; we're afraid that you might burn it out pointing it at something too bright.

Well, the earth is very, very bright. There is nothing in the lens you can burn out. The camera still seems to be working. We can give you a lumens reading of the earth right now if you like.

Hey, Frank, how about a couple of words on your health for the wide world.

Well, we are all in very good shape. Jim is busy working preparing lunch. Bill is playing cameraman right now, and I am about to take a light reading on the earth. We all feel fine. It was a very exciting ride on that big Saturn, but it worked perfectly, and we are looking forward now, of course, for the day after tomorrow when we will be just 60 miles any from the moon.

Roger. You all look great on candid TV.

Okay. I just got a reading on the earth, Houston. It is 320. The earth is showing 320 lumens now. If you get a closeup of Jim Lovell, Bill, you can let everyone see he has already outdistanced us in the beard race. Jim has got quite a beard going already.

Happy birthday, Mother.

Okay. Jim is going to take a shot of us from the lower equipment bay, and then we have to get back to our passive thermal control in the bar-b-que mode so that we don't get one side of the spacecraft too hot for too long at a time. So we will be signing off here, and we will be looking forward to seeing you all again shortly.

Roger.

Goodbye from Apollo 8.