Bill Anders (LMP)

COMM sure is good all of a sudden, isn't it?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Yes, this is outstanding.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay, we have completed two sets on 26 and one set on 16.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roger. Getting pretty speedy there.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Jim is getting to know the objects.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Are you receiving the data, Houston?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, Apollo 8. We have looked at the data and it looks good and they feel like you can go back to PTC attitude anytime you are ready to. And if you can—go ahead.

Frank Borman (CDR)

What attitude do you want to use? The same one?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, if you can reach over Bill there and get to panel 3, I believe we would like to cycle the oxygen fans. And also like to get the BIOMED switch over to CMP.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

If you have to bother Bill to do that, why, we can hold off on the cryo fans.

Frank Borman (CDR)

No, he moved. We already chased him under the seat. Okay, now you want just the oxygen fans on?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirm. Turn one on for about 2 minutes and when we turn it off, then we will turn the next one on. We don't want to turn them on simultaneously though.

Frank Borman (CDR)

I know that. I mean you don't want hydrogen though?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirmative. Just the oxygen.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Ken, just recap a little explanation here on your maneuver PAD, something which I'm really not knowledgeable about, the way it was presented to us, you mentioned fast return P37 DELTA-V of 8750, just briefly clarify that, will you please?

Frank Borman (CDR)

Ken, can you give us a little report on how our trajectory looks and the tracking is going and things like that?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, sure will. I will put a summary together here.

Frank Borman (CDR)

And the pericynthian sign.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roger, we will get all that together for you in just a few minutes.

Frank Borman (CDR)

And we never did get the news.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Come off it, come off it.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay, the fans have been cycled 2 minutes each and they are back off.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, thank you very much.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 8 is back in the PTC attitude, reads MHPTC.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, thank you. And in reference to your question about the P37 DELTA-V, 8750, that's the number that goes into the option at P37 for your minimum time return. That gives you a target for the Indian Ocean. And in this case, we are going to have to use the high-speed procedures that were worked out for you to use some minus number for the major axis.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. Understand. I'm going to give that a try, Ken, in a run through. I tried it yesterday, I wasn't getting too much in the way of results. I will give it a try today.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. And on the—your tracking that we have now, it still looks like the time we gave you last night for time of pericynthian is still good, 69 plus 10 and right now your flyby earth pericynthian altitude is 65.8. Looks like the midcourse number 3 is going to be something less than 1 foot-per-second. And all trajectory parameters are still holding real fine.

Expand selection up Contract selection down Close
Frank Borman (CDR)

That's the things we like to hear. We would like to keep those holding very much.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. We're getting near—we're going to need to dump some urine overboard here. I wonder if that's going to foul your trajectory up. Or can we go ahead and do it?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

No, that's okay. Something that is kind of interesting though is that the last time you had your water dump, they noticed a change in the trajectory tracking at the same time and they got through correlating it, they found some fellow that thought he knew the characteristics of a nozzle and how much water you're dumping and his estimates of the effect on the trajectory seemed to coincide with the tracked results. So I guess you have to stay onto some of those things.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. Okay. We'll go ahead and dump it.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

You planning on using our computer any time in the near future, I thought I'd do a little P37.

Expand selection down Contract selection up

Spoken on Dec. 23, 1968, 1:58 a.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. You can go ahead and run that 37 and we're going to kind of watch that from the ground, too, and see how it works out. A couple of items that are just of general interest in the trajectory world. Looks like the uncertainty in position was about 12 miles. Your uncertainty in velocity is about a quarter of a foot per second. And the perigee altitude of uncertainty is 5 miles.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. Understand. Just for information, perhaps you read it out on the ground. I ran our pericynthian altitude determination using first of all, P21. The star state vector that we navigated with, we have plus 84.7 mile altitude and then we ran out your state vector that you updated with us the last time. We got 64.2 and then I ran P30, using our state vector and got 82.6 nautical miles. These are all plus.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

What I'm going to attempt to do on P37 is to input your DELTA-V on your TLI plus 44 and use that 44 burn time. I notice that the entry velocity is a little high. We might not be able to do a normal P37, but we'll give it a try.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Houston, one more question then before I start. Did you notice on this last update PAD, this minus MA NC-1. Was that referring to the P37 fast return or the nominal maneuver which you gave me?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, that's referring to the fast return procedures.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Are you following my procedure?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay. This happened yesterday, too. I'm trying to load the DELTA-V you gave us in the maneuver TLI plus 44 in P37, but I keep getting an operator error everytime I try to load zeros for the termination of the middle and corner. Do you know what I'm doing wrong in my procedure?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay, go ahead. I can take it.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay, looks like the decimal point in R2 under NOUN 60 is on the extreme right-hand side so the proper load will be 06070. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Ah, so. Okay, fine. Thank you. I'll update my checklist. Don't know what I want to update it for, I can't read.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We are about to hand over to another site so you may lose lock momentarily.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger, Houston. Did you receive the results of the P37?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Sure did. Looks pretty good here.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8; Houston through Honeysuckle. The switch is completed.

CommTech

You are loud and clear.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Another comment on the optics. We're in PTC right now. We are passing the—we have the roll of about 182; we're about in 226 pitch and 18 in yaw. I can rotate the shaft all the way around at this particular attitude, and I get this band of light at about 10 degrees of this side of the M-line. It—it varies in intensity with the shaft position. However, it is there at this particular attitude.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Jim, we have just been looking at your marks with respect to accuracy and they figure they are within a couple of thousandths of a degree of the theoretical optimum. The integrator seems to bear that out.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Well, I hope that they are enough to get us home if we have to use them.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Well, I am getting a lot of confidence in your ability to run that mystery show now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Hey, Jim, we have to spend four more days up here with him, will you take it easy. He is already talking about going back to MIT as a professor.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Hello, Houston. How do you read Apollo 8?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

You sure do sound wide awake.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Hello, Houston, Apollo 8. How do you read?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Read you loud and clear. How me?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Honeysuckle network, GOSS CONFERENCE. How do you read?

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, this is Apollo 8. How do you read?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Loud and clear, Apollo 8.

CommTech

Go ahead Honeysuckle. How do you read?

CommTech

Well, I would like to say hello to all of you in Australia. How is everything down there?

CommTech

Pretty good so far. Thank you.

CommTech

Honeysuckle, Houston network, on GOSS CONFERENCE. How do you read?

CommTech

Houston network, this is Honeysuckle reading at 5, 5.

CommTech

Roger.