Spacelog Apollo 8

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

When you have a few minutes, we would like to hear the detailed crew status report from you.

Like what?

Well, like we would like to know, in the last 24 hours, has anybody had any symptoms similar to Frank's. We would also like to know—You know, we told you the other day to take Marezine as you like—we would like to know if anybody had taken any drugs, and then we would like to talk over there about sweet breads and water and such.

Okay. Nobody has taken any other drugs; nobody took any Marezine; nobody is sick. Bill took one of those pills, a sleep Seconal pill, last night. Everybody had breakfast this morning and ate most of a meal—1 day 3—meal A day 3. What else do you want?

We would like to tell you to drink plenty of water. We think that your water intake may be down. We copied your dosimeter readings. The only other thing is we just were wondering how in general you feel. We show you to have about 15 hours sleep total—Frank or Bill about 10, and Jim about the same, and we were wondering just how you are feeling in general.

We all feel fine; we are going to fix it now so that we all have one more rest period before the LOI.

Roger. Thank you.

Happiness is bacon squares for breakfast.

If you don't eat them all, bring them back, and we'll polish them off here.

Okay, Houston. Apollo 8 here. I stand corrected, William had one Marezine. He didn't tell me about it; he snuck it.

Roger. Understand Lovell took the Marezine. Understand.

That's Bill Anders, and he took one when he took the—with the Lomotil, when the doctors told him to.

Roger. We copy that. Thank you.

Okay. We are back on the bar-b-que attitude, starting PTC.

Roger, Apollo 8. Thank you.

Mike, we ran the latest state vector we have through the P21, and it showed the pericynthian at 69.7 miles.

Yes, we were all having big talks about that down here. It looks like you are giving us a real good comparison on our system. Looking—looking extremely good.

We've got the navigator par excellence.

I believe.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. What was the time you used on that P21?

6910 there, Mr. Slide Rule.

Thank you.

Mike, I wonder if Buzz wants us to change the time?

No, that is fine.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Roger. Are you going to give us an update for a maneuver PC plus 2 that does not assume a flyby maneuver?

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8 here.

Roger. Here is a rather brief summary of the updates that you will be getting. The one that you have now for PC plus 2 following an LOI minus 8 flyby maneuver is still good. That will not be updated. The next update you will get will be MCC 4. After that, you will get two PC plus 2 maneuvers, that assume MCC 4 completed. One will be a minimum DELTA-V, and the other will be a fast return. Do you copy?

Roger. Understand, and also I take it for MCC 4 you are going to give us a new alignment. Is that correct?

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger, Frank. I've got a lot of talking to do regarding TV cameras and brackets and whatnot. I would like to start in on it whenever you are ready to talk about it.

Let me get a piece of paper out.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Okay. First a question. Are you planning to show us TV pictures of the earth today?

Well, that is what we wanted to do. It seems that would be the most interesting thing we can show you, but we—you know, we had trouble with the lens.

Well, okay, that's good. All this procedure that I am going to give to you here is relative to what we hope are fixes to the lens and for looking out your rendezvous window at the earth, and all the gimbal angles and all that good stuff is based toward looking out the window at the earth rather than at the moon. Over.

Roger.

Okay. First, unstow the red filter, the polarizing filter, the red and blue filter holder, and some tape. Over.

Alright. Tape the red filter to the telephoto lens. That red filter is the 25A red filter, not the one that is in the red and blue filter holder.

Roger.

Attach telephoto lens to the camera.

Okay. We can figure out how to do that. Roger.

Insure that the automatic light control, the ALC switch on the camera, is in the IN position. Over.

ALC IN. Roger.

Roger. Attach camera to the adjustable TV bracket and attach the bracket to the TV mounting point on the commander's side of the hatch to point out rendezvous window number 2.

Roger.

Okay. There is a note here that says use dovetail on top of camera, rather than the side dovetail. Use the dovetail on the top of the camera for mounting to bracket and place the rocking nut on the bracket down, and down means toward your minus X direction.

Roger.

Okay. They say this step I just got through giving you is somewhat complicated. You might want to get the cameras set up early using the instructions I just gave you. When it's properly —

We are not reading you.

Roger. I say again, the instructions that I just gave you should end up having the camera looking out the window and about 30 degrees yawed left from your plus X-axis, so I suggest you get the camera set up that way early; and if there are any problems, come back to us; we will talk them over. These mounting instructions are sort of complicated.

Roger.

Okay. The next step: dim the interior lights. Over.

Dim interior lights.

Roger. Next, stop passive thermal control at gimbal angles pitch 224, yaw 020, roll 270. Over.

Pitch 224, yaw 020, roll 270.

Roger. Next, acquire on high-gain antenna, switch to AUTO tracks, narrow beam upon acquisition. Over.

Got it.

Okay. Yaw spacecraft left to get good view of earth and your rendezvous window number 2. You may have to pitch slightly as well, but primarily a left yawing maneuver to get a good view of the earth.

Got it.

Okay. This maneuver is going to put you very close to your scan limits for the high-gain antenna, so while you are making the maneuver, check your lights. If your scan limit light comes on, you still have got 15 degrees to play with. But the only message is, should you break lock, then you are going to have to go back and reacquire and do that maneuver over again, because you are going to be very close to the edge of your high-gain antenna capability.

Thank you.

Okay. And then finally, now that you have got the spacecraft over there, aim the camera as required to include the earth in the field of view, and do not touch the body of the lens while televising. Apparently, if you put your hands on the lens itself, it causes electrical interference. Over.

Okay. Aim camera and do not touch lens while televising.

Right. And in all this stuff in all these pictures using the ALC, it is important that you let the camera stabilize for at least 10 or 20 seconds, to let the ALC do its thing.

Stabilize for 10 to 20 seconds. Thank you.

Right. Now we have some additional instructions in case this does not work. They say a full 20, Frank, on that ALC. It requires a full 20 seconds undisturbed for the ALC to properly do its thing. Now if these procedures that I've given you do not work, then we will be giving you some more, and they have to do with other filters and various combinations thereof. So I'd have the polarizing filter and the red and blue filter holder at hand because we will be attempting to use those in addition to the red filters if this procedure doesn't work.

All very well, Mike.

That's all we have right now. We will have a few more remarks on the TV coming up to you later. I would suggest that you get set up for this early, and if you have any questions on it, shoot them down to us. We have a bunch of experts down here to help out.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger. Just a voice check, Frank.

Roger. You're loud and clear.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Roger. We would like some high bit rate data when you can get it locked up on the high gain. We haven't had any of that for a while.

Roger. We will do that.

Thank you. How is that camera bracket thing working out?

We are doing it right now.

Houston, this is Apollo 8 transmitting to you on the high gain. How do you read?

Read you loud and clear, Frank. Thank you.

Apollo 8 transmitting on the high-gain antenna.

Apollo 8, Houston. You are loud and clear. Thank you for the high gain.