Spacelog Apollo 8

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. Do you think you're in a position where you could use the high gain?

I'll give it a try.

Apollo 8, Houston. We're dumping at this time.

Roger. Tape voice is probable.

We ought to also get a check on it at low bit rate for DSE voice, Ken.

Apollo 8, are you saying that everything that's on there now is in high bit?

That's where my switch was.

Okay. We'll take a look at it then. If there wasn't anything that was previously recorded in low bit, then we'll come back and maybe take a look at that, too.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay. We've completed the dump, and the tape recorder's back to you. You can use it any way you want. We may want to dump that thing again, and if we do we'll go ahead and use the same information unless you have something else that you specifically wanted to put on there later. Listening to the voice quality—it sounds real good. We're coming up on a midcourse 4 and right now it's—talking about doing it on time, and you can anticipate the burn in the neighborhood of 3 foot per second. We're considering and would like for you to think about the possibility of doing this burn using the onboard vector and just have us update the vector in the LM slot, so that you will have the MSFN vector on board. But it looks like it won't have any big effect on the burn results, and it might prove interesting. So if you think about that one for a bit and let us know if you have any suggestions or thoughts on the subject.

Roger. You say it uses the onboard vectors and leaves the MSFN vectors on the LM slot.

That's affirmed, if that's what you would like to do, right. We considered it, and it looks like that would be a reasonable thing.

Roger. Frank and Jim are asleep now, and I'll bring this up to them when they wake up.

Okay. Real fine.

Apollo 8, Houston. How about stirring up the oxygen?

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay, Bill. I guess I want to belay my last about using the onboard state vector for MCC 4. After looking at it some more on the ground, they've got to get going on making the PAD's and doing all their computations, and rather than put it off or do it twice, we're going to go ahead and go with the procedures we've been using all along. On the lunar orbit stuff, we've been looking it over and we got several guys—Jack Schmitt and company in the back room—looking at what effect your windows have. And, basically, it looks like there's two options that will make an impact on that REV 2. One of the options, of course, will be just to have you and Jim change seats and let Jim look out and get his SAM that way, and another option will be to roll the bird over and let Jim point the optics as far forward as he can get them and take his SAM through the telescope. And I guess we'd like to have any thoughts that you folks have on what you think you can do with the windows; if you have anything, we'd like to factor it into our thinking and go ahead and firm up our plans as early as we can. We'd like not to put it off so that we have none of these things to do after midcourse. You folks can probably tell us more about what you can do with those windows. So if you have any thoughts, go ahead and sing out with them, and we'll see what we can do about factoring that in.

Okay. With reference to the midcourse, I think that's generally agreed upon, that we do it like we've always been doing it. Now, with respect to the windows, center windows, essentially, are unusable. The two side windows are—may be all right for observation, and the problem with the rendezvous windows is that they're pretty small. And I just thought we'd have to play the window game by ear almost. Not really sure what capability we're going to have. And we'll give you some more thoughts on this later.

Okay. How about exercising the idea of rolling over and having Jim do his polarization through the telescope because if we have to change attitudes we'd like to go ahead and start thinking about what effects that'll have on such things as antenna orientation and all that.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay. Apollo 8, we'd like to update your CMC clock. This is not to correct errors which we have now but just to make up for some effects that we're going to have in lunar orbit. And what we'd like to have you do is go to P00 and ACCEPT and let us update the clock time.

Stand by.

Okay. You got P00 and ACCEPT.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay. We're completed with the clock update, and the computer is yours.

Roger. Going to BLOCK.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

How about an O₂ purge?

Okay.

Thank you.

There's number 1.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Houston. Apollo 8. Go ahead.

Houston, this is Apollo 8. We're ready to copy if you read.

Okay. Stand by.

Okay. I thought maybe we had lost COMM here for a second.

No, I'm just behind.

Okay. Apollo 8, let me just read you midcourse correction number 4.

Okay.

Roger. MCC 4, RCS/G&N 62888 NA, NA 060:59:54.30, minus 00012, minus 00011, plus 00012 031 008 323, NA. Are you with me so far?

Keep going.

Plus 00618 00020 011 00020 17 2965 308 Alpha-Centauri, up 073, left 34, primary Sirius, secondary Rigel 129 155 010. Over.

That's correct, Apollo 8.

And what else have you got?

Okay. I've got one for pericynthian plus 2, and it's a minimum DELTA-V solution.

Roger. Ready to copy.

Roger. Pericynthian plus 2, minimum DELTA-V RCS/G&N 62871, NA, NA. 071:07:22.16, minus 00468, plus 00254, plus 00181 173 101 027, NA, plus 00187 00563 515 00563 01 3169 198 044, down 044, left 45, plus 1100, minus 02500 12967 36198 137:01:53, primary Sirius, secondary Rigel, 1.29 155 010, four jets plus X, assumes MCC 4 with same alignment. Over.

That is correct, Apollo 8.

Houston, Apollo 8. Confirm that boresight star and SPA are exactly the same number and not typographical error.

Roger, Apollo 8. They are checking that. Apollo 8, the computer is yours. You can take it back.

Roger. Going to BLOCK.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Houston, this is Apollo 8. Do you copy?

I do now loud and clear. I've got one more PAD for you, and the confirmation that those boresight star number and the pitch angle are correct at 44.

Roger. And we are ready to do our P52 preferred alignment at this time. Are you ready?

Affirmative.

Okay. We are ready to copy.

Houston, Roger. This is Apollo 8. You copy?

This is Houston. No joy.

Roger, Houston. This is Apollo. How you read?

Okay. Loud and clear, Bill.

Okay, Apollo 8. That's correct with one exception: in the PAD format under longitude NOUN 61, that is plus 06500. Over.

Roger. That's what I have, plus 06500.

Okay. That's correct, Apollo 8.

And we're ready to copy whatever else you have.

Apollo 8, let's go back and confirm on your minimum DELTA-V pericynthian plus 2 that the pitch column is 101; that's the fifth block down.

Roger. Pitch. Roger, pitch 101.

Okay. Thank you very much. And the item we have left to go is that we'd like to get with you on how you want to handle the problem with windows on REV 2.

Okay, Houston. Stand by on that, please.

Roger.

Houston, this is Apollo 8. We want you to come up with a suggested redline for RCS usage during lunar orbit, also, please.

Roger. That's in work.

And for your information, Houston, when the sun is shining on window 5, it's pretty hazy; window number 1 is a little bit better.

Okay. Thank you.