Spacelog Apollo 8

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.

Houston, this is Apollo 8.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, go ahead.

Roger. We tried to get this realignment. We need—Do you have a maneuver to get us some gimbal angles so we don't get gimbal lock when we get the preferred alignment?

Stand by on that.

Thank you.

Houston, on our present position, we'll go into gimbal lock. I figure to try and get the preferred angle.

Say again, Apollo 8.

In running through PROGRAM 52, we got a PROGRAM ALARM 401 which would indicate that if we continued, we'd drive it into gimbal lock.

Roger. I understand.

Apollo 8, Houston. This should be an OPTION 1 like OPTION 3.

Houston, we're doing an OPTION 1 like OPTION 3. We keep getting a 401 ALARM, which says desired RCTU yields gimbal lock.

Apollo 8, Houston. It appears that you have maneuvered around the gimbal locks system.

Roger. Roger.

Okay. Sorry we were late on that answer.

Thank you.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Well, we stopped and went through coarse align of P52 and then we got fine align, and pick-a-pair, pick Capella, but she drove and didn't get to any place. I didn't pick Capella, and I can't recognize any out there right now. Can I re-cycle here and go back and pick a pair?

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead, Apollo 8.

My plan is to go back into re-enter PROGRAM 52—well, it did not drive to Capella, and I can't recognize it in the scanning telescope. My plan is to go back into recall P52.

Okay. Stand by one.

Apollo 8, can you confirm that you zeroed the optics prior to starting?

Roger. That's affirmative. We zeroed the optics.

Apollo 8, Houston. You have a GO for a second try in P52 with an OPTION 3.

Okay. I now have Aldebaran in the scanning telescope; I might want to call that one instead of Capella.

Okay.

Houston, Apollo 8. We came up with an unacceptable difference in our stars; we're going to have to recycle.

Roger.

If we don't get this midcourse in, what will that do to our pericynthian?

Stand by. We'll -

Apollo 8, Houston. In the event that we don't get this midcourse in, we'll still go for an LOI, and it's been suggested you might try Mirfak which is OCTO 10.

That's the one we're trying now.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

We are all set up and counting down at 8 minutes.

Roger.

Apollo 8, our data is down right now; appreciate making sure you have the tape recorder on.

Roger. I am going to go—I'll have to go COMMAND RESET. You've got control.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Roger. You have some pitch and yaw angles for our PTC extra burn.

Okay, Apollo 8. That's pitch 348, yaw 315.

Pitch 348, yaw 315.

That's affirmative. And would you give us another hack on your countdown time?

It's 5:18 17 16 15 14.

Thank you.

Houston, I will give you a mark in 4 minutes.

Alright. Thank you.

3, 2, 1 -

MARK.

Four minutes.

Apollo 8, Houston. How about switching the BIOMED switch over to the left.

Roger. 3, 2, 1 -

MARK.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Roger. Burn on time, angles nominal, burn time about 12 seconds, 0.2 feet per second after the DELTA-V_C, 0 in VG_X. We have transferred the results of the burn over to the left slot VERB 66.

Roger. And got a couple of items that I would like to clean up. We will get you an RCS budget. We've got one redline now; we are trying to get some firmer numbers for you, and we will have those in a little bit. Right now your PTC usage is right on the flight plan line, so everything looks pretty good there. We want to get a crew status report from you. We would like to firm up the REV 2 flight plan idea; and sometime at your convenience, we would like to take a reading of the PRD for the commander and CMP and then have you swap them. We are trying to isolate the—what the possible reason is for the discrepancies or the disparity in the two readings.

Roger.

And we are maneuvering to the PTC attitude, Houston.

Apollo 8, Houston. Could you give us the sign of that Z residual?

Stand by, Houston. Alright, Houston. Looks like we didn't record just the Z. We recorded DELTA-V_C, which is minus 0.2.

Okay. Understand.

DELTA-V was 0.1, but we didn't get the sign.

Roger. Understand that was DELTA-V_C was minus 0.2. I copied DELTA-V_Z; ZULU is 0.2. Is that incorrect?

Roger. It was 0.1, but we didn't get the sign.

Okay. Thank you.

We can get it. We have it on the tape, Houston, whenever you want to dump it.

Roger. Thank you.

It'll be about the last 5 minutes worth.

Roger.

Okay, Houston, for the PRD's: CDR is 0.07, CMP is 0.64, LMP is 0.80. Note that the CMP's hasn't changed since we started and the commander's hasn't changed much. We have swapped PRD's; commander has LMP, CMP has commander's, and LMP has CMP's PRD. Over.

Okay. Thank you.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Roger. Crew status report as follows: water, the commander has about 50 clicks so far today; CMP 43; and the LMP is 44. We've eaten two meals so far today. Day 3 meal A and B; consumed most of it except for the hard hard bite, which no one cares for. Pudding was outstanding. We're at a gain of pericynthian now of plus 63 miles. Commander and CMP have had a rest period just before the midcourse 4 of about 2 hours.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Apollo 8, Houston. Looks like you're on the secondary loop. We would like to run that for about 5 minutes.

Roger. We're doing the ECS redundant component check.

Roger. We'll follow.

Getting any data now Houston? Guess you are. Okay. See you stopped my tape then. I've been running for about 3 extra minutes here to record the check.

Roger. We have data now. That was a temporary loss.

What's the matter? Was it chow time down there?

Roger. Didn't know you could smell it that far away.

Give me a call when you're satisfied with the secondary loop; it's stabilized out here pretty well.

Wilco, and you might tell Jim that our RTCC is about 4 miles off; we had 20 496.

Fine.

We just put compressor 2 on ac 2.

Houston, Apollo 8. Do you show battery B as voltage dropped some from the postcharge value? Over.

Apollo 8, Houston. Confirm that battery B is a little bit lower, and this is attributed to the parasitic loads that are on there.

Okay. I just didn't see the same kind of drop for A. So if you think it's okay, it's fine.

That's affirm. You don't have the same parasitic loads on that; B is actually drawing some.

Okay. I guess that's the radiators, huh?

Apollo 8, Houston. We've seen enough of the secondary evaporator. We would like for you to wait about 2 minutes between the time you go to RESET and the time you turn the pump off.

I agree; good idea. And we plan to leave the water control in AUTO.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Okay. Looking over the—our redundant component check, it appears we have not yet checked the integrity of the secondary loop radiators; and if you haven't done that, sometime we would like to open up the secondary radiators but not flow through them and just measure the accumulator pressure.

Stand by.

Houston, we don't show that in our pre-LOI check, but we're willing to go ahead and do it if you want to.

Roger. We just noticed that it isn't there, and, yes, we would like to. You understand that we are not proposing that you flow, but merely we check for any pressure decay.

Roger. Wait till I get my trusty assistant here to help me.

Okay, Houston. We're going to blow the secondary, I mean, open the secondary RAD for 30 seconds now.

Roger.

Looks pretty good.

Sure does.

Okay. They're closed now.

Okay. Thank you. Looks good.

Apollo 8, Houston. You take your tape recorder to stop, and we'll reset it then and give it back to you.

Roger. It's stopped.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Okay. We still need to talk about the REV 2 attitudes we're going to use here to work around the fact that you have a fogged center window. Whenever that's convenient, we'd like to go over what your thoughts are on the subject so we can make sure we can get our flight plan squared away.

My thoughts are to make—to do with the best with what we have. We are not interested in changing a lot of things right now.

Okay. The one proposal that sounds like it has some advantage to it: if we let Jim do his evaluation through the telescope, you do everything exactly the same except you turn and roll over 180 degrees so that your head's up, and let Jim do his tracking through the telescope and you'll still be a yaw right when you go to pick up your TV and that type of thing. It looks like that probably will cover everything. We can do that or we can just go as is and just have to let some of that tracking evaluation go by. Another alternate would be to have Jim look out the right-hand rendezvous window, and you may have to change your attitude in order to get the same picture there also.

I think we'll try to do that, but I don't—this is one of the things that we'll work out when we get there.

Okay. The reason we were looking into it in the flight plan is, if you do want to try rolling over and flying heads up or something of that nature, we can help Bill get a little more out of his photography by giving him some new film settings and that type of thing. We'll have something like that available; in case you do fly heads up, why, we'll have some numbers, we can call up for film settings.

Thank you.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Go ahead.

Roger. We are going to have to dump more urine here shortly. Will this bother your tracking?

Apollo 8, we're checking on that with the tracking people now.

Houston, just give us the time when we can start on it, and we'll hold off until you say so.

Okay, and you can anticipate a handover between stations here on the hour, and you might get a slight glitch as we go through. I'll give you a call when we get back.

Thank you, Ken. What station are we going to be going to, Ken?

Okay. We'll be going to Honeysuckle.

Thank you.

Apollo 8, Houston. You're cleared for a dump at this time, and I understand this is the last gas station for a long time.

You mean you don't want us to dump after this for a while?

Apollo 8, Houston through Honeysuckle.

Roger. Houston through Honeysuckle. We read you loud and clear.

Okay. Good morning.

Good morning.

Thought you went to sleep.

You got over to Australia pretty fast.

Roger. Did that gas station call wake you up?

Man, I've been all eyeballs and elbows here for the last several hours.

I'll bet. If you've got nothing else to do, I do have two charts in your LOI table that I need to give you some update numbers on.

Standby.