Spacelog Apollo 8

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.

We'll get our LOI tables man on the line here, Houston. Stand by.

Roger.

Okay, Houston, CMP here. I understand you have some updates for me.

Yes, sir; I've got a couple of charts in your chart book under LOI, and I have some numbers to fill in, one of them being the chart of LOI DELTA-V magnitude versus abort DELTA-V.

Okay. Stand by, and I'll get it out.

Roger.

Okay, I have the chart out. Go ahead.

Alright. Mode 1, 5 hours, roll 1.38, pitch 7.89, yaw 357.37. Mode 1, 15 minutes, roll 180.73, pitch 29.46, yaw 1.65. Over.

Roger. The new attitudes for the Mode 1, 5 hour Mode 15 minute are as follows: roll—for the Mode 1, 5 hour, roll 1.38, pitch 7.89, yaw 357.37; Mode 1, 15 minute, roll 180.73, pitch 29.46, yaw 1.65.

Okay. That is correct. Now I also have to give you a couple of points to plot on that curve. The present curve you have drawn is based on a 60-mile perigee or perilune, and you right now have a 62-mile pericynthian; and the reason that your target is for 62 miles is to pass over the landing site, so I have five sets of coordinates for you to copy.

Is this to go on the same chart to redraw the curve?

That is affirmative.

Okay. Go ahead.

Okay. We'll go in on the LOI DELTA-V magnitude 1600, abort DELTA-V 2450, two-four-five-zero.

Okay. LOI DELTA-V magnitude 1600, abort DELTA-V 2450. Stand by just one. I have it; continue.

Okay. The next one is the LOI DELTA-V 2000, abort DELTA-V 3130.

Roger. I've got that plotted.

2400 LOI DELTA-V, abort DELTA-V 3880, three-eight-eight-zero.

I've got it plotted.

2800 LOI, abort DELTA-V 4700. Over.

Roger. I have that one plotted, too.

Alright. The last one is LOI DELTA-V 2990, abort DELTA-V 5114. That is almost directly into the end of the present curve, 5114.

Say again the LOI DELTA-V magnitude, please.

Okay. LOI DELTA-V 2990.

Roger. 2990. Okay. I have it plotted.

Alright. And on the next one, you should have a chart (number 10), and we have three numbers to go in there for a Mode 3 gimbal angle.

Roger. Go ahead with the Mode 3 gimbal angles.

Roll 180.87, pitch 42.31, yaw 1.65.

Mode 3 gimbal angles are as follows: roll 180.87, pitch 42.31, yaw 1.65.

Roger. That is correct.

Could you please send up a French curve for me?

Roger.

Send up a couple.

The only one I have is about 6 foot.

Houston, could you give us some gimbal angles to point at the moon? I never have seen it the whole trip, and I'm wondering which way it is from us now.

Houston, Apollo 8. Radio check.

Roger. Loud and clear.

Roger.

We are getting ready to give you a rundown on your systems. We're going over all the final steps, and we will tell you what we see in the way of trajectory and systems information. And once again, Dr. Joe Kerwin has brought over all the latest news, and we can read that up to you a little bit at a time if you aren't going to sleep.

What's he going to do, read out of the AMA Journal?

Roger.

Go ahead. We are all ears.

Okay. Here is one: the previously scheduled 72-hour cease fire by the Viet Cong went into effect today, 17 hours before the 24 hour allied truce was to begin.

You lost us on the numbers there. What was that again?

The gist of it was that the VC went into a cease fire earlier than the truce that we had planned on, as a Christmas holiday type.

Houston, how do you read? Apollo 8.

Loud and clear. Sorry to have stopped on you there. We are going over the summary of the systems data.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Okay. I have a rundown on your systems here, GNC status. Everything looks real —

Just a minute.

Go ahead.

I want to wait until the LMP gets on the head set, Houston.