Bill Anders (LMP)

Houston, this is Apollo 8.

Bill Anders (LMP)

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?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Sorry we were late on that answer.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirmative, Apollo 8.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

I'll see what it comes up with first, though.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

That's the one we're trying now.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

It's 5:18 17 16 15 14.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

And we are maneuvering to the PTC attitude, Houston.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Bill Anders (LMP)

It'll be about the last 5 minutes worth.

Bill Anders (LMP)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

We're at a gain of about 20 500 miles from the moon at 61:14. How does that agree with what you figure?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

We just put compressor 2 on ac 2.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay. They're closed now.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. Thank you. Looks good.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. No meteoroids yet.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Bill Anders (LMP)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Okay. We'll be going to Honeysuckle.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

That's affirm. Due to the tracking as you approach the LOI, they would like to minimize any of these type of perturbations.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston through Honeysuckle.

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Thought you went to sleep.

Bill Anders (LMP)

You got over to Australia pretty fast.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roger. Did that gas station call wake you up?

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Bill Anders (LMP)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Okay, I have the chart out. Go ahead.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I've got that plotted.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

2800 LOI, abort DELTA-V 4700. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I have that one plotted, too.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Say again the LOI DELTA-V magnitude, please.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. 2990. Okay. I have it plotted.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. Go ahead with the Mode 3 gimbal angles.

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Spoken on Dec. 24, 1968, 1:16 a.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

Roll 180.87, pitch 42.31, yaw 1.65.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Could you please send up a French curve for me?

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

The only one I have is about 6 foot.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Houston, Apollo 8. Radio check.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Go ahead. We are all ears.

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.

Frank Borman (CDR)

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

Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)

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.