Spacelog Apollo 8

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. Bill has got his tape recorder back, and we noticed during that last dump, it was all in low bit rate. We wonder whether that was intentional or not? Over.

Roger. We didn't have much to say; we couldn't see out of the windows very well, Mike.

Roger. Understand.

It was really too bad.

Apollo 8, Houston. —

Go ahead —

Roger, Bill. This next time around into the sunlight, we do not expect any problem with the primary evaporator. If it does start drying out, we think it is best just to close the back pressure valve, and there is no need to activate the secondary boiler. Over.

Okay. I guess the 6O-degree limit will still hold then.

Stand by.

Apollo 8, Houston. We are suggesting you disregard the 60 degree limit, and let it go ahead and rise up above 60. There is no need to activate the secondary. Over.

Okay. We just don't want to boil our IMU.

Roger. Understand then. Apollo 8, you are GO for the next lunar orbit REV.

Roger, Houston.

Roger, Houston. I'll read the book this time.

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8 —

Roger. We have about 4-1/2 minutes left before we have LOS; we'd like your last PRD readout. Over.

Stand by. The commander is asleep; we'll get his when he wakes up. The LMP is still 6 … 0.64, C is 9, CMP is 0.09.

Apollo 8, Houston. About 40 seconds to LOS, and everything's looking good down here.

Roger. Houston. We will give it another try here.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Over.

Houston, Apollo 8. Over.

Reading you very weak but—a lot of background noise. Welcome back around. How are you reading us?

Reading you fine.

Houston, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger, Houston. A few words on our optics tracking system. I used AUTO OPTICS for control points 1 and 2 on the backside, and they worked beautifully, tracked both the targets for me. And I went to the control point 3 as designated in our orbital control book to see the latitude and longitude that was given to me and used AUTO OPTICS to track that particular coordinate system, and it was very close to the actual tracking plot. I picked the mark there where I did a final marking and recorded latitude and longitude. I'm now about to come up on the landing site and using AUTO OPTICS in the coded input to see how that works.

Apollo 8, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. We know you're busy so we are not going to bother you. We are watching your progress on the DSKY. You are looking good; all your systems are looking good, and we have maneuver PAD's for you any time at your convenience.

Roger. We will take them when we are doing the P52, if that's okay.

Mike, Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, go ahead.

Mike, there are an awful lot of objects down on the landing site. It would just warm up Jack Schmidt's heart. The AUTO OPTICS are tracking perfectly on the target, and the two high peaks stand out beautifully. I have a beautiful view of it. The first I've seen just barely beneath the vertical now, and the second one coming up—It's just a grand view!

Roger, Jim. Glad to hear it. Jack's listening.

Jack, the information—The triangles that we see now are from the first IP, second IP, and the B-1 are just right, I think, for landing conditions. The shadows aren't too deep for you to get confused, but the land has texture to it, and there are enough shadows there to make everything stand out.

If Jack's listening, tell him that the optical may be doing all right, but the eyeball is having a little trouble looking through all this smear on the windows.

Roger. Understand the optics are doing better than the eyeballs. How about the cameras?