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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. If you don't need the computer, we would like to have you call up VERB 64 ENTER so that we can do the B-D antenna switching from the ground. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Jim, if you don't need the computer, would you call up VERB 64 ENTER, and we will take care of the antenna B-D switching down here. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We will start out with the world news. On page 1 of the Houston Post: praise for America's Apollo 8 astronauts and hopes for international cooperation in space exploration with the worldwide Christmas Eve messages as the tiny spaceship orbited the moon. Even in the Communist world, there was enthusiasm for man's first voyage to the moon. In Moscow, Soviet scientist Anatoly Besaranov recalled his country and the United States had shared space knowledge before and predicted the Apollo 8 flight would lead to more cooperation. In Cuba, Radio Havana rebroadcast the Voice of America program to tell its listeners of the Apollo 8 speech. Voice officials said it was the first time that any of the U.S. agencies' programs had been carried by Havana radio. Czechoslovakia saw the moon flight through extensive television coverage; and in Budapest, Hungary, people talk of little else on the trains and buses. In the non-Communist world, office workers and Christmas shoppers held their breath as the spacecraft was readied for the blast toward earth. Frenchmen in the street praised American knowhow and the space feat, and some viewers watch television lunar photos cheer “Magnifique!”. In London, swarms of Christmas shoppers crowded into shops and pubs to watch television photographs of the moon's craters. Britain's foremost space astronomer, Bernard Lovell, who until a few weeks ago criticized the Apollo 8 project on the grounds that instruments could do the job without risking the astronauts' lives, made it clear that he was deeply impressed by the moon flight. Pope Paul VI said honor to those pioneers of the extension of man's intellect and activity. There were only a few scrooges that “pooh pooh-ed” the Christmas voyage, however. The most notable was Samuel Shenton, secretary of London's Flat Earth Society, who said the public are being balihooed, taken for a ride. How does that grab you, Frank?
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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It doesn't look too flat from here, but I don't know; maybe something is wrong with our vision.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Elsewhere in the world news, the Pueblo crew landed at NAS Miramar yesterday afternoon at 14:00, and they will spend a few days there in Balboa Hospital with their families celebrating Christmas. On the local scene here, the Retail Merchants' Association has announced that its Christmas gift exchange policy is going to be the same this year as it was last year; that is, very liberal. Fellows, we will be glad to replace any broken items that you might bring back, too; but, sorry, there won't be any cash refunds.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Another little of local news: the County Court House at Huntsville burned down before dawn yesterday, so it looks like they will go in the construction business there again. On the feature page: got a little bit about the waiting families. This one is by Ann James, Post reporter. “We rest on the backside of the moon,” said Valerie Anders on Christmas Eve, as she and her family waited for Apollo 8 to get out of the moon orbit and head back toward home. Mrs. Anders had been up since 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, and neighbors had just collected all the youngsters so the family could get some rest while the spacecraft was behind the moon and out of communication. Colonel Frank Borman's home was decorated with four big evergreen wreaths outdoors and sprinkled with powdery snow and decorated with red bows. A tree in the den awaits his safe return, and his pretty blond wife Sue and husky sons, Frederick and Edwin, plan to stay home for the midnight blast out of moon orbit. Ordinarily, they would attend midnight services at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church. The plans were for the family to go to Christmas Day service at 7:00 a.m. Since there are no young children in the Borman home, family Christmas gift giving will simply wait until Colonel Borman comes back with his fantastic holiday gift of the flight to the moon and back. Marilyn Lovell's four youngsters will have an absolutely normal Christmas as far as the kids are concerned, the busy wife of Captain Lovell reported; but talking about presents was out because two of them were sitting right there next to her. “I haven't even had time to change my clothes that I wore last night,” Mrs. Lovell said. Adult-to-adult gifts, however, and the Christmas tree will still be right there when Lovell comes home. Here is a good one on the Action Line. There is a little letter to the Action editor. It says, “We intended to pay you Earthlings a surprise visit by a flying saucer last night. We got scared off by some crazy antics of a fat man and a sleigh and three guys in a rocket-powered bucket drag racing around the moon. Is that any way to run a planet?” Signed the boys from Mars. Frank, it looks like the only people around here who aren't impressed by the Apollo 8 is the stock market. Its 30 industrials are down 1.43.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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(Laughter) You bet. On the sports page, not too much activity. UCLA is tops in both basketball polls. If you got any particular one you want to ask about, let me know, and I'll tell you if they are in the top ten on either poll. As far as the North—the college All Star game that is going to be played tomorrow is concerned, the North is a slight favorite over the South. Ara Parseghian is the coach of the North team, and he's got six of the Notre Dame troops working for him, so they ought to be pretty tough. The coach of the South team is Frank Howard of Clemson. He says it ain't easy, he quips, to build a team in 4 days to play Notre Dame. Another little item of interest in the sports page is Woody Hayes from Ohio State was named Coach of the Year by the Football Writers' Association. Well, that's about it. Any questions?
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Yes. I thought you heard about that. Now, back to the workday; we need a cryo fan cycle from you.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Jerry, in a little while, I would like to try out a little P37 exercise based on minus MA. I'll just run one through, and maybe we can get a solution from the ground and see how they compare.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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That performance at LOI was absolutely fantastic. You all really hit it on the money; I just couldn't believe it.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Uh-uh. I hope you're not getting close to the earth. We got another corridor to hit, you know.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. At 96 hours EEP, battery A has 38.95 amp-hours; battery B has 36.35 amp-hours; battery C has 38.46 amp-hours. Your total, 113.76 amp-hours. At 97 plus 50, battery A will be fully charged and will have 40 amp-hours, and you can terminate charge at that time. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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We gave you back VERB 64. I wonder if you could have Guidance figure out a corridor correction at 114 hours for us with a minus 648 cabin.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Okay, Jim. We copy, and now we see we've got VERB 64 back. We'll be back with you in a minute.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Okay. Based on your vector, the CMC vector, the ground computes 15.3 feet per second on the midcourse, VEI of 36221, a gamma EI of minus 6.51 so it looks like your P37 program is pretty good. Applying your P37 solution to our MSFN vector, however, we get a gamma EI of minus 10.32. We expect these two solutions to converge with a little more tracking and after you get some earth horizon sightings. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Roger. How valuable do you think that the lunar we did just after TPIR as compared to your MSFN tracking? Go ahead, Houston.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Roger. I was getting curious of the value of onboard tracking in the P23 course close to the moon, in regards to the MSFN tracking that close to the moon. I think there might be a trail-off for onboard navigation, and I think it might be a little bit better than MSFN tracking.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. I guess the experts would say that the MSFN data was probably best based or the number of sightings that you have taken. However, that's going to be the subject of quite a bit of evaluation, I think, after the mission. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Jim. Be advised that we are beginning to read you very weak, and with a rather loud background noise.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Jim. Christmas morning around your house was kinda quiet, says Marilyn. She said that they are all thankful the mission has gone so great. They missed having you around the tree this morning, but they wanted to reassure you that your presents are waiting, and the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding will be on the table when you get home.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Okay. Have Frank give me a holler when he is ready. I've got a message for him, too.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Real good, Jim. Santa Claus struck last night before I came in here on the shift, and I guess we will finish off the unwrapping this morning when I get back.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Hi, Frank. Christmas morning has come at the Borman house. And the boys and Susan and your Mom and Dad all send their love. They say for you to stay in there and pitch. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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I just worked out an answer to move my landing longitude 6 degrees east. I just want to compare with what they've got based on the same burn time of 114 hours, based on the bias impact longitude determined from the P37 which is wrong. I've indicated that I need 600 foot per second DELTA-VC burn plus, and my DELTA-VX changes from a minus 11.6 feet per second. I'd like to have them verify that if I could.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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The voice isn't too great right now, and the Guidance troops didn't get all of that. How about waiting about 2 or 3 minutes? We'll swap OMNI antennas, and then we should get good voice transmission from you and then repeat it. Would you, please?
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We're reading you much better now. Jim can go ahead with his transmission to the guidance troops. They have one question before he starts. They would like to know what his GERU was at TIG, 114 hours. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Okay, Houston. Based on the P37 with minus MA solution, I got an impact longitude of minus 160.95. I biased it to get an impact latitude—longitude of 163.75. I wanted to change my impact point 30 degrees to the east, and I tried to determine what my P30 burn parameters would be to do this, and I got a DELTA-VX burn of minus 11.6 and a DELTA-VC of plus 600, DELTA-VY of zero. Now that changed my previous DELTA-VX burn from minus 50.2. I just want to know whether that meets with their approval.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. At 100 hours 30 minutes, change star number 02 from one set to two set. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Also, set number 2, set number 2, change star number 11 to star number 7. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Then after star set number 3, initiate PTC again; pitch 10, yaw 45. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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That's affirmative. The folks here are evaluating the thermal situation. Looks like you will be out of PTC rather at an extended period of time. That's the reason we have you initiating PTC again there around 101 as soon as you finish those three star sightings. We are still working on the—about the next 10 hours after 100 hours. We are looking at the thermal situation, and the star sighting situation, and we will be giving you more updates later on. Over.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Roger. We don't have a thermal problem at all now, do we? All our indications here are normal in here.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Everything looks okay. I think they're just kinda trying to look down the track aways.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Frank, I would like to talk to you for a minute or two about the AUTO OPTICS funnies that you have been seeing throughout the mission. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. The problems you have run into so far are due to some unknown source, probably EMI or the like loading your CMC trunnion cell which is now 91, so it doesn't really represent your true trunnion angle. Now this loading problem we don't feel implies any decrease in the reliability in your CMC at all. We think that the best way to circumvent the problem is to cycle the OPTICS ZERO switch first to OFF and then ON prior to using the optics for any purpose. And with that procedure, I think you probably won't have any more problems. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Roger, Jerry. Understand. I do notice one difference. We did preferred REFSMMAT's. The first we had trouble with; the last one worked out as expected. I noticed for the first one that when the option came up, it was for nominal option, whereas for the very same procedure for this last REFSMMAT change, we got … preferred REFSMMAT option. …
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, this is Houston with a comeback on your entry navigation calculations. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We went through the charts and got exactly the same answer as you got. Looks like your procedure is very good; looks like it was real good head. You remembered to average out the velocity. We also went ahead and computed the problem to verify the chart and got a good solution. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. On your question about the option: PROGRAM 40 sets the preferred flag such that the next P52 will come up option 1, subsequent alignments after that come up option 2. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Roger. Understand. So 40 will have to come up with a TIG burn with an option 1 for us.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Now concerning your restart that happened in lunar orbit, for the peace of mind of the computer people and the MIT folks, we have a question. Did VERB 34 ENTER to a flashing VERB 51 in P22 cause your restart? Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, this is Houston. It is about time for us to start keeping track of some command module RCS temperatures; so when you get a chance, we'd like the reading now, and we'll try to repeat it about every 8 hours or so.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. Roger. Understand. 5C and 5D are pegged high; 6A and 6D are pegged high; 6 Charlie is 5 volts; and 6 Delta pegged high. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. We're showing quad A running a little bit warmer than the other quads. If you remember, I mentioned before that we were coming into a period of time here where we were going to spend a lot of time with no PTC going. We'd like for you to try to favor quad A if you can in the shade, and do whatever you can to keep that temperature from getting out of hand. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. We are more interested in the tank temperatures than the quad temperatures. Over.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Roger. I understand. Now listen, if you think it is that important, we'll just keep PTC-ing it and not even do anything.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Negative. There's no sweat right now. We're watching it, and we just wanted to let you know that this thing is being looked at. If we get anywhere near a situation where we feel we ought to change, we'll go back to PTC or cool it.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay. Thank you. We'll do our best, but it is kind of hard, though. You are sort of subject of spatial geometry: wherever the stars and the moon happens to be, that's where you point.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We understand. We're going to keep an eye on it down here, and we'll keep you appraised.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Pass the word to Jim that on these marks that are coming up, pretty important that he remember to record his DELTA-R and DELTA-V and trunnion. We are working low bit rate down here, and so we're not going to be able to record that data from here. Over.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Houston, Apollo 8. Did you read that we are recording all the DELTA-R and DELTA-V and trunnion …
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We understand, but tank temperature is holding steady, so we are all right.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. The helium tank temperature that we are watching on quad A has only gone up 1 degree in all this work that you are doing, so we don't consider it to be too terribly serious. What we would like to do, as soon as you finish this P23 work, is rather than go back into PTC, let's just roll her over 180 degrees and put quad A on the cool side, and hold it that way until your next activity comes up, which is around 102:30. Over.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay, Jerry. We're through with PROGRAM 23. We're just going to roll here to get the sun off quad A, if that's what you want.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. So far we haven't seen the temperature start back down again. We expect to see it, though.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Roger. Give us the word if you want us to maneuver back here before that time that you …, please.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. We have some data that was missed on your P23. We'd like you to read it down to us if you have time.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger.
Expand selection down Contract selection up -
Frank Borman (CDR)
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Sixth mark, that's—did Lovell tell you to do this? Come on, Carr; come clean. Did he ask you to ask for this?
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. All zeros, all zeros. Okay. On star number 7, we missed the trunnion on marks 1, 2, and 3.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Okay, Frank. And then the last one is on star number 1; we missed the trunnion on mark 5.
Spoken on Dec. 25, 1968, 1:33 p.m. UTC (55 years, 9 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet
