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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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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.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Find out from the Guidance group if a midcourse maneuver of minus 4.8 to access corridor at 14 hours would be better than the 15.2 I came up with first.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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We have already started checking it, Jim. I bet you think you sneaked that P37 past us.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Frank, we are going to establish a range sequence now. We would like to keep silence on the net for about 3 minutes. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger. This range sequence is a phenomenon we get on down-voice backup; in this mode, the ranging and the voice share the same channels, so we have to periodically check and make sure that they are not interfering with each other. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. We would like for you to go back into PTC now. Your helium tank temperature is still holding about the same. And we are going to try PTC to even things out. Over.
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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Frank. Let him know that we've compared his latest P37, and the state vectors have converged to—they are very, very close now.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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You guys are going to make it impossible to live with him. It always was pretty hard.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Hello Michael, we lost lock and Bill hit COMMAND RESET to get the lock back on again, but you're welcome to the antenna.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. You've got a lot of background noise and about unreadable. We're trying to get a better OMNI.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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I got a message for you while you were asleep. Valerie said to tell you that she and the kids are leaving for church about 11:30 and eagerly awaiting your return. She said presents are magically starting to appear under the Christmas tree again so it looks like a double barrel Christmas. Over.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Early and busy as usual. I told Michael you guys are up there, and he said who's driving?
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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That's a good question. I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving right now.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Tell Valerie and the kids a Merry Christmas for me, Mike, and tell them I'll see them there in a while.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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I sure will, and you might tell Frank if he's got any messages his people are about 10 feet away.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Quad Able helium tank temperature has dropped very slightly and is looking pretty good to us now.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Righto, and I've got a procedure for Jim I would like to read up. It involves bringing the LM and the CSM state vectors to the earth's sphere of influence. Over.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Oh, it's the summation of the opinions of all our experts down here. I got it from Mr. Colossus, Gunther Sabionski.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Yes, Merry Christmas up there, Jim. I've got a procedure when you are ready to copy.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Okay. I just got on my headset; just let me get a pencil and paper, and I will copy it.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Okay. The purpose is to bring the LM and the CSM state vectors to earth's sphere of influence. Step one: Verb 37 ENTER, 23 ENTER. Step two: At NOUN 70, at NOUN 70, load in register 1, 2, and 3 the following numbers. Register 1, 00002; register 2, five balls; register 3, 00210. Step 3: proceed on NOUN 70, NOUN 70. Step 4: proceed on NOUN 25, 25. Step 5: do not proceed on NOUN 18. Wait for 30 seconds; then do VERB 37 ENTER, 00 ENTER. End of procedure. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Okay. As I understand that the reason for this procedure is to bring the LM and CSM state vectors back to the earth's sphere of influence; is that correct?
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Okay. To do it we go VERB 37 ENTER, 23 ENTER; and at the NOUN 70, we'll load in register 1, four balls 2; register 2, all balls; and register 3, two balls 210. We'll proceed on NOUN 70 and proceed on NOUN 25. We'll not proceed on 18. We'll wait 30 seconds, and we'll do a VERB 37 ENTER, 00 ENTER.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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I'm just kinda curious, Mike; I thought this was done for us. I thought the computer took care of this little problem.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. Normally, it is done automatically, Jim; and had you done the P23's exactly as scheduled, it would have been, but there was some doubt P23 was stopped about 7 minutes prior to the transition point and just to be absolutely sure, we included this procedure. Over.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Thank you, Jim. We copied your DSKY work there, and it's looking just fine to us now.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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You know, one thing you can pass on to the program office—something you might try working on right away is —
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, can you stand by? We'll try to get you a better antenna; you're just about unreadable.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, Houston. We are right in between antennas and if you can wait about 5 minutes with your message, we can have better COMM then.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Okay. You're loud and clear now, Frank. Go ahead and say what you were saying about the program office.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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They ought to get some moving out on some way to fix these windows. The three windows, the hatch window and the two side windows, really it's a shame, in fact, that they are almost totally unusable, because they got so gummed up.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. I sure agree. We copy so far on the windows that 2 and 4 are in excellent shape and 1 and 5 are sort of mediocre and 3 is just about totally unusable.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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And, Mike, that sure puts the CMP in a bad light, you know, when you can't see where you are going.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Yes. And when you're sitting between two guys that won't tell you, too. (Laughter)
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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That's right. You think they will share a window? No soap. You might also note the optics are very good visibility; so far, no coating at all.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We copy Jim doing a P52, and I'm standing by with a maneuver PAD for midcourse 5 any time at your convenience.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger, Jim. This is midcourse maneuver number 5, and it's a RCS/G&N, and it's 31700, not applicable, not applicable. Are you with me?
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Good. 103:59:52.86, minus 00050, plus all zeros, plus 00001 000 334 001 five zeros, plus 00190 00050 014 00050. Are you still with me? Over.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Good. 413020 183, Shaula, down 064, left 06, plus 0747, minus 16410 12988 36301 146:46:40; north set of stars, Sirius and Rigel, roll 308, pitch 209, yaw 357. Remarks: use high-speed procedure with minus MA. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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31700, NA, NA, 103:59:52.86, minus 00050, plus all zeros, plus 00001 000 334 001, all zeros, plus 00190 00050 014 0050 413020 183, Shaula, down 064, left 06, plus 0747, minus 16410 12988 36301 146:46:40; Sirius, Rigel, 308 209 357; use high-speed procedure with minus MA.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. And could you go to ACCEPT, please, and we're going to send you a P27 load consisting of a LM state vector and a target load for MCC 5.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We'd like to dump your waste water tank down to 25 percent; we'd like to do it before the midcourse, for tracking reasons. So if it is convenient with you, if you'll start right now, we'll dump on down to 25.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Roger. We got those loads in and verified; you can go back BLOCK at your computer. And George Low says he's working on that window problem at 6, or spacecraft 104. You just happen to have the wrong spacecraft.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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That's the wrong statement; we've got the right spacecraft. I'll clue you, if it keeps going this way for 2 more days, we've got not only the right spacecraft, but we've got the best spacecraft.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Roger. The LMP's PRD hasn't moved an inch since we took off. And that's the one the CMP did have, still 0.64. And I just had about 5-1/2 hours sleep, and I'm in the process of scarfing up a meal; and I've been drinking lots of water, feeling good, and that's about it.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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And the CDR: I got stuck with somebody else's, but mine reads now—my new one reads 2.02 rems. I don't know if there is a message there or not.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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He's starting to glow in the dark.
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Mike Collins (CAPCOM)
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Yes. You should have hung on to the one you had. It sounded a little bit better. I copy left to right 2.02, 0.12, and 0.64. Over.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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What have they measured in our—what have they measured on that, I guess you would call it the VABABR, or VABD?
Spoken on Dec. 25, 1968, 4:47 p.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet
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