Spacelog Apollo 8

Well, I guess that is about it Frank.

Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate that.

Jerry, this is Jim. We concur on that midcourse 6.2 of a foot per second—is what we get.

Real fine, Jim.

Do you just want to turn off your radios and come back without us?

Go ahead. You are loud and clear.

Okay. I got interrupted there for a minute. Bob Hope is back out in Viet Nam again with his troops, doing a great job as usual. One little name in the news story here is from the USS New Jersey. Bob Hope joked from atop of a huge gun turret yesterday—or Wednesday—to delight the 1500 men aboard the battle ship New Jersey on its 20th Christmas entertaining US troops abroad. Hope and his 27 member troop entertained the New Jersey seamen after attending a Christmas mass aboard the carrier Hancock, both off Viet Nam. “This must be the biggest Cris Craft in the world,” Hope told the seamen. “It looks like Wake Island with a rudder.” “I think it was nice of them to take the ship out of mothballs just to give me a 21-gun salute,” he said. Hope joked while standing on one of the ships 16 inch gun turrets. The sailors were particularly impressed by a squad of long legged girls who came aboard with Hope including Actress Ann-Margaret and Miss World.

Did you say that was his 20th trip ever there at Christmas time, or overseas at Christmas time?

That's right, it's the 20th time he has been over—overseas for Christmas with the troops.

He's as old as Jack Benny.

Roger. Hey, you can turn off the water dump now.

We're in the process, or as we say in the aerospace business: that's in work.

Roger. You do good work.

That other aviator that's going around the world, Max Conrad with his light plane—he spent Christmas day in the Antarctics—at Puento Aranes in Chili; he's waiting for good weather so he can continue his flight down to the South Pole. He hopes to get around the world. He is going around both Poles, and he's going to fly from Palmer to Byrd, from Byrd to the South Pole, and then return home to the United States by way of New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii.

Brother. He had better take some No Doze with him.

I tried to talk Frank into the same trip.

You can give him a weather report from Apollo 8. The South Pole was really clobbered or at least it was the other day.

Roger.

I don't imagine there are many alternates down there.

No, I don't think so.

We have some pretty clear weather up here.

No fog, huh?

Not outside.

Actually, it's snowing outside right now with that waste water dump that Bill just did.

Roger. Does it look a little bit like Christmas?

Right.

Jerry, do you have a decision about what we are going to do about this next midcourse?

No, Frank. We don't need it.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure officially we'll scrub MCC 6?

Affirmative.

I guess—Jim said that was already official. I was sleeping at the time. I didn't hear it.

Okay. Frank, by the way, how do you feel about your EMS now? You feel like you've got all the answers to the little funnies you saw earlier?

Yes. The answer is don't turn it into AUTO fast. It seems to be very sensitive to jerks, or separation.

Okay, you, you figure it's all pretty much just a switch throwing anomaly and if you play it by the numbers and then slow and deliberate you will be okay?

Yes. Ken, I'm getting razzed up here because I said it was sensitive to jerks.

(Laughter) We thought of that, too, down here.

Yes, I figured you did.

I told Ken last night at separation after TLI, when we separated from the S-IVB, we got a nice bang out of the pyros and the EMS jumped over 100 feet per second.

Jerry, do you want to—I've got it in the flight plan to start charging our battery B. Do you want that started at 100 now also?

Affirmative, Frank.

Okay.

Frank, we expect it will take about 3 or 4 hours.

We're starting it.

Okay.

And we're happy to report the earth is getting larger.

Roger, that's comforting. Looks like you are going to make earth instead of Venus, huh?