Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

We're mostly interested in looking at the secondary loop.

Frank Borman (CDR)

That's what I was going to say. I can't see any reason to check anything other than the secondary loop, can you?

Frank Borman (CDR)

Now in that cabin cold soak, we won't have any cabin fans.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Jerry, this is Apollo 8.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I just got on the sextant and now looking at Texas, and the weather man is right, it looks like a pretty good day. Full of clouds down there, but not bad.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Real fine, Jim. Can you see the kids out in the yard waving?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Would you tell Pete Conrad to get his kids off my roof?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Jim, do you see the bright spot out in the Pacific Ocean through the sextant?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

I'll try. We saw it, of course, through the windows and through the monocular. I'll see if I can spot it.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Yes, Jerry, I can see the bright spot. It's—I guess it's the subsolar point. It's off of South America, it appears to me. It is a grayish spot compared to the blue waters surrounding it. It's undefined in diameter, though I mean, it's not a clear round spot at all; it's just a raggedy one.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. That showed up real well on the TV's picture.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We'd like to delay that request for a secondary loop check to a little better point as far as thrusting is concerned.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Fine. We can wait for a long time on that.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Jim, we've got some bird watchers in the viewing room.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Sounds good. Who are they?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Oh, well, good. Say hello to her for me.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Yes, and she's got a few troops with her, too.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Did she see the TV, I wonder?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Affirmative. Barbara and Jay are with her.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We're replaying your television pictures now. We can see the Chilean coast and Florida.

Bill Anders (LMP)

That's a pretty good little television camera, isn't it?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

It sure is. With the right filters on it, it's great. That was a Schmitt input.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

He must be a Jack of all trades.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Bill would like to ask the friendly Flight Surgeon's permission to take a Seconal so he can sleep.

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Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. That's a “yes.”

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Before Bill falls asleep, we'd like to have him go ahead and do that secondary EVAP check now at any time at his convenience, and if we don't happen to be able to monitor it with high bit rate, just let us know when you did it.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. I'll tell him that evaporator check at any time.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. BIOMED switch to the CDR. Over.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 8. Over.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Good afternoon, Jerry.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. Somebody said something about checking out the evaporator—evaporators. What do you want to do?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Before we get too far along, we'd like to see, essentially with the secondary evaporator check, what we got on the redundant components check.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. EECOM says to be sure and let it go for at least 5 minutes.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. Now you want to check out the primary evaporator also, or did you decide it's not necessary?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

I guess they decided it's not necessary, Bill.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. Secondary glycol loops coming on the line.

Bill Anders (LMP)

And the secondary evap's coming on the line.

Bill Anders (LMP)

And it's stabilized the leg, oh, for about 5 minutes.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Alright. What do you have in mind here in the way of activating the secondary loop prior to separation? It looks like if we do have a cabin fan problem, we won't be able to do a full-blown coldsoak. Is there anything that we can do that'll do any good?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Well, right now, Bill, in the checklist, we're showing this activation at about minus 1 hour. Let me check with EECOM for a minute and see if they got any more words considering the cabin fan situation.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Looks like a good time. One hour before SEP—entry interface would be fine.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. It won't do any good, then, to fool around with these cabin temp valves. …

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Bill, stand by. You're—got a lot of background noise.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. This coldsoak is built around the premise that you've got a cabin heat exchanger, in my view; and if you haven't got a cabin heat exchanger, I'm wondering just what you can do.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We think it'll still do a little bit of good so we'd just as soon go through with it.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. Even bypassing the suit heat exchanger and that part of it too, huh?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Also, Bill, your secondary loop is looking good.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. We just had 5 minutes. I'll deactivate it now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 8. Over.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Hey, Jerry. When do you want to crank up the VHF, anyway?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. VHF Simplex—well, we had that on the checklist for about minus 4 hours.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. We wanted—we wanted to put it out prior to MAX range, don't you think? Get an idea of when we're picking it up?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Stand by, Bill. They're talking about it.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Entry interface minus 4 hours is just about right for the VHF. That is about—oh, 142 GET.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

The next voice you hear will be that of the smiling Irishman.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Outstanding.

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Spoken on Dec. 26, 1968, 9:21 p.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Oh, it's Michael Collins, is it? Good morning to you.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Righto. And we're looking at your pitch CDU readout down here and looks to us like you are about 25 degrees off the 180 for your PTC, and we were just wondering how come?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

We've been looking at that, too. It keeps wandering off in pitch for some reason more than yaw. I was just about ready to go back to it again. I had to go back one time, and I was just seeing how far she would drift. I thought it would drift out a ways and come back by itself, but it is not doing it.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

We'll get back there.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Houston, Apollo 8. We're in the process of doing the trunnion bias check; then we will go to P23.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Roger. Thank you, Frank.

Frank Borman (CDR)

We like to have the PTC attitude to comply with P23 requirement.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Any time you want to start on those P23's is just fine.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay. I was just checking. I just wanted to know how our thermal control was going before we left.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Your temperatures are looking good, Frank. There is still a differential temperature between quads, but nothing that would cause us in the slightest to worry about doing P23.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Roger, Jim. We've been looking at these stars that we gave you this time for P23. It looks like the second star, number 11, has a trunnion angle right out to the limit, about 49.7 degrees. And we're thinking it might be a good idea to switch you over to star 1, which has a much smaller trunnion angle. What do you think? Star 1 is Alpheratz.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Fine with me; I would just as soon take star 1.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Okay. That will be then in place of star 11, star 1, and in place of lunar far horizon, lunar near horizon; and it remains two sets. Over.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Roger. Star 1, lunar near horizon, two sets.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Roger. Fine. Old golden fingers there is getting so swift we missed some marks on the downlink. I wonder—if you hand recorded them, could you read us your three marks—trunnion angles, your three trunnion angles on star 2 and the last four trunnion angles on star 1. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Do you read me still, Mike?

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Stand by. We're not reading you good enough, so we'll wait until you get a better OMNI.

Frank Borman (CDR)

That ought to be a good one.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

That is a good one. That's loud and clear.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Okay. Star 2 trunnion angle, first one 05245, second one 05243, next one 05241; last 4 trunnion angles 04133, 04133, 04132, 04132.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Can you give me some idea on the updates from the midcourse that we might need, and all that good stuff, Mike?

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Yes, sure can, Frank. Stand by.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Okay. We're predicting at the nominal time of your next midcourse, which is entry interface minus 2 hours—we're predicting 1.4 foot per second burn which changes your gamma at entry interface by a tenth of a degree. Right now with no further maneuvers, your gamma is minus 6.39 degrees, and we're going to steepen it up very slightly to hit the center of the target line, and it will be after the maneuver minus 6.51. Over.

Mike Collins (CAPCOM)

Anything else you want like that?

Frank Borman (CDR)

No. I just wondered—we hadn't heard whether we were going to do it or not and so on.