Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, 1969

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6-34

CONFIDENTIAL

COLLINS

How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window and there it was?

ALDRIN

Yes, and we weren't sure but what it might be the S-IVB. We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6000 miles away. We had a problem with the high gain about this time, didn't we?

COLLINS

There was something. We felt a bump or maybe I just imagined it.

ARMSTRONG

He was wondering whether the MESA had come off.

COLLINS

I don't guess we felt anything.

ALDRIN

Of course, we were seeing all sorts of little objects going by at the various dumps and then we happened to see this one brighter object going by. We couldn't think of anything else it could be other than the S-IVB. We looked at it through the monocular and it seemed to have a bit of an L shape to it.

ARMSTRONG

Like an open suitcase.

ALDRIN

We were in PTC at the time so each one of us had a chance to take a look at this and it certainly seemed to be within our vicinity and of a very sizeable dimension.

CONFIDENTIAL