Apollo 17 Crew Medical Debriefing, 1972

00:00speaker 1We're picking up at 12-0, lift-off rendezvous and docking. And again, we're going to where things went nominal as per the checklist, uh, we're going to, uh, get the lunar surface checklist, yes. That's what I'm getting. Okay, we're going to say so. LM power-up and launch prep, uh, went well. We, uh, did not do the P22, uh, and everything else just went as advertised on the LM. She came up and powered up, uh, beautifully. Anything in there that's worth going through? No.

00:48speaker 1Okay, the, uh, lift-off was, uh, as again, uh, went went, uh, normal. We got all the, obviously, all our pyros and, uh, we lost no changeover parker valves or anything. Uh, the only thing that I would like to mention, uh, let the LMP pick it up here is that, uh, very soon after lift-off, uh, we had, uh, a apparent loss of comm, a lot of noise in the S-band. Uh, it turned out that we were downlinking, uh, but, uh, there was something, uh, wrong with the uplink. So, uh, uh, the CDR watched the, uh, most of the guidance and, uh, we'd call out in the blind, uh, altitudes and goes and what have you as we pitched over and, uh, pressed on up. But for about the first two or three minutes, I think the, uh, lunar module pilot had to concern himself with trying to get comm back.

01:47speaker 2Yeah, and the, again, it was another, apparently, uh, Goddard, our, uh, Goldstone dropped the uplink, and then when they were getting it back, I was switching antennas, and for a while there, it was just completely out of phase. And, uh, but they were apparently had a continuous downlink.

02:06speaker 1It was a very inopportune time, I might say, too, because it happened just right after ignition.

02:12speaker 2I think that's something that the, uh, INCOs are going to be able to, [cough] clarify, because we we certainly can't give you the details. It just was essentially no comm on all the antennas.

02:23speaker 1We we got into a, uh, they they briefed us on trajectory. We, uh, we flew into a trajectory that, uh, that appeared to be nominal. The AGS showed a slight out-of-plane, I believe, and, uh, as a result, our tweak

02:42speaker 1had a 9 ft per second. It was -4, -9, and +1. We burned out X, Z, Y in that order, and, uh, it looked like the AGS out-of-plane, uh, indication was good.

02:49speaker 2AGS out-of-plane was about about 7 ft per second, a little over 7 ft.

02:52speaker 1Uh, and it looked like we might have had a somewhat a G-sensitive, uh, drift in our, in our Y, uh, accelerometer in the Pings, but, uh, the tweak, as it turned out, was an excellent tweak, uh, because our rendezvous resulted in, uh,

03:11speaker 1in in just as nominal rendezvous and a nominal trajectory and profile as I guess I've ever been involved with. Uh, the, uh, the drift in that accelerometer did not bother us anywhere else in the tracking or in the, uh, in the rendezvous at all.

03:28speaker 1Rendezvous, uh, navigation was, uh, followed the checklist. Uh, uh, we got, uh, radar performed very well. We had auto updates into the AGS. Uh, the only thing I might mention here is when it came to, uh,

03:47speaker 1to making a TPI burn, we, uh, the residuals in the TPI burn were greater than what I had expected them, and we did not record them because I wanted to get them, uh, I wanted to get them, uh, nulled out just as soon as possible, but they were,

04:08speaker 1and I don't know the tenths, but they were -7 in X, uh, and then they were 4 and 4, and I'm not sure whether they were plus or minus in the Y and Z, but they were they were The point I'm making is they were large, larger than I had expected. They were -7 and a 4 point something and a 4 point something.

04:28speaker 1We, uh, reduced those to less than 2/10 of a foot per second, and, uh, from there on, continued to plot right through the midcourses, uh, right up the pike on a nominal trajectory. Uh, communications after that first, uh, lash-up, you got any comment about that?

04:49speaker 2Uh, comm was good. Uh, a couple of comments about the AGS. After about 5 or 10 minutes, uh, early in insertion, I always check the, uh, accelerometers, or early after insertion, and they look real real good, uh, except about 5 or 10

05:06speaker 2minutes later, and I can't remember exactly, I looked and I had accumulated a foot or two per foot, maybe a foot and a half per foot per second in X. So, uh, Jean went free, and I, uh, did a gyro cal, and after that, there was, uh, no significant accumulation in in X. That went very well.

05:23speaker 2I did that without talking to the ground, but I I felt I had an understanding with them that that was something that, uh, we could do without, you know, clearing. Let me just also mention on the TPI solutions, the AGS had essentially, within a 2 or 3 ft per second, a good TPI solution after six marks.

05:43speaker 2The insertion solution was not very good. It was off by, uh, a number of feet per second in X and even more in Z.

06:01speaker 2This was with her first only 17 marks, and this was her final.

06:04speaker 1Didn't change much on that, did it?

06:05speaker 2No. The Pings recycle and Pings final were, uh, very close.

06:09speaker 1Within a couple of feet per second in all axes.

06:11speaker 2In X, they were right on.

06:13speaker 1And a Pings recycle, uh, had, I don't remember exactly, close to 15 marks. I think I had, I had 17 17 marks.

06:22speaker 2Uh, and there's more data in the data card book about various AGS at certain times, marks with the AGS solutions.

06:32speaker 1Okay, the midcourse solutions, uh, first midcourse, uh, agreed effectively, uh, all systems except, uh, AGS out-of-plane was a little bit high. And, uh, the decision was made to burn the, uh, onboard Ping solution out of the LM, which was -1.2, +.4, and +.3.

06:55speaker 1We continued to track right up the pike. Uh, midcourse 2 came up, and, uh, we again compared all the solutions. Uh, the AGS out-of-plane was, uh, still a little bit, uh, high and in, uh, actually, the opposite direction from the Pings.

07:15speaker 1Uh, we had a slight variation in the CSM solution in Z, I don't know why. Uh, it came up with +5.4 ft per second in Z. So, we really didn't get a very good correlation between the CSM and the LM on the second, uh, midcourse.

07:35speaker 1Uh, but the Pings was still performing, the radar was still performing, and, uh, based upon our, uh, trajectory plot and based upon, uh, our following the nominal, uh, inertial line-of-sight rates, we decided to burn the, uh, Pings, onboard Ping solution, uh, in the LM.

07:54speaker 1And it was -.4, -.7, and -1.6. And from there on out, we just, uh, continued to follow the inertial line-of-sight angles and, uh, uh, very little tweaking, uh, in, uh, either in Y or Z, and we just sort of floated, uh, right through the, uh, braking gates.

08:18speaker 1Uh, at 1 mile, I think we put about took about 6 or 7 ft per second off to hit 30. We met all the gates, uh, uh, as prescribed, and, uh, just, uh, came, uh, very moving very slowly into, uh, final station keeping. Went into a, a, uh, formation flight around the CSM,

08:43speaker 1uh, got a good inspection of the spacecraft and the SIM bay, the report of which is in the transcript. Everything looked good to us. Uh, we eventually maneuvered, uh, the command module maneuvered to the docking attitude. The LM just took his position, his docking attitude, uh, did his pitch and yaw maneuver, and, uh, or gave the gave, uh, station keeping control to the command module to pitch and yaw maneuver and stood by for for docking.

09:12speaker 3Okay, uh, command module pilot proceeding on with the docking. I think the, uh, one of the more noticeable differences between, uh, this docking and the docking, uh, with the S-IVB is the fact that the ascent stage, uh, deadbands a lot more than the S-IVB did. Uh, S-IVB is steady as a rock, but you could tell, uh, just watch the LM

09:39speaker 3deadband because it would change, uh, attitude, and then you'd try to follow it. Uh, and looking on the first attempt, uh, coming in, I must have had less than a tenth of a foot per second, just barely closing on the thing, just taking it nice and easy. Uh, made contact and did not get, uh, uh, capture.

10:00speaker 1Okay, as soon as we didn't get capture, and it's obviously you're closing too slow, I backed off uh, oh, what, a couple of three feet, I guess. Something like that. Renulled the rates and uh, initiated the closing rate and uh, made got capture. As soon as we got capture, both vehicles went to uh, CMC free.

10:21speaker 1And you look around and uh, check the barber poles and whatever, and look back out, and there uh, I had some rates in the uh, CSM, and I'm sure now that the uh, the LM had rates also. He must have had. Why, we

10:37speaker 2we did, as soon as we, you went free. See, as soon as capture, the LM went free. Yeah. And then uh, the CSM trying to null the rates ended up perturbating the LM and giving us rates. Uh-huh.

10:49speaker 1So, uh, we finally gave up on that uh, mode, had the uh, the LM go to uh, attitude hold. And then once you go to attitude hold, then the CSM could null the rates.

11:01speaker 1And uh, we got lined up, and uh, attempted the uh, hard docking. Uh, no problem. Probe retract uh, came back. This time uh, didn't sound like it was as much of a thruster fire, was more of a [laughter] [snort]

11:16speaker 1and uh, it was a quicker docking, or hard, a quicker hard dock than it was uh, the previous time. You getting more tape in there?

11:26speaker 2Yeah. Yeah, we're still on. Okay, I want to say something about visual sightings. Turn around to the uh, I was able to, from the LM, I was able to see the command module in when it was sunlit at somewhere around 100 miles, and definitely define that that was a command module.

11:49speaker 2Uh, I, after the command module went into darkness, I could not pick up his tracking light until we were well within about 40 miles. I'd like this transcript to have more an accurate uh, time, but could not pick up the docking light, the rendezvous light uh, rather, from the command module till we were well within 40 miles, and then just a very, initially, very dim, faint

12:19speaker 2uh, flash. I was able to verify on board that the LM tracking light was working, and I finally figured out how. It was reflecting off the underside of the EVA handrail on the left forward side of the LM.

12:34speaker 2So, I could see the LM tracking light flashing. And also, when there, there were some particles we took with us uh, that stayed with the spacecraft, and you could see the sequential flash off of those particles as a result of our, our LM tracking light.

12:58speaker 1Okay, uh, this is the command module pilot. I've already mentioned in section 11.0 about the visibility of uh, the lunar module through the uh, optics.

13:12speaker 1What we got down here? Let's see. Anything else to add about rendezvous? photography and television, the photography on the LM, uh, well, we'll just have to wait and see how it turned out. I took a lot of footage. Uh, actually, we put it on uh, not only the ascent mag, but we put it on the another mag. We had part of a mag left, so, and

13:29speaker 1I think the same day uh, ride along, we did have a uh, Hasselblad on board, so we had a lot of Hasselblad photography, the rendezvous and some lunar surface stuff in the process of the rendezvous.

13:43speaker 2Okay. Post-docking check, like we're going to 13.0, lunar module jettison through TEI. Post-docking check and pressurization. Well, first of all, I guess you said you had every latch made this time, right?

13:56speaker 1Every latch worked, on. All 12 docking latches worked. Okay.

14:02speaker 1That, that sounds like it has something to do with the mass of the other vehicle involved, you know. [laughter] The

14:10speaker 2General comment I want to make about uh, the post-docking operations is that the uh, throughout the rendezvous, the, the both pilots in the LM kept their helmets on for uh, dust, keep the dust out, primarily. The commander took off his gloves only, almost immediately after insertion, and for the entire rendezvous, that way. You took yours off sometime later, didn't you?

14:34speaker 1I kept mine on uh, after we'd done a lot of transfer. I can't remember exactly. You kept your gloves on, too? You kept your gloves, oh, I had, oh, okay. After insertion, I did most of my uh, pre-insertion work with the gloves on because I didn't want to take the time. I want to get that initial AG solution, and I could, and I could get that fairly rapidly with the gloves. And I didn't take the gloves off until uh, oh, maybe 10 or 15 minutes after insertion.

14:59speaker 1But I kept the helmet on all the way through most of the transfer, just to avoid breathing the dust because I'd had the uh, irritation, sinus irritation on the surface.

15:08speaker 2And the commander kept the helmet on uh, throughout the rendezvous and uh, docking. I took my gloves off after insertion and left them off. Now, when we started, when we, we started getting prepared, as soon as we were hard-docked, the commander took off his helmet, and as I look back at that, because of

15:30speaker 2the dust debris in the LM spacecraft, uh, I'm sorry I did it. Uh, I could have left the helmet on, and uh, and I would have had a lot less uh, not troublesome, but it was just uh, eye and mouth type of irritation. You knew you were in a very heavily uh, infiltrated atmosphere in the LM uh, because of the lunar dust. Although, it's, I don't know how much lunar dust previous flights had, but

16:00speaker 2the, I think we saved a great deal of grief by taping up, by sweeping all the dust we could find on the floor into the holes and putting our tape covers over those holes. I think that had to help a great deal because there was an awful lot of dust on the floor that uh, we didn't see.

16:17speaker 2Uh, so I had the, commander had his helmets and gloves out, off throughout the entire uh, transfer. Basically, the way we handled the transfer was the way we had planned. The uh, I think the LM pilot did most of the uh, preparation of the gear in the, in the LM, and, and the commander stayed in the tunnel and uh, passed things on, and uh, the

16:42speaker 2inventory was going on on the command module side and on the LM side, both. We uh, vacuumed each other's suits the best we could, and everything else that got supposedly transferred unbagged or uncovered.

16:56speaker 3This is the LMP. In spite of the CMP's comments to the contrary, I think we got things remarkably clean, and there wasn't an awful lot of dirt in the command module coming back.

17:06speaker 2Really was. It was clean. Oh, well, that, that's true. I, I didn't want to leave that impression. Okay. Contrast, Contrast, he may have thought it was dirty, but, but uh, I was surprised we were able to uh, keep the, the level of uh, particulate contamination in the command module down as low as it was.

17:21speaker 2Well, that, that atmosphere that the commander was referring to in the LM after he took his helmet off, I could go halfway through the tunnel and stick my head up into the command module, and it was a totally refreshed, unpolluted atmosphere up there. It never did get polluted.

17:37speaker 3I think having that vacuum cleaner running in the LM had a lot to do with keeping the, the flow in the other direction and filtering out the air.

17:46speaker 1Oh, it did, too. We never did vacuum in the command module because it just wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary to vacuum in the command module at all.

17:54speaker 3And the suits were noticeably cleaned by the vacuum cleaner. You could tell you were pulling stuff off of them, although they were still dirty, and every other subsequent time we handled them, we got our hands dirty, but uh, I think most of the free dust was taken care of.

18:09speaker 2We uh, we effectively stayed on a transfer list. Uh, I say effectively, throughout that transfer. However, some things got transferred uh, out of order uh, and got temporarily stowed in the uh, command module, but we effectively used the uh, transfer list as a, not as a, a cookbook, follow the recipe type of thing, but as an inventory list. And uh, we inventoried it several times from both ends and found out that uh, we were satisfied we had everything transferred.

18:39speaker 2And uh, then pressed on with the LM closeout.

18:47speaker 2LM closeout went nominal. Uh, we got back into the, into the LM, or into the command module, and uh, the commander closed out the, the, the LMP closed out the LM uh, and for convenience, the commander uh, effectively went back and closed out the LM hatch, put in the command module hatch. Uh, because of the slow tunnel vent, or the long duration of tunnel vent,

19:16speaker 2uh, the commander uh, stayed in the tunnel, the LMP in uh, his seat, and the CMP in the left seat. Uh, we suited up and got prepared for our, for integrity check, and as soon as the, as soon as the LM tunnel vent was complete, and we were satisfied with integrity of the hatch, we went into the uh, to the uh, suit integrity checks.

19:40speaker 1Yeah, this is the CMP. Let me make another comment on the tunnel vent time. I bet it must take, and I'm not sure this is correct, but I bet at least uh, three or four times longer than the simulator is for the tunnel vent uh, mode.

19:56speaker 2And I think that's going to be applicable to Skylab because of their docking uh,

20:00speaker 1We're going to have to vent before the end, Doc, I think. It's quite a took quite a while. But tunnel closeout was easy. We had no uh no drogue and no probe, which were stowed uh in the LM for LM jettison.

20:20speaker 1Uh going through the rest of these mind triggers uh under Lunar Module Jettison through TEI, we just followed the checklist, and it all seemed to happen just as advertised.

20:33speaker 2Well, we got a little bit intrigued with the uh the LM jettison. You know, this time it was it was great, and it just sailed out there nice and pretty, and we got a lot of good pictures of it [cough] uh where we should have been maneuvering. And we ended up uh getting into P41 after for the sub-burn uh a little bit late. But that's no problem either, because we just turned the residuals in P41 and and uh got a good sub-burn.

20:58speaker 1I I want to make a comment that I think cleaning control uh in the command module uh was excellent considering all the dust and all the dirt uh that just seemed to adhere to everything in the LM. When we got back in the command command module, with the exception of the suits and with the exception of the LMP and the CDR, uh everything uh was clean. Uh and that, for the most part, is because everything was bagged before we brought it over, bagged and zipped. And we never did open anything uh once we got it zipped up. So, the command module stayed, and I think that suit fan filter is probably going to be very, very clean, stayed exceptionally clean throughout the remainder of the flight.

21:50speaker 2Let me add on the bagging, decontamination bags, I made a special effort as per uh request pre-launch to uh pull those zippers as tight as I could. And they should be pretty tight sealed.

22:06speaker 1Okay, uh orbital navigation high-gain, why don't you pick that up?

22:14speaker 2Okay, already uh from sub to TEI, I have no uh no comments. High-gain uh always worked good. Omnis and S-band were good. Uh photography uh went as advertised. We have a lot uh of uh targets of opportunity. Uh SIM bay operations uh have been mentioned before.

22:36speaker 1Let me just make one gross comment about the way we handled it as a three-man crew in SIM bay operations, which after

22:42speaker 2Didn't we do that yesterday?

22:44speaker 1Did we?

22:45speaker 2Yeah.

22:46speaker 1Okay, it's covered.

22:47speaker 2I think it's covered.

22:48speaker 1I don't know.

22:50speaker 2I think I did say something, yeah.

22:51speaker 1Yeah, you did.

22:58speaker 2Okay, the TEI updates, normal. Section of star checks uh were good for TEI.

23:08speaker 1Got the commander's master alarm in every one of them all through the flight, which made me feel real good, but she kept trying to get it.

23:13speaker 2I bet you she got it on those last

23:14speaker 1I made I made sure I got it on those last few. I wasn't going to change any mode of operation.

23:23speaker 1I'll tell you that last one, uh uh well, reentry was the last one, but I made sure I got it on TEI. Just make you guys feel at home. I figured you'd think I didn't do it right if I didn't get the master alarm.

23:40speaker 2The uh TEI half-G or whatever we were pulling there uh was uh seemed like more than that. Quite noticeable.

23:47speaker 1I'm sure it did. It seemed like it was really pushing you back in the seat.

23:51speaker 2Yeah. Ron and I, I think, started out holding our heads up and eventually relaxed them back on the on the couch.

23:59speaker 1I guess we must have had the spacecraft pretty well stowed or tied down because uh as I briefed the CMP and LMP, and as I recall those kind of burns back in Apollo 10, lots of things start moving through the spacecraft and find their due uh on the on the aft uh end of the spacecraft because of the G-load. And much to my surprise, uh all we had was an initial thud as we moved away from the station, and we didn't have any gear coming from anywhere flying through the spacecraft. So, we must have cleaned it up pretty well.

24:38speaker 2I found I got a uh caught a white-tagged wet wipe.

24:43speaker 1A white-tagged wet wipe. [laughter] But other than than maybe one or two of those things, uh in looking back, uh I would have expected more gear to come from somewhere, but uh we prepared for those burns pretty well.

24:58speaker 2Well, that remind brings up uh another point that reminds me, though, is that there is always water condensing on the ECU uh unit, the pipes and what have you back in there when you get back to clean the suit circuit return valve. [cough] And when we put our suits on for the EVA the next day, your your suits were noticeably wet.

25:19speaker 1Mhm.

25:20speaker 2And uh also, when I pulled the PGA bag up, it was damp down underneath the PGA bag. So, I think uh uh as a normal procedure, we should have uh either after the burn, probably before the burn, made sure we wipe up the water in the in the LEB. Somehow we'll do that.

25:40speaker 1I wasn't really aware our suits were damp when we put them on, but I was not aware I could look down there, and I could not find any real water down in the down there. I checked on the ECS.

25:50speaker 2Yeah, on the ECS, there's there's always water down there on the ECS. I just assumed that's where all that came from, but uh

25:56speaker 1But it was all over.

25:57speaker 2It's it's not a puddle of water, like you say, it's just damp.

26:01speaker 3It's almost as if it was over down in the LEB, and water was condensing on all the all over the suits. It wasn't as if they were in a puddle.

26:07speaker 2Yeah.

26:09speaker 1Okay, I think that covers uh right on through uh TEI.

26:13speaker 2Let's see, yeah, the one thing I want to mention on TEI is that uh uh again, the simulator is set up such that uh in the roll deadband, it goes over to one side of the roll deadband, just kind of stays there. And uh during the TEI burn, uh it was bouncing back and forth from one side of the the deadband over to the other side of the deadband. And when it's bouncing back and forth, the roll rate is up around uh oh, 4/10 uh 4/10 of a degree per second, arcing back and forth across the roll deadband.

26:53speaker 1Okay, 14.0 Trans-Earth Coast, and the thing that I just realized we've neglected to say anywhere about systems, uh I'd like to mention chlorination at this point in time. I think, without fail,

27:05speaker 2Did you ever talk about it?

27:06speaker 1No. I think, without fail, almost every chlorination leaked uh sometimes larger quantities of water, other times just small quantities of water. And I'll tell you where it leaked.

27:22speaker 2Water or chlorine?

27:24speaker 1Well, or both.

27:25speaker 2It's a combination.

27:26speaker 1Chlorine and your chlorinating and uh and buffer or water when you withdrew the buffer sample.

27:30speaker 2Yeah.

27:32speaker 1But where it leaked was appeared to me to leak within the ampoule itself around the bag because it was the chlorine, the cylindrical chlorine dispenser that was continually wet. It was not the uh it was not where the uh dispenser fit into the needle or where the uh needle adapter fit into the spacecraft. It was within the barrel chlorine dispenser itself, and uh we continually chlorination was uh was a case of uh of always cleaning your hands with chlorine because you always had it available down there within that dispenser. And in some cases, you had larger quantities of water that had to be wiped up with uh with a tissue. That plagued us throughout the whole mission. It turned out not to be a serious problem because we learned how to handle it, but uh that was one system anomaly that never had really been brought out.

28:33speaker 2Yeah, let's see, uh CMP, let me amplify that a little bit. In uh two cases, I'm almost positive that when you put the thing on in the bayonet fitting and crank it on there, it did not puncture the ampoule itself. And the reason I can I believe that's correct is that uh when you start to to crank the outside of the cassette down to to push the chlorine into the into the water system, it was very hard to turn. And if you if you tried to force it, you could force it on down there, and I'm sure that's a good way to to break uh an ampoule on the thing. And if you take it, I just uh in two cases, took the bayonet fitting loose again and put it back on there, and and in both cases, uh then you just try to squeeze the uh chlorine out of the ampoule into the system, and it would turn easier. But it's still hard to to turn, also hard to crank that thing down.

29:45speaker 1But uh we did not, yeah, we got the chlorination done. We didn't miss any injections of chlorine, and we didn't miss we didn't miss any of the uh buffer samples. Uh So, I guess we

30:00speaker 1got the job done. It was just a little bit messy.

30:02speaker 2Mm-hmm.

30:03speaker 1And chlorine was evident in because uh the CDR eventually peeled all the outer skin off his right hand and I'm convinced it was due to the chlorine and had nothing to do with the EVA.

30:16speaker 1Boy, he lost a little, little flesh, little skin on his hand.

30:21speaker 2Yeah.

30:23speaker 1Transverse coast, systems navigation, let's press on and see what we can say about that.

30:30speaker 2We'll have lunch here.

30:31speaker 1Okay, uh well let me see how much transverse coast we got to do. Let's get, yeah, let's go through up to the CSM EVA anyway.

30:39speaker 2Okay.

30:40speaker 1Okay, transverse coast, the first thing I want to mention is passive thermal control was at what I would call unusual attitudes because of the UV and IR requirements. Now, these unusual attitudes did two things. They uh they put us uh they required us to remaneuver the spacecraft several times and exit enter and exit PTC several, several times, which in itself was not a problem, was just uh additional uh coordination. Uh coincidentally, most of these uh particular PTC attitudes were within 30, certainly 45 degrees of gimbal lock most of the time. So, we were looking at the red apple good portion of the trip home. Uh but they also uh some of those attitudes where you actually were not in we were in attitudes and/or PTC at these relatively unusual positions uh change the uh the uh equilibrium heat load on the spacecraft. You could see it in uh in RCS uh quad temperatures were all right, but you could see it in helium package temperatures. And most notably, you could see it on the change in uh condensation from the tunnel hatch to the uh forward hatch. The tunnel hatch eventually for most of the way home ended up to be very dry. Uh and the uh about the second day out on the way home, the uh the uh forward or the

32:08speaker 2main hatch

32:09speaker 1center hatch

32:10speaker 2center hatch

32:11speaker 1uh got soaking wet to the point that uh I even took a dry rag and wiped off some of the uh latch components and some of the uh gearbox components externally. Not that it did any good, but there was just that much water on it. And I I think this is all due to the uh PTC attitudes required for the uh SIM bay experiments on the way home.

32:35speaker 2And it was colder in the spacecraft, too.

32:37speaker 1Oh, yes, it was colder in the spacecraft.

32:39speaker 2Not as cold as the commander thought it was, but it was cold.

32:41speaker 1That's right.

32:43speaker 1Cold enough to warm up.

32:45speaker 2On the commander's orders.

32:55speaker 2And I guess mention we warmed it up with the ground's suggestion of an extra burner and uh going to manual on the temp temp-in. I think we discussed that yesterday.

33:04speaker 1Right, all your uh all your uh your REFSMMAT changes, uh your uh torquing, the platform torquing, all those uh went very well, I thought.

33:16speaker 2They went great, uh real well.

33:20speaker 1The and and all the way back home, as the it was just changing attitudes, changing attitudes, changing attitudes, with the exception of the EVA day, which uh we'll cover here shortly.

33:38speaker 2CSM EVA.

33:42speaker 2Okay, on EVA prep, I think the only anomaly we came across was the uh CMP's uh well, let's see, on EVA prep, we really didn't have any. We didn't know anything at that point. On the, I was going to say on the CMP's uh bumper. But the EVA prep went uh right down the line, essentially. It was all uh well laid out within the uh experiments checklist, and we checked things off as we went, and uh stayed pretty much on the timeline. We started about a half hour early and stayed a half hour early then.

34:19speaker 1We uh we we started, we were a half hour early throughout the whole thing, and we lost that half hour in opening hatch just about, and turned TV on exactly on timeline. I can't remember a small little something we were chasing then.

34:32speaker 2It was the comm carrier.

34:33speaker 1Comm carrier.

34:34speaker 2Comm carrier.

34:35speaker 1Comm carrier change. We lost that half hour during a comm carrier change on the tone.

34:40speaker 1Uh Ron, I'd like to add that uh uh post-EVA that uh I think one thing that helped us uh immensely on what ended up to be, I think, a very fine uh entry stowage was that we sort of uh backed off after the EVA and uh took a long, good long list at the long-range stowage as well as the post-EVA stowage, and really effectively started housekeeping, cleaning up the cabin, and effectively stowing some of the articles that were not going to be used any further in the mission for entry at that time.

35:24speaker 2At that point in time, yes.

35:25speaker 1At that point in time. So, entry stowage really started with the post-EVA time frame period, and I think that really helped us out in the long run.

35:34speaker 2Okay, I think uh we should mention how we got out of the suits on that. For me, that was a pretty important uh way to get things done. And

35:47speaker 1The only change, the only change to the to the uh prep and/or post was the order in which we doffed and donned suits, because it was very evident that there were certain convenient ways because of the way the student suits were stowed and uh the way uh people fit into the uh checklist, that we when we donned the suits, the commander got donned, you can you donned first.

36:12speaker 2First, then I did, then Ron.

36:14speaker 1Then the LMP and the and the CMP got donned last, and it worked out very fine. Anyway, plus the CMP had less work to do in his suit, which also aided him in the long run. When we doffed,

36:25speaker 2I went first, I think.

36:27speaker 1the LMP

36:28speaker 2Yeah, because I was stuffed in the

36:29speaker 1went first,

36:30speaker 2LMP, then you, then

36:31speaker 1then the CDR, and then the CMP. And that wasn't exactly the way it was called for, but that's the way it worked out.

36:36speaker 2That's the way it worked out the best.

36:38speaker 1And we stowed our suits in the L-shape bag prior to putting the center couch back in, which was uh another good decision, I believe, uh in helping us get the suits stowed back in that L-shape bag.

36:59speaker 2Go ahead.

37:00speaker 2Okay, let's go on down uh cabin depress. Uh no problems. A normal uh depress. Hatch opening, uh even though the hatch was completely uh or the cabin was completely depressed, I think we were reading zero pressure on the thing, as soon as I opened the hatch, there was enough residual pressure or something inside the spacecraft that it actually tended to pull the the hatch out of out of my hand.

37:29speaker 1Your suit is bleeding into the cabin all the time, so you never truly get zero.

37:33speaker 2That's right, you never truly get zero on the thing, but the the dump valve was still open. And uh if I had not been hanging onto the hatch, it would have blown it all the way open. Oh, Ron, to give you an idea, and that's that's exact, that's not unexpected, because that's exactly what we have on the lunar surface. We complete completely dump the LM, and I'd still have to break that hatch loose and hold it open about six or eight inches until things just vented, and then I could let go of the hatch and open it all the way. If I didn't, it would slam back closed.

38:08speaker 2Oh, yeah.

38:09speaker 1Different type of

38:10speaker 2Different type of

38:11speaker 1So, it was basically the same thing. You got to open it and really let things get down to zero.

38:15speaker 2Okay, when I opened the hatch then, all of the uh excuse me, all of the little ice crystals and everything started flowing out. Uh a pen went floating by, and something else went floating by, wasn't quite sure what it was.

38:35speaker 1Scissors.

38:37speaker 2But uh there was all kinds of little particle particles and pieces started uh coming out through the hatch.

38:43speaker 1But I sure didn't see, I looked specifically for the scissors.

38:48speaker 1I uh I didn't see any scissors go out that hatch, I hate to say.

38:51speaker 2Another one went by my watch.

38:52speaker 1I I didn't, none of them went by me.

38:55speaker 1Ron, I'd like to say that they went out the the hatch, but I sure didn't see them go.

39:00speaker 2Sure you didn't see them go by?

39:01speaker 1I didn't see, I caught the one thing that went started to go by me and I put put it in your pocket.

39:06speaker 2You got it.

39:07speaker 1West strap.

39:10speaker 2Okay, the uh once the uh all the particles and and uh stuff was out of the way, then you just push the hatch hatch open. We had disconnected the uh uh counterbalance uh with the B tool B there, so that uh we lock the hatch in the open position. So, I just shoved it open, and it went beyond the uh uh center position and and uh locked in the open position with no problems. Egress, uh I had a tendency, I guess, uh just like uh any other thing, it seems like you want to float up. And I had a tendency to float up against the uh MDC and had to consciously duck and uh get as close my face as close as I could to the bottom of the hatch in order to uh get past the uh get the OPS past the MDC and get on out.

40:00speaker 1TV and DAC installation uh worked fine. I could hang on with the right hand on the hatch, uh the great big uh D-handle on the hatch, and uh with the TV pole in my left hand, and it worked out real fine. Just uh stick it in there and then line it up with the mark and uh make sure it was uh

40:21speaker 1uh locked in or clamped in.

40:24speaker 1And then uh climbed on up the pole to turn the TV on, or turn the uh DAC on.

40:33speaker 1And it was you couldn't see the light. I couldn't see the light on the thing, but you could feel the camera running once you turned it on. You could just touch it, you could feel it feel it vibrating a little bit.

40:46speaker 1The uh lunar sounder cassette uh retrieval, um

40:51speaker 1I think uh that should be on the onboard uh or on the uh air-to-ground tapes

40:57speaker 1as I was describing uh most everything that was going on. No problems.

41:05speaker 1The pan camera cassettes were next. No problem on the uh pan camera cassettes. And in the pan camera, it's obviously a bigger mass, and it's it's uh quite apparent when you try to manu- move move that big mass around, that it is heavier, and it weighs more than uh the other things. It's easy to move, but it just takes a little more effort to get it started. And you know that if you ever get it started in one direction, it's going to

41:31speaker 1keep on going, you have to stop it.

41:33speaker 1So, I just uh moved everything real slow, tried to keep it under control.

41:38speaker 1Mapping camera cassette had the same uh problem I had in the uh in the SIM bay uh C squared S squared, getting the

41:49speaker 1the uh thermal cover off.

41:53speaker 1It stuck underneath the mapping camera laser altimeter door.

42:01speaker 1But uh there was no real problem. You know, I just had the feet in the shoes, just give it a big jerk, and it finally came off.

42:09speaker 1SIM bay inspection, uh that's all covered in the

42:14speaker 1onboard uh I mean air-to-ground tapes.

42:18speaker 1TV and DAC removal uh again was real simple. You just had to squeeze the uh the lever, and TV came out, and it was easy to uh hang on with one hand and maneuver the uh uh TV around and point it toward the the moon, because I didn't have to worry about shining it into the sun. When I tried to, again, hang on with one hand and and point the TV around toward the Earth,

42:45speaker 1it was the Earth was, oh, maybe 10 or 15 degrees, probably 15 degrees from the sun.

42:50speaker 1And I tried to be a little more accurate on the thing, and when I did that, then I lost

42:55speaker 1quite effectively really lost control of the of uh my body position, because I was trying to to uh, I think, maneuver the camera.

43:09speaker 1And I just

43:11speaker 1you need both hands to maintain your body control again, so rather than try to flash the camera through the sun or something like that, I gave up on trying to point the camera at the Earth.

43:26speaker 1Comms during EVA uh was loud and clear for me uh throughout the

43:31speaker 1throughout the EVA. There was a lot of background noise, the hissing uh of the airflow, and I'm sure that was probably coming over the uh the box circuit.

43:39speaker 1But uh, other than that, I don't think anyone had, it didn't appear to me that anyone had any trouble on the ground reading.

43:45speaker 2I think one of the big uh advantages on the LMP, that one thing we did because it was bothering me at first, we I turned your box sensitivity down about two notches.

43:54speaker 2And apparently that really improved the comm for us, was the impression I had.

43:57speaker 1Yeah, I I had that impression from the ground. I don't know if it did if it made any difference, uh but I got the impression that that did help.

44:02speaker 2Comms in the cabin was excellent. I never had any trouble understanding you. I had hissing in the background, but we uh

44:07speaker 1Yeah, I thought it sounded much better than I remembered other flights sounding.

44:11speaker 1Mhm.

44:12speaker 1On the air-to-ground. Well, our CMP made more noise than this.

44:17speaker 1I guess I used the wrong word, "better." It was clearer.

44:20speaker 2Clearer.

44:27speaker 1Uh ingress uh seemed to me like it was easier than egress.

44:33speaker 1Yeah, for some reason. Uh hatch closing was uh harder than I anticipated.

44:39speaker 1And I guess maybe this is the uh the same reason is that I must have been exhausting into the cabin all the time, and just at the lat- the hatch would come closed to within about an inch of closing on the outer edge, and then it took an effort to pull the hatch closed so that you could activate the uh the the latching handle.

45:00speaker 1So that you could over- get the the latches over center.

45:05speaker 1Of course, once you got the first stroke on the latching handle and got got the hatch uh to latches over center, then it's uh really easy, just uh couple more cranks on the

45:16speaker 1on the hatch uh closing.

45:20speaker 1Cabin repress uh was nominal.

45:23speaker 2Let me uh add my comments here, this is LMP.

45:27speaker 2Uh all I did was work in the hatch area,

45:30speaker 2and uh

45:32speaker 2I want to emphasize, I think, what everybody has always said is that

45:36speaker 2that you do your best work when you take things slow and easy and just let yourself uh move yourself in small increments to where you want to go. You can turn and dip and brace yourself up. And I think it's also useful uh for any cabin hatch or

45:51speaker 2or port operations uh to have somebody else available to uh push you out on your tether as far as you want to go or pull you in. That just eases the operation. Gene was doing this occasionally for me.

46:03speaker 2Uh

46:04speaker 2But uh

46:06speaker 2with the kind with the struts and everything available there, there was never any feeling that I didn't have a way to control my body position. Sometimes it took a few seconds to get it where I wanted it, but it was clear.

46:18speaker 2The one uh thing, invariably, every time I went back inside,

46:23speaker 2I was had this 90-degree disorientation feeling for a few seconds until I

46:29speaker 2got the perspective of the cabin again and said, "Okay, that's right," and I get back in. And then I'd go back outside and I'd come back in again, and then once again, it seemed as if the cabin had rotated 90 degrees to my perspective.

46:41speaker 2And uh

46:42speaker 2it's just something that's no problem, it's just a change of perspective for some reason that I I experienced several times.

46:50speaker 2Uh

46:57speaker 2I guess the biggest problem working in that

47:00speaker 2angle for me, sun angle or attitude, was uh

47:03speaker 2I uh I had the sun full face.

47:06speaker 1You had the sun in your eyes most of the time.

47:08speaker 2And uh so it made it hard to look in detail and see what you're doing. It was you were clear image were there, and I could see every major operation doing, but if I had to specifically see details, it was

47:21speaker 1Oh, I know one one point I wanted to make uh also was that

47:25speaker 1I had no awareness whatsoever that I had an umbilical on my back.

47:29speaker 1I was I never got the feeling that the umbilical was tugging on me, restricting my movements, or

47:36speaker 1anything. I didn't even know it was there. And did you observe at any time, did the umbilical ever get

47:41speaker 1tangled around uh my feet?

47:43speaker 2No, the umbilical was uh was easy to tend, and uh I frankly don't remember a single time when I had to

47:50speaker 2clear it. There may have been one.

47:53speaker 2Suddenly I have a vague impression that one time I asked you to to hold up or

47:58speaker 2maybe I didn't say anything, I just

48:00speaker 2pulled it away from a handhold or something, but

48:03speaker 2the umbilical was uh was very didn't tend to snake around, and it was

48:07speaker 2and you seemed to have everything you needed on it.

48:09speaker 1Mhm. It worked out real well. I didn't even know it was there. I guess that's the point I was making, is is it really uh being tied to the umbilical does not restrict your movement or uh or give you a feeling that it's it's it is restricting your movement at all.

48:27speaker 1Suit doffing and stowage, I think we've already discussed that.

48:34speaker 1Uh this is continuing on the EVA uh part of it, but uh oh no, this is suit just suit a different section here, suit doffing and stowage.

48:42speaker 1We have already mentioned the suit doffing and stowage.

48:46speaker 1Uh the light flash uh phenomena,

48:51speaker 1we we three of us were blindfolded for an hour and uh never saw a light flash.

48:56speaker 2That was the fi- second round.

48:58speaker 1The second round, on our way back, on the way back, in the

49:00speaker 1transearth.

49:03speaker 1Eating, resting, exercise, and

49:05speaker 2Let me add to the light flash, this is LMP, that the next, by that evening, I guess it was, I did see them again, falling asleep.

49:14speaker 2Okay.

49:15speaker 1I did, too. I

49:17speaker 2So, there was just that period, apparently, during the actual experiment that, for some reason, they weren't with us.

49:27speaker 1I think we've discussed the eating, uh resting,

49:30speaker 2Yeah.

49:31speaker 1exercise, and comfort already.

49:32speaker 1Cabin atmosphere,

49:35speaker 1uh the one thing uh that I don't think we've we've ever mentioned yet, and I think should be noted, is that we

49:47speaker 1uh never really utilized the waste storage vent

49:51speaker 1to get rid of any odors out of that waste storage compartment.

49:55speaker 1And if you, as you kind of drifted over in that area,

50:00speaker 1It was always a problem when you were in that area. If you got real close to it, you'd notice it.

50:03speaker 2I never noticed it. I never noticed it.

50:06speaker 1I guess maybe I did when you opened the door. That's when you really notice it.

50:09speaker 2The cabin generally uh turned over the atmosphere uh in pretty good style. Uh it got saturated sometimes with uh with gas and it took uh a few minutes, but once the source of that gas was uh was plugged up, the uh the cabin did a good job of recirculating and cleaning it up.

50:36speaker 1I think it did. Real good.

50:39speaker 2Flight plan updates were super. The flight plan was excellent and they were held to a minimum and we really didn't change any part of the entire flight except a few dates and times and uh what have you here and there.

50:51speaker 1Attitudes.

50:52speaker 2Attitudes uh but other than that, it was really at a minimum. Let's say the entry preparations really began uh after EVA and uh continued all through the next day. And uh we had very little final stowage to do on entry morning. Just those things that we had to leave unstowed until we got uh got out of our sleep restraints. So, we basically just had to tie the big bags down on A1 and 2 and 7 and 8. And uh final entry preparations went by the by the checklist. And uh if anything, we stayed about five minutes ahead uh throughout the entire checklist, including uh separation and activation of the uh uh command module RCS and uh picked that five minutes up, of course, right at uh 05G, which came on time. The communications, I thought, uh were very good through that period of time. We were through Oria the last couple minutes prior to RRT. And uh I understand now the ground heard everything we said right on through blackout.

52:01speaker 1In the blackout.

52:02speaker 2And then uh and as soon as we came out of blackout, they still had Oria. And they could read us uh and we could have read them, but they never transmitted anything.

52:13speaker 1How long was that, Al? Okay.

52:15speaker 2Yeah. Yeah.

52:22speaker 2Now, I'm out of tape here, so.

52:27speaker 1Yeah, I can't think of anything else.

52:28speaker 2Well, on the corridor checks, we got uh the horizon and moon set, right? Yeah. Without any, well, with with problem of looking, but uh

52:36speaker 1Well, we had them all and they all were within seconds of the actual time.

52:41speaker 2They were all within seconds and, you know, in this in this CMS, I'd always look for the 2G when the corridor light would go out, though. I didn't even notice it in flight.

52:51speaker 1So, I must have been, I was either watching something else uh I must have been checking the the EMS or the