Spacelog Apollo 11

Hey, Jim.

Go ahead, Buzz.

Looks like the best way to get a steady view through the monocular is just steady it out and let it close when it's in front of your eye, and then you kind of float up next to it so that you're not touching it at all. It has a very slow drift, and you get a better—steadier view that way.

Sounds good.

How does it feel to be airborne again, Buzz?

Well, I'll tell you, I've been having a ball floating around inside here, back and forth up to one place and back to another. It's like being outside, except more comfortable.

It's a lot bigger than our last vehicle.

… kept me busy, I'm …

Say again about Buzz -

Yes. It sure is nice in here.

I said it's a lot bigger than the last vehicle that Buzz and I were in.

Oh, yes. It's been nice. I've been very busy so far. I'm looking forward to taking the afternoon off. I've been cooking, and sweeping, and almost sewing, and you know, the usual little housekeeping things.

It was very convenient the way they put the food preparation system right next to the NAV station.

Everything is right next to everything in this vehicle.

Not if you're in the …

Jim, it's been a little warm in the machine throughout yesterday and last night during the PTC. It cooled off somewhat with the windows buttoned up, and we've seen suit temperatures of about—the high 40's and cabin temperatures in the low 60's. But this seems to be still a little bit on the warm side.

I understand that it got a little warm during the day and cooled down a little bit when you put the shades up, but you're still a little bit warm. Do you have any moisture condensation or anything like that on the wall?

No, we haven't been able to detect any moisture anyplace in the spacecraft. It seems to be fine.

One of the hydrogen filters—the one that we've got on the hot water—seems to keep flowing when you remove one of the food bags from it. Its flow rate is quite small, right near the end of one out, and that contributes a little bit of moisture to the atmosphere.

Yes, that hydrogen thing, it's—I'm not sure, but I think it's a backpressure problem. If the thing sees any backpressure at all, like when the bag is attached, well the flow rate will slowly decrease to where it's almost zero, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait for that last ounce. You think you have its and you remove the bag, and then you very rapidly thereafter see maybe a glob the size of a dime or a quarter come out and just hang there. That appears to be true even though the opening into the bag is not restricted.

Understand.

In general, I think they do quite a good job, especially on the guns, in removing a lot of the hydrogen bubbles.

Have the water temperatures been good? Are you getting hot water?

Yes. It seems reasonably warm.

We made three cups of coffee today. The last one—you know when all the plumbing was warmed up, the hydrogen gun and everything, was warmest of the three. I don't know who had that one—Neil, did you have that one? How was your coffee? You didn't drink it till later, did you? Anyway, it's pretty good. It's not piping hot, but it sure beats stone-cold coffee.

Jim, we've been sitting here a little over 20 minutes now, How does the thruster firing activity look? Are you ready to go on with this PTC?

Roger. Stand by.

We're all set to go, Mike.

Houston, Apollo 11. PTC has started and it looks good.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. If you're free for a couple of minutes, we have a procedure here that will let us verify the O₂ flow transducer and at the same time get some more of our cabin enrichment out of the way. Over.

Stand by.

Go ahead, Houston. We're ready to copy.

Roger. The primary purpose of this is, as I mentioned, to let us check out your O₂ flow transducer. However, we still need about 2 hours' worth of cabin enrichment, so we'd like to keep the vent that we're going to set up going for this purpose. Okay. We want you to install the cabin vent quick disconnect which you'll find in compartment R-6, that is Romeo 6, on the urine connector on panel 251. When this is completed, verify that the waste stowage vent valve is closed, and then open or position the waste management overboard drain to the DUMP position. Over.

Okay. Understand that. Install the cabin quick disconnect out of R-6 on the 251 urine connector and verify that the waste dump valve is closed, and say again the last part.

Roger. And then put the waste management overboard drain valve into the DUMP position. Over.

Roger. Put the waste management overboard drain valve to the DUMP position.

Okay, Houston. That configuration is set up.

11, this is Houston. Say again, please.

You do have the O₂ flow transducer checkout setup accomplished.

Okay. Understand you have opened the drain valve at this time.

That's … It's in DUMP.

Roger. We're not getting telemetry data from you right due to low signal strength. There it comes back. I expect it'll probably take us anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour to see an increase in O₂ flow due to the size of the cabin and of course of the small size of the drain. Over.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Roger. Sounds like you've got a beautiful view up there.

Absolutely fantastic. I hope the pictures come out. We,re rotating around where it's going out of view again.

I'm waiting to pick it up in the sextant.

Houston, Apollo 11. Do you need some help keeping OMNI's locked on us?

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Negative. We had a command computer at the Madrid site go down. We had to switch over to Ascension temporarily. We're now back remoting through Madrid, and the computer is back, and we're ready to resume control of your OMNI's and full communication. Over.

Okay. You've got it.

Okay. One thing that we did miss in the dropout in the noise here is your LM/CM DELTA-P reading for about 28 hours GET. Over.

Okay. The LM/CM DELTA-P is 0.98.

Roger. 0.98, and what have you been reading for O₂ flow on your onboard gage? Over.

Well, right now, after we put that gadget in, we've got it back to 0.35. Before that, we were reading on scale level. I think ours is relatively correct, at least when time comes for the water accumulator to kick in at 10 seconds, it goes on up to about 0.75, 0.8, something like that.

This is Houston. Roger. Out.

And, 11, this is Houston. A little more information based on our analysis of your last SPS burn: it looks like you got a good solid burn there. We show 94 psi chamber pressure and it looks like the SPS is definitely GO. Over.

Good to hear it.

Roger. We thought you'd feel that way about it.

We're right in the middle of—well either … or salmon salad, or something like that. That's probably why we're not answering you right away.

Okay. Well, we don't want —

My compliments to the chef, that salad salmon is outstanding.

Roger. Understand that's the salad salmon. Over.

Something like that, salmon salad.

There we go, the salmon salad, very good.

Okay. Bruce, we're coming up on the water accumulator activity, and it's going on up to 0.85, oh, about 0.95 and it reached a peak there and then gradually dropped back on down to 0.6 now, 0.4, and it looks like it's pretty well—pretty well leveling off back down to 0.35. Over.

Roger, We're copying that.

11, Houston.

Go ahead.

Roger. On that 2O flow transducer down here on telemetry, our values are agreeing pretty well with what you read out onboard, and the EECOMM's have been noticing this cycle, but it still looks like the indicated rate is lower than what we would expect. We're still working on the problem, and we'll let you have a more complete diagnosis on it in a little while.

Okay. It's a tight fix then.

We run a tight ship.

Roger. Is that music I hear in the background?

Buzz in singing.

Okay.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger, 11. We've been watching your activity on the DSKY there, and by selecting another major program with a VERB 37 ENTER and all that, we show you collapsing the deadband in PTC and having driven the CMC rate from 0.3 degrees per second down to 0 degrees per second, although of course, with all the AUTO RCS coils shut off, you're not firing any thrusters. Over.

Okay. What do you recommend?

Well, you can just continue in your present configuration in PTC. However, if you go to turn any thrusters on, the CMC would then try to bring you into an attitude hold position rather than continuing with the PTC. Over.

Roger. I understand.

Okay.

And, Houston, we're just looking at you out our window here. Looks like there's a circulation of clouds that just moved east of Houston over the Gulf and Florida area. Did that have any rain in it this morning?

Roger. Our report from outside says that it's raining out here, and looks like you've got a pretty good eye for the weather there.

Yes. Well, it looks like it ought to clear up pretty soon from our viewpoint. The western edge of the weather isn't very far west of you.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

11, this is Houston. As a result of our venting through the waste management drain, we've concluded that your O₂ flow rate sensor is, in fact, malfunctioning. I mentioned when you talked us through the cyclic water accumulator dump that even though it was moving, probably indicating a higher flow rate, it didn't seem to be indicating a flow rate that is high enough; and based on that and the flow that we're getting right now, we've concluded that the transducer is malfunctioning. We'd like to continue the O₂ flow for about another hour, shutting it off at about 31 hours GET, to get the O₂ concentration in the vehicles up to—in the vehicles up to where it will be acceptable for LM checkout. Over.

Okay. Does it look to you like it just has a bias on it?

Roger, 11. It does seem to be a bias. Looks like it has a fairly high threshold before it starts indicating. EECOMM seems to think, though, that for high flow rate purposes, it will still give you a relative indication during the mission. Over.