Spacelog Apollo 11

Roger. I've got the world in my window for a change and looking at it through the monocular, it's really something. I wish I could describe it properly. The weather is very good. South America is coming around into view. I can see on the—what appears to me to be upper horizon, a point that must be just about Seattle, Washington, and from there I can see all the way down to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego and the southern tip of the continent.

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.

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.