Spacelog Apollo 11

Roger, 11. If you'll break out your alternate and contingency checklist for the CSM, we got an update to some of the erasable loads on page F2-20, Over.

Okay. Be getting that out, and you can give us the attitude for TV.

Roger, 11. Your TV attitude will be roll 261, pitch 090, yaw 000. High gain angle: pitch plus 28, yaw 271. That puts the left-hand window pointed at the Earth. We recommend exiting PTC with your updated procedure in the checklist. Over.

Roger. We copy roll 21—61, pitch 090, yaw 000, high gain pitch plus 28, yaw 271. And we'll like this with the DELTA-V that we have in the book. Over.

That's affirmative.

Charlie, Apollo 11. I have a couple of questions on stopping the PTC. It seems to me the easiest way to stop it would be—we're essentially, of course, at 0 degrees yaw and closing up to 90 degrees pitch, so it's just a question of stopping at 260 roll, roughly, and—How about for a procedure going MANUAL ATTITUDE, three to RATE COMMAND and then, seeing as how our deadband has already collapsed, I'll turn on the panel 8 RCS thrusters, at which time it should stop at whatever attitude it finds itself in. And if I do all of that as it comes up on 261 degrees roll, we should stop right there. Is that sufficient?

Sounds like it might save a little gas.

Houston, Apollo 11. What page do you want in that revision? Over.

Roger, 11. If you'll turn to page F2-20. Over.

Okay, Tim -

Roger, 11. Under column A on page F2-20, line 5, line 05, the new data is 01042; line 07, the new data is 00256. Skipping down to line 11, 00070; line 12 is 00042; line 13 is 77730. In column Bravo, lines 3, 4, and 5, which are blank, should be all zeros for line 3; line 4 is 20017; line 5 20616. Over.

Roger. Page F2-20, column Alfa: 05, 01042; 07, 00256; 11, I'll say again. 11, 00070; 12, 00042; 13, 77730. Column Bravo: 03, 00000; 04, 20017; 05, 20616. Over.

Roger. Good readback, Buzz. And stand by, Mike, on the coming-out-of-the-PTC recommendation. Over.

Okay. Fine.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston with a recommendation on exiting PTCM. Over.

Go ahead.

Roger, Mike. We'd like to see you go to ACCEL COMMAND on the MANUAL ATTITUDE switches. Then to turn on the AUTO RCS SELECT switches, and then go RATE COMMAND. That will prevent us from firing jets uncoupled. Over.

Okay. Fine. And I would guess go RATE COMMAND and roll first and then followed by pitch and yaw.

Okay. That sounds good if—And when you get to the roll attitude desired, just go RATE COMMAND at that time and it'll stop us right on.

Yes. I agree, Charlie. That sounds right.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston with some more words on exiting PTC. Over.

Go ahead, Charlie.

Roger. Mike, when you were playing with the P37 a while ago and we collapsed the deadband back down, the DAP assumed that the deadband was centered around the new attitude that we happened to be at, at that time. Since then, we've drifted out a couple of degrees in both pitch and yaw from that attitude such that if we did the procedure as we called it up to you of going ACCEL COMMAND, turning on all of the AUTO RCS SELECT switches and then RATE COMMAND, it would attempt to fly back to the pitch and yaw attitude that it had when the deadband collapsed. We can prevent that by—just immediately prior to going to RATE COMMAND on the MANUAL ATTITUDE switches, if you cycle the SPACECRAFT CONTROL switch to SCS, then back to CMC. Over.

Sounds like a winner.

Okay.

I'm not going to let these LM guys play with my DSKY anymore.

You sound like you'd better protect it. It looks like just about anything that you do with that DSKY is going to collapse that deadband back down.

Charlie, we just STABED to 261 degrees roll, and it looks like whoever figured it out did a good Job. It's right there, dab-smack in the middle of window number 1.

Looks like Houston's still got a little smog over it, Charlie.

We've got a constant overcast here in the room. We'll be right there. Stand by.

Of course, a little cloud from up here probably covers 8 or 10 states.

11, Houston. Some of our guys just came in from outside and said it's pretty clear over the center here. It's cleared up completely. All the storms have moved on.

Oh, yes, Charlie. I can see it through the sextant now, and I can see the coastline is clear. Those clouds are just inland a few miles.

Okay. We copy.

Looks like the southeast part of the country is all socked in.

California looks nice. The San Joaquin Valley shows up as a real dark spot with a lighter brown on either side of it. You can't tell that it's green. It looks just sort of dark gray or maybe even real dark blue.

How does the Mojave look? Is it clear?

Yes. As usual.

Roger. The—around -

It looks like there's some clouds just to the west of the Sierras, northeast of Bakersfield a little bit; and crossing over into the Mojave from Bakersfield looks clear; and then as you get on further to the southeast of there, there's a few clouds.

Roger, 11. Can you pick out Edwards in the sextant? Over.

I can see a 104 taxiing out for takeoff on the runway.

Hey, man. That's super.

These dang bastards almost always have a 104 taxiing out for takeoff.

How far out are we, Charlie?

Stand by. I'll give it to you exactly. Looks like around 130,000, but stand by.

Okay.

11, Houston. The exact range is 125,200 miles, and you're traveling 4486 feet per second.

Pretty far and pretty slow. Just past halfway.

Hey, Charlie, what the latest on Luna 15?

Say again, Buzz? Over.

Roger. What's the latest on Luna 15?

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Charlie.

Roger. Latest on Luna 15—TASS reported this morning that the spacecraft was placed in orbit close to the lunar surface, and everything seems to be functioning normally on the vehicle. Sir Bernard Lovell said the craft appears to be in an orbit of about 62 nautical miles. Over.

Okay. Thank you, Charlie.

And also, President Nixon has reported—or declared a day of participation on Monday for all federal employees to enable everybody to follow your activities on the surface. Many state and city governments and businesses throughout the country are also giving their employees the day off, so it looks like you're going to have a pretty large audience for the EVA.

Houston, Apollo 11. We've stopped PTC. We're in the right position; we're setting up for TV.

Apollo 11, Houston. We have you stopped in the PTC; attitude looks good to us. Mike, I would like to get a COMM check. The last couple of the transmissions from the spacecraft has been garbled from especially Buzz. Could you both give me a COMM check? Over.

Roger, Charlie. Buzz here. How do you read? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Roger. You are about four-by with a slight decrease/increase in volume, sort of a wavy volume to it. Over.

Okay. I moved my mike around. How about now? Is this any better?

Hey, that's beautiful right there. Thank you.

Okay, Charlie. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. How do you read me?

Roger. You're five-by. Is Neil on?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We got the network all configured for the TV. You can start any time you want. Over.

Okay, 11. We have a picture. We see the Earth right in the center of the screen. Over.

Roger, Houston. Apollo 11 calling in from about 130,000 miles out. And we'll zoom our camera in slowly and get the most magnification we can. Over.

Roger.

11, Houston. The definition is pretty good on our monitor here. The color is not too …, at least on this set. Could you describe what you're looking at? Over.

Roger, 11. It's a pretty good picture on clarity here. We're having—can you tell us—It appears to us that there are two distinct cloud- formations trending east/west, one approximately about along the equator, and one around 30 or so south latitude. Could you tell us exactly where those cross the landmasses? Over.

Yes. They cross just south of the lower part of Mexico, probably through Central America. That is the equatorial band which we assume to be the intertropical convergence zone. The other band, which stands about 30 south, correctly appears to join the equator at the far left, or just beyond the horizon on the left edge of Earth, or at least it looks like it's going to join it. We don't have an explanation for that banding.

Roger, Neil. Thank you. It also appears that just to the left of the terminator, up in the northern hemisphere, there's a cloudband trending—a gap in the cloud, trending northwest/southeast. It appears to us that that comes in about over the northern United States, or perhaps the central United States. Is that about correct? Over.

I can see on the monitor the thing you were talking about, but right now I can't get my eye to the window to pick out just where it crosses the shoreline.

Roger.

You guys are doing a good job. It's a real steady picture, here. We're—Clarity is excellent. The color, it's—the clouds are—The whites are distinct. The rest if it looks like, to me anyway on the monitor I'm observing, is a fairly greenish blue is the way I'd describe it. Over.

It appears that the —

Well, we can't observe much green from the spacecraft.

Roger. On this monitor, the landmasses appear to be just a darker grayish color rather than a brown.

Well, it's true that we do not have the depths of color at this range that we enjoyed at 50,000 miles out. However, the oceans still are a definite blue and the continents are generally brownish in cast, although it is true that they're tending more toward gray now than they were at the closer range.

Roger, 11. We've been—I've just been vectored to another monitor and sure enough, the browns are coming in a lot more distinctly on the Eidephor that we have up on our screen in the control center. Over.

Okay, world, hold on to your hat. I'm going to turn you upside-down.

11, that's a pretty good roll, there.

Oh, I'd say sloppy, Charlie. Let me try that one again.

You'll never beat out the thunderbird.

Apollo 11, Houston. That practice did you some good. It's looking—real smooth roll, there.