Spacelog Apollo 11

Okay, 11. This is Houston. We switched your OMNI antennas as you rolled through the appropriate position. Did you copy the flight plan update item?

Okay. The battery charge is in the process now and the wastewater dump is in work. MCC 3 has been canceled. It would have been 0.8 feet per second. MCC 4 now looks like about 2.4 feet per second. At around 53 hours we'll do a P52 in PTC. Over.

Roger, 11. The magnitudes of the midcourse corrections were just for your information, but midcourse 4 was down around 2.0 feet per second. Again, for your information, on SPS chamber pressure, it looks like your onboard readout of 87 psi corresponds to 92 psi by our telemetry, and your value of 89 on board corresponds to 94. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. Radio check on a new power amplifier in our transmitter. Over.

Roger. Read you loud and clear. How me? Over.

Roger. Loud and clear. Did you copy my notes on SPS chamber pressure?

Negative.

Okay. Just for your information again, it appears that your readout of 87 psi corresponds to our corrected TM readout of 92—that's 92 psi, and 89 on board is really 94 psi. Over.

Roger, I got that you were reading about 5 psi low.

Roger. And are you ready for the consumables update?

Ready to copy.

Okay. Consumables update for GET of 46 plus 00: minus 5.5 percent, minus 6.5 percent, minus 2.5 percent, minus 7.5 percent, minus 5.0 percent, minus 2 pounds hydrogen, plus 1 pound oxygen, and that minus 5.5 percent on the RCS total corresponds to minus 66 pounds. Over.

Okay. I copy those, and I'll give you our percentages now: Alpha 82, Bravo 84, Cocoa 85, Delta 87. Over.

This is Houston. We copy your percentages, and do you have a crew status report on sleep For us?

Roger. And in descending order 8, 9, and 8. Over.

Houston. Roger. Out.

Houston, we're getting CRYO pressure warning now in the middle of stirring up the …

Houston, Apollo 11. We've got the continent of Africa … facing toward us right now, and of course, everything's getting smaller and smaller as time goes on. The Mediterranean is completely clear. The Sun looks like it's about to set around Madagascar. The equatorial belt of Africa stands out quite clearly. We're seeing the dark green or a muddy colored green, compared to the sandier colors in the southern tip of Africa and, of course, the Sahara northern coast of Africa. There's a rather remarkable cloud that appears in the vicinity of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's just about to go into the sunset now. It is casting quite a large shadow. It's isolated. There don't seem to be any other clouds … the band of clouds near the tropical conversions clouds down around the equator clearly separate the clockwise and the counterclockwise cloud formations. Over.

Roger, 11. We copy your word description on that. I understand you can see a shadow being cast by that cloud over between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any estimate on how long that shadow would be? Over.

It looks like it's a shadow. Coming around to—back that way —

We're getting a lot of background noise now, also. If you will stand by a minute or so until we roll a little further in PTC, I think things will get better.

Okay. It's coming around to the number 1 window. We'll get you …

11, this is Houston. The noise on the COMM seems to have quieted down now. I guess that we've rotated a new antenna into view and probably also the Earth out of view in your window. Over.

Okay. It looks as though the length of the shadow of that cloud is about the same as the width of the Persian Gulf.

Okay. We copy the width of the Persian Gulf, and I guess that all I can give you firsthand is a single isolated data point, and that is that it was clear here in Houston this morning. That's a pretty localized observation. As a result of your waste water dump, it looks like the PTC mode has been disturbed somewhat. We're showing you about 20 degrees out in pitch right now and about 6 degrees in yaw, which is significantly greater, about twice as much—a little more than twice as much as the deviation you had prior to the waste water dump. We' re watching it down here, though, and we'll let you know if we think any corrective action is required. Over.

Okay. Maybe we ought to—next time split that in half, and put half of it on one side and half on the other or something like that.

Yes. We could do that. We were actually pretty interested in seeing what the effect on PTC would be of the waste water dump. We don't recall ever having performed a waste water dump during PTC on previous missions. Over.

Well, now we know.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. We lost you down in the noise on the COMM link here about the time you were describing the single cell cloud formation over Afghanistan-Pakistan area through the sextant. Over.

Roger. It came through a lot clearer through the sextant than with the monocular, and you could definitely tell it was one single cell in the latter stages of development. It must have gone up to over 50,000 feet, though. The eastern Mediterranean is phenomenally clear. You can see all the lakes; the Dead Sea stood out quite well. Over.

Roger. What appears to be the limit of resolution through that sextant from your current position? Over.

Well, I can't see it right now. It's outside the field of view.

Roger.

And, I don't know yow you'd really describe the limit of resolution. I will think about that a little.

Okay. I guess the smallest object that you could pick out looking through it would give us a pretty good hack.

Well, you can see the Nile River going almost up to its source. The lake is obscured by clouds, but you can trace it all the way on up.

Roger.

I guess that is down though, isn't it?

Apollo 11, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. We have been working under the assumption that it would take about an hour for the interference from a waste water dump to dissipate to the point where you could reasonably take star sightings for platform alignment navigation or something of this sort. If you have a spare minute or two, could you comment on the observation condition, now? Over.

Yes. Stand by one, Bruce.