Michael Collins (CMP)

My guess would be the telescope's probably pretty useless, but you can differentiate in the sextant between water droplets and stars by the difference in their motions.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Okay, Mike. I guess that we've still got—what you are saying is that we've still got a lot of water droplets visible, but you can pick them out and distinguish them in the sextant, then.

Michael Collins (CMP)

Right. I think so. Buzz is looking through it now. Just a second.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 11. It looks like at this time the sextant would be quite usable for any alignment. There's actually very few … verticals.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger, Buzz. How about the telescope? Is it useful now?

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Well, it's not quite as useful; it never seems to be. Depending on the position of the Sun, it's got that band that seems to go across the center. I don't think it's because of the waste water particles that it would lack its effectiveness. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger. What—Is this band something that's deposited on the outside of the optics? Over.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

No. I see the reflection from the Sun.

Michael Collins (CMP)

The Sun bounces off the LM structure. With the LM attached, that telescope is just about useless. Those star charts that MPAD provided us, I think, would be most useful if we had to use the—if for some reason we had to mark through the telescope. We could use those as a guide for what we're looking at and say, “Well, that bright blob over there has got to be that star because that's the position we're in.” But so far, we've not been able to pick out any decent star patterns while docked with the LM using the telescope.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Go ahead, Apollo 11.

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Spoken on July 18, 1969, 2:29 p.m. UTC (55 years, 3 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Go ahead —

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

— How do your read? Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger. We're reading you loud and clear.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Roger. You're coming back a little scratchy. It,looks like our O2 flow transducer's gotten a good bit worse. I just looked at it at the last water accumulator cycling, and it just barely registered—barely crept up above 0.2. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

11, this is Houston. At the time of your cyclic accumulator stroking, we were on low-bit-rate data, and consequently not receiving the O2 flow parameter. We expect that what you're seeing is probably nominal. That is, it's probably what we would expect from a transducer that's malfunctioning probably in this fashion, and it's just going to keep on getting worse like that. Nothing to worry about. We'll monitor things on the ground here. Over.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Okay. It does look like it's gradually degrading to about zilch.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11 CDR, this is Houston. Radio check. Over.

Neil Armstrong (CDR)

Roger, Houston. CDR. Loud and clear.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger. We're reading you the same. Out.

Neil Armstrong (CDR)

And would you check with FAO and see where that errata sheet is? We haven't been able to locate that.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger. I understand it's supposed to be the back page in Buzz's operational checklist.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Did you find it? Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger. And I see you're in P00. If you can give us ACCEPT, we'll uplink a new state vector to you and update the CMC clock. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

11, this is Houston. We're through with the uplink. You can go back to BLOCK.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11, this is Houston. We would like to terminate the charge on battery B at GET of 51 30. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11, this is Houston. We would like to terminate charging battery Bravo at 51 30 GET. Over.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Roger. Terminate charging battery Bravo 51 30.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

11, this is Houston. We show you terminating battery B charge. Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over

Neil Armstrong (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 11.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

Roger, 11. We show you terminating battery B charge at about 51 hours 30 minutes. Over.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

Houston, Apollo 11. Would you like to have both oxygen and hydrogen purge on? Over.

Bruce McCandless (CAPCOM)

11, this is Houston. Say again. Both what on? Over.

Buzz Aldrin (LMP)

On the fuel cell purge: would you like to see both oxygen and hydrogen? Over.