Spacelog Apollo 11

Okay.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

No. I see the reflection from the Sun.

Roger.

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.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

Go ahead, Apollo 11.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Go ahead —

— How do your read? Over.

Roger. We're reading you loud and clear.

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.

Roger.

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.

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

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

Roger, Houston. CDR. Loud and clear.

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

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

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

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

Roger. We found it.

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.

Okay. You've got it.

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

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

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

Roger. Terminate charging battery Bravo 51 30.

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

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 11.

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

Okay.

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

Okay. Any preference which first?

Negative. As long as you've got the H₂ purge line heaters on.

Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Go ahead.

Roger. You copy my NOUN 93?

That's affirmative. We've got it.

Okay. I am going to go ahead and thrust then. Triangle difference is 0.01, but it's sort of difficult at three-tenths rate. I'm required to use medium speed unresolved, and it's difficult to hold the star centered long enough to get a decent mark on it.

Roger. We copy. It looks okay to us.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger. I've got the morning news here if you're interested. Over.

Yes, we sure are. We're ready to copy and comment. Isn't that 2:30 there?

Roger.

Okay. Go.

Okay. Here we go. The interest in the Flight of Apollo 11 continues at a high level but a competing interest in the Houston area is the easing of watering rules. Mayor Louie Welch promises a lifting of lawn-watering restrictions if the rains continue. Friday is partly cloudy, and there is a 30-percent chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. In Washington, D.C., the Senate Finance Committee approved extension of the income tax surtax, but a Senate vote on the bill —

You cut out, Houston. You cut out.

Roger. Where do you hold me cutting out? Over.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. How do you read now? Over.

Loud and clear, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger.

Start after the rains in Houston.

Roger. In Washington, the Senate Finance Committee has approved extension of the income tax surtax, but a Senate vote on the bill currently seemed remote. In Austin, State Representative Ray Lemmon of Houston has been nominated as the National Director of the American Society for Oceanography. Lemmon has proposed a study of the possibility of establishing an institute of oceanography in Texas. This would be the first such institute on the western Gulf of Mexico. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the weather bureau, after recapping today's weather showing a high of 88 and a low of 72, has noted “snowfall: none.” From St. Petersburg, Florida, comes a radio report from the Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, which said that the crew of his papyrus boat, the Ra, will sail into Bridgetown, Barbados, despite damage from heavy seas. The crew, however, will sleep on an escort vessel. Norman Baker, navigator of the expedition, said the crew was aboard the Ra today repairing damage from storms this past week, which split the footing of the mast. Part of the broken mast was jettisoned overboard, and the vessel was 725 miles east of the Barbados. “It is possible but uncomfortable to sleep aboard the Ra,” Baker said in the radio report. “But the purpose of our voyage is not a test of strength or human endurance.” That is the reason why the crew was spending nights aboard the escort vessel Shenandoah, which rendezvoused with the Ra on Tuesday.

In sports, the Houston Oilers are showing plenty of enthusiasm in their early preseason workouts at Kerrville, and Coach Wally Lemm says he is impressed with the fine group of rookies. National League baseball yesterday, Thursday: St. Louis 11, Philadelphia 3; Montreal 5, over Pittsburg 4; Atlanta 12, Cincinnati 2; San Fransciso 14, and Los Angeles 13. American League: we have Baltimore 3, over Cleveland 2; Detroit 4 to Washington's 3; Minnesota 8 to Chicago 5. Boston at New York was rained out. And in Corby, England, an Irishman, John Coyle has won the world's porridge eating championship by consuming 23 bowls of instant oatmeal in a 10-minute time limit from a field of 35 other competitors. Over.

Roger. I assume Houston didn't play yesterday.

That's correct.

I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time.

Is he pretty good at that?

He's doing his share up here.

Let's see. You all just finished a meal not long ago, too, didn't you?

I'm still eating.

Okay. Does that—that —

He's on his—He's on his 19th bowl.

Roger. Are you having any difficulties with gas in the food bags like the 10 crew reported?

Well, that's intermittently affirmative, Bruce. We have these two hydrogen filters, which work fine as long as you don't hook them up to a food bag. But the entry way into the food bag has enough back pressure to cause the—the filters to start losing their efficiency. A couple of times, I've been tempted to go through that dryout procedure, but we found that simply by leaving the filters alone for a couple of hours, their efficiency seems to be restored.

Roger. We copy.

Their efficiency ranges anywhere from darn near perfect to terrible just depending on the individual characteristics of the food bags we're putting through them. Some of the food bags are so crimped near the entry-way that there's no way we can work them loose to prevent back pressure.

Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

Hello, Houston. Go ahead.

Roger, 11. As you've probably noticed, your coning angle in PTC mode is increased substantially as a result of the waste water dump, the fuel cell purge, and a natural coupling, so it looks like we are going to have to terminate PTC here in a little while. And we'd like to get your feeling as to whether you're still anticipating trying to send back TV signals from inside the LM; and if so, we'll try to provide an attitude that you can hold that'll give us high gain antenna lock on the Earth during the TV and LM activation period. Over.

Yes, we're still planning that activity if the cord lengths work out all right, and we'll accept those attitudes that you work up for us.

This is Houston. Roger. Out.

When you work up an attitude to get high gain, is there any way that we could get partial Sun in one of the two LM front windows?