Spacelog Apollo 11

Tranquility Base, this is Houston. Uplink complete. The computer's yours, and you can go out of DATA.

Tranquility Base, Houston.

Go ahead. Tranquility Base, here.

Roger. Just want to let you guys know that since you're an hour and a half over your timeline and we're all taking a day off tomorrow, we're going to leave you. See you later.

I don't blame you a bit.

That's a real great day, guys. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. You couldn't have enjoyed it as much as we did.

Roger.

It was great.

Sure wish you'd hurry up and get that trash out out of there, though.

Yes. We're just about to do it.

Tranquility Base, this is Houston. We show the suit relief valve still in the AUTO position. It should be closed. Over.

Columbia, this is Houston. Over.

Houston, Columbia. Go ahead.

Roger. We've successfully reacquired high gain antenna. Unless you have some other traffic with us, I guess we'll bid you a good night and let you get some sleep, Mike. Over.

Okay. Sounds fine.

And we're going to power down the voice subcarrier part of our uplink to you in order that we don't disturb you while we're talking to Tranquility Base. If you need us, just give us a call, and we can respond with a time lag of about a minute to a minute and a half in setting reconfigured. Over.

Okay. Thank you.

Roger. And good night.

Columbia, Columbia, this is Houston. We'd like you to ENABLE the thrusters in Bravo 1 and Bravo 2, AUTO RCS SELECT. Over.

Tranquility Base, this is Houston. Over.

Roger. Go ahead.

Roger. On your mission timer, we wanted to pull the circuit breaker and let it cool down for an hour and a half to 2 hours. I believe the breaker is currently open. It has been off, so go ahead and reset the mission timer circuit breaker. Put the timer control to RESET and hold it in RESET for 30 seconds, and then slew it to your desired settings left to right, and place the timer control to START. Over.

Okay. We'll try it.

Houston, our mission timer seems to be slewing okay. You want to give us a time hack? Or can we get it off the CMC LGC, I mean?

Roger, Tranquility. I'll give you a time hack at 114 31 00. It's about 30 seconds from now. Over.

Stand by for a Mark at 114 31.

Okay. … you.

Stand by.

MARK.

Tranquility, this is Houston. Did you copy my Mark at 114 31?

Roger. Thank you, and our mission timer is running now.

Roger. Very good. And, I've got a consumables update for you if you're ready to copy or listen. Over.

Stand by.

Okay. Go ahead.

Okay. RCS Alfa is 81 percent, RCS Bravo 75 percent. Coming up on 115 hours GET, descent oxygen is 31.8 pounds or 59 percent; descent amp hours 858, and ascent amp hours 574. Over.

Roger. Copy. Thank you very much.

Roger. Out.

Tranquility, this is Houston. We also have a set of about 10 questions relating to observations you made, things you may have seen during the EVA. You can either discuss a little later on this evening or sometime later in the mission at your option. How do you feel? Over.

I guess we can take them up now.

Okay. And your friendly Green Team here has pretty well been relieved by your friendly Maroon Team, and I'll put Owen on with the questions.

Tranquility —

Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Go ahead.

Tranquility, Houston. First question here is how your best estimate of the yaw on the—of the LM as compared to the nominal preflight plan. Over.

We got 13 degrees left on the ball, and I think that's probably about right. Looking at the shadow and so on, we prob—probably about 13 degrees left of the shadow.

Roger. That's 13 degrees left of the shadow. And, next question relates to the depth of the bulk sampling that you obtained near the first part of the EVA and any changes in composition that you might have observed during the bulk sampling interval. Over.

I'm not sure I understand that question, but we got a good bit of the ground mass in the bulk sample plus a sizable number of selected rock fragments of different types.

Roger, Neil. One of the implications here is the depth from which the bulk sample was collected. Did you manage to get down there several inches or nearer the surface? Over.

We got some down from as much as 3 inches in the area where I was looking at variation with depth in the bulk sample. There really wasn't appreciable difference, and I didn't run into any hard bed. Later on, or at some other times and other areas, why, I'd get down just a short distance, an inch or two, and couldn't go any further.

Roger. Believe we understand down as deep as 3 inches, did not hit any hard bed, and no significant changes in composition to that depth. Next question, the—the second SRC was packed rather hurriedly due to the time limitation, and wonder if you would be able to provide any more detailed description of the samples which were included in the second SRC. Over.

We got two core tubes and solar wind and about half of the big sample bag full of assorted rocks which I picked up hurriedly from around the area. I tried to get as many representative types as I could.

Roger, Neil. Next topic here relates to the rays which emanate from the DPS engine burning area. We're wondering if the rays emanating from the—beneath the engine are any darker or lighter than the surrounding surface. Over.

The ones that I saw back in the aft end of the spacecraft appeared to be a good bit darker; of course, viewed from the aft end, why, they did have the Sun shining directly on them. It seemed as though the material had been baked somewhat and also scattered in a radially outward direction, but in that particular area, this feature didn't extend more than about 2, maybe 3 feet, from the skirt of the engine. Over.

Roger. Understand that near the aft end out to the east that the rays did appear darker. I understand, Buzz, that these were—this was the appearance of the material which had been uncovered by the rays that appeared darker for 2 or 3 feet extending outward. Is that correct?

No. I wouldn't say it was necessarily material that had been uncovered. I think some of the material might have been baked or in some way caused to be more cohesive and perhaps flow together in some way, I don't know. Now, in other areas, before we started trampling around out front, why, we could see that small erosion had taken place in a radially outward direction, but it had left no significant mark on the surface other than just having eroded it away. Now, it was different back in the—right under the skirt itself. It seems as though the surface had been baked in a streak fashion, and I think a couple of pictures on film will show this. But that didn't extend out very far. Over.

Roger, Tranquility. And this baked appearance that you described, at least the suggestion is that it was due to the heat of the engine at any rate. Next subject, did —

I believe so.

Roger. Next subject, did either of the solar panels on the PSE touch the surface of the Moon during deployment? Over.

I think that two corners did touch, since when it was deployed, both of them didn't come out at the same time. It unfolded a little unevenly, and of course, the terrain that it was on was a little bit—not quite as level as it was—as I would like to have it. And I think that two corners did touch to about 1 inch—no, three quarters to a half an inch deep; and maybe along the bottom, it might have been maybe 3 inches, leaving a small triangular coating on two of the corners; and I think these are on the western ones. Over.

Roger. Understand the description there. And the next subject, on the two core tubes which you collected, how did the driving force required to collect these tubes compare? Was there any difference? Over

Not significantly. I could get down to about the first 2 inches without much of a problem, and then as I would pound it in about as hard as I could do it, and the second one took two hands on the hammer, and I was putting pretty good dents in the top of the extension rod, and it just wouldn't go much more than—I think the total depth might have been about 8 or 9 inches. But even there, it didn't—For some reason it didn't seem to want to stand up straight. In other words, I'd keep driving it in and it would dig some sort of a hole but it wouldn't—just penetrate in a way that would support it and keep it from falling over, if that makes any sense at all. It didn't really to me. Over.

Roger, Buzz. I think I've got the picture. You indicate that little difference between the two samples and that in each case you got down about 2 inches without any problems and then had to continue hammering rather vigorously in order to continue driving it in to a total depth of 8 or 9 inches, and even at that point the rods did not want to stay vertical, that they'd tend to fall over on you even after pounding in that far. Is that correct?

Yes. That's about it. It wasn't a rapid change in resistive force. And also I noticed when I took the bit off that the material was quite well packed, a good bit darker, and it—The way it adhered to the core tube gave me the distinct impression of being moist. Over.

Roger. Understand the general impression of being moist as it packed in the core tube. Next question: we did copy your comments prior to the EVA of your general description of the area. We wonder if either of you would have any more lengthy description or more detailed description of the general summary of the geology of the area. Over.

Yes let's—we'll—We'll postpone our answer to that one until tomorrow. Okay?

Yes, indeed. That'll be fine. Just a couple more here, and I think these may not be quite as lengthy as number 7 there. Can you estimate the stroke of the primary and secondary struts? Over.

Well, I could do it like this, Owen. About all the struts are about equally stroked, and the height from the ground to the first step is about 3 feet or maybe 3 and 1/2 feet, huh?