Spacelog Apollo 11

Roger. Understand, Neil. Next topic, as—just after landing, you pointed out that there was a hill to the west along the plus Z axis from the LM. Are there any large rocks in that direction that might block the solar ray during the sunset—as sunset approaches in your locality—Are there any large rocks that might tend to obscure the ray? Over.

No. I don't believe so, I think that it's—It's about as level as any other areas that we chose.

Roger. I —

There's nothing large, anyway, that's going to get in the way.

Roger. Copy. That's also the way it appeared from the television, I think. And now the final question. You commented, Neil, that on your approach to the landing spot, you had passed over a football field sized crater containing rather large blocks of solid rock perhaps 10 to 15 feet in size. Can you estimate the distance to this football sized crater from your present position? Over.

Go ahead.

Roger. I have the T1 and T2 times and also the longitude of the 130 prime. We're working on the grid squares and we'll get them shortly.

Okay. Ready to copy.

Okay. T1: 122 plus 16 plus 05. Tango 2 is 122 plus 21 plus 11, and 6 miles north of track. And do you want your NOUN 89 values?

Yes, please.

Roger. Latitudes, plus 01.243. Longitude over 2, plus 11.844. Altitude, minus 001.46. Over.

Copy T1: 122 16 05. T2: 122 21 11, 6 miles north, NOUN 89 is plus 01243, plus 11844, minus 00146.

Columbia, affirmative. And at the T1 time, put your rendezvous radar transponder switch to OPERATE.

All right.

And this 130 prime is the same one that you tracked prior to descent. Over.

Okay. You've updated your information as to the LM's position and this is your best estimate of where the LM is, is that correct?

Columbia, that's negative. This 130 is the little bitty crater there that you tracked—John Young's crater—that you tracked prior to descent. And we want that —

Fine. Okay. You've given up looking for that.

Affirmative. We want this for one last fix on your plane.

All right. Fine. Understand. Thank you.

And when the LM does his P22 on your transponder, well then, that'll be our last shot at the LM's position.

Roger. Understand. Do you care whether my transponder is on before T1?

Roger. It'll be on WARMUP prior to that time, and you can go to OPERATE anywhere around that time.

Yes. I gather it's on its 24 minute warmup now?

Roger.

And, Houston. The computer is yours, you can go to BLOCK anytime.

Roger. BLOCK, going P52, option 3.

Roger. And we'll see you coming around the other side. About 1 minute to go, and all your systems are looking good.

Tranquility Base, Tranquility Base, Houston. Over.

Good morning, Houston. Tranquility Base. Over.

Roger. Loud and clear. And how is the resting standing up there. Did you get a chance to curl up on the engine can?

Roger. Neil has rigged himself a really good hammock with a waste tether, and he's been lying on the ascent engine cover, and I curled up on the floor. Over.

Roger. Copy, Buzz. Got a couple of changes to your surface checklist here, and in general, what we're going to want you to do is P22, tracking the command module for one last hack on your position there. And this will be—in other words, P57, P22, and then to press on with the checklist, and the rest of them are a couple of minor changes in the checklist. The main one being that we do not want the rendezvous radar on during the ascent, and we think that this will take care of some of the overflow of program alarms which we're getting during descent.

Okay. We had the rendezvous radar in SLEW during descent, though.

Tranquility Base, Houston. I missed that. Say again.

Roger. I say again. We had the rendezvous radar switch in the SLEW position, not the LGC position.