Spacelog Apollo 11

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Would you please terminate battery charge now? Over.

Roger. Terminating battery charge.

Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Any special attitude you'd like us to look at for the TV? Over.

I don't guess we have a requirement there, Charlie.

Roger. We have an attitude that we can get the Earth out of a window or the Moon. We're trying to look at—find one that we can get both, if that's what you'd like. Over.

A 50 degree roll attitude will probably give us that, Joe.

Roger.

That's a good one because it puts the Earth out window 1 and the Moon out window 3 and puts the Sun down in the LEB, so the lighting in here remains relatively constant.

Roger. Well, we'll just stop on the 50 roll, then, and we'll give you the word when to do that. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. We'll have high gain coverage about 155 30. At that time, you can turn on the TV if you desire, and continue your roll around until you get 50 degrees roll. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. We were going to give you the All Star game tonight, but it was rained out. Over.

…

Apollo 11, Houston. We're ready for the TV; we're all configured. At your convenience. Over.

Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

Roger. Go ahead, 11. Over.

Are you picking up our TV signals?

That's affirmative. We have it up on the Eidephor now. The focus is a little bit out. We see the Earth in the center of the screen. Still have a little white dot in the bottom of the camera, apparently. And see some landmasses in the center, at least I guess that's what it is. It's very hazy at this time on our Eidephor. Over.

Let me change —

Believe that's where we just came from.

It is, huh? Well, I'm really looking at the bad—at a bad screen here. Stand by one. Hey, you're right.

It's not bad enough not finding the right landing spot —

… screen now.

It's not bad enough not finding the right landing spot when you haven't even got the right planet!

I'll never live that one down.

We're making it get smaller and smaller here to make sure that it really is the one we're leaving.

All right. That's enough you guys.

11, that was a good picture there.

Okay. That's enough of the Moon.

Okay. That's enough of the Moon, Charlie. We're getting set up now for some inside pictures.

We know there's a lot of scientists from a number of countries standing by to see the lunar samples, and we thought you'd be interested to see them as they really are here. These two boxes are the sample return containers. They—They're vacuum packed containers that were closed in a vacuum on the lunar surface, sealed, and then brought inside the LM and put inside these fiber glass bags, zippered, and resealed around the outside, and placed in these receptacles in the side of the command module. These are the two boxes. And as soon as we get onto the ship, I'm sure these boxes will immediately be transferred and delivery started to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. These boxes include the samples of the various types of rock, the groundmass of the soil, the sand and silt, and the particle collector for the solar wind experiment, and the core tubes that took depth samples of the lunar surface.

Roger, Neil. Thank you much for that description. We've got a pretty dark picture down here. Could you check your f stop? We'd like to have it—See if you can open it up a little bit. Over.

Okay. Our monitor showed that to be very bright.

Roger.

… We're down around between, well around f:4, which we thought would be plenty light. Well, we'll lighten it up some more.

Well, we'd appreciate it. It's pretty dark on all our monitors here.

Okay. Fine.

It's looking a lot better now, Neil.

There's Buzz.

11, Houston. We have an excellent picture now. Over.

Okay. How do you read me, Charlie?

Five by now, Buzz. Over.

Okay. The more mundane affairs, now that we've left the Moon, I'd like to trace through them a little bit for you *** developments that have taken place in the food department. I'm sure you've already *** type of a drink container. A little later, Mike will show you how the water gun operates with its new filter to take out the hydrogen. Essentially, this water gun is put in this end and fills up this bag with water, and the drink then dissolves in the water, and this end of the *** outfeeding. Likewise, we have other foods that are more solid nature. You can probably see this shrimp cocktail meal. *** this afternoon while the two of us had salmon salad. *** another early development was the use of bite size food ***

Roger. You're very clear when you come through. It's just that your VOX is not keying at every word. Over.

Okay. These bite sized objects were designed to remove the problem of having so many crumbs floating around in the cabin, so they designed a particular size that would be able to go to the mouth all at once. I think since all of our experience, we've discovered that we could progress a good bit further than that back some of the type meals that we have on Earth. As a matter of fact, on this flight we've carried along pieces of bread, and along with the bread we have a ham spread; and I'll show you, I hope, how easy it is to spread some ham while I'm in zero g.

I think we've discovered that it is quite easy to *** you're all very familiar with.

Apollo 11, Houston. We notice your roll rate increasing. Will you please see if you can bring that down to about 04 or we'll be losing high gain shortly. Over.

You can also use zero gravity to demonstrate many things that we've all learned in school. I'd like to demonstrate briefly how easy it is to explain the action of the gyroscope. If I spin this can, we know that according to the equations of motion that we would expect that once this is given a spin, and has a spin axis in this direction, if we give it a particular torque, and I'll do this by pushing my hands against it in this fashion once it's spinning. By the equations we can predict that, as I put this torque on it, it will in fact rotate this direction. Let's see how well this works out.

See that as I apply the torque this way, it's rotated this way.

Too close, I think.

11, Houston. It's a pretty good demonstration.

Houston, this next is a little demonstration for the kids at home, all kids everywhere, for that matter. I was going to show you how you drink water out of a spoon, but I'm afraid I filled the spoon too full and if I'm not careful, I'm going to spill water right over the sides. Can you see the water slopping around on the top of the spoon, kids?

That's affirmative, 11.

Okay. Well, as I said, I was going to show you but I'm afraid I filled it too full and it's going to spill over the sides. I'll tell you what. I'll just turn this one over and get rid of the water and start all over again. Okay?

Okay.

And you can see, up here we don't know where over is. One up is as good as another. That really is water, though. I'll show you.

That's really not the way we drink. We really have a water gun which I'll show you.

Here's the water gun. This cylindrical thing on the end of it is a filter with several membranes: one allows water to pass, but not any gas; the other allows gas to pass, but not any water. So, by routing the gaseous water which comes from our tank through this filter, we're enabled to drink purified water without the gas in it, filtered water. And, of course, all we do to—to get it started is just pull the trigger.

It's sort of messy. I haven't been at this very long. It's sort of the same system that the Spaniards used to drink out of wineskins at bull fights, only I think this is even more fun. Well, be seeing you, kids.

Thank you from all us kids in the world, here in the MOCR, who can't tell the Earth from the Moon.

Roger. Stand by one, and we'll get you that Earth one.

Looks like you need a wine skin up there, Mike.

That'd be nice.

Okay.

11, Houston —

You have a picture now, Houston?

That's affirmative. I refuse to bite on this one, though. You tell us.

Okay. This should be getting larger, and if it is, it's the place we're coming home to.

Roger.

No matter where you travel, it's always nice to get home.

We concur, 11. We'll be happy to have you back.

This is Apollo 11. Signing off.

Apollo 11, Houston. We were curious to see if there was any excess moisture up around the tunnel hatch area as we saw on 10. Over.

It just so happens that's what we were talking about now. There is a little bit of dampness around the outside edge of the hatch, but a very, very slight amount. We've got a hose up there that we're hoping will sort of help keep it a little bit dry.

Roger, Mike. Thank you much. Have you seen any more water collecting on the aft bulkhead? Over.

No, we haven't, as a matter of fact. It's been dry in that area since we got rid of that last time.

Roger. Thank you.

Apollo 11 is back in PTC attitude. Standing by for thruster quieting.

Houston, Apollo 11. Could you get a little summary of the evening news for us?

Yes, sir. We'll have it for you momentarily. Also, a little flight plan update, Mike. If you—On page 3 113, you can delete the O₂ fuel cell purge. Over.

Will do.

There is a flurry of activity in the PAO site for the evening news.

Bully.

How's the weather down there? You got any rain?

Roger. We've been having a little bit, thunderstorm type, the last couple of days. We had a pretty good rain today, and it's been overcast. A slow storm system's been moving through the area in the last couple of days, and primarily evening and afternoon thundershowers.

Roger. We were watching a few clouds in your area through the monocular along the Texas Gulf Coast this afternoon, and we also noticed there were clouds over Baja California, which is a little bit unusual.

Roger. Thank you for the weather report. We can't quite see that far. It seems to have cleared up outside now, according to some of the people coming in. This constant overcast in the MOCR here is a little hard to see outside.

Yes. We also noticed it was a little overcast down over—in the Antarctic ice cap, too.

Roger. It's apparently raining pretty hard up —

How's that for one-upsmanship?