Spacelog Apollo 11

Apollo 11, Houston. We show you —

Houston, Apollo 11. We've dumped to 45 percent, and we're stopping now. Do you concur?

Apollo 11, Houston. I can read up your forecast weather for the recovery any time you'd like to hear about it. Over.

Go ahead.

11, Houston. Present forecast shows acceptable conditions in your recovery area: 2000 foot scattered, high scattered, wind from 070 degrees, 13 knots, visibility 10 miles, and sea state about 4 feet. The forecast yesterday showed a tropical storm, Claudia, some 500 to 1000 miles east of Hawaii. The—the pictures from Earth satellites taken yesterday afternoon—afternoon showed Claudia dissipating, so this appears to be even less a factor than it was before. Your recovery area is now believed to be just a little ways north of the intertropical convergence zone, which you can probably see when you look out your windows there. Yesterday there was also a report of a tropical storm, Viola, further to the west. Its present location is some thousand miles east of the Phillipines and moving northwest. Tropical storm Viola has been intensifying, and should be transferred to the typhoon category within the next 12 hours or so; however, that will be far to your west. As a matter of fact, sunrise terminator has not yet reached Viola. When it does several hours from now, you can probably distinguish it from your viewpoint quite readily. As a matter of fact it should be of interest to perhaps take some pictures. Comment on it when you get a chance to see Viola in a few hours. So that's about the present weather state and situation for your recovery area. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

11, Houston. We'd like to try operation with the high gain array here. If you would select reacquire and your S band antenna to HIGH GAIN, your positions are pitch plus 40 and yaw 270, and then monitor for acquisition. Over.

11, Houston. We're just now ready to switch from OMNI Delta over to your high gain antenna. Can you confirm that you have gone to REACQ? Over.

Confirmed.

That looks real good, Mike. Looks like we picked up about 30 dB on the signal strength.

Yes. It came in quite quickly. However, I'm showing about 240 yaw and about zero on pitch, now.

Roger. About 240 and 0.

Apollo 11, Houston. Over.

Go ahead.

Roger. Just wanted to make sure you fellows hadn't gone back to sleep again. And I also have a little bit of late news here if you'd like to find out what's happened in the last 12—14 hours. Over.

Okay. Go ahead.

Okey doke. Hot off the press here: We find Juan Carlos was formally designated yesterday—Tuesday—to become General Franco's successor—as the Chief of State of Spain and eventual King. Juan Carlos will be sworn in today as his successor designate after taking an oath of loyalty to the law and the National Movement, Spain's only legal political organization. He will apparently be called the Prince of Spain.

House Ways and Means Committee also has agreed yesterday to tax changes affecting oil companies, also banks and utilities, which could add as much as 2 billion dollars per year to the federal revenue. The committee also voted tentatively to change the accounting procedures for telephone, electric, gas, and oil pipeline companies and to reduce tax benefits of mutual savings and loan institutions. So, it looks as if tax reform may be on the way.

Looking overseas, we find South Korea's first super highway, linking Seoul with the Port of Inchon, has been named the Apollo Highway to commemorate your trip. I think we mentioned last night that President Nixon has already started on his round the world trip, and today he is in San Francisco on his first stop which will take him to the U.S.S. Hornet, from which he'll watch the return of your spacecraft. He plans to visit seven nations including Rumania during this trip. He, as I think you also knew, had to miss the All Star baseball game yesterday, as it was rained out; but it is being played today.

The West Coast residents in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Vancouver, British Columbia; and San Francisco all plan to make their areas visible to the three of you by lighting their lights between 9 pm and midnight tonight, according to the Associated Press. We do have clear weather predicted there, so you may be able to see Christmas lights, porch lights, store lights, and whatever may be turned on.

Good show.

A little closer to home here, back in Memphis, Tennessee, a young lady who is presently tipping the scales at 8 pounds, 2 ounces, was named “Module” by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Lee McGhee. “It wasn't my idea.” said Mrs. McGhee, “It was my husband's.” She said she had balked at the name Lunar Module McGhee, because it didn't sound too good, but apparently they have compromised on just Module. Over.

(Laughter) …

Roger. Hear a few chuckles coming from that direction. And we do have a late report on the sports here also. The All Star game currently being played. The present score at the end of the fourth inning has the National League leading the American League by 9 to 3. So the hitters are having a good day, you can tell.

And rain clouds are over the MSC area at the moment. It began raining here just about 10 minutes ago, and last report, we were having a pretty heavy deluge. So, that's it from the news front for the afternoon here, Apollo 11. Over.

Thank you very much, Owen. I think my yard could use some water.

That's very true. I've forgotten exactly how many days it did go, Buzz, but something like 30 days without rain; and we can appreciate the rain we're getting right now.

That was Neil. This is Buzz, here. I wish we could find out when the last time my lawn was cut. Over.

That might be a little more difficult to find out. I'm not sure whether the—whether Mike is ready to admit when he last did the job, but I'll look into that for you.

Well, he'll tell you. He's got a new mower.

Roger.

Hey, ask my chinch bugs how they're doing?

11, Houston. Over.

Go ahead.

Roger. Joan wasn't home right now, Buzz, but Janis reports the grass is getting pretty high, and I would estimate that it's going to be close to your knees by the time you get out of quarantine. Over.

Okay. I'll have to schedule a little discussion after I get back.

Roger. And no reports—no report from the chinch bugs there, Mike.

Well, they're sort of taciturn little fellows. They don't say much; they just chomp away.

Concur on that.

Which is about what we're doing up here.

We concur on that, too.

Breakfast was magnificent as usual. I had sliced peaches, sausage patties, two cups of coffee, and I forget all what else.

That does sound pretty good. As a matter of fact, I'm way overdue for a meal myself, here. I could use some of that.

Why don't you get Milt to give you 5 minutes off and grab a hamburger?

Houston, Apollo 11. We've been doing a little flight planning for Apollo 12 up here.

Roger. Go ahead.

We're trying to calculate how much spaghetti and meatballs we can get on board for Al Bean.

I'm not sure the spacecraft will take that much extra weight. Have you made any estimates?

11, Houston. The medics at the next console report that the shrew is one animal which can eat six times its own body weight every 24 hours. This may be a satisfactory base line for your spaghetti calculations on Al Bean. Over.

Houston, Apollo 11. It was slightly colder in here last night than it has been on any previous night. Does EECOMM notice any change in his data or any explanation for that?

Roger. Stand by just a moment. We've got to check some temperatures.

Up until last night it was—if anything, a little on the warm side at night. Last night it was on the chilly side.

Roger there. We'll run down the temperatures for the 2 nights.

Oh, it's no big thing. Just as a matter of interest.

Roger.

And how'd you like the command module RCS temperatures?

11, Houston. They all look very good. The lowest temperature was 40 degrees, and we're taking a look at your cabin temperatures now.

We agree on the CM RCS. No heaters are going 2 to be required by a country mile.

We think that's correct.

We don't like those heaters, anyway, working off the direct coils.

Roger.

Peculiar thing, Owen, on the platform alignment is that when I really take my time and do a very slow, careful, precise job of marking. I'm getting about the same star angle difference as when I'm doing it in DTC and have to do a hurried rush job with relatively poor tracking. Star angle differences seem insensitive. It almost made me believe there's a very small bias there somewhere in the sextant.