Spacelog Apollo 11

Roger. MIDPAC entry PAD: 359 153 001 194 46 03 267, plus 1102, minus 17203 067 36194 655 11875 36275 195 03 03 0028, DL and VL NA, 4 00 02 10 00 18 03 38 08 21 44 2932 380, Scorpii Delta—Scorpii Theta, up 314, right 34, up. No midcourse correction, horizon, TI minus 30, 194 33 03, pitch 297, Deneb and Vega, 078, 233, 340. Over.

11, Houston. That's Roger. Copy. 11, it's also your computer. You can go back to BLOCK.

Okay, Houston. The crew status report is 8 1/2, 7, and 8.

11, Houston. Roger, Neil. 8 1/2, 7, and 8 for your crew status.

Right.

11, Houston. Your P52 looks good here on the ground, and we are now estimating that water dump will occur along about 171 plus 40; and we'd like for you to dump to 45 percent. This should let you arrive at Earth interface with just about a full load of waste water. Over.

Apollo 11, Houston. I'm not certain you copied my last transmission, as we were just in the process of switching OMNI's. We'd like to advance the time on that water dump until about 5 minutes from now. And we'll give you a precise mark on the time to start the dump, and we are standing by for a readout on your CM RCS ejector temperatures. Over.

Okay, Owen. We're standing by for your mark, and stand by for the readout.

Roger.

Houston, Apollo 11. Are you ready to copy ejector temperatures? I'll read them in volts.

That's affirmative. Go ahead, Mike.

Okay. 2 4 is reading 4.7 volts, 2 5 is reading 4.8 volts, 1 2 is reading 4.8 volts, 1 4 is reading 4.8, 1 6 4.5, and 2 1 4.8. Over.

Roger. Dumping.

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.

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.

Roger, 11. Perhaps the 3 degrees per second just isn't that much of a bother. Over.

Well, he's really trying to explain why he can't get all zeros.

I think Buzz is probably right. As a matter of fact, one time I made a mark which I thought was a little bit in error, but I thought, “Well heck. I'll go ahead and see how it works out anyway,” and I got five zeros that time. And when I have thought everything was exactly precisely on, I have consistently been getting 0.01.

Roger. Apparently it pays to hurry.

I usually do.

The visibility through the telescope has been very poor. It's, I would say, even worse than the simulator is right now. It requires long periods of dark adaptation which most times are most inconvenient; so it's really a tremendous asset to keep the platform powered up at all times and to keep it tweaked within the capability of the sextant field of view.

Understand, Mike.

11, Houston. Checking your temperatures, it does look like the spacecraft may have cooled down perhaps 2 or 3 degrees in the last 24 hours, and that sounds to be consistent with your report on the comfort level there. Over.

Okay.

Is that a LM off phenomenon?

11, Houston. It looks like we'll have to think a little more about that, as to whether it's a LM off or some effect of being out of Lunar orbit. We don't know, so we'll have to puzzle before we can give a better answer.

Okay.