Apollo 17 crew debriefing: rendezvous sightings and the light-flash experiment, 1972 (NASA audio, NASA-UAP-D028)

0:00 We're picking up at 12-0 liftoff rendezvous and docking and again we're going to where things went nominal as per the checklist we're going to get the lunar surface checklist you okay we're gonna say so let them power up and launch prep went well we did not do the p-22 and everything else just went as advertised on a limb she came up and powered up beautifully okay the liftoff was is again went went normal we got all the obviously all our pyros and we lost

1:00 no changeover parker valves or anything the only thing that I would like to mention let the LMP pick it up here is that very soon after liftoff we had a little apparent loss of calm a lot of noise in the SBN it turned out that we were down linking but there was something wrong with the uplink so the CDR watched the most of the guidance and recall out in the blind altitudes and goals and what happened to have you as we pitched over and pressed on up but for about the first two or three minutes I think the lunar module pilot had to concern himself for trying to get combat yeah I meant again it was apparently Goddard our goal stone dropped the uplink and then when they were getting it back I was switching on these and for a while there was just completely out of phase and but they were

2:03 it was a very inopportune time I might say to because it happened just right after ignition I think that's something in closer to be able to clarify because we can we certainly can't give you the details of just it was essentially no calm on all the antennas we we got into a they they they briefed us on a trajectory we we flew into a trajectory that that appeared to be nominal the actual slide out of plane I believe and as a result our tweak had nine foot per second it was minus four minus nine and plus one we burned out X Z Y in that order and it looked like the eggs out of plane was good about 70 percent a little over 70 and it looked like we might have had a somewhat a g-sensitive drift in our in our Y accelerometer and the pings but the tweak as it turned out was an excellent

3:05 tweak because our rendezvous resulted in in just as nominal rendezvous and a nominal trajectory and profile as I guess I've ever been involved with the the drift and accelerometer did not bother us anywhere else in the tracking or in the in a rendezvous at all rendezvous navigation was followed a checklist we got right outperformed very well we had auto updates into the eggs the only thing I might mention here is when it came to to making a TPI burn we the residuals and the TPI burn were greater than what I had expected them and we did not record them because I wanted to get them I wanted to get them nulled out just as soon

4:06 as possible but they were and I don't know the tents but they were minus seven and X and they were four and four and I'm not sure whether they were plus or minus in the Y and Z but I they were they were the point I'm making is they were large larger than I expected they were minus seven and four point something and a four point something we reduce those to less than two tenths of a foot per second and from there on continue to plot right through the mid courses right up the pike on a nominal trajectory Communications after that first lash-up. You got any comment about that? Oh, the comment was good. A couple of comments about the eggs. After about five or ten minutes, early in insertion, I always checked the accelerometers after the insertion. And they looked real good except about five or ten minutes later, and I can't remember

5:06 exactly, I looked and I had accumulated a foot or two per foot, maybe a foot and a half per feet per second in X. So Gene went free and I did a gyro-cowl, and after that there was no significant accumulation in X. That went very well. I did that without talking to the ground, but I thought I had an understanding of him that that was something that he could do. Let me just also mention on the TPI solutions, the eggs had essentially, within two or three feet per second, a good TPI solution after six marks. The insertion solution was not very good. It was off by a number of feet per second in X and even more in Z. This was the first one, 17 marks, and this was the final. It didn't change much. No. The Pings Recycle and the Pings Final were a

6:08 couple of feet per second in the line. In X they were right. Yeah. And the Pings Recycle had, I don't remember exactly, it cost for 15 marks, I think I had 17 marks. And there's more data in the data card books about various ag, at certain times marks with the ag solutions. Okay, the mid-course solutions, first mid-course I agreed effectively all systems except ags out of plane was a little bit high. And the decision was made to burn the onboard ping solution out of the LEM, which was minus 1.2, plus 0.4 and plus 0.3. We continued to track right up the pike. Mid-course two came up and we again compared all the solutions. The ags out of plane was still a little bit high and actually the opposite direction

7:12 from the Pings. We had a slight variation in the CSM solution. In Z, I don't know why, it came up with plus 5.4 feet per second in Z. So we really didn't get a very good correlation between the CSM and the LEM on the second mid-course. But the Pings was still performing, the radar was still performing. And based upon our trajectory plot and based upon our following the nominal inertial line of sight rates, we decided to burn the Pings, onboard ping solution in the LEM. And it was minus 0.4, minus 0.7, and minus 1.6. And from there on out, we just continued to follow the inertial line of sight angles and very little tweaking in either in Y or Z. And we just sort of floated right through

8:16 the breaking gates at one mile. I think we took about 6 or 7 feet per second off to hit 30. We met all the gates as prescribed and just came moving very slowly into final station keeping. We went into a formation flight around the CSM. Got a good inspection of the spacecraft in the sim bay. The report of which is in the transcript. Everything looked good to us. We eventually maneuvered the command module maneuver to the docking attitude. The LEM just took his position, his docking attitude. Did his pitch and yaw maneuver and--or gave the--gave station keeping control to the command module to pitch and yaw maneuver and stood by for docking. Okay, command module pilot proceeding along with the docking.

9:17 I think the--one of the more noticeable differences between this docking and the docking with the S-IVB is the fact that the ascent stage dead bands a lot more than the S-IVB did. S-IVB is as steady as a rock. But you could tell the--just watch the LEM did band because it would change attitude and then you'd try to follow it. And looking--on the first attempt coming in, I must have had less than a tenth of a foot per second. Just barely closing on the thing, just taking it nice and easy. Uh, made contact and did not get, uh, captured. Okay, as soon as it didn't get captured when it's--obviously you're closing too slow. Backed off, uh, oh, what, a couple of three feet, I guess. Something like that. Renulled the rates and, uh, initiated the closing rate and, uh, got captured. As soon as we had to capture, both vehicles

10:18 went to the CMC free. And you look around and, uh, check the barber poles and whatever, and look back out. And there, uh, I had some rates in the, uh, CSM and I'm sure now that the, uh, the LEM had rates also. You must have had. Well, we, we did one as soon as we--you went free. See, as soon as capture, the LEM went free. Yeah. And then, uh, the CSM trying to null the rates ended up perturbating the LEM and giving us rates. Mm-hmm. So, uh, we finally gave up on that, uh, mode, had the, uh, the LEM go to, uh, Attitude Hold. And then once you go to Attitude Hold, then the CSM could null the rates. Uh, and, uh, we got lined up and, uh, attempted a hard docking. Uh, no problem. Probe retract, uh, came back. This time, uh, it didn't sound like it was as much of a ripple fire. It was more of a . Uh, and, uh, it was a quicker docking, uh, a

11:19 quicker hard dock than it was, uh, at the previous time. You got any more tape on it? Yeah. Okay. Okay, I want to say something about visual sightings during a rendezvous. Uh, I was able to, from the LEM, I was able to see the command module in, when it was sunlit, at somewhere around a hundred miles, and definitely defined that, that was a command module. Uh, I, after the command module went into darkness, I could not pick up his tracking light until we were well within about 40 miles. I think this transcript had got more, an accurate, uh, time, but could not pick up the docking light, the rendezvous light, uh, rather from the command module until we were well within 40 miles, and then just a very, initially very dim, faint, uh, flash.

12:19 I was able to verify on board that the LEM tracking light was working, and I finally figured out how. It was reflecting off the underside of the EVA handrail on the left forward side of the LEM, so I could see the LEM tracking light flashing. And also, when there were, there were some particles we took with us, uh, that stayed with the spacecraft, and you could see the sequential flash off of those particles as a result of our LEM tracking light. Okay, uh, this is the command module pilot. I've already mentioned in section 11.0 about the, uh, visibility of, uh, the monitor module through the, uh, optic. And then, uh, you could see it. I got down here. Let's see. Anything else to add about Ron? Photography and television, the photography and the LEM, uh, what is type of light and see how it turned out.

13:19 I took a lot of footage. Uh, in fact is we put it on, uh, not only the Aston mag, but we put it on the, uh, another mag. So, and that includes the Sin Bay, uh, right or wrong. We did have a, uh, uh, Hasselblad on board, so we have a lot of Hasselblad photography, the rendezvous, and some of the sort of stuff in the process of the rendezvous. Okay. Post-docking check. We're going to 13.0 lunar module jettison through TEI. Post-docking check and pressurization. Well, first of all, I guess you said you had every latch made this time, right? Every latch worked done. All 12 docking latches worked. Okay. The, uh... That sounds like there's something to do with the mass of the other vehicle involved here. The, uh, general comment I want to make about, uh, the post-docking operations is that the, uh, throughout the rendezvous, the, uh, the, uh, both pilots in the LEM kept

14:21 their helmets on for, uh, dust. Keep the dust off primarily. The commander took off his gloves almost immediately after insertion and flew the entire round over that way. You took yours off sometime later, didn't you? I kept mine on, uh, after we'd done a lot of transfer. I can't remember exactly. I kept your gloves on, too? You kept your gloves on? Oh, I, oh, okay. After insertion, I did most of my, uh, pre-insertion work with the gloves off because I didn't want to take the time. I want to get that initial ag solution. And I could, and I could get that fairly rapidly with the gloves. And I didn't take the gloves off until, uh, maybe 10 or 15 minutes after insertion. But I kept the helmet on all the way through most of the transfer just to avoid breathing the dust because I'd had the, uh, irritation, sinus irritation on the surface. And the commander kept the helmet on, uh, throughout the rendezvous and, uh, docking. I took my gloves off after insertion and left them off. Now, when we started, when we started

15:22 getting prepared, as soon as we were hard docked, the commander took off his helmet. And as I looked back at that, because of the dust debris in the LM spacecraft, uh, I'm sorry I did it. Uh, I could have left the helmet on and, uh, and I would have had a lot less, uh, not troublesome, but it was just, uh, eye-in-mouth type of irritation. You knew you were in a very heavily, uh, infiltrated atmosphere on the LM, uh, because of the lunar dust. Although, I don't know how much lunar dust previous flights had, but the, I think we saved a great deal of grief by taping up, by sweeping all the dust we could find on the floor into the holes and putting our tape covers over those holes. I think that had to help a great deal because there was an awful lot of dust on the floor that, uh, we didn't see. Uh, so I had, uh, the commander had his helmets and gloves off throughout the entire,

16:22 uh, transfer. Basically the way we handled the transfer was the way we had planned the, uh, I think the, uh, LM pilot did most of the, uh, preparation of the gear in the, uh, in the, uh, LM, and the commander stayed in the tunnel and, uh, passed things on. And, uh, the, uh, inventory was going on on the command module side and on the LM side both. We, uh, vacuumed each other's suits the best we could and everything else that got supposedly transferred unbagged or uncovered. This is the LMP, and in spite of the CMP's comments to the contrary, I think we got things remarkably clean and it wasn't an awful lot of dirt in the command module coming back. It really was. Oh, that's, that's true. I, I didn't want you to do that in person. Okay. Contrast, he may have thought it was dirty, but, uh, I was surprised we were able to, uh, keep the, the level of, uh, pardoning expression, contamination in the command module down. That, well, that, that atmosphere that the

17:22 commander was referring to in the LM after he took his helmet off, I could go halfway through the tunnel and stick my head up into the command module and it was a totally refreshed, unpolluted atmosphere up there and it never did get polluted. I think having a vacuum cleaner running in the LM had a lot to do with keeping the flow in the other direction and, uh, and filling out the air. We did too. Right. We never did vacuum in the command module because it just wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary to vacuum in the command module at all. And, uh, the suits were noticeably cleaned by the vacuum cleaner. You could tell you were pulling stuff off of them, although they were still dirty and every other subsequent time we handled them we got our hands dirty. But, uh, I think most of the tree dust was taken care of. We, uh, we effectively stayed on a transfer list. Uh, I say effectively throughout the transfer. However, some things got transferred, uh, uh, out of order, uh, and got temporarily stowed in the, uh, command module.

18:23 But we effectively used the, uh, transfer list as a, uh, not as a, a cookbook, follow a recipe type of thing, but as an inventory list. And, uh, we inventoried it several times from both ends and found out that, uh, we were satisfied we had everything transferred. And, uh, then pressed on with the LMP closeout. LMP closeout went nominal. Uh, we got back into the, uh, into the LMP, or into the command module. And, uh, the commander closed out the, uh, the LMP closed out the LMP. Uh, and for convenience the commander, uh, effectively went back and closed out the LMP hatch. Put in the command module hatch. Uh, because of the slow tunnel vent, or the long duration of tunnel vent, uh, the commander, uh, stayed in the tunnel, the LMP in his seat and the CMP in the left seat.

19:23 Uh, we suited up and got prepared for our, uh, for our integrity check. And as soon as the, as soon as the land tunnel vent was complete and we were satisfied with integrity of the hatch, as we went into the, uh, to the, uh, suit integrity checks. Yeah, this is CMP. Let me make another comment on the tunnel vent time. I'll bet it must take, uh, and I'm not sure if this is correct, but I'll bet it at least, uh, three or four times longer than the simulator is for the tunnel vent, uh, move. And I think that's going to be applicable to Skylab because of the docking, uh, they're going to have to vent before the end dock. Quite a, took quite a while. Uh, but tunnel closeout was easy. We had no, uh, no drogue and no probe, which were stowed, uh, uh, in the, uh, LEM for, uh, LEM jet. So, uh, going through the rest of these, uh, uh, mine triggers, uh, under LEM jet.

20:26 Uh, we just followed the checklist and it all seemed to happen just as advertised. Well, we got a little bit intrigued with the, uh, the LEM jettison. You know, at this time it was, it was great and it just sailed out there nice and pretty and we got a lot of good pictures of it, uh, where we should have been maneuvering. And we ended up, uh, getting into P-41 after, for the set burn, uh, a little bit late. But that's no problem either because we just turned the residuals and P-41 and got a good set burn. Uh, I, I want to make a comment that I think cleaning control, uh, in the command module, uh, was excellent. Considering all the dust and all the dirt, uh, that just seemed to adhere to everything in the LEM. When we got back in the command module, with the exception of the suits and with the exception of the LMP and the CDR, uh, everything, uh, was clean.

21:29 Uh, and that, for the most part, is because everything was bagged before we brought it over, bagged and zipped. And we never did open anything, uh, once we got it zipped up. So, the command module stayed, and I think that suit fan filter is probably going to be very, very clean, stayed exceptionally clean throughout the, uh, remainder of the flight. Let me add in the bagging, decontamination bags. I made a special effort as per, uh, request pre-launch to, uh, pull those zippers as tight as I could. And they should be pretty tight-seeing. Okay, uh, orbital navigation, high gain, why don't you pick that up? Okay, I've already, uh, from SEP to TEI, I have no, uh, no comments. High gain, uh, always worked good. Omnis and S-band were good. Uh, photography, uh, when as advertised, we have a lot, uh, of, uh, targets of

22:29 opportunity. Uh, CIMBA operations, uh, have been mentioned before. Let me just make one gross comment about the way we handle it as a three-man crew at CIMBA operations, which after, uh, Did we get that yesterday? Did we? Yeah. Okay, it's covered. I think it's covered. I think I did say something. Yeah, you did. Okay, the TEI updates, normal. Selection of star checks were good for TEI. Got the Commander's Master Alignment, every one of them, all through the flight, which made me feel very good. Yeah, but you kept trying to get it. I made sure I got it on those last few. I wasn't going to change any mode of operation. I'll tell you that last one, uh, uh, well, we're entry was the last one, but, uh, I

23:30 made sure I got it on TEI. Just make you guys feel at home. I figured you'd think I didn't do it right if I didn't get the Master Alignment. The, uh, TEI at half G or whatever we were pulling there, uh, was, uh, seemed like more than that. Quite noticeable. It sure did. It seemed like it was really pushing you back in the seat. Yeah. Ron, I both, I think, started out holding our heads up and eventually relaxed them back on the couch. I guess we must have had the spacecraft pretty well stowed or tied down because, uh, as I briefed the CFP and LMP, and as I recall those kind of burns back at Apollo 10, lots of things start moving through the spacecraft and find their due, uh, on the, uh, on the aft, uh, end of the spacecraft because of the G-load. And much to my surprise, uh, all we had was initial thud as we moved away from the

24:32 station, and we didn't have any gear coming from anywhere flying through the spacecraft. So we must have cleaned it up pretty well. I found a, uh, I got a, uh, called a white-tag wet wipe. A white-tag wet wipe. But other than, uh, maybe one or two of those things, uh, in looking back, uh, I would have expected more gear to come from somewhere, but, uh, we prepared for those burns pretty well. Well, that reminds, brings up another point that reminds me, though, is that there is always water condensing on the ECU, uh, you know, the pipes and whatever, you're back in there when you get back to cleaning the suit circuit return valve. And, uh, when we put our suits on for the EVA the next day, your suits were noticeably wet. And, uh, also when I pulled the PGA bag up, it was damp down underneath the PGA bag. So I think, uh, uh, uh, as a normal procedure, we should have, uh, either after

25:34 the burn, probably before the burn, made sure we wiped the water in the LAB somehow and do that. I wasn't really aware. Our suits were damp when we put them out, but I was not aware. I could look down there and I could not find any real water down in the, uh, down there. Except on ECS. Yeah, on ECS, there was always water down there in ECS. And I just assumed that's where all that came from. But, uh, it's not a puddle of water. Like you say, it was just damp. It was almost as if it was colder down in the LAB and water was condensing on all over the suits. It wasn't as if they were in a puddle. Yeah. Okay. I think that covers, uh, right on through, uh, TEI. Let's see. Yeah. The one thing I want to mention on TEI is that, uh, again, the simulator is set up such that, uh, in the rolled deadband, it goes over to one side of the rolled deadband and just kind of stays there. And, uh, during the TEI burn, uh, it was bouncing back and forth from one side of the deadband over to the other side of the deadband.

26:35 And when it's bouncing back and forth, the roll rate is up around, uh, oh, four tenths, uh, four tenths of a degree per second, arcing back and forth across the roll deadband. Okay. 14.0 Trans-Earth Coast. And the thing that I just realized we've neglected this anywhere about systems, uh, I'd like to mention chlorination at this point in time. I think without fail, did you ever talk about it? No. I think without fail, almost every chlorination leaked. Uh, sometimes larger quantities of water, other times just small quantities of water. And I'll tell you where it leaked. Water or chlorine? Well, or both. It's a combination. Chlorine and you're chlorinating and, uh, in buffer or water when you withdrew the buffer sample. Here. But where it leaked was, appeared to me to

27:35 leak within the ampule itself around the bag because it was the chlorine, the cylindrical chlorine dispenser that was continually wet. It was not the, uh, it was not where the, uh, dispenser fit into the, uh, needle, or where the, uh, uh, needle adapter fit into the spacecraft. It was within the barrel chlorine dispenser itself. And, uh, we continually, chlorination was, uh, was a, uh, a case of, uh, of always cleaning your hands with chlorine because you always had it available down there within that dispenser. And in some cases you had larger quantities of water that had to be wiped up with, uh, with a tissue. That plagued us throughout the whole mission. It turned out not to be a serious problem because we learned how to handle it. But, uh, that was one system anomaly that never had really been brought out. Okay, look, let's see, uh, CMP, let me

28:35 amplify that a little bit. In, uh, two cases, I'm almost positive that when you put the thing on the bayonet fitting and crank it on there, it did not puncture the ampoule itself. And the reason I can, I believe that's correct is that, uh, when you start to, to crank the, uh, outside of the cassette down to, to push the chlorine into the, into the water system, it was very hard to turn. And if you, if you, if you tried to force it, you could force it on down there. And I'm sure that's a good way to, to break, uh, an ampule on the thing. And if you take it, uh, just, uh, in two cases, took the bayonet fitting loose again and put it back on there, and, and in both cases, uh, then you try to squeeze the, uh, chlorine out of the ampule

29:36 into the system, and it would turn, and it would turn easier. But it's still hard to, to, to-- Offly hard to crank that thing down. But, uh, we did not, you know, we got the chlorination done. We didn't miss any injections of chlorine, and we didn't miss, uh, we didn't miss any of the, uh, buffer samples. Uh, so I guess we got the job done. It was just a little bit messy. And chlorine was evident, and because, uh, the CDR eventually peeled all the outer skin off his right hand, and I'm convinced it was due to the chlorine that had nothing to do with the EVA. Boy, you lost a little, a little flesh, a little skin on the EVA. Yeah. Trans-Earth Coast, systems navigation. Let's press on and see what we can say about that. Do you want to have lunch for you? Okay, uh, well let me see how much Trans-Earth Coast we've got to do. Let's get, yeah, let's go through up to the

30:36 CSM EVA anyway. Okay. Okay, Trans-Earth Coast, the first thing I want to mention is passive thermal control was at what I would call unusual latitudes because of the UV and IR requirements. You know, these unusual latitudes did two things. They, uh, they put us, uh, they required us to re-maneuver the spacecraft several times and exit, enter and exit PTC several, several times, which in itself was not a problem. It was just, uh, additional, uh, coordination. Uh, coincidentally, most of these, uh, particular PTC attitudes were within 30, certainly 45 degrees of gimbal lock most of the time. So we were looking at the red apple good portion of the trip home. Uh, but they also, uh, some of those attitudes where you actually were not in, we were in attitudes and/or PTC at these relatively unusual positions. Uh, change the, uh, the, uh, equilibrium

31:37 heat load on a spacecraft. You could see it in, uh, in RCS, uh, quad temperatures were alright, but you could see it in helium package temperatures. And most notably, you could see it on the change in, uh, condensation from the tunnel hatch to the, uh, forward hatch. The tunnel hatch eventually, for most of the way home, ended up to be very dry. Uh, and the, uh, about the second day out on the way home, the, uh, the, uh, forward, the, uh, center hatch, uh, got soaking wet to the point that, uh, even took a dry rag and wiped off some of the, uh, latch components and some of the, uh, gear box components externally. Not that it did any good, but there was just that much water on it. And I, I think this is all due to the, uh, PTC attitudes required for the, uh, Simba experiments on the way home. It was colder in the spacecraft, too. Oh, yes, it was colder in the spacecraft.

32:39 Not as cold as the commander thought it was. That's right. Cold enough to warm up. On the commander's orders. And I just mentioned we warmed it up with the ground suggestion of an extra inverter and, uh, going to manual and temp, temp in. I think we discussed that yesterday. Ron, all your, uh, all your, uh, your rough smat changes, uh, your, uh, torquing, platform torquings, all those, uh, went very well, I thought. They went great, really well. The, uh, uh, and, uh, all the way back home, as the, uh, it was just changing attitudes, changing attitudes, changing attitudes, with the exception of the EVA day, which, uh, we'll cover here shortly. Okay, on EVA prep, I think the only anomaly

33:45 we came across was the, uh, CMP's, uh, well, let's see, on EVA prep, they really didn't have any. We didn't know anything at that point. On the, I was gonna say, on the CMP's, uh, compare. But the EVA prep went, uh, right down the line. Essentially, it was all, uh, well laid out within the, uh, experiments checklist. And we checked things off as we went. And, uh, stayed pretty much on the timeline. We started about a half hour early and stayed a half hour early. We, uh, we started, we were half hour early throughout the whole thing, and we lost... That half hour, and open a hatch just about, you can turn TV on exactly on time, and I can't remember a small little... It was the comp carrier change. Comp carrier change. When we lost that half hour during a comp carrier change on a tone. Uh, Ron, I'd like to add that, uh, uh, post EVA, that, uh, I think one thing that helped

34:50 us, uh, immensely on what ended up to be, I think, a very fine, uh, entry stowage was that we sort of, uh, backed off after the EVA and, uh, and, uh, took a long, good long list of the long range stowage, as well as the post EVA stowage, and really effectively started housekeeping, cleaning up the cabin, and effectively stowing some of the articles that were not going to be used any further in the mission for entry. At that time. At that one time, yes we did. So our entry stowage really started with the post EVA timeframe period, and I think that really helped us out in the long run. Okay, I think, uh, we should mention how we got out of the suits, I think. To me that was a pretty important, uh, way to get things done. The only change, the only change to the, to the, uh, prep and/or post was the order in

35:53 which we doffed and donned suits, because it was very evident that there were certain convenient ways, because of the way the student suits were stowed, and, uh, the way, uh, people fit into the, uh, checklist that we, uh, when we donned the suits, the commander... You got down, you can't, you got in first. First. And I didn't. Then the LMP and the, and the CMP got down last, and it worked out very fine that way, plus the CMP had less work to do in his suit, which also aided him in the long run. Yeah. Well, we doffed. I went first. The LMP. Yeah. That was definitely... And first. Okay, then you... Then the CDR. And then the CMP. And that wasn't exactly the way it was called for, but that's the way it worked out. That's the way it worked out the best. And we stowed our suits in the L-shaped bag prior to putting the center couch back in, which was, uh, another good decision, I believe, uh, in helping us get the suit. I believe, uh, in helping us get the suit stowed

36:54 back in that L-shaped bag. Okay. Go ahead. Let's go on down the cabin depress. Uh, no problems. Normal, uh, depress. Hatch opening. Uh, even though the hatch was completely, uh, or the cabin was completely depressed, I think we're reading zero pressure on the thing. As soon as I opened the hatch, there was enough residual pressure or something inside the spacecraft that it actually tended to pull the, the hatch out of my hand. That's because your suit is bleeding into the cabin all the time, so you never truly get zero. That's right. You never truly get zero on the thing, but the, the dump valve was still open. And, uh, if I had not been hanging onto the hatch, it would have blown it all the way over. Well, Ron, to give you an idea on, that's, that's exact, that's not unexpected because it's exactly what we had on the lunar surface. We completely, completely dump the lamp and

37:54 I'd still have to break that hatch loose and hold it open about six or eight inches until things just vented. And then I could leave go of the hatch and open it all the way. If I didn't, it would slam back closed. Oh yeah. Different type of thing. So it was basically the same thing. You gotta open it and really let things get down to zero. Okay, well, when I opened the hatch then, all of the, uh, excuse me, all the, uh, little ice crystals and everything started flowing out. Uh, a pen went floating by and something else went floating by. Wasn't quite sure what it was. But, uh, there's all kinds of little particles and pieces start, uh, coming out through the hatch. But I sure didn't see, I looked specifically for the scissors. I, uh, I didn't see any scissors go out that hatch, I hate to say it. None of them went by my watch. None of them went by me.

38:55 Ron, I'd like to say that they went out the, you know, the hatch, but I sure didn't see them go. Sure you didn't see them go by? Actually, I caught the one thing. It went, started to go by me and put, put it in your pocket. You gotta, uh, push through. Okay, the, uh, once the, uh, all the particles and, and, uh, junk was out of the way, then you just push the hatch open. We had disconnected the, uh, uh, counterbalance, uh, uh, with the beat to tool B there, so that, uh, we'd lock the hatch in the open position. So I just shoved it open and went beyond the, uh, center position and, and, uh, locked in the open position with no problem. Egress, uh, I had a tendency, I guess, uh, just like, uh, any other thing, it seems like you want to float up. And I had a tendency to float up against the, uh, MDC and had to consciously duck and, uh, get as close, my face as close as I could to the bottom of the hatch in order to, uh, get past the, uh, get the OPS past the MDC and

39:58 get on out. TV and DAC installation, uh, worked fine. I could hang on with the, uh, right hand on the, uh, hatch, uh, the great big, uh, D handle on the hatch. And, uh, with the TV pole in my left hand, and it worked out real fine. Just, uh, stick it in there and line it up with the mark and, uh, make sure it was, uh, uh, locked in or clamped in. And then, uh, climbed on up the pole to, uh, turn the TV on, or turn the, uh, DAC on. And it was, you couldn't see the light. I couldn't see the light on the thing, but you could feel the camera running once you turn it on. You could just touch it and you could feel it, feel it vibrating a little bit. Uh, the, uh, lunar sounder cassette, uh, retrieval. Um, I think, uh, that should be on the onboard, uh, or on the, uh, air-ground tapes. As I was describing, uh, almost everything

40:59 that was going was no problem. The pan camera cassettes were next. No problem on the, uh, pan camera cassettes. The pan camera, uh, it's obviously a bigger mass, and it's, it's, uh, quite apparent when you try to maneuver, move, move that big mass around, that it is heavier, and it weighs more than, uh, the other things. It's easier to move, but it just takes a little more effort to get it started. And you know that if you ever get it started in one direction, it's gonna keep on going. You have to stop it. So I just, uh, moved everything real slow. Tried to keep it under control. Mapping camera cassette. I had the same, uh, problem I had in the, uh, in the Simbae, uh, C-squared, S-squared. Getting the, uh, the, uh, thermal cover off. It's stuck underneath the mapping camera laser altimeter, uh, door.

41:59 But, uh, there was no real problem. You know, I had the feet and the shoes, just give it a big jerk, and it finally came off. Uh, the Simbae inspection, uh, that's all covered in the, uh, onboard, uh, I mean, air ground tapes. TV and DAC removal, uh, again, was real simple. Just had to squeeze the, uh, lever. And TV came out, and it was easy to, uh, hang on with one hand and maneuver the, uh, uh, TV around and point it toward the moon. Because I didn't have to worry about shining it into the sun. And I tried to, again, hang on with one hand and, and point the TV around toward the earth. It was, the earth was, well, maybe 10 or 15 degrees, probably 15 degrees from the sun. And I tried to be a little more accurate on the thing. And when I did that, then I lost, kind of effectively, really lost control of the, of

42:59 the, my body position. Because I was trying to, to, uh, I think maneuver the camera. And I just, you need both hands to maintain your body control again. So, rather than try to flash the camera through the sun or something like that, I gave up in trying to point the camera out the air. Yeah. Calm during EVA, uh, it was loud and clear for me, uh, throughout the, uh, throughout the EVA. There was a lot of background noise, the hissing, uh, of the air flow. And I'm sure that was probably coming over the, uh, the Vox circuit, circuit. But, uh, don't think anyone had, didn't appear to me that anyone had any trouble on the ground reaching. I think one of the big, uh, advantages there, Ron, we all in pity that one thing we did, because it was bothering them at first, we, I turned your Vox sensitivity down about two notches. And apparently that really improved the calm form, is the impression I had. Yeah, I, I had that impression from the ground. I don't know if it, if it made any

43:59 difference or not, but I got the impression that that did help. Calm into the cabin was excellent. I never had any trouble understanding you. I had a hissing in the background, but we did. Yeah, I thought, it sounded much better than I remembered other flights sounding. Mm-hmm. On the air to ground. Well, our CMP made more noise than us. I guess I used the wrong word there. It was clearer. Clear. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Uh, ingress, uh, seemed to me like it was easier than the egress. Yeah. For some reason. Uh, hatch closing was, uh, harder than I anticipated. And I guess maybe this is the, uh, the same reason is that I must have been exhausting into the cabin all the time. And just that latch, the hatch would come closed to within about an inch of closing on the outer edge. And then it took an effort to pull the hatch closed so that you could activate the, uh, the latching handle.

45:00 So that you could over, get the, uh, the latches over center. Of course, once you got the first stroke on the latching handle, I've got the, uh, the Then it's, uh, really easy. Just a couple more cranks on the, uh, on the hatch, uh, closing. Captain Marie Press, uh, was nominal? Let me, uh, add my comments here, this LMP. Uh, all I did was work in the hatch area. And, uh, I want to emphasize, I think what everybody has always said is that you do your best work when you take things slow and easy. And just let yourself, uh, move yourself in small increments to where you want to go. You can turn and dip and scrape yourself up. And I think it's also useful, uh, for any cabin hatch or, or port operations, uh, to have somebody else available to, uh, push you out on your tether as far as you want to go. And I'll pull you in. It just eases the operation being was doing

46:01 this occasionally for me. Uh, what, uh, with the kind, with the struts and everything available there, there was never any feeling that I didn't have a way to control my body position. Sometimes it took a few seconds to get it where I wanted it, but it was clear. The one, uh, thing, invariably, every time I went back inside, I was, had this 90 degree disorientation feeling for a few seconds. Until I got the perspective of the cabin again and said, okay, that's right. And I get back in. And then I'd go back outside and I'd come back in again. And then once again, it seemed as if the cabin had rotated 90 degrees to my perspective. And then, uh, it's just something that's no problem. It's just a change of perspective for some reason that I, I, I experienced several times. Uh, I guess the biggest problem working in that angle for me, sun angle, or attitude

47:02 was, uh, I, I had the sun full face. You had the sun in your eyes most of the time. And, uh, so it made it hard to look in detail and see what you were doing. You were clear image. You were there. I could see every major operation doing it, but if I had to specifically see details, it was, uh... Oh, I don't know. One, one point I wanted to make, uh, also was that I had no awareness whatsoever that I had an umbilical on my back. There was a, I never got the feeling that the umbilical was tugging on me, restricting my movements, or anything. I didn't even know it was there. And did you observe at any time that the umbilical ever get tangled around my feet? No, the umbilical was, uh, was easy to tend, and, uh, I frankly don't remember a single time when I had to clear it. There may have been one. Some of you have a vague impression that one time I asked you to hold up, or maybe I didn't say anything. I just moved it away from a handhold or something. But the umbilical was, uh, was very, it didn't

48:05 tend to snake around, and it was, you seemed to have everything you needed on it. It worked out really good. It was not a problem at all. I didn't even know it was there. I guess that's the point I was making, is that really, uh, being tied to the umbilical does not restrict your movement, or, uh, or give you a feeling that it's, it's, it is restricting your movement at all. Suit doffing and storage, I think we've already discussed that. Uh, this is continuing on the EVA, uh, part of it, but, uh, I don't know, this is suit, just suit, a different section here, suit doffing and storage. We've already mentioned the suit doffing and storage. Uh, the light flash, uh, phenomena. We, three of us were blinded for over an hour and, uh, never saw a light flash. That was the final, the second round? The second round, on the way back. The second round, on the way back, and, uh, transverse. Eating, resting, exercise, and comfort. Now, let me add to the light flashes, LMP,

49:07 that the next, uh, that evening, I guess it was, I did see them again. Fallen asleep. So. I did too. So there was just that period, apparently, during the actual experiment, that, that for some reason, they weren't busy. I think we've discussed the eating, uh, resting, exercise, and comfort already. Cabin atmosphere. Uh, the one thing, uh, that I don't think we've, we've ever mentioned yet, and I think should be, noted is that we, uh, never really utilized the waste storage vent to get rid of any odors out of that waste storage compartment. And if you, if you kind of drifted over in that area, it was always apparent that you were in that area. If you got real close to it, I thought it was. I never noticed. Very good. I think generally.

50:08 I guess maybe I did when you opened the door. That's when you really noticed. The cabin generally, uh, turned over the atmosphere, uh, in pretty good style. Uh, it got saturated sometimes with, uh, with gas, and it took, uh, uh, a few minutes. But once the source of that gas was, uh, uh, was plugged up, the, uh, the cabin did a good job of recirculating and cleaning out the air. I think it did. Real good. Flight plan updates were super. The flight plan was excellent, and they were held to a minimum, and we really didn't change any part of the entire flight, except a few dates and times and, uh, what have you here, and attitudes. Uh, but other than that, it was really at a minimum. Let's say the entry preparations really began, uh, after EVA and continued off through the next day, and, uh, we had very little final stowage to do on entry morning.

51:10 Just those things that we had to leave unstowed until we got, uh, got out of our sleep restraints, so we basically just had to tie the big bags down. I wanted to, and seven and eight, and, uh, final entry preparations went by the, part of the checklist, and, uh, if anything, we stayed about five minutes ahead, uh, throughout the entire checklist, including, uh, separation and activation of the, uh, uh, command module RCS, and, uh, picked that five minutes up, of course, right at, uh, 05G, which came on time. Uh, and the communications, I thought, uh, were very good through that period of time. We were through a RIAA the last couple minutes prior to RRT, and, uh, I understand out of the ground heard everything we said right on through blackout, into blackout. And then I, and as soon as we came out of blackout, they still had a RIAA, and they could read us, uh, and we could have read them, but they never transmitted anything.

52:12 Oh, that was it. Okay. Yeah. I can't think of anything else. Well, on the corridor checks there, we got, uh, Horizon and Moonset. Right? Yeah. Without any, well, with, with the problem of looking, but, uh— But we had them all, and they all were within seconds of the actual time. They were all within seconds, and, you know, in the, in the, CMS, I'd always look for the 2G when the corridor light would go out, though. I didn't even notice it in the flight. So I must have been, I was either watching something else, uh, I must have been checking the, the EMS or the— The EMS or the EMS or the EMS or the EMS.