Apollo 8

This is Apollo Control, Houston at 79 hours even into the flight of Apollo 8. We have a few extraneous comments coming at the - as we went over the hill on this fifth rev, and we'll play those for you now right through Loss of Signal.

This is Apollo Control, Houston; 79 hours, 46 minutes into the flight. Mike Collins has sent up two calls and we've got no response - we think we've got some keying action, but that's all. To date, we've - on the basis of earlier revs, we've gotten used to now, to turning to our EECOM and asking the first question as we come around the corner, 'how's the evaporator' and the answer is this time it's working great. They apparently have the right handle on it. As I mentioned earlier, it's seeing large temperature excursions, apparently no larger than people within the project office and at North American and, I'm sure, at the Air Corporation had felt they might see. And I know many people in those positions who are very much relieved to see these excursions and all - excursions of only 40 to 50 degrees.

Still no - no answer, no additional calls as a matter of fact. Mike Collins tries again. And we might have a ground antenna problem. Checking our ground stations now. In this temperature area, the evaporator, of course, isn't the only area seeing the same order of temperature excursions. I'm looking at a Command Service Module RCS summary here, which shows - presents temperature readings at four or five points, on various tanks surfaces in the Service Module and, see one valve inlet temperature here which is a specific six digit identified point which varies the low and the high are listed over any given rev and they happen to range from 50 degree Fahrenheit to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There are four other readings in the Service Module area which range from 50 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's been nearly six minutes now since we acquired and just getting a general background noise. We've had no additional - no additional attempts to raise the spacecraft. So based on what EECOM says, we may wait a few minutes before trying additional calls. We'll be back up then. It's 79 hours, 51 minutes into the flight; this is Apollo Control, Houston.

Apollo Control, Houston here. We are locked up and Jim Lovell is giving us an interesting description of his use of the auto optics in his tracking tasks on the back side of the Moon. Here it is.

Apollo Control here. In this lull, we perhaps should take advantage at least to point out to the people in the newsrooms, who, may not - not have not noticed it yet. Our latest data display on our - one of our walls, there's the words Merry Christmas, Apollo 8. The Merry is in red letters, the Christmas is in white letters, and the Apollo 8 is in blue letters. That display went up about an hour ago. I guess it technically should be called data. The consensus here is of course, that the crew is and remains quite busy and we're going to have some updates in the course of this pass, the sixth rev - here it is.

And this is Apollo Control, Houston; at 80 hours, 1 minute into the flight. We apparently are not going to have very much communication at this point. We'll come back up when we do. This is Apollo Control, Houston.

This is Apollo Control, Houston; 80 hours, 15 minutes into the flight. In the last few minutes we've recorded some most enthusiastic comments from Jim Lovell on his assignment. Comments from Lovell and from Anders on their tracking assignment during this - these inner - these middle revs around the Moon. Lovell pays astronaut Jack Schmitt, Harrison Schmitt actually, a PhD in Geology, a great compliment with the work that he and other members of the Lunar Mapping Science Laboratory here in MSC have done in picking various Moonmarks or landmarks leading to the sites we've picked out as probable landing sites for subsequent lunar missions. Jim, as I say, is most enthusiastic about the clarity of the ridges and the rilles that he was given to work with. And Anders chimes in that he thinks it's all great too, except he wishes the windows were more easily seen through. Here's the conversation, the way it's been going the last few minutes.

Apollo Control, Houston here; 80 hours, 36 minutes into the flight and I think we're going to have a little pause here perhaps for another 10 to 15 minutes before we come upon our final conversation and the spacecraft goes over the hill on this sixth rev around the Moon. Present orbit; apogee, 62.3; perigee, 59.8; velocity, 5,338 feet per second. At 80 hours, 36 minutes; this is Apollo Control, Houston.

This is Apollo Control, Houston at 80 hours, 57 minutes. We're - we've just lost signal with the spacecraft, we have several minutes of conversation to play out for you, but before we get to that I want to mention one or two things. I don't think we've made mention of the fact today that we have finally, after six revolutions, gotten used to watching the spacecraft go from the right side of our front wall map to the left, just as it is proceeding around the Moon in a retrograde orbit. This, after all these years of watching the spacecraft move from the left side of the wall map to the right, it's quite a transformation in just one brief day. Another point regarding the windows; obviously that this has to be the worst system we've turned up with on this flight, and we've been talking to several experts about it here. This particular condition that we're seeing, the fogging on the hatch window and on - to a considerable degree - and on windows one and five, is similar to a condition that existed on spacecraft 101, commonly known as Apollo 7. The situation has, within very recent days, been - if not duplicated very closely - approximated in tests within the Spacecraft Industrial Government Complex. The tests have shown that the material used in the window caulking, if you will; the substance around the window that provides the trough in which the three pane windows ride; it has been demonstrated that some outgassing occurs with the particular treated - the particular kind of rubbery material being used in these windows joints, that is the window joints in [windows] 1, 3, and 5. In the rendezvous windows, windows 2 and 4, a different material treated under different conditions is being used and apparently it's quite successful. Some changes will be made on the next spacecraft. And that represents about every - all the information we have on that particular area.

One other announcement, we presently plan no press conference this afternoon, I repeat no press conference at our change of shift because we really see no new information to offer. You've heard the bulk of the conversation today and I think it's all been very straightforward. And in view of the extraordinarily long hours that many of us have been in the control center, we would like to bypass the afternoon press conference which would have occurred about 6 o'clock, and continue to observe the activities through the evening hours, and top off the evening with a Trans-Earth Injection some time around midnight Houston time. So I say again, we presently plan no press conference at the change of this shift, which will occur around 6 pm tonight, and continue right ahead with as full coverage we can provide you, and take care of any questions you might want to relay to our news center. Here now is the tape that finished up the sixth rev.