Return to the LM and Closeout

Wake-up and Preparations for EVA-2

 

Ending the First Day

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library.
Video credits in the Video Library.
Except where noted, MP3 audio clips by Thomas Schwagmeier and video clips by Ken Glover.
Last revised 29 March 2017.

[Al and Ed are on Surface 4-1.]

MP3 Audio Clip (52 min 22 sec)

118:38:23 Shepard: (To Ed) Wait a minute. Let me get your (OPS) antenna. (Long Pause)

118:39:04 Mitchell: Where is my purge valve? (Long Pause) Al, where's my purge valve?

[Comm Break]

[Given Al's statement at 118:41:37, it doesn't seem likely that Ed has dropped his purge valve. If he had, it would be difficult for them to get it off the floor, even with the suits depressurized, because they are still wearing the PLSSs. Probably, Ed is simply having trouble seeing the valve, which is on the righthand side of his chest and is probably hidden by the RCU.]

RealVideo Clip (4 min 27 sec)

118:41:37 Shepard: Okay, your purge valve's removed.

118:41:39 Mitchell: Okay. (Pause)

118:41:46 Shepard: "Disconnect OPS O2 hose."

118:41:50 Mitchell: Okay. Why don't you turn the (PLSS) fan off here? Okay, there you go.

118:41:57 McCandless: Ed, this is Houston. We'd like to confirm that you have closed the O2 valve on your PLSS. Over.

118:42:07 Mitchell: That's affirm.

118:42:09 McCandless: Roger. Out. (Pause)

118:42:21 Mitchell: I'll double-check it, Bruce, but...(Pause) I verify it's closed.

118:42:37 McCandless: Roger, Ed.

118:42:39 Shepard: Okay. "Connect the LM O2 hoses."

118:42:40 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

118:43:29 Shepard: Okay, go to Suit Flow on the (Suit) Isol(ation) Valve. (Pause) Turn your PLSS pump off. (Turn) your PLSS fan off.

118:43:43 Mitchell: Off and off.

[They will now start Sur 4-2.]

118:44:11 Mitchell: Why don't you help me with my water.

118:44:12 Shepard: Huh?

118:44:14 Mitchell: You'll have to help me with the water connection. I can't close that one.

118:44:15 Shepard: (Garbled).

118:44:17 Mitchell: I said, I can't close that one. (Pause)

118:44:24 Shepard: Okay. (Long Pause) How about popping this one in for me too, will you? (Long Pause)

118:45:00 Mitchell: Okay.

118:45:02 Shepard: (Garbled) put that one in. On. (Long Pause)

118:45:27 Shepard: (Garbled). What kind of fitting was in there?

118:45:32 Mitchell: What? You'd stuck this one in that one. I didn't do it very well.

118:45:40 Mitchell: Okay...

118:45:41 Shepard: Okay.

118:45:42 Mitchell: PLSS mode, both off. O.

118:45:46 Shepard: Connect LM water.

118:45:48 Mitchell: Yep.

118:45:49 Shepard: ECS: LCG Pump breaker, closed.

118:45:51 Mitchell: Closed.

118:45:52 Shepard: Okay. Adjust the cooling gradually. PLSS mode, both O. (Long Pause)

[They have just turned their RCUs off and, next, will connect to the LM comm system.]

118:46:43 Mitchell: Okay. Audio. Biomed. (Pause) And A, Receive; B, Off.

118:47:00 McCandless: Antares, this is Houston. Over.

118:47:06 Shepard: Go ahead, Houston.

118:47:08 McCandless: Antares, this is Houston. In going through the comm checklist, we'd like to leave the S-band Transmitter and Receiver in Secondary. Over.

118:47:20 Mitchell: Okay, will do.

[Comm Break]

118:48:26 Mitchell: Go ahead.

118:48:27 McCandless: Roger. We'd like you to pull the circuit breaker on the TV camera at this time. Over.

118:48:39 Mitchell: No sooner said than done.

118:48:41 McCandless: Roger.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[During this comm break, they refill the PLSSs, take them off, change out the batteries and lithium hydroxide (LiOH) canisters, empty the ETB, weigh the weigh bags, and refill the ETB with fresh mags.]

[Mitchell - "The first thing we do is refill the PLSS..."]

[Jones - "And the notion on doing that the first thing is what? If you've got a problem with the refill you've got time to check it out?"]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. I notice here we do change the PLSS battery. You were asking about that earlier. We break down all that equipment."]

[Jones - "It takes a while. You have to get the thermal cover off of the PLSS in order to fill it?"]

[Mitchell - "No. You didn't take it totally off. It had a flap to get in there."]

[Jones - "A flap to get in at the LiOH and the refill and the batteries."]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. We did mine first and then stowed it and recharged the commander's. Stowing every place. God, when you get it all put down there, there's stuff stowed everywhere."]

[Astronaut Gordon Fullerton takes over as CapCom. Al and Ed are at the top of the right-hand column of Sur 4-3.]

119:35:40 Fullerton: Antares, Houston. Go ahead, Ed.

119:35:45 Mitchell: Hello, Gordon. We're about ready to give you some weights on return equipment.

119:35:51 Fullerton: Okay, Ed. Ready to copy. (Long Pause)

119:36:09 Mitchell: Okay. We're ready to come up with the first bags. Stand by one. (Long Pause)

119:36:49 Mitchell: Houston, let me tell you what we've done. Remember (that) Al said that we brought in the small rocks from the comprehensive sample area in one weigh bag.

119:37:02 Fullerton: Okay.

119:37:08 Mitchell: We couldn't get them in the SRC. We got the contingency sample here. And it so happens that the material cracked on the contingency sample bag, and it's leaking. So we're putting it in the weigh bag with these other rocks. And the weight of that total combination is 5 pounds.

[The spring scale is calibrated to give weights in terrestrial pounds. Photo of display at the Astronaut Hall of Fame, Titusville, Florida, courtesy Ulrich Lotzmann. March 2002.]

119:37:38 Mitchell: Rog. (Long Pause) And, Houston, the next bag has two toy-sized football rocks in it. And they weigh 15 pounds total.

119:38:54 Fullerton: Okay, Ed. (Pause) Stand by one, Ed.

119:39:07 Mitchell: And that's going into the left-hand storage compartment.

119:39:11 Fullerton: Okay. Left-hand storage compartment with two little-league footballs; 15 pounds.

119:39:21 Mitchell: Rog. (Long Pause) Okay, Houston. Both of those rock bags are going to left-hand storage compartment.

119:39:45 Fullerton: Okay, Ed. That's the one with the contingency sample and the comprehensive and the football ones, right?

119:39:55 Mitchell: That's affirmative. (Pause)

119:40:07 Fullerton: Ed, if you'll stand by just 1 minute, I need to copy a read...

119:40:09 Mitchell: Let me...

119:40:10 Fullerton: ...down from Stu, and I'll be right back to you.

119:40:14 Mitchell: Okay.

[Comm Break]

119:41:34 Mitchell: Okay. We want you to be discriminating about our samples now. We have the comprehensive rocks in the left-hand storage compartment. The comprehensive fines, however, are in the SRC.

119:41:51 Fullerton: Okay, got that. The comprehensive rocks in the storage compartment and the fines in the SRC.

119:42:01 Mitchell: That's affirm. (Long Pause) And Mag MM is replacing (mag) II.

[Magazine II, also known as Magazine 66, was on Ed's camera during the first EVA. At some point after the EVA - probably about now - they take a series of pictures out the LM windows. These are AS14-66- 9317 to 9326. Dave Byrne has assembled these into a window pan. Al and Ed will use Magazine II/66 to take another series of out-the-windows photos after EVA-2 and finally, will use it during rendezvous.]

[Frame 9324 shows the MET parked in the shadow of the S-band antenna. As per checklist, Al and Ed put SRC-2 on the MET at the end of EVA-1 and placed the S-band antenna cover on top as a sun shield.]

119:43:58 Mitchell: Okay. We replaced magazine JJ on the Commander's camera with LL and II on the LMP's camera with MM.

119:44:10 Fullerton: Okay. We've got L-L and M-M on there now.

119:44:17 Mitchell: That's affirm. (Long Pause) Houston, Antares. Verify which are the two 16-millimeter mags that have been used?

119:44:44 Fullerton: Roger. (Long Pause)

119:45:37 Mitchell: Houston, Antares.

119:45:39 Fullerton: Go ahead, Ed.

119:45:42 Mitchell: Did you understand my question, Gordon?

119:45:46 Fullerton: I guess I didn't. I didn't realize it was a question. Go ahead. Say it again, please?

119:45:52 Mitchell: Okay. We have three 16-millimeter mags, of which we only used two. Can you tell me which two we used?

119:46:00 Fullerton: I'll have to check back. I'll give you an answer in a minute here.

119:46:06 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

119:46:36 Fullerton: Antares, Houston.

119:46:42 Mitchell: Go ahead.

119:46:44 Fullerton: Our records show that the used magazines are Charlie-Charlie and Echo-Echo. And Delta-Delta should be the unused one. Over.

119:46:55 Mitchell: Okay. Thank you. That's what we thought.

[Long Comm Break]

119:50:45 Fullerton: Okay, Ed. Go ahead with it.

119:50:50 Mitchell: In addition to the three 16-millimeter mags called for (in the checklist), we're also taking back out the one we didn't get used today.

119:50:58 Fullerton: Okay, Ed. Sounds like a good idea. (Pause)

119:51:08 Mitchell: And in addition to the black-and-white (70mm) Mag K-K, we're taking back out Juliett-Juliett. We've only used 40 frames off of that, and we've got very few pictures of the LM and other appropriate-type shots.

119:51:25 Fullerton: Roger. Juliett-Juliett, you're also going to take out on the second EVA.

119:51:34 Mitchell: That's affirm.

[Comm Break]

119:54:00 Shepard: Go ahead.

119:54:01 Fullerton: Just following you in the checklist here and looking ahead, it looks to us like you'll probably get to the EVA debriefing in an hour and a half, about 122 (hours). Does this agree with your estimate? We just wanted to know to be sure to have the right people standing by.

[Readers should recall that the times used in the Journal are elapsed times since the actual launch, whereas Houston and the crew are using time elapsed since the planned launch 40 minutes and three seconds earlier. Consequently, the present elapsed time being used in Houston is about 120:34.]

119:54:42 Shepard: And we find that weighs 43 (terrestrial) pounds.

119:54:44 Fullerton: Okay, 43 pounds on the SRC. And if you're just proceeding down the card with no changes to it, well, then we'll figure it out when you get to the debriefing.

119:54:56 Mitchell: Okay. That's what we're doing.

119:54:59 Fullerton: Okay. (Pause)

119:55:08 Shepard: Listen, we've had enough thrills today without changing our checklist.

119:55:12 Fullerton: We didn't really mean to suggest that, Al, we just...Disregard.

119:55:21 Shepard: I was just kidding.

[Jones - "I take it that Al was being a little sarcastic about the checklist."]

[Mitchell - "Yes."]

[Long Comm Break.]

[In the following, Ed is referring to the Lift-off Times called for on Sur 4-4. These would be optimum launch times for rendezvous with the Command Module in the event that they lose comm and need to end the mission early. T1 and T2 were pre-planned launch times in the minutes immediately following the landing and T3 was for the next Command Module pass over the landing site.]

120:00:24 Fullerton: Ed, this is Houston. Say again, please?

120:00:30 Mitchell: I'm standing by for our lift-off table.

120:00:32 Fullerton: Oh, okay...

120:00:33 Mitchell: And whatever else you have.

120:00:36 Fullerton: Roger, Ed. I've got them for (Command Module orbits number) 20 through 25, if you're ready.

120:00:44 Mitchell: Okay. It's a little late for 20 (because Roosa has already gone overhead on Rev 20). (Pause) But go ahead.

120:00:53 Fullerton: Okay. I'll give it to you anyway. To fill in all the blanks. (Reading slowly) 20 is 120:46:22; 21, 122:44:45; 23 is - or did I miss 22 - I think I missed 22 (and it) is 124:43:06; T-23 is 126:41:29; T-24, 128:39:51; T-25 is 130:38:11.

120:01:58 Mitchell: (Reading quickly) Okay. Read Rev 20 is 120:46:22; 21 is 122:44:45; 22 is 124:43:06; 23 is 126:41:29; 24 is 128:39:51; 25, 130:38:11.

120:02:22 Fullerton: Roger. Your readback is correct. Short status on the CSM up there: He's in good shape. Done everything on the timeline right on the money. The only problem on board seems to be the Topo camera. The plane change went well with a Delta-V of 671 feet per second, about 8 or 9 feet per second more than pre-flight, which was just to circularize the orbit slightly. Over.

120:02:57 Mitchell: Okay. Good for him. Is he using the 500...Let's see, what is it? The 500 millimeter in place of the Hycon?

120:03:06 Fullerton: We're mulling that over. Actually the substitution won't occur until tomorrow, and that's most likely what we'll do. We're running one more test on the Hycon to verify that it is indeed hopeless, and then we'll back it up with the 500.

[Very Long Comm Break.]

[They are starting the eat period scheduled to begin at 118:48 after the planned launch and 118:08 after the actual launch.]

[Mitchell - "So we're almost two hours behind."]

[Jones - "On both 12 and 14, you were pretty tight on time."]

[Mitchell - "Well, we weren't all that tight on time. But we acted like we were."]

[Jones -"I can remember in the Apollo 12 Technical Debrief that Pete complained that they had oxygen to stay out another two hours but they got back in per checklist and sat around for two hours."]

[Mitchell - "Of course, I was running a little short. It was my oxygen that was the critical item."]

[Note that Al's next call will come after an abbreviated, 30-minute eat period.]

120:34:34 Fullerton: Antares, Houston. Go ahead.

120:34:40 Shepard: We've finished our meal, whatever meal it was, and we're off and running on the PLSS feedwater collection.

120:34:48 Fullerton: Roger, Al.

[Jones - "On the feedwater collection, here, you drained the PLSS feedwater to see how much was left?"]

[Mitchell - (After reading checklist) "We are weighing the residual water in the PLSS."]

[Jones - "So that the EVA planning types can..."]

[Mitchell - "Figure what our water consumption was."]

[Comm Break]

120:37:34 Fullerton: Go ahead.

120:37:38 Mitchell: Roger. Please be advised that one RCU weighs 0.38 kilograms.

120:37:45 Fullerton: Roger, Ed.

[This is the Remote Control Unit. It has a known weight and is used to calibrate the scale.]

[Long Comm Break]

120:42:10 Fullerton: Roger, Ed. The Commander's feedwater is 0.25 kilograms.

[Long Comm Break]

120:46:31 Fullerton: Roger, Ed; 0.19 on your feedwater.

120:46:38 Mitchell: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break, during which they recharge the PLSSs with water and top-off the oxygen tanks as per Sur 4-4 and Sur 4-5.]

121:12:53 Fullerton: Antares, go ahead.

121:12:58 Mitchell: Okay, we've arrived at the EVA debriefing block. But, in the meantime, let us say to the medics that we haven't had any medication, that the Commander's PRD is 16051, and the LMP is 07049.

121:13:18 Fullerton: Roger, Ed. We copy that. I have 10 questions having to do with the EVA. We don't want elaborate answers, because they, of course, cut into your sleep period.

[They had planned to start the sleep period at 120 hr 35min after the planned launch from Earth and 119 hr 55 min after the actual launch. They are already 1 1/4 hours past that and won't actually say good night for another half hour.]

121:14:04 Shepard: Okay, will do. We'll try a little pressure in the right places. In the meantime, we also would like to report that we have completed both O2 top-off and the water recharge for both PLSSs. And the condition of the crew is excellent.

121:14:24 Fullerton: Roger, Al. Glad to hear it. About the start of the next EVA: we plan not to wake you up any earlier then scheduled, but if you are awake and ready to go, we'll be ready to support for an early egress on the next one. Over.

121:14:47 Shepard: Okay, that sounds good. We'd like to plan on an early egress anyway, I think, so that we'll be in a position to get the full EVA-2 and still get back in at the regularly scheduled timeline.

121:15:04 Fullerton: Roger. The LM status is completely ops (operations) normal. The consumables are in good shape. We believe that the steerable antenna problem you had during descent was probably due to a multipath reception at AOS, and we're predicting, now, that it will probably work okay for ascent. Over.

121:15:30 Shepard: Okay.

121:15:31 Mitchell: Glad to hear that one.

[Jones - "Did the two of you spend much time in the LM talking things over after the EVAs?"]

[Mitchell - "We commented upon little anomalies and things like that. I don't recall that we talked or prepared ourselves in any way for the scientific debriefs. We talked about performance-type stuff and what we could do better and where we screwed up and how to prevent it the next time. We let the geologists and the scientists ask their questions. We were more in the operational mode at this point, and our concerns were "how do we stay operational?", how to improve operational things. And the geology was just another operational thing we did."]

121:15:51 Shepard: Well, I think that the second EVA will go a little more smoothly with respect to the timeline. It's not as complicated as far as the equipment is concerned. We don't spend as much time moving around with scientific equipment. It's primarily a geological traverse once the thing has gotten by the first few minutes. And we should be able to be on the timeline and hang onto that real well. And we, of course, are again counting on at least a 30-minute extension to the nominal time, so that's the reason we'd like to start early.

121:16:29 Fullerton: Roger. Do you feel the terrain will be any problem?

121:16:35 Shepard: No, we don't. We had no difficulty at all in traversing the terrain. As a matter of fact, we were bounding along, even with the (ALSEP) barbell and the MET. The traversing is extremely easy, although we have a rolling landscape and lots of craters to circumnavigate. I believe from looking at Cone, we'll be able to get up there with no trouble at all.

121:16:59 Fullerton: Okay...

121:17:00 Mitchell: I completely concur in that. The undulating terrain is just a surprise. It's not that much more difficult.

121:17:09 Fullerton: Roger, Ed. Second question is: would you please describe the rim of Doublet, especially the blockiness? Over. (Pause)

121:17:27 Shepard: Well, I don't think you'd call Doublet a blocky rim. The craters - North and South Doublet - of course, are both older craters and have subdued rims. There are some blocks of ejecta at and near the vicinity of the rims, and there are a few blocks down inside. For example, we can look at the west wall of south Doublet from here and see a few fairly good-sized rocks, perhaps 3 or 4 feet at the largest. But I really wouldn't call it a blocky rim. It's a fairly well subdued rim.

121:18:05 Mitchell: I concur. The biggest blocks we could see on the rim of Doublet correspond to these large ones (north of the LM) I pointed out in my TV pan. There are some of that size or maybe a little larger, but the population is miniscule compared with the total rim area of Doublet.

121:18:28 Fullerton: Roger. Third question: how deep is the DPS (Descent Propulsion System, pronounced "dips") erosion crater?

121:18:40 Shepard: It's not very deep at all. The photographs will show that it's, perhaps, only 4 inches at maximum depth.

121:18:51 Fullerton: Okay, and can you describe the lineations and how far out they went, their orientation, and direction.

121:19:04 Mitchell: Are these the lineations that I referred to earlier, or are you talking about lineations from the DPS engine?

121:19:13 Fullerton: The ones that you referred to earlier, Ed.

121:19:19 Mitchell: Okay, they're there; and I saw evidences of them in directions different than the exhaust would cause, but there just simply was not time to look at them. We'll have to look at them tomorrow.

121:19:35 Fullerton: Okay. Next question: on the football samples, were they documented?

121:19:47 Shepard: That's affirmative. They were documented with a stereopair "before", in the case of both samples. And they were taken from the crater which is located at...Let's see, (to himself, consulting the map and moving upward from grid line CO to CR) O, P, Q, R … CR. (Estimating the location between the CR and CS lines) CR.1 and 64.6. They (the samples) came from the southwest... (from) near the southwest rim of that crater.

[For reference, the LM is near CQ.3/65.9 and the ALSEP Central Station is near CQ.8/61.5.]

121:20:45 Mitchell: Yeah, there are a few places around - primarily fill or rather the throwouts from craters, or what are obviously near the rims of craters - (that) have a softer material around them than there is just in general. However, there are so many craters that you find the soft material quite often, but generally on the fresher ones. Along my traverse - rather along the thumper geophone line - there are two or three fairly fresh craters along that line that had some quite soft material around them. And it was a matter of sinking in 2, 3 or 4 inches instead of a normal half to three-quarters (of an inch) that we're sinking in out here.

121:21:36 Fullerton: Roger, Ed. On the surface features of rocks, marks...Well, we'd like a description of the surface features of the rocks. If they are marked, variations in rounding, angularity, grain size, size distribution, shape, texture, and color. Over.

[Jones - "The geologists don't want much out of you, do they?"]

[Mitchell - "They want instant pudding. Right then. Of course, that's understandable. They're impatient and they wanted to get information and, during that first EVA, we were just getting acquainted with the surface, putting up the bloody scientific equipment. And there really wasn't much geology being done at all. Almost none."]

[Jones - "Did you have any contact, during training, with the conflict between the physics side of the science community and the geology side?"]

[Mitchell - "Yeah, there was always a conflict. Every investigator - regardless of his discipline - wanted more priority than he was getting. So there was always a contest. We did our best to satisfy everybody, until it started cutting into what we wanted to do."]

121:22:28 Fullerton: Okay, Ed, this next question probably falls in the same category. I'll read it in case you have anything to say about it, and that is to describe the regolith, the general nature, fragment distribution, fragment shapes, variations in texture, color, surface patterns, and firmness.

121:22:46 Mitchell: Okay, we can give a quick one on that. I think we've already done most of it. The regolith is mostly a mouse brown - or sometimes looking gray - a powdery material. Almost like a chalk, ground up; it's that thin and that fine-grained. There are a few rocks scattered around; the population (is) less than a percent (that is, less than one percent of the surface is covered with rocks), ranging in size from 5 to 6 - well, I guess, 2 or 3 centimeters - but the ones that are obvious, that aren't buried, are 5 or 6 centimeters; up to the largest ones that I've seen are the ones I showed you in the (TV) pan, which are 3, 4, or 5 feet across. The distribution is less than 1 percent, but you see a few of these blocks sitting all around the landscape as far as you can see, and I guess they're even out over toward Doublet, which we didn't say was blocky, but these smaller ones might not be visible at that distance. And I can look to the north, and I don't see too many on the far edge of the crater over there either; but it could be that that's too far away to be able to see them well.

121:24:16 Fullerton: Okay, did you notice any variations in color or surface patterns or texture?

121:24:28 Mitchell: To me, it looked all about the same, as far as the general regolith here is concerned; but, again, we haven't looked at it that carefully - or I didn't look at it that carefully - just because of the press of time. By and large it is all this very fine-grain material with a few scattered rocks on top of it. Let's see if we can do a better job of describing it tomorrow for you.

121:24:53 Fullerton: Okay.

121:24:54 Shepard: Yeah, I think that's generally true. We can see areas, for example, looking normally out the window - that is in the cross-Sun direction, in my case to the south - where the rocks in one ejecta pattern of fairly large rocks of 3 or 4 feet appear to have a very lighter gray texture to them in comparison to the gray-brown which Ed just described, which would be the regolith. And I notice that this crater that sits out here to the 9:30 position of the LM is also a brighter crater. It's a newer crater; it has a raised rim. And it has a different color, for example, than does the crater directly behind it about the same distance, which is much older and a darker gray.

121:25:48 Fullerton: Roger, Al. Next question...

121:25:53 Shepard: I think, generally, we'll find some variations in texture throughout tomorrow's traverse.

121:26:00 Fullerton: Roger; how abundant was glass?

121:26:09 Mitchell: The only place I thought I saw glass - and I didn't have time to confirm it - was in a very small crater along the thumper line. It looked like there was a little pool of glass at the bottom; and this crater was only about 2 foot across and maybe 8 inches deep. It had quite a bit of small chunky material in it, but it had a different color and looked very glassy at the bottom; and I didn't have time to go back and look at it, but I'm sure there's some more of that around.

121:26:45 Fullerton: Roger. Last question is, how abundant were fillets? Do those by the LM appear to be disturbed by the DPS (Descent Propulsion System)? Over.

121:26:58 Shepard: I think we find some fillets. I don't know whether the percentage is as high as 50 percent or not of the surface rocks. But, yes, there is some filleting, and you'll notice in the small football-size rocks, there was a fillet pattern around them. There is filleting here, of course, very close to the LM, and it's hard to tell whether it's natural or whether it's from the LM exhaust.

121:27:28 Mitchell: I concur completely with that.

121:27:31 Fullerton: Roger; that's all the pre-prepared questions. I'll check and make sure there's no last minute ones here.

121:27:41 Mitchell: Okay, I might comment that looking at our footprints - with the MET track and our footprints out to the ALSEP site (and) over to the (TV) camera - both looking down-Sun and cross-Sun, that the fresh dirt we've kicked up and turned over is noticeably darker (and) browner than the more mousy-brown, lighter-brown undisturbed regolith that's on top.

[Photo AS14-66- 9338 was taken after the second EVA and shows the darkened paths leading out to the ALSEP site.]

121:29:10 Mitchell: That's affirm. All 3 geophones were in good shape when I left them.

121:29:16 Fullerton: Okay. (Long Pause) Antares, Houston. We're having some problem with the signal strength on the ALSEP. Is there any chance that the Central Station could have been disturbed such that the antenna alignment would no longer be proper? Over.

121:30:34 Mitchell: Not to my knowledge.

121:30:36 Shepard: No, I don't think either one of us went by there again. I took some pictures of it, but nobody touched it after the antenna was aligned.

121:30:45 Mitchell: Well, I touched it, of course, in turning number 5 switch off and on; but, gee, that didn't do anything.

121:30:54 Fullerton: Roger. (Long Pause)

[Al will re-align the Central Station antenna at the end of the second EVA.]

121:32:01 Fullerton: Okay, Al. We'll go along with that all the way. We'll plan to start 1 hour early; in fact, if...We're not recommending it, but if you want to start earlier than that, we'll be ready to support. You don't need to worry about support here. Over.

121:32:24 Shepard: Well, let's see. Our nominal rest period ends at 130 hours and 30 minutes (129:50 transcript time). We'll be a good 6 hours and a half (into the rest period by then). Why don't we say 129 hours even. (128:20 transcript time) You wake us up if we haven't called you by then. (Pause)

121:32:50 Fullerton: Okay, we're checking that figure, and I'll give you a confirmation here if I get it.

121:33:01 Shepard: Okay. I don't think we're going to sleep more than 6 hours anyway. And we'll be in bed so that we have 6 and a half hours. The way we're going now, all we have to do is rig the hammocks (as per Sur 4-6).

121:33:12 Fullerton: Roger. (Pause)

121:33:23 Mitchell: Houston, if you concur, I'll go ahead (as per Sur 4-5) and select Down Voice Backup. Turn the Power Amp Off and get the VHF antenna to Aft, which constitutes the last part of my comm checklist.

121:33:36 Fullerton: Okay, Ed; stand by one.

[Comm Break]

121:36:12 Mitchell: No, neither one of us.

121:3614 Fullerton: Okay, I got that a little wrong. It's the separator in the LM suit loop; so, it'd be a problem with water while you're on the LM suit loop.

[During Apollo 12, the water separators in the Environmental Control System - which were gas-driven centrifuge pumps - ran too fast and allowed liquid water to escape the separator and, ultimately, collect in Pete Conrad's boots. A flow-limiter was incorporated in the ECS oxygen path to eliminate this problem. Apparently, the flow limiter hasn't reduced the water separator speed quite as much as was anticipated. See the Apollo 12 Mission Report, page 14-41.]

121:36:30 Fullerton: Okay. We'll go along with...We'll ring the alarm at 129 hours, and I think that completes all the items we have for you. You are clear to go ahead with the last three steps before configuring for sleep. Over.

121:36:50 Shepard: Very good. We'll press on with that now. Thank you so much.

[Long Comm Break]

[Sleep Period]

[ The layout of the hammocks is shown in a drawing from the Apollo 12 Press Kit.]

[Jones - "Could you describe for me the process of getting the hammocks up in that rather crowded space and getting two suited astronauts into them?"]

[Mitchell - "It really wasn't all that difficult. We left the suits on, but we had helmets and gloves off. The gloves were easy to get out of the way. One helmet was stowed back on the engine cover and the other was stowed in the right-hand corner on the floor. I can't remember where the hammocks were stowed before being rigged. Mine was rigged athwart ships with my head to the right (north) and Al's was rigged into the aft area, above mine, with his head to the east, the rear."]

[Jones - "Did you get his up first and get him into it before you rigged yours?"]

[Mitchell - "No. We rigged mine first and then we rigged his. We both stood there and rigged them. Then he climbed up out of the way (on the engine cover) and, as I recall, I got into mine and he got into his. It was a little cumbersome, but it wasn't all that difficult. And it wasn't all that comfortable, either."]

[We then read through the steps on Sur 4-6.]

[Mitchell - "The Commander moved to the aft cabin."]

[Jones - "That is, on the engine cover."]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. And got off his lunar boots. I insisted that he take off his lunar boots, 'cause I didn't wanting him raining dust down on me. 'Stow boots on left-hand cabin floor. LMP unroll hammock. Unstow hammock towels. LMP attach straps to RHSSC' ...We support my hammock with these various straps so it wouldn't swing too much... 'Commander routes his hammock beneath his umbilicals.' That was the tricky part. Remember, still being in the suits, we had our air and our water still going through the suits. And so, in rigging your hammock, you had to make sure you rigged it so that, when you got into it, your umbilicals had a free route to the (ECS) stations. If you got tangled up and on the wrong side of it, you were in deep yogurt. That was kind of amusing because, here you were tethered by the umbilicals, so all movements and rigging of the hammocks had to be with that in mind. So it was very carefully choreographed, to get everything in the right place at the right time. And we rehearsed that a few times. When you rigged the hammock and got in, you did it by the numbers. And everybody knew exactly where everybody else was and how you were going to move."]

[Frank and Stacey O'Brien have provided a wide view ( 0.7Mb ) of a LM simulator taken in 2002 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. The Right Hand Side Stowage Comparment (RHSSC) is on the lower part of the side bulkhead on the LMP's side of the cabin. The RHSSC is filled with various soft bags. The LHSSC is, of course, on the CDR's side of the cabin. Note the mock-up of an LMP PLSS secured to the floor immediately aft of the forward hatch. A second photo ( 0.7Mb ) from the O'Briens show the RHSSC in more detail.]

[Jones - "I gather you guys didn't sleep a great deal. Did you have earplugs?"]

[Mitchell - "No. We didn't want earplugs. We wanted to hear every sound."]

[Prior crews were bothered by the sound of the glycol pump and, according to the Apollo 14 mission report, the noise "was reduced below the annoyance level by a muffler on the pump system."]

[Mitchell - "We did wake up and look out the window a few times, because we were on that slight slant. It was a little uncomfortable for me because I was a little more head-down than I wanted to be. And for Al, vertical was kind of at an angle in the cabin. So we woke up and peeked out the window three or four times during the night. Remember, we had covers over the windows. So we opened the covers to look out. Al kept having a feeling that we were tipping over because of that tilted angle. So I looked out the window every so often and made sure. Rather than have him climb down. Where I was laying, I could turn over and pull the window cover down and take a look."]

[Jones - "Let me ask what may be a naive question. You said your head was down a bit more than you would have liked. Could you have swapped ends?"]

[Mitchell - "I suppose I could have."]

[Jones - "Were you wearing the comm? One of you was on comm."]

[Mitchell - "It must have been me, because Al could not have very well gotten comm back were he was."]

[Jones - "So, was the comm cord too short to swap ends?"]

[Mitchell - "It may have been. But I frankly don't remember ever thinking about doing that. It was just generally kind of uncomfortable. And we just accepted the discomfort and made the best of it. The whole idea was to catch a little bit of sleep. But I don't think we ever got any deep sleep at all. I'm pretty sure it was fairly light sleep, little more than dozing. And that's about it."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Although we were only listing starboard (that is, to the right) 7 degrees, it was very disconcerting during the sleep period. Although 7 degrees didn't seem like much when you're standing in the cockpit, it seems like an awful lot, especially when you're trying to sleep. We both had the feeling throughout the night that the blasted thing was trying to tip over on us. Actually, we got up and looked out the window a couple of times to see if our checkpoints were still right where they were supposed to be."]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "We even got a little string, hung it up, and tried to figure the angle. The (inertial) platform was powered down, and we didn't have the exact angle."]

[Mitchell, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "If we had to land at the limit of the LM envelope - a slope of 10 or 15 degrees - I think the guys would find it almost intolerable to work in the LM and sleep in it at that angle."]

[Shepard, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "If you know ahead of time you're going to land on a slope of any magnitude, what you ought to do is bang it in pretty hard so that you do end up with the cabin level. You'll get some uneven stroking of the gears, but you ought to pick a rate of descent of 5 or 6 ft/sec and put in at that speed. I don't think we stroked the struts at all."]

[Jones - "The 16 crew was the first one to get a really sound sleep."]

[Mitchell - "Getting those suits off was quite a difference. Those suits are not as comfortable as pajamas."]

[Jones - "But with the 32-hour stay, there basically wasn't time to take them off and get them back on."]

[Mitchell - "There wasn't time to get them off, and we didn't trust the suit integrity if we had unzipped them. Particularly mine. That was the whole point. If they're zipped up and tight, don't risk banging, don't risk tearing the suit, don't risk damaging the spacecraft with that terribly uncomfortable procedure of trying to get in and out of the suit in that cramped space."]

[Jones - "Now, they did screw up their courage for the J-missions and get the suits off. Was there anything that was done between 14 and 15 that allowed them to have that confidence? Or was it just a biting of the bullet?"]

[Mitchell - "I think it was biting the bullet - and, because they did three EVAs, there was the crew-exhaustion factor. Unless they got some relief from that suit and tried to get a decent amount of sleep and get to take a crap and do all the things you need to do, their performance would be degraded in that length of time. They figured that, for two EVAs, we could get by with it and it wasn't worth risking the damage or degradation of the suit integrity and so forth. But you just couldn't use that logic when you got to the J-missions and three EVAs. It was just too bloody hard on the crews to try to do it."]

[Jones - "It was a risk to the integrity of the suit to take them off?"]

[Mitchell - "Yeah. And a risk to the spacecraft in that confined area. 'Cause you're flailing. You know, you're flailing around in there, anyhow, and it was tough enough to try to put on a PLSS and an OPS in that confined area. But getting the suit on and off, that was really a tedious chore. And there was the risk of getting dirt in them. It was just considered a very high risk thing to do."]

[Jones - "Let me try to understand the risk. Dirt was part of it."]

[Mitchell - "Remember, we were playing the game of being ultra-cautious, here. If, in any way, we lost cabin integrity, the suit was our only survival mechanism. And, so, it was one of our backup methods of getting back into orbit - with cabin depressed and with hardsuit. We'd practiced hardsuit rendezvous. So the rationale here is that that suit is kind of a single point failure. If the suit goes, if it doesn't pass pressure check, the EVAs are dead. And, if another failure occurs - in the pressurization system - the crew's dead. So it was considered that exercising a suit, by taking it on and off, was a hazard to the suit, it was a hazard to the mission, and the physical activity of taking it on and off was a hazard to the spacecraft itself. So, all in all, everybody was really nervous about taking the suit off. Now, I think the crew, after we'd slept in it a couple of times, was the primary ones who said 'Hey, this system is reliable enough. It's just too much. We cannot expect any level of efficiency if we can't get some relief from the suits.'"]

[Jones - "Let me ask a hypothetical question. Jack Schmitt and I are going to do a paper next year on EVA suit requirements for Moon Base and Mars missions. Suppose you had a little more space, a little more room to move around in - although, in the early Mars missions, you're not going to have a tremendous amount of space, but for a month's or a year's stay, you've got to have more. Suppose you had a bit more room and you had a bit of capability to clean the suits up and maintain them a little bit. How many 8-hour EVAs do you think you could have gotten out of those things before you had to do major maintenance?"]

[Mitchell - "The prime thing would be the dust and the O-rings on the connectors. I never took one apart. I'm not a suit tech. But, by wiping them down and, if you had a way of taking the O-rings out and cleaning them, you could probably get a half-dozen EVAs out of them and still be comfortable. And the main thing is that you'd probably want to have a spare pair of gloves. 'Cause that's where you're going to take the most abuse."]