Instant Rock at station 9

Station 10

 

Hadley Rille

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library
Last revised 26 May 2017.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 11 min 59 sec ) by David Shaffer

165:17:03 Scott: I'll be going about the same heading, Joe. I'll just keep this heading and with any luck at all, you might be able to point out the front and take a ride with us. Going slow. I see the camera moving.

[Dave left the TV on when he left Station 9 and is trying to maintain a constant heading so that Houston can get TV of the traverse. The experiment was not successful, probably because the high-gain antenna has to be pointed precisely at Earth if a TV signal is to get through. The surface is simply too rough to allow proper antenna pointing.]

[Dave is driving on a heading close to 270, due west. Their 1 o'clock position is, then, a bearing of about 300. It is currently about 10:51 UTC/GMT on 2 August 1971. The solar elevation and azimuth are 39 and 113 degrees, respectively. Down-Sun is, then, on a bearing of 293. In a comparison between a segment from Jim's Station 9a pan and Dave's first sequence of 500-mm shots of the far rille wall, a prominent, horizontal band of layering is about half a reseau-cross spacing south of the approximate direction of down-Sun and, therefore, on a bearing of about 288. If they were driving due west when Jim noticed the layering, it was closer to their 12:30 position (bearing 285) than to 01:00; but, since this layered outcrop is quite prominent. there doesn't seem any doubt that this is the layering Jim noted.]

[On the >EVA-3, Part B map, the Twins are a pair of small craters at the edge of the rille at BV.7/64.4 and BW.2/64.2. Station 11 was planned for South Twin. See, also, a labeled detail from the 13 July 2009 LROC image showing the named features along the EVA-3 traverse.]

165:17:49 Irwin: I think I can see one of the Twins over there at (garbled):30. There's a fresh one. Oh! There's some good blocks down there.

[As can be seen in a labeled detail from the 30 October 2009 LROC image, the bearing to the Twins from Station 9a is about 337. Rim Crater, where they will do Station 10, is much closer and on a bearing of about 320.]

[The comm is very patchy, possibly because they are trying to transmit through the high-gain antenna.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "We sort of came up a very slight incline to the rille rim. It was not anything I would call a levee. I think we were quite aware of coming to the rille rim when we got there, and it seemed to me that it was a very slight incline. Then it broke to maybe a 3- to 4-degree slope down towards the rille to the edge where it broke on down to another inflection point, down to 25 degrees into the bottom."]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I got the impression that that next break point, from which we were looking down to where the big blocks were, was a very steep break - maybe 60 degrees."]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "(It was) well within that layer of bedrock. You could look back down the rille toward the south and you could see that we were on a layer of bedrock."]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Looking to the south and also to the north, you could see the bedrock slightly above us. Maybe we were on a terraced portion that had slumped down, because you could see the top of the bed - the level surface - both to the north and to the south."]

[The comm improves, possibly as a switch in Houston from reception of the high-gain signal to reception of the low-gain signal.]

165:18:17 Scott: Yeah, you're right.

165:18:18 Irwin: Look down there at 12:30. It looks like the blocks there are almost in position.

[Jim means that the blocks are exposed, in place pieces of bedrock rather than having been tossed into place by impacts. At the edge of the rille, roughly half of the ejecta from a given small impact will fall into the rille; and the net result of countless small impacts is that the regolith is very thin at the edge. Figure 5-30 from the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report illustrates the process and photo AS15-82- 11147 is a view to the south along the near rille edge from Station 9a.]

165:18:25 Irwin: Yeah

165:18:26 Scott: And we are on The Terrace. And there is a terrace.

165:18:28 Irwin: Yeah.

165:18:31 Scott: Pretty good slope.

165:18:33 Irwin: We could probably drive down there, though.

165:18:35 Scott: I think we can drive over, straight ahead, and stay on a fairly level contour. We don't want to go down. (Light Static)

[As Dave turns, probably to the north, he loses accurate pointing of the low-gain antenna. For a few seconds, the comm is poor.]

165:18:55 Scott: (Static) Twins. (Static) I think that's Rim Crater there. (Static)

165:19:09 Allen: Could very well be, Dave. (Pause; Static)

[Rim Crater is at BS.2/65.5.]

165:19:17 Scott: Yeah. Think I'm going to park right up here.

165:19:25 Irwin: ... drive down to them?

165:19:26 Scott: Yeah. This should be right where we park.

165:19:27 Irwin: That would be a be a good picture for Houston.

165:19:31 Scott: Wouldn't it, though?

165:19:32 Irwin: Yeah.

165:19:33 Scott: I think they'll enjoy that.

165:19:34 Irwin: It might be at (Static)

[Continued Static; Comm Break]

[TV on.]

165:20:46 Allen: Dave, when you climb off, could you...

165:20:47 Scott: (Lost under Joe) TV by the AGC.

165:20:48 Allen: ...dust off our TV lens, please?

165:20:54 Scott: Certainly. We're off and stopped; and let me get on with the tasks here.

165:21:02 Allen: Okay...

165:21:03 Scott: We're at a nice place to stop and we're...

165:21:04 Allen: ...and, Jim, you may want to use Dave's camera to record this (station) on film, while Dave uses...

165:21:06 Irwin: I am.

165:21:07 Allen: ...the 500-millimeter camera.

[Fendell raises his aim and finds Dave at the left rear of the Rover, behind the CDR seat. He gets the lens brush and goes around to Jim's seat to dust the TV.]

165:21:15 Scott: Yeah, you must have dropped comm there, Joe. That's what we're in the process of doing here. After I dust your eye off. (Pause as Dave does the dusting) How's that, Joe? (No answer; Pause)

[As Dave goes around the back of the Rover to his seat, Fendell starts a clockwise pan, starting with a view down the rille toward St. George.]

[Scott - "There is just no comparison between what the TV shows and the detail we were seeing. In fact, if you look at a photograph and compare it to the TV, the visual view was that much better than the photograph."]

[The original transcription of Dave's praise of Ed Fendell at 165:21:41 was 'That a boy'. Journal Contributor Ron Rosano suggested that the correct transcription is 'Attaboy'. I asked Dave which would be more likely and, after giving the question some thought, said that 'Attaboy' was much more likely. He added, "If somebody does good work, they would get one "Attaboy"; if better, two; and if superior work, they would receive three "Attaboys." Somebody probably got five once, but do not know who. Maybe Neil." I remember that, in the early 70s, common office humor had it that the danger of getting Attaboys was that, if you ever messed up, you lost them all.]

165:22:08 Irwin: I'll get them, Dave.

165:22:09 Scott: I've got them right here; (amp-hours) 90. 92. The voltages (are) 68, 68; battery temperatures, 101 and about 110; and motor temps are off-scale, low. The bearing is 088; the range is 1.8; distance, 2.5.

165:22:31 Allen: Right on; thank you. (Pause)

[These readouts put them near BS.4/65.8, very close to the planned Station 9 location. Application of the 8-degree bearing correction Dave suggests at 166:38:34 would put them closer to BR.4/65.9.]

[A labeled detail from a 30 October 2009 LROC image shows the approximate locations where Dave parked the Rover and Jim took the Station 9A pan. The LRV location was picked relative to a boulder visible in the LRO image that may be the boulder just to the right of the Rover's left-front wheel in pan frames AS15-82-11121 and AS15-82-11129.]

165:22:42 Allen: And look at that rille.

[Fendell is currently looking toward the northwest.]

165:22:48 Allen: How about that, geology fans?

[North of the Rover, Jim has just finished a pan consisting of frames AS15-82- 11110 to 11127.]

[Frame 11110 shows the far wall of Hadley Rille with Hill 305 in the background.]

[Frame 11113 shows the view to the north and the slope of the mare surface toward the rille. ]

[Frame 11116 shows the view toward Mt. Hadley, which is partially obscured by the local horizon. Note that the lineations on the mountain are still faintly visible.]

[Frame 11117 shows the view toward the Swann Range with numerous, partially-buried boulders in the foreground.]

[In frame 11120 we see Dave at his side of the Rover, with his seat raised as he gets the 500-mm camera.]

[Frame 11121 is an excellent view south along the rille. Dave is reaching under his Rover seat to get the 500-mm camera. Note that the front section of the left front fender seems to be missing. {See the discussion at 148:55:33 and a Summary provided by Ron Creel ( 1.3 Mb PDF ) of the fender extension losses that occurred on all three Rover missions.} Note, also, the appearance of Silver Spur at the upper right and compare with Dave's 500-mm image of Silver Spur, AS15-82-11250 taken during the SEVA at a similar viewing angle but a much lower sun elevation. See, also, a discussion of the appearance of Silver Spur in the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report.]

[Frame 11122 is an excellent picture toward the south, showing the bend of the rille near Elbow Crater. See a labeled detail. David Harland has combined high-resolution scans of 11121 and 11122 in a portrait of Dave at work.]

[Frame 11123 is centered on St. George Crater.]

[Frames 11124 and 11125 show the west wall of Hadley Rille. In 11125, note the foreground boulder one fiducial right and below center with horizontal structure.]

[Frame 11126 is centered on that boulder.]

[Frame 11127 ends Jim's pan.]

[Jim crosses the TV field-of-view headed for the Rover.]

[Dave's 500-mm photo AS15-89- 12115 shows one of these outcrop just below the central fiducial. David Harland's assembly of 500-mm frames AS15-89-12016 to 12042 shows the entire area. Jim goes to the back of the Rover to get his scoop.]

[The rille is about 350 meters deep in the area of Stations 9 and 10, so 10 percent of the depth corresponds to about 35 meters.]

165:24:12 Allen: Beautiful, Dave, beautiful.

[During Dave's last transmission, Jim moved north of the Rover to start sampling. Fendell reaches the clockwise pan limit, he is looking virtually up-Sun over the right corner (left, from our perspective) of Jim's seat.]

[Dave and Jim spent quite a bit of time in the field learning how to do verbal descriptions. Here, Dave was primed to look for layering in the far wall because the layering would tell the geologists back home something about how the mare basalts were deposited.]

[Scott - "You probably noticed that I use percent rather than feet or some other finite measure. A lot of times, when we were doing field work, you really didn't know what the feet were. Unless you know what the distance is, you can't tell the feet. And (with training) it becomes very comfortable to do things in percent, because you can do it very quickly. And it's pretty accurate because, knowing how deep the rille is, you can calculate the feet later. Whoever taught us the percent thing made it very easy to describe because you don't have to go through 'well, let's see, it's a little over a mile over there...'. That's a lot of mental conversion."]

[Jones - "With lots of room for error. Whereas, with this, bang, you're there."]

[Dave then mentioned that, before the flight, they had thought about how to use the 500 at this Station. See cuff checklist page CDR-27.]

[Scott - "The technique with the 500 was to get a horizontal sweep and a vertical sweep. From the place where Jim did the pan. That was the whole idea."]

[Jones - "And the best examples of that are the Hadley pictures you took from Station 6, the 500s you took here, and the similar ones you took at Station 10."]

[Frame AS15-89- 12117 shows the largest talus block in the Station 9a photos.]

[Fendell reverses direction and starts panning counter-clockwise. After a short while, Jim returns to the Rover and Fendell gives us a look at Jim's SCB while Jim does something at his seat.]

165:26:17 Irwin: Where there's a little circle (of disturbed soil) on the ground.

165:26:18 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "Neat, Jim!!"]

[One of the advantages of working at a virgin site is that the footprints show exactly where they have been.]

165:26:36 Allen: Good show. (Pause)

[Fendell has resumed his counter-clockwise pan and finds Dave as he raises the 500-mm to his faceplate.]

165:26:44 Scott: Okay. First, I'll get you a horizontal strip along the two outcrops. (Long Pause)

[Dave's first horizontal strip (assembly by Dave Byrne) consists of AS15-89- 12015 to 12027 and covers the top of the west rim wall from left to right. All of the pictures are superb.]

[Frame 12016 shows one of the outcrops with horizontal bedding, which is just to the left of center.]

[Frame 12027 shows a second outcrop with horizontal layering. This outcrop is one fiducial left and half a fiducial above the center line.]

165:27:15 Allen: Roger, Jim. (Pause)

[Photo AS15-82- 11128 is a down-Sun "before" of samples 15528 and 15529. The latter is a 1.5 kilogram basalt. The samples are half a fiducial above the center of the frame. In this picture, the large, flat rock with horizontal layering noted in 11125 is one fiducial left and two above the center.]

[Photo 11129 is a "locator" to the Rover. A detail shows Dave holding the 500-mm lens and examining the far wall of the rille.]

[Fendell resumes his counter-clockwise pan.]

[Fendell zooms in of a group of boulders on the near rim.]

[Dave's next horizontal strip (assembly by Dave Byrne) along the talus slope includes frames AS15-89-12028 to 12044. He gets good overlap between successive frames.]

[In frame 12033, note the foreground boulders at the bottom of the image.]

[Fendell has raised his aim and, at maximum zoom, is scanning left to right along the outcrops just below the top of the far rille wall.]

165:28:46 Allen: Beautiful, Jim. Thank you. (Long Pause)

[Jim takes three pictures of the flat rock. Frame AS15-82-11130 is a close-up. Note the numerous vesicles on the frothy top surface. Frame 11131 is a cross-Sun from the north and shows two prominent horizontal lineation and the parallel frothy, vesicular layer on top. Frame 11132 is a cross-Sun from the southwest. Remarkably, there is no discussion of this rock in the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report.]

[In the meantime, Dave has taken three vertical strips of the west wall.]

The first vertical strip (assembled by Dave Byrne) consists of frames AS15-89-12045 to 12048.]

[Frame 12045 is similar to 12024 in the horizontal strip Dave took along the top of the wall.]

[The second strip (assembled by Dave Byrne) consists of frames AS15-89- 12049 to 12052.]

[Frame 12050 is similar to 12020.]

[The third strip (assembly by Dave Byrne) consists of frames 12053 to 12056.]

[Frame 12053 is similar to 12016.]

165:29:16 Scott: Oh, and there's (what) looks like a crater in the far wall, at about 9 o'clock to the Sun line. It's a round, circular depression, almost doesn't look like the kind of crater that would occur in a slope like that. There's no buildup at the bottom. The rim seems to be fairly parallel to the slope of the rille. (I'll) get that one.

Video Clip  3 min 00 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 27 Mb MPG )

165:29:42 Allen: Okay, Dave. (Pause)

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and re-aims the camera to a point farther north, zooms in, and does another left to right pan.]

165:29:51 Scott: Horizontal strip across it. Horizontal strip above it, which should take in the upper 10 percent (of the rille wall). (Pause) Vertical strip through it.

[Dave's pictures of the debris-filled crater (assembly by Dave Byrne) on the west wall are AS15-89- 12057 to 12062.]

[In frame 12060, note the large tetrahedral rock that can also be seen in 12128 and 12132, among others.]

[The immediate area around the crater has been assembled by David Harland.]

[Next, Dave takes a series of pictures (assembly by Dave Byrne), AS15-89-12063 to 12068 showing the mare surface west of the rille.]

[Dave then takes a vertical strip (assembled by Dave Byrne) starting with AS15-89- 12069 -- which is similar to 12066 -- and ending with 12074.]

165:30:13 Scott: Yeah. You're okay.

[Fendell finds Jim, who is looking south. Fendell stops his pan and pulls back on the zoom.]

165:30:32 Scott: On the other side?

165:30:33 Irwin: No, this side.

[About halfway through Dave's next transmission, Jim turns and walks, flat-footed, toward the north. Fendell follows him but, after a while, stops and resumes the pan. However, after just a few seconds, he decides to continue following Jim and finds him standing next to Dave as they both look toward the southwest.]

[Jim turns slowly to his right as he scans the far wall. Dave takes more pictures with the 500.]

165:31:31 Irwin: Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah.

165:31:32 Scott: See that?

165:31:33 Irwin: Yeah.

165:31:34 Scott: All the way across.

165:31:35 Irwin: Yeah. (Pause)

165:31:38 Scott: It's worth a few pictures. (Pause)

[Dave's pictures of the boulders are AS15-89- 12075 to 12078. In 12075, the boulders start one fiducial above center and extend to the right.]

[Dave then takes a right-to-left strip of pictures, starting with a picture of the debris-filled crater, 12079, which is similar to 12071.]

[Frame 12082 shows Trophy Point and, at the upper left, the talus slope on the east wall below St. George Crater. Dave Byrne has created an extended sequence by adding frame 12095.]

[Next, Dave returns to the debris-filled crater and takes a left-to-right sequence that starting with frame 12083 and ending with 12086. Dave Byrne has created a mini pan from these frames, adding 12079 second from the left.]

[Dave Byrne has created a composite portrait of the debris-filled crater and surrounding area using frames AS15-89-12057 to 12073 plus 12083 to 12086.]

165:31:45 Scott: Okay.

165:31:47 Irwin: ...that the bedding is as obvious.

165:31:49 Allen: Frame number, Dave.

165:31:50 Scott: (To Jim, not having heard Joe yet) Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay, let's summarize real...(Hearing Joe) Oh, frame number; yeah. 76.

QuickTime Clip (0 min 41 sec) by Peter Dayton

165:32:00 Allen: Okay.

[Jim goes off-camera to the right.]

[There was a rock at Dave's feet that was about 20 to 25 cm across. As he finished his summary, he took the 500-mm camera in his left hand and started for the Rover. He may not have been conscious of the rock. He stepped forward with his right foot, stepping well beyond the rock without brushing it; but then, as he brought his left foot forward, he caught it on the rock and fell with some force onto his hands and knees, burying the 500-mm camera in the process. His momentum carried him forward and, as the fall carried him off-camera to the left, he was rolling onto his right side.]

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "Remember, readers, that 'some force' is only one-sixth of what you'd get from the same fall on Earth."]

Video Clip  2 min 55 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPG )

165:32:38 Scott: Yeah. All right.

165:32:43 Irwin: Yeah. (Pause) Very soft there.

165:32:51 Scott: I stumbled over that rock. (Pause)

[Jim comes into view, hurrying to help Dave get up. Fendell follows Jim but, by the time he gets there, Dave is up. The 500-mm camera is still on the ground.]

165:32:58 Irwin: Yeah. (Long Pause)

[Jim tries to raise the lens barrel into reach with the scoop but isn't able to move it.]

165:33:14 Scott: Okay. I got it. (Long Pause)

[Dave goes to his right knee - or, possibly, both knees - grabs the camera with his right hand, and rises without difficulty. Because he is partly obscured by Jim, we don't know if he was on just his right knee or on both knees. Also, because Jim was on Dave's right, we can be sure that he didn't use Jim for support. Once Dave is standing, he taps the camera with his glove to dislodge some of the dust. Jim goes off-camera to the right.]

165:33:29 Irwin: Yeah.

165:33:30 Allen: Okay, Dave...

165:33:31 Irwin: (Lost under Joe)

165:33:33 Scott: Sounds good.

165:33:34 Allen: ...you might check the lens; and, if it looks reasonably clean, see if you could get the bit of outcrop on the near side to the south.

[Dave goes off-camera to the left and Fendell follows.]

165:33:52 Allen: Roger. (Deadpan) That or blow on it.

165:33:57 Scott: Oh, that's better. (Playfully blowing on the camera) There.

165:34:03 Allen: Outstanding.

[Blowing on something doesn't do much good when you're wearing a helmet.]

[Jones: "Did you ever try to blow on something in training? Was this a training reference?"]

[Scott - "Nope. That was spontaneous."]

[Jones - "Actually, Charlie did it a few times - tried to blow things off without thinking about it. It got to be a running gag with the EVA CapCom, Tony England."]

[Fendell finds Dave in position to take the requested pictures of the eastern rille wall.]

[Jim's pictures of sample 15556, a 1.5 kg basalt, are AS15-82- 11133 to 11135.]

[The first two of these, 11133 and 34, are a down-Sun stereopair while 11135 is a cross-Sun from the northwest, with the Rover in the background. We can see Dave's feet beyond the Rover as he takes the 500-mm shots to the south. Figure 5-115 from the Preliminary Science Report shows the various sample locations at Station 9a.]

165:34:44 Irwin: See what I was talking about down there, Dave?

165:34:45 Scott: No. What do you see?

165:34:47 Irwin: I see horizontal bedding.

165:34:49 Scott: Oh, yeah! I see what you're saying. Some...Somewhat...Looks like it might be dipping very slightly to the east.

165:34:57 Irwin: Yeah. Right. You can see the exposed upper surface of that layer.

165:35:02 Scott: Yep. You're right. (Pause) Yeah, I agree. Got it. (Pause)

[Dave's pictures of the near rille wall to the south of Station 9a (assembled by Dave Byrne) are AS15-89- 12087 to 12094. David Harland has done an alternate assembly. See, also, a comparison between this sequence and the relevant part of Jim's Station 9a pan.]

[Frames 12087 to 12092 form a left-to-right sequence.]

[Frame 12093 is similar to 12090 and overlaps with 12094.]

[Dave then turns slightly to his right to get a picture of Trophy Point. This is 12095. Note that there is a small bit of overlap at the right edge with 12082.]

165:35:22 Scott: Let me come help you.

165:35:25 Irwin: Well, you...Pick a few.

[Dave twists his torso slightly to the left and raises his aim to take a final picture, AS15-89- 12096, which shows the white crater on the east rim of St. George Crater.]

165:35:29 Scott: Yeah. Okay, that's enough 500 and...

165:35:35 Irwin: But I think we ought to, maybe, either move downslope...

165:35:40 Scott: Yeah. Let's...

165:35:41 Irwin: ...to the large block.

165:35:42 Scott: Yeah, let's go down there and sample.

165:35:43 Irwin: Okay.

[Dave lowered the 500 and examined it before putting the lens cap on. Fendell pans right but, after just a few seconds reverses direction.]

165:35:46 Scott: This time I'll look and make sure I don't fall over some silly rock. (Hearing Joe) 86, Joe.

MPEG Clip by Kipp Teague (1 min 24 sec; 8.6Mb)

165:35:54 Allen: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Fendell finds Dave, just as he puts the 500 on the CDR seat.]

[Dave grabs his tongs off the Rover footpan, plants them in the ground, and then extracts the gnomon from the stowage sleeve behind his seat. In stowage, the gnomon legs are folded against the central staff to make a slender sheaf. Once Dave extracts the gnomon, the legs spring out into their normal tripod configuration.]

[A detail from a frame in Jim's Station 6 pan, AS15-85-11491 shows the stowed gnomon.]

165:36:14 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Dave grabs the tongs and goes off-camera to the right. Fendell follows.]

[Off-camera, Jim take documentation photos of sample 15557, a 2.5 kg basalt. Frame AS15-82- 11136 is a down-Sun and 11137 is a cross-Sun from the south.]

165:36:21 Scott: Except I don't have a (Hasselblad) camera, so I can't do anything (in terms of documentation). I'll go look.

165:36:26 Irwin: Go look. Pick out one, and I'll come down and document it.

165:36:28 Scott: Right. Let's...We'll just ease down to this outcrop here in front of us. It's good solid firm ground here, Joe. Good footing. As you could probably see. (Pause) And I'll see how it is going back up. (Pause)

[Fendell finds Dave moving upslope from the line of boulders at the apparent edge of the rille. He uses a mix of the loping stride with some hops. Readers should note that what looks a sharp drop-off beyond the boulders is actually just a slight change in slope.]

[Scott - "The TV doesn't show you the little knee there - the break - over to the next angle of slope, which wasn't very much. And we'll get to the point where they say, 'Don't go any further!' 'Cause they're thinking this thing drops off, real steep. On the west wall, it does (drop off) where you see the layering. But, where we are, here, we didn't see a vertical-type drop-off."]

[Jones - "Let's see. There was a slight rise up to a ridge along the rille and then you came down off of that and parked. Did the slope change below the Rover? You just talked about coming back up."]

[Scott - "It was steeper from the Rover on down."]

[Jones - "And then another drop."]

[Scott - "Another drop."]

[Jones - "And then the final steep one..."]

[Scott - "I'd have to go look, but I don't think there was a final...Beyond this, where we didn't go, it didn't look really tough - 25 or 26 degrees. And that's why, when they said 'go back', I can remember thinking, at the time, 'this is not a big deal.' But they couldn't see that so, to them it was probably 'Holy Cow! Don't get too close to the edge of the cliff or you'll fall over.' But there was not that sensation at all."]

[Jones - "But it was steep enough that you..."]

[Scott - "Went down and came back."]

[Jones - "Went down to try it, based on your experience at 6a."]

[Scott - "Right. And another reason it wasn't that hazardous was cause the footing was so good. At 6a, the footing was bad, and that makes another big difference."]

[Jones - "Was this test of the footing the result of some pre-flight discussion about the nature of the ground at the edge of the rille?"]

[Scott - "I don't remember anything it detail, although I'm sure there was, 'cause we talked about everything we could think to talk about. I think the comment is based on the fact that the slopes were so soft at the Front. The footing is different all over the place. At Scarp Crater (Station 9), it was soft. So you get a real variety in the regolith, depending on where you are. As we talked last night, slope is not necessarily the key. It depends on where it is and what it is. But this was good, solid stuff, real easy (to move on) - if you don't trip."]

165:37:04 Irwin: Yeah, I took some close-ups of that.

165:37:05 Scott: Boy, that's a beauty.

[Dave moves downhill using the skipping stride.]

165:37:11 Scott: Called organization, huh?

165:37:12 Irwin: Yep. (Pause)

165:37:17 Scott: Oh! I can almost see...(Pause) (Garbled) Looks like little pits in the dirt.

[Fendell zooms in as Dave examines an area uphill of the main outcrop.]

165:37:32 Irwin: (Garbled)

165:37:33 Scott: Little pits.

165:37:33 Allen: ...is that a reasonable area for a rake sample, do you think?

165:37:38 Scott: Yes, definitely, Joe. It sure is.

165:37:41 Allen: Okay, maybe that's the quick way to get a bunch of them.

[Dave moves down a small, hidden slope toward the line of boulders.]

[Scott - "You can't see below my knees, so it looks like that might be a drop off. It's really not. It's irregular, undulating, rolling; but no steep drop-offs."]

[Jones - "And the overall slope here can be estimated from how far you are from the Rover and how far Jim is and you're certainly below him."]

[Behind Dave, we can see a number of large boulders on the far wall of the rille. We can estimate their size by noting that Dave is about 40 meters from the Rover while the boulders are about a kilometer away. Dave is about 2 meters tall and the boulders subtend an angle about one tenth the angle that Dave subtends. By simple geometry, then, the boulders are roughly 0.2 m x 1000m / 40m = 5m across.]

QuickTime Clip (1 min 35 sec) by Peter Dayton

165:37:49 Irwin: I didn't bring the rake. We can take the rake sample near the Rover. Right?

165:37:52 Scott: Yeah, right.

165:37:53 Irwin: Okay.

165:37:54 Allen: Okay, sounds good. (Pause)

[Fendell tried to follow Dave but overshot him. Jim was in view briefly, loping downhill to join Dave. Fendell finds Dave leaning over a boulder that sticks up out of the ground less than a foot.]

Video Clip  2 min 35 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

165:38:25 Scott: Coming?

165:38:26 Irwin: Yeah, right behind you.

[Jim comes into view. Note that, out of training-induced habit, Dave has taken up a position cross-Sun of the group of boulders and Jim has taken the up-Sun position.]

[Scott - "Those are sharp corners, for the Moon. Those blocks are real sharp, real angular. And I just wonder: Did other flights find anything at angular?"]

[Jones - "The only thing that comes to mind is Station 5, Camelot Crater, on 17. That's a largish crater - 300 or 400 meters across, on the mare and reasonably fresh. They were in a boulder field. These look more angular, more planar and corners and things than most of those 17 rocks."]

[Scott - "I'd forgotten they looked so sharp. It would be interesting to see the age of what we just chipped off, 'cause they have to be pretty young, not to be rounded."]

[Jones - "There's not much regolith here at the edge, so it gets hit reasonably often."]

[Scott - "If they'd been there any time at all, they'd be pretty rounded."]

165:38:31 Irwin: Yeah.

165:38:32 Scott: This like it came from somewhere.

165:38:37 Irwin: Yeah, they're all the same.

165:38:40 Scott: Yeah. And it looks like...

165:38:42 Irwin: Pick one and I'll take the pictures.

165:38:45 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Dave plants his tongs and puts the gnomon down.]

165:38:52 Irwin: What? The...

165:38:53 Scott: Yeah.

165:38:54 Irwin: Get a fragment off it, you mean?

165:38:55 Scott: Yeah. Uh huh.

165:38:56 Irwin: Okay.

165:38:57 Scott: That big one. Let me...

[Dave doesn't have a camera and, while Jim takes the down-Sun pictures, Dave goes to get the hammer off the left side of Jim's PLSS.]

165:39:02 Scott: The right; your right.

[During Joe's next transmission, Jim takes the down-Sun, AS15-82- 11138, and Dave moves in front of him to get to the boulder. Jim moves to his right and takes up a position south of the gnomon.]

165:39:04 Allen: And, Dave and Jim. This'll be probably our last documented sample that we'll have time for. We're going to ask you to move on back to the Rover when you're finished here for a rake sample.

165:39:18 Scott: Okay.

165:39:20 Allen: And we're looking at about 10 to 15 more minutes at this stop. No more.

165:39:25 Scott: (To Jim) Careful. Careful. Don't do like me (and trip).

165:39:29 Irwin: Yeah, I thought that was...That's a big rock there!

165:39:31 Scott: It sure is. Hurry up. Get a picture.

[Jim's cross-Sun before is AS15-82- 11139. In the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report there is discussion of a "linear trough" which, in this picture, is just in front of Dave's feet. Note the line of small rocks extending from left to right in front of Dave's feet. These mark the near edge of the trough.]

165:39:38 Scott: Did you get the (garbled, possible "tool")?

165:39:39 Irwin: Yup. (Long Pause)

[Dave has some trouble getting down to the boulder and finally gets down on his right knee. His right knee is up on a little platform at the base of the boulder and has his left leg out to the side with that foot noticeably lower than his right knee. He has his left arm up and out to the side for balance and his keeping his back as vertical as he can. We can't see the hammer but his arm motions suggest that he delivers four or five blows.]

[At about this point, Jim takes AS15-82- 11140. In the picture, Dave is leaning to his right, with his left foot off the ground.]

165:39:58 Irwin: No, I didn't see that.

165:40:00 Scott: Keep your eye on what I got here. There.

165:40:03 Irwin: Okay.

165:40:04 Scott: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Don't lose that one.

[Dave points to his left and Jim turns to follow the fragment as, apparently, it goes off-camera to the left.]

165:40:07 Scott: Okay, I got the tongs. (Pause)

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom to get both astronauts into view. Jim is standing near the fragment.]

[While Jim gets an individual sample bag out, Dave joins him and stows the hammer on Jim's PLSS.]

165:40:39 Scott: Apparently not.

165:40:40 Irwin: ...bedrock. (Long Pause)

[Dave and Jim move to our left to get the fragment. Fendell follows but overshoots because of the zoom he is using.]

165:40:52 Allen: Stand by for an answer on that, Jim. And in the meantime, we have a truly magnificent view of the two of you here.

[By the time Fendell gets Dave and Jim back into view, Dave has the fragment in his left hand and is examining it.]

[Dave puts the rock - a thin, hand-sized slab - in the bag Jim has been holding patiently. This sample is either 15535, a 401 grams piece of olivine basalt, or 15536, a 321 gram piece of the same type of rock.]

165:41:54 Scott: Yeah.

165:41:55 Irwin: (Garbled)

[Dave and Jim head for the gnomon.]

165:41:57 Irwin: Yeah.

165:41:58 Scott: Bring your bag.

165:41:59 Allen: And, that is a beauty. And, Dave and Jim, we've got an answer on your question when you're ready.

165:42:07 Scott: We're ready.

[During Joe's next transmission, Dave gets another piece of rock with the tongs and puts it directly in the same sample bag.]

[Jones - "While the tape was off, you said this decision was a 'no brainer'."]

[Scott - "Bedrock versus mare sampling. We'd already done a lot of mare sampling and, if this is indeed (bedrock)...Never been resolved whether this is bedrock or not. I've had the conversation recently with Paul Spudis about it."]

[Jones - "Is the argument about whether the stuff's been moved any appreciable distance from where it was laid down?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, I guess."]

[Jones - "Well, you're going to get fractures and blocks moving around, but, we're probably talking inches or feet, at most."]

[Scott - "Yeah, our impression was it's bedrock."]

[Dave puts a third piece of rock in the bag.]

165:42:27 Irwin: Yeah, to the north of us.

165:42:28 Scott: Yeah.

165:42:29 Irwin: Yeah.

165:42:30 Scott: (Pointing west and a little north) Right over there I think...

165:42:31 Irwin: Yeah.

165:42:32 Scott: ...that's true bedrock.

165:42:33 Irwin: Yeah.

[From the discussion here and at >165:45:03, it appears that Dave and Jim are talking about two different places. Dave is talking about an area closer to the edge of the rille at this location while Jim is talking about larger outcrops far enough north that they would have to drive to reach them in a reasonable amount of time.]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I was hoping that we would get down lower to where it was obviously bedrock - either down lower toward the rille or to the north or south - but we never had the chance."]

[Dave has decided that the bag is too full and takes the third piece of rock out. Dave's "too massive not to be" means that the boulders - individually and collectively - represent too much rock to be anything other then local bedrock.]

[Dave has taken bag 275 from Jim, who moves in with the scoop to get a soil sample next to the boulder.]

[Dave bends his knees to get the bag down low for Jim.]

[Jim pours the soil into bag 275.]

[Because he isn't wearing a camera, Dave doesn't have any sample bags.]

[Dave puts the third rock fragment in the new bag while Jim seals 275.]

165:43:30 Irwin: Yeah. Slow us down. (Pause)

[Dave gets his tongs, gets some additional rock samples, and puts them in the new bag, 278.]

[Jim has the scoop handle resting on his right thigh and, when he reaches down to get it, it falls over and catches on his left thigh pocket.]

[Dave plants his tongs and seals the bag.]

Video Clip  3 min 44 sec ( 1.0 Mb RealVideo or 33 Mb MPG )

165:43:46 Scott: And 278 (is the bag).

[Jim transfers bag 275 from his left hand to his right and then reaches down with the left to get the scoop. He reaches down to get the scoop but it is too low and, as he bends his leg to try to get a longer reach, the scoop slips off his leg and falls onto his left foot. He kicks up with that foot to try to get the handle in reach, but it doesn't come up far enough and finally falls to the ground.]

[During Joe's next transmission, Dave comes around to Jim's right side, gets bag 275 from him and puts both bags in Jim's SCB.]

165:44:02 Scott: Oh, I don't know...Well, about 50 meters from where I guess we'd say we see real outcrop.

165:44:12 Allen: Roger, Dave. How far back from the lip of the rille do you think you're probably standing?

165:44:19 Scott: Can't tell, I can't see the lip of the rille.

165:44:22 Allen: Okay. It looks like you are standing on the edge of a precipice on TV; that's why we're asking.

165:44:29 Scott: Oh, oh, oh, gosh, no, Joe. It slopes right on down here. The same slope. It's just a little inflection here.

[Dave gets his tongs and retrieves the scoop. In the TV coverage of Apollo 17's Station 7, there is an excellent sequence of Jack Schmitt stepping on his scoop head and successfully rotating the handle into easy reach.]

[Jim doesn't move, confident that he's at the right distance.]

[Jim's "after" is AS15-82- 11141, which shows Dave holding the tongs. Once Jim takes the picture, Dave moves directly away from the Rover toward the rille.]

[Journal Contributor Jerry Stone calls attention to significant differences between Jim's 'before', 11140, and the 'after', 11141. In particular, foreground footprints in 11140 are not present in 11141 and a number of rocks are in different positions. In a comparison of foreground details, rocks seen in either picture which don't appear at the same location in the other are marked with an 'x'. An examination of the video provides the answer. Jim took 11140 at about 165:39:39, while 11141 wasn't taken until about 165:45:00, nearly 5.5 minutes later. Dave and Jim spent part of that time retrieving the chip that flew off to the left of the boulder Dave struck with the hammer. But most of the time they were working in the area shown in the two photos and, as can be seen in the TV, incidently kicking rocks and soil around. Jerry writes, "clearly, the photographs are records of moments in time, and comparisons require use of the video to properly understand differences." In the case of the footprints, they were simply buried by soil Dave kicked around between the two images.]

165:45:05 Irwin: Oh, you're getting the bedrock here, huh?

165:45:06 Scott: Yeah.

165:45:07 Irwin: Okay. (Pause) I thought you were going to press on to the north.

165:45:13 Scott: Well, he said go get the bedrock, and I think we ought to try and get it if we can. Because this sure looks like a bedrock to me. I looked down the rille to the south, and it's just one great big massive layer of the same kind of fragmental debris on the order of meters (in size). Quite well-rounded.

165:45:31 Irwin: Yeah, but the thing that bothers me, Dave, is look to the north there.

165:45:34 Scott: (Turning to look) Yeah.

165:45:35 Irwin: And there's a flat area there, it looks like it might be the top of the bedrock.

165:45:38 Scott: Yeah.

165:45:39 Irwin: And those blocks seem to be slightly different.

165:45:41 Scott: Darker.

165:45:42 Irwin: They...

165:45:43 Scott: A little darker.

165:45:44 Irwin: ...almost have columnar jointing. (Pause) Look to the north there.

[Jim may be describing an outcrop similar to the one on the west wall shown in AS15-89- 12115 and sketched in Figure 5-37 in the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report. The vertical fractures in the sketch are columnar joints.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The color (of the boulders) looked darker black. Those very large, almost rectangular, fractured rocks as you called them, looked a little bit like columnar jointing. Those big black ones down there were darker black than the ones we sampled."]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Yes."]

165:45:54 Irwin: Okay. (Pause)

[Dave moves to our right to find a boulder suitable for sampling.]

165:46:15 Irwin: On that side?

165:46:16 Scott: Yeah.

165:46:17 Irwin: Okay. (Pause)

[Jim's down-Sun is AS15-82- 11142. He and Dave then trade places and, while Dave gets the hammer, Jim changes camera settings.]

165:46:37 Irwin: Yeah; stand by.

[Dave moves around the north side of the boulder and scans the area farther from the Rover while he talks to Joe. In the meantime, Jim moves to his left and takes cross-Sun's from the north.]

165:47:25 Allen: Amazing.

[Dave turns toward the gnomon.]

165:47:26 Irwin: I got the pictures.

165:47:27 Scott: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Jim's cross-Sun stereopair is AS15-82- 11143 and 11144. These excellent pictures have Hadley Rille in the background. Note the rounded corners and sizable vesicles on the boulders.]

[Dave is standing on the rille side of the boulder and, while Jim gets a bag, Dave hits the rock five times at about waist height.]

165:47:40 Scott: Beautiful stuff. (Pause)

[Dave delivers three deliberate, well-measured blows, apparently knocking off fragments. Rock sampling is an art and the fact that Dave doesn't have to hit boulder very often to dislodge samples indicates that he has learned where and how to hit. The flat, fist-sized sample he dislodged earlier in this stop is the mark of a skilled sampler. Only Jack Schmitt, a professional geologist, had an easier time with the hammer on very hard rocks like these.]

[Dave gets his tongs.]

165:47:55 Allen: Roger.

[Dave puts the first fragment in the bag.]

165:48:06 Irwin: Right here, Dave. Right under my (scoop)...

165:48:09 Scott: Yeah, that's right. Okay. (Long Pause)

[Although it appears that Dave puts a second sample in the bag, he and Jim are about 55 meters from the Rover and it is difficult to make out exactly what they are doing. The fact that only two chips are listed in the Preliminary Science Report suggests that, here, he is adjusting the tongs. In either case, he decides to put the hammer on the rock so that he can examine the next fragment closely. He gets the fragment with the tongs, takes it in his left hand, plants the tongs, and then uses both hands to hold the sample while he examines it. The samples are 15595 and 96, which are 237- and 225-gram pieces of porphyritic basalt, respectively.]

165:48:57 Irwin: Yeah.

165:48:58 Scott: Okay.

165:48:59 Irwin: I gave it to them.

[Journal Contributor Ron Rosano notes that, at this point, Dave raises his gold visor part way and leaves it up for about ten seconds. He is facing east, but has his head down and is not getting any direct Sun in his eyes.]

[Dave picks up one of the rounded rocks and tries to knock some dust off.]

[Dave gets a second rounded rock and puts it directly in the bag. According the Bailey and Ulrich and the Preliminary Science Report, these samples are 15597 and 15598, 146-gram and 136-gram pieces of olivine basalt.]

165:49:31 Irwin: Okay.

[Dave plants the tongs and Jim takes up a position north of the boulder.]

[Dave reaches for the hammer, which is still on the top of the boulder.]

165:49:55 Irwin: Okay; I have it.

[Jim's cross-Sun "afters" are AS15-82- 11145 and 11146. In 11145, Dave is reaching for the hammer. Note that Dave is not wearing a camera and that he is holding individual sample bag 281 in his left hand. We can see at least one rock fragment in the bag. In 11146, Dave is picking up the hammer. We can see Jim's reflection in Dave's visor.]

[In 11145, note that Dave has a cuff checklist on each arm. At 138:52:18, before they started EVA-2 preps, CapCom Gordon Fullerton suggested that they each wear their EVA-1 cuff checklist on the right arm and the EVA-2 checklist on the left arm. The EVA-1 lists included drilling tasks they hadn't completed during the first EVA. Although there is nothing in the transcripts about wearing the EVA-1 checklists during EVA-3, they decided to do so because of drilling tasks that still remained. In 11145, we get a clear look at at the open EVA-1 pages on Dave's right arm: CDR-25 and CDR-26. Neither relates to drilling task, but preceding pages do. They will make one last attempt to separate the deep core stems once they get back to the LM. Aspects of that activity are on CDR-22.]

[Dave puts the hammer back on the rock and goes over to Jim to put the bag in Jim's SCB.]

Video Clip  3 min 10 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 28 Mb MPG )

165:50:04 Allen: Roger; we copied. And, Dave, when you finish this, we'd like you to move back towards the Rover.

165:50:12 Scott: Yeah, I think we ought to do that. Need to stick the hammer on you. (Long Pause)

[While Dave gets the hammer off the rock, Jim presents the left side of his PLSS.]

165:50:29 Irwin: I just wonder if that rock to the north...

165:50:30 Scott: Okay.

165:50:31 Irwin: ...up there is the same.

165:50:33 Scott: I don't know but...

165:50:34 Irwin: Maybe we could stop there for the...

165:50:35 Scott: Maybe you...

165:50:36 Irwin: ...stereo pan.

165:50:38 Scott: Yeah.

[Dave grabs the gnomon and they head for the Rover.]

[After they leave Station 9a, they will drive 400 meters north and take more photographs of the west wall of the rille from Station 10. The plan is to get enough separation between the two spots to get good stereo from the two sets of photographs.]

QuickTime Clip (1 min 35 sec) by Peter Dayton

165:50:44 Allen: Right on, Dave...

165:50:45 Scott: And, Joe, I think...

165:50:46 Allen: ...and we want a rake sample near the Rover...

165:50:47 Scott: (To Jim) Did you take a location shot down to the south, Jim.

[After five or ten meters, Dave stops and points south.]

165:50:49 Scott: Take a location shot down there...

165:50:50 Allen: ...and a double core, please.

165:50:51 Scott: ...and then that way. Okay?

165:50:52 Irwin: Okay.

165:50:53 Scott: Yes. Get it at infinity; f/8 at infinity and maybe take another one up here, another 15 or 20 meters or so. Get a good stereo down to the south. (Long Pause)

[Dave heads for the Rover while Jim takes AS15-82- 11147. The group of rocks just to the right of center are at the upper left in 11146. After about ten seconds, Jim is on his way, again moving much more slowly than Dave did. Evidently, he decided that he'd already gotten half of a stereopair in form of his cross-Sun pictures at the boulder.]

165:51:30 Allen: That's fine, Dave. Sure will.

[Dave stops about halfway back to the Rover.]

[In a 1996 letter, Dave was amused by the dialog covering the last few minutes.]

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "This section is a good example of the many opportunities we had at this location. Jim wants to go north; MCC wants a rake and a core, etc. And probably everyone in the Backroom had a favorite, too!"]

[Dave starts uphill again but, after a couple of steps, stops and turns.]

[Jim reaches the buried boulder. It took him about 55 seconds to climb up from the place where he took the picture toward the south. The same climb took Dave about 30 seconds.]

165:52:04 Scott: See those little layers.

165:52:05 Irwin: Beautiful.

165:52:07 Scott: Okay. I think a cross-Sun stereo would be neat right there.

165:52:10 Irwin: Okay.

165:52:11 Scott: Here. As a matter of fact, I'll drop the gnomon; that'll tell them what it was.

[Dave puts the gnomon down while Jim gets into position north of the buried boulder.]

165:52:17 Scott: Just to get a real quick picture. Oh, you're kicking up white albedo.

165:52:23 Irwin: Yeah. I know it.

165:52:24 Scott: That's the only place I've seen it. (Pause)

[Jim takes a cross-Sun, AS15-82- 11148. Note that Dave did not get the color-gray scale gnomon leg pointed at the Sun.]

[This exchange and others previously suggest that, because Jim usually took the down-Sun pictures and Dave took the cross-Suns, he is out of practise in judging the proper distance for taking cross-Suns.]

[Jim moves in about a meter and takes a stereopair, AS15-82- 11149 and 11150, stepping to his left between frames.]

165:52:41 Scott: Good.

[Dave grabs the gnomon and resumes the climb. Jim follows. They both use the loping stride, but Dave takes two steps for every one that Jim takes. Because Dave tends to cover ground about twice as fast as Jim does, it suggests that they are getting similar stride lengths.]

[Dave reaches the Rover. He makes the trip from the buried rock in about 25 seconds. The same trip takes Jim about 40 seconds.]

165:53:04 Scott: Okay, Joe. Say again your rake requirements, if they're different from the others?

165:53:11 Allen: Negative. No different, Dave, just a few frags using the rake...

165:53:16 Scott: Oh.

165:53:17 Allen: ...if you think it's reasonable.

[Jim arrives at the Rover. Fendell pans left.]

165:53:47 Irwin: Okay, yeah I will. And you can take the pictures...

165:53:50 Scott: Yeah.

165:53:51 Irwin: ...while I'm...

165:53:52 Scott: While you're raking. (Pause)

[Fendell finds Jim at the back of the Rover with the rake and the extension handle.]

[Jim may not have taken his camera off yet and, consequently, may be suggesting that Dave take it off so that they can get started without waiting for him to have a free hand.]

165:54:17 Scott: Why don't we take a few steps down, Jim?

165:54:19 Irwin: Okay.

[Dave bounds off-camera to the right with the gnomon and Hasselblad. Jim follows at a more sedate pace, walking slow enough that Fendell has no trouble following him.]

165:54:29 Irwin: Just afraid they'll be too large down there.

165:54:31 Scott: No. Right here. A good spot. (Pause)

165:54:41 Scott: (If I don't) fall down the hill. (Pause)

[Fendell finds Dave standing up-Sun of the gnomon.]

165:54:48 Scott: Yeah. Make it easy on yourself. (Pause) Just a minute, let me get the down-Sun here. (Pause)

[Before Jim arrived, Dave took a cross-Sun stereopair, AS15-82- 11151 and 11152. Frame 11153 is the down-Sun. Note that Dave oriented the color/gray scale properly for these pictures.]

165:55:07 Scott: Have at it, partner. And I'll pick us out a route to go when we leave here. Get up to North Twin, and there's a nice outcrop up there, too.

165:55:23 Irwin: Okay. I need a bag.

[Jim got several fragments with his first swath. Fendell gets a good close-up of the raking.]

[Jim pours the rocks into the bag Dave is holding low for him.]

165:55:36 Scott: Oh, you're getting some. Looks like some laths, vesicular basalt, nonvesicular basalt. Do it again.

165:55:47 Irwin: Okay, I'll try to avoid that larger one there.

[During Dave's next transmission, Jim gets a second swath and shakes the soil out of the rake.]

[Jim starts a third swath.]

165:56:26 Scott: Jim's getting down about, oh, I'd say...(Answering Joe) Yeah.

165:56:32 Allen: Outstanding.

165:56:33 Scott: These are frags. That I have in my hand? Yes. They are. He's getting about, oh, 8 to 10 in each one, and it seems like there's a fair variety in there.

[Jim pours the third collection of rock fragments.]

QuickTime Clip by Peter Dayton (1 min 22 sec)

165:56:48 Scott: (To Jim) Hey, do it once...Let me move the gnomon here. They can reconstruct that. Take another swath over here so...

165:56:57 Irwin: (Garbled) so I can take two swaths, if you want.

165:56:59 Scott: Yeah, I think we're getting something here. (Pause)

[Dave has moved the gnomon about a meter north of its original location.]

165:57:06 Scott: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah. It looks like you're getting a good 2 to 3 inches down, as you rake through there.

[Jim drags the rake through the soil without extraordinary effort until it catches on something. He tugs on it several times until it rides up and over the buried obstacle.]

165:57:25 Scott: Yeah, that's right. (Long Pause)

[Fendell gets an excellent close-up view of Jim pouring the fragments into the bag, which Dave is holding very low because Jim is downhill of him. At about this point in the mission, a photographer in Houston takes S74-41836 and catches Joe Allen (left) and Dick Gordon (center) at the CapCom console. The person on the right with his back to us may be Deke Slayton.]

165:57:40 Irwin: Alright

165:57:41 Scott: Take one more. We'll fill the bag. (Pause) Hey, Joe, how about a quick single core here.

[Jim starts a fifth swath.]

165:57:56 Scott: Okay. I think we probably can, too. I was just giving you a little bait there.

165:58:02 Allen: Rog. A piece of cake compared to that drill.

[Jim pours.]

165:58:11 Irwin: Even I can agree with that, Joe.

165:58:14 Scott: Good. Good, comprehensive sample.

[Dave stands and we get a good view of him sealing the bag.]

[Dave gets a bag for the soil.]

[Jim gets a load of soil from the area of the first and fourth swaths. Although a good deal of the soil runs out as he swings the rake over to the bag, he gets the bag about half full.]

[Jim gets a quick load and swings the rake over to the bag.]

[Dave brushes the rock off the rake. The rock isn't big enough to be noticeable against the background of dirt falling out of the rake.]

165:59:02 Scott: Okay, there you go. (Pause)

165:59:08 Irwin: Okay.

165:59:10 Scott: Okay, maybe one more. Let's get a whole bag full. (Pause)

[Jim gets another quick rake full of dirt and pours it into the bag.]

165:59:18 Scott: (To Jim) That a boy.

165:59:19 Allen: ...to end all comprehensives.

165:59:23 Scott: Yeah. I think this is a Number One kind, Joe. (To Jim) Hang on to that, or you can put it in my pack while I zip this.

165:59:31 Irwin: Okay.

[Jim takes bag 282, which contains the rock-fragment collection. Dave presents the SCB on the left side of his PLSS.]

165:59:40 Irwin: Did you give him the number for this one?

165:59:41 Scott: Yeah. (Pause)

[While Dave seals bag 283, Jim opens Dave's SCB and stows bag 282.]

165:59:47 Irwin: Close it up. (Pause)

165:59:52 Scott: Wait a minute. Here, I'll hand you this one; the other one, too.

165:59:54 Irwin: Oh, okay.

165:59:56 Scott: (Changing his mind) No, I'll get yours (garbled). (Pause)

[Dave and Jim both rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise and wind up with Dave facing Jim's SCB. He stows bag 283.]

166:00:11 Irwin: Listen, I'll go up (to the Rover) and take the rake off.

166:00:14 Scott: Yeah.

166:00:15 Irwin: Get us set up for the core.

166:00:16 Scott: Core. Good idea.

166:00:18 Allen: Sounds good, Jim. (Pause)

[Jim will take the rake off the extension handle, assemble the double core, and attach it to the extension handle.]

[Dave takes a down-Sun stereopair of the rake site, AS15-82- 11154 and 11155.]

[Fendell follows Jim to the Rover. Jim uses a slow, loping stride. He does not push off hard and floats only a few inches per step. It is almost a walk.]

166:00:47 Allen: Roger.

166:00:51 Scott: About a meter (long), each. But you know, I don't know, a double core...We may find ourselves driving into bedrock if we're not careful.

166:01:01 Irwin: (At the back of the Rover) Yeah, I'm afraid of that. (Pause)

166:01:07 Scott: Give it a go.

166:01:08 Irwin: Okay.

[Jim takes the rake off and heads off-camera to the right. The core tubes are in Dave's SCB. Fendell follows.]

166:01:21 Allen: Sounds good, Dave.

166:01:26 Scott: Cut the rim of the crater, Jim. I bet we can do a good one right there.

166:01:29 Allen: Dave. Sorry...

166:01:30 Scott: And, I see some white-colored albedo near the...(Stops to listen)

166:01:31 Allen: ...bad information I gave to you. I guess we'd prefer it away from the rim.

166:01:37 Scott: Yes, sir. Okay.

166:01:40 Allen: And if we hit bottom...

166:01:41 Scott: And there's light-colored albedo (lost under Joe) by the lower side of the...(Stops to listen)

166:01:42 Allen: ...We hit bottom.

[Fendell finds Dave coming uphill with the gnomon. Undoubtedly, he is moving it away from the crater rim.]

166:01:47 Irwin: Okay.

166:01:48 Scott: ...as good as anything.

Video Clip  2 min 52 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPG )

166:01:52 Irwin: I'll grab the core while you take the pictures.

166:01:55 Scott: Yeah.

[Jim opens Dave's SCB to get a core tube.]

166:02:01 Scott: Yeah. Put one on. I'll take the pictures, and then I'll get you.

166:02:03 Irwin: Yeah. Okay, I have an upper.

[While Jim puts the upper on the extension handle, Dave takes up a position south of the gnomon. He takes a stereopair, AS15-82- 11156 and 11157, and then changes the camera settings for a down-Sun.]

166:02:21 Allen: Jim, did you call the number?

166:02:26 Irwin: 09.

166:02:28 Allen: Thank you.

[Dave hops around to the east of the gnomon. His down-Sun picture is AS15-82- 11158. This may also be the time when he takes 11159, perhaps as a locator. It shows Hadley Rille beyond the gnomon. Bennett Hill is on the horizon.]

166:02:34 Allen: We'll figure it out.

[Houston knows what cores they have and - one would hope - would not have flown both 09 and 60.]

[Dave joins Jim and presents his SCB.]

[Light-colored material, either on the surface or slightly buried, is generally thought to be regolith that has been shocked in an impact so that there are many jagged, highly-reflective surfaces - rather like a shattered windshield on an automobile. A fresh impact - such as the white crater on the east rim of St. George - will be surrounded by very light-colored ejecta. Over time, countless small impacts on the ejecta blanket create globs of dark-colored glass and, eventually, return the surface layers to the normal mouse-brown color. All of the crews found buried patches of light-colored material. I am unaware of any explanations for Jim's observation about the light-colored material occurring primarily on the downslope rims of craters at Station 9a. Most likely, it has something to do with the slope and the rapid thinning of the regolith as one approaches the edge of the rille.]

166:02:56 Irwin: I have it if you'll...

166:02:57 Scott: Okay.

166:02:58 Irwin: ...pull the ring, and...

166:02:59 Scott: Yeah. I was just going to do that. (Pause)

[The ring is connected to a pin which probably holds the cap of the lower core-tube section in place. Photo AS15-82-11161, which Dave will take in just a few moments, shows a ring at the top of the upper section. After Dave pulls the ring, they will uncap the lower section and thread it into the bottom of the upper section. Close-up, lab photos of a lower section, S71-16527, and an upper section, S71-16526, give good detail on other features of the core tube design but, unfortunately, do not show the rings or pins that were clearly present on the flight hardware.]

[While Jim joins the upper and lower core-tube sections, Dave reaches over and gets the hammer off Jim's PLSS. As usual, Jim will drive the core into the ground. Lab photo S71-16525 shows an 'Upper' and a 'Lower' joined together.]

[Once Jim finishes his task, he turns slightly and takes the hammer from Dave. Dave hops to his left and takes up a position south of the gnomon.]

[Dave is facing away from the Rover perhaps adjusting the camera settings.]

166:03:35 Irwin: Okay. It's in position.

[Jim has placed the core tip just east of the gnomon.]

[Dave faces the gnomon and takes AS15-82- 11160. At the upper right, we can see the head of the hammer, which Jim is holding in his left hand.]

166:03:40 Scott: Good.

[Jim did the initial push with his right hand on the shaft of the extension handle and got the core tube in a few inches. Now, he moves his hand up onto the cross-piece on the top of the extension handle so that he can deliver more force.]

166:03:42 Scott: Yeah. Got a half a tube.

[Jim gives a hard push. It seems to take a fraction of a second for the force of the push to overcome friction and then the tube moves quickly to its final depth.]

[Each of the sections is about 40 cm long. Jim tries pushing again but makes no further progress.]

166:03:48 Scott: Okay. I got the picture.

[Dave takes AS15-82- 11161, which shows the ring in the upper section.]

[Jim has hit the core 24 times. He was at about 20 strokes when Dave called "one and a half". That suggests that Jim got about 30 cm in 20 strokes or an average of 1.5 cm per stroke. In the TV we can see that some strokes yielded more depth than others, but it seems likely that Dave's "couple of inches" (5 cm) probably only refers to the first stroke or two.]

[Jim takes the hammer in his left hand.]

[Jim has swung the hammer 25 times with his left hand. Because he is right-handed, some are glancing blows that don't do much good. He gets an additional 20 cm or so of depth.]

[Jones - "Is the suit making it hard to get an accurate swing?"]

[Scott - "Well, he's doing it left-handed. Try it. Try hitting a nail with a hammer using your left hand, if you normally use your right hand. It's much more difficult."]

[Jones - "Even in the suit, you could swing with your dominant hand with accuracy?"]

[Scott - "Yeah! Because I've tried this, left and right hand, even on Earth. You can nail a nail pretty good with your right hand but, unless you really practice, your left hand isn't that good - if you're right handed."]

166:04:38 Irwin: Okay.

Video Clip  2 min 41 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPG )

166:04:39 Scott: Good show. Okay, I got the picture. (Pause)

[Dave's picture is AS15-82- 11162. He then joins Jim, stows the hammer on Jim's PLSS, a gets a core cap for the bit end of the lower section.]

[Jim is probably surprised that they were able to get both core tubes in without running into a large piece of basalt.]

166:04:51 Irwin: ...(garbled).

166:04:52 Allen: ...on that one, Jim.

166:04:57 Scott: Okay. I got the cap. Go ahead and pull it up.

166:04:59 Irwin: (To Houston) I like the ones where I can push them in, Joe. (Pause)

[Jim pulls the core out of the ground and rotates the bit end up to get it above horizontal and into reach so that he can cap it.]

166:05:20 Irwin: Yeah, we went right through a rock.

166:05:23 Scott: Yeah.

[Jim is probably examining the bit.]

166:05:30 Scott: Might clean it off so you get a good seal on the cap, Jim. Get a good seal?

[Although Dave is partially blocking our view, we can see Jim pounding the cap on with the palm of his glove.]

166:05:39 Scott: That's what I mean. If you could clean that off.

166:05:42 Irwin: I think we got a good seal.

166:05:43 Scott: Okay. Let me (ram it)...Oh, yeah. Take off your end and I'll ram it. (Pause)

[Dave gets the rammer off Jim's PLSS while Jim removes the extension handle for the top section.]

[Dave has taken hold of the double core and has probably given the rammer to Jim while he gets the upper section ready. With the upper section rammed, they should have a continuous column of soil at the join and, once they separate the sections, will only have to put caps on the top of the lower section and the bottom of the upper section.]

166:06:08 Irwin: Okay

166:06:09 Scott: That got it. Good. Ready? Let me try holding this end and let's see

166:06:16 Irwin: It's twisting off.

166:06:17 Scott: Oh! Good. I'll hold mine; and you can pull yours off easy; and I'll get you a cap.

166:06:24 Irwin: Hold that end?

166:06:25 Scott: Yeah.

166:06:26 Irwin: Screw this off. (Pause)

166:06:36 Scott: (Garbled) it? Good show. (Pause)

[They have separated the section and are each holding one with the open end up.]

[Dave hops around to the left side of Jim's PLSS to get two core caps.]

[Jim has a core section in one hand and the extension handle in the other.]

166:07:08 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Jim transfers the core section to his right hand and, while holding both it and the extension handle, gets the cap partly on. He then switches the core back to his left hand and pounds the cap with the extension handle. At the same time, Dave is trying to screw a cap on the other section.]

166:07:15 Scott: I can't get that cap on any more than that. (Long Pause)

[Dave is finally satisfied that the cap is well seated and uses the rammer briefly to make sure that there are no voids in the section.]

166:07:37 Irwin: If you can hold this (extension handle), I'll put them both in your pack (that is, in Dave's SCB).

[Jim gives Dave the extension handle and takes the core section. Dave presents his SCB.]

166:07:44 Allen: Standing by for the...

166:07:45 Scott: Hey, Joe, that's a good double core!

166:07:46 Allen: ...number on that before you tuck it away.

166:07:50 Irwin: Okay; (looking at the core) 4. Let's see, 4 was the lower and 60 was the upper.

166:07:57 Allen: Thank you, Jim. Copied.

[Jim stows the sections in stowage sleeves in Dave's SCB. Photo S88-52669 shows an SCB packed with two core tubes and three packs of individual sample bags.]

166:08:06 Irwin: I know 60 was the top one.

166:08:08 Scott: Yeah, you put that on first...

166:08:09 Irwin: Yeah.

166:08:10 Scott: ...right? Okay, because I think you did...

166:08:11 Allen: Dave, while you're getting loaded up there...

166:08:12 Scott: (Lost under Joe)

[Jim turns 180 degrees to his right so that Dave can stow the rammer.]

[Dave hops into position to take a cross-Sun "after", AS15-82- 11163, which shows the open core hole.]

[Jim moves uphill toward the Rover and Dave gets the gnomon. Fendell starts to follow Jim.]

166:08:35 Scott: Yeah.

166:08:36 Irwin: Take your choice on that.

166:08:37 Allen: Roger...

166:08:38 Scott: You get one and I'll get one.

166:08:39 Allen: ...Just for variety.

166:08:40 Scott: It's a vesicular one. Hey, here's a good vesicular one.

[Fendell changes his mind and reverses direction to find Dave.]

166:08:48 Scott: You got one that's vesicular, or not?

166:08:50 Irwin: Yeah. But...

166:08:52 Scott: Huh?

[Fendell finds Dave examining a large block.]

166:08:55 Scott: Okay.

166:08:56 Irwin: ...I don't know if we want to be too selective here if we're supposed to move on.

166:09:00 Scott: Yeah. Right. (Pause)

[Dave puts the gnomon down and takes a "before" picture, AS15-82- 11164. This sample is 15555 - more generally known as Great Scott - a 9.6 kilogram piece of basalt. See. also, eight whole-rock views of 15555 taken at the Lunar Receiving Lab, starting with S71-43390. Although the Apollo 15 Photographic Index indicates that photo AS15-82-11164 was taken at Station 10, Bailey and Ulrich believe that it was taken here at Station 9a and I agree completely with that assessment.]

[Dave takes up a position just east of the rock and goes down on his right knee. He gets his right hand on the outside of the rock and moves it in close to his leg, trying to get it up on to his leg. Because the rock is partly shadowed, we don't get as good a view as we get of a very similar maneuver that Charlie Duke performs at the end of the Apollo 16 Station 1 when he collects the rock known as Big Muley. At 11.7 kg, Muley was the biggest moonrock collected during Apollo. Great Scott is the second largest.]

[Dave starts to tip over to his right but gets his hand down easily and pushes himself back into a stable position on his right knee. He has his left leg stuck well out to the side as a counter-weight.]

166:09:23 Scott: Oh, me. (Pause)

166:09:30 Irwin: Want me to come down, Dave?

[Dave finally gets Great Scott off the ground. He presses it against the outside of his right thigh and quickly stands. Readers should note that, in the lunar gravity field, a 9.6 kilogram rock only weighs only 1.6 kg or 3.5 pounds. Dave's problem in getting the rock up was not so much the weight but the fact that it is much bigger than his hand.]

166:09:36 Allen: I guess so.

[Dave grabs the gnomon and starts uphill, running easily despite the rock he has pressed against his right hip. Note that he is holding it high enough not to interfere with his leg motion.]

166:09:44 Scott: A little bigger than 6 inches, but it was neat looking.

166:09:49 Allen: (Chuckling) Well, that makes up for it.

166:09:54 Scott: (Laughs) (Long Pause)

[I have been unable to find dimensions for Great Scott. One laboratory photograph of the whole rock gives a length of about 26 cm (10.2 inches) and a height of about 13.8 cm (5.4 inches). Because the sample is described as being vesicular, its density may be on the lower end of the range of densities of mare basalts, say 3.3 g/cc. If we ignore the two end pieces and use a characteric length of 19 cm (7.5 inches) and a characteristic height of 12.5 cm (4.9 inches), the total mass of 9600 grams and the chosen density allow us to estimate a characteristic thickness of 9600/(3.3 x 19 x 12.5) = 12.2 cm (4.8 inches).]

[Dave is back at the Rover.]

[Scott - "That was neat. I'd never seen that before."]

[While we watched Dave collect Great Scott, Jim may have collected sample 15556, a 1.5 kilogram vesicular basalt.]

166:10:15 Scott: My side's full.

[They are probably talking about the stowage areas under the seats.]

[Fendell pans right until he is looking south down the rille toward St. George. He zooms in on a group of boulders at the apparent edge of the rille immediately south of the Rover.]

[Scott - "For the guys in the Backroom, this must have been a real bonanza."]

[Jones - "These are beautiful pictures when Ed zooms in on the rille."]

[Scott - "Yeah, 'cause they could go back and replay it and replay it."]

[Fendell raises his aim to look at the rille wall below St. George but, after a few seconds, Dave moves in front of the TV and blocks the view.]

166:10:28 Allen: Dave and Jim...

166:10:30 Scott: Okay! (Garbled) the Rover.

166:10:31 Allen: ...we want you to climb aboard now and head north about .3 or .4 clicks by the easiest route, and we'll pick up the stereo pan with the big camera.

166:10:42 Scott: Okay!

166:10:46 Allen: And, Davy, we suggest you take those big camera pictures of the same items you photographed before, and, Jim, you can get the (70-mm) pan (with the CDR camera).

166:10:56 Scott: Okay. Fine, Joe. (Probably reaching across the seats) Here, let me just give you my camera now, Jim. Let's see how we're doing. 120 on the frames on my camera, (magazine) Sierra.

166:11:09 Allen: Copy. Thank you. (Pause)

166:11:18 Allen: Dave, we also need the TV camera turned off at this time, and see if you could brush the top of the camera with your glove, please. It's getting very warm. I'm sorry, that (was) bad input...

166:11:31 Scott: Sure, Joe.

166:11:32 Allen: ...brush the top with the brush.

166:11:36 Scott: (Laughs)

[Fendell has moved his aim slightly to the right and zooms in on Trophy Point.]

166:11:40 Scott: (To Joe) (Flight Director) Gerry (Griffin)'s quick today on you, isn't he?

166:11:44 Allen: (Laughing) He's sitting on me.

[Fendell raises his aim and does a slow, east-to-west pan of the interior of St. George.]

166:11:51 Irwin: Well.

166:11:52 Scott: If you'll hop in.

166:11:53 Irwin: We're not going that far, Dave.

166:11:54 Scott: Yeah. Three-tenths of a click? Yeah, I want you tied in.

166:11:57 Irwin: Okay.

[The TV tilts up as Dave examines it.]

166:12:16 Allen: Okay; thank you.

[Fendell lowers his aim and pulls back on the zoom, and gets a beautiful view of St. George and Trophy Point.]

166:12:23 Allen: Might be right.

166:12:24 Scott: Yeah. I think so, too.

166:12:25 Irwin: Because I notice I feel a little warmer today than I did yesterday. (Pause)

166:12:36 Scott: Yeah, I do, too, as a matter of fact. You're right. (Pause)

[Fendell pans left to get the TV in position for the drive. Dave comes around the back of the Rover after having stowed the brush.]

166:12:54 Allen: Roger, Dave. Thank you. (Long Pause)

[TV off.]