Landing at Descartes

Window Geology

 

Post-Landing Activities

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library.
Video credits in the Video Library.
Except where noted, audio clips by Roland Speth.
Last revised 21 July 2015.

MP3 Audio Clip (11 min 23 sec)

104:41:26 Irwin: Okay, Charlie, when you get the Surface Checklist, I have some changes that we want to take care of.

104:41:36 Duke: Stand by.

[Charlie is getting out the Surface Checklist. The three-orbit delay in landing and the postponement of the first EVA will both necessitate checklist changes.]

104:41:43 Irwin: Yeah, there are a few and we'll have a few more in order to conserve power to give you maximum stay time.

104:41:47 Young: Outstanding! (Pause)

[John is obviously pleased that Houston is thinking in terms of letting him stay on the Moon as long as possible.]

[They both wore tethers - attached at the waist and to the floor - that held them steady during the descent.]

[Jones - "You're fairly confined inside the LM but does the one-sixth g make a difference?"]

[Duke - "Oh, yeah. Without the harness on, you felt really free, and you had plenty of room. You didn't mind standing up."]

[Jones - "You stood most of the time?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. And I sort of leaned back against the Environmental Control System (ECS). There was a little spot I could lean back against and sort of rest a little bit. And I did that a lot when we took the suit off. But, at this point, gosh, you just felt like you could stand there for hours - which we did, really. It was real nice. The only time I found the Lunar Module really confining was when we started getting suited up - or unsuited - moving the PLSSs around and all of that stuff. Somewhere later on in here, we move one of the PLSSs (that was) on the floor between us? And we pick it up and put it somewhere else. We'd done that in training and John just struggled to get that thing up, 'cause it was heavy! You know, 155 pounds. They had a lightweight mock-up which I think was a little bit lighter. But up there, in that one-sixth g, boy, he just picked it up with one hand. It was just tremendous. It made you feel like Superman. So, no, we didn't feel too cramped at all. It was nice."]

104:42:49 Irwin: That's affirmative. Go ahead. (Long Pause)

[They will vent pressure from the propellant tanks in the Descent Stage. The valves are opened with small explosive charges. They are at the top left of Surface Checklist page 1-1. They had planned to reach this point in the mission at a Ground Elapsed Time of 98 hours 55 minutes (98:55) but, because of the landing delay, are six hours behind schedule.]

104:43:16 Irwin: Roger.

104:43:20 Young: Descent Vent's...(Pause) Descent Vent's, Fire.

104:43:23 Irwin: Roger. (Pause) Our first change to the Surface Checklist occurs on 1-2, and copied Master Arm, Off. (Pause)

104:43:41 Duke: Okay, go ahead.

104:43:45 Irwin: Close Descent Reg(ulator valve) 1. (Pause)

104:43:53 Young: Descent Reg 1, Closed.

[Houston has determined that the tank pressures are low enough that the regulator valves can be closed, as per lines 7 to 10 in the left-hand column of 1-1.]

104:44:03 Duke: Yes, sir; go ahead.

104:44:05 Irwin: Okay, on 1-2, in the right column there, about halfway down, the S-band pitch and yaw set; you can scratch that and the business about peak. In other words, we're going to stay with the omni. Over.

104:44:23 Duke: Okay, I copy.

[Because of the problems experienced with the high-gain S-band antenna prior to the descent, it will not be used. Use of the omnis will also conserve electrical power. The landing delay cost about 200 ampere-hours of power out of a total of 2025 ampere-hours available from the Descent Stage batteries. According to the Mission Report, conservation measures cut usage during the stay by about 100 ampere-hours, cutting the shortfall in half.]

[There are five batteries in the Descent Stage, each with a capacity of about 400 ampere-hours. These are batteries 1,2,3,4, and L. The fifth battery - sometimes called the Lunar Battery or the Luny Battery - was a feature added for the J-missions so that the crews could stay on the lunar surface for 72 hours. There were two electrical control assemblies (ECAs) on the LM, one controlled from each side of the spacecraft, with which all of the batteries could be operated and controlled. These ECAs were labeled CDR and LMP. Here, Bat L is being routed through the CDR ECA.]

[A talkback is an indicator in a small window which shows the status of the appropriate system. Most of the LM talkbacks showed either a gray window or a striped "barber pole" pattern. In the case of Battery L, the talkback shows "CDR" when the battery was connected to the CDR ECA, "LMP" when connected to the LMP ECA, or the barberpole when disconnected. The printed checklist reads "Bat L (LMP) - ON; tb - LMP" and both instances of "LMP" are changed to "CDR". As Journal Contributor Frank O'Brien points out, the primary indicator of the system configuration is not the switch position but the talkback.]

104:45:00 Duke: Okay, we copy all that. Batt 3, Off/Reset; Batt Luny (Battery L) to Commander; talkback Commander; Batt 4, Off/Reset. Over.

104:45:11 Irwin: Okay, then the next page is on circuit breakers page 1-4. The first change is on the first row there, on panel 11, S-Band Antenna. The third one down there from the left should be Open. And then, on the second row, Mission Timer on the second row should be Open. And then drop down to the fourth row, LGC (LM Guidance Computer) DSKY (breaker) should be Open.

[They will conserve power be turning off the S-band antenna, the Mission timer, etc.]

104:46:00 Irwin: That's correct. (Pause) Okay. Next page, 1-...

104:46:08 Duke: Is that everything?

104:46:10 Irwin: ...5. (Responding) No, I've got a couple more, probably. Okay, on 1-5, on the fourth row, panel 16, Inverter 2, Open. Over.

[Page 1-4 shows the circuit breakers on Panel 11, which is on the wall at John's left shoulder. Page 1-5 shows panel 16, which is on the wall at Charlie's right shoulder.]

104:46:32 Irwin: Okay. Well, part of our power-saving program is to not have the AC powered up, on the surface.

104:46:42 Duke: Okay. That's fine.

[The inverters generate AC current from the battery current. The circuit breaker for Inverter 1, which is on John's panel, is also Open. Charlie is making sure that Houston has thought this through.]

104:46:46 Young: Somebody's got (to watch the Ground Elapsed Time).

[With the AC power off, they will not have a functioning mission timer.]

104:47:05 Duke: Okay. We copy "Inverter, Off."

104:47:10 Irwin: And then the last change is on 1-8, the left column. We want "Track Mode, Off," and "S-Band" should be to "Best Omni," which I believe is the one you have selected right now.

104:47:31 Duke: Okay, we get "Track Mode, Off," "S-Band to Best Omni."

104:47:34 Irwin: And that's the end of the changes up to that point.

104:47:40 Duke: Okay, Jim, are we going to press on with the first rev checklist?

[These are the procedures on surface checklist pages 1-1 to 1-9 and include star sighting with the Alignment Optical Telescope ( AOT) used to do an alignment of the inertial platform.]

104:47:55 Duke: That sounds pretty good!

[Comm Break]

[Because the spacecraft is sitting upright on the surface with little yaw, John and Charlie should be able to use the stars indicated in the checklist, for example, the bright star Altair in the middle of the left-hand column of page 1-2.]

[Jones - "The only thing that would force you to use different stars in the platform alignment would be the spacecraft attitude."]

[Duke - "That's right. You know, if we had landed kattiwampus, we'd have had to pick some new stars, probably."]

[Here, Charlie uses the American slang term "kattiwampus" to mean a significant departure from vertical LM orientation. More generally, I understand it to mean "out of kilter" or, in NASA-ese, "seriously off-nominal"]

[Journal Contributor Larry McGlynn has provided a high-resolution scan of the star chart and accompanying star list flown on Apollo 16 ( 0.5 Mb ).]

[Jones - "And you are going to do a platform alignment? You're looking to make sure that the guidance system knows how the spacecraft is aligned on the lunar surface relative to the local vertical; and you're not trying to determine where the LM is."]

[Duke - "That's right."]

[Jones - "Houston could get the 'where' from the tracking data."]

[Duke - "That's right. There was no way, on board, to tell 'where'. These alignment programs were strictly to get the platform lined up so that we knew where local vertical was. We had a REFSMMAT (Reference to Stable Member Matrix) and we knew we had a certain attitude on the eight ball that we had to be in so we could fly and abort. And it was to make sure the thing hadn't drifted away."]

[Jones - "Can you give me a definition of REFSMMAT?"]

[Duke - "Reference Matrix. They had a series of different ones for each mission, and they were selected to give the pilot something reasonable to look at during a critical maneuver. For instance, on the lunar surface you wanted to start with the eight ball at zero-zero-zero - zero pitch, zero yaw, zero roll. Okay? So when you flew in, you were referencing to that eight ball. You didn't want a REFSMMAT that would put the eight ball at like 90-degree roll and 10-degree yaw and 14-degree pitch, you see. I mean, how can you fly that? So these Reference Matrixes were series of numbers that were put into the computer that the IMU knew how to align itself so that the eight ball attitude was something reasonable."]

[David Woods adds: "It is important to realise that the Apollo spacecraft (both CM and LM) could go into gimbal lock at any time during a mission due to the fact that the gimbal mountings for the guidance platform only had three degrees of freedom. Therefore, during mission planning, it was necessary to understand what attitudes needed to be adopted by the spacecraft at every stage of the flight. Then they could ensure that the alignment of the guidance platform with respect to the stars would always be set so that gimbal lock would not be entered. The numbers that defined the alignment of the platform were referred to as a REFSMMAT - basically a set of angles with respect to the stars. Apollo 8 used three different REFSMMATs and the later J-missions used upwards of eight REFSMMATs. It was to accommodate all the various attitudes that a mission would require to achieve its goal."]

[Jones - "Landmark tracking had long since gone away, prior to PDI? I know the 11 and 12 guys did some landmark tracking..."]

[Duke - "We didn't do it any. I remember that was only from the Command Module."]

[Jones - "The early LM crews did some."]

[Duke - "They did? Well, we didn't do any. It had gone."]

[The change from earlier missions was probably due to the fact that, on Apollo 11 and 12, the LM crew undocked from the Command Module while both spacecraft were in a 60-mile circular orbit and then used the LM engines to enter the 60-by-9 mile Descent Orbit. They then had to use landmark tracking to make sure they were in the proper orbit before they started the final descent. Starting with Apollo 14, the Command Module Engine was used to put both spacecraft into the Descent Orbit and landmark tracking was done from the Command Module before the landing crew entered the LM.]

[Comm Break]

104:51:30 Duke: Loud and clear. (Pause)

104:51:40 Irwin: Okay...

104:51:41 Duke: (Garbled) we're starting on page 1-2, Jim.

[Jones - "On page 1-2, it looks you do a gravity alignment first."]

[Duke - "P57 was the platform alignment. And there was a gravity align. I don't know how it sensed gravity, but there was a gravity align deal and then you sighted on the stars."]

[Jones - "And gravity would only give you the vertical axis, whereas the stars would give you all three."]

[Duke - "That's right."]

104:52:02 Duke: That suits us.

104:52:04 Young: You probably gathered we'd like to.

104:52:05 Irwin: So would we!

104:52:08 Young: Yeah. It's been a hard day's night for you, too.

[John is quoting the first line of the 1964 Beatles song, "A Hard Day's Night", from the film of the same name.]

[There are two plausible completions to John's statement at 104:52:04. That they'd like to (1) do the EVA or (2) get some sleep. Arguments can be made for either, as indicated in the crew comments that come next.]

104:52:39 Duke: Jim, I feel exactly like I thought I was (going to feel). I really want to get out, but I think that discretion is the better part of the valor here.

104:52:48 Irwin: Good. Glad you think that. (Pause)

104:52:58 Young: Man, it's really tempting though. It really looks nice out there. (Long Pause)

[Duke - "As a hindsight observation, it wasn't a good idea. I think we should have gotten out first. But, at the time, everybody thought it was a good idea. And John maybe still thinks it was a good idea; but I didn't, because I had a tough time getting to sleep. You know, my mind was just racing and I wanted to get out. I was thinking about all that was coming up; and the excitement had just passed; and, you know, my mind was just whirling. I think we had so much adrenaline pumping we could have gone, probably two days - forty-eight hours - without any problem. So, looking back, I think we made a mistake. But it's done."]

[Blank spaces for these two values are available in the righthand column at the bottom of page 1-1, but Charlie didn't write them there.]

104:54:05 Duke: Plus 37566; minus 73667.

104:54:10 Irwin: Roger. I copy. (Long Pause) Okay, Orion. We're ready to terminate the vent on the Ox(ygen)-side.

104:54:37 Duke: Okay. It's going closed.

104:54:40 Young: OX Vent's barber pole.

104:54:42 Irwin: Roger. (Long Pause)

[They have been venting pressure in both the oxygen and fuel tanks in the Descent Stage.]

[Jones - "What does 'vent's barber pole' mean?"]

[Duke - "It means it's closed. You had an open position and a closed position. When you hit it open, it was a clear indication; and, when it's closed it shows a striped pattern, like a barberpole."]

[Jones - "So there's a window there and, when the valve was open the window's clear and, when the valve's closed, the stripy pattern comes into view."]

[Duke - "That's right. And the stripy one we called barber pole. See, here's the flag. And we're looking at DPS Schematic in the LM System Data Book, SKB32100126-385. Drawing 11.1."]

104:55:38 Irwin: Stand by. (Long Pause)

104:55:57 Young: (The landing) cracked Charlie's fillings; we know that. (Pause)

104:56:12 Duke: After you fly with Navy pilots for three years, you know what the feeling is.

104:56:14 Irwin: Yeah, I know it exactly. I think we'd like for you to try to get the steerable up, if you can.

104:56:26 Duke: All right; we'll do that.

[Comm Break]

[Jim and Charlie were both Air Force pilots, while John was a Naval Aviator.]

104:58:18 Irwin: Okay. And we assume you got all the necessary circuit breakers in, AC and DC?

104:58:24 Duke: Roger. I put the AC Bus/S-Band (circuit breaker) in, and I put the S-Band Comm in, and the pitch moves fine, but the yaw does not move.

104:58:35 Irwin: Okay. We copy.

104:58:41 Duke: I'm going to power it back down.

104:58:43 Irwin: Okay. (Long Pause) Okay. And, Charlie, when you get a chance, if you're free, I can give you the rest of the changes coming up here in the next few hours.

104:59:14 Duke: Okay. John is marking on Altair ( 0.5 Mb ), and go ahead. I'll copy.

[John is doing the star sightings. They have raised the bottom-mounted shades on the windows to darken the cabin.]

104:59:48 Duke: It just so happens that the back of the Data Card Book is blank. Go ahead.

[Charlie and I looked at the data card book, which he brought back from the Moon.]

[Jones - "The back of the Data Card Book does, in fact, have some scribbling on it. I notice that some of it's in ballpoint and some of it's in pencil. You had both?"]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

[Charlie wrote the new time, 105:10, on the back of the Data Card Book. In the following sequence, he wrote some of the changes there and some on the indicated pages of the Surface Checklist.]

105:00:17 Duke: Stand by. (Pause) Okay. I got it.

105:00:24 Irwin: Okay. You're aware that you won't have your mission timer, so we're going to have to keep you on time here. You see the "Eat period" there in the right column? We want to skip that until y'all get your suits off. And the next sequence is number 2, of course, and that's on page 2-1, and you can turn to that page, and that should occur at about 105:38. And we'll keep you on time. That's "Cabin prep for EVA," just to get things stowed properly. And then at the bottom of 2-1, go to page 3-4. Over.

MP3 Audio Clip (11 min 27 sec)

105:01:11 Duke: Okay. Copy. 2-1; then finish that page and go to 3-4.

105:01:18 Irwin: That's right. And then, of course, sequence 3 is on page 3-4, and that's "Doff suits." (Pause) And that "Doff suit" should occur at about 105:58, and, at that point, y'all be in a position in there where you can eat, and we can brief you on the rest of the surface plan. Over.

105:01:46 Duke: Rog. That sounds super, Jim. We'll press on with those changes, and in this briefing, we'd like a word about what our lunar stay looks like and et cetera.

105:01:59 Irwin: Okay; we understand.

105:02:00 Duke: Sure y'all can get all that. (Pause) For some reason, it's remarkable, but once you sit down up here (that is, once the LM is on the ground), the comm just clears up beautifully.

105:02:10 Irwin: Very good. (Pause) Okay. Let's terminate the fuel vent, Orion.

105:02:36 Young: Fuel Vent's barber pole.

105:02:38 Irwin: Roger. (Pause)

[In the following, John has reached the bottom of the left-hand column of page 1-2 and asking Houston if they want the computer to use the values. The "angle" difference is the change in platform orientation implied by the observations.]

105:02:51 Irwin: Stand by. (Pause) Roger. Go ahead and torque, Orion. They look very good...

105:03:04 Young: My angle difference was minus...(Stops to listen) Okay. Boy, these are really neat optics. The Earth is in the window, and I'm looking right at the star. That's really good. (Pause)

105:03:30 Irwin: Orion, this is Houston. I have some parking angles for you for the IMU (Inertial Measurements Unit, the inertial platform).

105:03:38 Young: Roger. Go.

[These are the OG (Outer Gimbal), IG (Inner Gimbal), and MG (Middle Gimbal) numbers in the left column of 1-3. Charlie does not write the numbers in the spaces provided on page 1-3 but, rather, on Page 6 in the LM Data Card Book. These angles are the components of Noun 20 (N20) at the upper left on that page. In the following, Charlie reads out some AGS data as per the right-hand column of page 1-2.]

105:03:55 Duke: 286.25; all balls; 087.57.

105:04:00 Irwin: That's a good readback.

105:04:07 Duke: Okay, Jim. (Probably reading from page 6 in the LM Data Card Book) (On) my 544 through 546, 544 changed quite a bit. It's minus now 0.116. 545 is plus 052. 546 is minus 0.068. That was after the cal(ibration). Before the cal, they were plus 006, and plus 045, minus 088. Over.

105:04:30 Irwin: Roger. I have them, Charlie. (Pause)

105:04:37 Duke: And I guess we're ready for the E(rasable)-memory dump (at the top of page 1-3).

105:04:41 Irwin: Stand by.

105:04:43 Young: Say when, Houston. (Pause)

[They will now transmit the contents of the computer memory to Houston.]

105:05:00 Young: It's on its way.

105:05:02 Irwin: Roger.

105:05:06 Duke: And, Jim, that AGS lunar align for a couple of minutes there put me within less than a 1/2 a degree from the PGNS.

105:05:15 Irwin: Roger. We copy. (Long Pause) Orion, (as per page 1-3) you're stay for T-3.

105:05:38 Young: Roger. Stay for T-3. (Long Pause)

RealAudio clip ( 22 minutes 22 seconds )

105:06:16 Duke: Okay, Jim. The AGS is powered down.

105:06:18 Irwin: Okay. I copy.

[Comm Break]

105:08:34 Irwin: Go ahead, Orion. (No answer) Orion, this is Houston. Say again...

105:08:47 Young: It works. It works.

105:08:52 Irwin: What was that, John? What worked?

105:08:55 Young: Goes right into Gimbal Lock.

105:08:58 Irwin: Okay. Good show.

105:09:03 Young: Yeah, I thought you'd like that.

105:09:09 Duke: (Chuckling) That's a sad feeling, Jim, to watch that thing go over. (Long Pause)

[Duke - "What John's saying here with 'Do you really want to do this, Houston?' is that we were going to lose our platform. We were going to power down the guidance and navigation system; and this parking it - or powering it down - put it into gimbal lock. It just took all the three axis-gyros and aligned them all, so it put them into gimbal lock. And, when you're in gimbal lock, you usually lose your attitude and it was sort of always a creeping fear in the back of your mind that: 'man, why do I want to put this thing into gimbal lock? Suppose it doesn't come out.' So that's what John was getting at. 'You really want to do this Houston!?' That was the mode he said it in. 'Yeah, go ahead' And, when we did the procedure (laughing), it did it! It really worked."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I highly recommend the procedure that we used for parking that platform in gimbal lock. We parked that beauty for 71 hours, and we didn't even had a PIPA (Pulsed Integrating Pendulous Accelerometer) bias or gyro update (when they powered it up for launch). It just worked like a champ."]

[Jones - "And then down here a couple of lines at 105:09:09, you said, 'that's a sad feeling, Jim, to watch that thing go over'"]

[Duke - "It looks like it's just dying (Charlie makes a falling-airplane noise), you know, going into gimbal lock."]

[Interested readers can find a discussion of gimbal lock in the Apollo 11 transcript at 104:59:35.]

105:09:58 Irwin: Okay. We copy, and I have a T-17 through T-21 when you're ready to copy.

105:10:06 Duke: Go ahead.

[The first three pre-planned opportunities to launch were T-1, 2, and 3. The rest are numbered according to Command Module orbits. Charlie will copy these times into a pre-printed table on page 6 in the LM Data Card Book.]

[Jones - "It's true, isn't it, that you could have launched almost any time and Ken could have come to get you."]

[Duke - "Yeah, it would have been a long rendezvous. We practiced that some time - you know, an "any time" lift-off. I've forgotten the maximum rendezvous time, but it could have been a day (24 hours) to get it all done right. So, you didn't want to do that if you didn't have to."]

105:10:53 Young: Okay. T-17: 106:25 plus 05.65. 18 is 108:23:36.87. 19 is 110:22:08.13. 20 is 112:20:39.04. 21 is 114 hours 19 minutes and 10.65 seconds.

105:11:25 Irwin: Good readback.

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The trouble with pulling the mission timer (as Houston had them do at 104:45:50) is you lose a clock, and that makes the emergency lift-off times absolutely meaningless. You don't have any idea what time it is. We kept getting a block (of lift-off times) and I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know what time it was."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "We had no idea what GET (Ground Elapsed Time) was, but we had a Houston watch. They ought to read them (meaning the lift-off times) to you in Houston time; then you can use your wristwatch."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "What you would do in the real world if you had to do an emergency lift-off at one of those times - (and) you had contact with the ground - you would roughly use that (Houston) time to get you powered up on time and have the ground count you down to the second for lift-off."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "But these are no-comm (lift-off) times."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "That's correct."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Then, they were worthless."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It seems to me, if you lose your timer, you aren't going to hit it on the second. You may hit it on the minute (by using the wristwatch and Houston times)."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "You're right."]

105:11:51 Irwin: Stand by. (Pause) Okay, Charlie, leave those open.

105:12:19 Duke: Roger. And, also, the S-Band Antenna is open, and I'll leave that open. How about the Cabin Fan Control? Do you guys want that one closed?

MP3 Audio Clip (11 min 23 sec)

105:12:29 Irwin: Stand by. (Long Pause) Orion, go ahead and open that Cabin Fan Control.

105:13:01 Duke: Rog. It's open.

[Comm Break]

[The preceding exchange indicates both that Charlie is very knowledgeable about the LM systems and that he has been thinking about systems they don't really need in order to conserve power.]

105:15:24 Irwin: Okay, we copy. (Pause)

[The crater may the one just below the local horizon on the left side of AS16-113- 18307.]

105:15:45 Irwin: Roger. We copy. (Long Pause)

[Here, Charlie is speculating that they may have some trouble with buried blocks during the drilling and trenching tasks they are planning to do during the EVAs.]

105:16:41 Irwin: Roger.

[Comm Break]

105:18:10 Irwin: Stand by. (Long Pause) Stand by. We're thinking about it. (Long Pause) Roger, Orion. Keep the MESA heaters on High.

105:19:20 Young: MESA heaters on High.

[Comm Break]

[The Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly is a storage unit that is folded against the side of the Descent Stage under Charlie's window. The MESA is hinged at the bottom and, when John gets out at the start of the first EVA, he will release a latch at the top of the MESA so that it will rotate down into easy reach.]

[Jones - "Why are you heating the MESA?"]

[Duke - "We had food down there. We had the TV camera down there. We had some film down there. We had the rock boxes. And they didn't want it to cold soak. I don't remember what was critical down there."]

[Readers should note that, during the trip out from Earth, the CSM/LM combination was slowly rotated to provide uniform heating. Now that the LM is down on the surface, the MESA is in shadow and, therefore, would cool rapidly if not heated. Once John and Charlie get out on the surface and open the MESA, the rising Sun will provide heat.]

[Jones - "Were there more or less acronyms when you transferred over from the Air Force to NASA."]

[Duke - "More in NASA."]

[In Houston, the NASA Public Affairs Commentator mentions that Flight Director Gerry Griffin's crew is going off shift and Flight Director Pete Frank's crew is coming on.]

[Charlie is asking about the step seven lines up from the bottom of the right-hand column on page 1-7. At 105:23:32 he repeats his statement and we learn that he was saying "It's in Off/Reset". My thanks to Frank O'Brien for pointing this out.]

105:22:45 Duke: We turned the Power Amp, Off. (Pause)

105:22:57 Young: (Garbled) powerdown configuration (garbled).

[The Power Amplifier, Off step is ten lines up from the bottom of the right-hand column on page 1-7.]

105:23:26 Duke: How do you read now, Jim?

105:23:28 Irwin: Loud and clear, Charlie.

105:23:32 Duke: Okay. We'll leave the Power Amp on - or (correcting himself) in Secondary. Do you want the Function switch to Range, just as checklist calls? It's in Off/Reset now.

MP3 Audio Clip (3 min 56 sec)

105:23:42 Irwin: Stand by. (Long Pause) Okay, Orion. You can go to Range on that.

[Comm Break]

[Astronaut Tony England takes over as CapCom. As he confirmed in a January 2006 e-mail, he was Mission Scientist on Apollo 13 and was scheduled to serve as CapCom during the EVAs and during the sleep shifts during the trips to and from the Moon during that mission. John and Charlie were on the Apollo 13 backup crew and, having gotten to know Tony's capablilities, asked him to serve as EVA CapCom on Apollo 16.]

[Charlie's initial conversation with Tony indicates that he and John have reached the top of page 1-9.]

105:27:42 Duke: Jim, Houston. Over.

105:27:46 England: Go ahead, Charlie...

105:27:47 Duke: (Laughing at his own mistake) Correction. Jim, Orion.

105:27:50 England: Go ahead, Charlie.

105:27:51 Duke: It was a long day here. Could we doff the suits before we do the cabin configuration and all? (Pause)

105:28:06 England: Okay. That's fine with us, Charlie. Go ahead.

105:28:11 Duke: Oh, hello there, Tony.

105:28:14 Young: Yeah, that...

105:28:16 England: Yeah, good evening fellows. Outstanding job!

105:28:18 Duke: Thank you.

105:28:19 England: Really nice.

[Launch from Earth occurred at 11:54 a.m. Central Standard Time (17:54 GMT) on April 16, 1972. In Houston, it is now 9:22 p.m. CST on April 20.]

[Hamish Lindsay notes that the fact that Standard Time - rather than Daylight Saving Time - was in force in mid-April may puzzle some readers. The following is adapted from http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html .]

[The earliest suggestion of the concept of Daylight Saving was Benjamin Franklin's in a 1784 letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, written while Franklin was the American emissary in France. In 1907, London builder William Willett began a vigorous campaign to persuade the British government to introduce a daylight savings scheme but failed, largely because of the understandable opposition of agricultural interests. During World War I, a number of countries adopted various forms of Daylight Saving because of the need to conserve fuel supplies . Germany was the first to do so, moving its clocks ahead one hour at 11 p.m. on 30 April 1916. The United States first adopted Daylight Savings in 1918, moving clocks ahead one hour on 31 March. However, after the war, popular opposition quickly led to repeal in 1919. Some states and localities continued to observe Daylight Saving Time, particularly in the northeast. The places that observed Daylight Saving Time did not all start it on the same day of the year nor end it on the same day.]

[As the US economy became increasingly interconnected, particularly after World War II, the patchwork pattern of adoption began to cause noticeable problems and, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act so that Daylight Saving would begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. An entire state could continue to observe Standard Time year 'round, with Arizona and Indiana choosing to do so. The law was amended in 1986 to move the start date to the first Sunday in April but left the last end date to the last Sunday in October. Because Apollo 16 flew during April 1966, both Florida and Texas were observing Standard Time.]

105:28:25 England: I've been listening to you. It sounds great.

105:28:27 Duke: Tony...(Stops to listen)

105:28:29 Young: It's going to be enough to make geophysicists sit up and crow.

105:28:33 England: (Laughing) You've already done that.

105:28:35 Duke: You've never seen so many rocks, Tony. Some biggies, too.

105:28:42 England: Really sounds fine. I'm getting green (with envy) again. I tell you I wasn't green about 3 hours ago. (Pause) I'd say y'all earned your pay today.

105:29:04 Young: All those guys in the trenches, that figured out all that, earned their pay today, I'll tell you that.

105:30:07 Duke: Hey, Tony. Tell John Covington that this thing (Charlie's PLSS) is a piece of cake compared to his lightweight training unit.

105:30:15 England: (Laughs) Okay. I'll sure do that. He's running around here somewhere.

105:30:22 Young: You should see. Charlie just picked up his 130-pound backpack with one hand. (Pause)

[Duke - "John Covington was the engineer responsible for our cabin configuration checklists and donning and doffing the suits; and what I was referring to there was the (LMP) PLSS that was stowed (on the floor) between us. I was moving it; and I picked it up and it was a piece of cake compared to the light-weight training unit. It was a lot easier."]

[Jones - "Was your PLSS on the floor by the hatch? And John's was on the wall?"]

[Duke - "Yeah, I believe so. I don't remember."]

[Jones - "When you look at the PLSS is the pictures, there are what look like strips of Velcro on the back and, in John's case, I imagine that was to help hold it on the wall. Was the back side of yours down as well?"]

[As of December 2007, the ALSJ editors know that the Velcro on the back of both PLSS was not used for mounting the PLSSs anywhere but have not learned what purpose the Velcro was intended to serve. In 2009, Ken Thomas as able to shed some light on the subject.]

[Duke - "No, it was up. We had some pins and things in the floor, I remember; and a frame that it fit into."]

[Jones - "And you took that frame up at this point. That means you must be through with the switch configurations."]

[Duke - "Yeah, we're on page 1-9."]

[Jones - "Okay. (Reading) 'Stow arm rests. Stow COAS?' What was the COAS (Crewman Optical Alignment Sight)?"]

[Duke - "That is an optical sight that John would use (during rendezvous). You could move it...And you could put it in the window; and it was a boresight, really. You could use it to rendezvous on and get relative motion. Or, you could put it in the overhead window and you could use it to dock with (the CSM)."]

105:30:50 England: Okay. We copy that.

[Very Long Comm Break]

105:43:13 England: Right. I know what you mean. (Pause)

[Jones - "Does Tony's statement imply that he went through some of these LM activities at some point in the training cycle?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. He did that. Not with us; but he would practice so that he knew what it was like to doff and suit and to do all the activities, so that he could be familiar with it."]

[Jones - "Let's see, the support crew was assigned at the same time you were, so you worked with them through the whole training cycle."]

[Duke - "Yeah, mostly. I don't remember who they were. Tony might have been support, plus he was CapCom. Since he was sort of a geophysicist or whatever he was, he went on the geology trips with us."]

[The Apollo 16 support crew members were Don Peterson, Tony England, Phil Chapman, and Hank Hartsfield. In addition to his service as EVA CapCom, Tony was also the Mission Scientist.]

[Jones - "Did you and John have a hand in picking who the support people were?"]

[Duke - "John might have; I didn't."]

[In 1996, I wrote to Tony England. "I gather that, during training, you spent time in one or more of the LM simulators or mock-ups running through the procedures so that you would have first-hand knowledge of what was going on. Is this right? If so, did you have another member of the support crew in there with you? What other parts of the training do you go through? Any comments you have will be appreciated because I think it is important to know how you prepared for your part of the mission."]

[England - "The memory is getting a little fuzzy. I was always with the prime crew when they did their walk-throughs and lunar surface sims; I also performed all of the lunar surface procedures with just a trainer - including being suited during many of them. I remember doing all the EVA sims several times while suited. These were out on a simulated lunar surface behind the training building at KSC (Kennedy Space Center, Florida). I don't remember who played which role - we may have alternated because we wanted to experience both roles (CDR and LMP) - and I don't remember who my partner was. I believe we also used the training Rover around the jogging trail back there. I did these things because I thought it was important for me to know exactly what the crew was doing so that I could understand any problems they might be having. Also, the Backup crew (Haise, Roosa, and Mitchell), who knew that there wasn't another Apollo mission for them and, in the case of Mitchell and Roosa, already had flight experience, would sometimes allow me to substitute for the LM pilot (Mitchell), probably, in some of the less important exercises - (although) never for integrated sims. The comment about the jettison bag referred to there being a lot of junk to get rid of and the bag being so large when it was full that there wasn't room to swing the hatch in. Unlike the CSM hatch, the LM hatch swung inward."]

["I was the youngest astronaut and, I realized, not very experienced. I was trying to get as much experience as I could to try to avoid screwing something up on the mission. John, Charlie, and Ken - and everyone else associated with the mission for that matter - were so dedicated to assuring mission success, achieving good science, and aware that Apollo was ending, that we wanted to do the absolute best that we could. That was why I accepted doing the pad closeout - there was a name for that position but I can't remember what it was - as well as all the surface EVAs. In retrospect, I tried to do too much and would have been wiser had I skipped the closeout. But closeout stimulated emotions that I will never forget - both the grand ones associated with helping them get on their way, and the dismal one of feeling left behind as I tucked them in and watched them go."]

105:43:35 England: Okay; 21109. (Long Pause) When I went through that jettison business, I felt like I was throwing away half the cabin.

[Contrary to the impression that Tony gives, the only items being stowed in the jettison bag at this point are three armrests: John's left-hand armrest and both of Charlie's. Additional items will be put in the jettison bag during the EVA Prep which, because of the landing delay, won't be done until after the first rest period. Nonetheless, removal of the armrests probably makes the cabin seem larger.]

105:44:02 England: Okay; 22050. (Long Pause)

105:44:24 Young: Okay, Houston. Before we do the ETB part of the cabin prep, we are going to take our suits off (as per page 3-4).

105:44:29 England: Okay.

105:44:35 Young: If we'd been smart, we'd have took them off at the first part of this thing.

105:44:42 England: (Chuckles; Pause) Before you get your suits off there, you may want to bring that 500 millimeter forward from behind the engine cover there (as per the bottom of the left column on page 1-9).

[Jones - "Was the 500-mm lens on a separate camera?"]

[Duke - "It wasn't a separate camera. It was a separate lens. We'd just attach the lens to the Hasselblad."]

[Jones - "Did you have three Hasselblads out on the surface, one for each of you and one for the 500?"]

[Duke - "We might have. You're right; we had a separate...Gosh, now you've got me thinking."]

[Jones - "I can't imagine trying to change that lens once you get outside with all that dirt."]

[Duke - "I don't remember. What did they have on 17? 'Cause we had the same thing that they had."]

[Jones - "They had a third camera body, stowed under the Rover seat; but it took us a long time to figure that out."]

[Duke - "Well, that's what we had. Oh! I remember, because it didn't have a trigger on it. Yeah, it was a separate lens and a camera body and I had to hold it up like this (see below) and click it. I had to click the button. I practiced holding it like this."]

[Jones - "And what you were showing me was that you had your left arm forward, cradling the lens in your palm..."]

[Duke - "Yeah. I forgot which hand was forward. But, if I remember, it was probably like this because the little button was on the left. The lens would rest in my left hand and then the camera body would rest in the palm of my right hand..."]

[Jones - "And you could use your index finger to trigger it. I don't know if we ever see you use the 500 in the TV, but we'll watch for it."]

[Duke - "I don't think so."]

105:45:58 England: Good show.

[Long Comm Break]

105:53:25 England: And, I assume, all three are walking around. (Pause)

105:53:41 Duke: Well, not exactly. One of them is sort of lying there (on the engine cover, face down as per page 3-4).

[Comm Break]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It's a piece of cake getting out of those suits. It sure fills up the cockpit; they seem to be fatter than all those old training suits. We stowed them back on the engine cover, but we still had enough room to do everything."]

[A composite image (2.5 Mb) made by Ed Hengeveld from Apollo 17 post-EVA photos AS17-134-20522 and 25, giving a wide view from the LMP's station.]

105:55:19 England: Yes, we do, Charlie.

105:55:25 Duke: Okay. John should be back up here (on comm as per the second paragraph on page 3-5).

105:55:29 Young: Okay. I read you, Tony.

105:55:31 England: Very good, John. (Pause)

[They had planned to spend 30 minutes doffing the suits. John got out of his in only 10 minutes, in part because the suit is clean and the urine bags were only partly full.]

105:56:16 England: Okay. We have to talk about that here. (Long Pause) Yeah. There's no problem with that, John.

105:56:38 Young: Well, thank you. Just a shot, you know, like maybe 30 seconds worth, at a clip. (Long Pause)

105:57:10 England: Orion, Houston. (Pause)

105:57:18 Young: Go ahead, Tony.

105:57:20 England: Okay. On your Cabin Gas Return (Valve), we'd like to go to Auto.

[This step is at the bottom of the right column on page 3-4.]

105:57:32 England: Okay. And on the Suit Gas Diverter (Valve), to Cabin. (Pause)

105:57:45 Young: Okay, it's Push/Cabin.

105:57:46 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

105:58:37 Young: Okay, Houston. We've got an ECS (Environmental Control System) H2O Sep light (on). Isn't that because we got to go to Sep 2 or something while we're in this mode? (Pause)

105:58:54 England: Copy, John. We're working it. (Pause)

[The ECS contains two centrifugal water separators which remove excess water from the oxygen stream. As per the instruction near the middle of the left column on page 1-8, they are currently using Separator number 1.]

106:00:08 England: Okay, John. We'd like you to switch water separators. (Long Pause)

106:00:32 Young: Okay. We're in Pull to Sep 2.

106:00:35 England: Okay.

[Comm Break. The control used to select between the two separators is a push/pull control.]

106:03:36 England: Okay. We copy that. (Pause)

106:03:45 Young: Let me tell you what our configuration is here. We're in Pull/Sep 2. The Cabin Gas Return (Valve) is in Auto. We're on primary (ECS) LiOH cartridge. The Suit Circuit Relief (Valve) is in Auto. We're in Push to Cabin, and our hoses are stowed against the bulkhead.

106:04:03 England: Okay. We copy that. (Long Pause) Okay, John. Separator speed is slowly climbing up there. It looks like it will make it up all right. It's just a bit slow.

106:04:27 Young: Okay, fine. (Long Pause)

106:05:26 England: Orion, Houston.

106:05:30 Young: Speak, Tony.

106:05:34 England: Okay. They're thinking you may have the water-in-the-hose problem. They'd like you to drain the hoses down towards the floor. Maybe we can get some of that out of there. They'd also like you to hold your hand over the blue hose, to make sure you're getting good flow. (Long Pause)

[After John took his suit off, he stowed the LM hoses in attachments on the wall. Note that, on checklist page 3-4, near the bottom of the right column, they had the option of drying the suit out or stowing the hoses as per "Configure ECS for Sleep" on page 3-4. Because they have not done an EVA yet and the suits are dry, John mounted the hoses on the wall. See the discussion at 106:22:33. The blue hose carries the oxygen stream coming out of the ECS while the red hose carries the return flow.]

106:06:32 England: Five by, Charlie.

[It has also taken Charlie about ten minutes to get out of his suit.]

106:06:58 Young: Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me, too. (Long Pause)

106:07:16 England: Okay. Are you getting flow out of the blue hose?

106:07:30 Duke: That's affirmative.

106:07:31 Young: We're getting it out of there, but I feel the same way that Charlie does. It's got something trapped in there.

106:07:38 England: Yeah. Okay.

106:07:40 Young: And it (meaning the oxygen)'s coming out in pulses. Matter of fact, I can make it play what it sounds like for you. (Fluttering valve noise) Now what you hear there is the mike, right up against the hose and the hose blowing against the microphone. It's not a constant thing. It just sort of chattering like some valve in there is not doing its thing.

106:08:28 England: All right. We heard that, John. (Long Pause)

106:08:45 Young: Charlie's is the same way.

106:08:49 England: Okay, John. We'd like to go back to Egress on the Suit Gas Diverter (Valve), and give us a mark when you do it. (Pause)

106:08:58 Young: Okay. 3, 2, 1, Mark. Okay. That's Egress on the Suit Gas Diverter.

106:09:06 England: Okay. (Pause)

106:09:11 Young: Flow's good in Suit Gas Diverter.

106:09:14 England: Okay. We copy. (Pause) Okay. We understand. All your noise went away?

106:09:34 Young: Yeah. It doesn't chatter any more in the Push to Cabin valve.

106:09:41 England: Okay.

[Comm Break]

106:11:50 England: Okay. (Pause)

[According to the Mission Report, the problem was ultimately traced to the Cabin Gas Return Valve, which allows gas to flow from the cabin back into the ECS. Apparently, the valve was not functioning properly in the Auto position, probably because of contamination in the valve mechanism. Figure 14-38 from the Mission Report shows the flow paths and subsystem locations in the ECS/Cabin/Suit system. Figure 14-39 shows details of the Cabin Gas Return Valve operation. They will return to the problem at 106:48:11.]

106:12:19 England: (Chuckles) Okay.

106:12:25 Young: One of those 30g bags.

106:12:32 England: Well, it's nice to have a camera work. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "I take it that 500 was well padded?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. If I remember, the stowage configuration for this thing was like the Rock of Gibraltar. They were concerned that, if we hit hard and it rattled, it would break it."]

106:13:11 Duke: You got it.

106:13:13 England: Okay.

[Comm Break]

106:15:45 Young: Okay, Houston. I'm up to frame number 30 on mag A, Charlie's camera, and I just finished shooting sort of a partial pan out the front window. Man, this place is...It's not, anywhere, flat around here.

106:16:06 England: Very good, John. A-30.

[After undocking from the Command Module, John and Charlie took photos AS16-113-18279 to 18295 on Hasselblad magazine A, also listed in the catalogs as AS16-113. Here, they have taken photographs out the LM windows. John took 18296 to 18303 out the left window and Charlie took 18304 to 18310 out the right window. Dave Byrne has assembled a composite.]

[The Rover was designed to handle slopes of up to 26 degrees. They will drive to the vicinity of five small craters named the Cincos (Spanish for "Fives"), for their first stop on EVA-2.]

106:16:36 Young: That first bench is like about 10 degrees, but from there up to Cinco and Echo, it gets rather steep there.

106:16:45 England: How about boulders?

106:16:48 Young: It is like we described, as very benchy on Stone Mountain. Boulders: well, we landed in a block field, you know.

106:17:07 England: Right. (Pause) Can you see any up on Stone?

106:17:14 Young: No. Sure don't. Yeah. Maybe there is. When we get closer to it, we'll be able to tell better. I see some funny shadows up on top of it.

106:17:25 England: Any problems in trafficability out on the EVA-1 direction (west)?

106:17:27 Duke: Tony, I...(Stops to listen)

106:17:34 Young: It's gonna be a piece of cake, I think.

106:17:37 England: Beautiful.

106:17:40 Duke: Tony, the problem looks like finding a flat spot to deploy the ALSEP. It's just hummocky, rolling terrain with 4- or 5-meter ridges.

106:17:57 Young: Yeah, 100 meters from here, it (meaning the ALSEP)'s going to be on the side of a hill.

106:18:01 Duke: We can probably put it over to the left there, John. (To Houston) Tony, I looked out, down to about 4000 feet (during the landing at 104:27:03), assessing North Ray area. There were some large blocks, maybe 5 percent of the surface up around the rim. But, as you look back (south) towards Palmetto, they really petered out in a hurry, and I think we're going to be in good shape going that way (on EVA-3).

106:18:27 England: Good show.

106:18:32 Duke: One final comment here so I get back to work. About in my 1 o'clock position, about 30 meters out, just beyond the LM shadow - about twice as far as the LM shadow - there is a secondary crater with a large meter-sized block still in it. It looks like it formed the secondary, and it's got black and white...The top 3 percent or 5 percent of the block is black and white. Apparently, below that is solid white. Over.

106:19:03 England: Very good.

106:19:07 Duke: And those black-and-white blocks, you can see them all over the place.

[They will find these black-and-white breccias at many of their geology stops. These blocks were probably ejecta from South Ray Crater. Charlie comments on them again at 107:05:28.]

[Secondary craters are formed in the low-velocity impacts of ejecta from high-velocity, primary impacts. If the secondary impact is relatively oblique, it will gouge an elongated crater which will show the direction of flight of the ejecta fragment.]

[Jones - "I take it that you're talking about some practice craters..."]

[Duke - "Yeah. Behind the Mission Support Operations Building (at the Cape). Behind the Crew Training Building they had sort of a flat plain and there's where we played with our experiments - we put out the experiments. And then we'd get in the Rover and we'd drive back through the swamp. They had this road they'd cut through the palmettos and the marsh, and you'd drive along for a while and you'd get to a spot and it would sort of be a wide area and they'd have some clinkers or clunkers - you know, blocks of rock scattered around - and a simulated crater. So, you'd jump off the Rover and turn on the camera and do your experiments; you know, sample-taking and picture-taking and try to describe it to 'em. And a couple of those things they'd dug out with a bulldozer. Of course, with a bulldozer, you couldn't make it a round crater."]

["It looked like this rock that hit, if I remember, it hit and skidded around so the crater wasn't perfectly round."]

[Jones - "Deepest at the place where it hit?"]

[Duke - "No. It was shallowest (where it hit) and then got deeper."]

[Jones - "Burrowed in."]

[Jones - "Two other questions. The way Jack and Gene described it is that the exercises at the Cape were more operationally oriented; and, when you'd go out with the Rover and the backpacks to Sunset (Crater National Monument, Arizona) and other places, it was more geologically oriented."]

[Duke - "Yeah, that's correct. There wasn't any real geology at the Cape, you know; it was just...The Cape training was to learn the procedures of the ALSEP package and also to learn the techniques that you would use to operate the equipment. So it was techniques exercises, rather than geological. But, on the other hand, when you'd go out to Sunset or Jackass Flats (at the Nevada Test Site) or Hawaii or wherever you were, and those would be geological in nature. You were really looking at some good geology and you were trying to figure out what happened."]

[Jones - "And you just triggered another question. On the crater names, did you and John do a lot of that?"]

[Duke - "Yeah, we picked them. We sat down with Muehlberger and some of the other guys and I remember we picked most of them."]

[Muehlberger, from a 1996 e-mail - "Crater naming was always a project in which we wanted the astronaut crew to be the primary source for the names. Thus Charlie (always the prime 'mouthpiece'), John Young and Tony England (CapCom) were the ones we tried to get to name the craters. As you can tell, it is a mixture of crew background and some that I no longer have a clue either as to where the name came from. Spook is Tony England's nickname for his wife. Buster (I think) was their dog. The rest I can be of no help."]

[Jones - "Palmetto and Gator are reminiscent of..."]

[Duke - "Palmetto is my home state, South Carolina. And Gator was Florida for John. Lone Star was for the Lone Star state, Texas. And we had a Cat Crater...We were told we couldn't name them after our kids? Or our family. We couldn't name them after people. We had a Dot Crater which was for Dotty; and then I had a Cat Crater which was (Duke sons) Charles and Tom. John had one for Susie which I think was Spook. (Charlie is mistaken. See Muehlberger's comment above.) And then Stone Mountain, we picked that 'cause it looked like Stone Mountain in Georgia. And then, from the photographs, to the north, there was the Smokies were on beyond North Ray Crater and we picked 'Smokies' because, from the photographs it had this sort of bluish (cast)...It looked like the atmosphere in the (Great) Smoky Mountains (on the border between Tennessee and North Carolina). And then we had North Ray (Crater) and South Ray (Crater) which were self-explanatory (being surrounded by prominent rays of ejecta). And there was a Double Spot. Now, the Cincos (meaning the "fives") were the five little craters up on the side of Stone Mountain. (During pre-flight geology planning) they said, 'well, we want to go there' and well, we needed a name for it, so we sat around and thought up these names."]

[Jones - "There's a Commission of the International Astronomical Union that claims authority for approving names. And they had some rules about no-nos, like living people. So, was somebody paying attention to those rules?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. By the time they got around to us (meaning Apollo 16), those guys were really protecting their turf. You know: 'We have the real authority to name those craters.' And our attitude was: (chuckling) 'You know what you can do with your authority!' We tried to abide by the rules, which is why we sort of camouflage it. And I don't believe they were ever officially given those names or not. I know that, for our training, we certainly used them. But whether that society ever put those names on an official map, I don't know."]

[The following is an editorial comment.]

[My attitude is that, as long as the Moon was being explored telescopically, approval of feature names properly belonged to the International Astronomical Union. However, once the Apollo crews landed, it became their prerogative to choose names for previously unnamed features at their landing sites and along the Command Module ground tracks.]

[We return, now, to my conversation with Charlie.]

[Jones - "Did you train at Sunset Crater near Flagstaff? That's the pretty cinder cone volcano with basalt flows around it."]

[Duke - "Yeah, we did; and we went to Meteor Crater (an impact feature near Holbrook, Arizona). We did a traverse up to the rim and then around the rim. Which simulated a Moon crater."]

[Jones - "Did you do a similar thing at Sedan Crater at the NTS (Nevada Test Site)?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. I've forgotten exactly what craters we visited out there (at NTS), but we did similar things."]

[Sedan Crater is 320 feet (98 meters) deep and 1280 feet (390 meters) across and was created on July 6, 1962 by the explosion of a nuclear explosive buried 635 feet (194 meters) below the surface in desert alluvium. The accompanying U.S. Department of Energy photographs are an aerial view ( 202k ) and a view from the rim ( 188k ). Several of the crews visited the Nevada Test Site to study craters like Sedan.]

[Duke - "And then we did Sunset Crater (and) I think it was more just understanding volcanics. We did traverses but it was, you know, looking at outcrops and sampling at various stops around the place. We did two trips, I think, to Flagstaff. And it was on one of those trips we went out to Meteor Crater and spent a day or two. We'd been out to Meteor Crater earlier (long before Charlie's assignment to the Apollo 13 backup crew) with sort of a gaggle of guys; but that was just basic geology and we walked down to the bottom of the crater. When we were actually training for Apollo, we made it realistic. We knew we could never get down into a crater like that on the Moon, so we didn't do it in our training, simulating an actual EVA."]

106:20:03 England: Oh, come on. You always got it.

106:20:08 Young: After about 2 or 3 hours, we always got it. (Pause)

[Jones - "John's comment here suggests that, on some of your geology exercises, they'd dump you out with a map but didn't tell you exactly where you were."]

[Duke - "That's right. Just to help us with map reading and figuring out how to adjust traverses. And that would give us training, and it would give the Backroom training. They'd put us out close, but they'd make it so we had to figure out where we were. And that was good training."]

106:20:27 Young: Charlie's loading the ETB (as per the right column of page 2-1). Can't but one guy do that at a time because it's too crowded over there.

106:20:32 England: Rog. Okay. The one thing we would like you to see if you could decide before you get out is where you would put ALSEP. (Long Pause)

106:21:19 Young: Well, we'll keep looking at it; but the trouble is, right in front of us, about 50 meters, there's a ridge, and I don't know what's on the other side of that ridge. Out about 100 meters, I can see a lot of blocks, but I can't tell whether there are craters out there or not, because we're at zero phase. I just don't think we could make a prediction at this point.

106:21:45 England: Okay. We copy that. (Long Pause)

106:22:19 Young: Those blocks around South Ray are about the whitest blocks I've ever seen, around the rim of that one. (Pause)

106:22:33 England: Okay. And, John, about the time we saw that separator spinning down, we saw a rise in the suit loop pressure. We'd like you to confirm that you connected the suit hoses, blue-to-blue and red-to-red. (Pause) The stowage on the wall.

[Here, Tony is asking if the blue suit hose was attached to the blue wall mount and similar for the red hose.]

106:22:58 England: Okay.

106:22:59 Duke: That was on the wall. Now they are disconnected. The blues are disconnected at this point.

106:23:04 England: Okay. We copy.

[Comm Break]

106:25:43 Young: Roger, Tony.

[Comm Break. As was the case on the prior missions, the TV camera is mounted in the MESA so that Houston could watch the astronauts descend the ladder.]

[Duke - "Since we were powered down (to conserve LM battery power in the aftermath of the late landing), we weren't going to do that (meaning watch John's initial descent to the surface, the Rover deployment, etc.). We were going to wait until we got it (meaning the TV and the LCRU) on to the Rover before we would have the TV."]

[See Tony England's transmission at 116:15:01 for a full explanation of Houston's reasons for deleting use of the TV prior to the time John and Charlie mount it on the Rover.]

106:27:40 England: Okay; we'll work that a second. (Long Pause) Okay, Charlie. That looks good here.

106:28:28 Duke: Okay. I'm going to optimistically leave the walking traverse map in the cabin.

106:28:34 England: All right.

[Jones - "Did you do much training for walking traverses?"]

[Duke - "No."]

[Jones - "Just talked about it?"]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

[Comm Break]

106:31:49 England: Okay, very good. (Long Pause)

106:32:08 Duke: And you know, in training, I could barely lift this thing, and, in one-sixth(-g), it's one finger. (Pause)

106:32:21 England: Just tells me we should do more work on the Moon.

106:32:26 Duke: Boy, I'll say.

[Comm Break]

106:33:34 England: Right now, it's looking pretty good.

[Comm Break]

106:35:33 England: Okay. I've got a little bit of a checklist change I'd like to read up to you here when you're ready. It's in the Surface Checklist.

106:35:42 Duke: Go ahead.

106:35:45 England: Okay. This debriefing with Houston (on checklist page 3-5 in the middle of the left column) will be at 106:28. The time now is 106:35, so we're real close on that. Your eat period is to start 106:43. And then the PLSS and O2 and H2O recharge we'll skip. The feedwater recharge we'll skip. On to the next page ( 3-6 ). The Pre-sleep at 107:28, and we'll skip the computer work there, that first line under Pre-sleep. And the rest period will begin at 107:53. And number 8, the next step (at the start of page 3-7) will be at 115:53. That will be post-sleep. Again, in that section, three-quarters of the way down the (left column of the) page, we'll skip the computer work. And the eat period will be at 116:18.

106:36:54 Duke: Stand by. Hey, you lost me, Tony. Okay. Here we go on page 3-7, Post-sleep. Go ahead.

106:37:03 England: Roger. Post-sleep on page 3-7. Step 8 there - or my number 8 - is at 115:53, that's post-sleep. And then three-quarters of the way down that page under post-sleep, there is some computer work, "Pro, Verb 37 Enter". We'll drop all of that. Eat period will begin at 116:18. And the last line on that column is "top-off PLSS O2" (which) we'll delete. Okay. On the EVA-2 Planning with Houston, we'll skip all that, and then we'll don suits on the next page 3-5. We'll don suits at 117:03. (Pause) Okay, and at the end of that page...

106:37:54 Duke: We copy.

106:37:57 England: ...Okay, and at the end of that page we'll go to page 2-5 (to start the pre-EVA-1 tasks). (Pause)

106:38:07 Duke: Okay.

106:38:08 England: Okay, and (on 2-5) we'll prep for EVA-1 at 117:53, and then, from then on, we're nominal. (Pause)

106:38:26 Duke: Okay. At 2-5, what was the time?

106:38:29 England: 117:53.

106:38:36 Duke: Okay, copy. Let me go through this now. (Pause) Okay. We've doffed the PGAs. EVA debriefing with Houston comes next as step 2. Step 3 is the eat period.

106:39:00 England: Okay, Charlie.

106:39:01 Duke: Turn the page. Step 4...(Stops to listen) Go ahead.

106:39:05 England: Okay. Just to get our steps numbered straight here, I guess, assigning numbers to these things. Debriefing with Houston is step 4, eat period is step 5. And the times you read were right, and then the Pre-sleep is step 6 and each number goes on from there.

106:39:26 Duke: Okay. Pre-sleep is 6, (animated) then we wake up for post-sleep! And that's number 7.

106:39:33 England: Roger. Rest period is number 7.

106:39:36 Duke: And we got a...(Stops to listen) Oh, okay; rest period is 7. I see. Okay. And then 8 is post-sleep?

106:39:46 England: That's affirmative.

106:39:50 Duke: And skipping the computer activity stuff, number 9 is the eat period; and we delete the "top-off the PLSS"; we turn the page, we skip...Well, we skip EVA-2 planning; we turn the page and that step, don suits, is next.

106:40:11 England: Right; that's number 10.

106:40:13 Duke: And that's step 10. (Pause) Okay. Then we go to 2-5, and we're just about back to nominal, then.

106:40:23 England: Rog. And that's step 11 on 2-5.

106:40:28 Duke: Copy.

106:40:32 England: Okay, have a good meal.

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "We had a few changes because of landing six hours late. They had us power down the AC bus and also the LGC DSKY breaker to save power, and all that worked just great. I thought those procedures came up in good shape. We just floated right through the checklist for those changes and then we were right on."]