Return to the LM

EVA-2 Close-out

 

Geology Station 10 near the ALSEP Site

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1997 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 16 June 2014.

[The planned Station 10 activities are shown on cuff checklist pages LMP-18 and LMP-19. Charlie will start with a double core. John's trenching task has been dropped.]

148:57:15 Young: Okay, Houston. Going to (LCRU Mode switch position) 3 (FM/TV).

148:57:18 England: Okay. (Brief burst of static; Pause)

[TV on.]

[As shown in Figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report, John has parked about 60 meters from the LM. When the TV comes on, the spacecraft is at the left side of the picture. For reference, at 60 meters the 7-meter-tall LM subtends 6.7 degrees.]

148:57:33 Duke: Okay, lets see. There's the core. I need the (garbled). Okay; we got them.

148:57:47 Duke: And I'm starting on the double core, Tony.

148:57:50 England: Okay, that sounds good. (Pause) And, John, since we're running behind here, I wonder if you can operate the penetrometer.

148:58:07 Duke: (Possibly while he assembles the double core) A piece of cake.

148:58:10 Young: (Responding to Tony) Yeah.

[The TV image moves up and down as John dusts. He then swings the TV around to the right and dusts the lens with the big dustbrush. Once John finishes, Fendell pans left, probably to get to the counter-clockwise stop so he can start a full pan.]

148:58:23 Duke: Tony, how about an extension, you guys? We're feeling good.

148:58:26 England: Oh, we understand and we can understand why you wouldn't want to get back in, but we'd like you to get back in on time. And you've got a lot of science (done) there, so don't worry about it. (Pause)

[Fendell reaches the CCW limit and promptly starts a clockwise pan.]

148:58:52 England: Well, we like to hear you talk.

148:58:57 Duke: Tony, we could really...

148:58:59 Young: (Responding to Tony) Yeah, especially on a hot mike, huh? (Laughs)

148:59:01 England: That just makes it more interesting.

148:59:05 Duke: Ten minutes (extension) and we could get all this done, Tony. How about 10 minutes, Tony? Please. (Pause)

[In Houston, TELMU informs Flight that the current record for an EVA is 7 hours 12 minutes. Clearly, Houston understands the crew's interest in staying out a little longer.]

[John crosses the TV field-of-view from right to left, headed for the back of the Rover.]

[John has just noticed that his SCB had fallen off his PLSS sometime during the drive from Station 9 but ended up wedged on the inside of the left-rear fender.]

148:59:23 Young: Somebody up there likes us. That bag number 4, see where it is?

148:59:29 Duke: Came off, huh?

148:59:30 Young: Came off, (incredulous) and it's hanging between the fender and the frame.

148:59:36 Duke: That is amazing.

148:59:37 Young: Yeah.

148:59:41 Duke: Okay, can I have your hammer? (Looking at LMP-18 and LMP-19) "Double core"...Okay, can be anywhere out in front of the Rover. I'll go out in front of the Rover and do (garbled) (Pause)

148:59:55 Young: (Garbled)

[In Houston, Flight has been talking to the Surgeon about a 10-minute extension. The Surgeon says that his only concern is that it not shorten the sleep period.]

149:00:01 England: We're working it! (Getting the go-ahead from Flight) Okay, we'll go ahead and give you 10 minutes.

149:00:06 Young: Tony, is...

149:00:07 England: How's that? Just shows that we love you.

149:00:10 Duke: Atta boy. Let's hear it for old Flight. An "atta boy" for Flight.

149:00:18 England: (Cheering) Yea! (Pause)

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149:00:26 Duke: (To Tony) Okay.

[After scanning across the South Ray ejecta blanket. Fendell is not looking at the ALSEP array. Charlie crosses the field-of-view from right to left carrying the double core. As shown in Figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report, he will take the double core 10 meters south of the Rover at the spot marked "DT (Drive Tube) 60010/60009."]

149:00:32 Duke: Well, I've got the double core right now.

[John's Station 10 tasks were the trenching and a pan.]

149:00:38 Young: Okay; well, this would be an opportunity for me...(Stops to listen)

149:00:39 England: ...and do everything else as nominal.

[John may have decided to start with the pan or, possibly, to do some sampling.]

149:00:49 Young: I think you will. (Pause)

[Charlie is concerned that the number of rocks on the surface indicates a high probability of running into subsurface rocks with the core tube.]

149:00:59 Young: Let me do that, and you do the penetrometer because I know how to do that one.

149:01:02 Duke: Okay. That's a good swap. (Pause)

[John is saying that he hadn't done much, if any, training with the penetrometer but had done some coring.]

[Charlie has probably backed up to take a cross-Sun "before".]

149:01:22 Young: Sure do.

149:01:23 Duke: Okay, how about spinning it once for me. (Long Pause)

[Duke - "The red dot is something to do with the winding mechanism. When it was winding, if I remember, there was a red dot (showing). And if that stayed there, it hadn't wound all the way, and so it wouldn't work. But you could manually wind it to the next frame, and that would generally reset the thing and then you could pull the trigger and then it would work. But you couldn't do it yourself. So the other fellow had to wind it for you. And it was like a manual wind on the top of the electric one."]

[Jones - "On the film cassette."]

[Duke - "I think. I don't really remember where it was, but I think it was."]

[Journal Contributor Markus Mehring suggests that the "red dot is a readout on the right side of each magazine, right between the top reel and the bottom indicator for 'frames shot/remaining'. It must be hard - if not impossible - to observe if the camera is attached to the RCU, unless you use the wrist-mirror. See a discussion of the wrist mirrors following 163:19:53 in the A17LSJ. Parenthetically, I wonder if the astronauts could feel the vibrations of the motor through their suit, validating proper film transport?. With regard to the manual film transport Charlie describes, I have absolutely no idea of how that would have been accomplished, and why an astronaut couldn't have done that himself. There's no mechanism for manual film transport on this generation of Hasselblads, so this might have been an improvised workaround, maybe by pressing your finger(s) or thumb flat onto the reel attachment and then turning it. That would indeed be quite difficult with the gloves on in a pressurized suit, and you'd possibly need a helping hand, especially if the camera is still attached to the RCU."]

[Fendell reaches the clockwise stop and is looking north, over the back of the Rover. John and Charlie are both at the core tube site.]

149:01:43 Duke: That got it, though.

149:01:45 Young: Got it.

149:01:46 Duke: Super. (Pause)

[After John advanced the film - which caused frame AS16-115-18554 to be blank - Charlie took two test pictures, AS16-115- 18555 and 18556. In 18555, note that the rock that is just right and below center, with a smaller rock in front of it, is at the upper left in 18557, which is the cross-Sun.]

[Fendell starts panning left.]

[Charlie takes a cross-Sun stereopair, AS16-115- 18557 and 18558. In 18557, we see that he has pushed the first section of the core in about 2/3rds of the way by hand. The rock at the upper left may be the one below center and to the right in 18555. John is in the background.]

149:01:55 Young: Yeah.

149:01:58 Duke: Okay; now the stuff to...(Brief Pause while Charlie searches for a word)

149:02:01 Young: (Finishing the thought) Take it apart with.

149:02:02 Duke: ...take it apart with, it's back in the back (of the Rover).

149:02:03 Young: Okay.

[My thanks to Ken Glover for sorting out Charlie's meaning. A comma after 'with' and an apostrophe in 'it's' makes all the difference.]

149:02:12 Young: Understand.

149:02:13 Duke: And the top of the bottom one is back here next to the LSM (Lunar Surface Magnetometer).

149:02:17 Young: Okay.

[Charlie crosses the field-of-view from left to right. He is going to get the penetrometer, which is mounted on the back of the Rover.]

[The "top of the bottom one" is the top end closure of the bottom core tube as shown at the left in Figure 15 in Judy Allton's Tool Book. Had this lower section been used by itself, Charlie would have left the top end closure on the tube so he could fit it into the extension handle.]

[Charlie is asking Tony which of the cone-shaped tips he should use on the penetrometer. See Figure 8-1 in the Preliminary Science Report and the Station 4 discussion following 144:24:38.]

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149:02:38 Duke: Well; no, I took the 0.2 off.

149:02:41 England: Okay, fine.

149:02:42 Duke: I don't have anything on here now.

149:02:44 England: Fine, let's press for the 0.5.

[Fendell finds John south of the Rover, where he is hammering on the double core. Stone Mountain is behind him and the South Ray ejecta blanket is visible on the right edge of the picture. John stops hammering for a moment and re-adjusts his grip. He then resumes hammering. We can see that there is no SCB on the left side of his PLSS and that an attachment strap is hanging down. NASA photo S72-33898 shows Charlie driving a double core during training at the Kennedy Space Center on 22 March 1972.]

[John delivers five more blows and then stops to re-adjust his grip.]

[While talking to Tony, John delivered three more blows and then stopped and transferred the hammer to his left hand.]

[John delivers three left-handed blows.]

[John transfers the hammer back to his right hand and positions the head so he can hit the extension handle with the head rather than the flat. The surface area of the head is only about a quarter of the area of the flat. See Figure 34 in Judy Allton's Tool Book. For scale, the total length of the hammer is 39 cm. The extension handle is shown in Figure 29. For scale, the extension handle is 76 cm long and the T handle is 15.5 cm long.]

[John delivers five accurate blows and then stops to rest. A comparison with video of Charlie and others using the flat of the hammer to drive core tubes into the ground is another indication of John's incredible ability to work effectively in the suit.]

149:03:23 Young: That figures.

[John resumes hammering, righthanded, with the head.]

[After delivering eight more blows, John stops briefly and then, on the next blow, loses his grip on the down stroke. The hammer hits the ground at his feet with considerable force.]

149:03:40 Duke: I did the same...

149:03:41 Young: Whoa!

[The hammer bounces and almost ends up upright with the handle sticking up in easy reach. John tries to get it to stop rotating - with his "Whoa!" - but, after a tantalizing moment of hesitation, it finally falls.]

[John circles the hammer and gets into position east of it so he can bob down to his right knee and grab it. He does so with ease and, as he rises, he takes a couple of small steps forward to get his feet under his center of gravity. This is a classic piece of John Young in action. See the discussion following 119:24:37.]

[John has resumed his hammering, righthanded, and delivers nine blows before stopping for a bit of rest. This series is not as accurate as the ones he struck before dropping the hammer.]

149:04:12 Duke: Dadgummit! That thing came off again.

[John switches the hammer to his left hand and delivers two blows with the flat before he stops and reaches back with his right hand to increase the flow rate of cooling feedwater.]

[Charlie seems to be having some kind of trouble with the penetrometer but made no comment about it in the post-mission Technical Debrief or in the Mission Report.]

149:04:23 Young: Now I'm on Intermediate cooling, Houston.

[John delivers six more left-handed blows with the flat and then stops briefly.]

[John resumes hammering.]

[John stops and steps back.]

149:04:38 Duke: That's far enough!

149:04:39 Young: Drive it all the way in?

149:04:41 Duke: Yeah, they don't want any more than that.

149:04:42 England: Okay, that looks good. (Pause)

[John grabs the extension handle with his right hand and starts to pull up. The core resists him and he steps in until he is almost straddling it. He jerks the core tube upward a couple of times, leaning to his left to compensate for the fact that the extension handle is higher off the ground after each pull. In a final effort, he pulls the core loose and, in the process, actually leaves the ground.]

[As the core comes out of the ground, a noticeable amount of dirt falls to the surface but, as John reports at 149:06:27, none of that dirt is actually coming out of the core but, rather, is material that came out on the outside of the tube because of friction.]

[John rests the bit end on the surface. The top of the extension handle is at about eye level. The total length is a bit less than the 160 cm sum of the 76 cm of the extension handle plus 42 cm apiece for the core tubes.]

149:04:53 Duke: Yeah, that's the amazing part. (Pause)

149:05:00 Young: That is amazing. (Pause)

[John backs up to take an "after" of the hole from the south.]

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149:05:35 Young: Okay.

[John inverts the double core while Fendell zooms in on the core hole. John is using magazine 114 and, apparently, doesn't actually take a picture of the hole. He starts running toward the Rover and goes out of view to the right.]

[Charlie crosses the field-of-view from right to left, carrying the penetrometer, and John follows.]

149:06:02 Young: Where are the core caps at, Charlie?

149:06:04 Duke: In the HTC. How about an answer, Tony?

149:06:09 England: Say again, Charlie.

[Charlie has his back to us but he is clearly adjusting the recording drum.]

149:06:13 England: Yeah, 9's good, Charlie.

149:06:14 Duke: I'm going to bypass 9 and go to 10.

149:06:17 England: Okay, that's fine, too.

149:06:18 Duke: I just passed it on. I'm going to go to 10. (Hearing Tony) Okay. (Pause) Let's see, there's...

149:06:27 Young: Okay, it's full in the bottom of it, anyway.

[Charlie positions the penetrometer about two meters east of the double-core hole.]

149:06:38 Duke: It is, within 3 meters...2 meters.

149:06:42 England: That's fine.

149:06:43 Duke: Is that okay? (Hearing Tony) Okay.

149:06:48 Young: Look at that! The core tube caps go on and everything. (Long Pause)

[Charlie positions his left hand on the top of the penetrometer and then covers that hand with his right. He then pushes firmly on the penetrometer six times and gets a total penetration of perhaps 30 to 40 cm.]

[Duke - "I had to really push. It didn't go real steady. It's supposed to be a real steady push on that penetrometer; but you can see I pushed on it two or three times."]

[Jones - "It's tall enough that you couldn't really lean on it."]

[Duke - "Well, that's what I was trying to do. You see? There's a push. There's another push. I was trying to get on top of it. And then another push. Another one."]

[Jones - "So this is mostly arm force, rather than body weight."]

[In Octobert 2012, Journal Contributor Keith Hearn called attention to digitized records from the penetrometers used on Apollos 15 and 16 are now available on the National Space Science Data Center website. The data recorded here at Station 10 shows that Charlie did, indeed, push on the penetrometer six times. "The X (horizontal) dimension is the stress applied, and Y is the depth. Starting from the top, you can see that he pushed it down to around 7.2cm, then let up the force, resulting in the horizontal line there, then pushed down to 10.3cm and let up, and so on. And sure enough, the data shows that he did six pushes" The final depth he reached was about 22 cm.

149:07:04 Duke: Okay, that bottomed it out, Tony.

149:07:06 England: Okay, we can see that.

149:07:07 Duke: On the 0.5 (tip).

149:07:08 England: That looks good. Why don't we go to a 0.2 (tip) and do it just in the same place.

[Charlie pushes on the penetrometer one last time.]

149:07:19 England: Work towards the deep core (hole).

[Charlie heads for the back of the Rover, using his skipping stride as he goes out of view to the right.]

149:07:26 England: It should be.

149:07:28 Duke: I can't remember. We don't have it on...On EVA-3, we don't use it, huh?

149:07:33 England: Not right now.

[Fendell pans right. Tony is leaving open the possibility that a penetrometer measurement might be added to EVA-3. Charlie wants to see how far he can throw a small object like the tip and Tony is suggesting that he shouldn't throw it just yet.]

149:07:45 Young: Yeah, that rammer-jammer only went in an inch!

149:07:49 Duke: That's okay.

[The rammer-jammer is a thin rod, shown in Figure 18 in Judy Allton's Tool Book. John inserted the rammer-jammer into a hole in the fitting on the top of the double core and pushed a sliding "keeper" firmly onto the top of the soil column. Recall that John has already put a cap on the open end of the bottom section.]

[The keeper has to go all the way into the core tube so John can remove the top end closure and install a cap. The top end closure is shown in Figure 15 in the Tool Book while the Apollo 16/17 caps are shown in Figure 17.]

149:07:52 Duke: Yeah. Well, you got it so full...(Stops to listen to Tony) You probably got it so full...(Pause)

[John drove the core tube a little too deeply.]

149:08:04 Duke: Nah. You're going to leave that cap (meaning the top end closure) on it, anyway.

149:08:07 Young: That's what I thought. That cap stays on.

149:08:09 Duke: Yeah. Until it gets back to Houston.

[Fendell zooms in on the drill and the drill-stem rack and, then, without pulling back on the zoom, pans right.]

149:08:16 Duke: Going to (recording drum position) 11, Tony.

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149:08:17 England: Okay.

[Charlie crosses the TV field-of-view from right to left to do a penetrometer measurement with the 0.2 tip.]

[With the keeper in the upper section rammed into position, John has now disassembled the double core by unscrewing the two sections.]

[John is asking Charlie where he put the top end closure of the lower core-tube section when he assembled the double core at about 148:58:07.]

[As can be seen in AS16-107- 17446, the LPM is at the back of the Rover on the top right corner of the tool pallet. The Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM) is the large instrument they deployed at the ALSEP site.]

[Fendell stops his pan, pulls back on the zoom, and pans left to find Charlie. However, before he finds him, the ALSEP experimenters ask if he can give them a close-up of the Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) and, when Flight agrees to the request, Fendell stops and pans right.]

149:08:48 Duke: Okay. Right by the LSM, by the LPM, there's a screw on (top end closure that's) just like on the top part.

149:08:56 Young: Yeah.

149:08:57 Duke: Okay. That screws back in the (top of the) bottom part.

149:09:00 Young: Yeah, but what...(Long Pause)

[Fendell zooms in on the Central Station and then, after a prompt from Flight, moves his aim slightly to the left to pick up the PSE. The RTG is to the right of the Central Station. Charlie crosses the field-of-view from left to right so he can help John.]

[Charlie crosses-the field-of-view from right to left, headed back to do the penetrometer measurement.]

[After a few seconds, during which time someone on the Experiments team has probably taken a picture off the TV monitor - Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans left to find Charlie.]

149:09:46 England: Okay. Sounds good, Charlie. (Pause)

[Fendell finds Charlie near the spot where he did the first penetrometer test. He is leaning forward on the penetrometer, giving it a push every second or so. As it goes farther into the ground, he moves his feet farther back so that he can continue to put his full weight on the instrument. He weighs about 30 pounds and his suit and backpack, combined, weigh another 30 pounds.]

[John is asking where he should stow the core sections.]

149:10:01 Young: Okay. (To Houston) The numbers of these things...(Pause)

[After getting the penetrometer almost all the way into the ground, Charlie stands.]

149:10:10 England: Okay, Charlie. We see that.

149:10:11 Young: Okay, the upper one was 45; the bottom one was (0)4.

149:10:18 England: Okay, John. Sounds good.

[Charlie leans to his left and slowly pulls the penetrometer out of the ground. He slides the plate to the end of the rod.]

149:10:30 England: That's fine, Charlie. We see the problem.

[Charlie hops sideways toward the drill holes.]

[Charlie positions the penetrometer, puts both hands on the top and, with the first push, gets it more than a half meter. The approximate locations of his penetrometer tests are shown in Figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report and are labeled "Pen 1", "Pen 2", and so on.]

149:11:05 Young: Understand.

[Charlie pushes three more times, making some progress with the first two, and then stands.]

149:11:10 England: Okay.

[Charlie pulls the penetrometer out of the ground.]

149:11:14 Duke: Cycling to (drum position) 13. (Long Pause)

[After advancing the recording drum, Charlie moves toward a point midway between the Rover and the deep core site. He uses his skipping stride. Fendell follows. After running about 10 meters, he stops, checks his location and then positions the penetrometer on the surface.]

149:11:36 England: (Passing on a request from Lovell in the Backroom) Hey, John. While you're sampling...

149:11:37 Duke: Okay, I'm...(Stops to listen)

149:11:38 England: ...there, you might look around and see if you see any of that vesicular basalt.

149:11:46 Young: That's what I'm a looking for.

149:11:49 England: Good show. (Telling a small fib) I told them you were.

[Charlie puts his weight on the penetrometer, which slides all the way into the ground. As it gets near full depth, Charlie loses his balance and starts rotating slowly to his right.]

[Charlie catches himself with his right hand and, with his weight supported, kicks his feet around to his right to stop his rotation.]

149:11:59 England: We see that one went all the way in.

149:12:03 Duke: Not quite. (Long Pause)

[Charlie sounds quite relaxed. He gets into a push-up position, with his weight on his hands and toes and his knees slightly off the ground. He pushes back but, with his knees elevated, doesn't get much rotation at the waist and, consequently, doesn't get his center-of-gravity behind his knees. His rotation stops and he falls back onto his hands. Once his hands are on the ground, he lets himself rotate forward until his feet are off the ground. He then kicks his feet up, as they fall, he pushes up with his hands. His chest rises a meter or so off the ground and, at that point, he tries to run forward to catch himself. He doesn't make it and falls forward. As his hands touch the ground again, he lets himself rotate all the way down and then pushes back, hard, and jerks his legs forward as his head and shoulders rotate up. This maneuver gets his knees under his center-of-gravity and, finally, he is able to jump to his feet. The entire sequence, from his first push back to the time he is on his feet takes just under 10 seconds. He hops back until he can see the penetrometer.]

[Note that Charlie has not been wearing a camera while taking the penetrometer measurements.]

[Duke - "You couldn't push on the penetrometer with the camera on. It was impossible. So I took the camera off; and that's why I was able to get up. With the camera on, I probably wouldn't have been able to get up - without getting on a slope or without John helping."]

149:12:22 England: Okay.

149:12:23 Duke: That one was smooth.

149:12:24 England: Okay. And, John, stand by for a feedwater tone.

149:12:30 Young: Just got it!

149:12:32 England: How's that (for a timely call)?

149:12:34 Young: I hope. (John laughs; Pause)

149:12:43 England: And go on Aux water.

[Charlie pulls the penetrometer out of the ground, slides the plate to the end of the rod, and adjusts the recording drum.]

149:12:48 Young: (Responding to Tony) Okay.

149:12:49 Duke: ...cycling to (drum position) 14.

149:12:52 England: Okay, Charlie. (Long Pause)

[Charlie is running toward the deep core site, sometimes loping and sometimes skipping. The choice of stride may depend on local variations in slope. He stops a couple of meters south of the drill.]

149:13:12 England: Okay. That sounds good.

149:13:13 Duke: The ground's pretty beat up with...(Stops to listen) Okay, but it's pretty beat up with footprints. Should I go to a pristine area or stay here?

149:13:23 England: Just move it over out of the footprints.

[Tony made this call on his own. As he speaks, Lovell says that Charlie's first spot was okay. Charlie hops forward during his next transmission.]

149:13:32 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Charlie may have moved 3 or 4 meters. He is now north of the drill and positions the penetrometer. As he pushes on it, it begins to slide into the ground, albeit not as quickly as at the previous spot.]

[Charlie may be using less force as he feels the penetrometer slide into the ground, trying not to fall forward this time.]

[Charlie winds up on his knees, with his PLSS far enough back that his center-of gravity is over his knees. From that position, he should be able to lean back slightly and then stand. However, Charlie has not become proficient at this maneuver.]

149:13:56 Duke: Bet I can't get up. (Pause)

[Charlie leans back until the bottom of his PLSS is touching his heels. He is unsure he'll be able to get up from that position but, after a few seconds, decides to give it a try. He uses his leg muscles to push his torso up and as he rises, kicks his feet forward under his body. On Earth, the maneuver would be very difficult. On the Moon, it is relatively easy and was used on numerous occasions by the Apollo 17 crew.]

[Charlie heads for the Rover, passing one of the abandoned heat flow holes on the way.]

149:14:13 Duke: Poor ol', heat flow.

[Charlie stops, turns to his left, and runs toward the Central Station. Fendell follows, but overshoots.]

149:14:24 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

[As shown in Figure 8-1 in the Preliminary Science Report, Charlie will attach a 2.54 by 12.7 cm flat plate to the tip of the penetrometer. The plate will not penetrate very far into the soil but will provide independent estimates of the bearing strength and compressibility of the surface layers.]

149:14:40 England: Okay. We understand.

[Fendell pans left to find Charlie, but overshoots again. Charlie is standing on the south side of the Central Station and is looking at the heat flow connector.]

149:14:55 England: Okay. We copy that. (Pause)

[Figure 14-51 shows the configuration of the cable break Charlie is describing. See, also, the discussion following the accident at 121:21:37.]

[Fendell pans right but, just as the Central Station comes into view, Charlie goes off-screen to the left, headed for the double core site immediately south of the Rover. Fendell gives up trying to follow Charlie and pans right.]

[Charlie crosses the field-of-view from left to right. He is back at the Rover and is going to the back of the vehicle to store the penetrometer. Fendell stops his pan to examine the large boulder north of the ALSEP site and about 30 meters west of the present Rover position. See Figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report. Fendell pans right.]

[John has been looking for a sample of vesicular basalt, a rock type that would indicate the presence of lava flows in the area as some of the geologists had expected. Vesicles are the imprints of gas bubbles that form near the surface of a cooling lava flow.]

149:16:04 Young: But, Charlie. I just don't see any vesicular basalt.

149:16:07 Duke: I don't either.

149:16:08 Young: It's sort of like 'they're always there when you need them'. (Pause)

[John may have been trying to recall the expression, "How come there's never a policeman around when you need one?"]

[Fendell finds Charlie at the back of the Rover adjusting the penetrometer. Just as Fendell stops, Charlie goes out of view to the left, headed for the double-core site south of the Rover.]

149:16:38 Duke: Okay. That's the flat plate, Tony, and I'm...(Stops to listen)

149:16:39 England: ...that penetration, we can go ahead and take your pans.

149:16:47 Young: Okay, Houston.

149:16:48 Duke: Cycling to (drum position) 15.

149:16:50 England: Okay. Good show.

[Fendell pans left. Off-camera, Charlie is looking for the double-core hole.]

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149:17:13 England: Okay, Charlie.

149:17:22 Duke: (Grunting) Okay, that was a pretty good one. I think it's going to turn out; and it went in about (pause) 6 centimeters.

149:17:37 England: Outstanding. (Pause)

[Fendell finds Charlie just as he starts to run back to the Rover. About halfway back, Charlie stops and reconfigures the penetrometer.]

[Charlie positions the penetrometer and puts his hands on the top. He applies steady pressure and the penetrometer sinks a few centimeters into the surface. He gives a second push and gets only another cm or two. A final push causes the rod to bow out ten cm or more for a fraction of a second. When Charlie stops pushing, the rod immediately straightens.]

149:18:01 England: Rog. We had that one on TV.

149:18:05 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

[Charlie pulls the penetrometer out of the ground and heads for the back of the Rover, going off-screen to the right. Fendell pans right.]

149:18:15 Duke: Yeah.

149:18:16 Young: Can you see if my (Hasselblad) lens is dirty?

149:18:19 Duke: Yeah; just a minute. (Pause) Turn around this way, John. I've got to look in the Sun.

[Charlie crosses the field-of-view from right to left, still carrying the penetrometer. Fendell stops panning right and reverses direction to follow Charlie. Charlie wants to get up-Sun of John so John's lens will be illuminated.]

149:18:30 Duke: Towards me. Towards the...(Pause) Slight (amount of) dust but not much, it's okay.

149:18:39 Young: Okay; fine. (Pause)

[Off-camera, John takes a cross-Sun stereopair of "before" photos of a sample. The photos are AS16-114- 18445 and 18446. He then grabs the sample with his tongs and takes 18447, which shows the rock in the tongs. The sample is 60115, a 136 gram breccia, which is shown in Figures 13A to 13D in the Documentation of Samples chapter in the Professional Paper.]

[Photo AS16-114- 18448 is a down-Sun "locator".]

149:19:03 Duke: Okay.

149:19:04 Young: Okay.

Video Clip ( 2 min 27 sec 0.6 Mb RealVideo or 22 Mb MPEG )

149:19:06 Duke: Home is about 50 meters away.

[Fendell finds John at the CDR seat. The LM is in the background and Fendell zooms in on it. At maximum zoom, the LM almost exactly fills the TV frame.]

149:19:13 Duke: Yeah. (Pause)

[John is probably asking Charlie to stow the tongs on the back of the Rover.]

[Charlie had taken the rake off the extension handle so he could assemble the double core and, here, it has taken a minute for him to find it.]

149:19:30 England: Okay, 381. (Pause)

149:19:42 Young: And it was a black rock; but I don't think it was vesicular basalt. I think it was a breccia.

149:19:48 England: Okay.

149:19:49 Young: In a lot of ways, it's the same type as we've been sampling it. Going into sample bag (means SCB-)4 on top of the sample (means Station) 9 samples.

[John goes off-camera to the right. Fendell is still looking at the LM.]

149:20:08 England: Okay; we copy, Charlie. (Pause)

149:20:14 Duke: Tony, does the...I can't remember. Does the CSVC (Core Sample Vacuum Container) go into the rock box?

149:20:26 England: Yes, it does.

149:20:30 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

[Fendell has pulled back on the zoom and, now, the LM covers only about 20 percent of the height of the image.]

149:20:40 Duke: Hey, John, I'm going to take that SCB number 2, my camera, and I'm heading home.

149:20:45 Young: Okay. (Pause)

[John has started a pan, which consists of frames AS16-114- 18449 to 18467.]

[Frame 18453 shows the front of the Rover with the dustbrush and the open LCRU blankets; and it catches Charlie as he grabs SCB-2 off the LMP seat.]

[As Charlie starts his run and gets up to speed, he glides across a shallow crater.]

[Charlie is using the loping, foot-to-foot stride.]

149:21:14 England: Okay, John; 89.

[Frame 18454 shows the left side of the Rover.]

[Frames 18455, 18456, and 18457 show the LM.]

[Frame 18458 shows the inbound Rover tracks.]

[The last frame in the pan is 18467, which shows the Central Station.]

[Charlie reaches the MESA after a 44-second run. The straight-line distance from the back of the Rover to the MESA is about 58 meters and his average speed is a relaxed 4.8 km/hr. During the Apollo 17 ALSEP deployment at about 120:27:11, Jack Schmitt ran 50 meters at 5.4 km/hr, albeit on a much smoother surface.]

[TV off.]

149:21:21 England: Okay. And, John, when you get inside (means "get seated"), we have a (switch/circuit breaker) configuration change in LRV.

149:21:28 Young: Okay. (Pause) Charlie's already back at the LM.

149:21:39 England: Rog. We saw that before you went off (the air, meaning before John switched off the TV.)

149:21:40 Young: He walks a lot faster than I do. (Pause) Okay. Talk with the (console) configuration change.

149:21:50 England: Okay. Except for the PWM Select and the Drive Enables, we would like everything back to nominal. Circuit breakers in; and Drive Power on Bus Delta. (Also), Steering on Bus Delta. (Pause) That's Rear Steering.

149:22:06 Young: Circuit breakers are in, Drive Power's on Delta, and Steering's on Delta.

149:22:13 England: Okay. Good show. (Pause) And we understand you reset (the nav) before you came.

149:22:20 Duke: Tony, looking back up...(Stops to listen) Yeah, I did that.

149:22:25 England: Okay.

149:22:26 Young: Huh?

149:22:28 Duke: Reset the Nav.

149:22:30 Young: Yeah, we're reset now.

149:22:32 England: Okay. Fine. (Pause)

[At some point before John starts the drive back, Charlie takes a series of pictures of him: AS16-115- 18559 to 18562.]