Traverse to Station 8

Traverse to Station 9

 

Geology Station 8

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 1 May 2018.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 2 min 07 sec )

146:43:23 Duke: And the regolith here, is firmer than up on Stone. We're in a blocky field here. Predominant (rock) size is 10 to 15 centimeters, but the biggest one is a couple of meters. And you'll see that 12 o'clock from the Rover.

146:43:50 England: Wow! That's a real boulder.

[Tony is reacting to Charlie's description of the two-meter boulder, which is about 20 meters south of the Rover. Houston doesn't yet have a TV picture.]

[Figure 6 from chapter D3 from the USGS Apollo 16 Professional Paper is a planimetric map of the Station. They have parked on the east rim of a 10-m crater, with the LRV heading south.]

[Brian McInall has revised and elaborated the Planimetric_map using LROC image M175179080LR and the Hasselblad images taken at Station 8.]

[Charlie's Station 8 pan consists of frames AS16-108- 17663 to 17681.]

[In frame 17663, the crater just above the central fiducial may have produced some of the smaller debris at this site.]

[Frame 17669 shows the back of the Rover.]

[Frames 17670 and 17671 show John as he aligns the high gain antenna. ]

[Frame 17672 is an up-Sun showing the inbound Rover tracks crossing the image at center.]

[Frame 17676 shows the large Station 8 boulder.]

146:44:42 Young: (Static clears) Okay, Houston, you should have us now.

[TV on.]

146:44:45 Young: What're you doing, Charlie? (Pause) Charlie?

146:44:49 Duke: What?

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146:44:50 Young: What're you doing?

146:44:51 Duke: Stand by. (Long Pause) Tell you later. (Pause)

[Charlie is urinating.]

[Duke - "You knew you had to go. And I could never get started into that urine bag - UCD (Urine Collection Device) - without stopping (and standing still)! Once I'd stop, then I could get going. John, I think, could..."]

[Charlie's phone rang at this point in the interview and we stopped while he took the call.]

[Jones - "You were saying that you had to stand up to urinate in the collar. Did the system work alright otherwise?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. It did. It worked fine. You had to be careful when you rolled on the condom because, if it didn't get on right it could slip off. In fact, it did to me, one time, right before we lifted off. I had to go and it was...We'd been in the suit and everything, and I'd already used it a couple of times on the last EVA. Climb back inside and, you know, powered up and got ready to lift-off and, a few minutes before lift-off, I had to go again. And you couldn't tell whether the thing was on or off; you just started going and, when I did, 'Uh-oh, something's wrong here'. You know, warm stream down the left leg and ended up with a wet LCG and a boot full of urine. But there's just nothing you could do about it, so you just go."]

[Jones - "And there were enough absorbing materials inside the suit that the urine didn't get into the air stream in zero-g?"]

[Duke - "No, it didn't (get into the air stream). Well, I mean, you had a little odor and it was soggy; but it dried out. If I remember, the LCG had feet - cotton socks - attached. When you put it on, it was like the old pajamas that babies wore, you know, with the feet in 'em. So we had these cotton socks that was inside the suit, which was a nylon liner, which is not too absorbent. But cotton socks were. And then, the inside of the LCG also had some nylon, and there was a cotton backing under that, so it sort of absorbed it as it was going down the leg. And it turned out not to be a big deal."]

[Jones - "How about provisions for defecating outside."]

[Duke - "Well, we had a big diaper with a very big absorbent pad; but nobody ever used it. I don't even know if it was ever even tested. I'm sure they tested it, but we never did. It would have been a big mess, but it would have worked. It would have contained everything. It was like a girdle. They called it the FCD (Fecal Containment Device). It was like a ladies girdle you pulled on and it cut out in the front so that your penis could hang out so you could get on the UCD. But this big pad was in the back; and I'm convinced it would have worked 'cause it was just a big pad. And then, over that, you put on the LCG, then you put on your UCD and I think there was maybe a jockstrap that went on, also, and it had a hole for your penis and then you rolled on your UCD and then you buttoned that or snapped it or Velcroed it to the jockstrap, I guess - I don't remember exactly. But, anyway, then you had to hook the tube from the UCD into the suit so that, if you were trapped in the suit (because of a cabin leak, for example), you could empty this bag, 'cause it would only carry so much urine. But it all worked."]

146:45:09 Duke: Okay, I need to get a double core tube.

146:45:12 Young: Okay.

[When the TV came on, the camera was pointed aft over the left rear wheel. John swings the camera around and cleans the lens with the large dustbrush.]

146:45:17 Duke: Agh! (Straining) God. (Pause)

[Fendell pans left. Charlie may be having trouble getting the SCB on the back of the Rover open.]

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146:45:26 Duke: Yeah, if I could ever get the top open on those things.

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146:45:28 Duke: Okay, there we go. There's an upper and lower. (Pause) Closed again.

146:45:41 Young: Okay.

[Fendell reaches the counter-clockwise pan limit and starts a clockwise pan.]

146:45:46 Young: What did you say, Tony? (Remembering) Oh; he said, "Thank you (for dusting the TV)." (Long Pause)

[Fendell finds John at the left front of the Rover. He is scanning his checklist, probably looking at CDR-14 and 15. Fendell continues the pan and John goes off-camera to the left.]

146:46:11 England: Oh, you sound good, Charlie.

146:46:16 Duke: Okay; thank you. (Long Pause)

146:46:29 Young: There's a boulder over here we can split.

146:46:32 Duke: Yeah.

146:46:34 Young: You see it?

146:46:36 Duke: That one off to your right down there, I think we could turn that one over.

146:46:45 Young: Yeah. I think you're right. I think we could turn that one over, Charlie.

[Duke - "If I remember, they were interested in the character of the regolith as far as cosmic-ray bombardment and other things such as that. And so, we were to get a sample of the regolith away from that boulder - in the general vicinity - and then we were supposed to push over the boulder and sample the regolith under the boulder. Because the assumption was, well, since the time the rock landed, it would have blocked any of the solar wind, etc. (from reaching the soil under the rock)."]

146:46:57 Young: Okay.

146:46:58 Duke: Get a chance.

146:47:00 Young: Can I help you with the double core?

146:47:01 Duke: No. Go ahead with what you got to do.

146:47:05 Young: Okay, well I can get a rake soil here while you're doing that. Okay?

146:47:09 Duke: Okay, I'll have to...Okay, fine. I'll just have to take the scoop off (the extension handle). Can you do that rake/soil by yourself, you think?

146:47:17 Young: Yeah.

146:47:19 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

[The double core is a one-man job and, apparently, no other one-man task was specifically assigned to John. The Apollo 17 crew had a similar situation at their Station 3 at Ballet Crater. Because the rake is relatively unwieldy, Charlie is wondering if this is an appropriate use of John's time. In hindsight, John's time would have been better used collecting individual rocks with the tongs.]

146:47:47 England: I'm just a little curious. How near are you to the edge of this ray?

146:47:56 Duke: (The ray) goes in both directions as far as we can see.

146:47:58 Young: That's right.

146:47:59 England: Okay. We can forget that one sample off the ...

146:48:01 Duke: Tony, the whole area is just (chuckles) covered with these rocks.

146:48:13 England: Yeah. It sure looks that way.

146:48:14 Duke: Have you seen the rocks on the (TV)...(Stops to listen) Okay, that's what they all are!

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146:48:21 England: Okay; I guess we're just looking for a variety, then, in the boulder protocol.

[This is a reference to checklist pages LMP-24 and 25, which contain boulder sampling suggestions.]

[Fendell finds Charlie at the back of the Rover. He has the double core assembled and goes off-camera to the left.]

146:48:54 England: Okay.

[Jones - Is your '12 o'clock' relative to the Rover heading?]

[Duke - "Right. We were referencing it from the Rover. And the Rover's parked south, as I look at it here on the video. Basically, we're parked one-eight-zero heading, which would have put 12 o'clock due south."]

[Jones - "Rather than being a 12 o'clock relative to down-Sun."]

[Duke - "Right."]

[Fendell reaches the counter-clockwise pan limit and reverses direction. Note that the rake is not in its normal position on the back of the Rover.]

146:49:12 Young: Charlie, I'll get a locator on you and a down-Sun (for the double core), too.

146:49:15 Duke: Okay, great. (Pause)

[Evidently, John is working east (up-Sun) of both Charlie's double-core site and the Rover. John has already take a cross-Sun stereopair of the rake site, AS16-107- 17527 and 17528. Note that he has planted the tongs to provide scale and a shadow.]

[Fendell finds Charlie, who is taking a stereopair of the double core from the north.]

[John's down-Suns of the rake site are AS16-107- 17529 and 17530. In the background, we see Charlie taking one of his stereo pictures, either AS16-108- 17682 or 17683. The Rover is at the right.]

146:49:41 Duke: Don't believe it. (Pause)

[Charlie gets the hammer out of his shin pocket and begins driving the double core, left-handed. NASA photo S72-33898 shows Charlie driving a double core during training at the Kennedy Space Center on 22 March 1972.]

[On the third blow, Charlie hits a buried rock and makes no further progress. He stops after seven blows. He readjusts his grip and strikes the extension handle four more times but gets no penetration.]

146:50:01 Duke: Not going in too well!

[Charlie delivers two more blows, shifts the hammer to his right hand, and shakes his left hand to relieve some of the stiffness.]

[Duke - "To get this double core, I'm using a hammer to pound it in. I had pushed it in as far as I could; now I'm hammering it. And I have to rest about every three or four strokes. It was really hard to grab that hammer strong enough to keep it from flying out of your hand when you hit the top of the core handle. And I would rest and relax the muscle in the forearm and then I'd grab it again."]

[Jones - "So it wasn't fatigue in the shoulder..."]

[Duke - "It was the gripping; because you really had to grip it hard to keep the handle from flying out. A couple of times - and I'm not sure it's here - I actually dropped the hammer, it flew out of my hands."]

[Jones - "Did you run into rocks occasionally?"]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. And I think this is one of the situations here. This thing is not going in at all and I think that about one tube down we hit some rock. I'm not sure I pulled this out and shook it out and started over again."]

[Charlie takes the hammer in his left hand and swings at the extension handle. He misses and the hammer slips out of his hand, hits him on his left ankle, and skips a couple of meters to his left.]

[Duke - "See. I just dropped the hammer."]

146:50:15 England: That's all right. I do that all the time. (Pause) Usually, I have my thumb in the way. (Pause)

[Charlie gets into position to bob down to get the hammer. He drops down almost onto his right knee but can't quite reach the hammer. He stands, gets ready, and makes a second attempt.]

[Jones - "In one conversation I had with John on the phone, he said that he had spent some time in the airplane trying to do this - bouncing down to make a dynamic grab."]

[Duke - "Yeah. He probably did. And, you see, I tried it here a couple of times - to jump up and let the momentum coming down bend the suit so that I could pick up this hammer that I'd dropped. I tried it twice, but I still didn't get low enough to get it. It was like grabbing blind, too. I just never...You had to drop and time it exactly right if you got down low enough. You couldn't really see your hand."]

[For his third attempt, Charlie steps back, then steps forward, and jumps about a half meter off the ground so that, as he comes down, he will compress the suit more and get his hand lower. This attempt, too, fails; but, at least, he is able to get back on his feet without difficulty. Next, Charlie goes around to the other side of the hammer and tries to bob down on both knees but doesn't come close. He goes off-camera to the right, headed for the back of the Rover. See the discussion following 119:24:37.]

146:50:53 England: Yeah, it looks like a good plan.

146:50:55 Duke: ...to get the hammer. Tony, I don't think the doub(le)...(Stops to listen) Yeah. Tony, I don't think the double core is going to go in. Do you want me to pull it out and shake it out and try another place? I think I hit a rock...

146:51:06 England: Okay, yeah...

146:51:06 Duke: ...'Cause it stopped...

146:51:07 England: ...we'd sure like you to do that.

146:51:08 Duke: ...all at once. (Hearing Tony) Okay. That one just stopped all at once, so I think I did hit a rock.

146:51:17 England: Okay. (Pause)

[During the following conversation between John and Tony, Charlie returns with the tongs. He gets the tongs around the handle near the end but is unable to lift the entire hammer because of the weight of the head. He then gets the tongs around the handle near the head and raises the hammer without difficulty. He then plants the tongs in the ground.]

[Some of the astronauts wore a device called a "yo-yo" which consisted of a spring-wound cable and a fitting that would allow the astronaut to attach the cable to a pair of tongs or some other long-handled tool. The yo-yo housing was secured at the astronaut's waist and allowed him to have the tongs close at hand, without actually having to use his hands to carry them.]

[Jones - "Did you wear a yo-yo?"]

[Duke - "Yeah; but I didn't use it much."]

[Jones - "Any particular reason?"]

[Duke - "It was just a pain to jump in and out of the Rover with the tongs on and to buckle up. We just didn't feel like we needed it so much; so we normally just left the tongs on its storage area on the tool carrier at the back of the Rover."]

[Jones - "And I guess there are only a couple of instances in the video, so far, where it would have been handy to have the tongs."]

[Duke - "This is one of them. I wasted a minute or so."]

[Jones - "That's not much."]

146:51:26 England: And, John, on the LRV, do you know if you lost the rear steering as well as the drive?

146:51:36 Young: No, because I'm unable to see behind me.

146:51:40 England: Okay.

146:51:41 Duke: We could give it a little test drive, John.

[Charlie extracts the core, shakes it, and taps it several times with the hammer to clear the soil out.]

146:51:58 England: Okay. Except a while ago...

[Charlie pivots the double core so he can look in the end to make sure it is empty. He then moves west to a fresh surface. During John's next transmission, Charlie pushes the core about six inches into the ground, He then backs up and takes a stereopair from the north, AS16-108- 17684 and 17685.]

146:52:01 England: ...we had a couple of amp (showing on the gauge when you were) using zero (meaning that the Rover was stopped).

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146:52:05 Young: Oh. Out of five scoops, I've got about, oh, 10 rock frags, a couple of which are...One of which has some interesting black glass along the sides of it, another of which is covered with black glass. And...But in the most, there's not much of that material around here. That's going into bag 411.

146:52:38 England: Okay. Bag 411.

[These are samples 68515 to 68537 and represent a variety of rock types.]

146:52:49 England: Understand. (Long Pause)

[Charlie strikes the extension handle left-handed seven times and then switches the hammer to his right hand and delivers seven more blows. The first two of the right-handed blows were struck with the hammer's striking surface but, because this is such a small surface, Charlie stops for a second, rotates the hammer head ninety degrees, and delivers the rest of the blows with the flat side of the hammer. All of the astronauts who drove cores used the flat most of the time because of its larger surface area.]

[Next, Charlie uses both hands to deliver seven more blows and then hops around to the south side of the core to continue. Despite his efforts to this point, Charlie has only managed to drive in one of the cores.]

[John crosses the TV field-of-view from left to right. Once he is out of the way, we see Charlie swinging the hammer left-handed. He misses several of the next eight attempts. On each swing, he is raising his hand up to the level of the top of his helmet.]

[After three more left-handed swings, Charlie stops. He transfers the hammer to his right hand and tries to shake the fatigue out of his left hand.]

146:53:38 England: Good idea.

146:53:40 Young: Yeah, Charlie. Slow down. (Pause)

[Charlie stands, resting, with his left arm up at chest height and his right arm down at his side with the hammer in that hand. Because of the internal cabling system and the pressure in the suit, he can leave his left arm upraised without having to use his muscles.]

[John crosses the TV field-of-view from right to left. He may have gotten an extra SCB to use at the rake site.]

146:53:53 Young: And little places where little white rocks seem to have hit, too. I'll get a soil sample here. (Long Pause)

[Charlie strikes a dozen left-handed blows with the hammer, stopping every once in a while to adjust his grip. He then delivers eleven right-handed blows. Several times he delivers either a glancing blow or misses entirely. He is making progress.]

[Jones - "Was it difficult to get distance right?"]

[Duke - "Yeah, it was. You can see I keep missing it. It was hard to swing a hammer in that suit; this wasn't the easiest task in the world."]

[Jones - "You're switching over to the right hand. You're rotating the head, there?"]

[Duke - "Yeah; it keeps doing it on its own, really. You couldn't hold it tight enough to keep it from rotating."]

[Jones - "You want to keep the head flat, but the impact wants to rotate it."]

[Duke - "That's right."]

146:54:48 England: Right, it sure looks it...

146:54:49 Duke: (Lost under Tony)

146:54:49 England: ...but I can see you're getting it down.

146:54:50 Duke: (Breathing hard as he delivers three final blows) It's in.

146:54:57 England: Good show.

[Charlie stows the hammer in his shin pocket.]

[Jones - "It looked like you got the hammer back in the pocket fairly easily - by touch, I guess."]

[Duke - "By feel. Uh-huh."]

146:55:01 England: Oh, I think we'll take it, Charlie.

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146:55:03 Duke: Okay. Boy, I hope that thing is full of gold, because that was a hard one. Whew! (Long Pause)

[Charlie hops around to the north side of the core and takes a cross-Sun "after", AS16-108- 17686. Charlie took this picture from virtually the same spot as 17685. Although Charlie obliterated the foreground rock pattern that we saw in 17685 as he hammered, the background patterns are identical in the two pictures.]

[Charlie moves in, grabs the cross piece on the top of the extension handle, and pulls the core out without effort.]

[In post-mission cataloging of the samples, the top core section was designated 68002 and the bottom section 68001. A discussion of analyses performed in 1993-94 has been extracted from NASA Johnson's Lunar News.]

[Charlie rotates the core until the bit end is up. He turns and heads for the back of the Rover.]

146:55:37 England: Okay.

146:55:38 Duke: I've got my hand over the top number. I'll give it to you in a minute.

146:55:40 England: Okay.

[Charlie grabs the tongs and goes off-camera to the right.]

146:55:46 England: Okay; 412. (Long Pause)

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans left.]

[In Houston, Flight and the support staff are discussing procedures they will have John use to check out the Rover.]

[John's "after" of the rake site is AS16-107- 17531.]

146:56:23 England: Anything that stares at you, you'd better pick up.

[Fendell stops when he has the two-meter boulder in view. The white boulder is in the background to the right. Fendell then zooms in on the large boulder.]

[John has found a piece of black glass. His photos of the sample are a down-Sun, AS16-107- 17532; a cross-Sun stereopair, 17533 and 17534.]

[In the next picture, frame 17535, the piece of black glass is about 1/4 of the way up the right edge of the image between the two sets of footprints. The rake swaths are at the upper center.]

146:56:39 England: Very good.

146:56:46 Duke: (You) found the first prism on the Moon, John.

146:56:48 Young: It's something like that. (Pause)

146:56:54 Duke: Whew, boy. (Long Pause)

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans left. He finds John, who is south of the rake site taking a cross-Sun picture, probably AS16-107- 17535.]

146:57:34 Duke: (Doing his W.C. Fields voice) Oh, the Commander. (Normal voice) Here, wait a minute. I'll come get you one. (Long Pause)

[John has at least one bag left and takes it off his camera. He grabs the tongs and heads away from the Rover toward the spot from which he took the photograph. John gets a sample and bags it easily. He then holds the bag up so he can examine the sample. This is 68035, a 21-gram breccia with a glass coating shown in Figure 84D in the Professional Paper.]

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146:58:24 England: Okay, 413.

[John plants the tongs near the extra SCB and then goes back to get another sample. He drops easily to his right knee and stays down long enough to pick up a second sample. He then rises, bags the sample, rolls the top, and seals it.]

[Jones - "He was able to get right down on his knee!"]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. He was able to split farther than I was..."]

[We watched John pick up the rock again.]

[Duke - "John's going down to pick up a rock with his hand and he had an ability to jump up and then do a fairly good split and get down and hold himself down and pick up a rock. And then his knee would start to move up and it would bounce him up."]

[Jones - "He was actually down on right knee and sort of had his left leg sort of out behind him."]

[Duke - "The left was behind, a little bit, but almost even, really."]

[Jones - "That's interesting. Let me see if I can get a print of that off the video to put in the Journal. He had really good balance control."]

146:58:39 England: Okay, we copy 29.

146:58:46 Young: (Noticing the TV is aimed at him) I didn't know you guys were watching. I wouldn't have done that. (Guilty laugh) Ha ha. (Long Pause)

[Duke - "They didn't want him to do that. He just apologized."]

[Jones - "Any particular reason?"]

[Duke - "Well, I think they were worried about the wear and tear on the suit; you know, putting a lot of extra stress on the suit which, you know, was never designed to do that kind of stuff."]

[John walks to the extra SCB, puts bag 413 in, and picks the SCB up off the ground.]

[John goes off-camera to the left, taking the SCB but leaving the rake and the tongs at the front of the Rover.]

[Fendell pans left and finds John putting the extra SCB under the CDR seat.]

146:59:37 Young: I'm gonna drive over there (to the large boulder), Charlie, so...Let me check out this...

146:59:43 Duke: Hey, that's a good idea, John.

146:59:45 Young: ...steering.

[John goes off-camera to the right. Fendell follows. At some point, John takes a pair of "after" photos of the rake site, AS16-107- 17536 and 17537, which show Charlie at the back of the Rover with the double core.]

146:59:48 Duke: Turn off the front drive power, too. I think you're right, because those front wheels were really digging in.

146:59:59 England: Okay.

[John returns with the rake and tongs and goes off-camera to the left.]

[In Houston, Fendell responds to a question from Flight: "I copy. That's fine."]

[Fendell pans right and assures Flight that they will get the signal back once John parks. He expects the comm signal to be poor while John is driving and expects that John will have to re-aim the high gain antenna.]

147:00:38 Young: (To Houston) Especially...We're just going to drive slow because we want to check this baby out. (Pause)

147:00:46 Duke: You need some more bags, John?

147:00:48 Young: Yep.

[Fendell stops panning when he is aimed at the two-meter boulder.]

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147:01:09 Young: Houston, how do you read? Over.

147:01:10 England: Oh, we're copying you 5 by. We understand that you're going to drive over to the other area.

147:01:20 Young: We'd like to, and we'd like to run through a Rover steering test while we're doing it. What we're talking about doing...You see those boulders you're looking at. We're just talking about driving around this crater, about halfway around it, to do the steering test.

[As can be seen in the planimetric map (3.7 Mb, John is currently parked just north of a shallow, 10-meter crater and is about to drive around to the east rim of the same crater.]

147:01:48 Young: All righty. You want to stay off and watch, Charlie?

147:01:52 Duke: Yeah, I'm going to watch. (Pause) Okay, Tony, did you get that, (on) the double core, the top one was 29?

147:02:01 England: Yes, we copied that.

147:02:05 Duke: Okay.

147:02:07 Young: Oh, boy!

147:02:09 Duke: I'll get it, John. Go ahead and get in. (Garbled) strap.

147:02:12 Young: No, we've got it. (Laughs)

147:02:15 Duke: How about that one?

147:02:17 Young: I wouldn't believe it if I...We may not get it out of there. (Pause; Laughs)

147:02:25 Duke: I wouldn't believe it if I saw it again. Here you go. Okay. (Pause) That little (garbled) finally came out of there. (Pause) Okay, you're all locked.

147:02:58 Young: Okay.

[John may have had some trouble with his seatbelt.]

[The TV picture shakes, probably as John jumps into his seat. In Houston, the support staff has been trying to convince Flight to have John follow the troubleshooting procedures they have been outlining, but Flight decides to let John proceed without interruption. They argue that the procedures are needed to isolate the failure but Flight points out that Charlie will be watching as John drives. As they go through the following tests, it will probably help to refer to Figure 1-22 in the LRV Operations Handbook and the accompanying MSFC photo.]

147:03:14 Duke: Why don't you try...Excuse me.

147:03:16 Young: I'm going to try the steering first, Charlie.

147:03:20 Duke: Okay. Why don't you just go to Primary, and let me check...Take a look at her.

147:03:25 Young: Okay, Primary.

[This is the switch at the lower left corner of the console.]

147:03:29 Young: Steering's working?

147:03:30 Duke: Yeah.

147:03:32 England: Okay, how are your amps?

147:03:33 Duke: Why don't you just try rear drive only. (Pause)

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147:03:38 Young: Just sitting there doing nothing.

147:03:40 England: Okay.

147:03:41 Young: Now...(garbled) max, Charlie.

147:03:47 Duke: It ain't going. You lost it.

147:03:49 Young: Yeah. Now let's put them (meaning the Forward Steering and Power) on Bus C.

147:03:53 Duke: Yeah.

147:03:54 Young: How about that?

147:03:55 Duke: Okay.

147:03:56 England: Okay, how about the rear drive on the...

147:03:59 Young: Okay...

147:04:00 England: ...Bus A and B.

[Houston is suggesting that they put the forward steering and power on Bus A and the rear steering and power on Bus B.]

147:04:00 Young: ...we got it.

147:04:01 Duke: ...you got it!

147:04:02 Young: We got it, right? Okay, Houston, we got rear steering on Bus...Wait a minute; wait a minute; wait a minute. That's for(ward)...(To himself) Was that in Forward Drive Power? No, that's just with the Forward Drive Power. Okay, now I'll put the Left Rear on Bus B. Now let's see what we've got. (Pause)

147:04:25 Duke: Nope. (Garbled), John.

147:04:28 Young: Nothin'. (To Houston) Okay, we've tried the forward and rear steering on Bus B. We have rear steering. We have forward steering. We have Forward Drive Power, but we don't have any Rear Drive Power on either Bus (B or D). Let me try it in Secondary.

147:04:47 England: Okay, John, we'd like you to try the PWM 1 on the Left Rear and Right Rear.

[Tony is referring to the switches at the lower right corner of the console.]

147:05:03 England: Right...

147:05:04 Young: How about if...You want me to go to PWM 2 on the Front Rear? Say again.

[John got a little tongue-tied. He was asking if Houston wanted PWM 2 on the Left Front and Right Front.]

147:05:14 Young: Okay, they're all on PWM 1; and do I have to be in PWM 1 Select 1, or Both.

147:05:21 England: Negative.

[John is referring to the PWM Select switch which is at the right side of the console just above the Drive Enable switches.]

147:05:25 Duke: That's the problem, you weren't in Both, huh?

147:05:27 Young: That is the problem! Somehow this guarded switch got moved to...Oh, isn't that amazing.

147:05:37 Duke: Amazing.

147:05:38 Young: Yeah.

147:05:39 Duke: Unbelievable.

[Jones - "All of the switches were on the console. Did they all have guards on them?"]

[Duke - "They had little baskets around 'em and some of them had guards over 'em. I don't remember which ones."]

[Figure 1-22 in the LRV Operations Handbook shows the console. The guards are indicated by vertical, double lines such as the ones on either side of the Drive Enable switches. See, also, Apollo 15 photo AS15-82- 11198.]

[Duke - "You know, it was easy to bump things as you were driving, as I was reaching for maps. It could have happened in a thousand different ways as you got on; and we never went through...We never really went through the switch positions every time we started out. And a lot of times, you remember, I'd reach over to do something - to change batteries or something - and you can accidentally hit another switch. And that's probably what happened here."]

[As indicated in the LRV Operations Decal, John was supposed to have the PWM Select Switch in Both, the Forward Drive Enable Switch in PWM 1, and the Rear Drive Enable Switch in PWM. With the PWM Select Switch in 1, the Rear Drive was lost.]

[Fendell pans left.]

147:05:43 Young: I'm going to turn off the front drive power.

147:05:45 Duke: Okay, you're in 1. (Pause) There you go. That's it.

147:05:55 Young: Okay, now, let's see if we got it.

147:05:59 Duke: Nope. (Pause)

[Fendell zooms in on some angular blocks east of the Rover.]

147:06:08 Duke: I'll bet your Primary Power's off, John.

147:06:08 England: ...we'd like to go back to nominal configuration.

147:06:12 Young: (Responding to Tony) That's what we're doing.

147:06:14 Duke: Okay, now try your rear motors. Okay, you've got it now.

[As can be seen in the TV picture, the Rover moves backwards a short distance and stops. There is no interruption in the TV. During Johns next transmission, Fendell pulls back on the zoom. Charlie comes into view, bounding away from the Rover using his skipping stride.]

[TV signal ends.]

147:06:48 Young: Watch out, Charlie. I'm liable to run over you.

147:06:50 Duke: Yowee! Wait a minute; don't do that. (Pause)

147:06:55 Young: (Garbled) gently. (Pause)

147:07:01 England: John, after you went back to normal configuration, did you drive it?

147:07:08 Young: Yes. That mess you up? (Long Pause)

147:07:24 Young: Houston? (Pause) I'll see (in the high-gain scope) where they are. (Long Pause; static diminishes)

147:07:47 Young: You still got a picture, huh?

147:07:50 England: Sure do. But I think we need the antenna touched up.

147:07:54 Young: Well, that's what I asked if I could do if I drove slow. (Responding to Tony) All right, be glad to.

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

147:08:01 Duke: Tony, this is really some rock. It's a two-rock breccia, with the matrix being blue to me, in this light anyway (static clears and the TV signal is restored); and the white clasts are fragments of crystalline rocks that appear to be fairly coarse-grained. Take that back, let's say, fine-grained...

[When the TV signal is restored, we see John at the left side of the picture. The TV camera has not moved and we are still looking in a south-easterly direction. Fendell starts panning left but John goes off-camera to the right to join Charlie at the boulder. Fendell stops the leftward pan and follows John.]

147:08:45 Duke: This thing! Gosh! I can't even budge it.

147:08:48 Young: (Laughs) It's a biggie.

147:08:49 Duke: Hey! I did budge it!

147:08:51 Young: Charlie wants to turn that one over, Houston.

[Fendell finds John and Charlie, who are standing on the northeast side of the boulder with their backs to us. The boulder is about 1.1 meters high and 1.5 meters wide. In the background to the right, we can see the white rock.]

[Charlie has probably already taken a series of photos from the northeast, AS16-108- 17687 to 17692. The boulder is large enough that he took a stereo sequence containing three frames, stepping to his left between frames. This is called a "flightline stereo". He then moved in closer to take another set. In 17692, we can see a number of large inclusions in this breccia.]

147:08:59 Young: Eat the whole thing, right?

147:09:00 Duke: ...depressurize right here. Yeah, (I'll eat) the whole thing.

147:09:05 England: I wouldn't bet on that, Charlie.

147:09:07 Young: (To Charlie) (Did) you get a flightline stereo of it?

[Charlie leans on the rock, gets his left shoulder down and tries to push it over. It doesn't appear to move.]

147:09:17 Young: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's go over here and look. Let's not put no effort into it. I believe we can...I believe we can push it this way.

[John has gone around the south side of the rock and Charlie the north. John thinks they will be able to tip it over by pushing from the west if they put a significant effort - rather than "no effort" - into it.]

147:09:29 Young: Okay?

147:09:30 Duke: ...push it. (Pause)

[Charlie puts his right hand on the top of the rock and gives it a push, but not very hard.]

147:09:34 Duke: (Pointing off-camera to the east) There's a better one to turn over right down there. It's about half this size.

147:09:37 Young: Yeah. Yeah, it'll work good.

147:09:38 Duke: Yeah. (Long Pause)

[Charlie bounds off-camera to the left while John takes an up-Sun stereopair, AS16-107- 17538 and 17539. John then raised his aim to take a picture of the top of the boulder, AS16-107- 17540.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 4 min 14 sec )

147:10:03 Young: (To Tony) Got a few footprints around it for scale now, Houston. (Pause) You got your hammer, Charlie?

147:10:11 Duke: Yeah, I got the hammer, and I'm bringing the tongs and the scoop for a little fillet sample around it.

147:10:19 Young: That's a good head (meaning "good thinking"). (Pause)

[Fendell zooms in on the boulder and John goes off-camera to the left to join Charlie at the Rover.]

[Fillets are composed of ejecta from nearby - or distant - impacts that splash on the side of the rock and fall down onto the rising skirt of dirt. On average, the longer a rock has been in place, the bigger the fillet surrounding it. As described in the Professional Paper, cosmic-ray-exposure ages of the rocks at Stations 8 and 9 indicate that the South Ray impact, which ejected these blocks, as about 2 million years ago, a time too short for much fillet development.]

147:10:39 Young: Let me carry one of these (tools)...(Pause)

[John gets the scoop from Charlie and takes up a position north of the boulder. Charlie stands northeast of the boulder, carrying the tongs, and adjusts his camera for some close-ups.]

[During Tony's next transmission, Charlie rests the tip of the tongs on the rock near the top and, using the tongs to gauge his distance, takes a close-up stereopair, AS16-108- 17693 and 17694, stepping to his right between frames but not moving the tongs.]

[Charlie re-positions the tongs and takes AS16-108- 17695 and 17696, stepping to his left between frames.]

147:11:11 Duke: (Responding to Tony) Okay.

[While Charlie was taking pictures, John stuck his right leg out behind him and bent down far enough that he could reach the hammer in Charlie's shin pocket. He tried to pull it out, but it was caught because John is trying to get it out from the side.]

147:11:20 Duke: (Joking) So nobody can steal it from me.

147:11:23 Young: (Standing) Let's see you give it to me, then.

[Charlie pulls the hammer straight up and gets it out without difficulty.]

147:11:27 Young: Tricky, ain't you. (Charlie laughs)

147:11:30 Duke: Okay. John, let's find a good place to whack.

147:11:33 Young: Let's get the fillet first, though...

147:11:34 Duke: Okay.

147:11:35 Young: ...(before) we kick dirt all over it. (Pause) Actually, I don't see any fillet, per se. I think it just hit and made a (secondary crater)...Stick it (meaning the tongs) in the dirt. Stand it up in the dirt, Charlie. (Pause)

[Charlie is trying to rest the tongs on the top of the rock but is having some trouble to get it in stable position.]

[This boulder is perched on the northeast rim of the shallow secondary crater it made when it hit. Part of the crater can be seen just beyond and to the left of the base of the boulder in AS16-108- 17689.]

147:12:00 Duke: Okay. Fine. (Pause)

[Charlie gets the scoop from John.]

[John gets a sample bag off his camera and then backs up to take a cross-Sun "before" from the north. Charlie moves around to the northeast side and tries to hold the scoop over the place where he will sample.]

147:12:21 Young: (You're) standing in the shadow, Charlie.

[Charlie is having a difficult time keeping his shadow off the soil at the base of the rock. John takes a single picture at about this time, AS16-107- 17541, which shows the scoop resting on the fillet at the base of the rock. This is one of the best Apollo fillet photos.]

147:12:27 Duke: Huh?

147:12:29 Young: Get it in the "after".

147:12:32 Duke: Oh. Okay.

[John is telling Charlie not to bother with the scoop in the "before" pictures.]

147:12:39 Duke: Yeah. (They both laugh; Pause)

[Charlie backs away and John takes a cross-Sun stereopair, AS16-107- 17542 and 17543.]

147:12:48 Duke: Okay, here we go.

[Charlie moves in to get the fillet sample but covers the area with his own shadow.]

[Both John's and Charlie's comm seem to be clipping more than usual since John moved the Rover.]

[Charlie raises a scoopful of soil and pours it into the waiting bag.]

147:13:06 Duke: There we go. (Pause) Hey, John, here's a little piece just sitting up here on top of the rock that's got the...(Pause)

[Charlie rests the scoop against the east face of the boulder and grabs a small fragment off the top. John takes a cross-Sun "after", AS16-107- 17544.]

147:13:30 England: Okay; 374.

147:13:33 Young: (Garbled)

[John hands bag 374 to Charlie, who then puts the fragment in.]

147:13:44 Young: Here's a place that's hanging out, Charlie. Charlie?

147:13:52 Duke: Okay, let's get a...Let me get a "before". Why don't you put your hammer down there.

[John takes a cross-Sun stereopair, AS16107- 17545 and 17546, while Charlie spins the bag and then seals it. He never does take another photo of this boulder.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 14 sec )

147:14:03 Young: We've got enough documentation on the scale.

147:14:06 Duke: Okay. That looks great.

[John tries to pry off a fist-sized piece about halfway up the north face.]

147:14:13 Young: Yeah, but it's right at a fracture set; it'll...

147:14:15 Duke: Yeah.

147:14:15 Young: ...come off in good shape. (Pause)

[During geology training, they have learned that the best place to hit a rock is in a location where natural fractures have created a piece of rock which, with only a little encouragement from a hammer, will come loose easily. Not surprisingly, of all the Apollo moonwalkers, geologist Jack Schmitt was most adept with the hammer. Of the pilots who wielded hammers, John and Charlie were among the best. John hits the protruding piece five times.]

[The fifth blow dislodges the fragment, which falls to the ground.]

147:14:23 England: Good show.

[John bobs down and grabs the sample. Charlie appears to get into position to take a down-Sun but, perhaps because his shadow covers the sample location, doesn't take a picture.]

147:14:30 Young: Wow! Boy! It was one of those fractures that's all included with glass.

147:14:36 England: Okay.

147:14:37 Young: See that, Charlie?

147:14:38 Duke: Yeah, I see it.

147:14:39 Young: One of those glass fractures sets.

147:14:40 Duke: Uh-huh.

147:14:41 Young: I think the "after" on this one will be pretty interesting.

[Charlie gets a bag off his camera. Note that he is still holding the bag with the fillet sample.]

147:14:46 Young: (Presenting his SCB) Why don't you stick that one in my bag.

147:14:47 Duke: Yeah. (To Tony) Is going in 340.

[Charlie puts the fillet sample in John's SCB while John continues to examine the boulder fragment.]

147:14:53 Duke: No, that was...Yeah; bag 340 for the rock.

[John gives the boulder fragment to Charlie, who examines it.]

[This sample is 68115, a 1.2 kilogram breccia which is shown in Figure 85F in the Professional Paper. The sample is 15 x 9.5 x 8.5 cm and John is skeptical that Charlie will be able to get it bagged. When flat, the bags are 19 x 20 cm. With the top spread open, the circular orifice is 12 cm across.]

[John presents his SCB.]

147:15:35 Young: (Pointing) Now, how about that (white) rock over yonder.

147:15:37 Duke: (Getting the scoop and tongs) That's the one I'm going for! Did you get the "after"?

147:15:40 Young: No, I sure didn't, but I (will)...

[Charlie skips toward the white rock while John takes a cross-Sun "after", AS16-107- 17547.]

[What John means is that the people doing the post-mission analysis won't have any trouble figuring out how the fragment originally fit into the boulder.]

[John uses the loping stride as he runs to join Charlie. The white rock is about knee-height and Charlie is bent at the waist as he leans forward on the tongs to examine it.]

147:16:01 England: Absolutely great.

147:16:03 Young: An old "no-breccia, crystalline rock", huh?

147:16:07 Duke: And it is whitish to gray, with a lot of zap pits in it.

147:16:14 Young: Sure is, I believe. A baby could run across one (and identify it). It even has some ve(sicles)...It even has what look to be...Almost...No, they couldn't...Those are zap pits, aren't they?

147:16:24 Duke: Yeah.

[Because crystalline rocks are formed under pressure at depth, they are unlikely to contain vesicles, which are imprints of gas bubbles.]

[Charlie plants the scoop next to the rock to serve as a gnomon and then moves away to the northeast and plants the tongs. John gets in position to take a cross-Sun stereopair, AS16-107- 17548 and 17549.]

Video Clip ( 2 min 55 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPEG )

147:16:42 Young: No, we can't turn that one over.

147:16:44 England: Okay.

147:16:46 Young: Think we can turn that over, Charlie?

147:16:47 Duke: Yeah, we might, if we grab hold of this corner. I'd like you to get a big sample first, though. (I'll) get a down-Sun.

[As John approaches the rock, Charlie hops a meter or so to his left and takes a down-Sun, AS16-108- 17697.]

147:16:57 Duke: See that sharp corner? Right up at the top there?

147:17:00 Young: Off the top?

147:17:02 Duke: Yeah.

147:17:04 Young: Okay. Okay; I think I can get that. It's fractured right there.

147:17:08 Duke: Okay, I was thinking...Okay, that's good.

[John goes around to the southwest side of the rock and down into a depression so that the top of the rock is at about waist height.]

[Jones - "I get the sense, at least at this station, that John's deferring to you in the geology decisions. How did that come about? Were you conscious of that? Was it that he was concentrating on spacecraft systems and you on the geology. Or was it a matter of personality? Or what?"]

[Duke - "I think it's more just personality, here. We were working together and we just talked back and forth about decisions. I probably was a little more familiar with the geology routine than he was. Yeah, I concentrated more on that than he did. So, while it sounds like maybe I'm making the decisions, its really not. We were really working together. And I had just the sense that we were just talking it out, back and forth."]

[Jones - "It would be a reasonable split of responsibilities or, at least, areas of emphasis."]

[John taps the rock lightly three times.]

[Apparently, John has almost dislodged a fragment. His "Aw, shoot" seems to be the equivalent of "This is too easy". He taps the rock one more time and picks up the fragment, which is now loose, and examines it.]

[The crystalline rocks that make up much of the ancient lunar crust are composed primarily of the mineral plagioclase - known by it's nickname, "plage", which rhymes with "badge".]

[Jones - "The statements in this section suggest that you're both very up on the geology."]

[Duke - "Yeah, well, we had a lot of training. The equivalent of a master's degree. You know, we were able to recognize igneous and volcanic rocks. Although most of our training had been in volcanics, we'd had enough training with the igneous to be able to recognize them. But everything was so fine-grained, though, it was really difficult. We never saw any big grain stuff like the granodiorites out in the Rocky Mountains. But there was no question about it; you were looking at a single, one-matrix rock, with no breccias in this case, right here. And I think it was white because it had been shocked. But we'd studied and studied and studied."]

[NASA photo S71-51605 shows John and Charlie training at Taos, New Mexico in 1971. Journal Contributor Markus Mehring calls attention to the chest-mounted Hasselblads, which are identical to the flight cameras and which were used by the astronauts to practice taking pictures so that they could hone their ability to accurately set the focal distance and f-stop, and to properly aim the camera. Pictures taken during these field exercises were developed and then studied by the crew to improve their technique. The image was scanned by Ken Glover from Gene Simmon's On the Moon with Apollo 16 - A Guidebook to the Descartes Region.]

[Jones - "And there's certainly no doubt that, while John sometimes gives an impression of a good ol', slow-talking, slow-thinking country boy, in fact...."]

[Duke - "Well, in our book (Moonwalker by Charlie and Dotty Duke), I describe that. John sometimes talks like he's the good ol' country boy and just ignorant. But he's not. That's just the way his personality is. He's extremely sharp and he has a tremendous engineering mind. He was up on this; he knew what he was looking at. It sounds like Elmer Fudd; but he wasn't. He was really sharp."]

[Jones - "There are statements like this that make it very obvious."]

[Elmer Fudd is the slow-witted Looney Toons cartoon character who is forever tormented by that "wascally wabbit", Bugs Bunny.]

147:17:32 Young: I don't know what it is, though.

147:17:35 Duke: It's pure feldspar, it looks like...

[John hands the fragment to Charlie. This sample may be 68416, a 178-gram piece of feldspar-rich crystalline rock with a "sugary texture", which is shown in Figure 86F in the Professional Paper. There are inconsistencies in the figure labeling in the Professional Paper with regard to this fragment and two others John and Charlie will collect off this rock.]

147:17:48 Duke: Maybe partially shocked.

147:17:49 Young: Shocked, yeah.

147:17:51 Duke: But it's pure plage...It's plage, Tony.

147:17:55 England: Okay, we copy that.

147:17:56 Duke: (Bagging the sample) And it's in 341. (To John, pointing at the north side of the rock) Whack off another piece right here, John.

147:18:01 England: Okay, understand it's pretty friable.

147:18:03 Duke: And this rock (type) is pretty predominant.

[John steps to the north, but not out of the depression.]

147:18:07 Duke: No, he didn't...

147:18:08 Young: No, it isn't friable; it just fractured.

147:18:10 England: Okay.

147:18:12 Young: Where do you want to hit it off, Charlie?

147:18:14 Duke: Right at that sharp (corner)...See where the (shovel shadow)...Right there; yeah.

147:18:18 Duke: (We'll) see how that comes off.

[John steps in and taps the rock lightly - barely moving his hand - and breaks two or three pieces off a corner.]

147:18:22 Young: Yeah. Bet it's shocked.

147:18:25 Duke: Yeah.

[John transfers the hammer to his left hand and reaches forward with his right and picks up a fragment that didn't fall off the boulder.]

147:18:33 Duke: Yeah, let's put them all...And there's another piece down there, if you...I'll get the tongs.

147:18:37 Young: We got to get the "after".

147:18:38 Duke: Okay, I'll get the "after" of that right here.

[After they get the fragment bagged, Charlie steps back and takes a cross-Sun "after", AS16-108- 17698. John takes AS16-107- 17550 from a few feet to Charlie's right.]

147:18:56 Duke: 341.

147:18:57 England: Okay, we...

[Charlie grabs the tongs.]

147:19:02 England: Okay. (Pause)

[Charlie cleans the tongs and picks up a third fragment.]

[Once John has the fragment, Charlie plants the tongs and seals bag 341. The two fragments they already have were picked up off the boulder and, consequently, are clean. The third fragment fell to the surface, got dirty, and Charlie doesn't want to get soil in bag 341.]

[Sample 68415 arrived in the Lunar Receiving Lab as two pieces with total weight of 371 grams. There is an extensive discussion beginning on page 1042 in Part 3 of the Catalog of Apollo 16 Rocks ( 41Mb PDF. Page 1055 ( 634k ) is a diagram showing the two pieces and the subsequent divisions done for various types of analysis. The larger of the two received fragments - designated 68415,2 - is shown in lab photo S72-41545 ( 814k.]

147:19:20 Duke: Let's do it without getting any...(Stops to listen)

147:19:25 Young: (Answering Tony) Okay. (To Charlie) (Can we) turn that rascal over?

147:19:30 Duke: Well, we can try.

Video Clip ( 3 min 12 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 29 Mb MPEG )

147:19:31 Young: We ought to try rolling it down in that hole. (Pause)

[Charlie puts bag 341 in John's SCB.]

[John is saying that they ought to push the rock from the northeast and try to tip it into the depression he was standing in.]

147:19:39 Young: (Examining the fragment) There's a greenish hue to it, too, I don't...I'm making that up, maybe.

147:19:43 Duke: Okay. The other piece of that rock's going in 342, Tony, and that rock's pretty...I see at least ten other rocks around here that have that same appearance, so it's not a completely anomalous rock.

147:19:59 England: Okay. (Pause)

[While Charlie bags and seals the third fragment, John steps forward toward the scoop and presents his SCB.]

147:20:08 Young: Yeah. (Pause)

147:20:13 Duke: I don't think we can turn that one over, (pointing off-camera to the left) but I think we can turn that one over down over there.

[John kneels on the east side of the white boulder and tries to push it with his right hand. It doesn't move and he stands.]

147:20:22 Duke: I was going to push it (motioning toward the east) that way...

147:20:23 Young: Think you're right.

147:20:24 Duke: ...because we can get down below it.

147:20:25 Young: Wait, let's move the toolage.

147:20:27 Duke: Okay.

[John grabs the scoop and plants it out of the way, about a meter north. The tongs are already north of the rock.]

147:20:32 Duke: Yeah, I see.

147:20:36 Young: Let me do that, Charlie.

147:20:37 Duke: No, we can both lift it. (Pause)

[John and Charlie are both in the depression and appear to put their hands low on the rock and try to push it over.]

147:20:47 England: Okay, let's forget that one.

147:20:49 Duke: Budged once, but I don't think we're gonna do it.

[The boulder is about 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.75 meters and, consequently, has a volume of about 0.19 cubic meters. The rock density is about 2000 kilograms per cubic meters and the terrestrial weight of the rock is about 380 kg or 840 pounds. The lunar weight is about 60 kg or 140 pounds. Although these are very rough estimates, they suggest that, with good traction and a favorable boulder position on the surface, John and Charlie might have been able to overturn the boulder. Certainly, at Apollo 15 Station 2, Dave Scott was able to overturn a boulder of similar size. Here, the boulder may be wedged into the side of the depression.]

147:20:59 England: Okay, have at it. And remember we're looking for shaded samples and east-west cracks and all that kind of thing (as per checklist pages CDR-24 and 25).

147:21:09 Duke: Yeah, well, there's nothing like that here.

147:21:11 England: Okay.

147:21:13 Duke: Unfortunately. (Long Pause)

[Charlie grabs the tongs and scoop and heads off-camera to the left. Fendell pulls back on the zoom. John continues to examine the southwest face of the white boulder and then appears to give one last try at turning it over.]

147:21:29 Young: (To himself) (Lost under Tony) you'll never budge that rock (lost under Tony).

[John gives up and follows Charlie.]

147:21:39 Duke: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "John's coming back from the rock. Is he playing?"]

[Duke - "I think he's just playing. Or he's trying to jump out of a crater. He really got up in the air then."]

[Jones - "One leg back, one leg forward."]

[John goes off-camera to the left and Fendell pans to the right.]

147:22:05 Young: Big?

147:22:06 Duke: Yeah.

147:22:08 Young: Well, we'll take the documentation first, right? Stick the (scoop in the ground next to the boulder)...

147:22:14 Duke: Yeah, let me take a cross-Sun.

147:22:17 Young: I'll get the cross-Sun.

147:22:18 Duke: Okay, then we'll see if we can move it. I don't think, we can. It's got a pretty big base to it. (Pause) Okay, 7 foot (focus) at f/8. I got it. (Pause)

[Charlie takes a cross-Sun stereopair from the north, AS16-108- 17699 and 17700. Note that John has the hammer in his right shin pocket. John takes a stereopair from the southwest, AS16-107- 17551 and 17552.]

[This rock is about 1.5 meters across and probably weighs twenty or thirty times as much as the white boulder.]

147:22:41 Duke: Hey, look; (it's) got a good fillet around it.

147:22:43 Young: It does.

[Fendell reaches the clockwise pan limit and reverses direction.]

[The idea is to compare the composition and exposure age of samples of soil taken from the top of the boulder, from the fillet, and from an area away from the rock with chips taken from the rock. If fillets are derived mostly from regolith that splashes against the rock, the three soil samples will show similar compositions. One the other hand, if the fillet material is primarily eroded from the rock itself, the top and fillet samples will be similar in composition to the rock and will be different from the soil taken at a distance from the rock.]

[Useful comparisons can still be made if the top of the rock is dust free.]

147:23:13 Young: Okay, but I thought you didn't want breccias. It's a breccia.

147:23:21 Duke: It says "crystalline or tough breccia for fillet sample".

147:23:25 Young: I don't know whether it's "tuff" or not. You mean "hard".

147:23:29 Duke: Yeah.

147:23:30 Young: Not "tuff", huh?.

[Tuff is a rock made of volcanic ash fused by its own internal heat. John and Charlie saw a great deal of tuff on their geology field trips in the western U.S., especially in New Mexico and Arizona.]

147:23:33 England: Oh, we'd prefer...

147:23:34 Duke: Let's take it...Let's try it, John, okay?

147:23:35 Young: All righty.

147:23:36 Duke: We'll fill that square. Okay, fillet coming in from this side. There's a good one right over here. Already got the cross-Sun.

147:23:57 Young: My personal guess is that fillet didn't come off that rock.

147:24:01 Duke: Mine, too. (Pause)

[Jones - "The way I interpret this is that the fillet was mostly on one side, that ejecta from some other impact had splashed against."]

[Duke - "Yeah. But, you know, it means it hit and skidded in."]

[Jones - "Ah! Rather than something being thrown against it?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. Or, it could have been the other. You're right. It could have been one or the other. The rock hit and skidded in to a stop and dug in; or, as it was sitting there, an explosion blasting out stuff from another rock (impact) could have come in and hit it. But it didn't have anything on the top, so that's...That (meaning ejecta from another impact) would have probably left dust up on the top of the rock, too. And this rock didn't have it. So it was more likely that, as it hit, it dug in."]

[As shown in Figure 14 in the South Ray chapter of the Apollo 16 Professional Paper, the fillet is on the north side of the boulder and, as author V. Stephen Reed writes, it "appears to be old regolith pushed up when the boulder landed, rather than a fillet formed by rock degradation (which is a third means of producing fillets)."]

147:24:08 England: Okay, 375. (Pause)

147:24:16 Young: Oh, Charlie; wait a minute. Wait a minute. Here, let me put this in your bag and give you a hand. Turn that. Got to get a rock off the top before we turn it, right?

147:24:28 Duke: No, they don't have to do that. They want a chip off of it, though.

147:24:32 Young: That's what I mean.

147:24:33 Duke: Yeah.

[Fendell finds John and Charlie working ENE of the Rover. They are just visible past the high-gain mast. As can be seen in Figure 6 in the South Ray chapter of the Professional Paper, they are about 33 meters from the second Rover parking place.]

147:24:37 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

[During Charlie's next transmission, he backs away from the rock, grabs the shovel, plants it near the rock and then backs up again and takes a cross-Sun "after" of the fillet sample from the north, AS16-108- 17701. As can be seen in the picture, John is trying to knock a chip off the top of the rock, using strokes of no more than a few inches.]

147:24:53 England: Okay, good show. (Pause) And we'll need a reference soil.

147:25:02 Duke: Yeah, we'll get it.

147:25:04 Young: Watch out, Charlie.

[This rock is particularly hard and John is probably worried that a chip will fly off and hit Charlie. A chip hitting the suit at any plausible velocity would not cause any significant damage, but it could scratch the visor or, if it hit in just the wrong place, be felt.]

147:25:06 Young: A hard, hard rock.

[While Charlie watches, John comes around the east side of the boulder. Evidently, John has been unable to get a chip.]

[John pulls the hammer back a few inches and taps off a chip.]

[John hits the rock twice more with short strokes and knocks off an even bigger piece.]

147:25:21 Young: Careful.

[Charlie hops sideways to get the tongs and a sample bag pops out of his SCB and falls to the ground.]

[Charlie heads for the boulder with the tongs.]

147:25:32 Duke: (To Tony) Thank you.

147:25:33 Young: ...your top came loose. Thank you, Houston.

[Having turned to look for the fallen bag, Charlie returns and retrieves it with the tongs.]

147:25:40 Duke: Pretty good resolution (on the TV picture), Tony?

147:25:42 England: Right. (Pause)

147:25:46 Young: Hey, am I....

147:25:49 Duke: Could you stick that back in my bag, John? (Pause)

[Charlie hands the bag to John and presents his SCB.]

147:26:02 Duke: (asking about John's transmission at 25:46) What do you want? (Pause) John?

147:26:09 Young: No, I just feel like my suit is pressurizing more. What are you guys looking at down there on the ground (in terms of suit pressure)?

147:26:15 England: (Mis-understanding John's question) Oh, we're seeing you bending over a big boulder.

[Charlie is hidden by the high-gain mast while he picks up the boulder fragment. The sample is 68815, a 1.8 kg breccia, which is shown in Figure 88D in the Professional Paper. It is 21 x 15 x 5 cm in size and, as Charlie mentions in a moment, is too big to fit in a sample bag. It is also too big for the tongs.]

147:26:22 Young: (To Tony) No, no, on my suit pressure.

147:26:25 England: 3.9.

147:26:28 Young: Let me get it, Charlie. (Hearing Tony) Okay.

147:26:31 Duke: I felt the same way a minute ago, John. Dadgum thing's gonna be too big to go in there, anyway.

147:26:42 Young: (Garbled; John is clipping badly)

147:26:44 Duke: Go ahead.

[Although John is mostly hidden by the high-gain mast, he goes to his knees to get the sample. Charlie stands next to him and helps him rise.]

147:26:53 Young: Yeah. (Pause)

147:26:58 Duke: Want to crack it in two or bring the whole...It's not gonna be any good unless we can get it in the sack.

147:27:02 Young: It isn't gonna be any good unless we put it in the sack?

147:27:05 Duke: I don't think they'll ever recognize it again.

147:27:07 Young: Oh, yeah (they will); throw it in my bag.

147:27:11 Duke: Let's...Okay. (Pause)

[John hands the sample to Charlie and presents his SCB.]

147:27:22 Young: Okay, and it opened up a clear fillet (probably means "vesicle"), and there's a lot of...This is a vesicular type of breccia. (Garbled) "after", (garbled).

[John takes a cross-Sun stereopair of "afters", AS16-107- 17553 and 17554. See, also, a red-blue anaglyph.]

147:27:38 Young: Don't worry about it, Charlie.

147:27:39 Duke: Well, I was gonna put it in a sack so they'll make sure...(After) all that hammering, I don't want them to lose it. (Pause) Yeah. (Pause)

147:27:50 Young: Hey, let's push it over.

[Charlie bends his knees, probably as he gets the small sample.]

147:28:09 England: Okay; 343. (Pause)

[According to Bailey and Ulrich, this is sample 68810, which I do not find listed in either the Professional Paper or the Preliminary Science Report.]

[While Charlie bags the sample, John goes around to the north side of the boulder and moves the scoop out of the way.]

Video Clip ( 3 min 30 sec 0.9 Mb RealVideo or 31 Mb MPEG )

147:28:19 England: Okay, and you've got...

147:28:20 Duke: It might be better going the other way - downslope - with it, John.

147:28:23 England: ...15 minutes left.

[John puts his right shoulder into the rock and pushes on the east face while Charlie pushes in the same direction from John's right. As noted previously, this rock is roughly 1.5 meters on a side and has a lunar weight approaching 1000 kilograms.]

[In tandem, they push on the rock five times and manage to rock it a few degrees each time. However, it doesn't appear that the base of the rock at their feet rises more than a centimeter or two.]

[Jones - "John was down fairly low, pushing with his hands."]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. And it was like putting your shoulder into it; you make your arm 90 degrees and pull your hand up next to your shoulder and that way you can push on it. And you can lock your elbow into your side. And then you could get over and then you could start moving. And we rocked it a couple of times, but it was just too big. It doesn't look like we got it over on this one."]

[Jones - "Do you remember any damage to the outer surface of the gloves?"]

[Duke - "No."]

[Jones - "Any abrasion or tearing or anything like that.?"]

[Duke - "Nothing that sticks in my mind. There were some rough...There was a little roughness...We had not only the EVA gloves, but we had these little - like a golf glove - that went over those, with the tips of the fingers cut out. And that was a pretty good pad."]

[Jones - "And you were still wearing those?"]

[Duke - "We were wearing those."]

147:28:40 England: Yeah, don't strain yourselves there.

[They stand.]

147:28:45 Young: Well, you don't want to...

[Behind the high-gain mast, John presents his SCB.]

147:28:59 Young: Hold this (hammer) here for a second, Charlie?

147:29:01 Duke: Yeah, wait a minute. Let me get this top closed. (Pause) Turn around just a minute to your right; thank you. Okay. Go ahead. (Pause)

[John is completely hidden by the high-gain mast, but is probably making one last try to tip the boulder.]

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom.]

147:29:23 Young: You were trying to pick it up?

147:29:25 Duke: That's what I tried. Yeah, I tried from that edge, too. (Pause) You're not even budging it.

147:29:32 Young: Well, you just can't get a grip on it.

147:29:34 Duke: No, you can't, not with these gloves. (Pause) Here's your hammer back. (As per LMP-25) we got to go off 5 meters and get a reference soil.

147:29:44 England: Okay, why don't we get that reference soil and look around for a little bit smaller boulder to turn over.

147:29:52 LM Crew: Okay. (Long Pause)

[John goes to his knees to get the scoop which, apparently, had fallen.]

147:30:08 Duke: (Pointing north) Okay, here's a pretty pristine area right over here, John. We haven't been walking...We can just go over here and get it. Stick the shovel down there and I'll...Is that 5 meters? Yeah, that's about 5 meters.

147:30:25 Young: Fifteen feet, maybe.

147:30:26 Duke: Yeah. Okay, I get the down-Sun. (Pause)

[John plants the scoop and backs up to take a cross-Sun stereopair from the south, AS16-107- 17555 and 17556. Charlie's down-Sun is AS16-108- 17702. The Rover is in the background and John is at the right, holding the hammer.]

147:30:49 Duke: And that (Down-Sun) serves as the locator, too, Tony.

147:30:51 England: Okay, that sounds fine. (Pause)

[Charlie walks toward the scoop - walking slowly to avoid kicking dust - and plants the tongs.]

147:31:03 Young: I'm just looking for a boulder to turn over, and I don't see any.

147:31:06 Duke: There's a little one right up there; it's about a foot and a half.

147:31:09 Young: (Pointing west) That one right there?

147:31:10 Duke: Yeah, uh-huh. (Pause)

[While John looks around, Charlie gets a sample bag ready.]

147:31:18 England: Rog. One scoopful. (Long Pause)

[John grabs the scoop and gets a scoopful of soil. In Houston, Tony asks the Backroom if they "want to mess around with a foot-and-a-half boulder".]

147:31:33 Young: It does.

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147:31:36 Duke: That's good. Went right in. Okay, that one shovelful, Tony-baby, is in 344! (Pause)

147:31:51 England: Okay; 344. (Pause)

[While Charlie spins the bag closed, John takes an "after" from the south, AS16-107- 17557.]

[Charlie gives John the sample bag and presents his SCB.]

147:32:00 Young: (Lost under Tony)

147:32:00 England: ...we'd like you to use the rest of the time here just in documented sampling, if you don't see a more appropriate boulder than that foot-and-a-half one.

147:32:10 Young: Okay.

147:32:11 England: And, we encourage you to just look for some variety.

147:32:12 Duke: (Looking south) There's one down there, John, but that's quite a ways down sl(ope)...(Stops to listen) Down to your left.

[John turns to look south.]

147:32:22 Young: (Looking toward the Rover) How about this one right here. We can turn it over, Charlie. It just isn't very big, that's all.

147:32:26 Duke: That's right, that's what they just said; they don't want that one.

147:32:29 Young: Oh. (Pause)

[Charlie has dropped the hammer. He tries to bob down to get it but loses his balance and lands heavily on his hands and knees.]

147:32:42 Young: Here you go.

147:32:45 Duke: Okay, just start pushing on my head.

[Charlie wants John to push back on his head so he can rotate his torso up and over his knees. Instead, John goes to Charlie's left side and holds out his hand.]

147:32:50 Duke: Okay. Here we go.

[Charlie takes John's hand and rises, albeit awkwardly. As he rises, a sample bag comes out of his SCB.]

[A second bag comes out of Charlie's SCB.]

147:32:56 Duke: ...sample bag. Two bags. Gummit.

147:33:05 Young: I think we ought to trade those bags (meaning the SCBs)...samples.

147:33:09 Duke: Yeah, I'm gonna empty them in the seat.

147:33:11 Young: Huh?

[Charlie gets one of the fallen bags and gives it to John, who puts it in Charlie's SCB.]

147:33:12 Duke: (Lost under Tony), I think.

147:33:13 Young: Yeah, I think we should do that.

147:33:16 Duke: (Responding to Tony) They are.

147:33:18 Young: They ain't...They're not looking it, they really are full. We ought to go trade them out, right now.

[Charlie has retrieved the second bag and John is stowing it.]

147:33:26 Young: Both sets. Before we do anymore hard work here. Let's go trade them, Charlie.

147:33:32 Duke: Okay; that's a good idea. (Pause) How are the consumables looking, Tony?

147:33:44 England: We'll get a number for you. (Long Pause)

[John and Charlie head for the Rover and, because they are going radially, Fendell is able to follow them by pulling back on the zoom and panning slowly left. Charlie is on the right, with the tongs in his right hand. John is on the left with the hammer in his right hand and the scoop in his left. Charlie slows his skipping stride to avoid losing more bags and covers roughly 32 meters in 37 seconds, which is an average speed of only 3.1 km/hr. John started 3 seconds later, possibly so he could watch Charlie's SCB, but arrives at about the same time. His average speed is about 3.4 km/hr. They go off-camera to the left.]

[In Houston, Flight is told that the crew could be given a 20-minute extension of the EVA. In addition, Jim Lovell, who is the Backroom spokesman, tells Flight that they would like Charlie to take some 500-mm photos of Stone Mountain. These will give the photo analysts a view from a different angle than the series taken near the LM and during EVA-1. Flight decides that, after they get the SCBs changed and the photos taken, they should press on to Station 9.]

147:34:08 Young: Hotdiggity.

147:34:09 Duke: Super. (Long Pause) Ah, me. (Pause) Okay, let's see. (Pause) Stand that up, we're gonna be using that beauty.

147:34:37 England: And, Charlie, as long as you're back here at the Rover...

147:34:38 Duke: Okay, John, let's get you bag...(Stops to listen)

147:34:42 England: ...we'd like you to take some 500-millimeters, when you get a chance, of Stone Mountain.

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147:34:48 Duke: (Responding to Tony) All righty; I'll do it.

147:34:51 Young: Man, we were just up there. (Laughing) You weren't paying attention, huh?

[John appears at the left side of the TV picture and, although our view is partially blocked, it is evident that he stows the hammer in his shin pocket.]

147:35:16 Young: (Garbled) change the bags. (Pause) Bend over, Charlie.

147:35:22 Duke: Okay.

[While he works on Charlie's SCB, we only see the back of John's PLSS.]

147:35:34 Duke: Okay, excuse me.

147:35:36 Young: All right.

[Now that John has Charlie's SCB off, Charlie bounds around to John's left side and, on-camera, starts to remove his SCB. After a moment, however, Charlie drifts off-camera to the left.]

147:35:48 Young: Okay.

147:35:49 Duke: And...(Pause)

147:35:52 Young: Why don't you get the core tubes out?

147:35:55 Duke: Okay, I will. There's another bag under my seat that I could put them in.

147:36:01 Young: Will they hold any more when we do that?

[There are some core tubes in John's SCB and the thought may have been that, by taking the core tubes out, they could pack the samples in more tightly before securing the cover.]

147:36:20 Young: (I don't) believe it. (Pause) (Garbled)

147:36:35 Duke: See, that one wasn't on.

147:36:36 Young: Huh?

147:36:37 Duke: Mine wasn't on. (Pause) (Garbled) (Pause) Dadgum thing.

147:36:58 Young: Charlie?

147:37:00 Duke: What? I think we ought to put them under our seats.

147:37:04 Young: Well, let's open the gate here. We ain't got any room under our seats.

147:37:08 Duke: Right.

147:37:12 Young: Okay. Now, you tell me why that thing...Oh, I can see from here. (Long Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 8 min 10 sec )

147:37:29 Young: Push down on that door. (Pause) That's got it. (Laughs) (Garbled) off of the thing it goes on. (Pause) Okay; let me get yours. (Long Pause)

Video Clip ( 2 min 29 sec 0.6 Mb RealVideo or 22 Mb MPEG )

147:38:00 Duke: Do you want me to open the door?

147:38:01 Young: No, I've got it now. There we go.

[They may be stowing the bags on the inside of the gate at the back of the Rover. The gate is undoubtedly Charlie's "door". See a detail from AS16-117- 18825.]

[Fendell pans clockwise.]

[In Houston, Flight is having a discussion with the Rover operations people about switch configurations for the traverse to Station 9. They are not convinced that they understand the problem John had during the traverse from Station 6 and want him to draw both front and back power from PWM 1. After that, there is a discussion about battery configurations.]

147:38:07 Young: Yeah, it's...

[Duke - "The camera was sticking out there, you know, six inches or so and it just made it difficult to get close to things to work. So, by taking the camera off, you were able to work a lot easier."]

147:38:11 Young: That one there is.

147:38:12 Duke: Okay. Now...(Pause) Okay, Tony, we're breaking out bag 4.

147:38:36 England: Okay; bag 4.

147:38:30 Duke: John, I think we can just leave those doomaflickies - the core tubes - in there, and then when I get to the next place, I can...

147:38:42 Young: You'll (lose) it like we normally do.

147:38:44 Duke: Yeah, I'll just use them out of there.

147:38:47 Young: All you have to do is just pull it in the breeze, Charlie. It'll open right up.

147:38:53 Duke: Do what?

147:38:56 Young: Pull it in the breeze.

[Charlie is attaching John's SCB but I am unable to make sense of John's "pull it in the breeze", if that is a correct transcription. It suggests getting somthing to open fully by holding it up to the wind. If so, John is joking, perhaps in reference to Charlie's various attempts to blow dust off of things.]

147:39:40 Young: Charlie, since I don't have to carry the gnomon any more, I could carry a sample bag (meaning an SCB) in one hand. We could use that technique. (Pause)

[Fendell finds John and Charlie at the back of the Rover. Charlie is attaching John's new SCB.]

[In Houston, Flight asks Tony if he has copied the Rover switch changes. Tony has probably been trying to listen to both the conversation in the MOCR and the conversation on the Moon but seems to have copied all the switch changes.]

147:39:56 Young: Okay.

147:40:02 Duke: Okay. Now, there's one under my seat that's partially full of rocks. Why don't we get that. Just use that.

[Charlie goes to the LMP seat, picks up his Hasselblad and mounts it on his RCU bracket.]

147:40:09 Duke: Oh. Okay; we'll just break out a new one then.

147:40:14 Young: I think you'd better. (Pause)

[John opens the gate at the back of the Rover. It is hinged at the left rear, behind the CDR seat. Charlie joins him and then turns his checklist page, probably to look at LMP-16 and LMP-17.]

147:40:24 Young: Okay; I'm breaking out bag number 6.

147:40:27 England: Okay: SCB-6.

147:40:29 Young: Goes to Charlie.

147:40:32 Duke: Okay, how much time we got left, Tony? This is taking a long time. (Pause)

[Charlie turns to his left so John can attach the new SCB to the right side of his PLSS. The new SCB is creased from having been folded on the Hand Tool Carrier for several months.]

147:40:50 Duke: Yep.

147:40:53 England: Okay. I guess we'd like...(Stops to listen)

147:40:54 Duke: Tony, this might be a good place...

147:40:54 Young: (To Charlie) Go left; excuse me.

147:40:55 England: Go ahead, Charlie.

147:41:00 Duke: Go ahead.

[With Charlie bent over, John stands behind him, bends his knees, and works on the bottom fasteners.]

147:41:08 Duke: Okay; I was just gonna say (that) there's some good crystalline...that white crystalline rock that we picked up there. There's some good fist-size ones that would make good padded bag samples. (Pause)

147:41:25 England: Okay. While you're configuring, we'll work that. (Long Pause)

147:42:06 Young: Oh, dear. All those kittens with mittens could do better than this.

147:42:14 Duke: Isn't that terrible? Isn't that terrible!? (Pause)

[John is referring to the Mother Goose nursery rhyme "The Three Little Kittens", which first appeared in print in 1843.]

147:42:34 Duke: I think it was number 2. Stand by.

147:42:36 England: Okay.

[John has been working near the right rear fender. Once he finishes with Charlie's SCB, he stands, turns to his right, and starts to move to the other side of the Rover. As he does so, his right leg catches on the rear fender extension. After a moment, the fender extension breaks loose and the rest of the fender snaps back toward its normal position.]

147:42:41 Duke: Uh-oh.

[Charlie turns to look at the fender and then hops to his left to the gate. Fendell follows.]

[Jones - "Looking at it again, John gets down low to finish up your bag, and it looks like he just catches it with his leg, or maybe the hammer if he's got it in his shin pocket. There's a spray of dust that comes off of it when it snaps back."]

[Duke - "He caught it with his right leg. And it popped back. The fender was made in two parts. There was a part that slid...The part that was fixed, that was attached to the frame in a couple of spots, that made it very wiggly. The mounting was not real stiff, so it could rattle. And there was another part (the extension) that slid down over the wheel, like a mud flap..."]

[Jones - "On the back of this one."]

[Duke - "On the back on the right-rear wheel. And what happened, as he went by, his right leg apparently caught it, caught that bottom part, that bent the whole thing and, when the bottom, mud-flap part broke loose, the other snapped back and that threw off the dust."]

[Jones - "If I remember right, in Moonwalker you said that you had lost a fender in training a time or two; and that you weren't concerned about it when it happened here."]

[Duke - "I don't remember exactly, but it probably did happen; because of, you know, wear and tear on a training vehicle. You know, operating it every time we went out there to practice. Things just got loose and we weren't particularly concerned about it when it happened. See, we didn't even stop to try to pick it up and put it back on. We just left it."]

[Jones - "And the dust up there on the Moon would have been more of a problem than in any training environment down here."]

[Duke - "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."]

[Jones - "So you didn't appreciate how much dust the wheel was going to spray on you."]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. That's right."]

[Ron Creel has provided a summary ( 1.3 Mb PDF ) of the fender extension losses that occurred on all three Rover missions.]

147:42:46 England: Okay. We copy that.

147:42:49 Young: ...That was mine. Charlie had number 1. Charlie had number 1.

Video Clip ( 2 min 32 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPEG )

147:42:53 England: All right. We copy that.

147:42:59 Young: And I had number 2.

[Charlie gets the scoop off the gate and hands it to John.]

147:43:07 England: Negative. It's time to go.

147:43:11 Young: It's time to go?

147:43:14 England: Yes sir. It sure is.

147:43:15 Duke: That was terrible, taking that much time (to change the SCBs).

[Duke - "We've been around the Rover, now, five minutes or more, just changing out the bags. It was really a frustrating and a time consuming and a very wasteful effort to change out the SCBs and break out the new ones. Time is so valuable up there, we really should have put more thought into how we store the individual sample bags and what we do with the design of the doffing and donning of the SCBs. And, in the future, you really ought to look at some sort of a quick disconnect and connect operation - if you're going to hang 'em on your back. I personally think the best thing is a little shopping bag deal where you carry it around with you and make it broad enough base so that, when you plop it down, it just stays there."]

[Jones - "And then just have a little slot on the back of the Rover you can stick it in..."]

[Duke - "Or under the seat where you can just throw it in and leave it. Or, when you get back, you know, have something permanently there on the Rover that, when you get back, you just pour everything in and that leaves you with the empty bag again. It turned out it was very, very wasteful of time - more than five minutes here and we didn't get anything done. We're just screwing around trying to get some fresh bags."]

[Jones - "This is the worst example of time taken to change bags, but it's not the only example."]

[Duke - "That's right."]

[They started changing the bags at 147:34:38 and, therefore, spent nearly nine minutes doing what should have been - with well designed equipment - a quick, simple job.]

[Charlie stows the tongs and the scoop on the gate.]

147:43:21 England: Well, we'll get the padded bags later.

147:43:24 Young: (Incredulous) We were out there an hour? Been out here an hour?

147:43:30 Duke: Tony, we've been here an hour?

147:43:32 England: Yes, you have.

147:43:38 Duke: It doesn't seem like it.

147:43:40 Young: Time flies, huh?

147:43:41 Duke: It sure does. (Pause) The old stop 9 (is next). (Pause)

[While Charlie closes the gate, John goes off-camera to the CDR seat.]

[The Apollo 17 crew lost the right-rear fender extension on their Rover at about 118:51:20 when Gene Cernan walked by on his way around the back of the vehicle, got his hammer caught under the fender extension, and tore it off.]

147:44:07 Duke: Just exactly! (Pause)

[Jones - "The dust will become much more of a problem with the fender gone but, do you remember if, up to this point, there were problems with equipment getting fouled with dust?"]

[Duke - "No. It was more accumulation of stuff, especially our suits. They got dirtier and dirtier and grittier and grittier; and it was harder and harder to get things locked and unlocked - the gloves and the helmet. We tried to clean them up as best we could - the seals. And we had these wipes and stuff when we took 'em off. But it just got, you know, more and more difficult. The long-duration stays up there, we're going to have to have good EVA maintenance. Probably take some spare suits along, certainly spare parts: new seals and stuff like that. We had a few, minor things, that we could do in repair. But preventive maintenance of the suits is going to be very, very important. As far as the hardware goes - and, by that, I mean the lunar experiments - certainly things got dustier and dustier, especially once the fender fell off. And then, wear and tear on the stuff. The gnomon, for instance, came apart. It was a bad design. John just pulled that out and the whole rod came out and left the tripod down there. And that not only happened on our flight; it happened on a couple of the other flights, too. Those kind of things - attention to detail and design."]

[Jones - "On 17, Jack had a lot of trouble on the last EVA with the adjustment mechanism on the scoop head. There were squeeze plates on the sides to change the angle of it; and those were getting pretty badly fouled."]

[Duke - "I don't remember that one in particular, per se, on our flight, but I did notice that the tongs got stiffer and stiffer as they got grittier and grittier in there, as the dust got in and began to bind up the spring mechanism. The cameras: they continued to work but they were really getting dusty."]

[Jones - "Hard to read?"]

[Duke - "No. I don't remember it being hard to read. But, you know, I was amazed that the cameras kept working, really, because it was a trigger and it was electric motors and stuff like that; but I think the salvation of it all was the fact that the film pack had its own electric motor and the film pack never stayed (in the camera too long)...You know, we changed those out every couple of hours and that was probably the salvation of the thing, because the camera body, and the trigger were really getting dusty."]

[Jones - "So there were separate electrical systems for the shutter and the film pack?"]

[Duke - "I think the same battery, but separate electrical systems; yeah."]

[Jones - "Fascinating. I hadn't run across that before."]

[Journal Contributor Markus Mehring adds the following comments. "Regarding the camera motors, I'd say Charlie is wrong here. As far as I know, the magazines didn't have a separate motor or circuitry. The lower camera body contained two Ni-Cd-batteries (with a power reserve for about 2000 photos) and the motor; and this motor was fully responsible for cocking the shutter, triggering the exposure and for film transport. The Hasselblads were specifically designed that way very early in the program, and they didn't change much during Apollo. The magazines were, of course, non-standard, namely bigger than usual; but they contained little more than two open reels for 8-11 meters of film (that is, 140-180 frames, depending on film type and thus film thickness). I think this was a very sensible design (and in retrospect it worked like a charm), and adding a motor and a bunch of cables to the magazines would have meant less photos per magazine, extra load for the batteries and a potential source for technical flaws. Why make it complicated when the simpler design works."]

[On the TV, we see Charlie turn his checklist pages until he gets to LMP-15 so he can see which of the planned Station 8 activities they completed.]

147:44:35 England: Okay. We copy that, Charlie. And we may get a boulder yet, you never know. (Pause)

[Charlie checks the 16-mm camera.]

147:44:57 England: Yeah. Let's go ahead and turn it on.

147:45:02 Duke: (Reaching up to turn the camera on) Okay. We'll let her run, one frame a second...

147:45:05 England: Okay.

147:45:06 Duke: ...f/8.

147:45:07 Young: Okay; Houston. We're going Mode switch to 1.

147:45:12 England: Okay; see you later.

[Charlie gets ready to jump into his seat.]

147:45:17 England: Okay; 142. [Static; Long Pause]

[TV off.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 15 sec )

147:45:45 Young: Looks like you're in pretty good, Charlie. (Pause)

147:45:50 Duke: Thank you. (Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 36 sec )

147:46:01 Duke: Oh, dadgummit, John. I dropped my seatbelt.

147:46:05 Young: Here you go. Let me get it for you.

147:46:13 Duke: Okay. I got it. Thank you.

147:46:14 Young: Got it?

147:46:27 Duke: You know, it's a shame we never did ... get to see into Stubby; but that's a...

147:46:33 Young: I thought you were looking in it from Stone there.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 1 min 46 sec )

147:46:34 Duke: Oh, I did from there, but I didn't see that...I couldn't tell whether...You can't see this east side of it to see whether the thing is really filled in from a flow (off Stone Mountain) or not, or whether it's just subsidence. That's what I really wanted to find out.

147:46:50 England: Okay. And we have a configuration change for the LRV. (Pause)

147:47:05 Young: Okay. Go ahead with your config change.

147:47:07 England: Okay. On the PWM Select, we'd like to go to 1. And, on the Drive Enables, we'd like...

147:47:17 Young: Okay; we're in 1.

147:47:18 England: Right. And the Drive Enables, we'd like Left Rear and Right Rear to PWM 1.

147:47:23 Young: Left Rear and Right Rear to PWM 1. Go.

147:47:26 England: And on Batt 2, Bus C circuit breaker, we'd like to pull that one; that'll load up battery 1 a little bit more. Batt 2 I guess is a little hot.

147:47:40 Young: You want to pull Batt 2 Bus C circuit breaker?

147:47:43 England: That's affirmative.

147:47:45 Young: Yeah. Okay, Batt 2 Bus C breaker coming open. (Pause) We're on...Is that it? Did that complete it, Tony?

147:47:58 England: That's it.

147:48:00 Duke: Wait a minute. Your drive power left rear and right rear is in Batt Bus C. That ain't gonna...You don't have any drive power. (Pause)

147:48:09 England: Drive power should be nominal.

147:48:10 Young: Yeah, you do.

147:48:10 Duke: I don't understand.

147:48:11 Young: Yeah, that'll be all right.

147:48:12 Duke: Okay, fine; I don't know that much about it.

[Because there was little prospect that Charlie would ever drive the Rover, he is not intimately familiar with the drive systems.]