Post-landing Activities

Wake-up for EVA-1

 

Window Geology

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library.
Video credits in the Video Library.
Except where noted, audio clips by Roland Speth.
Last revised 29 May 2012.

MP3 Audio Clip (15 min 01 sec)

106:40:36 Duke: Okay, Tony. Let's do the debriefing. We don't really...I'd like to describe for a LM window description. We had so much practice at that, I'd like to see how I could do.

[Charlie wants to try his hand at a description of the scene out his window.]

[Jones - "Would you do this sort of thing when you went out on field trips to Hawaii or wherever?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. They'd start us out (as if we were) in the Lunar Module; and we'd sit there and just describe what we could see from about 12 o'clock around to 3 o'clock. And we'd describe everything: the size of the rocks, the terrain, if we could see any bedrock, you know, what kind of ridges, the shape of the mountains, those kind of things."]

[Jones - "When you say 'start out in the Lunar Module'..."]

[Duke - "Well, we wouldn't have a Lunar Module, of course. You just have...'Okay, this is where you landed, you guys.' And we'd...I can't remember whether we got up on the back of a truck or what we did, but it would give us a little elevation, you see. And we'd just start describing what we could see out of the window, looking to the west or whatever. Yeah, it was pretty good training."]

[John Pfannerstill has scanned portions of Apollo 16 Pan Camera frame 4623 showing the area around the LM, the area north to North Ray Crater, and the area south to Stone Mountain.]

106:41:04 Duke: Okay. Looking out at 12 o'clock on the horizon, there is a very hilly, subdued region - well, let's say hilly terrain - at 12 o'clock that goes on out of view around to 11. It's rolling with white pockmarked craters there, and I'd say that's maybe 50 to 100 meters above the surrounding terrain where we are.

As you move around from 1 to 3 o'clock, approaching the...At about 1 o'clock I would say we can see maybe a kilometer or so, but it might be very deceiving on that distance. And we see more rolling terrain, similar in albedo. It's a light gray, with fresh craters being white.

As we come on to 3 o'clock - 2:30 to 3 - the near ridge that was on our map that blocks out North Ray and Stone (Mountain) is - correction, Smoky Mountain - is really there; and it's about a, oh, 3- to 4-degree slope, and the ridge maybe goes up 10 to 15 meters.

As we come into the near field at 12 o'clock - (clears throat) excuse me - in front of the LM maybe 50 to 100 meters, there's this other low ridge that we described. Beyond that we can see a depression; and then it rises again to another ridge, which is probably...goes into Spook Crater. I think I can see Spook on the horizon at about my 12 o'clock position. That (near ridge) is boulder covered. The largest boulder I see is perhaps 2 to 3 meters in (clears throat) width, and they're angular. There are three of those boulders; and one is at 12 (o'clock); (and) the other two are over on that second rise away from us at about 1:30. And I'd say those boulders and smaller down to 1 meter cover maybe 1 percent of the surface. The trafficability out that way looks good as far as boulders go. It's going to be up and down though.

As we come into 2:30 from 50 to 150 meters, I've already described that bright fresh crater with the small blocks around it, more "cobbles" (about 64 mm to 256 mm), really. Beyond that, there are two other craters, which sort of trend into this depression that runs north-south here. There's a boulder beyond that at 2:30, which is partially buried. It has a good fillet on the south side. To the north side, and to the east side, there's no fillet at all.

As we come on into 3 o'clock in the near field, I see a good size crater, perhaps 30 meters to 50 meters at 2 o'clock on the inboard side, that's my side of this ridge, and we have maybe 10 percent of the surface covered with blocks of less than half a meter. Over.

[Duke - "I look back now and I think we probably missed the distances. It's very difficult to judge distances up there and the sizes of objects (are difficult to judge). You're looking at things you've never seen before and, so, the only thing you can do is comparative references and what could be big, far away, looks very much like something that's smaller close-in. I mean, we made a gross mistake up at North Ray Crater about a big block (House Rock) that was off to the north of us; and, man, we just kept running and running and running to get to that thing and it turned out to be humongous! That just really floored us. And that brought home to me how difficult it was to judge distances and sizes of objects you'd never seen before."]

[Readers should note that House Rock is so large that it is visible in pre-flight traverse map "Descartes EVA-I, III 2 of 2" ( 3.1 Mb or 0.6 Mb ) at CZ.2/80.6 in the gap between the bottom of the "1" and the "2". It is visible as a dot that is white on the east and black on the west. It is even more apparent in the more detailed map "Descartes EVA-III 3 of 3" ( 2.3 Mb or 0.6 Mb ) just to the left of the printed "12". House Rock is also visible in Pan Camera frame 4623 taken from the Service Module.. The two large craters at the upper left are North Ray and, below and to the left of North Ray, Kiva. House Rock is on the southeastern rim of North Ray.]

[Duke - "So, looking back on this description here, it might be half-accurate as far as distances go and the sizes of objects. In fact, a thirty-meter crater is a big crater. If you really think about it, I don't remember any thirty-meter craters out there. That's over a hundred feet."]

[Jones - "Very few people came even close in judging sizes and distances."]

[We then looked at Charlie's window pan, AS16-113- 18304 to 18310.]

[Duke - "Now, this would be at 3 o'clock. Probably one of the craters I was describing is this one right here."]

[Jones - "In 18307."]

[Duke - "And, then, there's a crater here (just over the thrusters); and these little black dots are boulders; and this is probably the one - bright, with small blocks around it - I described as a 'bright, fresh crater."]

[Jones - "That's a particularly blocky one which is to the left of the top of the thruster bell."]

[Duke - "And you can see (in 18308 and 18309), the twelve o'clock position, when we took these pictures, was very difficult to see because of the zero phase (that) blotted it out."]

[Duke - "I described a boulder with a fillet, here. And I don't see..."]

[Jones - "They're hard to pick out in these relatively small prints."]

[Duke - "It's partially buried, at about 2:30. It should be just in front of the thruster."]

106:44:33 Duke: It's at about 2:30, maybe a couple of hundred meters out, and it's on this side of the ridge that trends east-west here, that blocks out Smoky.

106:44:45 England: Okay. Could it be sliding down the ridge, and that's why the fillet's on the south?

106:44:52 Duke: That might be the reason. I was just going to say, it's downslope so that might have been what happened.

106:44:58 England: Very good.

106:45:00 Duke: Though the slope doesn't appear that steep, Tony.

106:45:05 England: Okay. How about the Buster area? Can you identify that?

[As indicated on the "Descartes EVA-I, III 1 of 3" traverse map ( 3.0 Mb or 0.6 Mb ), Buster is a 90-m crater centered at CB.2/76.5. See also, a detail from the Pan Camera frame. The LM can be seen near the right edge of the picture area just above center. North is up and the LM is in the bright area created by the engine exhaust on the west side of a small crater. The large crater at bottom center of the picture area is Spook and the large crater at the upper left is Flag. The diameter of Spook is about 350 meters. Buster is the 100-m crater NNW of Spook and Halfway is the similar sized crater midway between Spook and Flag.]

[Spook is centered at about CA.0/77.0 and is about 400 meters across.]

106:45:37 Duke: There's not a one, as far as I can see.

106:45:40 England: Okay. (Pause) Very good, Charlie. You're right up to your old peak.

106:45:49 Duke: Coming down on...(Listens) Okay, coming down, Tony, on descent it looks...As John has described...There's a distinct ray pattern across our landing site from South Ray. And the boulders get...effectively (thin out and) disappear by (the time) we get to Palmetto. And then they don't reappear again until almost the flank of North Ray. (On the "Descartes EVA-I, III 2 of 2" map and the corresponding contour map, which is Figure 3.6.2-4 in the Lunar Surface Procedures volume) you can see that depression that trends southward out of North Ray (between east-west coordinates 77 and 80); and you can see the ridge line (extending NNW from End Crater at CL.3/82.3) that I think will be an excellent way to climb up to North Ray in the Rover. Now this was all from 5000 feet, so I might be a little off on that, but at least the general impression was good. We could see Dogleg (at CP.8/86.1), we could see Cat (at CV.9/86.4); all of the craters that were on the (planned geology) stops were plainly visible. Hopefully, they'll be so when we start navigating on the ground.

[Jones - "...I presume that Dogleg is at a place where a traverse changes direction?"]

[Duke - "I don't remember. We'll have to look at the maps. (Pause) Yeah; Dogleg is here."]

[Jones - "And that's at about CQ/86. And that was on the dogleg back from the planned EVA-3 traverse."]

[Duke - "Yeah, but we didn't stop there."]

[Jones - "End Crater?"]

[Duke - "We named it End because that was the last stop (that is, Station 16)."]

[Jones - "Kiva (at CX/73). It looks like it has a dome in the bottom..."]

[Duke - "Yeah. It was a dome crater. From the rim, you couldn't see the bottom of the crater. I don't know why we named it Kiva. Probably from one of the geology trips that we had."]

[In the pueblo cultures of the American Southwest, kivas are ceremonial chambers which, in many pre-historic communities, were large, cylindrical rooms dug into the ground, stone-lined, and roofed over. Examples at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and Chaco Canyon National Monument in New Mexico are 5 to 10 meters across, 2 to 4 meters deep, and show the work of skilled masons.]

[Jones - "Plum and Flag?"]

[Duke - "Flag, I think, was part of Flagstaff (home of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Branch). Halfway we picked because it was halfway from where we started. I don't remember about WC or Phantom or any of those. (Pause) I think Phantom was because we really wasn't sure whether it was a crater or not."]

[In 1997, Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence speculated that WC might have been named in honor of comedian W.C. Fields because of Charlie's tendency to imitate his voice. The other obvious possibility is the Victorian euphemism for toilet - namely "Water Closet". In response to an e-mail question, Tony England said,"I remember WC well. It was at a location toward the end of a traverse so that we were very likely to 'flush it'. Sorry; but it was just a little toilet humor." As can be seen on the EVA-2 contour map, there was no stop at WC included in the final traverse plans. However, at the time the crater was named, a stop there may have be under discussion.]

[Jones - "Eden Valley?"]

[Duke - "I don't remember on that."]

[Here, Tony is asking about a bright ray from South Ray Crater that crosses the landing site and shows up on the "Descartes EVA-I, III 2 of 2" map as the whitish streaks running SW to NE around Spook and the Turtle Mountain area. See, also, the larger scaled maps shown in Figures 3.6.1-1 and 3.6.2-3 in the Apollo 16 Lunar Surface Procedures volume.]

[Readers should note that, although John was looking out the window from before pitchover until touchdown, he was looking for landmarks and potential hazards around the immediate landing area and, most importantly, was trying to gauge his altitude and motions relative to the ground. On the occasions when Charlie looked out, he was looking at their planned traverse routes and for geologic features - such as rays - that were of interest in thinking about the traverses. They were two different observers looking at the same scene for very different purposes.]

106:47:15 England: Very good. How about left-right extent, did it go all the way back to South Ray?

106:47:23 Duke: Well, you'll have to ask John that. I couldn't see out that way. As we...The biggest block that I saw was one we flew over which is maybe 100 meters to 200 meters behind us, and it looked like Volkswagen size.

106:47:41 England: Very good. (Pause)

[The Volkswagen "Beetle" is about 1.5 meters high, 1.5 meters wide and 4.5 meters long.]

106:48:05 Duke: And, Tony, I wouldn't give you 2 cents for that orange juice as a hair tonic; it mats it down completely.

106:48:11 England: Well, that might be the point.

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The night before (the landing), we filled the drink bags full of orange juice in the CSM; and the next morning, prior to suit donning, we put them in the suit. Every time we bent our head, the microphone would get caught in the drink bag and put some orange juice into the air in zero gravity, or would squirt the side of your face. Charlie really got covered with it. It really was an annoying problem."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "My valve was really bad."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Mine didn't work all the time, and I was really being careful. I'm sure it got all over us because, once we got on the surface and looked up at the Lunar Module, the Travano cover had orange juice all over it. It was in dots, less than 5 percent (coverage), but there was a lot of orange juice on the Travano cover. I'm sure orange juice is something you don't want to float around on wire bundles. I think we need something to stop up that hole (meaning the end of the straw) in zero gravity - and in one-sixth gravity until you are ready to use it. Maybe a cap that fits on the end of it that you could pull off with your teeth would work. I think it's essential when you're going out for a 7- or 8-hour EVA, you have to have something in that suit to drink."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Yes; that really saved me out there."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I took my suit off (after 105:44:24) and didn't put the drink bag in right for the first EVA. I didn't get anything to drink while I was out on the Moon (see 126:11:34); and that was bad. I sure could have used a drink about halfway through. You do sweat a lot while you're out there. You sweat in your hands, you sweat at the back of your neck, and you sweat on your feet where you don't have any water cooling. We should have one (that is, a drink bag) that doesn't spend its time wetting you down. And there was another problem associated with this. Before we went out the next day (at 118:25:47), Charlie had to clean the orange juice out of his microphone to get it to work. He wasn't transmitting at all."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "On VOX."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "He had a comm carrier with one mike gone because of a busted wire, and had to suck the orange juice out of the other mike to get it to work. Now that's a pretty marginal operation. (Laughter)"]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Every time the left microphone hit that (drink bag) valve, the juice sort of migrated up that microphone in under my helmet, and this whole (left) side of my head was just caked with juice."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Charlie looked like he had been shampooing with juice."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It was really terrible."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The whole side of his face was just one big mass of orange juice. We got it on the helmet seal between the second and third EVA. We cleaned the orange juice off the helmet seal because we couldn't get the helmets unlocked and off. I thought we were going to spend the night in the pressure suit."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It really wasn't on the O-ring; it was where the two surfaces mate together."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Yes."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The stuff had seeped in there."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The vacuum dried out that thing, and left the glue (that is, the partially dried orange juice) there. When it was time to take the helmet off, I couldn't get Charlie's off and he couldn't get mine off. I tell you, I thought we were going to stay in the pressure suit. (Laughter) I couldn't pull the (lock) button out, and I couldn't get it to slide."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The button (on John's) would come out, but I couldn't make it slide up or down."]

[Mattingly, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "If that's the case with both of you, then is that really a case against the orange juice; or is that something else?"]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It's the orange juice."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Mine was leaking, too. At least it wasn't leaking as bad as Charlie's."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It was enough to solidify when he stepped out on the surface."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Where you get the problem with the orange juice is during the Prep. It's not bad once you get on the Moon (that is, once you get outside). It's not bad because you're not bending into it all the time. While you're doing a Prep, there's a lot of looking down you have to do, and every time you bend your head forward and wrap your microphone around that thing and pull back, that works the plug (means the valve) and it squirts in your ear. It's already under pressure, because you have 32 ounces in there, and you're bending forward so your chest is pushing on it. It's just like a pump that pumps orange juice right into your mouth, your face, or your ear."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Maybe you could design a valve like the one for Skylab."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Design one that works. Well, I'll tell you, I really believe that by having a lot of something to drink in a pressure suit is the way to go. I think it sure helped me and Charlie out on the surface, but it certainly got to be a problem with orange juice floating around the cockpit (in zero g) as a (potential) electrical conductor. With it floating all over you and getting in your comm carrier, it's a problem; and then floating down in the neckring or - worse yet would be getting it on the neckring seal where you couldn't lock that helmet."]

["In training, we had orange juice get on our neckring and the only way they could get the thing locked was to go back and take the neckring apart and clean the residue out of those locking dogs. They took the whole helmet apart and cleaned it out. That's the only way we could get it to work. That would bite you in lunar orbit, because I don't know how to do that; I don't know how you take that neckring apart."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Even with all those problems, I'm glad we had something to drink."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Yes, I am too. Now, whether it has to be orange juice, I don't know. Maybe plain water would do. In fact, for the first EVA, water was what I had in mine. I drank the bag (of orange juice) the day before. Maybe they could fortify the water with the potassium - if they insist on that being there - or maybe there would be a pill you could put in there. I don't have any idea whether it would make any difference whether you did it or not."]

[Unidentified Speaker, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "They should be able to make that valve so that it doesn't leak."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "They overdid it."]

[Here, Charlie may be referring to a design change in the drink-bag valve that may have been done following the troubles Jim Irwin had making his work.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It does exactly what it's supposed to do. The trouble is, every time you catch your microphone in it and pull back, it pulls the valve forward and it works just like it's supposed to; and when you let up on it, it stops. But, I mean, it's sort of a rock and a hard place. If the microphones came around your nose, you wouldn't have this interference problem with the thing; but that would be a big re-design."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I don't think it would be worth it."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I think they could make a little soft cap that you could pull off with your teeth, because you sure don't want it leaking on you at zero gravity."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "That was really terrible."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It could drown you. Charlie was in there with a helmet full of orange juice when we were coming down to PDI."]

[Slayton, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Was it your plan to leave the helmets on once you'd landed, or (means 'and') go straight out for EVA?"]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "No, no, we were going to take them off."]

[Slayton, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "So we could put a cap on there that you could take off after you took your helmet off."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Take it off, just prior to donning your helmet for the EVA. Yes; with your hands."]

[Despite the length of time spent on this issue during the technical debrief, there is no more than a brief summary of these points in the Mission Report and no discussion of any corrective action. The Apollo 17 crew had plain water in their drink bags and, because there was no discussion of valve problems during the mission, I presume that a cap was provided as per John's suggestion.]

106:48:23 Duke: Okay. We'll try it in Cabin. We also tried this in orbit and we got the same sound, Tony. We're going to Cabin now. Mark. (Pause) Okay, it gives us the same sound.

106:48:40 England: Okay, we'd like to go back to Egress.

106:48:45 Duke: Hey, Tony. I tell you what it is. I just (manually) opened the Cabin Gas Return (Valve) and it stopped it (meaning the noise). What it was is that the Cabin Gas Return check valve is not working right. The flow is great now. (Long Pause) Our configuration is Suit Gas Diverter (Valve), Push-Cabin, and Cabin Gas Return to Open, and everything sounds normal.

106:49:25 England: Okay. We'd like to leave you that way. (Pause)

106:49:33 Duke: Okay. Have you guys got a suggestion of what meal you want us to eat? (Pause)

106:49:51 England: We're working that one. (Long Pause)

[The meals were listed in the Medical Log and, because of the landing delay, Charlie wants to know if Houston wants to change the order. Details for the meals can be found in the LM Menu given in the Apollo 16 Press Kit ( 5.6 Mb PDF ).]

[Jones - "Can you describe how the meals were packaged?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. Let's see."]

[Jones - "Were all the packages for one meal taped together?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. Each day we had packets for each meal. Like Day 1, Meal A. A, B, C was for breakfast lunch and dinner - (although), on the lunar surface, we only got to eat two meals a day. Each meal came wrapped and vacuum packed in a plastic wrapper; and you cut that wrapper open and that exposed three or four bags of ingredients. And one of those bags would be a drink; and one of them would be a dessert; and one of them would be a, you know, some vegetable; and one of them would be whatever. In fact, there was probably more than four or five bags. And each bag would have instructions on the side of the bag. Like a dessert might be cookie squares or something and all you do is cut the bag open and eat those. But the orange juice would be 'eight ounces of cold water and wait five minutes' or two minutes or whatever it was. And, so, you'd follow the instructions to prepare it. The only problem on the lunar surface was that there was no hot water, so the meals were just lousy. Well, I don't say it was lousy. That's the wrong word. You know, with cold water, it just didn't taste too good."]

[Jones - "The 17 guys had what Jack describes as predecessors of the current 'Meal Ready to Eat', irradiated foods that you don't have to re-hydrate."]

[Duke - "We had some of that. We had these little bacon squares and cheese something-or-others. We had tins of like ham spread and tuna spread; and we had a tin of peanut butter and, like, vacuum-packed bread. And you could prepare those. Now, I don't remember any of that being on the lunar surface, though. It seems to me all of that kind of stuff was all in the command ship."]

[NASA photo S72-19887 shows Apollo dietician Rita Rapp posing with some of the Apollo 16 food packages. The package in the center foreground is labeled 'Day 4, Meal A'.]

[While we were discussing the meal packaging, Charlie looked through his collection to find the Medical Log.]

[Duke - "Here we go, this is the medical log. Here's the menu. I knew I had it. So we started with Day 5 Meal B: 'Cream of Tomato soup; rye bread, two slices; tuna spread, half a can; apple food bar; a chocolate bar; an orange/grapefruit beverage; and a food stick'. That food stick was a thing that stuck inside the suit and it came up like this (on the right-hand side of the neckring) and, when you were out on the surface, you could just reach over (with your teeth) and pull it up and chop off a piece. And it was really high-energy stuff. And then, on the other side (of the neckring), was that EVA beverage bag. That was Velcroed (in place) and a straw came up right about here."]

[Jones - "Okay; and the straw's on the left side."]

[Duke - "So you can see, the only thing (in Day 5 Meal B) we really had to prepare that was dehydrated was the Cream of Tomato soup - and, with cold water, that didn't taste very good. But the tuna spread, the rye bread, the apple food bar...(Reading his handwritten comments in the Medical Log) I ate a third of the chocolate bar. And you can see they had some little sexy drawing that we ripped out (post-flight)."]

[What remained of the cartoon suggested that it originally showed a scantily-clad waitress.]

[Jones - "I notice the strange spelling of eggs: 'AIGS'."]

[Duke - (Laughing)"Scrambled eggs. That's Southern. For eggs. (Pause) And you see, we had two meals a day. (Pause) I guess the shrimp cocktail was probably dehydrated; so was the turkey-and-gravy. I liked that."]

[We discussed the drawings and other "unofficial" material in the Medical Log, Flight Plan, and other on-board documents.]

[Duke - "Throughout our plan, in various places...Like the kids'd draw me a little picture and it was inserted in the flight plan. I had a card from Dotty once. Those kind of things. They were in the flight plan. Little messages from the kids, a picture of the family, stuff like that."]

106:50:13 Duke: I got day 5, meal B.

106:50:15 England: I guess we'd like you to just go ahead with your first lunar meal. I guess that deserves some champagne, I don't know.

106:50:26 Duke: Well, like John said earlier, we're definitely not going to get scurvy; we've got so much orange drink here.

106:50:34 England: Rog. (Long Pause)

106:51:19 Duke: Okay, Tony. We're going to eat day 5, meal B. (Pause)

[Charlie's "B" sounds more like "D".]

106:51:38 Duke: Bravo, as in "boy."

106:51:39 England: Rog. (Long Pause)

106:52:30 Duke: Houston, John finally found his spoon.

106:52:34 England: Very good! (Long Pause)

[Jones - "John lost his spoon?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. I don't know where or when; I don't remember the details, now; but we looked high and low for that spoon. And he finally found it. (Chuckling) And I don't even remember where he found it!"]

Readers should note that the audio mentioned in this clip is linked at the appropriate places in the text above.

106:53:09 Young: Hello, Tony. (I'm) back on comm. (No answer; Pause) Tony?

106:53:25 England: Go ahead.

[In reading the following ray discussion, readers may want to refer to Figures 3.6.1-1 and 3.6.2-3 from the Apollo 16 Lunar Surface Procedures volume and Figure 6-4 ( 648k ) in the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report.]

[See AS16-112- 18246, 18247, and 18256, which are 500-mm frames taken from Station 4. David Harland has assembled the mini-pan. See, also, a portion of the Apollo 16 Pan Camera frame, taken from the Service Module, which shows the area south of the LM. South Ray is just outside the image at the lower left. Baby Ray is at the left edge, just below center.]

[Jones - "Was there ever any discussion about driving down to South Ray."]

[Duke - "Yeah, we wanted to do that; but they were concerned that, you know, if we broke down..."]

[Jones - "That you would have been at the edge of walkback..."]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

[Over long distances, NASA assumed that the astronauts could achieve an average speed of 2.7 km/hr if they had to walk back to the LM. Under that assumption, walkback from South Ray would have taken about 2.2 hours. Had they planned to go to South Ray, they would have made that the first stop on the traverse so that, if the Rover broke down at South Ray at the end of their geology work there, they would have the largest possible supply of oxygen and cooling water. Assuming a one-hour drive to South Ray, one hour of geology, and a two-hour walkback, they would still have plenty of margins. Indeed, while South Ray is 6.5 km from the Apollo 16 landing spot, Nansen Crater, which Cernan and Schmitt visited on their second EVA, is an 8.2 km driving distance from their LM. However, the terrain near South Ray is likely to be more difficult than anything the Apollo 17 crew encountered and, as Charlie implies, uncertainties about terrain and crew endurance probably settled the question.]

[Journal Contributor David Harland and I have discussed changes in the EVA planning that would have been necessary to accommodate a visit to South Ray. To do so without sacrificing either the ALSEP deployment or the visit to North Ray, I believe that the South Ray stop would have to have been added to the EVA-2 traverse. Because walkback constraints dictate that the farthest station be the first stop, John and Charlie would have driven directly to South Ray and then, in order to sample of the Descartes formation, would have had to drive up onto Stone Mountain during the return to the LM. David argues that, because of the need to detour around the Wreck/Stubby Complex on a drive to South Ray, a more viable plan would have been modeled on the Apollo 15 EVAs, with a visit to South Ray conducted at the start of EVA-1, a return on a more westerly track than John and Charlie actually drove on EVA-2, and stops at Plum and Buster on the way back to the LM. In David's sketch plan, the ALSEP deployment would have been delayed until EVA-2, which would have also included a drive to Stone Mountain, but with far fewer stops on the return to the LM. These are the kinds of trade-offs that may have been made during the pre-mission EVA planning by people who were far more knowledgeable about realistic constraints than either David or I; and, in reality, the likelihood that John and Charlie were going to be able to sample South Ray ejecta during the stops on the rays made a visit to the crater scientifically unnecessary. Nonetheless, South Ray is undoubtedly a stunning location and the attraction for John and Charlie is easy to understand.]

[Duke - "We thought we were okay (on a walkback from South Ray), but they were very conservative on walkback. John and I had gotten in the centrifuge in Houston and they'd attached a hydraulic sling onto the end of the centrifuge arm. And we got in this sling and they just picked us up until we were one-sixth g and they had a simulated moon surface around the rim of the centrifuge and we just started running, to see how far we could go before we tired out - to give us some idea of how far away we could get and walk back. (The accompanying photograph shows Al Bean in the centrifuge harness during Apollo 12 training.) And I think we both did...We did it on separate days but I remember (that it was) four or five hours we ran. And, you know, once you got going, it was almost effortless. But it was level. We must have covered - I don't know - twenty kilometers, maybe."]

[Jones - "I believe that."]

[An August 22, 1972 memo from P.E. Reynolds at Bell Labs 'Review of the EVA Contingency Walkback Capability for Apollo 17' includes a discussion of the long-duration traverse testing that John and Charlie did in the centrifuge building. "One particular test provided data for long duration walking. This test performed prior to Apollo 15 by astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke, each fully suited and in a one-sixth gravity rig, established that astronauts could perform for long duration at high mobility rates. The rates achieved were more of a trot or run than a walking rate. These data are shown in Table 3. The time-in-motion differs from the total time due to stops for equipment malfunctions and repairs. Specific rest periods were not planned. John Young achieved an average speed on 6.5 km/hr for 2 hours and 43 minutes, while Charles Duke averaged 5.5 km/hr for 3 hours 18 minutes. Although these test runs did not include negotiating broken terrain (the test was done on a smooth track), the results established an endurance capability in suited condition."]

[The data in Table 3 are:

John : Total Time = 3hr 14min 40sec, Time in Motion = 2hr 43min 20sec, Average Speed = 6.5km/hr.

Charlie: Total Time = 3hr 34min 50sec, Time in Motion = 3hr 18min 20sec, Average Speed = 5.5km/hr.]

[Note that simple multiplication of the times-in-motion and the average speeds indicate that John and Charlie each ran about 18 kilometers.]

[In reviewing the various Apollo video records, I have timed several short, quick runs by J-mission astronauts and the achieved speeds over distances of no more than 100 meters were also of the order of 5 km/hr. In all cases, the ground was relatively flat - to the extent that any of the sites can be described as 'flat'.]

[Duke - "It was a long way. Four or five hours. But, you know, it wasn't up and down and over boulders and loosely consolidated terrain, and so NASA management just said ' well, that's nice, you guys, but you're not going to go to South Ray.'"]

[Jones - "Do you have any feeling on how realistic the centrifuge simulation was in terms of the effort, having done that and then having actually gone and run at least a hundred meters in a few cases."]

[Duke - "It was pretty good. Especially on the level terrain. Up on the top of Stone Mountain, you had to be very careful. It was tough going up the hill and, coming back down the hill, you had to be real careful."]

[Jones - "But in terms of c.g. (center-of-gravity) management, was it a good simulation? Did you have a backpack on when you did the four or five hour..."]

[Duke - "Yeah, we did. But the sling sort gave you a little bit of stability that you didn't have up on the Moon. I found I fell down a lot more up there than...It was easy to lose your balance: either to drag a foot (and get thrown off balance) or to bend down to pick up something - or to reach out and touch something - it would be just enough to give you a rotation, and that rotation'd usually throw you down. At least, it did me. And so we got where I fell down a lot. But it just never really concerned me. The only time it really did was when I jumped up and fell over backwards at the last of the EVA."]

[Jones - "The 15 guys and the earlier crews didn't fall down a lot and the 17 guys fell down even more than you did. My feeling is that it was just more confidence in yourselves and the suits and in your ability to get up. That you were more aggressive than the earlier crews."]

[Duke - "I agree. We were more aggressive. I had a lot of confidence in that suit and I just felt 'if you're going to fall down, it's not going to be any big deal'. And, so, we weren't cautious. We had all that experience of four other missions before us, so we just pressed on and attacked, really. That's a good observation."]

106:55:44 England: Very good. How about the albedo?

106:55:46 Young: I can't...(Listens)

106:55:48 England: How about the albedo?

106:55:55 Young: Tremendous difference in albedo. On the...North Ray is pure white; South Ray is pure white; and it blends into a gray (as you move away from either crater); and then over here by us, it's almost totally gray. I guess you just get the feeling that these rocks (around the LM) may have come from somewhere else (rather than from the immediate landing area). There's a big subangular rock that I see at 10 o'clock - no, at 11 o'clock at about 100 meters (out from the LM) - that I would sure like to go over and look, because it looks like it's just one big piece of whatever rock it is.

106:56:36 England: Right; I was wondering about...

106:56:37 Young: Oh, and I do happen to see a white clast in the bottom of it.

106:56:42 England: I was wondering about the albedo on your surface chart, on the strips and things, whether the rays are as obvious as they are on the high-Sun-angle chart that you're carrying, or whether they look very much different at your low Sun angle.

106:56:58 Young: No, they're not, I don't think. I can see from here down to Survey Ridge (BT/83) and the albedo on there is a lot lighter. It's a general...(correcting himself) gradual downslope from our landing point to Survey Ridge, and it looks like it drops maybe a hundred meters and then starts to go right back up Smoky Mountain (means Stone Mountain). I guess you could see on a contour map where the low spot is.

106:57:37 England: Okay...

106:57:38 Young: But there are some strange looking craters over there on Stone Mountain (see, for example AS16-113- 18325), and the albedo contrast is really pronounced in those craters. There's some...(Pause) It may be a function of shadow, we better wait until we get over there. I hesitate to say, they almost look like big...(Pause) Well, they must be impact craters, I guess.

[Jones - "I know that some of the geologists were hoping to find evidence of volcanics on Stone Mountain. Is John speculating about that here?"]

[Duke - "He doesn't want to commit to what it is, yet."]

[Jones - "But is he entertaining the possibility that there might be..."]

[Duke - "Well, I don't think it's so much that it's about volcanics. At this point, he's looking at these craters and I think he's trying to decide whether they're primary or secondary impact craters."]

106:58:07 England: Okay. I was just wondering about whether you could recognize whether you're on a ray by albedo as well as the boulder content.

106:58:20 Young: I think you're going to be able to; but, boy, you're not going to pick up a contact; it just tails out into something.

106:58:30 England: Outstanding, that's better than I thought.

106:58:36 Young: You ought to be able to work across the contact.

[The nature of the ray edges, the lines of contact with non-ray material, was a point of practical interest. If the contacts were sharp, then John and Charlie could sample material on both sides at one geology stop. Here, John is saying that, while there are no sharply defined contacts, he thinks they will be able to find places that are definitely on a ray or off a ray.]

106:59:05 Duke: Tony, one other comment from my side. Distances are pretty deceiving here for me. I'm looking out over John's shoulder, and it looks like to me you could throw a rock into South Ray from our present position - which is, I know, impossible.

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I think, because we practiced so much with the L&A, we had a pretty good hack on how far away we were from things."]

[Training photo 72-H-430 shows John and Charlie doing a traverse simulation in which the TV image from the Landing and Ascent (L&A) facility - consisting of a site model suspended over a moveable TV camera - was tied to John's inputs from the handcontroller. These practice traverses gave John and Charlie a good feel for the appearance and relative location of the major features of the landing site.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "And the only change I'd make (in his estimate of where they landed) - and I don't know how much of a change it is - is that, after we got out and went up on Stone Mountain and looked back, you could see Double Spot and you could see the Lunar Module (see AS16-112- 18272), and it looked as if we were maybe 70 or 80 meters further east than I said we were originally. That's just a guess, because we're sitting up north (means south) on a hill and looking back, and you could see Double Spot. And the Lunar Module appeared to be sitting in a hole over behind Double Spot, and it's almost in a direct line from where we were on Stone Mountain. So we must have come very close to landing exactly where we were scheduled to land in the first place. And I emphasize again, the only reason for landing there was to get a spot that wasn't so hilly. Pre-flight, that region around Double Spot was the only flat place on the (central) map as far as the contour lines go. I think it was a mistake."]

[John means that the contour map was faulty.]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It turned out, I think, the flattest spot we saw on the whole traverse was up to the southeast of North Ray Crater in that valley past Palmetto. It was a broad, smooth valley and (had) hardly any craters in it at all. No rocks."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "No rocks at all; and, on the (northern) contour map, that (area) looks pretty bad."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "But it was about where Dogleg (Crater) was mapped ( see, also, a labeled detail from Pan Camera frame 4623); in that area, back off to the right there by the traverse. I had a good feel at pitchover of exactly where we were. Once we got to the ground and I looked out John's window, I felt like I could reach out and touch South Ray and Stone Mountain. They just looked that close to me. I had a tough time estimating (distances) and I knew they were 5 kilometers away; and I just had a tough time estimating distance of big features, once we got on the ground."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "On a clear day (on Earth), the mountains are 40 miles away and (yet) it looks like you'd be there in 4 minutes. It's the same thing on the Moon. We kept going over rises and I kept thinking, 'here's Stone Mountain'. And then we'd go over another (ridge), and it wouldn't get you there."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "There were lots of ridges between us and that mountain. It wasn't apparent when we first looked out the window."]

107:00:26 England: Okay, very good.

107:00:31 Young: And I'm looking out here at Stone Mountain, and I got a picture of it (earlier). And it looks like it's got...Looks like somebody has been out there plowing across the side of it. The benches just look like one sort of terrace right after another, right up the side. And they sort of follow the contour of it right around.

[John is referring to the pictures he took at 106:16:06, particularly AS16-113- 18296. See, also, 500-mm frame AS16-112- 18217 which shows the summit of Stone Mountain as it appeared from near Spook Crater at 124:24:53. In the 18 hours between the times at which these pictures were taken, the Sun rose about 9 degrees.]

107:00:58 Young: No, Tony, not that I can tell from here. Those terraces could be rays (of ejecta) out of Stubby or something like that.

107:01:06 England: Okay. You mentioned two different rock types.

107:01:10 Young: I can see (that) Stubby has...Right at the edge of Stone, Stubby has got much steeper walls going off of Stone Mountain than I originally imagined it. It's...(Pause) I don't think Stone Mountain came up to Stubby and stops.

107:01:40 England: Okay. (Helping John verbalize the thought) You think Stubby is punched into the edge (of Stone Mountain)...

107:01:42 Duke: (Garbled under Tony) Do y'all have a next...(Listens)

[If Stone Mountain is older than Stubby, then the wall of the crater at the bottom of the mountain might be relatively steep, softened only to the extent that material slid into it off the mountain. If the mountain were a volcanic construct younger than Stubby, the crater wall might be relatively worn all around.]

107:01:59 England: Okay. (Pause) Go ahead, Charlie. One thing; you mentioned two rock types: the black and white ones and then the all white ones. Do you see anything else?

107:02:13 Duke: Yeah, there was one right out in front of the LM here, just to the right of the footpad that looks like a breccia to me, Tony. Either that or an indurated regolith (which is soil compacted in an impact). We'll tell you when we get out.

107:02:30 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

107:02:45 Duke: Tony, we'll give you an analogy of what that black and white rock looks like. It's really a gray and white and looks like a granitic rock with very large crystals to it, though I kind of doubt that (it is granitic).

107:03:05 England: Outstanding! You're really whetting our appetites. (Pause)

107:03:13 Young: There are really some interesting rocks out here. I see some that are pure snow white. And we've got the whole run of them. It's hard to tell at this sunlight, which is so bright on the surface, just exactly what color these things are, even with the naked eye. You know, it's very deceptive. I swear I see one out there with some pink in it, (chuckles) but we'd better wait until we get out. We'll pick it up and make sure.

107:03:42 England: Roger. I understand. (Pause)

107:03:48 Duke: What do you call tomato soup made with cold water, Tony?

107:03:52 England: Awful. (Pause)

107:04:00 Duke: John says 'cold tomato soup'. (Long Pause)

107:04:36 England: Hey, Charlie. When you get a chance, could you take a look at that ridge at 12 o'clock, which you described as 50 to 100 meters out, and see if that continues on around to 10 and 9?

107:04:50 Young: Yes, it does.

107:04:53 England: Okay, could you...

107:04:54 Young: It continues on around to my side.

107:04:57 Duke: John's original observation was that it looked like we're in a big old subdued crater, and that's really what it looks like, Tony.

107:05:05 England: Okay. (Pause)

107:05:14 Duke: Man, those black and white rocks really look interesting, Tony. I just can't wait to grab one of those.

107:05:24 England: I tell you, Charlie, we feel the same way.

107:05:28 Duke: In fact, the impression you get is that it almost looks like the color of labradorite.

107:05:37 Young: Oh, Charlie! (Long Pause)

[Jones - (Chuckling) "Do you have any comment about this little exchange?"]

[Duke - "I think John was thinking we were getting too technical."]

[Muehlberger, from a 1996 letter - "What caught my eye (while reading a draft of the Apollo 16 Journal), was the early observations (here and at 106:19:07) - both from the LM window - that were describing rock types that were alien to the pre-mission photo-geologic interpretation of highlands volcanic rocks. The geological field trips that we took the crew on - primarily into andesite volcanos along Lake Mead a few miles east of Las Vegas (on February 17-18, 1972) that was torn in two by a strike-slip fault - showed both lava flows and flow breccia units. Using that as an analogue, it (meaning Charlie's descriptions of 'black and white rocks') still didn't ring any warning bells in my head. It may be I wasn't listening at the time they made those comments. During landing I was sitting in a TV station waiting to comment on where they landed, did so, and then went into Mission Control to visit with my gang (of geologists) in the Backroom."]

[See, also, Bill's comment following 119:41:11.]

107:06:05 England: Right, we understand. (Pause)

107:06:14 Young: Well, we'll bring you a small one of each. I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad we brought the rake, because we really can do it.

107:06:21 England: Very good.

[Like the other J-mission crews, John and Charlie will use a geology tool that is rather like a clam rake with tines that are one centimeter apart. The rake was designed by Caltech geologist Lee Silver so that the astronauts could quickly fill an individual sample bag with walnut-sized rocks.]

[Jones - "Was there some question about being able to use the rake here?"]

[Duke - "Well, yes. We weren't so sure that the regolith would have the rock sizes to be captured by the rake. You know, you could pull it through (the soil) and come up with nothing. In fact, we did that a couple of times. So, we were unsure about the use of the rake, but we decided to take it. In fact, I never thought about maybe leaving it behind, really. But they were concerned. You know: are there going to be rocks in the surface that you can pick up? Is it all going to be fine-grained? Is it just going to sieve through the rake?"]

107:06:33 England: Okay. And when you get a chance, we'd like you to stow those hoses. I guess we don't have enough friction in there, and the water separators are running wild. (Pause)

[Jones - "With the hose unstowed..."]

[Duke - "It's free-flow. Yeah. You know, when you plugged them into the walls, it would put some pressure like you had plugged into the suit, you see."]

[Jones - "Ah!"]

[Duke - "When it was open, it would just suck it in (freely) and, apparently, that caused the water separators to (run at higher than proper speed)..."]

[Jones - "You wanted a pressure differential and the wall fitting gave you that."]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

107:07:11 Young: How can we start pre-sleep in 20 minutes when we haven't even gotten to eat yet, Tony? For goodness sake.

107:07:21 England: [Chuckling] Okay. (Pause) Hey, the back room gave you a bravo on your descriptions there. (Pause)

107:07:39 Duke: I'm like a little kid on Christmas Eve, Tony.

[Clearly, Charlie is eager to get outside to look at the rocks.]

107:07:47 Young: (Boy) It really is neat to have a gravity field around to set stuff on. That is really the cat's meow. (Tony laughs) (Pause)

107:07:59 Duke: Okay. The hoses are hooked back up, Tony. You should see some decrease in the separator (speed).

107:08:04 England: Okay. (Pause) I think I know how you feel, Charlie. I'm pretty turned on myself.

[Comm Break]

107:12:38 Duke: Tony, how is (Command Module) Casper doing?

107:12:42 England: Say again, Charlie.

107:12:48 Duke: How is Casper doing?

107:12:52 England: Everything's fine up there. I just looked over occasionally. You've been keeping me so occupied here, but they've got no problems.

107:13:00 Young: Super. Boy, you can't imagine how nice this one-sixth gravity is. This is the first time I've been able to eat soup without knowing whether I was going to eat it or take a bath in it.

[Comm Break]

107:15:18 England: Rog, Charlie. I think everybody around here appreciates their job. (Long Pause)

107:15:37 Young: Gee, I'm sure glad somebody was able to come to that conclusion, because it sure looked black there for a while, didn't it?

107:15:44 England: You betcha. (Long Pause)

107:16:01 Young: I'd like to get somebody to put in the word to the Big Sim Troop in the sky and tell Him to let's make it a little more nominal from here on out.

107:16:09 England: I'm all for that. (Pause) That was too much like a Sim.

[Comm Break]

[Jones - "Could you give me some words about this last exchange?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. There was a group of folks responsible for designing the sims. And they would exercise all phases of the spacecraft and your knowledge of procedures and stuff. So there'd be mission control and us at the Cape in the simulator and the network all around the world, and we'd simulate various phases of the mission. And there was a group of guys - and gals, probably - and they were the sim guys and they would design the failures and feed the software into the computers to simulate whatever we were doing. Generally in the simulator, if you ever landed you'd be on a wing and a prayer. You know, you'd just be staggering in, cause everything would be breaking. So what John's referring to there is 'put in a word to Big Sim, let's stop all this problem that we've been having' - you know, with the regulators and the comm and the Casper problem and all that - 'and let's get back to a nominal sim'."]

[Jones - "And was John also choosing his words to avoid the attentions of Madalyn Murray O'Hair (a militant atheist of the time)?"]

[Duke - "No. Not really. John's not religious at all. He's just having fun."]

107:20:04 Young: Go ahead, Tony.

107:20:05 England: Would you verify that the O2 demand Regs are in Cabin?

107:20:17 Young: That's verified.

107:20:22 England: Okay. We copy that. It looked like the pressure was dropping down a little bit. (Long Pause)

107:21:07 England: And while you're eating there, I might brief you on a couple of things. At about 108 hours, which is about time you'll be going to bed there, the RCS pressure will build up to the point where you'll get an RCS light again. And just reset; there's nothing to worry about. And then sometime just before you wake up in the morning, you may very well get a second caution light and alarm when the helium thrust pressure gets built back up to 1700. And if you go to helium monitor on the Temp/Press gauge there, that'll go away. (Pause) There's no way we can inhibit that.

107:21:54 Young: Okay, Tony. Thank you.

107:21:58 England: Okay.

[See the discussion prior to 104:13:09.]

107:22:05 England: Yeah, probably. The first one should go off before you get to bed, though. But that second one will probably come on just before you should wake up.

107:22:17 Young: Okay. (Pause) How much sleep from the time when we start to bed do you want us to get?

107:22:29 England: Eight hours.

107:22:34 Young: Understand, an 8-hour rest period. (Pause)

107:22:42 Duke: Okay, Tony. We're about to fill the drink bags (as per 3-5), and what we're going to do is refill the ones we had this morning, and use just plain water. Over. (No answer) Copy that, Tony?

107:23:22 England: All right, copy that. We're just wondering why you're not using the Gatorade? (Pause) Okay, or "orange juice".

[Gatorade is a mineral-fortified drink that was heavily advertised at the time as a help to athletes and others who needed to replenish fluids lost during vigorous exercise. The potassium-fortified "orange drink" that John and Charlie are drinking to prevent a recurrence of the heart arrhythmias experienced by the Apollo 15 crew was similar to Gatorade but, here, Tony is probably trying to correct the impression that he has just given a commercial endorsement to that specific product. My thanks to Brian Lawrence for pointing out this interesting little item in the transcript. See the additional discussion following 107:24:15.]

107:24:00 England: Oh, we don't care. Do whatever you want there. Water's fine.

107:24:08 Duke: Yeah, I think we'd rather save the fortified stuff 'til the last.

107:24:15 England: Okay. (Pause) We understand.

[Jones - "I assume that the Gatorade/orange juice was NASA's solution to the Apollo 15 potassium deficiency."]

[Duke - "Yeah. And they felt like it maybe led to Jim (Irwin)'s heart problems, eventually. So we had fortified food with potassium and other vitamins and stuff. And the orange juice was fortified and all of the stuff that we were going to have out on the lunar surface, to give us some extra energy. 'Cause they (meaning the Apollo 15 crew) didn't have anything; and they were out there for a long time and they got real dehydrated. So that's why we had the drink bags, and they were fortified to give us extra vitamins and replenish the minerals that we were losing. Plus the food bar was a high energy...protein, carbohydrates or whatever it was. But that's the reason. So we'd have some energy. And we figured that we'd be in better shape at first than at the end; so we'd rather have the fortified stuff at the end."]

[Long Comm Break]

107:31:39 Duke: Okay, Tony. What's our GET (Ground Elapsed Time) right now?

107:31:44 England: 107:31.

107:31:48 Duke: Okay. Who do you want on biomed tonight?

107:31:56 England: Okay, Charlie. It's your turn.

107:32:01 Duke: That's what I was afraid of.

[Both John and Charlie are wearing medical sensors, but only one of them can be monitored at any one time.]

[Jones - "Did the sensors itch?"]

[Duke - "Well, we didn't take them off. They were permanent. And you stay on biomed, it means you've got to hook up to the cable; and it was hard to turn over and get comfortable with all that stuff on you. You were always getting it tangled up. So you'd just like to float around without it, or be on the surface without it."]

107:32:12 England: Okay. (Pause) Okay, while you're worrying about that, your comm configuration for the night will be S-Band Power Amplifier, Secondary, as present. The Telemetry will be Low; Voice will be Down Voice Backup, Range will be Off and, as I said, you're on biomed.

107:32:41 Duke: Okay, go through that again.

107:32:44 England: Okay, it's S-Band Power Amplifier, Secondary, as present; Telemetry, Low; Voice will be Down-Voice Backup; Range, Off; and you're on biomed. (Static)

107:33:06 Duke: Okay, Tony, we have Down-Voice Backup, biomed right, Telemetry, Low. How did you read?

107:33:18 England: Okay, you're pretty weak there for a second Charlie. Try it again. (Static remains, but the volume and readability improves)

107:33:25 Duke: Okay, Down Voice Backup, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Over.

107:33:31 England: Okay, that's much better.

[Long Comm Break. Readers should note that the crew heard none of this transmission noise in the spacecraft. There were no changes in the large transmitters on Earth.]

107:38:10 Duke: Go ahead.

107:38:11 England: Okay, at your convenience, I have some changes to your emergency lift-off checklist in the Surface Checklist. Just give me a call when you're ready to take it.

107:38:25 Duke: Stand by.

[Comm Break]

107:41:02 England: Okay, it's in the Surface Checklist, (page) 11-1. (Pause)

107:41:16 Duke: Okay, you speak.

107:41:19 England: Okay, on the PGNS activation; it's down in the bottom left-hand side. The last entry there is "Pro and hold until Standby light off." Cross that line out. (Pause) And add the line underneath "CB or circuit breaker panel 11 ( CB(11) ), LGC/DSKY - close." (Long Pause)

107:42:01 Duke: Okay, go ahead.

107:42:03 England: Okay, on the second column, they have a correction to the checklist, it says "Circuit 16"...(Correcting himself) "Circuit breaker panel 16 (CB(16)) and Inverter 1, close." That should read "Circuit breaker panel 11 Inverter 1, close." Then we'd like to insert...

107:42:21 Duke: Okay, got it.

107:42:23 England: Okay, and we'd like to insert, underneath that line, "Circuit breaker panel 16, Inverter 2, Close" and "Inverter switch to 2".

107:42:42 Duke: Okay, Inverter to 2, and cross out Inverter 1. (Pause)

107:42:51 England: Right. Okay on (page) 11-2, underneath...(Correcting himself) On the left-hand, upper side you have "Asterisk CB 11 and 16". Underneath that line write in "T-ephemeris update, if available for MSFN." (Pause)

107:43:33 Duke: Okay, is that an up-link or do we load?

107:43:37 England: Stand by. (Long Pause)

107:43:58 Duke: Okay, Tony. John thinks it's Verb 25 Noun 07 Enter, 1706 Enter, and then load the ephemeris, and I think that's correct. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "Is that the kind of stuff you would have had stored in your head? Or would you have had a book to consult?"]

[Duke - "The numbers you had to get. Well, that 'Verb 25 Noun 07, Enter, 1706 Enter' would have been something we'd have known."]

[Jones - "The procedure is something John would have had stored in his head?"]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. We'd practiced."]

107:44:38 Duke: Okay, go ahead. Any other words?

107:44:40 England: Right. On your circuit breaker configuration here, I've got some that will be open and you might as well note that they will be open and that's okay. So on 11-3...(Pause). Panel 11, first line there, S-band antenna will be open. (Pause)

107:45:11 Duke: Keep going.

107:45:13 England: Okay. And on 11-4, fourth line, panel 16, S-band antenna will be open. (Pause)

107:45:28 Duke: Okay, go ahead.

107:45:30 England: Okay, and we go on to 11-6 now. You have the setup for your steerable antenna and you can just cross all that out; and that's the end of it.

107:45:44 Duke: Okay. We copy all of those updates. The only one I don't understand is on 11-1, on the PGNS activation. We crossed out the Pro and added an LGC (LM Guidance Computer)/DSKY closed and right before that it says LGC/DSKY closed.

107:46:09 England: Okay. You're right. That's an error on our part. Just cancel out our addition.

107:46:17 Duke: Okay. No problem. I just thought maybe something went by me, there.

107:46:21 England: Right.

107:46:23 Duke: Okay, Tony, if that's everything, we're ready to go to bed.

107:46:26 England: Good show. (Long Pause) Okay, we're through with everything here, and we're all set to let you go to bed. You're going to bed, I'll have you know, a whole 6 minutes early. I guess the government can allow you to have that time off.

107:47:30 Duke: Okay. I'll be on comm. John will be off comm, and we're going to turn off the lights now.

[They have probably raised the window shades, an obvious action not called out in the checklist on either page 3-5 or 3-6.]

107:47:52 Duke: Hey, so are we. (Pause) Guess what. You turn all the lights off and it doesn't get dark (because of light leaks around the window shade). It's daylight outside. (Pause)

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I know people have remarked on this before, but there's a lot more light in that vehicle than there is in the Lunar Module Simulator (LMS). I don't know why they want to keep it so dark in there; but we didn't have any trouble reading any of the gauges. My subjective opinion of the light produced by those utility lights was much better than it is in the simulator."]

107:48:43 England: Okay, that looks good here. (Long Pause)

107:49:19 Duke: Okay, Tony, we'd like to thank everybody for the great job of regrouping, and getting back to what seems to be pretty nominal from now on. And we'll see you in the morning. I guess you can give us a reveille call over the squawk box here. Over.

107:49:38 England: Okay, I'll sure do that. I'll come in and I'll whistle something here.

107:49:45 Duke: All right. Good night.

107:49:46 England: Good night.

[Jones - "Is Tony's 'I'll whistle something' a reference to the wake-up music?"]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

[Jones - "And the selection of that was entirely up to the folks in mission control."]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

[Long Comm Break]

107:52:17 England: Go ahead, Charlie.

107:52:22 Duke: Well, I guess I can't stop talking. One final observation, Tony, is that due to the lack of dust that we had on landing and the fact that we can see blocks embedded in the side of these craters, here, I kind of got the distinct impression that the regolith is not too thick around here. And we ought to maybe think about where would be the thickest place in order to get the drill in. Over.

[During the ALSEP deployment, Charlie plans to drill three holes: two 2.5-meter holes for the heat flow experiment and a 3.0-meter hole for the deep core. He wants to be sure that, wherever he does the drilling, there is at least 3 meters of regolith on top of the bedrock.]

107:53:03 Duke: Well, John will have to really comment on that. But as far as my side goes, the little I looked out, there was by far...We could see, or, I could, on my side, see right on down through it to touchdown.

107:53:18 England: Okay, and from listening to your descent, it sounded like you picked it up about 90 feet.

107:53:26 Duke: It was a little bit less than that. It was about 80, maybe 75. (Pause)

107:53:41 England: I have a feeling you and I could just sit up all night and talk about this.

107:53:47 Duke: Well, that's all you're going to hear from me. Good night.

107:53:51 England: (Laughing) Okay, good night.

[Long Comm Break]

[Readers should note that, unlike the EVA CapComs on the other missions, Tony has chosen to be on duty whenever the crew is on the surface and awake. Like everyone else, he has already had a long day because of the six-hour landing delay. Having signed off for the night, he has gone home to get some sleep but will be back before Charlie calls Houston at 115:49:37. The overnight CapCom is astronaut Don Peterson.]

[The following audio clips are either PAO announcements or cover conversations between Ken Mattingly and Houston prior to the start of his sleep period at about 110 hours. The RealAudio clips were compiled by Siegfried Kessler.]

• RealAudio Clip ( 10 min 40 sec ) Mattingly's music, PAO, Mattingly and CSM CapCom Stu Roosa.

• RealAudio Clip ( 9 min 7 sec ) Mattingly and Roosa continue.

• RealAudio Clip ( 4 min 11 sec ) Mattingly and Roosa continue prior to Rev 18 LOS.

• MP3 Audio Clip ( 3 min 58 sec ) PAO at 107:59.

• MP3 Audio Clip ( 1 min 40 sec ) PAO announcement after Rev 18 LOS at about 109:02.

• RealAudio Clip ( 6 min 16 sec ) PAO announcement after Rev 19 AOS at 109:47; Mattingly and Overnight CapCom, Don Peterson.

• RealAudio Clip ( 4 min 44 sec ) Mattingly and Peterson "goodnight" at 109:57.

• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 33 sec ) PAO announces that Mattingly appears to be asleep.

The following RealAudio clips were compiled by Siegfried Kessler and consist of NASA PAO commentary:

• RealAudio Clip ( 1 min 24 sec ) PAO announces LOS on Rev. 19.
• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 35 sec ) PAO comments on CSM orbital parameters
• RealAudio Clip ( 1 min 15 sec ) PAO announces AOS on Rev. 20

[The next transmission from the LM comes is 4 1/2 hours after their last transmission to Houston.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 1 min 43 sec )

112:32:45 Duke: (Sounding sleepy) Hello, Houston; Orion. Over.

112:32:50 Peterson: Orion, Houston. Go ahead.

112:32:57 Duke: Hey, you know, a bit ago we had a little MA-RCS problem .... The system A ... now shows a 10 to 15 percent quantity. Is that what you guys were expecting? Over.

112:33:14 Peterson: That's affirmative.

112:33:20 Duke: Okay. If y'all are happy, we'll see you in a couple of hours and go back to sleep. Over.

112:33:26 Peterson: Say again, Charlie. You're very garbled.

112:33:34 Duke: Okay. If you guys are happy, we'll go back to sleep.

112:33:50 Peterson: All right, Charlie. We've got one circuit breaker we want you to open. Stand by a minute. [Pause] Rendezvous Radar, Operate, panel 11, row 3, under Heaters.

112:34:09 Duke: Okay, we got it. Good night.

112:34:11 Peterson: Roger. Thank you.

[Jones - "If I remember, you talked about this little wake-up in 'Moonwalker'."]

[Duke - "If I remember right, it just rattled me right up out of sleep. That Master Alarm goes off in your (Snoopy) helmet, since I was on comm. I've forgot what it sounded like, but 'bong, bong, bong' and, God, it was loud! I went out almost through the top of the...Almost jumped out of my skin!"]

[Jones - "But you got it figured out pretty quick."]

[Duke - "Well, yeah. Then I saw what the Master Alarm was. 'Cause they said we were going to get it. It was a low quantity light. They told us about it (at 107:21:07) before we went to sleep."]

[Jones - "And you were sleeping in the lower hammock, across the front with your head..."]

[Duke - "On the right side. On my side."]

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

[Jones - "How was the sleeping in the hammock?"]

[Duke - "Well, it was...Fine! When you got your mind in idle, the sleeping was really comfortable in the one-sixth gravity. The hammock was pretty nice. Of course, with hammocks you've got to sleep on your back. Maybe a little bit on your side is about all you could do. It just took me a while to get to sleep. And, if you look at our medical chart, John's on Day 5 was '(Medication) None; sleep 7 1/2 hours, good...' I had 'Seconal; 6 1/2 to 7, good. Seconal, 7 hours, good' And then the last night, I didn't take one. The first two nights I had to take a sleeping pill."]

[Jones - "And that was excitement."]

[Duke - "Yeah. Just to get your mind in idle."]

• MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 56 sec ) at 112:45;

• MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 38 sec ) at 112:55;

• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 31 sec ) at 113:43;

• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 14 sec ) at 113:45

• RealAudio Clip ( 2 min 24 sec ) at 114:00;

• RealAudio Clip ( 2 min 19 sec ) at 114:15;

• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 28 sec ) at 114:56;

• RealAudio Clip ( 0 min 58 sec ) at 115:32.