ALSEP Deployment

Post-EVA Activities in the LM

 

EVA-1 Closeout

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
MP3 audio clips by Ken Glover.
Scan credits in the Image Library
Last revised 07 April 2018.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 2 min 18 sec )

Real Audio File (28 min 39 sec)

[Brian McInall has created a Planimetric Map covering EVA-1 Closeout activities. See, also, Figure 10-50 from the Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report.]

118:06:33 Bean: I'm coming your way. Let's start sampling.

118:06:36 Conrad: Okay.

118:06:37 Bean: I'll be there in a minute.

[Brian McInall has created a Planimetric Map 5 Mb) that includes the traverse to Middle Crescent Crater. See, also, Figure 10-50 from the Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report (10 Mb.]

[When he gets over to the large mound, Pete takes photos AS12-46-6827, 6828, 6829, and 6830.]

[In 6829, Head Crater is visible just below the local horizon.]

118:07:12 Gibson: (Making a mis-identification) Al, Houston. Go ahead.

118:07:16 Conrad: Okay. How long you going to let us stay out?

118:07:23 Gibson: Pete, you'll be extended 30 minutes, so you're out for a total of 4 hours.

118:07:28 Bean: Hey, man!

118:07:29 Gibson: And it looks as though you're...

118:07:30 Conrad: All right, how much do we have?

MP3 Audio Clip ( 43 min 28 sec )

118:07:36 Gibson: Okay. You've got about 1 hour left, and it looks as though we're going to have to close off pretty much with the nominal plan. And stand by; we have some words on the traverse back.

118:07:49 Conrad: Okay. We're standing over at the Head Crater.

118:07:55 Bean: Why don't we start picking up some rocks, Pete, while we wait?

[In Al's cuff checklist, the first item under RETURN TRAVERSE/SEL SAMPLE reads "Collect samples, inc(luding) softball" Later crews were encouraged to collect at least one rock the size of an American football - 27.5 cm long with a 56-cm central circumference. Here, Pete and Al are to collect a softball-sized rock. A standard softball has a circumference of 12 inches (30 cm) and a diameter of 3.8 inches (9.7 cm).]

[In June 2013 I asked Jack Schmitt what the interest was in collecting rocks of softball or football size. He replied, "The interest then was in getting a better understanding of the relationships between mineral textures in large samples that potentially would have more of a story to tell than small chips. That said, I am not aware than any large rocks were so dissected. For 40 years I have pushed to have that happen and recently I have been told that there is interest at the LRL in doing that - time will tell."]

118:08:03 Bean: Sure do. Let me get it set up. (Pause) Right. (Pause) 5 (foot focus) at f/8. (Pause)

[Bean - "We had a set procedure for taking these samples. And usually Pete would point to the rock, put the gnomon near it. Sometimes I'd wonder which rock it was, you know, if there was a bunch. And, then, I would take a photo and then step a pace or two and take another to get a stereo (pair) and then Pete would pick it up. And, meanwhile, I think I'd get out my little sample bag and he'd put it in the sample bag. And then we'd stick it in my (saddle)bag or his bag. So we had like a little skit and that's what I think Pete's talking about now."]

[Jones - "And you worked that out during training."]

[Conrad - "Oh yeah."]

[Bean - "And that's the way we tried to do every rock. Because you always had the gnomon. And then we took a photo afterwards."]

[Conrad - "We practiced this... I started out by just laying rocks around on the floor. One of the things was setting the camera deal; we had the three (focus) distances. And what we did was actually take pictures to calibrate ourselves. They developed that film in training to make sure we stood the right distance."]

[Bean - "We had to point that (chest-mounted) camera without a viewfinder. (But) we didn't miss a (single) one on the Moon, I don't think."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, and it was due to the training. We really worked hard at learning to estimate by eye what the camera settings had to be."]

[Bean - "The first ones (we took in training) weren't very good. But on the Moon, they were all good. So we really had learned in training how to do it by using real film, having it developed, having it debriefed. I think that's why the photography got better with each mission, in general. Because the photographers would impart the (experience gained on a mission) to the next crew and help them be better. So they did get better. And I thought the photography did too."]

[Of all the Apollo astronauts, Al Bean is the one most familiar with the missions other than his own, primarily because of the research he has done over the years for his paintings. He knows the still photo collection and the 16 mm collection very well and has looked at a great deal of the Apollo video record. I agree with his assessment of a steady improvement in the quality of the stills from mission to mission.]

[Al's "before" photo of the sample is AS12-47-6932. Pete's tongs are in the picture.]

118:08:31 Gibson: Pete and Al, two things we'd like you to do on the traverse on the way back: One is to get samples and some documentation of those mounds; and, secondly, if you can, get over to the thousand-foot crater (Middle Crescent Crater), which is northwest of the ALSEP, and get samples and documentation of (those) samples from there.

118:08:56 Conrad: Thousand-foot crater?

118:08:57 Bean: Suppose that's where we are? Is that that one over there?

118:08:59 Conrad: You don't mean the Head Crater, do you? (Pause) Let's get some (photos) of this mound, Al.

118:09:04 Bean: Okay.

118:09:05 Gibson: Negative. If you're at Head Crater now, we'll give you a radar vector (meaning direction and distance). Stand by.

118:09:12 Bean: (To Pete) Face this way. You've already got pictures of this, Pete?

118:09:17 Conrad: Yeah, at 15 feet. I'm just taking it a close up...

118:09:18 Bean: Okay. Take that at about...

118:09:19 LM Crew: (Garbled)

118:09:19 Conrad: (Garbled) ...black rock here.

118:09:21 Bean: Okay. Wait. Let me get close... Wait, wait. (Garbled) That ruins it.

[They have to be careful not to get their own shadows on the mound if one or both of them is standing up-Sun, and they have to be careful not to disturb the scene. Dirt kicked into the scene can give a false impression of the degree to which the virgin surface was pockmarked by small impacts and the degree to which rocks are dirt covered. Because the astronauts are somewhat clumsy in the suits, getting a close-up photo without kicking dirt can be a challenge.]

[The photos that they are taking in this time period probably include AS12-46-6831, 6832, and AS12-47-6933.]

118:09:26 Bean: Okay; let me get a picture of it. Okay.

118:09:28 Conrad: Of that one? Yes. Yes.

118:09:32 Bean: Stereo picture in there.

118:09:36 Gibson: Pete.

118:09:38 Conrad: Let's go around to the other side and not kick any dirt on it. It ruins it.

118:09:40 Bean: Yeah. Okay. Go ahead.

118:09:42 Conrad: (Answering Ed) Go.

118:09:43 Gibson: Pete, Houston. The crater which we speak of...

118:09:44 Gordon: Are you guys going to knock off their relay?

118:09:44 Gibson: Pete, the crater which we speak of (Middle Crescent Crater) is about 300 feet northwest of Head Crater.

[Conrad - "It was a big crater."]

[Bean - "I don't remember it at all. Isn't that strange?"]

[Conrad - (Looking at their panoramic pictures of Middle Crescent) "It's a big crater, but very shallow. You can see you don't have a lot of shadow in it."]

[Bean - "And this (Head Crater) has much darker shadow. (Looking at a map of their traverses) And here's where we go over and here's where we come back. Boy, do I not remember that!"]

[Conrad - "I do. I remember we went over there. Because, if you also remember, the first EVA we didn't have a planned traverse. After the ALSEP, we were just going to sample and it was sort of going to be in real time."]

[Bean - "Sample on the way back to the LM."]

[Conrad - "Yeah. So they sent us over the other way, to that crater."]

[Bean - "I guess they looked on their charts and they could see that big sucker over there. They knew we were going to the left (south of the LM on the second EVA); so (Middle Crescent) was the logical place to send us."]

118:10:01 Gibson: That's affirmative.

118:10:02 Conrad: Okay. Yeah, we can go over there.

118:10:03 LM Crew: (Garbled)

118:10:07 Bean: Wait, wait, wait a minute.

118:10:08 Conrad: Huh?

118:10:09 Gibson: And, Pete and Al, we'll be...

118:10:10 Conrad: There's (Garbled) to that.

118:10:12 Gibson: ...talking with Yankee Clipper, giving him a maneuver PAD, for about the next 5 minutes.

118:10:18 Conrad: Very good.

118:10:20 Bean: Let me see if I can chip some of that off, Pete, with this (tool; see the following comment). (Pause) Get my tool here. By the way, you could work 6 or 7 hours here; (it would) never bother you a bit.

[After some discussion during the mission review, Pete and Al decided that they probably didn't have the hammer with them at this point and that Al is talking about dislodging a piece of rock off the mound with either the tongs or one of the UHTs. According to Bailey and Ulrich, this is sample 12007, a 65-gram piece of basalt.]

[Houston, thinking they have switched off the relay of LM comm to the CSM, is trying to talk with Yankee Clipper. In fact, Houston doesn't have the relay off and Gordon is still hearing both Houston and the surface crew.]

[This is the generally accepted explanation of the Head Crater mounds.]

118:10:53 Bean: Hey, I wouldn't be surprised to find this is that microbreccia. (Garbled) Let me get a picture.

[This may be the point at which Al takes frames AS12-47-6934 and 6935.]

[At some point, Pete takes AS12-46-6833, a view to the south of the near surface, possibly taken near the large mound.]

118:11:02 Bean: Okay. That'll be a goodie.

118:11:03 Conrad: (To Gibson) Go.

118:11:04 Bean: Go ahead.

118:11:05 Gibson: We're trying to get a maneuver PAD up to Clipper; and, he's having a hard time copying it with your talking in the background. Could we have some silence for about 5 minutes, while we get that PAD up?

118:11:23 Conrad: Yup.

118:11:25 Gibson: Okay. We'll be right back with you. Clipper, Houston. Are you ready to copy?

118:11:30 Gordon: Go, man.

[Comm Break with the LM Crew while Gibson gives Gordon data for a CSM orbital plane change. That conversation is omitted here.]

118:14:36 Bean: Okay.

118:14:37 Conrad: Roger-Roger. We're almost over to the thousand-foot crater.

118:14:40 Gibson: Roger.

118:14:44 Conrad: Got about another 200 feet to go.

118:14:46 Bean: You can see these linear patterns quite frequently on the surface, Houston. They seem to generally run from the north to the south, and they're just little lines. They're off in the dirt; sometimes you see a large area...

[Al is referring to the north-south-trending grooves that he and Pete described from the LM windows at about 113:01:03.]

[Bean - "I remember looking over to the left (as we ran along) and I could see it looked like somebody had raked it with a big rake, with the teeth far apart. And it was as far as I could see over in that direction. But I think, once again, it had to do with the way the Sun was. Because you could look and you could never see it run past you."]

[Al's pictures AS12-47-6936 and 6937 may show the area of linear patterns.]

118:15:17 Conrad: Yeah, I got some neat ones right here.

118:15:19 Bean: Okay. (Pause)

118:15:26 Bean: Looks like a secondary impact crater that occurred recently.

118:15:28 Conrad: Yeah. Some of them do, don't they?

118:15:30 Bean: They do. This one looks like fresh... Doesn't have that old look like all the rest do.

118:15:33 Conrad: Come on. Let's go. (Garbled)

118:15:34 Bean: There's some of that glass in the bottom of there.

[During this very brief stop, Al takes AS12-47-6938. Pete is in the distance, facing away from Al and possibly taking a photo of the rocks at his feet. Pete's picture is AS12-46-6834. Apparently, they do not collect any samples here. The irregular, non-circular shape of the crater in Al's photo is an indication that it repesents an impact at relatively low velocity by debris thrown out in a crater dug at some distance away.]

118:15:52 Bean: Okay.

118:15:53 Conrad: Holy Christmas. We're going to have to smoke there, Houston.

118:15:55 Gibson: That's affirmative.

118:15:57 Conrad: Yeah, we're almost to the crater. Okay, we're not getting very many rocks by going this far. But if that's what you want, that's what you want. Run, baby. (Laughs)

[Their peak heart rates during this run are about 150 beats per minute for Pete and 140 for Al. They will experience higher rates for a longer period during their run eastward from Sharp Crater at about 133:10 during the second EVA. Indeed, during this first EVA, Pete's highest heart rates occurred during the ten minutes or so that he was aligning the S-band antenna, starting at about 116:00.]

118:16:12 Conrad: Hey, look at... This looks like a brilliant spanking fresh impact crater! Look at that little fella, huh?

118:16:21 Bean: Sure does, doesn't it?

118:16:22 Conrad: Yeah. Let's get some rocks right here; here's some.

118:16:25 Bean: Let me get some pictures first (before they disturb the area they want to sample).

118:16:27 Conrad: Get some pictures of that crater, and I'll get some over there. I'll get this one right here.

[Al's photo is AS12-47-6939. Pete's photo may be AS12-46-6835. According to Bailey and Ulrich, the samples Pete is about to collect may be 12010 and 12015.]

118:16:38 Conrad: Boy, it sure does look fresh though, doesn't it? (Pause)

118:16:43 Conrad: Another rock for you.

118:16:44 Bean: Okay.

118:16:46 Conrad: Listen, we need to find a grapefruit(-sized rock), too, you know.

118:16:48 Bean: Yes. There's a bunch around.

[Pete is referring to the "softball" sample they want to collect during the return to the LM. A softball has a diameter of 9.7 cm and a typical grapefruit 10-15 cm. See the discussion following 118:07:55]

[Conrad - "I would take the sample bag off. He couldn't see that stuff hanging back there. I'd take the sample bag off, and fix up whatever we wanted to do and then throw it in the saddlebag."]

118:16:58 Conrad: (Commenting on how quickly they're having to work in order to get back to the LM on time) (I) don't like hustling. (Garbled). Let's go.

118:17:04 Bean: Okay.

118:17:06 Conrad: Get right to the edge of this crater and photograph it. Get a pan in it, and then we won't have to come back this way. Look at that. That crater's spectacular isn't it? Wow, a monster!

118:17:16 Bean: Look at that rock! I'd like to...

118:17:17 LM Crew: (Garbled).

118:17:18 Bean: ...get some of this bedrock...

118:17:20 Conrad: Well, we may want to go back there tomorrow, but we can't go any further. We'll never get back in 10 minutes.

[The length of the EVA is constrained by the amount of cooling water, oxygen, and battery power that the astronauts can carry in their backpacks. As indicated on page 8-20 (0.1 Mb) in the Apollo 12 Mission Report, for this 4-hour EVA, each of them had about 1.25 pounds of oxygen, 8.5 pounds of feedwater, and 282 watt-hours of electric power. By the time they are back in the LM - after 231 minutes on the backpack consumables, they will have used only 58% of their oxygen, 55 percent of their feedwater, and 66 percent of their available power. Clearly, if they were willing to use all of their consumables, they could stay out for as long as six hours; but prudence dictated that they leave plenty of margin for error. Hence, the four-hour EVAs. For Apollo 14, the margins were reduced and the crew had two 4.5 hour EVAs. The limits on the distance the crews traveled from the LM were set, in part, by walkback constraints. In particular, there was always a concern that, in the event of the failure of some critical component in the suit or backpack, they be able to get back to the LM safely. The OPSs (Oxygen Purge Systems) that they wore on their backpacks provided the principle backup to both the oxygen and cooling systems in the PLSSs and, as well, some protection in the case of a suit puncture or rupture. The limiting condition was generally considered to be a cooling system failure, in which case the OPS, at maximum flow rate, would provide 30 minutes of cooling.]

[The following is a discussion of walkback recorded during the 1991 mission review.]

[Bean - "The OPSs are pretty much the same on all the missions. The main thing (that the later crews had) was the buddy cooling hoses that they took in the Rover (or, in the case of the Apollo 14 crew, on their handcart). So, if they got far away and a PLSS gave out, they didn't just have to live on their own OPS. They could hook hoses between them, and then both of them could survive on the one PLSS (and thereby saving the OPSs for getting back into the LM). And, also, they were driving back, which didn't take as much energy as running back. We didn't have that. So we always had to be able to get in (to the cabin) in 20 minutes."]

[Conrad - "That's all our OPS would give us."]

[In high-flow, the OPS would provide oxygen and limited cooling for 30 minutes. The requirement that they get back in the cabin within 20 minutes left 10 minutes margin, which would be essential if, for example, they had trouble getting hooked up to the ECS.]

[Jones - "So yours was an OPS walkback constraint."]

[Bean - "That's right, and it had to do with cooling, more than anything. Because you would end up having to open your little purge valve to get the cooling and get the flow in there for breathing and you only had the 20 minutes worth. The concern was you'd get too hot."]

[Jones - "Now, the 14 guys went a fair bit further. From the top of Cone, their comeback was about a half an hour, or so, which sounds to me like that's stretching the OPS a bit." (Readers should note that, at the time I asked this question, I didn't realize that Shepard and Mitchell had buddy hoses on their handcart.)]

[Bean - "Ask him and it may have been that they had a higher OPS pressure."]

[Conrad - "No, they were 7000 psi, too. I've tried to resurrect those bottles to use, several times, in some other things. I always worried about those. (Laughs) That's a lot of pressure, man. If that thing ever blew up on your back, you'd be history."]

[Bean - "Did they have any buddy breathing feature on 14? Or maybe they just had more confidence."]

[Jones - "So the constraint for you guys was OPS walkback."]

[Conrad - "Also, no matter what they say here, they were not confident in being able to track all consumables (having only the cuff pressure gauges and the heart rate monitors as indicators). So, they weren't about to let us go past 4 hours, even though these PLSSs were basically the same (as the ones the later crews used). We kept wanting to stay longer than 4."]

[Bean - "And we could have, but they just didn't have the confidence. They couldn't see what was left in the consumables."]

[Jones - "I think you had a couple hours of oxygen."]

[Bean - "Well, sure. We had tons of stuff left."]

[Conrad - "The basic PLSS bus didn't change a hell of a lot."]

[Bean - "They put an extra water bottle on (for the J-missions). Put a water bottle and raised the pressure in the main oxygen tank to give them more than an eight hour capability."]

[Readers should note that, for the Rover missions, the term 'walkback' took on the extra meaning of a walkback in the event of a Rover failure. In early discussions about the feasibility of taking a Rover, a question was raised about a dual-mode failure of both the Rover and one of the PLSSs. Eventually, the astronauts were able to convince NASA management that dual-mode failures were extremely unlikely and, subsequently designed the traverses such that, in the event of a Rover failure, they had sufficient oxygen and feedwater for a cross-country walk back to the LM.]

118:17:29 Conrad: Where?

118:17:30 Bean: It's right down the hill.

118:17:31 Conrad: Hey, you're right.

118:17:32 Bean: About 50 yards.

[The Apollo 11 samples were comprised primarily of basalt fragments, presumably dug out of the local bedrock by various impacts. Naturally, the geologists are interested in obtaining samples of undisturbed bedrock from the Apollo 12 site and Pete and Al are keeping their eyes open for outcrops in the walls of the larger craters. Generally, the soil layer on the mare is about 3 to 5 meters thick and impacts producing craters 15 to 20 meters across should reach bedrock. A fresh crater of the size of Middle-Crescent would be more than big enough to show bedrock outcrops. The only question is how much subsequent accumulation there has been of dust to cover up those outcrops.]

118:17:35 Bean: Hey, good show. (Pause)

118:17:39 Conrad: (Breathing a little heavily) You're right.

118:17:41 Bean: Pan it first?

118:17:43 Conrad: Yeah, just a minute. I'm going to get in here and... I got to go to intermediate cooling.

118:17:47 Bean: Okay.

118:17:49 Conrad: Gonna run just so far on Min.

118:17:51 Bean: Yeah, let's...

118:17:52 Conrad: Hey, look at... Don't they look like something? Looking into zero phase. Look at those...

118:17:56 Bean: Yeah.

118:17:57 Conrad: ...fresh little jobber-dos. Now, wait a minute. I want to...

[A "jobber-do" is a "thing-a-ma-jig" or a "what-cha-ma-call-it" Here, Pete is probably talking about a small, fresh crater. During a drive westward from their LM, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt noticed that fresh craters looked noticeably brighter in the down-Sun ("zero phase") direction than did older craters. Impacts fracture a great deal of rock and, when the crater is still fresh, the large number of clean fracture surfaces act like countless small mirrors. Pete and Al are seeing the same phenomenon.]

118:18:00 Conrad: Yeah, let me get to 74 (feet focus).

118:18:03 Bean: Okay.

118:18:04 Conrad: Seventy-four...

118:18:05 Bean: You ought to have two fifty (that is, 1/250th of a second exposure).

118:18:06 Conrad: f/8, right?

118:18:08 Bean: (Two) Fifty, and you're looking...

118:18:09 Conrad: Okay.

118:18:09 Bean: ...down-Sun. You ought to have (f/)8 over there, and (f/)11 right there. And (f/)8 over there.

Pete's First Middle Crescent Crater Pan (frames 6836 to 6844)

118:18:14 Conrad: Yeah. (Counting pan frames) 1, 2, 3...

118:18:19 Bean: Beauty.

118:18:20 Conrad: ...4. You can... better believe it. 5. Now, let me go back to f/11 (for down-Sun).

118:18:27 Bean: Okay.

118:18:28 Conrad: We'll have to smoke to get back to that LM. We're a long way.

118:18:31 Bean: See how far we are. (Garbled) this straight.

118:18:35 Conrad: Huh?

118:18:37 Bean: Got it. I was just looking over this rock down here. It looks like it came...

118:18:41 Conrad: Just a minute. Okay. Now, let me go over here, and I'll give them a stereo of this baby.

118:18:46 Bean: Okay.

[Pete is going to take a second partial pan and steps to his left to get a stereo effect.]

118:18:47 Conrad: Let me just leap over here a ways (to his left to get the second pan).

118:18:50 Bean: Houston, we're looking down into this big crater now, and it looks rather old... (Garbled under Pete)

[Al is noting that the crater appears to be highly weathered, having been worn down and partly filled in by the steady rain of small impactors.]

118:18:57 Bean: There's some big boulders that are resting inside the rim. None on the rim like we see on a large crater that's further to the west by another thousand feet (actually more than 4 kilometers). But we don't see any outcroppings of rocks either that, you know, we could look down and say, "well, from the top of the rim down to about 20 feet or something, then we come to the underlying rock." But there is this rock that's very large (that is, there are some boulders) and spread around. We're going to try to collect some of the samples.

118:19:31 Conrad: Yeah, I've got to get the...

118:19:32 Gibson: Roger, Al. We suggest that you hustle. We show you're 3 hours and 11 minutes, and we'd like you back there around 3 (hours) 17 (minutes). Six more minutes.

118:19:43 Bean: We're picking up a couple (of samples) right now, and we're on our way back. Just a minute. (Pause) Boy, there's a big block over there.

118:19:55 Conrad: Can't get it.

118:19:56 Bean: Got it?

118:19:56 Conrad: I can't get it with the tongs.

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "We needed a little bit bigger set of tongs so that we could grab bigger rocks. If we had a bigger set, we could get the little ones, and also the big ones. With that little one, you just end up getting little rocks. You want to reach down - get down - and look at rocks, and you want to pick things up. You don't always want to stop and use those tongs. I had the feeling that, if we just had a strap mounted on back - or to one side of our back or something - we could work as a team. One fellow could hold the other while he leans over and picks up or inspects a rock, or looks in a hole, or whatever he wants to do, and then lift him back up and he wouldn't get dirty. We had talked earlier (before the flight) about just falling over on our faces and catching ourselves on our hands, or getting down on our knees, and inspecting whatever rocks we wanted to look at. When we got there, we could have done this physically, but the problem was, it was just so dirty that you didn't want to do it (and get a lot of dirt in the spacecraft). I went down on my hands a couple of times, but each time I did, I went down where I would land with my hands on a rock. I would stand there (balanced on his hands) until I saw what I wanted to see, and then do a kind of push up from the rock. But there isn't always a rock around to do this sort of thing. If we just had some simple strap, worked as a team, and got the big rocks fast, and looked at what we wanted to real fast, I don't think it would interfere with anything else you did."]

[Later crews carried tongs that had longer handles (80 cm versus 67 cm) and openings large enough to grab 10 cm rocks (versus about 6 cm). The 12 crew was the only one to try the strap-holding technique to get down to grab rocks. During the second EVA, Pete wore a bag on his PLSS to hold parts of the Surveyor that they were going to remove and, at one point, Al grabbed hold of the straps on the parts bag - much in the manner he described in the debriefing - to help Pete get down to get a rock. Because of a re-design of the suit waist needed so that the astronauts could sit on the Rovers, the J mission suits were much more flexible and those crews - particularly the 16 and 17 crews - got down on the hands and knees a great deal. They got very dirty, but also had a big dustbrush to clean themselves off - at least a little - before getting back into the LM.]

[Al wants Pete to help him keep his balance while he leans over to get the rock.]

118:20:06 Bean: Get it? Push it over here and I'll get it. (Pause) Push her over here. (Pause) (Garbled)

[It sounds like Al is leaning on a larger rock while Pete pushes the rock over to him with either his boot or the tongs. He may be presenting his saddlebag so that Al can put the sample in without having to get up. Bailey and Ulrich speculate that, here, Pete and Al are collecting sample 12016, a 2 kilogram piece of basalt. Certainly such a rock would have been too big for the tongs but not too big for Al to have picked up with one hand.]

118:20:29 Bean: Okay. You got anything else you want to put in your bag? Go ahead and push another one over here.

118:20:34 Conrad: Okay, in just a minute.

118:20:35 Bean: Okay. Get a couple of big ones.

118:20:39 Conrad: Oh, I wish that we could get that, Al.

118:20:41 Bean: Try that one. That's a good one.

118:20:44 Conrad: Huh?

118:20:46 Bean: A couple of nice ones right here. (Pause)

118:20:50 Conrad: Wait a minute. (Garbled)

118:20:53 Bean: There you go.

118:20:54 Conrad: Oops. (Pause)

118:20:56 Bean: Okay.

118:20:58 Conrad: Wait a minute.

118:21:00 Bean: Here; let's just get this real good one.

118:21:02 Conrad: Yeah.

118:21:03 Bean: Okay. We're getting you some of this rock, Houston. Hope it's (garbled)...

118:21:10 Gibson: Roger, Pete and Al. We copy. We suggest you start smoking on back there. You're 3:13 and I'd like you back there in 4 minutes.

118:21:21 Conrad: Okay. We're on our way. Let's go, Al.

[They may actually start back at this point.]

118:21:23 Conrad: Yeah.

118:21:24 Bean: Let me ask you something.

118:21:25 Conrad: What?

118:21:26 Bean: What...

118:21:28 Conrad: Huh?

118:21:29 Bean: That's interesting, isn't it?

118:21:30 Conrad: What?

118:21:31 Bean: I was looking at that rock perched right over on top of the hill, there.

118:21:35 Conrad: (Garbled) my distance here, because there's nothing but...

118:21:38 Bean: Here.

118:21:39 Conrad: ...all the same. Yeah.

118:21:42 Bean: You got it, babe. (Pause)

118:21:48 Conrad: Must have been 1200 (to) 1300 feet, huh?

118:21:51 Bean: At least.

118:21:52 Conrad: At least.

[It is not clear what distance they are estimating. Their distance from the LM and the diameter of Middle Crescent Crater are both about 1000 feet.]

118:21:54 Conrad: Yeah.

118:21:55 Bean: You could really make a long traverse if you had a good long-term OPS.

[Al is talking about the walkback constraint.]

118:22:02 Bean: Oh, I'd say (that) each step you're only going about... When you're running normal, I'd say you go about 3 or 4 feet. But you could just go indefinitely at this pace.

118:22:11 Conrad: Yeah.

118:22:12 Bean: You don't get tired! Pete, if you land flat-footed and then you just push off your toes and on you go. (Pause)

[Bean - "We were loping along and it seemed like, because there was so much time between each step, that you were leaping great lengths."]

[Conrad - "Turned out it was about six feet (per stride), wasn't it?"]

[Bean - "I remember dropping back and watching Pete run. We were running together and I dropped back. 'Cause I felt like I was doing it, too, (that is, getting ten feet per stride). And then I watched him and his feet marks were really 3 or 4 feet apart, instead of this ten feet we thought between steps. So it was the gravity kind of tricking you into thinking you were really going long distance. But like Pete says, you could run forever."]

[We talked about their heart rates on this run (about 150) compared with their EVA-2 run eastward from Sharp Crater (about 160 beats per minute).]

[Bean - "Our heart rates are a bit over 150; and that's nothing. That's just normal work. And 160 is still not a big deal, but we were more tired out there (on the run east from Sharp), and I remember them asking us to stop, once. But they don't want you to stop on the treadmill when you're at 160, for sure."]

[Conrad - "No, I just ran the other day. My nominal heart rate, at my age now (61 years at the time of the mission review, compared with 39 at the time of the flight), is 167; and I reached nominal before I ran out of gas, so they let me keep going. I went to 180-something."]

[Bean - "Sure. But it does decrease your endurance for later."]

[Jones - "On Apollo 17, Jack Schmitt ran similar distances without getting winded at all - and, in fact, sang..."]

[Conrad - "I don't ever remember getting winded. The heart rate can be up (but) it doesn't mean you're winded."]

[Jones - "Well, when we get to the run from Sharp Crater on the 2nd EVA, we can talk about whether you're breathing heavily or whether what we're hearing has got to do with where the microphone is."]

[Bean - "I think it might be me breathing heavily because I'm carrying that thing (the Hand Tool Carrier) and that interferes with your running. You can't run good, because it bumps into your legs and it's just a big hassle. And it gradually got heavier because we kept putting rocks in it. So, towards the end (of EVA-2), it was really slowing me down. It was getting heavier and heavier. If we didn't have that - which we didn't coming back (from Middle Crescent), we just ran along."]

[Jones - "Jack and I were speculating that it was the re-design of the waist that made running easier for the J-mission."]

[Conrad - "That could be..."]

[Bean - "You could bend easier."]

[Jones - "And, although Jack was able to sing at full voice while he was running, the important point is that his heart rate didn't get up as high as yours did."]

[Bean - "Well, it depends on if you're going up hill and downhill and what you're avoiding."]

[Conrad - "We were all in good shape, so I think the joint probably had a lot to do with it. I have no idea what it was like to operate with the jointed suit. I've never run (means "operated in") one. You don't have a joint in the Shuttle suits, now, either."]

[Readers should note that, in 1991, Pete was involved in design work for what was then called Space Station Freedom and had done some suited, water-tank tests in the Shuttle suit.]

[Bean - "Uh-uh, because they don't do anything like that."]

[Conrad - "That's right. And I've been operating the Shuttle suit, here, recently. So I have never ever been in a suit with a waist band. I don't know what it's like. I guess the first one I'll try is the metal one. I think the metal one has a waist."]

[Bean - "That's going to be interesting to see. They must be getting better with that metal suit. They've clung to it for a long time..."]

[Conrad - "At (NASA) Ames (Research Center). I think it keeps them (financially) alive."]

[Bean - "Maybe so. They keep getting money, and so they got to cling to it. Maybe someday that'll be the one."]

118:22:25 Bean: This is fun!

118:22:26 Conrad: Yeah.

118:22:28 Bean: Well, we got that ALSEP up. (Pause)

118:22:33 Conrad: (Garbled) this rock box, I get some more rocks! Turned us all around and we didn't get any rocks! (Pause)

118:22:44 Bean: Let's get some up here. We'll fill it.

118:22:46 Conrad: Just a minute. (Pause) Hey, Houston. We're approaching the ALSEP, headed back to the LM.

[They sound a little winded. Their heart rates are a bit over 150. Since leaving Middle Crescent Crater, they have been running for 1 minute and 40 seconds and, if they were actually at the ALSEP, the distance from their stopping point on the rim of Middle Crescent would be 190 meters and their average running speed 6.8 km/hr. However, based on the experience of the J-mission crews - who had the advantage of a more flexible suit - this estimate is implausible and, as indicated by the dialog over the next two or three minutes, they are still well short of the ALSEP and the smaller mound near the ALSEP. If their average speed during this run is the 4.0 km/hr estimated for their run from Sharp Crater to the east side of Bench, starting at 133:09:24, they are 110 meters from their Middle Crescent stop and about 80 meters from the ALSEP.]

118:23:04 Bean: (Garbled)...

118:23:05 Conrad: (Garbled) run all the way.

118:23:07 Bean: Hey, Pete?

118:23:08 Conrad: Yeah.

118:23:09 Bean: Ease over this way a little.

118:23:10 Conrad: Which way?

118:23:11 Bean: Over toward your left.

118:23:12 Conrad: What you want to do?

118:23:14 Bean: I thought there were a couple of good rocks over there.

118:23:16 Conrad: Where? (Pause)

118:23:21 Bean: Be about half way... Why don't we grab a couple of rocks here?

118:23:26 Conrad: All right. Here's one right here.

118:23:27 Bean: Okay. Let me get a photograph of it.

118:23:29 Conrad: Hurry.

118:23:30 Bean: We're on the way. Coming?

[That is, they can get the sample without detouring.]

118:23:48 Conrad: Got it?

118:23:49 Bean: Got it. (Pause while Pete gets the sample) There you go. Good boy. (Pause)

[Al's photo is AS12-47-6940.]

[On tape, Pete's last statement sounds like "Better get the picture". Evidently, Al heard it that way, too.]

[Evidently, Pete is standing up-Sun of the rock and his shadow is falling on it. Al wants him to step back and get his shadow out of the way. The problem with shadows is best illustrated by photos Pete took at Sharp Crater starting at 132:56:44: AS12-49-7263 to 7277.]

118:24:15 Bean: Okay.

118:24:17 Gibson: Pete and Al, we're picking up your heavy footprints going by the seismometer.

118:24:24 Conrad: That's great.

118:24:25 Bean: Hey, Pete.

118:24:26 Conrad: Yeah.

118:24:27 Bean: Let's get one last shot of this thing (the smaller of the two mounds).

118:24:30 Conrad: You could... Look, I got to get going on the rock box, Al.

118:24:32 Bean: Oh, okay; let's go. (Pause)

[If they are really near the small mound, they have run about 150 meters and, with a minute subtracted for the sample stop, they have been running for about 2 minutes. That would imply a plausible speed of 4.5 km/hr.]

[Scrooge is, of course, the central character in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol The reference here may be to Scrooge's journey with the Ghost of Christmas Present, speeding through the air over moor and sea.]

118:24:53 Conrad: Yep. Okay. We're (within) about 300 feet of the LM now, Houston.

118:24:59 Gibson: Roger, Pete. We copy.

118:25:03 Conrad: (Garbled) full gallop. There's a good rock. Halt, halt, halt! Look at that!

[Bean - "Pete was telling himself stop, more than me, because he was going by it."]

118:25:07 Conrad: Never saw one like that before. Look at that! (Pause)

118:25:12 Bean: Okay.

118:25:14 Conrad: That green?

118:25:15 Bean: What is it? (I) see it.

118:25:18 Conrad: No, it was grinning at me. That's why I stopped.

118:25:19 Bean: Okay.

118:25:20 Conrad: The heck with it. Put it in the rock bag.

118:25:21 Bean: Let's go.

118:25:22 Conrad: Yes, sir.

118:25:23 Bean: Okey-doke. (Pause)

[Based on Pete's comment about the green color, Bailey and Ulrich speculate that this rock is either 12006, a 200-gram piece of olivine basalt, or 12020, a 300-gram piece. During the second EVA, Pete and Al will put most of the samples in individually numbered bags and, consequently, there is little doubt as to which sample is which. For this first EVA - and especially for samples such as this one for which there are no documentation photographs - unambiguous identification is all but impossible. The rock they are collecting here has to be one of the pieces of olivine basalt, but which one? In some ways, of course, it doesn't matter a great deal, because the rock could have been thrown onto the site from almost anywhere.]

118:25:32 Bean: Okay. (Pause) Hey, real good. They're a little different. They're more the gabbro type.

[A gabbro is a relatively coarse-grained basalt, with the large crystals indicative of relatively slow cooling at the base of a lava flow. This is one of the few instances where Pete and Al use a technical geology term.]

118:25:50 Bean: Wait a second. (Pause)

[Jones - "I gather that you went on geology field trips intermittently through the years. Did those intensify in any way after you got assigned to 12 or did they get dropped?"]

[Conrad - "The only thing I remember we did for 12 was go to Hawaii at the end."]

[Bean - "After the assignment to 12, they became more field exercises. Before 12, it was general geology field trips, where you went out and looked at outcropping and contacts and talked about them and tried to decided whether this one was older than that and that sort of stuff. After (the assignment to) 12, the only time we ever went out, we went out with our equipment and went through little procedures. We didn't try to learn any geology..."]

[Conrad - "We went to Hawaii in August or something like that."]

[Pete and Al did six field trips specifically for Apollo 12 in 1969, including the Hawaii trip that Pete remembers.]

[Bean - "And we took our (lightweight) backpacks and gear and we played like we were on the Moon."]

[Conrad - "We didn't take suits."]

[Bean - "We didn't try to learn any more geology. We tried to learn the procedures as to what we were going to do when we got there, as I remember it."]

[Conrad - "One of the things is, they never did show us any of Neil's stuff (that is, the Apollo 11 samples)."]

[Bean - "We went over there (to the Lunar Receiving Lab)."]

[Conrad - "We went over there, but we didn't really get to sit down with the glass and look at that stuff. They didn't really tell us all what they had. I don't remember that. And it would seem to me... Of course, we brought back an awful lot in comparison (75 pounds of geology samples versus 47 pounds on Apollo 11)."]

[Bean - "It seems to me we went in an afternoon over to the lunar curatorial facility."]

[Conrad - "I'm wondering if, after they had our rocks, and they went to longer times between flights, that the later crews went and actually looked and studied what was brought back already."]

[Jones - "It varied, crew to crew."]

[Bean - "We didn't. Because I don't ever remember saying something like 'Boy, that's a rock just like Neil's'. When he got back, see, we were still training for a two-month's separation (that is, for an Apollo 12 launch in mid-September 1969, two months after Apollo 11). Then, after a while, they changed it to November and the thing that was a big unknown to us was the Surveyor and how to make the landing at a spot. Those were the big unknowns, so we had to spend most of our time doing that. And we probably spent most of our time really trying to figure out how to land on a certain spot on the Moon, rather than anything else - because we couldn't do it at first. So we didn't do any basic geology. We did what I would call operational geology. Practice working together, practice taking the pictures, practice seeing (that is, recognizing) different kinds of rocks when, you know, they all sort of look the same. And then they'd give you a briefing on what you said about them and whether or not you took the right pictures, whether you missed any unusual rocks or picked up too many rocks that were the same. So that was the kind of thing you did. It wasn't any kind of learning what striations look like or any of that stuff. You either knew that or you never learned it."]

[Jones - "The Hawaii trip, then, was not-suited but you had backpacks and tools; and you were basically out there in some real geology, describing what you were seeing, sampling, and that kind of stuff."]

[Bean - "And, like Pete said the other day, Ed Gibson along with the geologists were behind the rocks and we're out there walking around with everything and we're doing it and radioing back to them and they're trying to play their part, too. So it was a simulation of lunar operations procedures. We developed them and learned them better that way."]

[Jones - "So it was a good operational training, then?"]

[Bean - "Yeah, it was the best. Because you did everything and you stayed out for three hours and you went certain distances and, you know, you went through this little routine we're going through now. If I had it to do over again, I think there should be more of an emphasis on getting more rocks and more different kind of rocks and learning at a quick glance whether that's a rock that you've had before or not. And don't make any geological observations of the rocks, as such, other than: 'Is this different than the previous one?' And then document it a little less completely. Like, forget the stereo, you can still see it (that is, record the undisturbed setting) without stereo, so you can get on and get more. We could have collected a lot more rocks, and it seems to me, in the long run, that (it) would have been much better than documenting them so perfectly. Document them okay, but then go for the next rock. And then get more rocks, you know, like later missions. We could have done that. Right at the end, we could have run around and picked up 15 additional pounds of rocks and we probably should have done it. Just thrown them in there and brought them home, and they'd be real useful now. Much more (useful to have the extra 15 pounds of rocks) than what we said about them. So I don't think we really did it the way I would recommend. Now, Jack Schmitt couldn't (really afford to take the time to do much description). And we should have been able to collect samples faster."]

[The ideal was to identify the dominant rock types at a site and make sure that you collected enough samples of them so that the experimenters back on Earth could do various chemical and mineralogical analyses. Once you had done that, you then looked for special samples that would tell you something about the geological processes that shaped a particular site. And finally, you looked for unusual samples that might have been thrown in from elsewhere. With limited time at their disposal, the crews could not be quite as methodical as they could have been on Earth and, in particular, the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 crews had very little time to do much more than make a quick assessment, take a picture, and collect the rock. The later crews had the advantage of more time on the Moon and more intensive geology training and could take at least a few minutes to assess context and to recognize the special settings and samples that would yield the greatest insights. However, as Al says, their primary task was still to recognize which samples to collect, do the documentation, bag the sample, and then move on. Detailed analysis could and should be left for later.]

118:26:01 Bean: Thank you. Let's go.

118:26:05 Conrad: What I hate to see is an LMP laying on the lunar surface. (Pause)

[Bean - "I think, maybe, I could have fallen down here. I fell down a couple of times. And I think maybe it was here. And I never fell down flat. I was always able to turn around and land on my hands and then push up."]

[Conrad - "You go down and you go right back up."]

[Bean - "So maybe this is where it was; and you were watching."]

[Jones - "What I've seen in the TV of the later missions is that, once you get on your hands and knees, you just push off with your hands and basically rotate your PLSS back so your center of gravity is over your feet and then, up you come. It doesn't look hard at all."]

[Conrad - "No, it wasn't. That became one of those (pre-Apollo 11 concerns) that went away. Everybody worried about us never being able to get up, just like they worried about us rolling down into craters."]

[In 2008, Al did a painting he called "He Ain't Heavy" in which he shows himself on his back with Pete gripping his hand and pulling him up. In the story associated with this painting, Al says "Twice when backing up to take a photograph, I tripped over a rock partially hidden in the dust and couldn’t turn fast enough and fell backward. It was not a hard fall but now turning over and pushing up would require some extra effort and Pete and I were always trying to conserve as much energy as we could for later use. Both times Pete was not far away so he moved over to help me up. The first time, he extended his gloved hand and I grabbed his in mine, and we both pulled. I came up a lot faster than either of us anticipated and we bumped. We both had to move fast to keep from falling. We laughed and got back to work. The second time Pete just extended his first finger and I interlocked his with mine. This time he pulled a little more gently and this time it was a perfect assist." This may be one of those occasions.]

118:26:16 Conrad: Son of a gun! I got to have that. Look at that. A pure bead of glass! See that?

118:26:18 Bean: Yup. Grab it. (Pause)

118:26:22 Conrad: (To himself) Oh, come on! (To Al) Hold my hand.

118:26:24 Bean: Okay. (Pause)

[Bean - "I'm probably holding Pete's hand and he's leaning over and he picks something up and then I pull him back upright. It's real quick that way; you don't have to get out the tongs and all that other stuff. You just do it real quick."]

118:26:45 Bean: Got it.

[Bean - "It was more tiring to lean over than it was to run."]

118:26:46 Bean: It's one of those black beads, only different. It's about...

118:26:49 Conrad: It looks green to me. Okay.

118:26:52 Bean: ...three-eighths of an inch in diameter...

118:26:56 Conrad: (Breathing heavily) Here's our old, friendly Intrepid. (Pause)

[At 118:15:37 as they were approaching the rim of Middle Crescent Crater, Ed told them they had to be back at the LM in ten minutes. Despite the number of times they stopped to sample, they are only a minute 'late'. Ed gave them reminders at 6 minutes and four minutes remaining.]

[Now that they are back at the LM, Pete will stow his camera in the ETB for transfer up to the cabin, stow the hammer, the tongs, and the extension handle on the HTC for use during EVA-2, unstow a scale, various bags and a core tube from the first of their two rock boxes and then stow their modest collection of samples in the box for transfer up to the cabin. In the meantime, Al will drive the core tube into the soil to get a sample and then collect additional soil and rock samples before climbing up the ladder.]

118:27:11 LM Crew: (Garbled)

118:27:12 Conrad: I'll tell you something you can do.

118:27:13 Bean: Okay.

118:27:14 Conrad: Take the pan photographs again. I took them at 15 feet (focus instead of 74), I think, by mistake.

118:27:18 Bean: Okay.

118:27:19 Conrad: And I'll get the rock box out.

118:27:19 Bean: All right. Real good.

118:27:22 Conrad: Hey, Houston. We're back at the LM.

118:27:26 Gibson: Roger, Al... (correcting himself) Pete. We copy. After you get finished with the core tube, Al, we'll have some instructions for you with the TV.

118:27:35 Bean: Sounds good. Okay. Pete, where are the tongs for a moment?

118:27:41 Conrad: The tongs are on the MESA.

118:27:43 Bean: Okay.

118:27:44 Conrad: (Working at the MESA, getting the rock box out of its storage slot) There you are.

118:27:45 Bean: I'll bring 'em back. Now, which pans do you want me to take? Over here?

118:27:47 Conrad: No, the... Yeah. Front and over on the left and (right) rear.

[These are retakes of the pans Pete took starting at about 116:22. They were taken at roughly the 12 o'clock (west), 4 o'clock, and 8 o'clock positions about 20 feet out from the LM.]

[Brian McInall has created a planimetric map for EVA-1 Close-out activities, including these three pans.]

118:27:53 Conrad: Yeah, take 15.

118:27:54 Bean: Okay. Will do. I'll take them again. (Pause) I'm going to take a few pans first, Houston, if that's okay. It'll take about an additional 3 minutes. (Pause)

118:28:14 Conrad: (Possibly having trouble getting his camera off his RCU) Hey, Al.

118:28:16 Bean: Yes, sir.

118:28:17 Conrad: Never mind. Wait a minute. I think I'm getting it. (Pause) No, I got it.

118:28:21 Bean: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Pete's breathing is much more audible in this section than usual, in part because he has his head forward in the helmet so that he can see the camera bracket.]

[Bean - "He's leaning over and he's breathing a little harder than he ever was running. It's a lot more trouble to bend the suit than it was just to run along. And it's hard to get the camera off the suit."]

118:28:49 Conrad: One camera in the ETB. (Long Pause)

118:29:21 Conrad: That Surveyor sure looks neat sitting on the side of that crater. Pretty steep walls down there. (Long Pause)

118:29:43 Conrad: Not going to have any trouble sleeping tonight.

[Conrad - "And I'm saying 'I'm not going to have any trouble sleeping tonight' because it's been a long day. Remember, we got up in the Command Module, so we've been (awake) 17-18 hours right now, probably (actually 17.5 at this point). A lot of time."]

118:29:54 Conrad: Okay. (Reading his checklist) Stow 70 millimeter (camera in the ETB), the hammer (on the HTC)...

118:30:03 Bean: Hey; stop it, handle.

[The handle assembly on Al's camera may be coming loose. During the second EVA, the thumb wheel on his camera will fall out entirely shortly before they make their way into Surveyor Crater, forcing them to make do with one camera.]

[Pete is speaking subvocally. "Good night, Godfrey" could be a substitute for a more colorful word choice.]

118:30:38 Bean: Another pan here. Get up (on) a higher place.

118:30:42 Conrad: Say again?

118:30:43 Bean: Oh. I was (standing in a low spot and was) too low for the pan. (Pause) Okay, this is a good spot, I think. (Long Pause)

Al's 6 O'Clock Pan (frames 6961 to 6981)

118:31:46 Conrad: (Subvocal, to the rock box) Come on.

118:31:49 Bean: Okay. That's it for the pans, Pete.

118:31:51 Conrad: Okay. One rock box open.

118:31:53 Bean: Okay, one more set (of pictures) to go.

118:31:56 Conrad: Okay.

118:31:59 Bean: I've got this bag of rocks on me, here. Want me to bring them to you in a minute?

118:32:03 Conrad: Well, I'm having trouble over here with the rock-box holders.

[The MESA is equipped with an elevated "table" which has latches to hold the SRC in place while Pete removes the core tubes and other gear and then stows the rocks. He is having trouble getting the rock box latched into place.]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "The sample return container worked as advertised. I do want to comment here that I feel the practice we did on the K-bird (a Boeing KC-135 aircraft flying repeated parabolas to give the astronauts half-minute increments of one-sixth g) was excellent for one-sixth-g work. Opening and closing those boxes on the K-Bird took away all the surprises. I was ready for some of the heavier forces, and had a handle on them. I was aware of the fact that the cable hold down was going to tend to rise when they were holding the boxes down. All the work we did on the K-bird was excellent, and made things a lot easier on the lunar surface with the rock boxes."]

[One of the Apollo 12 SRCs, Serial Number 1008, is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Photo by Ulrich Lotzmann.]

118:32:13 Conrad: Yeah. This rock box keeps wanting to go up in the air. (Pause) Nope. The heck with it. I ain't got time to mess with it. (Pause, taking the scale out of the rock box) One scale. (Long Pause)

[Once they get back in the cabin, Pete and Al will use the scale to weigh the rock box so that the flight engineers in Houston will know the launch weight of the LM and can make sure that, with the box stowed in the planned location, the weight distribution in the spacecraft will be as planned. In addition, Pete and Al will use the scale to weigh the PLSS feedwater remaining at the end of the EVA to give engineers back in Houston an idea of how the water usage correlated with their average heart rates and with telemetry indications of the feedwater pressure in the PLSS. These were the only real-time indicators of the workload that were available to Houston and, although data on water use rate versus heart rates and feedwater pressure was acquired during testing and training on Earth, lunar data was of considerable importance in planning future EVAs.]

[A brief engineering exchange between Gibson and Gordon is omitted here.]

118:32:50 Bean: I know it. (Pause) As fast as I can. (Pause)

118:33:10 Bean: Okay, all the pans are done, Pete. Okay?

Al's 4 O'Clock Pan (frames 6982 to 7006)

118:33:14 Conrad: Come get the core tube.

118:33:15 Bean: Okay. Time to get working. (Pause) Okay. (Pause) Here's this (probably the tongs that Al borrowed at 118:27:35). I'll put it back (on the MESA).

118:33:29 Conrad: Oh, put in the Hand Tool Carrier.

118:33:31 Bean: Yes, sir. (Pause) I'm just going to lay it in there. I'm not going to...

118:33:35 Conrad: Yeah.

118:33:36 Bean: ...fit it in there right now, so we can get finished.

118:33:39 Conrad: Okay. Here, hang those on there, too.

[Pete has removed or is removing weigh bags, flat sample bags, and core tube caps from the SRC and may be asking Al to get them out of the way by putting them on the HTC.]

118:33:49 Conrad: (Garbled)

118:33:50 Bean: You bet. Got it. I'll go get that core tube.

118:33:54 Conrad: Here's your core tube right here. (Pause)

Real Audio File (35 min 58 sec)

118:33:56 Bean: Just a second.

118:33:57 Conrad: Okay. (Pause)

118:34:04 Bean: Okay.

118:34:06 Conrad: Here it is...

118:34:07 Gibson: Pete and Al, you're 3 plus 26 into the EVA. And Al, we'd like you to hustle. We'd like you back there at the bottom of the ladder in 3 minutes.

118:34:18 Bean: I'll hustle. I'll hustle.

118:34:22 Conrad: Let me get your rock bag before you get away.

118:34:24 Bean: Okay, get that rock bag. I'll go get this core tube. I think I can make it in 3 minutes.

118:34:28 Conrad: All right. Wait; just a minute.

118:34:30 Bean: If they'd give me 2 minutes, I'd go over and do their TV. Maybe they (garbled) the TV, too.

118:34:33 Conrad: Yeah

118:34:35 Bean: Got that?

118:34:36 Conrad: Yeah.

118:34:37 Bean: Got the bag?

118:34:38 Conrad: Yeah.

118:34:39 Bean: Adios. I'll go for a core tube. (Pause) I'll go for the core tube over near the TV, and I can come back by it.

118:34:47 Conrad: There you go. There you're thinking. (Pause)

118:34:52 Gibson: Okay, Al, good idea.

118:34:54 Conrad: I sure wish we had more rocks.

[Because they were ten minutes behind schedule at the end of the ALSEP deployment, they've only had a few minutes to collect samples. Hence, the rock box won't be full of documented samples.]

118:34:58 Conrad: I wish we had more rocks. (Pause)

118:35:02 Bean: Okay, I'm core tubing it, right now. (Pause)

118:35:12 Conrad: You know, I wish we had more rocks.

118:35:16 Gibson: Pete, you can go ahead and fill up the remainder (of the box) with the fines from that area.

118:35:24 Conrad: Okay. I'll have to wait for Al to come back anyhow (so that the core tube can go in the rock box). Let me see; is there something I could be doing all this time? Yeah; one thing is shut down my (sublimator feed)water. Good Lord, I'm freezing to death again. Let's see. Scoop material. That a boy.

118:35:40 Bean: Houston, we're getting the core tube in real good. It's down almost full length now.

118:35:44 Conrad: That a boy, Al.

118:35:45 Bean: It's a little hard to drive in; you have to auger it a bit and then pound it. But now it's full length, and let me take a picture of it and that will be it.

118:35:53 Gibson: Roger, Al. Sounds like you've got the lunar core tube technique worked out.

[As discussed in the Apollo 11 portion of the Journal, the original core tube design included an internal, converging bevel which compacted the entering soil. This design was based on an assumption that the surface soil was very loose and would not stay in the tube unless compacted. However, it turned out that, below a few inches depth, the lunar soil is already quite compacted and, consequently, would not compact further and jammed in the entrance. Aldrin was unable to hammer his core tubes more than 8 inches (20 centimeters). The core tubes were re-designed for Apollo 12 with a straight entrance and a diverging, external bevel. Al is reporting that the new design is working well.]

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "The core tube was pretty easy to drive. I think we must have been in a different sort of soil than Buzz was in; I augered it a bit as I drove it in, but I really never had the feeling that that was necessary. I think all that was necessary was to hit it pretty doggoned hard and drive it in there. We had no trouble going the full length."]

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "A couple of things I noticed as we worked was that, whenever I held onto metal tools for any length of time - anything shiny like the extension handle, the tongs or, later, during the second EVA, when I was carrying the Hand Tool Carrier - my hands would get warm. If I would put them down and remove my hands from them, my hands would get cool again. It was not too hot to handle; it was just the fact that I would notice they started to warm up."]

[Al's core tube pictures are AS12-47-7007 and 7008.]

118:36:02 Conrad: (Laughing)

118:36:03 Bean: In my pocket.

118:36:04 Conrad: (Laughing)

118:36:04 Bean: Good (garbled under Pete's laughter)

118:36:07 Gibson: Copy your record of core tube depth, and you've probably got the record for flinging pieces of ALSEP (packaging) across the lunar landscape.

118:36:18 Conrad: And would you believe, I've found a use for the big scoop.

[As per his report at 118:38:43, Pete may filling one of the weigh bags with soil. See also Pete's comment at 121:43:03. Another possibility is that he has dropped something, possibly the cap for the core tube, and has used the scoop to pick it up.]

118:36:26 Conrad: Okay.

118:36:27 Bean: Got the cap ready. Pete?

118:36:28 Conrad: Yeah.

118:36:29 Bean: This stuff comes right out. That's all right. (Pause) Okay. I'll bring it right back.

[As evidenced by his exchange with Pete at 118:41:32, Al has not yet gotten back to the LM with the core tube.]

118:36:36 Bean: Houston, I'm coming right by the TV camera. Did you want me to do anything to it?

118:36:40 Gibson: That's affirmative, Al. First, we'd like to take and put the...

118:36:44 Bean: Okay.

118:36:45 Gibson: ...automatic light control switch to Inside, then open the aperture in steps...

118:36:51 Bean: All right; will do.

118:36:53 Gibson: ...and leave it at 10 seconds at each step.

118:36:59 Bean: Okay. It's now on Inside. (Pause) Okay, now, I'm going to the aperture. Looking almost directly cross-Sun by the way, Houston.

118:37:15 Gibson: Roger. Call it out if you would, Al, while you're doing it.

118:37:21 Bean: All right. f/22. (Responding to Gibson) Okay, I'm at f/22 right now. I'll stay right there for about 10 seconds. (Pause) Okay. Going to the next one. (Pause) There's not a lot of them marked on here, Houston; there's only about three marks; I'll just move it a little touch. Okay. I moved it just a little bit, and I'll leave it there for 10 seconds. Now, I'll tell you when I come to the next marked one. (Pause) Okay, moving (the aperture setting) again.

118:38:12 Conrad: Houston, rock box 2 (the one for EVA-2)'s going into the Y-pad with the Mylar film - or whatever you call that stuff (a thermal protection blanket) - off the S-band antenna going on top of it.

[Bean - (To Pete) "Don't you remember, when we were doing the S-Band antenna (at 115:53:43), you told me to put something on the Y-pad (so that we could) use it later."]

[Conrad - "It says right here (in Pete's cuff checklist) 'EVA Termination: unstow and place SRC-2 in sunlight on the Y footpad'."]

[Bean - "And that keeps the seals warm... That's right, because Neil had the trouble with the seal, he couldn't almost close the box. And they decided that seal was cold. So you must be sticking it out there to keep it warm, so that you can close it later."]

[Jones - "But then you put the thermal cover on top of the box, right?"]

[Bean - "We wanted it warm, but not too warm."]

[Conrad - "I guess maybe that's it."]

[Bean - "We didn't want it to get really hot."]

[See Pete's statement at 118:47:32, confirming that the thermal cover is on top of the box.]

118:38:26 Gibson: Roger, Al; we copy. (Responding to Pete's last transmission) And Pete, we copy you got the rock box over there with the H film from the S-band.

118:38:34 Bean: Okay, now it's a little past 5.6. Opened up a little more. I'll bring you that core tube in a minute, Pete.

118:38:43 Conrad: Yeah; I'm just looking for things to do, I got a whole (weigh) bag full of soil and (also got) rock box 2 out. Man, does that LM look pretty! Does that Surveyor look pretty!

[We looked at a picture of a weigh bag (Fig. 102) in Judy Allton's tool book.]

[Conrad - "That's what we were talking about. But, also, there are comments here (in the technical debrief) about the bags breaking open. I bet they cook pretty good when they're out there in the sunlight."]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "Those big Teflon bags are very unruly in the lunar environment. They appeared to get brittle. They took a set, and were very hard to straighten out. They just didn't handle at all well. I think we need to develop a cloth bag of some type that will maintain its shape and not take a permanent set. These bags had been folded and tended to take a set, and when we straightened them out, they tended to be brittle. They had several long cracks in them when we wrapped up the rocks."]

[The following is taken from the Apollo 12 Mission Report. "The Apollo 12 weigh bags were made from Teflon film... For Apollo 14 and subsequent missions, both the weigh bags and the collection containers will be constructed from a Teflon cloth (called Beta cloth,) which is more flexible and is not as subject to cracks and tears. The collection containers will also include a means for repeated opening and closing, as well as providing a tight seal for stowage of return samples in the spacecraft." These ideas ultimately resulted in the Sample Collection Bag which was flown with great success on the J missions.]

[The weigh 'bag full of soil' is sample 12001, weighing 2.2 (terrestrial) kg.]

118:39:00 Gibson: Roger.

118:39:01 Bean: Okay. Now it's just a little bit above 2.2. (Long Pause)

118:39:17 Bean: Okay. Now, it's going to be wide open on the next move, which is right now. Okay. It's wide open. (Long Pause) Standing by for some more instructions, Houston.

118:39:42 Gibson: Okay, Al. Would you do one other thing; and pick the camera up and invert it. Maybe give it a shake or two and see if we can get any change.

118:39:53 Bean: Will do. It's upside down and I'm shaking it now. (Pause) I still am a little concerned about this plug on the back of the camera. It doesn't look exactly copasetic. It looks like it's cracked a little bit - the (garbled) material - and it looks like it could have melted or something. There might be a problem right in the wiring there. Okay; I've shaken it and what have you.

["Copasetic" means "very satisfactory" and originate in about 1919. It became a part of popular, coffee-house culture during the early and mid-1950s when Al was at the US Naval Academy.]

118:40:30 Bean: Okay. I'll try to hold it in for 10 or 15 seconds. (Pause) Okay. I'm holding it (the wire) in now. (Pause)

118:41:11 Gibson: Al, I think we've run out of ideas here for the present time. Let's press on. If you'll take the (TV) camera over and put it in the LM shade. Point it at a dark spot, the darkest spot you can find. And open the camera way up. f/2.2.

118:41:28 Bean: Okay. Will do.

118:41:32 Conrad: Let's go with the core tube.

118:41:33 Bean: Here I come.

118:41:34 Conrad: Okay, babe.

118:41:35 Bean: Here you are. Take this hammer and core tube if you would; got both of them in my hand here. Let me set the (TV) camera down (and) then I'll help you.

118:41:42 Conrad: Yeah.

118:41:43 Bean: Hold on.

118:41:44 Conrad: Okay. That a boy.

118:41:45 Bean: Camera right there.

118:41:46 Conrad: What a shame that camera didn't work.

118:41:48 Bean: That's right; put that (core tube bit) somewhere.

118:41:50 Conrad: I'll just drop it right in this baby right here.

118:41:52 Bean: Okay. Okay, Pete. Does it look like the dirt's in there (in the core tube)?

118:41:56 Conrad: Yes, sir. It looks like the dirt is in there.

118:41:58 Bean: Good. Put the cap on that tube. (Pause) If you got it, I'll unlock it here.

118:42:03 Conrad: Okay. Unlock.

[Al is removing the extension handle. The core tubes used on Apollo 11, 12, and 14 had internal followers which constrained the top of the sample and made a top cap unnecessary. Top caps were required for the larger core tubes used on Apollo's 15, 16, and 17.]

118:42:06 Conrad: That core tube's in the bag (metaphorically speaking). Oh, wait a minute. Give me my rocks off of here, will you?

[Pete probably couldn't remove his own saddlebag and is asking Al to get it for him.]

118:42:13 Conrad: You got a whole (weigh) bag full of dirt there. (Pause)

118:42:15 Bean: Okay. Here's a rock. (Pause) What do we do with it?

118:42:19 Conrad: No, no, no. Just give me the bag. The whole bag.

118:42:21 Bean: Sorry.

118:42:22 Conrad: Do we want to save that (core-tube) bit?

118:42:25 Bean: Yeah.

[In his post-Apollo career as an artist, Al uses this bit, the hammer, and a replica of the soles of his lunar boots to texture his paintings. Ulli Lotzmann photographed the bit and the hammer (view 1 and view 2) during a late-2000 visit to Al's studio in Houston. An additional photos shows Christian Lotzmann holding the hammer, the core bit, and Alan's flight checklist on 15 March 2002, Alan's 70th birthday.]

118:42:28 Bean: Okay, I will. Let me have it.

118:42:30 Conrad: Okay. (Garbled)

118:42:31 Bean: No, no. Not there. You've got it.

118:42:33 Conrad: All right. Hey, that's a couple of neat-o rocks.

118:42:38 Bean: Okay.

118:42:41 Gibson: Pete and Al, Houston. We show you are 3 plus 35 into the EVA. And you've got plenty of consumables, so we suggest you go at a "relaxed hustle" to get back in.

118:42:56 Bean: (Chuckling) Oh, okay.

118:42:57 Conrad: Okay. It's almost all done.

118:42:58 Bean: Think we've got it made.

118:43:00 Conrad: Hey, Al, dump some of this dirt... Come here, Al.

118:43:03 Bean: Just a second, let me move this TV.

118:43:06 LM Crew: (Garbled)

118:43:08 Bean: There you go. It (the TV lens)'s wide open now, in the dark. Okay, Houston; it's wide open in the dark.

118:43:18 Gibson: Okay, Al. (Pause)

118:43:27 Conrad: Kinda feel like the guy in the shopping center waiting for his wife.

118:43:32 Bean: Okay.

118:43:33 Conrad: I'm standing here holding two bags, buddy.

118:43:36 Bean: I'm coming! Coming! (Pete giggles; Al joins in).

[Ulrich Lotzmann has used this exchange as the basis for a sketch.]

118:43:46 Bean: Dump some dirt in that bag?

118:43:47 Conrad: Yeah. Yeah. That a boy.

[At 118:36:18, Pete mentioned using the big scoop. Page 53 in the Apollo 12 Stowage List indicates that the scoop was stowed in the MESA. Al has probably just grabbed the scoop that Pete stowed and used previously.]

118:43:51 Conrad: Well, let's just keep on going for a little bit.

118:43:52 Bean: Okay.

118:43:54 Conrad: Okay, let me look.

118:43:56 Bean: All right. Boy, that's dirt.

118:43:58 Conrad: (Chuckling) That's dirt, you better believe it!

118:44:00 Bean: They're not going to grow many roses here (for lack of air and water), but...

118:44:02 Conrad: Now, that's good; that's plenty. Hold it. All right. Now, let me shake her all down. That's a good bag full. (Pause)

118:44:21 Bean: Do you want me to just... What do you want me to do with this, Pete?

118:44:24 Conrad: Wait a minute; I may need some help from you.

118:44:26 Bean: Okay. Want me to help close that box?

118:44:27 Conrad: Yeah.

118:44:28 Bean: Okay.

118:44:29 Conrad: Get it in here.

118:44:30 Bean: All right. I'll just set this (scoop) here because we can always get it when we need it. Put it right there.

118:44:35 Conrad: Yeah. Hang onto the (rock) box while I stuff it.

118:44:37 Bean: Okay.

118:44:38 Conrad: (Garbled) make sure I don't grab the seal.

[The rim on the base of the rock box has a knife edge closure which, when the box is closed, seats into a soft indium-metal strip on the rim of the box lid. This feature, together with an o-ring on each half of the box, was designed to maintain a high vacuum in the box and avoid contamination of the samples during transport to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. Prior to the flight, the box was packed in a vacuum chamber so that, when Pete first opened the box, the lid wouldn't fly open because of internal pressure. In addition, a Teflon spacer was inserted to keep the knife edge and the indium strip from coming in direct contact prior to the time that Pete loads the samples in and seals the box. Needless to say, while packing rocks and soil samples in the box, it was difficult to keep the seal clean enough to maintain a good vacuum and, on the later missions a "seal protector" was packed in the box to provide some additional protection. The protector was made of Teflon cloth and had a sewn-in rectangular frame that just fit into the box. The cloth could be folded out to cover the seal, and had a rectangular opening cut into it to provide access to the interior of the box. Once the box was packed, the seal protector was then removed and discarded. The Apollo 12 rock boxes did not have seal protectors - only spacers. Before he closes the box, Pete will remove and discard the spacer.]

118:44:58 Conrad: These (weigh) bags are all breaking open, too.

118:45:00 Bean: (Garbled under Pete)

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "Another general impression I had working with all the equipment is that the lunar equipment we have is generally too flimsy. If we are going to work with this gear, we should beef it up so that we don't have to be so careful about breaking it. I was always concerned that I might actually break some of the ALSEP equipment. I really don't think we need to be quite that tender with it. The same way with some of the tools we used later on."]

118:45:07 Bean: Okay. That looks good, Pete. Could we...

118:45:10 Conrad: (Garbled) the other way.

118:45:12 Bean: Better put it in the middle. It's going to be right on that seal. (Pause) (Garbled under Pete).

118:45:16 Conrad: (Garbled under Al) Gotta have the room. (Pause) It closed; don't you worry.

118:45:23 Bean: Okay. Is that it?

118:45:24 Conrad: Wait a minute. (Pause)

118:45:28 Bean: Looks good; you've got a good full box.

118:45:30 Conrad: Okay. Close the door (meaning the lid).

118:45:32 Bean: Watch your handle there; watch your handle. Wait a minute. Okay?

118:45:36 Conrad: Ah-ha! It's on.

118:45:37 Bean: You've got it, babe. I'll just hold it.

118:45:39 Conrad: Hang onto the box. Don't... Watch it; I don't want to break the (MESA) table.

118:45:42 Bean: That's what I was thinking.

118:45:43 Bean: Hey, that's good.

118:45:44 Conrad: (Garbled under Al)

118:45:44 Bean: Lock that latch. (Pause) Go do it!

118:45:52 Conrad: I got the other one (that is, he's put SRC 2 in the plus-Y footpad).

118:45:53 Bean: All right.

118:45:54 Conrad: Hot-diggety dog.

118:45:55 Bean: Okey-doke.

118:45:56 Conrad: All right. Now, put your camera in the ETB.

118:45:58 Bean: All right. I'm not sure I didn't use up all my pictures today! That's a good idea.

118:46:02 Conrad: I don't know how many I took. I wasted thirty-six on the (garbled).

118:46:08 Bean: (Looking at his frame counter and finding that he's got film left) No, 140. Okay, (garbled).

[Each of the Hasselblad film magazines used during EVA-1 was loaded with enough color film for about 160 exposures. Pete's reference to 36 wasted frames is to the pans he took early in the EVA at the wrong focal setting.]

[Frames AS12-47-7009 and 7010 appear to be accidental frames. Note that both were exposed when Al had the camera upside-down with the handle up and the lens pointed toward the ladder. The two images are shown together in a composite made by rotating both frames by 180 degrees around the optical axis. There is an astronaut in both images, evidently reading his cuff checklist. Note that the astronaut is in the LM shadow. Images such as AS12-48-7071 (Al's picture of Pete at Halo Crater) and AS12-49-7281 (Pete's picture of Al at Halo Crater) show that Pete and Al each had his cuff checklist on his left arm. When Pete reminded Al to put his Hasselblad in the ETB, Al decided to check his frame count and would have positioned himself so that sunlight was falling on the frame count indicator on the righthand side of the magazine. A detail from AS12-47-6988 in the 4 o'clock pan Al finished at 118:33:10 shows Pete at the MESA working on the rockbox. Note that only the left side of the MESA is in Sun. Al may have already been on that side of the MESA, helping Pete by holding the rockbox steady. He probably took the camera off his RCU bracket to look at the counter. In preparation for putting the camera in the ETB, he probably held it upside-down by the handle and, during Pete's next transmission, unintentionally triggered two exposures. The astronaut seen in both frames is Pete.]

118:46:26 Gibson: Loud and clear.

[The "organic thing" is the Organic Control Sample which is a Teflon bag containing rolls of a very clean mesh made of aluminum. After opening the SRC, Pete sealed the bag and left it in the SRC. The pieces of aluminum will later be used by experimenters as a means of checking for possible contamination of the lunar samples by exhausts from the PLSSs and the spacecraft during the short time the box was open.]

118:46:35 Bean: Just a minute, Pete.

118:46:36 Gibson: Pete, we show that you're 3 plus 38 into the EVA, and you've got a fair amount of consumables, so don't rush too hard getting back in. Just do what you have to, and do it at a safe pace.

118:46:52 Conrad: Okay.

118:46:53 Bean: Sounds good.

118:46:54 Conrad: Take it a little easier here. (Pause)

[Bean - "We should have taken that as a clue."]

[Conrad - "Gone out and got some more rock samples."]

[Bean - "That's right. But it didn't dawn on us. What I notice, for me, anyway, is you get (intent) on the checklist, (and get) in the mode of doing this one and then this one (going down the checklist). It's hard to quit doing the next one (that is, to get off the checklist) and go do other things that you hadn't planned to do."]

[Conrad - "To go back."]

[Bean - "It really is, and we should have been aware of that when we went. Because I think they're saying here, 'We got you close to the LM, everybody's a lot happier now'. We probably could have gone and done some other stuff. We could have got that close-up camera..."]

[Conrad - "We probably could have asked them if we could go get some more rocks."]

[Bean - "Get a few more rocks, put them in a bag, (and) just carry them inside. We probably didn't even have to ask. But it's hard, when you train doing these things step by step, to quit doing them and just wing it. We had a couple of spots in there - like coming back from the ALSEP - where we planned to wing it. But it's hard to shift over when you're not winging it. And I think that's what caught us. We should have said to each other 'Hey, good idea. I go here and get these rocks; you go there and take some photos.' Whatever we thought would be good. There are a lot of things to do, but we were on this timeline and it was hard to get off. We've said that before, but here's a good example. Because we can see they're feeling better about us - and they weren't when we were far away (from the LM). It's sort of psychology. We come back and it's even later (that is, they are even farther behind the timeline). But the fact that we're nearby and nothing can go wrong, I can see they're more content. We've got consumables, so they're not so worried."]

[One curiosity, that Pete noticed during the 1991 mission review, is that the Surface Checklist - the one they had in the cabin - contains three pages of activities to cover an EVA extension to 4 hours. These pages are Sur-56, Sur-57, and Sur-58. The basic plan was to return to the LM at 2+47 after completing a normal ALSEP deployment, pack the SRC, get the core tube, assemble the small scoop, grab the HTC and the gnomon, and, at 3+02, begin a half hour geology traverse. They were to arrive back at the LM at 3+28 for a normal closeout. What is curious is that there are no pages in the cuff checklists covering this possible extension. The reality of the EVA, of course, was that Houston did give them an extension to 4 hours but, by the time they finished with the ALSEP and, on their own initiative, examined the two mounds, they had only 15 minutes of the extension left. It was at this point that Houston - probably on the recommendation of the geologists in the Backroom - asked them to use the small amount of remaining time to run up to Middle Crescent Crater for a quick look before going back to the LM. Nonetheless, during our review of the mission, Pete and Al were puzzled why they didn't take the initiative to do a little more sampling.]

[Bean - "There wasn't anything on (the cuff checklist) that we skipped, that I noticed. We did everything that we planned to do, so I think maybe we were in the 'thank God we got it all done' mode..."]

[Conrad - "Well, not quite."]

[Bean - "What did we miss?"]

[Conrad - "Well, according to this Surface checklist there was a plan with the gnomon and Hand Tool Carrier and all of that stuff, if we got extended."]

[Bean - "Mine (his cuff checklist) doesn't say anything about extended here."]

[Conrad - "Well, here. Look, look (on Sur-53 ). 'NoGo for EVA-1 extension, four hours. Note: if Go for EVA-1 extension, turn to EVA-1 extension page 56', which is here. But we never did do this. You did the core tubes, okay! But, right here, it says 'stow sample in SRC, assemble small scoop and handle, unstow and place gnomon... (turning to page 57) geology traverse' We didn't do any of that."]

[Bean - "I'm looking for it on my (flown cuff) checklist."]

[Conrad - "Well, what's bothering me is (that) I don't think we had this on our checklist."(True)]

[Jones - "So you had it inside the spacecraft but not out on the surface."]

[Conrad - "Yeah. What I'm not sure of is whether this got dropped out. Because I don't ever remember talking about an EVA extension."]

[Bean - "Me neither."]

[Conrad - "Ever. I mean, back before we went."]

[It is easy to imagine that, if Pete and Al had pages 56, 57, and 58 in their cuff checklists, that they would have been more likely to do some extra sampling on their own or to ask Houston for permission to do so.]

[From Houston's perspective, this was only the second lunar EVA. Back in the cabin, Pete and Al will weigh their remaining cooling water, which will help calibrate the telemetry and give confidence for somewhat longer EVAs on Apollo 14.]

[In the following, they may be attaching the ETB to the LEC.]

118:46:59 Conrad: Gets frustrating, doesn't it?

118:47:00 Bean: Okay. It is frustrating.

118:47:02 LM Crew: (Garbled)

118:47:03 Bean: Wait a minute. Hold it up just a little bit, Pete. Lift it up just a little.

118:47:08 Gibson: Pete, will you confirm that you have the stereo camera (Gold camera) over in the Sun? (Pause)

[The formal name of the stereo camera is the Apollo Lunar Surface Close-up Camera or ALSCC, and there was a checklist item just after 1+08 to "Place ALSCC on Surf(ace) in Direct Sun". In part because of the disruption of their schedule caused by the TV accident, Pete neglected this step prior to starting his pans at about 116:22.]

118:47:19 Conrad: Ah (thinking), no. Just a second.

118:47:20 Bean: Okay.

118:47:21 Conrad: I want to see that first.

118:47:23 Bean: (Chuckling) Okay. (Pause) Okay.

118:47:26 Conrad: Stereo camera going into the Sun.

118:47:27 Bean: (Garbled; Pause) Wait a minute. I've got to take this tool off.

118:47:32 Conrad: Remove the (Gold) camera. Okay. (Garbled) over on the Y-pad, next to my handy-dandy rock box 2, which is neatly covered. You want it sitting in the sunshine, is that correct, Houston?

118:47:50 Gibson: That's affirmative, Pete.

118:47:51 Bean: Watch that cable, Pete; you're bothering your S-band.

118:47:54 Conrad: Did I hit it?

118:47:56 Bean: Yep. You clipped your left foot on it.

118:47:58 Conrad: Did I move the S-band?

118:47:59 Bean: I don't think so but you ought to check it before you go in.

118:48:02 Conrad: Okay.

118:48:03 Bean: Don't think you did, but the danger is great.

118:48:06 Conrad: Don't fall over, (Gold) camera. (Pause)

118:48:09 Bean: There you go. Why don't you walk around and check it?

MP3 Audio Clip ( 21 min 40 sec) )

118:48:13 Conrad: Oops. (Laughs)

118:48:18 Bean: Let me help you.

118:48:10 Conrad: Okay. (I'm getting in trouble from) getting in a hurry.

118:48:23 Bean: (Melodically) Dah dah duh. (Pause)

118:48:30 Conrad: Hey, Al?

118:48:31 Bean: Yeah, I'm coming.

118:48:32 Conrad: Oh, okay.

118:48:33 Bean: I don't like to come across that area. That S-band line is too tender!

118:48:37 Conrad: Okay. Get that. (Pause; light, brief static) Thank you.

118:48:51 Bean: That's good.

118:48:53 Conrad: Okay. (Pause)

118:48:56 Bean: That's a pretty good idea, putting that foil over there. (Keep it) cool.

118:49:01 Conrad: Hey, Al, let me check the S-band.

118:49:03 Bean: Okay. And then, we ought to dust each other off and get in.

118:49:06 Conrad: Man, we are filthy!

118:49:09 Bean: We need a brush, a whisk broom. Okay. (Reading his checklist) "S-band antenna, lunar stay" I can get in there and try that? Okay, all I got to do is get in, soon as we dust off.

118:49:23 Gibson: Roger, Pete.

[Once Al gets back in the cabin, he will reconfigure the comm to transmit through the erectable S-Band antenna. On Apollo 14, Ed Mitchell will climb back up to the cabin to make the change before he and Shepard start the ALSEP deployment.]

[Pete is checking to make sure that Earth is still centered in the sighting scope.]

118:49:37 Conrad: Hey, it does dust off a little bit!

118:49:38 Bean: Does it?

[Pete is using his gloves to scrape a little of the dirt off Al's suit. Later crews will have a substantial dustbrush, one about the size of a house painter's brush. The later crews found that the dustbrush worked best when the duster used it to beat the dustee's suit.]

118:49:40 Bean: Okay.

118:49:41 Conrad: Yeah. Yeah.

118:49:42 Bean: Yeah, I guess it does. Gets some of that loose stuff. (Pause)

118:49:49 Conrad: Hey, come over here by the ladder where...

118:49:51 Bean: It's going to be dark (garbled)...

118:49:52 Conrad: No, I can see. Let me... Just come over here by the ladder.

118:49:55 Bean: Okay. (Pause) There you go. (Pause) Oh, I see why; you can get lower that way.

118:50:03 Conrad: Yeah.

[The two possibilities here are (1) Al holds the ladder and bends his knees so that Pete can reach the upper surfaces of his suit and backpack and (2) Pete holds the ladder and gets low enough to get some of the dust off Al's legs. With the brush available, the later crews used the first of these techniques and then got the dustee up on the ladder so that the duster could get his legs.]

118:50:14 Conrad: Kick your boots real hard when you (get up on the ladder)...

118:50:16 Bean: Okay.

[All of the crews used this technique to good effect. A few good boot stomps always shook loose a great deal of dirt. Of course, the other crewman had to make sure that he was standing back far enough not to get a dust shower.]

118:50:20 Bean: I can crawl up the ladder halfway if you'll get my upper; and I can crawl up the ladder and knock it off.

118:50:24 Conrad: There you go. That's a good idea; go ahead and do that.

118:50:26 Bean: See anything else above me?

118:50:27 Conrad: No. Just go ahead and start up the ladder.

118:50:29 Bean: Okay. Okay, babe. (Perhaps reading the plaque on the landing strut as he jumps up to the first rung) Apollo 12.

118:50:38 Conrad: There you go. You didn't quite make it (to the first rung). There you go.

118:50:39 Bean: Oh, yes I did.

118:50:40 Conrad: Stay put.

118:50:41 Bean: Okay.

118:50:43 Gibson: Al, would you give us a mark when you're on the footpad?

118:50:44 Bean: Let me kick this.

118:50:46 Conrad: Wait a minute. Wait, wait.

118:50:48 Bean: (To Gibson) Roger. I'm off the footpad right now. I'm standing on the ladder. Pete's dusting the boots off, trying to keep some of this dust out of the LM.

118:50:56 Gibson: Roger, Al. Thanks.

[Readers will note that they never get Pete dusted.]

118:50:59 Bean: Let me...

118:51:00 Conrad: Wait, wait, wait.

118:51:00 Bean: ...(garbled) a couple.

118:51:01 Conrad: Yeah, but let me brush... (Pause)

118:51:04 Bean: Well, you can get rid of a lot of it, kicking that way...

118:51:07 Conrad: Yeah.

118:51:08 Bean: ...Get it out of your soles of your boots.

118:51:10 Conrad: Okay; go ahead on up.

118:51:11 Bean: Oh, okay. (Pause)

118:51:22 Conrad: Ohh, I'm in this dingy television wire again. (Pause)

118:51:30 Bean: There we go.

118:51:31 Conrad: All right; I'll help you from back here as best I can.

[Pete will talk Al through the hatch.]

118:52:01 Conrad: All the way down. Raise your rear end. (Pause) That a boy. Got her. (Pause)

118:52:15 Bean: That's as far in as I can go. I'll just do a pushup.

[Al has gotten as far in as he can without scraping his visor on the midstep. He does a push up to raise his head above it and then pulls himself farther into the cabin and into something approximating a kneeling position before he stands.]

118:52:20 Conrad: Very good.

118:52:21 Bean: In the hatch, Houston.

118:52:23 Gibson: Roger, Al. Copy. You're in.

118:52:29 Conrad: Maybe your old friendly "Cerd" (that is, CDR) will get the ETB.

118:52:32 Bean: Okay; just a second. Let me get my gear (the LEC). (Pause) Okay. Just a second.

118:52:43 Conrad: An ETB and two cameras (inside the ETB) ready to come up. (Pause) Oh, there's my friend (the TV wire), again. Al Bean?

118:52:53 Bean: What?

118:52:55 Conrad: That thing's going to drive me buggy. Guess what.

118:52:59 Bean: Houston?

118:53:02 Gibson: (Making a mis-identification) Go ahead, Pete.

118:53:03 Bean: Do you want me to switch to lunar stay antenna right now while Pete's on the surface? Over.

[They want to make sure that they get a signal through the erectable S-band antenna before Pete climbs the ladder.]

118:53:17 Bean: Okay. I'm going to Lunar Stay right now; but we may lose comm for a second. If I don't hear from you, I'll come back up.

118:53:24 Gibson: Roger.

[Al will switch from the LM S-band antenna to the erectable S-band antenna. The switch for Track Mode and the S-Band selector are on Panel 12.]

118:53:46 Gibson: Intrepid, you're loud and clear. Sounds like Pete did the job (of erecting the S-Band correctly).

[The change in signal quality is not dramatic but, during EVA-2 the quality of the comm will be much better than during EVA-1. Because of this successful experience, on Apollo 14, Ed Mitchell went up into the cabin to throw the switch shortly after he and Shepard erected the antenna at the start of their first EVA and had use of that antenna throughout the ALSEP deployment.]

118:53:53 Bean: Got good signal strength, Houston?

118:53:55 Conrad: Go ahead and start the ETB up.

118:53:57 Bean: (To Gibson) I'm going Track Mode to Off.

118:54:02 Gibson: Roger.

118:54:03 Bean: (To Conrad) Okay. Now... Just a second, Pete, I haven't got this ETB (means LEC) rigged. One second.

118:54:08 Conrad: Okay. (Pause)

[Before going out through the hatch at the start of the EVA, Al would not have put his end of the LEC outside the hatch, nor would he have pulled Pete's end in. The LEC strap still went through the hatch, but off to one side.]

118:54:24 Bean: Okay.

118:54:25 Conrad: Matter of fact, you sound stronger, Houston.

118:54:30 Gibson: I believe so, Pete.

118:54:31 Conrad: Okay.

118:54:33 Bean: Need to mount it.

118:54:34 Conrad: Got it.

118:54:35 Bean: We've got it. Wait a second; let me clear a nice little room here for it. (Pause) Say, are we going to jettison this garbage bag at the end of this EVA, Pete?

118:54:48 Conrad: Yes, sir.

118:54:49 Bean: Okay, let me get it in good position.

118:54:51 Conrad: Why don't you throw it out right now?

118:54:52 Bean: That's a good idea.

118:54:54 Conrad: And I'll get rid of it (by tossing it under the descent stage).

118:54:56 Bean: That's a good idea; you can move it out of the way. That's a smart one. (Pause) Okay, here it comes. (Pause) Just a second.

118:55:16 Conrad: Okay.

118:55:17 Bean: Just a second. (Pause)

[What may have happened is that, when Al kicked the jett bag out through the hatch, it didn't clear the porch and he is now unable to reach it with his foot. A similar thing happened on Apollo 17 when Cernan and Schmitt jettisoned their PLSSs at the end of their 3rd EVA. In that instance, Cernan was finally able to get his foot out far enough to dislodge the hung-up PLSS.]

118:55:24 Bean: Okay. It won't bother us (during the LEC operations). Get it when you come up.

118:55:29 Conrad: Haul her (the ETB) up.

118:55:29 Bean: Okay. Just a second. (Pause) Let me try something that might be just easier on all of us. I don't have to run one over a pulley; I can just pull it up, Pete.

118:55:41 Conrad: It doesn't weigh anything.

118:55:42 Bean: That's right! Who needs a pulley? It's easier this way.

118:55:44 Conrad: Wait a minute. Go ahead, pull. (Counting quickly) 1, 2, 3. That a boy.

118:55:53 Bean: Hey, I got an idea. Now, you pull. You pull.

118:56:05 Conrad: Wait a minute. Nah; it's making a mess (by throwing dirt everywhere)! Never mind. Just keep on pulling.

118:56:06 Bean: Okay. (Pause) Okay; just a second.

118:56:11 Conrad: All right. (Pause)

118:56:20 Bean: Equipment transfer bag, in. Secured. (Long Pause) Okay, bring her (the LEC hooks) on back, Pete.

118:56:51 Conrad: Okay. Wait, wait. Don't let it get hung up. Keep coming.

118:56:56 Bean: Let her go.

118:56:57 Conrad: No, wait a minute, now. Just keep it taut.

118:57:00 Bean: Okay.

118:57:04 Conrad: Ahhhh! See, you can't do it that way, Al. Take it easy. Just get it out slow. That a boy. That a boy. Now. Now, you can let go of it. (Long Pause) Here is that. (Pause) We got one rock box coming up. Okay, Al. Easy does it; easy does it. Wait a minute, now. Easy does it. Easy, easy! Easy! Easy! Easy! You're pulling when I don't want you to pull! Okay; now pull. (Pause) Okay. Now we've got to give it the heave-ho (to get it over the porch lip). Ready? 1. 2. Pull.

118:58:17 Bean: Got it made. Okay, lift her up a little bit, Pete. Let it come forward.

118:58:26 Conrad: That baby is heavy.

118:58:27 Bean: That's right in the door, though! Let me slide that in here.

118:58:32 Conrad: Okay. Okay, Houston. One rock box inside.

118:58:38 Gibson: Roger, Pete. Copy. One SRC in. (Long Pause)

118:59:02 Bean: Okay, bring her out.

118:59:05 Conrad: Okay. (Pause) Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! This thing is like playing with a snake. (Al laughs) Okay. That a boy. Now; easy does it. Get all this good stuff (his end of the LEC) and put it over here in the gear pad. Okay; now. Hey, Al? Now, you're going to hang on to it (Al's end of the LEC) and hand it to me, right? So I can tie it on the porch? Al?

118:59:38 Bean: That's right!

[In order to close the hatch, they need to have all of the LEC either in the cabin or outside. Because the LEC is so dirty, the latter choice is an easy one and, to keep the LEC handy for the start of the second EVA, Pete will tie Al's end to the porch rail and leave the rest of it hanging over the side.]

[Conrad - "The LEC went back out on the porch."]

[Bean - "Oh, so we could close the door."]

[Conrad - "Right. We attached it to the porch."]

[Bean - "So it wouldn't fall off, but it wasn't inside. Okay."]

119:00:06 Gibson: That's affirmative, Pete. If you've got the ETB and the rock box in, then climb in yourself. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "Al, did you stow anything before Pete came through the hatch, or did you just put the ETB and the rock box on the engine cover or in a corner and stow things later?"]

[Bean - "We didn't want to do anything but get inside and get out of our helmets and gloves; and then we could do all that other at our leisure."]

[Because the Moon can only be seen from one half of the Earth at any one time, Houston uses three receiving stations in succession to pick up the signals from Intrepid. At this point in the mission, NASA makes a "handover" from the Honeysuckle Creek Station in Australia to the Madrid Station in Spain. At first, the handover is only partly successful, in that Houston can hear Intrepid but not the reverse.]

119:01:21 Conrad: You all ready for me to come in, Al?

119:01:23 Bean: I'm ready. It's up to them.

119:01:27 Conrad: Wonder what happened to Houston.

119:01:30 Bean: I'm not sure that that Lunar Stay didn't do it. I'd rather go back on Track and get them back.

119:01:35 Gibson: Intrepid, Houston. Stand by.

119:01:40 Conrad: (Hearing Houston) Okay. What's your problem?

119:01:41 Gibson: Okay, we had a changeover from one site to another, down here. It was all on our end. No problem with your antenna. It's working well.

119:01:51 Conrad: Okay. You guys ought to call those things (the site handovers) out in advance. That's been happening all the way through this flight.

119:01:58 Gibson: Roger, Pete. We concur.

[The next handover will be at 129:57:03 and, as per Pete's request, Ed will give them a few minute's warning.]

119:02:06 Conrad: Okay. (Pause) All right, Houston. Mark. I'm on the footpad.

119:02:17 Gibson: Mark. (Long Pause)

119:02:31 Conrad: (Jumping up to the first rung) That was easy.

119:02:35 Bean: I just closed my feedwater. You might want to do that, too.

[The Apollo 12 PLSSs have two feedwater controls: an on/off switch and a control that allowed them to choose a flow rate. Both controls are on the front-right corner at the bottom of the PLSS.]

[Bean - "There was one with two little levers (rather like rabbit ears protruding from a knob) and that's how you got intermediate, medium (means 'minimum') and high. And the other one (H2O Shutoff and Relief Valve), which was the outside one, just had one lever that was on and off. And so you would kind of flip it up or down. And that's what you're doing."]

[A photograph taken at NASA Johnson of a full-scale, engineering model of the PLSS shows the controls at the lower right corner. The astronaut changed settings by reaching back with his right hand. The three controls each had a very distinctive shape. After getting familiar with them during training, it was easy to find the desired switch by feel. The three controls are labeled in a drawing of the PLSS and RCU.

119:02:57 Bean: Gosh, you're shaking the whole LM.

119:02:59 Conrad: Sorry about that.

119:03:01 Bean: You'll get a warning, because you haven't got your feedwater, but that's okay. You've got cooling for quite a while.

119:03:06 Conrad: Yeah. Understand. Okay, one garbage bag (meaning the jettison bag). Anything else in there you want to get rid of?

119:03:13 Bean: Not a thing.

119:03:16 Conrad: All right, hand me the LEC.

119:03:18 Bean: Okay, the LEC's got kind of a little slip knot in it because the... Got it?

119:03:24 Conrad: Yeah.

119:03:26 Gibson: Pete, on your way through the hatch, will you give a check on the seal?

119:03:33 Conrad: Check on the seal.

119:03:35 Bean: Okay; I can see it probably better than he could from this side, Houston. Seal looks real good. I'll tell you what we did do; when we got out, we...

119:03:44 Conrad: I can't believe I did that.

119:03:46 Bean: Yeah, you did. Because I remember, you were hitting here and then when I backed up. I could... I'll tell you, we probably just ought to put a piece of tape over it.

119:03:54 Conrad: Okay. (Hearing a warning tone) That's my feedwater (garbled).

119:03:55 Bean: (Garbled) the skin on the hatch, and for about a 10-inch cut, there. And it didn't hurt the insulation; didn't hurt the hatch. And I don't know whether you want us to put a piece of tape on there or just forget it. It doesn't look like it's going to bother anything.

119:04:14 Conrad: I'd say just forget it.

119:04:15 Bean: Okay, Pete.

119:04:16 Conrad: Why don't you get over on your side?

119:04:17 Bean: Okay. Let me move over.

119:04:18 Conrad: Okay.

[Al has had the hatch fully open and, now, to let Pete into the cabin, he has to move over to Pete's side, close the hatch, get over on his side, and reopen the hatch as far as it will go against his legs. As he comes in through the hatch, Pete will get in as far as he can without bumping his visor on the engine cover and then, keeping his rear end as low as possible, push up with his arms so that he clears the engine cover and can pull himself far enough into the spacecraft that everything but his calves and feet are in. Only then can he stand up.]

119:04:22 Conrad: All right. (Pause)

119:04:27 Bean: Just a second; I'm not out of the way, yet.

119:04:29 Conrad: All right; but I want you to hold the door for a minute while I...

119:04:31 Bean: Okay.

119:04:32 Conrad: ...close this front (dump valve)...

119:04:33 Bean: Well, I've got to get out of the way.

119:04:35 Conrad: ...front thing here.

119:04:37 Gibson: Pete, we concur. No tape.

119:04:39 Conrad: (To Al) All right.

119:04:41 Bean: (Responding to Gibson) Okay.

119:04:44 Conrad: Okay.

119:04:46 Bean: Now, wait a second, Pete. Let me back up a little better.

119:04:50 Conrad: Okay. Tell me which way to go.

119:04:51 Bean: Just a second. Okay, you're just perfect. Shoot right on in. Put your chest down and your rear end up (probably to get the OPS and the top of the PLSS in)... There you go; got it. Go a little bit to the left. Get a little further (into the cabin) until your head bumps (against the midstep). Do a pushup and you're fat. Little bit to the left, little bit further to the left. That's it. Up.

[The slang term ‘phat’, a deliberate misspelling of ‘fat’, is used here to mean ‘excellent’ or ‘in great shape’.]

[Conrad - "I couldn't see anything; not with my face in the floor."]

[Jones - "And you'd reset the dump valve."]

[Conrad - "From outside. It's on the door; you can set it from either side."]

119:05:19 Conrad: I'm in; no sweat.

119:05:21 Bean: Okay. Now careful when you turn around. You've got... (Garbled).

119:05:23 Conrad: Yeah.

119:05:25 Bean: Okay. Boy, you look dirty.

119:05:28 Conrad: Oh, you do, too.

[They will now follow the procedures on Sur-60.]

119:05:40 Conrad: Am I out of the way?

119:05:41 Bean: Not yet.

[Pete is probably turning to his left so that, when he is done, he will be facing inboard with his PLSS out of Al's way.]

119:05:47 Bean: Okay?

119:05:48 Conrad: Okay.

119:05:49 Bean: Get down on my hands and knees and lock this thing.

119:05:50 Conrad: Yeah.

119:05:52 Bean: Need a push down.

119:05:53 Conrad: Wait just a second. Let me raise my visor so I can see what's going on in here. Okay?

[Jones - "It was my understanding that you could lean down, but that you couldn't get down on your knees by any stretch of the imagination in the Apollo 12 suit. Is that right, or were you literally getting on your knees?"]

[Bean - "You can get down on your hands and knees. We did that. Sometimes."]

[Conrad - "You probably got down part way, with your knees bent."]

[Bean - "And then I want you to push me all the way down so I can reach the handle."]

119:06:01 Conrad: I am pushing you down. (Pause) Need further (push down)?

119:06:07 Bean: Just back up and let me tilt further forward, which is just as good.

119:06:10 Conrad: I can't go back any further. (Pause) Why don't you let me close it?

119:06:16 Bean: Okay, see if you can reach it. It's just a little bit out of my reach; you might be able to get it. Okay, easy.

119:06:23 Conrad: I'm ready.

119:06:24 Bean: Let me get back here in the corner. Watch your PLSS. (Pause) There you go. (Pause)

119:06:38 Conrad: Hatch closed.

119:06:39 Bean: Did you get it?

119:06:40 Conrad: Yep.

119:06:41 Bean: Good show.

119:06:42 Conrad: Okay.

119:06:43 Bean: Okay, next one. "Dump valve, both Auto." I've verified this one; (and) verified that one.

[Al is verifying the settings of the dump valves in both the forward and overhead hatches.]

119:06:50 Bean: Okay. Let me look at something (in the checklist?) first. (Pause) Okay. (Reading) "PLSS O2 and Press flags may come on during Repress. If PLSS O2 less than 10 percent, manually control cabin Repress to maintain positive PGA pressure." Forget it.

[They both have more than 10 percent oxygen left.]

119:07:12 Conrad: Wait a minute, easy. (Pause) There you go.

119:07:19 Bean: Okay. Now I'm going to go over here, (please move) over just a little so I can turn around. Oh, you did your circuit breakers.

119:07:25 Conrad: (I've gotten out of the way) the best I can; easy does it. What are you trying to do?

119:07:31 Bean: Lookit, that stop button's depressed.

['Lookit' is a non-standard pronunciation of 'look at that'. Hearing it in Al's excited voice takes your editor 65 years back to his own childhood in the late 1940s and early 1950s.]

[Al may have noticed something out of the ordinary on the control panel, but we have not been able to figure out what he meant here. On all of the Apollo missions, various buttons and switches were sometimes hit accidentally - despite switch guards - as the astronauts turned in the cramped cabin. This is an important reason for the frequent checks of circuit breaker configuration.]

[Al is turning around to face aft so that he can reach the controls on the Environmental Control System (ECS). The Cabin Repress Valve is on the front surface of the ECS cabinet at about waist height and, from the perspective of somebody facing aft, is on the far left.]

119:07:38 Conrad: Well, I can reach the Repress valve, if you want.

119:07:41 Bean: No, I've got it here. (Garbled) it. (Pause) Why don't you reach it? It may be better if you could. Can you reach...

[In order to reach the valve, Pete probably has to face at least partly aft, lean over the engine cover to get around Al, and then reach across with his left hand to get the valve.]

119:07:50 Bean: "Cabin Repress to Auto. Press Regs A and B to Cabin."

119:07:54 Conrad: Okay.

[The controls for the pressure regulators are in the same group with the repress valve, but closer to Pete.]

[With the pressure regulators set to cabin and the repress valve set to Auto, the ECS monitoring system thinks that the cabin should be pressurized and, because the cabin is currently at zero pressure, turns on the Master Alarm and the CABIN warning light. A parenthetical remark in the checklist reminds the astronauts that this will happen. The CABIN light is at the top of the rightmost column of Caution-and-Warning lights on Panel 1. Like all the C&W lights on Panel 1, the CABIN light is red to indicate a warning. All the C&W lights on Panel 2 are yellow to indicate a Caution.]

119:08:07 Conrad: One psi. (Pause)

119:08:19 Bean: Coming in.

119:08:21 Conrad: Huh?

119:08:22 Bean: It's coming in good. (Pause) (Garbled)

119:08:28 Conrad: Repress is looking good. (Pause)

119:08:36 Bean: Going ahead, "PLSS O2, Off." (Garbled) That's it; a little bit more. (Long Pause)

119:08:53 Conrad: Okay. PLSS O2, Off.

119:09:00 Bean: Can you verify that I've got mine off?

119:09:04 Conrad: What?

119:09:05 Bean: Will you verify that I got mine off? I'll pull your diverter valve up, and check the water, and you do have it up.

[The sound of re-pressurization ends.]