Preparations for EVA-1

TV Troubles

 

"That may have been a small one for Neil..."

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 (39 min 54 sec) Starts at about 115:15:26.

RealAudio Clip (8 min 27 sec)

[Brian McInall has created several Planimetric Maps detailing activities undertaken across both EVAs. These include an overall Grand map and a Preliminary map, focused on activities before the ALSEP deployment. See, also, Figure 10-50 from the Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report (10 Mb).]

115:15:46 Bean: Just a second.

[The small area available to the crew at the front of the cabin is best illustrated by images taken during final Apollo 16 (LM 11, Orion) and Apollo 17 (LM 12, Challenger) LM close-out on the pad at the Cape prior to launch.]

[A view from above shows the LMP's PLSS (without the OPS) and two helmet bags (containing the LEVAs) filling the space. As detailed on pages LV-4 and 5 in the Lunar Module News Reference, the useable floor area measures about 55 inches (140 cm) from side to side and about 36 inches (91 cm) from the hatch to the base of the 18-inch (46 cm) 'midstep' behind the crew stations. Note that the PLSS dimensions are about 26 inches (66 cm) long, 19 inches (48 cm) wide, 9.5 (24 cm) inches thick at the base, and 8.75 (22 cm) inches thick at the top. The photographer was standing on the midstep, with its edge near the bottom of the frame.]

An Apollo 16 frame taken through the open hatch shows a member of the close-out team standing on tiptoes on the midstep, with the ECS on his right and stowed itens behind the Commander's station on his left. A similar Apollo 17 frame shows a member of the close-out team sitting on the Ascent Engine cover. Finally, an Apollo 16 frame shows the top of the engine cover with Velcro strips and cloth straps where the LM crew secured the helmet bags after re-installing the drogue and probe in preparation for undocking from the CSM.]

[Jones - "Al's standing in his corner, with the hatch open at his knees. How do you go about getting out?"]

[Conrad - "I got to turn to the face the wall, my back to Al. Then I got to get down and go back feet first."]

[Jones - "You couldn't get down on your hands and knees."]

[Conrad - "It was more me sliding down the back corner and getting my feet out the hatch."]

[Bean - "And then you could get down on your knees."]

[Pete and Al brought their cuff checklists to Santa Fe for the 1991 mission review.]

[Conrad - "Don't blow the lunar dust off it!"]

[Jones - "I won't."]

[The checklist is mounted on an aluminum arc of about 120 degrees which fits over the sleeve of the bulky suit. A cloth strap loops through some hooks on the underside and has Velcro material along its entire length so that the metal arc can be strapped almost anywhere on the forearm. The checklist pages are made of a double laminate of fairly heavy photographic paper and have text and/or drawings and/or pictures on both sides. The square pages are about three and a half inches on a side with index tabs on the outer edge and on the top. The stack of pages is held together with a metal spiral that forms a spine and that spiral is attached to the metal arc of the wrist band so that the pages are easy to read if you hold your arm in the same position that you would use to read a watch. The really clever aspect of the design is that, because the metal spiral conforms to the shape of the wrist band, an open page will stay open. It actually takes a little force to turn a page. The acompanying figure is Pete's Cover Page with the spiral visible. A detail from Apollo 13 training photo 70-HC-83 is a good side view of Jim Lovell's cuff checklist.]

[In addition to the expected list of tasks and sketches illustrating aspects of the tasks, the checklist contains some "extras". Both checklists contain pictures of Playmates - provided by the backup crew of Scott, Worden, and Irwin - and, at the back of Pete's there are two pages of handy geology phrases. (Click here for second page)).]

[Conrad - "I always called everything (especially rocks and other material of geologic interest) 'stuff'. And there was a lot of money on how often I was going to call stuff 'stuff'. (See the dialog following 130:32:23 during the EVA-2 Prep.) And so, Jack Schmitt put these pages in for me. And I was going to dazzle the geologists if I so much as mentioned any of these."]

[Bean - (Quoting) "'Shows localized subtle evidence of graded and possibly (laughing)...' Read the others. Oh, you got more!"]

[Conrad - "Oh, yeah. 'Bedrock exposed in the bottom of the craters. The bedrock surface resembles Moshiabreccia (laughing) with a consistent organization to its internal fabric.' And they would have known that I was reading from notes."]

[Thomas Schwagmeier notes that, although the word in the checklist is 'Mosaicbreccia', in 1991, Pete pronounced it as "Moshiabreccia'. The mispronunciation may not have been purposeful. He may have been too busy imagining reactions back on Earth if he had read any of the phrases out loud.]

[Bean - "No they wouldn't. They would have never guessed."]

[Many of the pages also feature small cartoons which were drawn by Ernie Reyes, a member of the crew operations team and responsible for stowing various items in both the Command Module and the Lunar Module. See, also, the Apollo 15 discussion following 122:27:15. See, also, a 2002 sketch by Conrad friend Ulrich Lotzmann.]

[Conrad - "The backup crew had that all done for me. We never saw that until we got to the surface. Al didn't see his. I didn't see mine."]

[Jones - "So this isn't your signature here on the front page?"]

[Conrad - "Yeah, it's my signature. That was written on approval of the checklist (content), but, (with regard to) the actual flight checklist, the backup crew verified that this all got put together. And they actually loaded this on the LM. We never saw it until we got to the lunar surface. We practiced with another one that was identical (in official content) but you never practiced with the flight gear. Very little did you ever see the flight hardware. As a matter of fact, we (only) saw the flight hardware once prior to flight. Like, we inspected the hammer and all that stuff that was laid out (in a lab prior to final packing)."]

[The Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC) is a clothesline-like device with which Pete and Al will transfer equipment and samples to and from the surface. The LEC pulley is hooked to a yellow bar in the overhead inside the cabin and either astronaut - Pete on the surface or Al in the cabin - can move equipment up and down by pulling on it like a "Brooklyn clothesline".]

[Once he gets down to the surface, Pete will take a few minutes to check his ability to control his center of gravity which, because the weight of the PLSS, is displaced up and back from its normal position. He will check his ability to reach downward, and so on. Al will repeat the process when he gets out.]

115:16:02 Conrad: Pull the door all the way back.

115:16:03 Bean: Let me hand you something (probably either the jettison bag or the LEC). (Pause) When you go out, and then I'll hand it to you. (Pause)

115:16:08 Conrad: Yeah.

115:16:12 Bean: Bye-bye; see you in a minute. (Pause)

115:16:17 Conrad: How am I doing? Am I hanging on something here? I get the feeling I'm stuck under something here.

115:16:22 Bean: You're bumping into the purse there. (Move) forward.

[Pete is facing the rear of the cabin, trying to get his feet out the hatch and Al wants him to move toward the back of the cabin.]

115:16:27 Bean: McDivitt purse.

115:16:28 Conrad: Okay.

[Bean - "The purse was a white, cloth bag that was up there under the computer DSKY that we just threw loose items in. In fact, I've still got it at home. It had a snap (closure) and you opened it up and threw stuff in and closed it. That's why we called it a purse. It was also shaped like a purse. It was made out of beta cloth. That's what Pete was hung up on, and I probably just lifted it up so that he could get out."]

[Al is mistaken. The purse was under Panel 5, to the left of the hatch. Had it been under the DSKY, it might well have interferred with hatch opening and closing and with egress and ingress.]

115:16:31 Conrad: Okay.

115:16:32 Bean: Go straight down from where you are.

115:16:33 Conrad: Okay.

115:16:36 Bean: Good; that's good.

115:16:38 Conrad: Okay.

115:16:39 Bean: Doing good. You're headed right square out the hatch. You'll have to bend over more, though. (Pause) Wait. Wait. Wait. Oops. Come forward a little. Move to your right, you're...There you are. Now go. You were getting that little... (Pause) You got to kneel down a little more. (Pause) Well, I'll push you (down) if you don't mind. (Pause)

[According to Pete and Al, the original LM design had a round hatch.]

[Bean - "We found out, with the PLSS and everything, you couldn't get out through the hatch they had. So they made a major change, and made that a square hatch, which allowed you then - without changing the dimensions of the LM - to still scoot down and get your square PLSS out. But it was the minimum size you could get away with for the biggest astronaut. You talk about the LM (cabin) being small, I think this was the critical point right here."]

[See Thomas Kelly's excellent book Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module for a discussion about the active participation of Ed White and Pete in preliminary LM design reviews in 1964.]

115:17:12 Bean: You're okay.

115:17:14 Conrad: Got this garbage bag in my way.

[Conrad - "It's probably the jettison bag."]

[Bean - "I bet it's over there against the wall..."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, hanging under the console..."]

[Bean - "And you pushed it out of the way, to your right as you go out backwards."]

[The other possibility is that the jettison bag was sitting on the midstep, where it would have also been in the way. In either case, the only place to get it out of the way is on the left side of the cabin, the space that Pete has just vacated.]

115:17:35 Conrad: Okay. (Pause) Okay; I'm out on the porch. (Pause)

115:17:32 Bean: Just a second.

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "It took me a moment to get oriented and Al gave me a GCA (Ground Controlled Approach) and I apparently was rolled to my right slightly on my way out so that the left lower corner of my PLSS tore about a six-inch rip in the hatch insulation. That was the only problem. I didn't notice it going out, except I did fray the insulation a little bit."]

115:17:58 Bean: Okay.

[The D-ring is highlighted in a detail by Ulrich Lotzmann from AS12-46-6726, a picture Pete will take as Al starts down the ladder.]

115:18:03 Bean: Okay. While you're doing that, let me get the LEC ready for you. (Pause)

115:18:10 Conrad: Good Godfrey. That handle's in there (in its mounting bracket) like something I never saw before.

[As Al will comment later, in normal conversation Pete uses a great deal of profanity. His use of terms like "Good Godfrey" while he is on the Moon indicates that he is aware that the world is listening and that a little self-censorship is in order.]

[In 1997, Andy Chaikin called my attention to the following comment by PAO's Brian Duff during a post-Apollo interview.]

[MAUER: "Was the open program already in place when you came on board?"]

[DUFF: "No. That's why I mentioned this thing about Al Sehlstad and how it evolved. I was trying to describe how it actually came incrementally. I'll give an example of the other side, the temptation to not do it. Pete Conrad--someone else I'm very fond of--came in before his flight and said that we had to reinstate the ten-second delay (in providing audio to the media), which is one of the devices that protects television people from mistakes on the air. I said, 'Pete, I'm not going to do it. We worked too hard to get this. It's part of the tradition of the space program now. We do not have a delay, we have live air-to-ground with no delay. They hear it absolutely as it comes down, they hear it at the same time, and they see it at the same time you do.' I said, 'The scientists out JPL don't like it. They want to see this first. We're not going to do that. It's going to come straight down from the spacecraft they're going to see it the same time you see it.' He said, 'I'm going to embarrass you. We can't clean up our language, and we're going to embarrass our families and NASA and the whole space program.' He said, "You've got to do something to clean it up and cut out the swear words." I said, "Pete, we're not going to do it." He said, "Well, it's your problem. It's going to be your fault." I said, "No, it's going to be your fault." The result was--if you've ever listened to a tape of that flight, it is the most Boy Scout, full of expressions like "gee whiz, golly whiskers, holy smoke, gosh, isn't that a great big rock there?" and things like that. Of course there was no swearing."]

115:18:21 Conrad: Yeah. (Pause) Now that's better. I couldn't even get the handle out of the deal. I just pulled the cable; the MESA's down.

115:18:28 Bean: Okay.

115:18:29 Conrad: There you go. (Pause)

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "I got out on the platform okay, and I released the lock-lock mechanism on the MESA and the MESA handle was free in its holder. I tried it and it wouldn't come out. I pulled on that thing as hard as I could pull, two or three times; (and I) jerked it and everything else and I couldn't get it out. I got tired of wrestling with it, so I just reached over, pulled the cable, released the MESA, and down it went."]

115:18:34 Bean: You haven't got anything to do, so you can take this (probably either the jettison bag or the LEC) with you.

[Getting the jettison bag out of the cabin is not mentoned in either checklist ( Pete's cuff checklist; Al's cuff checklist ) at either the start or end of the EVA.. At 115:16:03, Al wanted to hand something to Pete. Evidently, Pete didn't want to burden himself with anything at that point. As per his first flown cuff checklist page, Al will pass out the LEC at 115:18:51. The jett bag will stay in the cabin till the end of the EVA when Al will kick it out to Pete at 118:54:35.]

115:18:39 Bean: What?

115:18:40 Conrad: We're about 25 feet in front of the Surveyor Crater. (Guffaws)

[The ladder is mounted on the forward strut and, so, as he climbs down, Pete is in the LM shadow and has a good view toward the southeast past the structure of the spacecraft. They are near the northwest rim of Surveyor Crater and Pete has a good view of the southern half of it. On the accompanying map, the LM is near Q-5/15.2, slightly to the right and below the white blemish on the map.]

115:18:45 Conrad: I bet you when I get down to the bottom of the ladder, I can see the Surveyor.

115:18:51 Bean: Rog. Hey, guy; you want to take this (end of the LEC) with you, Pete?

115:18:53 Gibson: Sounds good, Pete. Just like you wanted.

[Those listening to the audio track may have noticed a high-pitched beep at the start and end of each of Ed's transmissions. Markus Mehring has provided a discussion of these Quindar Tones.]

115:19:02 Bean: Okay; now hold her there a second, Pete.

115:19:04 Conrad: Okay.

115:19:06 Bean: One second. (Pause)

115:19:11 Conrad: Do you have any TV, Houston?

115:19:14 Gibson: Roger. We've got a TV. (Pause) No Pete Conrad as yet. (TV still)

115:19:24 Conrad: No; I'm at the top of the ladder. (To Al) Okay. Now look, this thing is all the way out of the bag. How do you want me to do it? This way?

115:19:31 Bean: Just keep doing.

115:19:32 Conrad: Huh?

115:19:33 Bean: Adios.

115:19:34 Conrad: No, but this thing isn't all the way out of the...

115:19:36 Bean: That's okay.

115:19:37 Conrad: Here; let me have this end of it. Let me come back up the ladder a notch.

115:19:43 Bean: Okay.

115:19:45 Conrad: That a boy! Which end (of the LEC) is that? Which end do I want? This is the end I want.

115:19:50 Bean: There you go.

115:19:52 Conrad: There we go. (Giggling)

115:19:56 Bean: Look at that stuff go. Sure flies at one-sixth, doesn't it?

115:19:58 Conrad: Yeah. Wait a minute. (Pause) Looks like we got 900 feet of this stuff!

115:20:07 Bean: Okay; just a second. Don't go down yet. I've got to get my camera on you, babe.

[Al will use Pete's camera to take color pictures out the hatch.]

[Bean - "I couldn't get down there, so I just turned the camera upside down and flashed a few. And they all turned out pretty good."]

[Because the hatch is so small, the astronauts cannot wear their cameras as they get out of the spacecraft. At 115:32:52, Pete will get the Equipment Transfer Bag (ETB) out of the MESA, put the contingency sample and replacement batteries and LiOH canisters for the PLSSs into the ETB and use the LEC to send it up to Al in the cabin. At about 115:43, Al will load the cameras into the ETB and send them out to Pete.]

115:20:16 Bean: Okay.

115:20:17 Conrad: There we go. (Long Pause)

[The LEC is visible in the TV picture. (TV still) As indicated in a MESA diagram, the TV is mounted on the lefthand side of the MESA.]

[This marks the first use of an Apollo color TV camera on the lunar surface. This particular camera had been used in the Apollo 10 Command Module and, after that mission, was modified for use on the lunar surface during Apollo 12.]

[David Woods writes in the Apollo Flight Journal: "To save size, weight and power consumption, the TV camera on board the CM had only one imaging tube, rather than the three or four found in contemporary colour cameras. The red, green and blue imaging was achieved by spinning a filter wheel at 600 revs per minute in front of the tube face. The wheel had two sets of three filters for the three primary colours, red, green and blue. At 10 revs per second, it filtered the image in one colour for the duration of a TV field, 1/60th of a second. Thus, the resulting black and white video signal emerging from the camera actually consisted of fields which sequentially represented red, green and blue. In black and white, the image looks rather flickery, especially in areas of strong colour. Back on Earth, a converter reconstructed a standard NTSC colour signal by combining the images from three consecutive fields. This scheme worked well enough for still or slow moving images. However, moving highlights in the scene break up into separate coloured images."]

[On Apollos 14 and 15, the crews carried some of the gear up and down the ladder by hand. For Apollos 16 and 17, the crews decided that the LEC was more trouble than it was worth and got rid of it entirely. The only relic was a lanyard they used to raise and lower the ETB with the cameras in it.]

[Jones - "Was there any discussion of getting rid of the LEC at this point in Apollo?"]

[Conrad - "No, I don't think so. It worked fine, once we got it out."]

115:20:56 Bean: Yeah?

115:20:57 Conrad: Can you look out your window?

115:20:59 Bean: Sure. (Pause)

115:21:02 Conrad: All right; I think I see what's wrong.

115:21:07 Bean: What's the problem?

115:21:08 Conrad: Oh; that LEC came out of the bag in three pieces and, as you would might well imagine, I picked the wrong piece.

[More of the LEC appears in TV picture as Pete pays it out over the porch rail. (TV still)]

115:21:17 Conrad: No. That's not the problem.

115:21:19 Bean: It's no trouble.

115:21:20 Conrad: I got it right now. Man, they aren't kidding when they say things get dusty.

[The end of the LEC has dragged on the ground and has picked up a lot of dirt.]

115:21:24 Conrad: Whew! I'm headed down the ladder.

115:21:26 Bean: Okay; wait. Let me get the old (70 mm Hasselblad) camera on you, babe.

115:21:29 Conrad: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Al's pictures of Pete are AS12-46-6715 to 6718.]

[Kipp Teague has captured a detail from 6716 which shows Pete's name written in red lettering on his RCU. Al's is written in black lettering. Eric Nelson has produced an enhanced version that shows more detail on the front of Pete's suit and shows his open cuff checklist signature page ( 78k ) on the left and the 'CDR Egress' page on the right.]

[In the TV, Pete's feet appear at the top of the picture as he makes his way cautiously down the ladder, stepping down from one step to the next with his left foot and following with his right. With confidence, it was possible to take advantage of lunar gravity and hop up and down the ladder, using the hands on the outer rail to guide one's progress.]

115:21:58 Gibson: You're coming into the picture now, Pete. (TV still)

115:22:03 Conrad: Okay.

115:22:06 Bean: Okay; got the old (16 mm sequence) camera running.

[Journal Contributor Ulrich Lotzmann notes that the lens of the 16-mm camera can be seen behind Al's window in a detail from AS12-46-6725, which Pete will take in a few minutes.]

115:22:15 Bean: Okay.

[After pausing on the next to last rung, Pete steps down to the last one, gets his hands in position and jumps down, sliding his hands along the outside rails as he drops. Once he gets down to the footpad, the bottom rung is about level with his waist. (TV still)]

[Jones - "I understand that there was a bet on your saying that."]

[Bean - "Who'd you bet?"]

[Conrad - "You know who I bet."]

[Bean - "Nope. I forget."]

[Conrad - "A reporter, who thought the government put words in our mouths."]

[Bean - "Oh!"]

[Conrad - (Laughing) "I also had $500 riding on it, but I never got paid."]

[Bean - (Laughing) "I didn't know that! Is that right? I kind of remember it, a little. Oh, well."]

[Jones - "Do you want that story as part of the record?"]

[Bean - "Put it in. It will be good for the myth. We're trying to create a Conrad Myth. Big Bucks on this. Can't have too many human interest things."]

[Conrad - "I tell the story, but I don't tell who I bet."]

[Actually, Pete does occasionally reveal that the reporter was Oriana Fallaci. A more detailed version of the story can be found in Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon".]

[Pete Conrad was probably the most playful of the moonwalkers - challenged only by Charlie Duke. Ulli Lotzmann tells us that Pete's comment on the portrait link here was always, "If you can't be good, be colorful". Pete was both. A more formal portrait, taken a year or two after the 1991 mission review has also been supplied by Lotzmann.]

115:22:24 Conrad: (As his foot touches the surface; TV still) Mark. Off the...Oooh, is that soft and queasy. (Pause, holding on to the ladder as he tests the footing) Hey, that's neat. (Pause) I don't sink in too far. (Pause) I'll try a little...(Letting go of the ladder and stepping out of the LM shadow) Boy, that Sun is bright. That's just like somebody shining a spotlight in your hand. (Pause) Well, I can walk pretty well, Al, but I've got to take it easy and watch what I'm doing.

[Pete walks off camera to the right (TV still) and then turns and comes back to the ladder (TV still), walking very slowly, putting one foot in front of the other. Back in the shadow of the LM, he turns and looks to the east.]

115:23:30 Bean: The old Surveyor, right?

115:23:31 Conrad: The old Surveyor. Yes, sir. (Laughing) Does that look neat! It can't be any further than 600 feet from here. How about that?

115:23:43 Gibson: Well planned, Pete.

[Generally, all the astronauts had a difficult time estimating sizes and distances on the Moon. As an example, during the site description at about 112:36, Pete and Al badly underestimated the distance to the large crater on their western horizon. However, in the case of the Surveyor, Pete is dealing with a familiar object. Knowing how big the Surveyor really is, Pete's distance estimate of 600 feet is almost right on. The accompanying photo shows a full-sized Surveyor model, probably sitting on a beach in California. In the site map, the Surveyor is at about N-3,17.8. The grid spacing is 50 meters. A traverse map made from low-periapsis Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera photo M168353795R indicates the Surveyor is about 164 m (538 feet).]

[Conrad - "You're right. It was a familiar object. We had been around it a lot. And, as I remember, the Surveyor stands about that tall (gesturing)...And, as it turned out, we were, what, 500 feet?"]

[Jones - "535 feet, it says in the mission report. Not bad."]

[Bean - "I'd call it okay."]

[Conrad - "We knew what size it was, because we worked with an exact mock-up - exact, at least, in dimension - maybe three or four times in training. We would practice with it and even cut the appropriate tubing; and then they would replace the tubing and we'd do it over again. I don't think we cut the scoop off, but we practiced with those big bolt cutters. And the big thing was that we had to know what was the right thing to cut because that thing (the actual Surveyor) still had propellant in it and, for all they knew, it was still pressurized and everything. And, again, (as was used in the LM) that was hypergols (fuel components that ignite as soon as they are mixed)."]

[Bean - "But there's one thing we don't say here but we do later. I can remember the first time I looked at it and I thought it was on a slope of about 40 degrees (instead of the actual slope of about 10 degrees). And I remember us talking about it in the cabin, about having to use ropes. How are we going to get down there? How come they screwed up so badly (on the slope estimate)? And I think I was fooled because, on Earth, if something is sunny on one side and very dark on the other, it has to be a tremendous slope. We weren't getting (scattered) light in there like you do on Earth. So when light finally did strike, it was real..."]

[Conrad - "It turned out it was real flat."]

[Bean - "Yeah. But I can remember us talking about ropes and how were we going to get there and what can we do. And there it was, sitting there at 11 degrees like it should be."]

[Conrad - "I guess it was still in the shadow (here at the start of the first EVA). But, by the time we got to the going down into the crater (toward the end of the second EVA), it was no longer in the shadow. Almost 20 hours had gone by."]

[Jones - "For Dick Gordon to have seen it, there had to have been sun on the spacecraft, but not on the ground it was sitting on."]

[Bean - "That's what it was. He saw it shining in there, I'm sure."]

[As estimated at 114:25:15, roughly the top 3.7 feet of the Surveyor was in sunlight when Gordon reported seeing it. Now, at 11:45 UTC, the solar elevation is about 7.6 degrees and about half of the ten-foot tall spacecraft is in sunlight. At this point in the review, we looked at photo AS12-47-6993 which was taken at the end of the EVA, after the ALSEP deployment at about 118:30 or 14:52 UTC. At that time the Sun elevation was 9.2 degrees and, if the assumed crater slope of ten degrees is correct, only the bottom 1.7 feet of the Surveyor - and the ground it was sitting on - was in shadow.]

[Conrad - "Something is shining on it."]

[Bean - "But you can see here how steep it looks like it could be."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, that does look real steep. And it turned out we just walked right straight down to it."]

[Bean - "Yeah, it was nothing. It was just like they said. Shows how the lighting can screw you up, because of those shadows being much darker because there isn't that light (scattered by) the atmosphere filling in."]

115:23:50 Gibson: I say that was well planned, Pete.

RealVideo Clip (2 min 52 sec)

RealAudio Clip (5 min 32 sec)

115:23:55 Conrad: Yeah. Just a couple of months (of planning and training) with a lot of people. Let's see. (Reading) "Deploy the LEC and the MESA." That's done. I'm looking at my mobility; c.g. (center-of-gravity) shift. (Moving off camera to the right) I have the decided impression I don't want to move too rapidly, but I can walk quite well. The Surveyor really is sitting on the side of a steep slope, I'll tell you that. Okay. Now I'll work on my contingency sample. (Pause) Got to walk real careful, Al.

115:24:36 Bean: Okay.

[Jones - "After Apollo 15, somebody estimated that Dave and Jim increased their average walking/running speed from 1 meter per second on the first day to 1.5 on the second day and 2.0 on the third. Do you have any recollections about how quickly walking and running got easier?"]

[Bean - "Don't forget, he didn't really have a lot of acclimation time, here. I don't know how many minutes has passed since he got on the dirt, but it gradually gets better and better and, of course, like any training, it gets better faster initially."]

[Jones - "It's two minutes since he stepped off the LM footpad."]

[Bean - "That's what I mean. He hasn't hardly even been out there for any time at all and, yet, he's walked over and looked at the Surveyor and he's also run around and he's getting ready to do some work and it's only been two minutes. He really didn't have to get acclimated all that much."]

[Pete had been out of the room, and we told him we'd been talking about acclimation.]

[Conrad - "It still took a while. I said in there somewhere 'You got to take it easy.'"]

[Bean - "The fact that you can even do this much (this quickly) shows how fast humans adapt."]

[Conrad - "Of course, we also knew that it was going to work, because Neil and Buzz got around okay."]

[Jones - "Did you have much interaction with them after they got back? They went off on their around-the world PR tour pretty quick."]

[Conrad - "We had one debrief, I think, and that was about it."]

[Bean - "It seems to me you got an initial debriefing because, one day, you came back with a whole list of things that we hadn't talked about, and you said, 'These are things I've talked with Neil about that we needed to put in our plan.' So you had some kind of a private conversation with Neil and then, about a day or two later, we all had the crew debriefing. That lasted about four or five hours and we got some of those things (that Pete had talked about with Armstrong), plus some others. So you must have gone over to where they were in quarantine. And you got all the things you wanted."]

[Conrad - "That's right. I never felt that we missed anything by them being run off."]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "I went down the ladder and the lighting was excellent. I had no trouble seeing where I was. It took me about 5 to 10 minutes to acclimate to what was going on. I didn't have any trouble moving around, but I felt a little rocky. It just took me a while to get organized. This feeling was not bad the second time I got out. As soon as I got out the second time, away I went. So, like anything else, there's a slight learning curve which took all of 5 minutes and away we went."]

115:24:38 Bean: Not yet. (Garbled) back of the window for...

115:24:41 Conrad: Okay.

115:24:42 Bean: ...just a second.

115:24:43 Conrad: (Garbled) in a hurry. (Long Pause) (To Houston) As you might suspect from some of the pictures Neil brought back, gang, I have several small rocks sitting out in front of me that have a neat amount of dirt built up around them. I'm not sure my descent engine didn't blow 'em there. But then again, it may not have.

[The TV picture jiggles slightly as Pete works at the MESA. He brought the contingency sampler down from the cabin in the pocket on his left leg, as can be seen in AS12-46-6718. LM Lunar Surface Checklist page Sur-27 indicates that he stowed the sampler in the pocket after he and Al finished donning their boots.]

115:25:43 Conrad: Well, let me...I'm going over to get my contingency sample, and I'll get one of the rocks in the sample. And yeah, as a matter of fact, it is built up on the side that (pause) the LM landed on. Let me get a...(Pause) Well, there's one scoop. And another with some more rocks in it. (Pause) Whoo! This dirt's just like the one-sixth-g airplane, Al...

115:26:33 Bean: Flies up in the air.

115:26:34 Conrad: ...(chuckling) and you get to chase it around. It's wild. Now, I'll tell you...You know, this Sun...It really is...It's just like somebody's got a super-bright spotlight. Here's another good-looking rock - whoops - in the sample. (Pause) Here's another rock I want to get in it. (Pause) I think that's about enough, don't you? Except there's one big rock that's too pretty to pass up. No; I may not be a hog. It won't fit. I'll go over here and get this other one, though.

[Conrad - "If my memory serves me right, the contingency sample got sent up right away on the LEC. I think we wanted to get it in the spacecraft so that we had it (in case they had to leave immediately)."]

115:27:19 Bean: Boy, you sure lean forward, Pete.

115:27:22 Conrad: Hey, "lean forward": I feel like I'm going to fall over in any direction.

115:27:26 Bean: You're leaning about...

115:27:27 Conrad: Say, Houston; one of the first things that I can see, by golly, is little glass beads. I got a piece about a quarter of an inch in sight, and I'm going to put it in the contingency sample bag, if I can get it. I got it. Am I really leaning over, Al?

115:27:50 Bean: You sure are. On Earth, you'd fall over, I believe.

115:27:54 Conrad: Huh?

115:27:55 Bean: On Earth, you'd fall over leaning that far forward.

115:27:59 Conrad: It seems a little weird, I'll tell you. Don't think you're going to steam around here quite as fast as you thought you were.

[Jones - "Did you think, pre-mission, that you'd be able to move pretty quickly?"]

[Conrad - "Well, I said in the technical debrief that (when) we finally started to move around fast (it was) because it was harder to move around slow. So, maybe I'm trying to move around slow (at this early stage of the EVA) and I'm thinking I'm not going to move around fast because it would be hard (to move fast). But once we got the hang of it, we really moved out."]

[Conrad - (1969 Technical Debrief) "We listened to Neil's and Buzz's comments (on walking traction, balance, distance and direction, pace and stability) and ours are exactly the same. There's no need to go over them, other than just to remind you to lead (that is, anticipate) your direction changes slightly; but you acclimate very rapidly and it's no problem."]

[Bean - (1969 Technical Debrief) "I never noticed any slippery surfaces such as Neil and Buzz pointed out. The ground never felt slippery at all to me. The c.g. (center of gravity) problems they had were the same. I was very careful not to walk backward; because, I noticed a couple of times when I did, I usually stepped in a crater or on uneven ground and it put me off balance. (To Pete) What do you think about the slipperiness?"]

[Conrad - (1969 Technical Debrief) "I didn't notice any slipperiness, but I think the other comment about moving backwards is the fact that you have such a mass on your back. Al commented to me and I noticed, watching him, that you look like you're standing with quite a forward tilt; but all you're doing is putting your c.g. over your feet. Your c.g. is quite far aft with the PLSS, so you have the tendency to lean at what, at first glance, looks quite far forward; it's not."]

[Bean - (1969 Technical Debrief) "Pete mentioned that it only takes you about 5 minutes to learn how to move around; the second time you go out, you really don't need the five minutes. Neil pointed out that this was the best thing to allow for acclimation. I concur 100 percent. Another good thing is both those POGOs. The mobile POGO that FCSD (Flight Crew Systems Division) has is good except that it needs a Z-axis freedom that it doesn't have now. The one on the centrifuge is excellent. I found that running around on the lunar surface, moving from side to side, hopping, and so on were almost precisely like using the one in the centrifuge. I'd recommend having a couple of exercises over there before you go and recommend changing the terrain over there so that the simulation includes a few more big craters, little hills and dales. I think it would be very good training."]

[NASA photo S69-56059 shows Al training on the centrifuge.]

[Conrad - (1969 Technical Debrief) "And there's another thing. There's no such thing as 'walking' on the lunar surface. Wherever you go, you just want to go at a lope. If you walk, it takes more energy to move slowly and take a normal step than it does to lope."]

[Bean - (1969 Technical Debrief) "It's interesting, and I know we commented about it when we were doing it. If you look at somebody's footprints on the Moon, it's almost exactly the opposite of the way they are on the Earth. On the Moon, you can see a flat footprint as the guy lands and then he pushes off with his toe so it ends up being sort of dug in at the toe and flat in the rest of the print. On Earth, a fellow steps forward, lands on his heel, which digs in, and he kind of drives off on his toe. This sort of bouncing along (that we did on the Moon), using your toes for springing and moving from side to side so that the c.g. is always over the foot that's landing, allows you to move at a pretty good pace and to move a good distance. I had the feeling that, if our TV had been working and if the TV hadn't been pointed in exactly the right place when we went out to 450 feet to lay out the ALSEP, it wouldn't have taken us over two minutes to run back, position the TV exactly right, and return to the ALSEP. It would have been no trouble and would have been the thing to do."]

[During Apollos 15, 16, and 17, various of the astronauts ran distances of up to 150 meters (500 feet). Their typical running speeds were about 5 km/hr and they would have made the 900-foot run out and back in about three minutes.]

[Evidently, Pete is not yet lifting his feet as he walks.]

115:28:23 Bean: Yeah; I've got an H2O A (flag).

[This flag appears when the feedwater pressure drops below 1.2 to 1.7 psi. This implies that the sensor isn't accurate to better than about ±0.25 psi.]

115:28:29 Bean: Yeah. I wonder why? (Pause) Hey, Houston?

115:28:35 Gibson: Al, verify feedwater's On.

115:28:40 Bean: It's been on. (Pause) It's still on. (Pause)

115:28:51 Conrad: Boy, do I sink in. Wow!

115:28:54 Bean: Feedwater's on and it's still real cool in here.

115:29:04 Gibson: Al, Diverter Valve to Minimum.

115:29:09 Bean: Okay. It's Minimum now. What do you think I may have done? Broken through the sublimator or something?

115:29:18 Gibson: That's affirmative, Al. (Long Pause)

[They are speculating that part of the porous plate in the sublimator has lost its ice layer. Pete has come back to the MESA, carrying the contingency sampler in his right hand (TV still). The handle is about a meter long while the bag is about a foot long and four inches across. (TV still) NASA photo S69-31048 shows Neil using the sampler in the training building.]

115:29:28 Gibson: We have a good shot of you there (on the TV), Pete. (TV still)

115:29:36 Conrad: Okay. Well I'm starting to take this baby (the MESA thermal blanket) apart. While I'm doing that...(Pause)

[Pete has laid the contingency sampler down on one of the horizontal supports for the ladder strut and is beginning to open the thermal blankets that cover the MESA. Once he has the blankets off, he will get out the ETB so that he can put the contingency sample bag into it. He has his gold-plated visor down and we cannot see his face.]

[During the 1969 Technical Debrief, Pete mentioned that he "stashed (the contingency sampler) on the landing gear like we practiced at the Cape." It is difficult to make out in the TV picture exactly where he puts the sampler; but, he either puts it on the far right side of the MESA or, as would be consistent with what he said in the debrief, on the horizontal strut support.]

115:29:52 Gibson: Go ahead.

115:29:53 Conrad: The descent engine, it's just like Neil's. I didn't dig any crater at all! (Pause) Al, you've really got to watch your step down here.

RealVideo Clip (2 min 55 sec)

115:30:08 Bean: Okay. (Long Pause while Pete removes the thermal blankets from the MESA)

115:30:20 Conrad: Look at all those good things in this MESA. Things that I've seen before. (TV still) Didn't hardly stroke the gear (the struts) at all, and it looks like I landed just about vertical. (Pause) Whee! (Chuckling) Just like Neil and Buzz said, Al. You get on a little slope and you tend to keep going. (Long Pause) Almost fell over. (Pause)

[Bean - "You don't have to hold yourself up much (because of the weak lunar gravity), but your momentum is the same as it is on Earth. And, so, when you get moving, you can't just stop. You kind of have to...just like Pete said. It's like when you're going downhill and get going, on Earth, you have a hard time stopping. If you watch the TV, particularly of Apollo 11, you can see them run by the TV camera. At one point, Buzz says 'I'll go out and get the camera'. And he runs right by the sucker! 'Cause he hadn't learned to slow down in advance."]

[When Pete released the MESA, it swung down 120 degrees and, had the surface been level and the LM perfectly upright, it would have been at a comfortable working height. Because of the uneven ground and the slight tilt of the spacecraft, the MESA was a little too low. Pete's "Almost fell over," came as he started to raise the MESA to the proper height.]

115:31:47 Bean: Well, it's still got an 'A' in there (in the warning flag window on the top of the RCU), but I'm plenty cool. I went back to Minimum, and I'm sitting here in Minimum. What do you think happened? (Pause)

115:32:02 Gibson: Al, we would like to watch it a little bit. It could be instrumentation (that is, a sensor malfunction). Standby.

115:32:08 Bean: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Pete is probably securing the MESA at its final height.]

115:32:45 Gibson: Pete, you've been out 25 minutes, and you're about 4 minutes ahead (of the planned timeline).

[Pete and Al are each wearing an Omega Speedmaster Professional wristwatch on their suit sleeves and could use them, probably in stopwatch mode, to time the EVA duration. Indeed, in the Apollo 12 checklist, there is an item "Start Wrist Watches" at that point on page Surface 31 and had elapsed times printed in the cuff checklists. Evidently, however, they skipped that "start watch" step.]

[Conrad - "We were wearing watches. It's probably covered up by the checklist at this point. That's why I asked the question to the ground."]

[Jones - "Did you set the watches to 12 o'clock or something like that, when you started out?"]

[Conrad - "I don't think the watch is running in accordance with our EVA time. I think it's just got Houston time on it."]

[Bean - "You sure? I thought we did. Maybe we didn't. I thought we used (the watches to keep track of the EVA elapsed time)."]

[Conrad - "We may have. I know we had the watches on all the time, but I don't ever remember starting or stopping them. Because they're the world's hardest thing to start or stop with your glove on. See, I'm asking the question, 'How long have I been outside?' I wouldn't know how long I'd been outside (with the watch on Houston time), unless I was doing a bunch of mental calculations, which I didn't do."]

[Bean - "Well, how'd we know we were on the timeline, then?"]

[Conrad - "We had to ask the ground."]

[Bean - "Well, isn't that strange. Maybe we just said, 'It's too much trouble (to start the watches), so we'll get Ed to keep up with it'."]

[Conrad - "Yeah."]

[Note that, at the time of the 1991 mission review in Santa Fe, I was unaware that the crews used the stopwatch function on their Omegas to keep track of EVA elapsed time. In re-reading this part of the Journal in March 2007, I think it is most likely that they forgot to start the stopwatch function. At the start of the second EVA, at 131:29:27, they explicitly call out "start your watch".]

115:32:52 Conrad: Okay. I got the table out, adjusted the MESA (to a comfortable working height), and I'm setting up ETB at this time.

[The table is a small framework designed to hold one of the rock boxes. Pete is loading the Equipment Transfer Bag or ETB with the contingency sample and with fresh batteries and LiOH canisters for the PLSSs. He is now at the top of the checklist page that starts with the line "0+26, ETB Transfers".]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "The nicest part of the exercise was that everything went according to the checklist as best I could see. It went exactly the way we practiced it. And we had no trouble with the equipment. I had excellent mobility in one-sixth g. I missed the fact that I couldn't bend over. That's something I knew I was going to face the whole time and it didn't bother me too much."]

[Pete is standing in the LM shadow and isn't getting any solar heating. He still needs to get rid of excess body heat, but at a very low rate.]

[Bean - "It was just amazing how quickly you could get cold with that thing, depending on the setting and how hard you'd been working. If you were working hard, you'd change (the cooling setting) and, in thirty seconds, you were comfy again. But, boy, you could really get too cold too fast, if you quit putting out heat or got out of the Sun. It was an amazing machine, that water cooling. It was like you were in water. You weren't wet, but it cooled you that fast."]

[Conrad - "The other thing I sort of remember is being amazed at the narrow range of the change in water temperature...You know, it's only about like a few degrees between freezing your ass off and chilling your kidney to being warm. I also remember it ran around 55 or 58 degrees or something like that, where they measured it. Right where it came in, which was down around your kidney, it used to freeze your right side off."]

115:33:38 Conrad: (To himself) There's some color charts. (Long Pause) Dum dee dum dum dum. Dum dee dum dum dum. No. Which is right side out? The other way. No, that's not right. No. (Pause) I think our next big surprise, Al, is getting this thing (the ETB) up (to the cabin with the LEC).

[Although the chart is described in Pete's checklist as a 'color chart', the color photos taken during the mission, such as AS12-47-6988 show a gray scale.]

115:34:20 Conrad: The ETB.

115:34:22 Bean: Oh, is that right?

115:34:24 Conrad: (Laughing) We'll see what happens.

115:34:26 Bean: Okay.

115:34:27 Conrad: How's your water?

115:34:28 Bean: Oh, it still shows an A, but it's cool. It may be instrumentation.

115:34:32 Conrad: Let's hope so. Just beginning to warm up to this task. (Long Pause) LCG (Liquid Cooled Garment) water pump sounds like a diesel truck running out here. Comforting to know that it's running. I'm off to get the (PLSS replacement) battery(s).

[The TV picture jiggles as Pete gets the batteries out.]

115:35:25 Gibson: (Making a rare mis-identification) Pete, go ahead.

115:35:27 Bean: Ahhhh!

115:35:30 Conrad: What did you just do, Al?

115:35:31 Bean: Man, I just figured it out.

115:35:33 Conrad: You sure did. You just blew water out the front of the cabin. (Correcting himself) Ice crystals.

[Al has just noticed that he had accidentally knocked the hatch closed and, now, has re-opened it. With the hatch closed, the output of the sublimator slightly raised the cabin pressure. The build up of water vapor pressure was quite small, rising only until the output of the sublimator was balanced by outflow through the dump valve. The build up wasn't enough to keep Al from re-opening the hatch, but was enough to interfere with operation of the sublimator.]

[Bean - (From the 1969 technical debrief) "Just as soon as Pete got out, I had to move over to the right window to take some motion pictures; (and) when I did, I pushed the door partially closed and went to work. About this time, I got a low feedwater pressure (warning). We stood around and tried to figure that out for a while and, finally, I happened to glance down and noticed the door was closed. I realized what had happened. The outgassing of my sublimator had closed the door, with the result that I didn't have a good vacuum inside the cabin anymore. I quickly dove to the floor and threw back the hatch. The minute I did, a lot of ice and snow went out the hatch. Pete commented about it, and it wasn't 30 seconds until my water boiler started operating properly again. I think that's something you're going to have to be careful about when you're moving around inside there. I hadn't thought about it before the flight."]

[When Al opened the hatch, the water vapor in the cabin rushed out into the lunar vacuum, expanding, cooling, and freezing as it did so.]

[Jones - "Pete, did you see the ice when it came out?"]

[Conrad - (Laughing) "Oh shit, yes! But, see, there's something I don't understand. Where the hell were the LEC straps all this time?"]

[Bean - "They're hooked on the side of the LM, I think."]

[Conrad - "Yes, but they went clear up into the cabin. So my problem is, how the hell did the door get all the way closed if the strap was hanging out, other than it may have warped a little bit. That's interesting."]

[Bean - "You sure it was going into the cabin? (I guess) I kind of remember it going into the cabin."]

[Jones - "Well, we certainly see it hanging down from the porch in the TV at this point. Pete brought it out the door."]

[Bean - "I guess it has to come out the door, otherwise, how would I ever reach it?"]

[Karl Dodenhoff has located a LEC drawing which shows the operational configuration.]

[Jones - "The pressure that built up in there from the sublimator wasn't very much."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, it didn't take much."]

[Bean - "I'll bet the door just warped around the straps a little bit. Just the reverse of that peeling we did earlier."]

[The ice crystals are not visible in the grainy TV picture; but, as Al opens the hatch, the LEC strap moves. (TV still)]

115:35:41 Conrad: What's that?

115:35:42 Bean: Oh, the door had swung shut, like it did before; and probably bothered the sublimator, 'cause it wasn't in a good vacuum anymore.

115:35:47 Conrad: Uh-huh.

115:35:50 Bean: So I opened the door and it's probably going to start working in a minute.

115:35:54 Conrad: I should hope so. When you opened the door, that thing shot iceballs (laughing) straight out the hatch.

115:36:00 Bean: Yeah. There's probably all from my...Never thought you'd have to do that. Hey, you bent the outside of that front hatch on the way out. You tore some of the skin.

115:36:10 Conrad: How did I do that?

115:36:11 Bean: I don't know. Must have hit your PLSS there. It's got a nice scrape mark right along the way out.

RealVideo Clip (3 min 13 sec)

115:36:21 Conrad: Sorry about that. Trying to be gentle. (Pause)

115:36:25 Bean: Houston...

115:36:26 Gibson: Al, it's looking better.

115:36:28 Conrad: (To Al) Did you...

115:36:29 Bean: (Responding to Gibson) Yeah. I didn't realize that the hatch could close quite so tightly like that, because when I was working on the other side (Pete's side) of the cabin, the hatch went closed and I didn't notice it. And apparently it quit holding a good vacuum in here. My H2O 'A' flag is off, now, so everything is copasetic.

["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.]

115:36:57 Bean: Okay.

115:36:58 Conrad: Okay. I've got both (PLSS LiOH replacement) canisters, Al; both batteries. As soon as I get them in here (in the ETB), I got to pack the contingency sample.

115:37:11 Bean: Okay. Sitting tight, waiting for you, babe.

[Al is on flown checklist page numbered "01 of 18". During the wait for the sublimator problem to be resolved, he changed magazines on the 16-mm sequence camera. Once Pete gets the ETB up to the cabin and then they get it back down with the Hasselblad cameras, Al can start down the ladder. They are about 30 minutes into the EVA and about 10 minutes from the time Al is supposed to have started out the hatch.]

[Pete comes around to the end of the MESA closest to the ladder to get the contingency sample. (TV still) He removes the handle and puts it out of the way on the MESA (TV still) and, just at the right edge of the field of view, seems to be closing the bag.]

[Just off camera to the right, Pete pulls on the LEC, probably getting it hooked to the ETB.]

115:38:47 Conrad: Getting ready to do it in a second, Al. Just as soon as I get the bag, (the ETB, hooked to the LEC). I got the contingency sample in the bag.

115:38:54 Bean: Okay.

115:38:55 Conrad: I've got everything else: PLSS batteries, (PLSS) LiOH canisters, and I just got to hook up (the ETB to) the LEC. Bo bo bo bo; dee dee; dee. (Pause) I tell you one thing, we're going to be a couple of dirty boogers. (Pause) Come on hook. That a boy. Why don't you take up a little slack, Al?

115:39:35 Bean: All right.

115:39:38 Conrad: Just a little.

115:39:39 Bean: In work.

RealVideo Clip (2 min 41 sec)

115:39:41 Conrad: I tell you, this is dirt dirt. (Pause)

[At this point, Houston establishes a separate comm channel for Yankee Clipper.]

115:39:53 Conrad: What's that?

115:39:55 Bean: My end of the ETB (means "LEC") just came out of its metal slot. Somebody that made this pin didn't make it like all the training units; they made it littler, so it came out. I caught it as it was going by. You know this metal pin that keeps it from sliding all the way through?

115:40:11 Conrad: Yeah.

115:40:12 Bean: Unfortunately, it's smaller than the metal holder. Kind of interesting. (Pause)

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "There's a small metal pin in the strap that keeps it from accidentally sliding out of the hook and this small metal pin wasn't big enough to prevent this. I just happened to glance down one time and the strap had fallen to the floor. It was just about to go out the front hatch, which would have put a pretty good glitch in retrieval operations. That pin has to be modified. I definitely think that we don't want to go back to a continuous strap. I think the single strap is a workable thing. When you're moving a light load, most of the time, with the exception of the rock boxes, you don't have to use the strap...over the top of the hook. You can just lean down near the hatch and pull the load in with your hands. It's a lot quicker. When you start carrying a heavy load like the rock boxes, you probably need to use the hook arrangement also."]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "Our two rock boxes weighed out, Earth weight, at 44 pounds and 52 pounds, if I remember correctly. Neither of those boxes, which obviously were the heaviest things we sent up, presented any problem. The only problem was one that was already mentioned. We knew it was going to happen anyway, and I really don't see a heck of a lot you can do about it. This problem is that the lower end of the strap got completely covered with dust and I got dust all over my hands and over my suit arms from handling that strap. I don't see anything you can do about it."]

[The eventual solution was to carry gear up and down the ladder by hand and not bother with the LEC.]

115:40:19 Bean: Okay. (Pause)

115:40:23 Conrad: And, nasty booger, come on. That a boy. Wait just a minute. (Pause) Okay; now...Hold the phone a second. (Pause)

[As Pete moves out in front of the ladder to begin the ETB transfer, as per checklist, Al restarts the sequence camera, still set at 12 fps.]

115:40:46 Bean: Okay.

[Pete had planned to stand directly out in front of the ladder. Had he landed with the ladder pointed due west, he would have been in the LM shadow throughout the LEC operations. However, because the spacecraft is rotated right, he is standing north of the shadow and in full sunlight.]

[Conrad - "I couldn't see anything. I was looking right smack into the Sun. So I had to move over and get in the shadow. And I couldn't really look down while I was working the LEC, real easily, either. I was holding onto this thing, so I'm moving sideways and then I step in a crater hole. I stepped in a couple of them."]

[Bean - "That's right. When you look up (at the Sun), then you don't see for a little while."]

[Conrad - "And the other thing was we had a porch rail on either side. I had to get the ETB lined up with the center of the hatch, too."]

[Bean - "That's right. It was hard to do, because you couldn't get in your normal position and still see."]

[In the TV, we see Pete move around to his right, with the ETB hanging by the LEC in front of the ladder.] (TV still)

[Conrad - "Once we got this figured out, the rest of the time we ran stuff up and down, no sweat. We were on the learning curve, here. It didn't work the same in one-sixth g as it worked in one g."]

[Bean - "I remember it flying all over (that is, bouncing around)."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, in one g there was enough weight on it that you could pull it down and it was almost damped. But you start pulling on it in one-sixth g, it started doing this and then this."]

[Jones - "Bouncing up and down and rotating."]

[Bean - "We worried it was going to break the camera. We had a camera in there."]

[Conrad - "If you think about it, the batteries and the LiOH canisters, that was probably ten (or) twelve pounds. And so, up there it was like two. And those were nylon straps or whatever they were and they got a little elasticity in them and they got going!"]

[Bean - "And another thing was that, when you pulled on the end of the LEC and it took the bag up in the air, it just threw dirt all over the place. It was swinging around. And I guess we were thinking, 'Gee, this thing could bang into the spacecraft'."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, we worried about that, too. I remember that."]

[Bean - "I don't think it had any damping because of that light gravity and it was acting weird."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, especially once it started up."]

[Bean - "It started swinging around, scraping on the inside, and getting dirt all over you."]

115:41:01 Bean: It's a regular obstacle course over there.

115:41:02 Conrad: Man, am I going to get dirty! Hold it; now. (I'll) back up a little ways. (Pause) Tell me if it (meaning the LEC)'s clear of the porch rail, huh?

115:41:20 Bean: It is now.

[Pete has backed up to put some tension in the line so that it doesn't drag on the porch. The ETB rises up as a result of the increased tension. (TV still) Once the line is properly oriented, Al will pull on the LEC to bring the bag into the cabin.]

115:41:25 Bean: Okay; I'll bring her in. (Pause)

[In order to get the LEC and bag properly aligned between the porch rails and the hatch opening, Pete has to get out into the full Sun.]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "I guess the biggest note I'd like to make - and I think Al and I agree on this - is that the side visor, the side blinders, were excellent. But you also need a top one. We had a low enough Sun angle that, anytime you put your hand up, looked directly up-Sun, and just blocked the Sun out, you could see perfectly up-Sun. It was only when the Sun was shining in the top of the visor that we had difficulty. So, I think we need to modify the visor so that you have a center-top shield that you can pull down and blink the Sun out. If you have that, you can turn 360 degrees and see perfectly in any direction. It will also allow you to look in shadows. The only other time (than when you are looking directly up-Sun that) you have difficulty seeing in a shadow is when some other object is reflecting sunlight into your visor when you're trying to look in the shadow. Once you're in the shadow, you can see well. This is nothing new; Neil already pointed that out."]

115:41:30 Conrad: Okay.

115:41:31 Bean: Good rig.

115:41:32 Conrad: I can't...Wait a minute. Wait; wait; wait; wait. (Moving over into the LM shadow) That a boy; now I can see. (Pause) Pull. Keep going. (Pause) (Laughing) Am I getting dirty. Whee! Got it.

115:41:56 Bean: Okay. I'll have this stuff right back out to you in a flash.

[Once he has the ETB in hand, Al stands upright to unload the batteries and canisters and stow them out of the way. Once that is done, he will put the two Hasselblad cameras in the ETB and send it out to Pete again. This ETB-raising exercise took about 3 minutes and, as the 16 and 17 crews later proved, it would have been far quicker for Pete to have taken the bag in hand and gone up the ladder to hand it to Al. The only exception to that procedure on 17 came when the cameras were in the ETB and, in that case, Cernan hooked the ETB to a lanyard and lowered it over the side of the rail.]

115:42:15 Bean: Okay.

RealVideo Clip (3 min 15 sec)

115:42:17 Conrad: Dum dum, da dee da dee dum. Trying to learn to move faster. (Pause) Pretty good. (Pause) Hey, I feel great.

[At about 1 min 30 seconds into the 16-mm clip covering the ETB transfer, Pete heads for the MESA. As he does, he does his first running to take advantage of 1/6th gravity and using a foot-to-foot, loping stride. He isn't airborne between steps as he will be later.]

[Jones - "What gait did you use? Did you try the kangaroo hop at all? And there's a skip stride that some folks used. And then there's the loping, foot-to-foot stride."]

[Conrad - "That's what we used."]

[Bean - "We tried the bunny (hop), but it was too much work. The loping was the easiest. For short distances, sometimes you just walked, you just kind of bounced over. Where you did the loping was for long distances."]

115:42:37 Gibson: Pete, you're 34 minutes into the EVA; and you're right on the nominal timeline. (Long Pause)

[In September 2002, Ulli Lotzmann wrote to Ed Gibson, asking "Were you involved in putting together the timelines for the both EVAs?" Gibson replied, "Yes, I worked all the procedures from the start of the EVA preparations to the end of the post EVA procedures, including what Dick Gordon had to do in lunar orbit. That was designed that way since I was the CapCom during all that time."]

115:43:13 Bean: That contingency sample is black.

115:43:16 Conrad: You'd better believe it. (Pause) I may have filled the bag too full. (Pause) Oh, I know what it is (that's keeping the TV camera from coming loose). Dee dee dee.

115:43:31 Bean: (Putting the Hasselblads in the ETB) One camera; two cameras. (Pause) (TV still)

115:43:38 Conrad: Come on, little fella. (Straining a little as he tries to remove the locking pins that hold the TV camera in the MESA) (Here) comes one TV camera.

[The TV camera rotates 180 degrees after Pete removes one or more locking pins. (TV still)]

115:44:01 Conrad: All right. Ah, shoot. Ah, all right. I've got to stop what I'm doing. Let me come over here and get it. Here I come.

115:44:13 Bean: Okay.

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "I started the first part of the TV deployment as we planned. I had the first two pins pulled and the upper door opened at the time (slightly mis-remembering the sequence of events) Al decided to get out; and I had also put up the tripod; I let Al finish the job."]

[If Pete had had time to finish the job of deploying the TV, he might have been lucky enough to avoid damaging the TV camera - as Al did, accidentally - and we might have a more complete TV record of Apollo 12. Note that, after they get the ETB transfer accomplished, Pete will get the color chart out, rather than try to finish the TV deployment.]

[Pete crossed the TV picture, bounding sideways - to his right - past the ladder. (TV still)]

115:44:35 Conrad: Okay. I'm going right, now. If I fall over I can ... (Pause)

[Pete re-appears and stands close to the bottom of the ladder, in shadow, pulling the LEC easily, hand over hand. (TV still)]

115:44:44 Conrad: Yeah. Yeah. (Pause) Let her keep coming. Let me get over to this side. (Moving out of the picture to his left) Let's get it over the handrail. Hold it, hold it right there.

115:44:56 Bean: Okay.

115:44:47 Conrad: Now, I can't see it on account of the Sun, so tell me when it's over the handrail.

115:45:00 Bean: It's over the handrail now.

115:45:01 Conrad: All right. Just lower it real slow. That a boy. Easy. Hold it right there.

115:45:06 Bean: Okay.

[The ETB is now hanging in front of the TV camera and in easy reach.]

115:45:14 Bean: That's it.

115:45:15 Conrad: All right. Now, just hold it right there. Hold it; hold it; hold it. (Removing the cameras from the hanging bag) One...That is - dad-da-dee-dee - two. (Pause) Okay; let it go. All the way.

RealVideo Clip (2 min 38 sec)

115:45:30 Bean: Okay.

115:45:33 Conrad: All right. (Reading his checklist) "LEC; possible TV deploy; LMP egress; contingency sample area (photos); deploy color chart and place 70 millimeter (camera) on the MESA." So I get me a camera (to photograph Al coming out of the LM). (Pause) Okay.

115:46:01 Bean: Be out in a minute. Got to set the (sequence) camera, and I'll be right out.

115:46:03 Conrad: All right. Let me know so I can photograph you.

115:46:06 Bean: Okay. (Pause)

[Al is changing film magazines on the movie camera and is changing the frame rate from 12 per second to 8 to capture as much of the upcoming activities as possible. Note that, because he expects Al to be getting out any moment, Pete decides to get his camera to document the contingency sample area and work with the color chart - which both require the camera - rather than finish the TV deployment. In the interest of efficiency, this was certainly the right decision. Only hindsight makes us wish that he had chosen to finish the TV deployment.]

[As per checklist, Pete is taking photographs of the contingency sample area, at f/8 and a 5-foot focal distance. He takes AS12-46- 6719 to 6721 by pointing the camera down-Sun (west), and then moves off to the side and takes 6722 and 6723 cross-Sun (north), meaning in a direction at right-angles to the local shadows.]

115:47:04 Gibson: Roger, Pete. (Pause) Pete, for your information for those photos, your shadow length right now is about 45 feet on a level plane.

115:47:16 Conrad: Okay, very good. "(Photograph) contingency sample area" I got. "Deploy the color chart (on an undisturbed surface)" Ho ho. Take your time, Al. (Pause) Hey, I'm learning to do it. (Pause)

[Pete may be learning how to run or, at least, to take advantage of lunar gravity by using bouncing steps and hops as he moves.]

[It is currently about 1210 UTC/GMT on 19 November 1969 and the Sun's elevation at the landing site is about 7.8 degrees at an azimuth of 91.0 degrees. Pete is relatively short at 5 feet 6.5 inches (1.69 meters). His suited height would be greater because of the boots and LEVA. On a level surface with the Sun 8.1 degrees above the horizon, a suited figure 1.95 meters tall would cast a 13.7 meter (45 feet) shadow. Given that Ed may be reading a graph, the figures are certainly consistent.]

115:47:55 Bean: (Pete belches) Houston, how does the LM look? I'm getting ready to go out the front door.

RealVideo Clip (2 min 58 sec)

115:48:03 Gibson: Roger, Al. Stand by on that. (Long Pause)

115:48:36 Conrad: Dum dee dum dum. (Pause) Whoops. No way I'm gonna...I wonder if I can get in the bottom of this crater hole?

[Pete may be getting in a small crater so that he can set the chart on the Sun-facing inner slope.]

115:48:55 Bean: Okay.

115:48:57 Conrad: Ho, ho. (Pete laughs) Oh dear. (Pause)

[Conrad - "I dropped that color thing (a color chart that they will photograph to help the photoprocessors back on Earth) and I got dirt all over that. And then I thought I was going to shake it off and it didn't come off, which is what was really weird because, later on, in the spacecraft, all that stuff floated out when we got to zero-g."]

[Jones - "Could you have kneeled down to pick it up?"]

[Conrad - "No, you can't kneel."]

[Jones - "I ask because, in the J-mission (Apollo 15/16/17) suits, you could kneel, especially if you had something to hold on to."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, because you can bend over (in the J-mission suit by bending at the waist, a feat that was all but impossible in the Apollo 11/12/14 suit). I can't bend over, so it doesn't do me any good to kneel. If I kneel, I'm not getting any closer (to the ground)...Well, I'm getting closer, but I can't bend over and I can't get my arms down past my knees, so it's still not doing me any good."]

[In principle, Pete would have been able to kneel and then drop forward onto his hands. However, the lack of a waist convolute would have meant that his back would have been more-or-less in line with his upper legs and pushing back to rotate his center-of-mass over his knees would have been relatively difficult. With the waist convolute, an astronaut on hand's and knees could start his push back with his hips over his knees and had a much easier time getting his center-of-mass far enough back to be able to stand.]

[Jones - "You said that you dropped the color chart."]

[Conrad - "Yeah. What should have been something very simple turned out to be a real pain in the ass. It got all fucked up."]

[Bean - "Did it spear in or something?"]

[Conrad - "Well, I thought it would just drop flat. And, not thinking about it...The reason it would drop flat (on Earth) if you let go of it any way at all is it would go to its flat-plate area (that is, air resistance would tend to orient the falling chart parallel to the ground). So, when I dropped it, it just went straight and it knifed in. And, of course, dirt flew up and came back down all over it."]

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "One other item in the first EVA - the color chart - I took out because I could not bend over, and there was no reasonable way to stick it in the ground. I tried to work it into the ground so that it was perpendicular to the Sun. It didn't work because of the soft dirt. It fell over and became covered with dust. I got it back up and tried to brush it off, but it was impossible. I just made a complete shambles out of it. The dust clung to it so badly that we didn't get a color shot of that."]

[Bean - "Well, you do have pictures of it (from EVA-2)."]

[Conrad - "Yeah, I know. But it's pretty dirty."]

[Bean - "Yeah. We were beginning to understand how the dirt got on everything. The reason, I think, is because all the teeny, teeny, fine dirt that isn't on Earth any more. On Earth, it's been washed away or made into mud, and just the bigger pieces of dirt are left. And, yet, up on the Moon, none of that ever blows away. The wind doesn't take it away."]

[Conrad - "We got to where we rubbed it in the spacecraft."]

[Bean - "It was kind of greasy."]

[Conrad - "Well, we thought it was like graphite. It was almost a lubricant."]

[Bean - "Yes, and it was tenacious as hell. 'Cause, remember when I put that little automatic camera thing in the bag and couldn't find it? It was chrome and I still couldn't find it in that bag. (Pete chuckles knowingly) That was one of the mistakes we made."]

[Conrad - "Yeah. You mean the timer."]

[Bean - "The auto timer. We would have had a great picture. We still would have, see. We should have done it right in front of the LM. It would have been even a better picture."]

[Conrad - "Yep."]

[One of the perils of doing lengthy, detailed interviews of this kind is that, sometimes at the worst possible moment, the interviewer's attention drifts away from what the interviewees are saying - confident that the pearls are being recorded on tape. In this case, I was too busy thinking about dust in the context of other missions and didn't realize that Pete and Al were trying to tell me the wonderful story of a secret photographic timer which, had they been able to find it in the rock bag, would have allowed them to take a picture of the two of them, standing together next to the Surveyor. Fortunately, they raised the subject again during the second EVA. They give details of the story starting at 133:54:09.]

115:49:11 Conrad: Wait; wait; wait; wait.

115:49:13 Bean: You ready now?

115:49:14 Conrad: No, no, no, no. Let me come. Dum dee dum dum dum. Got to run through this (small) crater. Here I come. Now, wait a minute. (Reading) "LM(P) egress at (f/)5.6 at 15 (foot focus)". I made a shambles of that color chart. I tried to throw it in the ground; and, naturally, it went in sideways and got itself so covered with dirt, you wouldn't know what color it was. (Pause) Okay; I'm ready for you.

115:49:43 Bean: Okay, you might want to give me some directions, too.

115:49:45 Conrad: All right.

115:49:46 Bean: (one or two words; garbled)

115:49:47 Conrad: Yeah.

115:49:48 Bean: Bumping anything? (Pause)

115:49:52 Conrad: Okay. You're coming straight out and the further you can bend over the better. All right; move to your right.

115:49:59 Bean: Okay.

115:50:00 Conrad: That a boy. Down. (Pause) That's it; get your knees down. That a boy. Good shape; good shape.

[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "I observed the LMP in his egress. I gave him a little GCA, which I don't really think he needed."]

[Bean - "We closed the door for thermal reasons. They didn't want the temperatures in the LM affected by looking at either the dirt or the sky. You're getting all that radiant stuff going on in that vacuum. You have to be careful."]

115:50:22 Bean: Okay. (Long Pause)

115:50:36 Conrad: Man, if I'd landed 20 feet behind where I landed, we'd have landed right smack in that (Surveyor) crater. (Pause) (How are you) doing?

115:50:51 Bean: Oh, it's kind of hard to move the door. I was just getting in and trying to get it. (Pause)

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "Both times I egressed the LM and tried to close the hatch, it took 45 seconds or so to find something on the hatch I could pull. I think it would be worth the effort to put some sort of hook or something as a permanent fixture on the outside of the hatch so that, when the last man gets out, he can pull the hatch closed without having to grab the protective doors over either the handle or the vent valve. It would save 45 seconds or so each time."]

115:50:57 Bean: (To himself) There you go. (To Pete) I'm going to try to keep the door open for us, there.

[Photo AS12-46-6726 shows Al standing on the top rung of the ladder. The TV camera is on the MESA (at the lower left) pointed at the bottom of the ladder.]

115:51:13 Bean: Pretty good; I'd better get my visor down though.

115:51:15 Conrad: Yes, sir. My, that Sun is bright. (Pause)

115:51:27 Bean: Boy, the LM looks nice on the outside.

115:51:29 Conrad: Houston, let me ask you a question. How important is that color chart? I tried to spike it in the ground, you know, so it was perpendicular to the Sun; and it just didn't do that, and it's all covered with dirt.

[Al's left boot appears in the TV picture (TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees to get the horizon roughly level). As Pete did, Al is coming down the ladder cautiously. Pete is taking pictures while he talks to Houston.]

115:51:45 Gibson: Press on with what you're doing there, Pete, and we'll get an answer back to you.

115:51:52 Conrad: (To Gibson ) Okay.

[Al hops down to the footpad. Unlike Pete, he does not let his hands slide down the outer rails as he slowly drops to the surface (TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees).]

115:51:53 Gibson: Pete, press on. No problem.

115:51:59 Conrad: ...turn around and give me a big smile. (Responding to Gibson) Okay. (To Bean ) That a boy.

115:52:01 Bean: Okay.

[Al turns to his left so that he faces Pete for a formal portrait, keeping his right hand on the ladder. Because he has his gold visor down, we cannot see his face (TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees). The picture is AS12-46-6729. The full set of pictures of Al's climb down to the surface is AS12-46-6724 to 6729.]

[Journal Contributor Ulrich Lotzmann notes that a detail from 6725 "gives a good view on the still working AP12 TV camera. Pete had begun to loosen the camera at 115:43:38. It is still upside down, and is held in place by a strap."]

115:52:18 Bean: Okay. My, that Sun is bright.

115:52:22 Conrad: Yeah. Take it easy.

115:52:25 Bean: (Moving slowly off camera to the right ( roughly north); TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees) It feels good.

115:52:26 Conrad: Yeah, you really do begin to adapt.

115:52:28 Bean: If you hop it a little bit...

115:52:29 Conrad: If you turn around and walk over to your right a little bit and look over that crater, you're going to see our pal (Surveyor III) sitting there. And that's one steep slope it's on. (Pause) Okay; now what have you got all over your boot? Stop. You picked up a piece of landing gear insulation.

115:52:46 Bean: Okay. Here we go.

115:52:49 Conrad: That a boy. Okay, I'm going after (the S-band antenna)...

115:52:52 Bean: Hey, you've got to watch it in these shadows.

[Pete crosses the TV picture from right to left, going around the ladder to get the S-Band antenna from LM Quad I, just to the south of the ladder. Pete is moving much more quickly than he did earlier in the EVA ((TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees).]

[Bean, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - "It just takes about 5 minutes to get used to walking around, and this time should be allowed in the first EVA. Once you learn that, you can start easing over and doing your job. I noticed no effect of our movements. I leaned forward and backwards about the same as I expected. I got used to it very quickly."]

115:52:59 Bean: There that thing is! Look at that!

115:53:01 Conrad: Will you look how close we almost landed to that crater! (Pause)

115:53:06 Bean: Beautiful, Pete.

115:53:08 Conrad: Look at the (LM) descent engine. It didn't even dig a hole! (Pause) Okay.

RealVideo Clip (3 min 07 sec)

115:53:14 Gibson: Pete; Houston.

115:53:16 Conrad: Houston, I'm in the process... (Stops to answer Gibson) Go ahead, Houston. (Pause) Hey, Al? We've got to save this (garbled under Gibson)...

115:53:21 Gibson: Pete, will you give us status on the LM and also some comments on your boot penetration?

115:53:32 Conrad: Okay. My comments are exactly the same as Neil and Buzz. In fact, every time I get down in one of these little craters, I sink in a lot further. I'd say our footsteps are sinking in...

[Pete comes into the TV picture from the left (TV still, rotated 140 degree to the right). Journal Contributor Simon Cutmore notes that Pete has the handle of the S-Band cover in his left hand. He gives the cover to Al, who is out of the picture to the right, but can be seen reflected in Pete's visor. In a sequence of four selected TV frames between 115:53:43 and 115:53:45, a reflection of Pete's left arm is labeled in frame No. 1; the S-Band cover is labeled in Frames No. 2 and 3; and Al can be seen holding the cover in Frame No. 4. Frame No. 4 captures the flash off the cover, a reflection of enough light that portions of Pete's suit and the strut in front of him are illuminated. Thomas Schwagmeier notes that AS12-46-6750, a frame from Pete's 4 o'clock pan taken at 116:24:47, shows Al moving toward the ladder as he starts the LM inspection. His feet are in shadow, but most of his body in in full sunlight. This suggests that the flash of light in Frame No. 4 is direct sunlight reflecting off the cover.]

115:53:53 Bean: (Garbled)

[Pete turns around and goes out of the picture to the left to resume deployment of the S-Band. Later, he will use the S-Band thermal cover to help keep the EVA-2 rock box warm during the rest period between the two EVAs. See the discussion at 118:38:12 and at 118:47:32. Photo AS12-47-6904 shows the brownish-gold cover on the plus-Y (north) footpad. Cutmore writes, "You can just see the cover handle Pete used when handing the cover to Al.]

115:54:05 Bean: I do. One thing I've noticed: it seems to compact into a very shiny surface (where you step on the surface). I guess the particles are very small and very cohesive; so every boot print, as you look at it, looks almost like it's a piece of rubber itself. It's so well defined, you can't see any grains in it or anything.

[Pete crosses the TV field-of-view from left-to-right with the S-Band antenna. The carry bar in his left hand (TV still, rotated right by 140 degrees.]