Return to the LM and EVA-1 Close-out

Wake-up for EVA-2

 

Post-EVA-1 Activities

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Last revised 29 May 2012.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 11 min 14 sec ) by David Shaffer

126:16:02 Scott: Okay, put up the old helmet bag. (Pause)

[Some of the crews hung the helmet bag over the forward instrument panel and this may be what Dave and Jim are doing.]

126:16:17 Scott: Yeah, I think that's a lunar dirt smell. (Pause) Never smelled lunar dirt before, but we got most of it right here with us.

[Jones - "How would you describe the smell of lunar dirt?"]

[Scott - "Like gunpowder."]

[Jones - "That's what most people say."]

[Scott - "I hadn't heard that before we went. I don't think."]

[Jones - "Here, you don't actually describe it as gunpowder."]

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "I actually whispered it to Jim so that nobody would become alarmed."]

126:16:34 Irwin: (Garbled) get down?

126:16:36 Scott: Can you get that? (Pause)

[They are talking about getting down to verify that the safety is on the dump valve.]

126:16:47 Scott: Okay. Where are we here? Okay, "Descent Water valve, Open". (Pause)

126:17:00 Irwin: Descent Water, Open.

126:17:06 Scott: Okay. Now "remove purge valves, stow in the purse." Uh, oh; the purse fell down.

[The purse is a bag that normally attached to the front of Panel 5 on the CDR's side of the cabin. Putting the purge valves in the purse keeps them handy at waist height, keeps them clean, and reduces the chances of dropping them.]

126:17:16 Scott: Yeah; okay. (Pause) Where did you put it, Jim?

126:17:27 Irwin: I put it right behind you. (Pause)

126:17:33 Scott: Whew! (Garbled; Pause) Oh, yeah. Okay. Mag bags all fell out.

[These are probably transfer bags for the film magazines, listed in the Stowage list ( ) for transfer from the CM to LM on page 75, for LM Lunar Launch on pages 97-98, and for LM to CM transfer on pages 111 and 112. Dave and Jim apparently stowed them in the purse.]

126:17:53 Scott: Yeah, I bet it is. (Pause) Okay; I'll show you what you were hanging up on. Thing right here.

126:18:05 Irwin: Huh?

126:18:06 Scott: I'll show you later. (Pause)

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I'm trying to think of when we noticed the break in the bacteria filter."]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I think it was right after we got our helmets and our gloves off. I think you looked down and saw it. The water was in and out of there, the hose right at the connection where the bacteria filter joins the water hose. The bacteria filter has some plastic attachments to it. There were two little nicks about, probably, a quarter of an inch long and about a quarter of an inch wide out of the side of the plastic connector. The water was flowing freely and we had no idea at that time how much water had come out, nor how long it had been flowing. There was no way to really tell. We looked at the floor, and there was a little bit of water on the floor - not much. There was no evidence of a great leakage rate, although the spacecraft was tilted (which carried the water out of sight to the right rear). We found out, subsequently, it had leaked, I guess about 25 pounds back in the aft portion of the cabin. Then we disconnected the filter and that stopped the leak."]

[They will report the broken bacteria filter at 127:52:48. At 130:32:01 and 130:54:42, Houston will tell Dave and Jim that they may have lost 25-pounds of water due to the leak. And, finally, at 138:04:15, just shortly after wake-up, Houston will ask them to look behind the engine cover and clean up any water they might find.]

126:18:13 Irwin: Mine is up.

[Jim may mean that he has removed his purge valve.]

126:18:36 Irwin: We should have kept all those camera bags.

126:18:42 Scott: Yep. Not too sure we'd get this dirty.

126:18:48 Irwin: Well, we could wrap them in tissue. (That) might help. (Pause)

126:18:54 Scott: Yeah. (Pause) Okay, we'll try that. (Pause) Here, I'll tell you what; I'll put them in this...(Pause) And we got to use this purse (for the purge valves)...Let me take all this stuff out of the purse that's clean and stick them in here. (Pause) Okay, just hand me the purge valves, I'll take care of it. (Pause) Let's go on down this thing (meaning checklist page 5-1) here. "Disconnect the OPS O2 hose."

[Dave is saying that, because the purge vales are so dirty, they should take any items out of the purse that are clean and stow them somewhere where they can stay clean.]

126:19:43 Scott: Should have brought that (dust)brush in here.

126:19:50 Irwin: True. (Pause)

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The first order of business after we got repressed was to go through the checklist and do the EVA post, and try to come up with a plan on how to handle all the dirt in the cabin. We were pretty dirty. We had planned, prior to the flight, to take the jettison bags and step into them with the suits (still on) to keep the lower portion of the suit isolated from the rest of the cabin. Our legs from about thigh down were just about completely covered with dirt. I guess the dustbrush worked fairly well. I got the most part of it (before sending Jim up the ladder); but we were still pretty dirty."]

["I think the jettison bags over the legs worked fairly well. I think we kept the majority of the dirt out of the cabin and kept it in the bag. We just cinched the bags up around our legs. It was no problem getting in and out of our suits with the bags on them."]

[The Apollo 16 and 17 crews also used this procedure to good effect.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "(At about 128:37:35) we took another jettison bag and stuck it on the midstep (meaning, on the decking that surrounds the ascent engine cover); and I stood on that to keep my CWG (Constant Wear Garment) clean. You stood on one of the OPSs to keep off the floor, which was pretty dirty."]

126:20:09 Irwin: Okay. Red to red and blue to blue, huh?

126:20:12 Scott: Yeah. I mean red to blue. Did I say that right? No, reverse them.

126:20:21 Irwin: Okay.

[They would normally attach the red hose to the red connector and the blue hose to the blue connector but, here, they are going to reverse the flow and connect the red hose to the blue connector, etc.]

126:21:33 Irwin: I'm not hooked up yet, Dave. (Long Pause) (Garbled)

126:21:52 Scott: Say again?

126:21:53 Irwin: (Garbled) in there.

126:21:54 Scott: Okay. Turn around; I'll get you. (Long Pause) Can you back into your corner there? (Long Pause) Okay, you're plugged in. "Suit Flow." (Pause)

126:22:52 Irwin: Okay. (Pause)

126:22:55 Scott: "PLSS pump, Off; PLSS fan, Off." (Pause) "Disconnect PLSS water from PGA; connect LM water." That's a good idea.

[With the PLSS pump off, they aren't getting any cooling. Next, they will get on LM comm, as per checklist page 5-2.]

126:23:13 Irwin: (Garbled) (Pause)

126:23:24 Scott: Yeah. Let's cool off. Got a ways to go. (Pause) Oh, that's okay; let her run. (Pause) Okay, "PLSS mode, both, to O. Audio circuit breaker open and connect to LM comm." (Long Pause)

126:24:25 Irwin: (Garbled)?

126:24:29 Scott: (Garbled) ? Okay, you got your comm? (Pause) Okay. And Audio, CDR and LMP, VHF A, Receive, and B, Off. (Pause) Okay; Mode, ICS/PTT, and Relay, Off. (Long Pause)

126:25:34 Allen: Pressure Regs to A and B, Cabin, please. (Long Pause)

[They were supposed to have put the pressure regulators in Cabin at 126:11:10 and, while it is possible that the step did not get done, there may be a telemetry problem.]

126:25:50 Allen: Good show.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Once we got the hatch closed and repressed, why we sort of took a break right there, which I think wasn't really in the timeline. But it was a good place to take a piece of our rest period. I remember we got the helmets off and stood there and talked about it for a while before we went through the rest of the function."]

[During this comm break, they are recharging the PLSS with oxygen.]

126:42:38 Scott: Hello, Houston; Hadley Base.

126:42:41 Allen: Hello, Hadley Base; this is Houston.

126:42:46 Scott: Rog. How is everything down there?

126:42:51 Allen: Dave, the dust may have settled up there; I'm not sure if it's settled down here. We've got more data than we know what to do with at the moment. What can we help you with?

126:43:03 Scott: Oh, just wanted to tell you, we've got two PLSSs charged with O2: one at 95 (percent oxygen) and one at 93.

126:43:09 Allen: Roger. We copy that.

[Deke Slayton joins the conversation. Slayton was a Mercury Astronaut who became head of Flight Crew Operations and was responsible for crew selection.]

126:43:21 Scott: Okay. Thanks, boss. (Long Pause)

126:43:35 Allen: Dave, on that PLSS reading, could you tell us which number belongs to which PLSS, please?

126:43:43 Scott: We should have done that. Jim's got a 95, and I've got a 93.

126:43:49 Allen: Roger, Dave. Thank you. (Pause)

126:43:56 Scott: Give us about 30 minutes to get a bite to eat, and we'll press on for the next one. Then we won't have to doff the PLSSs.

126:44:08 Allen: Dave, Deke says okay, but I'm not sure if the question was understood.

126:44:17 Scott: (Laughing) Okay.

126:44:29 Slayton: I thought you added one more word there, like "eat and rest".

126:44:35 Scott: Roger.

[Scott - "This was just banter. 'Hey, we've got the PLSSs charged, give us 30 minutes to get something to eat, and we'll press on and do the next EVA!' And that's why Slayton comes in and adds, 'Eat and Rest'. It's all light-hearted stuff. But he does want us to rest!"]

[Very Long Comm Break]

[During this Comm Break, they remove the PLSSs, disconnect the OPSs, and, as per checklist page 5-3, replace the PLSS batteries and LiOH canisters.]

[Scott - "It was hard work to suit and unsuit! There was no room in there."]

[Jones - "But it was also true, was it not, that you could not have functioned for 70-some hours without taking the suits off each night."]

[Scott - "No way! Had to take them off. And, when I say it was hard work, I don't necessarily mean taking the suits off. I mean, getting the PLSSs off and recharged and stowed, and trying to contain all that dirt and having no room in there. Even before the flight, that kind of training was a real chore, because it was so boring and repetitious. But you had to go through every little teeny step."]

127:05:59 Scott: Go ahead, Houston.

127:06:04 Allen: Roger, Dave. Just wondered how you were getting along up there. And if you have an estimate of a possible debriefing time, we'll shoot for that down here.

127:07:06 Scott: Well, Joe, I'd like to get everything cleaned up in here; we got an awful lot of dirt. How about giving us an hour?

127:07:06 Allen: Sounds good, Dave. No hurry at all. And while you're working around there, you might be interested in a little conversation from down here. The SIM bay's chewing up data like it's going out of style. It's working beautifully. (Pause) And, as far as we can determine, the ALSEP is working as advertised; getting all kinds of data from it, and I'll get a good accurate reading on that for you later on. And I think that your traverse goes without comment; it was beautiful, and we're just trying to digest some of the data from that right now.

[People in the Science Backroom are formulating a list of questions for the debrief.]

127:07:24 Allen: Yes, sir. You're not telling us anything new, Dave. Thank you.

127:07:31 Scott: I feel like we spent only 5 minutes at the Front in the whole trip.

127:07:34 Allen: You'll get some more time a little later. Don't worry about that. It seemed like about 4 and a half minutes to us, I think. The scenery was spectacular.

127:07:50 Scott: (Pleased) Well, good.

[Long Comm Break]

[Jones - "How would you characterize these post-EVA activities?. Obviously, there are a lot of things that you need to do in the proper order and make sure they get done right. Is it a hustle-and-bustle type of activity?"]

[Scott - "We're being very careful. That's absolutely essential; and that's why I said 'give us an hour'. The place is a mess - an orderly mess, because things are in their proper places. There's a lot to take care of and you don't want to get in a hurry. Now that you're back in the spacecraft, you can take it at a leisurely pace. The time clock is off, essentially. You know you've got to get everything spruced up for the next go. So, it's sort of like, 'Okay, cool it, take it one step at a time, and get through it all.' This is not a hustle-bustle period, because the clock is off. There's no counting down to getting back in or any worry about running out of oxygen; so it's a relatively relaxed time, in a sense, other than the fact that we've still got a lot to do."]

[Jones - "Is 'deliberate' a good word?"]

[Scott - "Yup."]

[Jones - "While you were off comm, getting the cabin squared away, did you talk about the EVA and things that happened while you were outside?"]

[Scott - "I'm not sure, at this point, we did. This is doing housekeeping and, while there might have been a few comments here or there, it was better to get all the chores out of the way and then go focus on what we did."]

[Jones - "During the eat period."]

[Scott - "Yeah. I would have been more interested in cleaning things up and finishing than in getting off on a subject which would detract from getting the chores done. 'Get your work done, get the chores out of the way,' and then you can talk about the EVA in a more leisurely manner. You want to get it over with; and then have fun."]

127:14:08 Scott: Okay. Cover 2 and cover 4 for any extra rocks. Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[They have cover bags for each of the SCBs to help keep dust contamination of the cabin - and cabin contamination of the samples - to a minimum. Because they didn't use SCB-2 and, as well, dumped the SCB-4 samples into SCB-1, they have extra covers.]

127:31:16 Allen: Stand by, Hadley Base.

127:31:21 Irwin: Okay. We're standing by, Joe. (Pause)

127:31:29 Allen: (Making a rare mis-identification) And, Dave, we're ready.

127:31:36 Irwin: Understand you're ready for the battery change.

127:31:40 Allen: That's right, Jim. Standing by.

127:31:44 Irwin: Okay.

[Comm Break] 127:32:44 Scott: Okay, Houston. The ED (Explosive Device) Batts are 37 (volts) and 37.

127:32:49 Allen: Roger, Dave. Thank you.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Dave and Jim are now on checklist page 5-4 and are about to weigh the SCBs, stow the bags and the rock box, and verify the circuit breakers.]

127:44:29 Allen: Go ahead, Hadley. This is Houston.

127:44:33 Scott: Okay. I've got some weights for you, if you're ready to copy.

127:44:41 Allen: Go ahead, Dave. We're ready.

127:44:46 Scott: Okay. SRC number 1 is stowed. It weighed 36 pounds. And collection bag number 4 weighs 15 pounds.

127:45:01 Allen: Okay, Dave. Thank you.

127:45:05 Scott: Rog.

[The scale is marked to give readings in terrestrial pounds. An empty SRC weighs 6.7 kg or 15 pounds.]

127:45:30 Scott: We'd like that. Thank you.

127:45:39 Allen: Very good, Falcon. And any time you're interested in any lunch-time conversation, we've got more than enough (EVA questions) to fill the square down here.

127:45:52 Scott: Okay, Joe. We'll be giving you a call.

127:45:57 Allen: Roger. And we're in no hurry.

127:46:03 Scott: Okay.

[Long Comm Break]

[Jones - "Could you explain 'Filling in a square' for me?"]

[Scott - "It's just a matter of completing an objective."]

[Jones - "Any idea of where the term originated?"]

[Scott - (Tongue-in-cheek) "Probably sometime during the Napoleonic Campaign of 1803."]

[Jones - "Touché!"]

[Scott - "Gosh, I've been filling squares ever since I was a young pup."]

127:49:30 Scott: Power Amp, Off; Low bit rate.

[Comm Break]

127:51:02 Scott: Low bit rate.

[Comm Break]

[Jones - "Did you make the switch to low bit rate to save power?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, and you don't really need hi-bit rate here."]

[Jones - "Because you can push voice through without very much power?"]

[Scott - "And you also allow the ground to be available for higher bit rate from the Command Module. Where is the most important source of information? Certainly, now, it's the Command Module. The whole comm stuff is very complicated - the amount of information you store and when you transmit it back to the ground and how much capability they have on the ground to receive it, high and low. And this was all coordinated before the flight such that they were getting periods of high-bit-rate from each of the two vehicles. It was a complicated coordination matrix, because there was limited capability: we were limited on how much we could send down and they were limited on how much they could receive. They could only receive at certain times. The Command Module was sometimes on the Backside of the Moon, recording, or on the Frontside transmitting."]

["The comm system is another system that people take for granted; and it's very complicated. And the interesting part is, gee, you never hear about it. So it must have been working very well. There could have been problems, because of all the different pieces of hardware and configurations, but it was integrated into the total system very well."]

127:52:43 Allen: Go ahead.

127:52:48 Scott: The bacteria filter that's on the water gun, at some stage in the process today, got broken. It only has a plastic connector on it, rather than a metal connector, and the plastic connector chipped, and it started leaking. And we don't know exactly when that happened. We found it when we were unsuiting to get a drink. And we're not sure whether it spilled a fair amount of water or just the little small puddle that we have here on the floor of the LM. Have you noticed any significant decrease in water supply?

127:53:26 Allen: Stand by, Dave.

127:53:31 Scott: Okay. (Long Pause) And, of course, Joe, the bacteria filter is no longer usable, if anybody is worried about that. We're not, particularly.

127:53:51 Allen: Roger, Dave.

[Comm Break]

[The bacteria filter was designed to reduce the chance that Dave and Jim would ingest bacteria that might have grown in the LM water tanks.]

[Dave offered the following on the subject of the broken filter.]

[Scott - "The problem with getting in (the cabin) with all this stuff in the cockpit, (is that) it's so crowded with so many things. Even though great care was taken, prior to the flight, to make sure we wouldn't ding anything or break anything, it's still just jammed full. It's like you were at the gym and you had to get in your locker to change your clothes."]

127:55:08 Scott: Okay. Thank you.

127:55:12 Allen: And we also don't expect any problem on that broken bacteria filter, (joking, but very dryly) unless maybe you discovered some spiders and worms under the big rock you turned over (at St. George Crater).

127:55:26 Scott: (With equally dry wit) No, we're saving those for a surprise when we get back.

127:55:30 Allen: They will be.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Prior to Apollo 11, there was concern in some circles about the possibility that the crew would be exposed to lunar organisms. To guard against the possibility that a returning crew might be unwitting carriers of such organisms, the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 crews were put in isolation for up to three weeks after their return to Earth. On a more realistic note, there were also concerns that otherwise pristine lunar samples could become contaminated with terrestrial organisms.]

[Scott - "When we started into the training cycle for 15, the microbiologists were still in the loop - very tightly. I think we had something like 14 or 15 hours of training scheduled and we finally got it down to one. I mean, after 11 came back, everybody realized there were no bugs (meaning 'micro-organisms' and not 'insects') on the Moon."]

["By the time we flew, microbiology and bugs on the Moon were still a sort of interesting point of discussion; but everybody was pretty relaxed about there not being any and, here, we're kidding about that. The classroom work and maybe the filter were carryovers from the pre-11 days. There was a lot of concern, before 11 went, about bugs on the Moon - in some quarters. And just wait 'til they get to Mars if you think you had a problem for the Moon. The microbiologists and those people are coming unglued already."]

[Dave offered the following with regard to the possibility of bacteria growing in the LM water tanks.]

[Scott - "They didn't give us any chlorine pills, so it must have been fairly good water."]

128:14:28 Allen: Hadley Base, this is Houston. You're within VHF range of Endeavour now.

128:14:39 Scott: Roger, Joe.

[Al Worden has just received a similar message from Houston.]

128:16:56 Scott: Hello, Endeavour; Hadley Base.

128:16:59 Worden: Hello there, Falcon. How you doing?

128:17:01 Scott: Hey, we're doing just fine. How are you doing? (Pause) How things going up there, Al?

128:17:16 Worden: Hey, going real fine, Dave. We're just doing the photography bit and doing a few visual observations. And I've taken a look at you a couple of times down there. How's it going there?

128:17:29 Scott: Okay. You're all broken up. You must be just coming over those mountains again.

128:17:33 Worden: Yeah, I am. The rille is just coming into sight now.

128:17:40 Scott: See if you can see any tracks down there.

128:17:42 Worden: Well, I looked for them before, but couldn't see any, while I got the monocular.

128:17:48 Scott: Well, we got all the way up pretty close to...We got to St. George, got to Elbow, and got most of the things done.

128:17:58 Worden: Very good; very good. I understand it was a very successful EVA.

128:18:01 Scott: Yeah, it's pretty nice. I understand that the old SIM bay's gobbling up the data faster than the Moon can produce it.

128:18:07 Worden: Yes, it appears that they're getting some pretty good stuff now.

128:18:12 Scott: Is everything nice and clean up there?

128:18:14 Worden: Sure is.

128:18:16 Scott: Boy, is it dirty down here!

128:18:20 Worden: I'll bet it is.

128:18:22 Scott: But we're going to bring you some.

128:18:25 Worden: Okay. (Pause) Are you finished for the day's activities now?

128:18:34 Scott: Yeah, we're just climbing out of the suits right now, and buttoning them up, and getting ready to power down.

128:18:42 Worden: Very good. Get a good night's sleep.

128:18:45 Scott: You, too!

128:18:49 Worden: Oh. I'm living the Life of Riley up here now.

128:18:53 Scott: Yeah, I guess there's enough room for one guy now, huh?

128:18:55 Worden: Very comfortably.

128:18:59 Irwin: Don't get too spoiled, Al.

128:19:02 Worden: I won't, Jim; I'll save some room for you.

128:19:07 Scott: And save us some food!

128:19:09 Worden : Save you some food?

128:19:10 Irwin: Yeah.

[Worden has hot-water to use in preparing his meals, a luxury the LM crews have to do without.]

128:20:24 Irwin: Hey, that's great! Can you see the (Rover) tracks?

128:20:27 Worden: No, I can't see any tracks, Jim, but I can see discoloration, rather circular, that looks like it's around the LM.

128:20:40 Irwin: That's good. Maybe you can see the ALSEP.

128:20:47 Worden: Is it over east of you?

128:20:49 Irwin: No, it's west about 300 feet. (Pause)

128:20:58 Worden: No, I don't have it.

128:21:04 Scott: No, it's not very big. You're looking at best at something that's 2 to 3 feet.

128:21:13 Worden: Yes, all I've got's the monocular.

128:21:15 Scott: Oh, well. (Long Pause)

128:21:30 Scott: Well, have a nice time. We're going to go back to work. We'll talk to you later.

128:21:36 Worden: Okay; get to work, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

128:21:38 Scott: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Jones - "Is there an operational purpose to checking out the VHF at this point?"]

[Scott - "Well, there's an operational purpose to check and make sure we're all still there. If you're asking if this is just a chit-chat or if this is an operational procedure, it's an operational procedure."]

[Jones - "There is a social, team-building, 'hi, we're still here, we haven't forgotten you, everything's okay' aspect to it."]

[Scott - "Sure. It's just like keeping the loop closed, and it's also verifying the comm links work. The daily checkout. Even if you're a remote tracking site, with nothing going on, you have a daily checkout. Hey, is everything working? Standard operating procedure, plus sort of filling each other in. 'Hi, how're you doing?' Al's got a very busy day, with a lot going on. And he obviously wants to know how we did. We're this three-man team and everybody's interested in how the other guys are doing."]

[Jones - "As an outsider, the information exchange here seems to be low. It's got a high social content..."]

[Scott - "No. There's a lot of information exchange. As an example, Al hasn't had any problem in running the Command Module and the SIM Bay all day long. We have verified he has the information on us and we have the information on him. I tell him, 'I understand the SIM Bay is gobbling up the data.' So he knows that I know, from MCC (Mission Control Center), that he's doing well. And he has heard about what we are doing. So, although there's no formal data gathering, there's a lot of information exchanged. It's the no-look pass, again. You don't have to have overt passing of numbers to transmit a lot information. There's a lot of information going back and forth. Like, 'save us some food.' He's got a lot of food; he knows to save food."]

[Jones - "And his is warm and yours is cold."]

[Scott - "That's true. And, 'is it clean up there?' We're telling him 'we're really dirty, Al'. And, so, one of the things we all practice, all having been previously in the military, is keeping things neat and clean. You know that. They teach you, early on, to keep things neat and tidy. So we're all working to keep things neat and tidy. And so, he has just learned, as he probably suspected, we're really dirty. So now he's thinking about how, when we get back, he can help keep things clean in the Command Module. 'Cause we know, going in, we don't want to bring any more dirt into the Command Module than we can possibly avoid. So we are exchanging subtlety. But, since we have, before the mission, talked about all this, and Al's been in a lot of the geology and a lot of the briefings and we've been in on a lot of his, it doesn't take a lot of words to transmit a lot of information. And then, after the pass, we can think about what was said. And you can start saying, 'Gee, he had us on the monocle. Well, that's interesting.' And we know, from sixty miles he couldn't see the tracks but he saw the LM albedo change and later on, he does see tracks...Not tracks, but change in albedo. That's an information exchange. So, even though it's not formal, the informal, subtle passage of words goes into a data base that's waiting for these words. Yeah, there's social content, but there's a lot more, too. And it doesn't take a lot of words. And I'll bet that Joe Allen and MCC learned a lot from what we said to each other. Like, 'Okay, all the guys are relaxed. There's no hidden problem here.' If I'm in the Control Center, I would always wonder if the crew was telling me everything that's going on. (Dave's shoulder strain during the deep core extraction comes to mind). The Flight Director, having worked with us, would say to himself, 'There's no hidden meaning here. Everything's cool. Both spacecraft are okay.' 'Cause, if there was a problem, the two spacecraft would be telling each other. 'Cause they got to get home. If they had something they hadn't told Mission Control Center, for some reason, you can bet that the guys on the team up there would be passing some information. So, I'm the Flight Director, I hear this nice, loose exchange and I say, 'hey, everything's really in good shape'. A lot of subtleties because the team's been working together for so long, and we run these integrated simulations. They're pre-planned, with scripts written by the bad guys, the simulator guys who are in a different room. They cause problems. They wait to see how the problems are solved and then, after each big simulation, everybody debriefs and they put it on the table. Who screwed up, why they screwed up, what can we learn from this. So this team has gone through these integrated simulations between the control Center and the Simulators and the crew. We'd have Worden in the Command Module simulator, we'd be in the LM simulator, Mission Control, and all the backrooms and all the contractors. And we'd run these simulations, with big problems. And they'd try to kill the crew. And, after a sim, everybody goes through what was the problem, how did we solve the problem, and the simulations people essentially would score us. 'Hah, we gotcha! We got you guys. You missed this.' So everybody on the team knows where the strengths and weaknesses are, either directly or indirectly. And then, when you get into the flight situation, you've got that team work. You've got that integrated, subtle, knowing-what's-going-on. And the best analogy is the basketball team that can go very fast, nobody says anything, and everybody's ready all the time. Same kind of thing, but with a much bigger team. And that's why it's important to establish the team early and to work a long time on this team. Even tones of voices tell you a lot, if you know the guys. I mean, you can know there's a stress, real quick. Joe Allen's a master at that, whether he knows it or not. He can sense it and he can cool things, on either side. And with the back row in the Control Center, who don't participate in these integrated sims - they come from Washington and they sit in the back row during the mission - the Flight Director has to keep them relaxed, right? Because they will see things they can't interpret and think there are going to be major problems where as some guy at some console somewhere has it under control. So one of the Flight Director's toughest jobs - which is probably not in his job description - is to go to the Mission Director from Washington - they do participate but the Headquarters guys are more involved in budgetary things - and go explain, 'This is the situation. We've got it under control. And this is why we've got it under control.' So, there's a lot of communications and interchange. And, as you probably know, there's a lot of over-the-console discussions. They got the headsets on, doing all their jobs, but you'll see frequently the Flight Director will walk up to the back row and sit with three or four of the bosses, explaining. That's why it was important to have the Flight Director out in the field for the geology because then, during some exercise at some EVA stop, if there was some concern or some problem or something that wasn't understood, the Flight Director could walk up to the back row and sit down with these guys - with his headset, still doing his job - and explain, or call in an expert, or he could set up briefing in a conference room on some aspect for the bosses and he'd go to the back room and get the expert to come in. You don't ever see that written up anywhere and it's not something that comes out of the Songsheet or the Cookbook, but it's part of what made everything work so that the bosses in Washington, who are ultimately responsible can, on subsequent missions, probably make better decisions and better judgments. That's why they came. I'm not saying they were in the way. They weren't in the way; that's their job. On the other hand, the way the whole system evolved, from Mercury on, was this totally integrated system with total information. And the PAO guys would filter whatever they had to filter, and they were in the loop early, too. If you had a serious problem, there were ways to go to this so-called private loop and solve the problem without people who weren't informed and who weren't really qualified to make judgments...you don't want them making judgments. You got to keep them out of the loop. So, all that was set up. And it was important to have that. Even if you didn't use it, you knew that...as an example, I knew I could have a private conversation with Gerry Griffin anytime I wanted to. So, if Jim and I had some serious problem or some serious concern or something we wanted to talk about but didn't want the world to hear because the world's not qualified to make judgments...and many times the bosses in Washington aren't close enough to some of the details to make judgments until they were properly briefed. Me and Gerry could talk and I could say, 'Hey, Gerry, we got this real problem. How do you want to do this?' And then we'd go out to the loop and everybody'd hear it. And, even though we never used that, we had comfort knowing it was there. You have comfort knowing you can go to your doctor, or you banker, or your lawyer and you can close the door and say 'Doc, my foot hurts. I got this real problem with my foot. What should I do with this?' And have a doctor/patient relationship where you can be honest and open and talk about your problem and get help, without being inhibited by the possibility that somebody unqualified is going to step in and screw it up. And, in these integrated sims, everybody bared it on the table. 'Old Charlie Smith at the GNC console just killed the crew.' That's okay. Nobody was embarrassed about that and nobody would hold back, and Charlie would say 'Geez, I killed the crew. I'm not going to do that anymore, and I learned something from this.' That's why this open, family kind of process that was there was very comforting. And it was comforting to know that some unqualified person would not make a stupid decision that would screw it up - or worse. And it can happen if you have people come in the loop and try to make a decision without understanding the information or without enough background or without understanding the big picture. That's why the How-this-was-done is so important, not just the What-was-done. And how it got to where it got. And it was a great system. The exchange with Worden was good. It was good for everybody. Everybody relaxed, everybody cooled it, 'cause everybody knew the subtleties, they knew when a tone of voice indicated a problem and when it didn't."]

[Jones - "Reference the exchange between Parker and Cernan on the SIM Bay on 17, and also the Cox & Murray book and the Lovell book."]

128:37:19 Scott: Well, thank you, Joe. We had a good time doing it. We'll be back with you in about probably 10 or 15 minutes to talk over the rest of it.

128:37:28 Allen: Roger, Dave. We're in no hurry.

128:37:35 Scott: We're coming along pretty good. We've got things pretty well cleaned up, and we're getting into our nice white suits now.

128:37:40 Allen: Sounds good.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[In this case, the "clean, white suits" are the constant-wear garments. Dave and Jim are on checklist page 5-5.]

[Jones - "Joe has stayed on as CapCom a long time. On some of the other flights, the EVA CapCom goes off and talks to people in the Backroom - and the goodnight guy comes on - pretty soon after the crew gets back into the cabin."]

[Scott - "Well, Joe was such an integral part of geology. I mean, this is the team. We're getting ready for the debriefing and we're getting ready for the (EVA-2) planning, and you need to have that guy. He's a critical link. I'm surprised to hear you say that (about some of the other flights), but, goodness, I think one of the most important parts of our exercise is the debriefing, so we can learn; and you need to have that same guy in the loop, 'cause he's familiar with all the geology. Gee, I can't imagine having the other guy come in and go through the debriefing. That's astounding, because I think you would lose a lot. Not words. I mean, anybody can transmit the words from the Backroom, but Joe is able to pick up the subtleties in both directions. If (Gordon) Swann says something or (Lee) Silver says something, Joe can translate to us and he can take our words and translate that back, because he's so tightly integrated in the system. I would never break that link."]

[We then talked about the choice of Joe Allen as the Apollo 15 EVA CapCom.]

[Scott - "We knew he was good."]

[Jones - "And you specifically picked Joe Allen for the job?"]

[Scott - "Absolutely. Without question. Joe Allen was selected to be the lunar surface CapCom because of his capabilities."]

[Jones - "By Dave Scott and Jim Irwin."]

[Scott - "I don't recall how that came about, but when we got around to segmenting out the portions of the mission for the support crew, we made a very clear, definite decision that Allen would be the guy. Not that Parker wasn't good. Parker was excellent. But Joe just had this sort of flair for it, as you can see. I mean he was able to fit in, he picked up the geology very quick, he was a master at diplomacy - on both sides. So it was a very easy decision of the guys we had. Karl Henize was very good. Parker was very good. But, for what we wanted to do with this exercise, Allen was the guy."]

128:49:01 Scott: Houston, Hadley Base. (Long Pause)

128:49:21 Allen: Go ahead, Hadley Base; this is Houston.

128:49:27 Scott: Okay, we're all settled down now with some good beefsteak, and all cleaned up and ready to talk.

128:49:36 Allen: Sounds very good, Dave.

[Jones - "I know that the food you had on the surface was cold. You could add cold water to the food packs, but that was about it."]

[Scott - "Yeah, but I think we had some bite-sized items. Either in orbit or...I'd have to look at a menu. But I remember that, when we got back from Apollo 9, one of the things we pointed out that we missed was chewing. When we got back after ten days, part of the debriefing was 'What did you miss?' And we, all three, agreed we missed chewing things. And they said, 'You had chewing gum,' and we said 'It's just not the same.' And I remember, on the recovery ship, we had a steak and all that stuff and, boy, that was really good. So then, (after Apollo 9), they went on to develop little packages that had bites of ham, beef, whatever, that were fairly moist inside, and they were really good. But I don't know if we had any on the surface. There weren't many, but they sure were good. On 9, we got tired of the mush! The rehydratable food. After ten days, you're really tired of mush and you'd really like chewable food but I guess, at the time, they didn't know how to preserve it."]

[Jones - "They had you on low-residue diets. Was that effective? Did that cut down the frequency of defecation?"]

[Scott - "Absolutely, yes. I thought it was very effective, and the food was very good. I don't feel we ever lost energy or capability. We lost weight - 8 or 9 pounds or something like that - and that's not a big deal."]

[Jones - "And that's water."]

[Scott - "Mostly water. We drank a lot of water, but you're in that very dry environment, too. The low-residue diet worked good. Defecated maybe every three days or something like that. And the system worked good. You don't have to build big, fancy johns. It was part of living in space that you accepted. Simple, inexpensive. Takes time, but that's okay. You set aside your housekeeping time."]

[The EVA Debrief is on checklist page 5-7. Dave and Jim have not yet done the PLSS recharge procedures on 5-6 and will pick those up after the debrief.]

[Jones - "This isn't the only use of German on the flight. (In Spanish)Por que?"]

[Scott - "Well, I think Joe lived over there for a while. Didn't Joe go to school in Heidelberg or somewhere? And in the months that we worked together, little things like this would show up. And I took German in school and lived in Holland for four years. Spent a lot of time in Germany. I used to be able to speak it pretty well. It's funny how some of these things show up, and it's probably not a conscious thing but just off the cuff. But, as you're pointing out, somewhere downstream somebody's going to wonder why that's in there."]

128:50:24 Scott: I got them all but the heat flow, Joe.

128:50:27 Allen: Roger. Copy all but the heat flow. And, Jim, when the LSM (magnetometer) sunshield was deployed, do you think the instrument stayed more or less steady? Or do you think it may have moved a little bit?

128:50:46 Irwin: (Faint) It might have moved a little, Joe.

128:50:52 Allen: (Making a mis-identification) Dave, say again. I didn't copy that.

128:50:54 Irwin: Is there a problem with the...(Stops to listen to Joe) Hey, Joe, this is Jim. It might very well have moved. In other words, it's not level any longer?

128:51:05 Allen: Negative, Jim. We don't necessarily know that. As far as we know, the data looks pretty as a picture. We just want your own feel for it. (Pause) In other words, we have no reason to believe it moved. We just wanted to get some words from you on that. (Pause)

128:51:45 Irwin: I didn't notice any movement when I deployed the sunscreen, Joe.

128:51:49 Allen: Okay, fine.

[Jones - "The ALSEP deployment site was out west, so it would have been right out the window."]

[Scott - "But quite a ways."]

[Jones - "300 feet. Far enough that you couldn't see the details?"]

[Scott - "Good heavens, you wouldn't be able to see details."]

[Jones - "The impression I get from looking at the TV is that the ground right around the LM was fairly flat. Or is that just a down-Sun effect?"]

[Scott - "Pretty level."]

[Jones - "It doesn't look like it has the general rigosity that you described while driving the Rover on the traverse."]

[Scott - "Driving the Rover is moving over the surface, so that any irregularity will be amplified. If you were to walk or drive slowly, you wouldn't see that irregularity. But, when you move quickly, you start getting it, in the same place."]

[Jones - "On 14, Ed and Al described their site as being really rugged, really rough. You could stand in one of the low spots and, if somebody else was in the next low spot, you wouldn't be able to see him. Their local horizon was really close because of ridges and old crater rims. There was as much as a few meters of up and down, over scales of several tens of meters."]

[Scott - "Ours were probably similar but further in distance between the ups and downs. You know we have some good stereo. I have seen a couple, and they're very good. Especially around the LM, you can really see where the relief is. In fact, it would be a good exercise to get a stereo viewer, 'cause we took lots of stereo pictures. And that will give you a good impression of what the relief was."]

["When we went out on field trips, we took stereopairs and we could look at them afterwards. Not that we spent a great deal of time, but it was useful. And a lot of times on geology field trips prior to the Field Exercise, Silver et al would bring in stereopairs and we would look at our planned traverse on the mountains or wherever. And that helps you get a feel for where you're going and what you're going to see. That was a good procedure; (and it) didn't take long. I don't know if anybody's ever taken the time to look at the stereopairs from a scientific point of view."]

["In fact, they were developing a stereocamera during this period. I don't know if you remember that. But NASA spent a fair amount of money trying to develop a stereocamera, which never panned out. (Recognizing the pun) Ha, ha."]

[Jones - "Jack told me Gene Shoemaker (pdf; 204k) was involved in that. Do you know Gene?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, I know Gene; but I don't recall who was involved."]

[Jones - "I presume that, in training, you also learned how to take pans."]

[Scott - "In training, when we got to a station, we would go through all the procedures. In fact, that's how the procedures were developed, right from the beginning, back on 12. One of the early questions was, what kind of pictures do you take? And, in the beginning, we were taking too many of one kind and not enough of another kind. And it was taking too long to take the photos, documenting the rocks. I don't know how many pictures; but there were too many pictures and they finally analyzed the pictures that were being taken to see what they really needed. And it finally boiled down to the down-Sun and the cross-Sun stereo. After you practiced it with two guys, that became a very efficient photo-documentation technique. Which I assume was useful."]

[Jones - "And was carried on through the rest of the missions, as well."]

[Scott - "It was another technique, that a lot of people were involved in over a lot of time, to see how to get the most information out of the least time."]

[Jones - "Was the pan procedure tough to learn, to get the overlap (between successive frames), or did it come pretty quick."]

[Scott - "Pretty quick. That was relatively easy, how many do you take in a 360-degree circle."]

[Jones - "Everybody did pretty good. There were very few pans with gaps in them, nor excess overlap."]

[Scott - "Pretty arithmetic. I forget what the angle was (between frames) but you can pretty much tell where 90 degrees is, because you know where your shoulder is. So it was pretty much click, click, click. And, another interesting thing, in comparing today's cameras with the cameras of those days, we had no light meter, no automatic focus. The only thing that was automatic was advancing the film. The f-stop and the range were manually set. So, when you were looking into the Sun, you had one setting, cross-Sun another, and so on. And you had to physically set the lens every time you took a picture. You had to be conscious of doing that, or you'd get lousy pictures. Which is quite different from cameras today, 'cause you don't have to do anything today. And people may forget or not realize that a lot of our training, relative to taking photographs, was how you set the f-stop and how you set the range to make sure you get the right kind of picture."]

[Jones - "Which is a matter of estimating how far you are from the thing you want to shot and where you are relative to the Sun, basically."]

[Scott - "Yeah. In fact there were little levers on the camera so that you could set them with your gloves. They built onto the Hasselblad a little wing lever about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, located on the adjustment dial. And I think we all spent a fair amount of time on geology field trips...In fact, early in the program, we each had a Hasselblad we took on any kind of trip. Took pictures out of airplanes, took pictures on the beach. Wherever. Just to get the feel of not having a viewfinder and not having any focus or range."]

[Jones - "Back during the Gemini days, people went in groups on field exercises fairly regularly. Did it intensify after you got on to the 12 backup crew."]

[Scott - "I don't remember taking any pictures on pre-Apollo field trips. Nothing organized."]

[Jones - "How about the frequency of trips."]

[Scott - "The field trips we had before being on a crew were general, (to) learn field geology. Then, after getting on a crew, you got more focused on a traverse and stations and what you do specifically when you're trying to conduct a field-geology exercise on another planet, which is different from a field-geology exercise on the Earth. And there are many reasons for that: time constraints, equipment, you visit the site only once. All those things. And on our field trips during training, as we went along the timing was compressed and we tried to do Taos or whatever in three hours, and you start building your foundation of planetary field geology, with the experts. In the early days, we did very little photography and as time went on and missions went on, we got more organized, more perhaps rigid. But it was a kind of mechanical, recording kind of thing. And Jim and I hardly ever thought about the photo techniques. We just did it because, by then, it had become second nature. We had been critiqued a lot and the procedures were very well developed by 15, so when we got to a rock, we didn't even think about it. Click, click, click, pick it up, click, you're on your way. When we were on 12, the procedures hadn't settled out and, every time we went out into the field, we had a different set of procedures. Which takes time, because you get out to the rock and you say, 'Now, which way do we want to do it, this time?' It eats up your valuable time."]

128:52:04 Irwin: Yes, there was a slight amount of loss from the lower and a little bit from the upper, but very little.

128:52:11 Allen: Okay, that sounds good. And regarding the question about the Rover tracks, Jim, you told us they were one-half inch deep or less, and we're wondering if that was a typical number over the course of the entire traverse, as far as you could notice?

128:52:34 Irwin: Well, that was my impression. Half an inch, in general; but Dave probably has another comment.

128:52:41 Scott: No, Joe, I'd say no more than a half an inch. It seems to ride very lightly; I think the bearing on the surface is very light, and the wire wheels seem to work very well. They've got good traction, and even though the rear end did break away several times, it was primarily because of the locked-up front wheels. And I was very pleased with the operation. I think the thing performs better than we'd expected.

128:53:10 Allen: Okay, Dave, thank you.

[Scott - "It worked better than we expected it to."]

[Jones - "Based on the performance of the one-g trainer that you used on the field trips?"]

[Scott - "Performance of the trainer and thinking about it and planning for it, but not knowing what the surface was like, really, and not realizing the surface is so irregular. So, to move across that surface quickly, it was very interesting to see and feel the Rover do that. You could recognize that you were on a very irregular surface, and the machine adapted to that very readily. It worked better than expected, in its response; and the surface was worse than expected. No boulders, but more irregular (that is, with higher amplitude irregularities). The machine worked well on Earth; and you might expect that, when you got into bad weather (meaning a more difficult environment), the machine might not work as well. The one-g trainer was always on smooth ground."]

[Jones - "Even up at the Rio Grande Gorge at Taos?"]

[Note added in 2007: At Taos, Dave drove the Geologic Rover (aka Grover). The 1-g trainer was used only at the Cape. The Grover was a much less sophisticated vehicle than the 1-g trainer. In the early 1990s, when Dave and I reviewed Apollo 15, I was unaware of the difference. See Anthony Young's Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars.]

[Scott - "Oh, yeah. It was benign."]

[Jones - "Did they bulldoze a section of that for you?"]

[Scott - "Even if they didn't, we drove the one-g trainer very slowly; nothing like the expeditious movement on the surface of the Moon. Because we had a timeline (on the Moon), we had to move quickly. It's a completely different feeling, a different sense of what's going on. At Taos or wherever, you're in the one-g trainer and it's mostly geology, and you're not really worried about whether you break down or how far you go, 'cause you don't go far. You're sort of going through the geology procedures involving the Rover. On Earth, we never got to drive to (that is, test the) operational or environmental aspects of the Rover, because we didn't have the one-sixth g. They tried one-sixth g, but it wasn't real good, because it was on a relatively regular surface. So you get to the Moon and you're on this irregular surface, and you also find you've got the clock on you and seconds are moving faster than seconds. You only have thirty seconds every minute. So you want to really hurry, cautiously. And I think that's what concludes the remark, 'It worked better than expected.'"]

[Jones - "When they tried one-sixth g, they suspended it?"]

[Scott - "Yeah. And they had some sort of surface. I forget exactly what it was. But it wasn't anything like the lunar surface. It was sort of sand/soil and it had bumps and rocks and things like that. But the lunar surface has so many depressions and so many slopes and so many mounds..."]

[Jones - "And so many (length) scales."]

[Scott - "That's probably the better way to say it. So many scales and, as I think I've remarked before, very seldom did you have four wheels on the ground. Most of the time, three; sometimes, two. Because the wheels are responding to this irregular surface."]

[Jones - "And never the same two or three."]

[Scott - "But you keep moving along very briskly, despite all that. And I guess there are some comments, even in the (NASA Apollo 15) movie (Apollo 15 - In the Mountains of the Moon), that it's like a bucking bronco. No, it's not that wild; it's not like you'd see in the rodeo. It's not that at all. But it is oscillating irregularly, non-linearly. And the machine just keeps focused. I mean, it doesn't weave side to side. When you turn it, it turns. And maybe every once in a while the wheels will break away in the rear. Nevertheless, if you took the c.g. (center-of-gravity) of the machine, it pretty much stayed on a level plain (and) on a direct line to where you want to go. And the rest of the machine is moving around this c.g. The wheels and the people and all that. That's what I call a very good machine."]

[The following is taken from the Apollo 15 Mission Report. "Both long-and short-period pitch motions were experienced in response to vehicle motion over the cratered, hummocky terrain, and the motion introduced by individual wheel obstacles. The long-period motion was very similar to that encountered in the one-g trainer, although more lightly damped. The 'floating' of the crew members in the one-sixth-g field was quite noticeable in comparison to one-g simulations. Contributions of short-period motion of each wheel were unnoticed and it was difficult to tell how many wheels were off the ground at any one time. At one point during the 'Lunar Grand Prix' (at 164:42:36), all four wheel were off the ground, although this was undetectable from the driver's seat."]

128:53:28 Scott: I'd say yes, Joe. The drilling characteristics are: it's a gradually increasing requirement for force to get it in. More so than any force I experienced in the one-g training, even when we had the packed soil. One time we did have some that was packed so tightly I couldn't even get it in, but that was because of the weak battery on the training unit at the time. The drilling requires more and more force the deeper you get. And, you could probably see the TV there at the end on the second one, I had the second probe about half way in, and I was putting almost my entire weight (on the drill). Even though it's one-sixth, there was quite a bit of force behind that drill, much more than I've ever experienced in any training. And I had the impression that, yeah, we're drilling through rock.

128:54:29 Allen: Roger, Dave. We hear you on that. A similar question, was the drill torque high while you were drilling?

128:54:43 Scott: Well, "high" is a relative term. I had to maintain quite a bit of pressure on it to keep from being turned, but I tried in the one-sixth-g airplane several times to see if I couldn't hold it, and I could always hold it. And I can hold it here, even though the torque was fairly high.

128:55:03 Allen: Okay, Dave, that's a clear description. We know that the stem is loose in the hole as far as the rotational motion goes. We're wondering if it's loose in the up and down direction. Do you think you could pull it out?

128:55:23 Scott: I don't know, Joe. I don't really know. (Pause)

128:55:34 Allen: Okay, Dave, copy that. Is the drill thermal shroud off the drill unit?

128:55:44 Scott: Oh, yes. You mean the small aluminum-colored shroud that goes over the battery?

128:55:50 Allen: That's affirm.

128:55:54 Scott: Yes, that's off.

128:55:56 Allen: Okay, and were the Boyd-bolt guide cups removed from the heat flow experiment?

128:56:11 Scott: Gee, I guess I have to think about what you mean. All the Boyd bolts are off of the box (meaning the Heat flow Electronics package), as far as I know.

128:56:25 Allen: Okay, Dave. Our question concerns the covers (also know as 'sleeves')for the Boyd bolts. They're calling them "the guide cups" down here.

128:56:40 Scott: Do you mean are they off now or were they off when we started?

128:56:46 Allen: Dave, we mean are they off now. Did they fall away from the unit when you picked the unit up. It's of relative unimportance, really, but it would be an interesting data point.

128:57:02 Scott: I didn't pay much attention, Joe, but I think all the Boyd bolts came off the heat flow, finally, I think. (Pause)

128:57:18 Allen: Okay, Dave. Thank you. Jim, was the Central-Station Sun compass on the orange mark when you last saw it?

128:57:32 Irwin: Yes, it was, Joe.

128:57:35 Allen: Okay, and I'm sorry I skipped over a question here. Dave, where is the drill vise and the drill treadle right now, as you remember.

128:57:48 Scott: The drill vise is next to the second probe, which is the western probe, and the treadle is at the point at which we parked the Rover.

128:57:58 Allen: Okay, that agrees with...

128:57:59 Scott: ...

128:58:00 Allen: ...our guess on that. Jim, once again back to the Central Station. How accurately was the bubble level when you saw it?

128:58:15 Irwin: Oh, it was within, oh, one-eight to one-quarter of the center.

128:58:22 Allen: Okay, that sounds good to us. Could you tell us whether the north-facing side of the Central Station can see any portion of the RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator)?

128:58:38 Irwin: No, it definitely cannot. Because the RTG is perhaps a little south of and east, as far as the Central Station's concerned.

128:58:53 Allen: Roger, we copy that.

[Scott - "You could not take an RTG to the Moon, today. It would not be permitted. In fact, we were looking at power for the (unmanned, miniature) Rovers, on the Moon and Mars, and several of the documents I've seen said 'Consider anything but RTG's.' Gosh."]

128:59:05 Scott: No, we looked at it when we got back in, Joe. The string broke at its attach point on the inside of the yo-yo (as shown in Figure 14-52 from the Mission Report).

128:59:14 Allen: Okay, Dave and Jim, you might want to consider switching out yo-yos. Jim, you may want to pass yours over to Dave for the next EVA.

128:59:26 Irwin: We've already done that, Joe.

128:59:30 Allen: You're always one step ahead of me.

[Jones - "Why would you need a functioning yo-yo? Because you were the tong wielder?"]

[Scott - "I think so. But, why wouldn't Jim have tongs? It could be because I picked up the rock and Jim had the bag."]

["The tongs were excellent. They worked as advertised. They helped us overcome some of the need to bend over in the suit. In fact, the tongs grasped the rock better than you could with your hand. Good system."]

[Jones - "Do the glove fingers need some work? I've always thought that was an area where the suits (need improvement)..."]

[Scott - "Yeah, some people had a lot of trouble with this part. I didn't really have that problem. A lot of people had trouble with their forearms getting tired; I never had that problem. I don't think Jim had that problem. I don't know why it is that some people did or didn't. My fingers got all black and blue, but that was my fault because I wanted the suit tighter and I had them pull in the arms, pull the gloves up, 'cause I wanted better dexterity."]

[Jones - "So the ends of your fingers were right up against the ends of the glove."]

[Scott - "And not only one time, but over a long period - over three days and my hands got pretty sore. But, on the other hand, the trade-off was having the dexterity so that, when you reach for something, the suit doesn't go way out there and your hand is an inch behind the finger tip. But in terms of the rest of the motion, my arms never got tired, my hands never got tired."]

[Jones - "Do you have strong hands?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, I guess. I mean, they probably got tired on occasion, but not acutely or chronically, to where I even remember any particular tiredness."]

[Jones - "The 17 guys talk about rather dramatic hand and forearm fatigue."]

[Scott - "Yeah. I have heard that, but I don't know why, unless they had very poor fitting gloves and suits. I can see how working your hand inside a very loose glove could be very tiring, 'cause you're hand isn't really in the flexible part. And I know I've talk about this to you before, about one set of gloves that you use only when you're pressurized, and one set of gloves that you use only when you're unpressurized. Try to do both (with one pair of gloves), compromises both. If you have a glove that's comfortable unpressurized, it's going to be too big pressurized. Some people wore liners. I thought they were very helpful. A lot of people didn't. Liners kept your hand from sticking to the glove and, as you bent your hand, the glove would slide across your fingers."]

[Jones - "And abrade them less."]

[Scott - "Yeah. And if your hand is wet inside, and you move, the glove is going to stick and it's going to take more pressure to move the glove. The gloves could use a lot of work. But, if you went to the single-purpose gloves - and I have tried these - a glove made just for EVA is so tight when you put it on (unpressurized) that you can't work very long in it. But, when you pressurize, it's just dandy. Really comfortable."]

["I thought the EMU, the whole system, was outstanding. In fact, there was an article not too long ago in Space News, and I had to write Aaron Cohen (who was Director of the NASA Johnson Space Center at the time) a letter and say 'You guys are missing it. There's an article by an unnamed guy in Houston who was describing the terrible Apollo pressure suits, the 500-pound suits they had to haul around on Apollo.' I mean, it was in Space News; it was in the press. And the perception people would get is that we were encumbered with this terrible piece of junk. And I wrote in a letter and said, 'Aaron, no, I don't think so. I think you guys did a great job. The suit, in my opinion, was outstanding. We never had any problems. Mobility was excellent.' You got to remember what we were doing and what we were trying to do. And you have to appreciate, again, that the system started with a blank piece of paper. They had some old Air force high (altitude) pressure suits. I used to wear those. And the step from an old Air Force partial pressure suit to the Apollo EMU was marvelous. I thought it was great."]

["It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't supposed to be comfortable. That wasn't the idea. The idea was to have something that can do the job. And I understand, now, they're spending jillions of dollars to make a perfect suit that lasts forever on Mars - which, in my opinion, is a waste of money because, by the time you get to Mars, materials are going to be so much better, and the technologies are going to be so much better you'll probably be able to spray it on. I mean, why spend all that money now to make something so much better with today's technology and you won't be using today's technology. But I thought the suits were great for what they had to be used for."]

[Readers interested in the evolution of pressure suits from the 1930s up to the early 1990s should consult Lillian D. Kozloski's "U.S. Space Gear: Outfitting the Astronaut" (Smithsonian Institution Press; 1994).]

128:59:53 Irwin: I guess I can't answer that, Joe. I could never see the amperage on 2 when we were driving.

129:00:01 Scott: Okay, my answer, Joe, would be yes. I never saw a motion of that needle.

129:00:05 Allen: Okay, that's plenty good enough for us. As you know, we think that you've got two good batteries, but possibly a failed meter there. And the Rover power consumption looks like it's right on the money, and we've got a lot of gas (battery charge) for the next EVAs. The amp-hour meter data which we have does have a couple of erratic points in it. We're wondering if you noticed any meter-movement anomalies.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 05 sec ) by David Shaffer

129:00:38 Irwin: This is Jim. I didn't notice any meter motion or anomalies, Joe.

129:00:44 Allen: Okay, Jim, thank you. And we're assuming that the Rover is now parked facing north. Is that correct?

129:00:54 Scott: That's correct.

129:00:56 Allen: I could have guessed as much. And a question about the suspension, which sounds kind of exciting. Did you ever notice it hitting bottom?

129:01:09 Scott: Yes, we hit bottom a couple of times when we hit a rock, and it seemed to respond fairly well. I mean you could just feel that it had bottomed out. I might add something else, too, on your battery problem, Joe. I'm sure you're right about that because I noticed, in backing up a couple of times, that the front wheels did drive.

129:01:34 Allen: Okay, interesting comment, Dave. Thank you. Now we're getting on to the toughies here, and coming up to a very interesting one. We'd like to know what your best estimation of the LM's position is. Over.

129:01:55 Scott: Stand by.

129:01:57 Allen: And, Dave and Jim, let me give you some background on that. We've got several points that are in a very tight cluster around the first location we gave you. We think, however, because of bootstrapping a location from Elbow Crater backwards using the Rover navigation system, we think that you may be mistaking Last Crater for Index Crater. And I want you to consider this as you look at your map and think about your present position. Over.

129:02:34 Scott: My!

[Comm Break]

[Scott - "I remember all this discussion. In retrospect, it wasn't really significant - especially with the beauty of the Rover. You could be sort of anywhere in the area. If you're trying to make a pinpoint landing and walk to Surveyor, as Pete did, that's one thing. But if you're exploring a region with a Rover, you don't really care. And I think we all spent far too much time discussing where we were. In retrospect, we could have been forward or aft a kilometer and, for the purpose of what we did, there wouldn't be much effect. I mean, you wouldn't want to be too far east of the Rille 'cause you'd have a long way to go to get to it, and you wouldn't want to be in the Rille. But even hundreds of meters is not significant when you've got the Rover."]

[Jones - "And, once you get to a known location, like Elbow Crater, once you got that ground truth, you could use the Rover Nav system to find things."]

[Scott - "I don't think we used it to find things, except to go back to the LM. As I recall, it was very good, because we set it at the LM."]

[Jones - "And the reason you didn't have to use it to find things may be because, at your site, most things were visible. You had really good horizon features....I'll have to think about that. 16 and 17 were a little more difficult with regard to the placement of the targets. You guys were mostly going to places on the hillside or going over to the Rille (which they couldn't see from the LM but was too large a target to miss). And the couple of places that you were going to hit on the flats were Elbow, which was over on the edge of the Rille, the South Cluster you saw when you were coming down off the hillside, and the North Complex was visible from anywhere, so the Nav system may have been less important to you."]

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "Remember, the Rover Nav system was still unproven at this point. Nobody really knew how much wheel slippage would occur, or whether a single gyro would be accurate. During this first Rover mission, we probably would not rely on the Nav system to find anything of importance."]

[Jones - "I can imagine the two of you were in there, at this point, poring over the maps..."]

[Scott - "Absolutely. Right into it. Pinpoint landing. Let's see where we are. It's so important, 'cause we're supposedly familiar with the area around which we were going to land but, as we've discussed, the photography was so poor that we really weren't familiar with it. In the future, they will have excellent photography, so they will know better where they are. So, in retrospect, having poor photography was probably more interesting, because we didn't know anything about where we were."]

129:04:35 Allen: We thought we might, Dave. (Pause) And, Dave and Jim, as you well know, this question is pretty much academic because we're doing great guns, no matter where your exact location is; and it's something we'll construct later (from the Rover Navigation readouts and the photography); but we're interested nonetheless.

129:05:07 Scott: Roger. (Long Pause) Okay, Joe. How about 73.3 Bravo Sierra 4? And I guess that's because we are on the northeast side of the double crater.

129:05:37 Allen: Voila! We understand.

129:05:43 Scott: Sure nice that Rover will make 12, 13 clicks, isn't it?

129:05:47 Allen: That sure is. Richard (Gordon, the back-up commander)'s studying the maps here momentarily. In the meantime, could you give us just a rough guess - a quick rundown - as to where the samples at Station 1 were taken with respect to the rim of Elbow, and we're interested in distance and direction from the rim. Just a rough guess.

129:06:17 Scott: Stand by. (Long Pause as he studies EVA-1/2, Part B)

[Jones - "Let's see. Dick was the CMP on 12, right?"]

[Scott - "Yeah. He was my backup on (Apollo) 15. And he was my backup on (Gemini) 8. We rotated."]

129:06:54 Allen: Okay, Dave, copied that loud and clear. And, by the way, Rover Nav system gave us exactly the same coordinates as you just called down for your LM location. Interesting coincidence, or perhaps not a coincidence.

129:07:05 Allen: Moving on to the next question. Near Elbow Crater, Dave, you mentioned that your footprints exposed white soil. We wonder if this was a common occurrence. Did you observe similar white soil in footprints elsewhere? Over.

129:07:27 Scott: Joe, I sort of kicked through a rim of a small, l-meter, subdued crater; and, as I did that, I kicked up some white soil. And so I kicked a couple of more times and it spread out; and whether I was breaking up a very friable rock or not, I don't know. But there was a couple of kickfuls of dirt that were white, and as we came back past it on the return trip to the LM, why, I pointed it out to Jim and he saw it too. And I'm not sure whether that was just at that one small crater, which was an old crater, or whether that was typical of that particular area. We just didn't have time to look at it.

129:08:12 Allen: Roger, Dave. Copy that. And coming back to Station 1, Elbow Crater, could you give us a quick rundown on the changes in block distribution around Elbow Crater and, if possible, maybe even the changes in rock types there. Over.

129:08:34 Scott: Stand by one. (Long Pause) Joe, our clocks were running pretty fast when we were there, and I guess we didn't get a chance to look at the distribution very well. As I remember it, there were more blocks - not really blocks, but large fragments on the order of 6 inches to a foot (in size) - more on the southern rim, although it wasn't really heavily concentrated; I'd say 10 percent of the surface at most (was covered with pieces of rock). There was more on the southern rim than on the northern rim. And the ones we sampled all looked pretty much the same. As I remember, the radial sample didn't show a great difference in rock type. Although, as you know, we just didn't have a chance to do much looking and thinking there.

129:09:55 Allen: Roger, Dave. We copy that, and answers that question very well. But, once again, regarding Elbow Crater; Jim, you called out to us a bench around the east side of Elbow and you were looking down into Elbow from higher up on the front. We wonder if you could compare that bench with breaks in the slope of the Rille wall. Over. (Long Pause)

[That is, is there any evidence that both Elbow Crater and the rille wall are showing signs of near-surface structure in the underlying layers of bedrock.]

129:10:55 Allen: Okay, Jim, copy that. That sounds very reasonable. We'd like to move on down towards Station 2 now, and have a series of questions about Station 2. The first one being, what rock samples did you get from Station 2, and we're more interested in the samples that did not come from the large boulder, but rather what other samples did you get there? Over.

129:11:24 Scott: Okay, stand by. (Long Pause) Okay, Joe, our sum total at Station 2 was two chips off the large rock, soil from the fillet, soil adjacent about a couple of feet away from the rock, soil from beneath the rock, and the double core, and the comprehensive.

129:12:11 Allen: Okay, Dave, you called it right on from memory. That's exactly the score sheet we had. (Pause) Stand by a second. Let me read over this second question. Okay...

129:12:26 Scott: Okay, Joe. ...

129:12:27 Allen: ...regarding the boulder, do you think, possibly, that the black part of the boulder might be a big clast in a coarse breccia? Over.

129:12:45 Scott: No, I'm not sure, Joe. The breccia that was in there was glass covered, and there was an exposure after I took a chip out of it that was a breccia not unlike 14's (that is, the Apollo 14 samples). As a matter of fact, I'd say it was almost typical of 14's, but maybe only second or third order.

[A first-order breccia is a rock composed of fragments which, individually, are composed of a single rock type. A second-order breccia consists of fragments which, individually, are breccias. That is, fragments made of smaller fragments. And so on.]

129:13:28 Allen: Okay, Dave, sounds good. Could you tell us where the samples which came off the boulder were taken in relation to this contact that you called out on the boulder? In other words, where did the chips come loose from? Over.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 32 sec ) by David Shaffer

129:13:48 Scott: Okay; if you consider the boulder being divided in fifths, 1/5th of it was a different type, apparently, by this sort of topographic contact. We took one chip from that side and one chip from a corner on the other side.

129:14:06 Allen: We copy that; thank you. We'd like for you to summarize the relationships of mare and Apennine Front in the Elbow-St. George area. And, we're looking for any evidence whatever of a contact, an albedo change, or a change in coarse-frag abundance. Over.

129:14:33 Scott: Joe, we looked, and we discussed it before we went out, and we've discussed it since we came back, and we honestly didn't see anything.

129:14:42 Allen: Roger, Dave; and you discussed it, then, about the same way during the traverse. So it sounds very consistent to us. Do you think that you can drive to either Spur or to Window Crater (which are planned EVA-2 stops on the flank of Mt. Hadley Delta).

129:14:59 Scott: Let us take a look here, quick. (Long Pause) Well, there are a number of craters down there in the area of Spur and Window, and those are the only craters up on the Apennine Front. And there are several the same size as Spur and Window, which I think were not evident on the photography because of the (relatively high) albedo and the Sun. I think we could get to some of those craters, yes. I'm not sure it would be Spur or Window, but there are some craters up on the side of the Front I'm fairly sure we could get to.

129:16:20 Allen: Roger, Dave. Copy that. And that is exactly the answer we were after; not necessarily those particular craters, but craters similar to them; and we understand exactly what you're saying.

[The geologic interest is in finding one or more relatively fresh craters which have penetrated through the soil layer and exposed fragments of rocks of which the mountain is made.]

129:17:06 Scott: Joe, I think we have a great variety of fragments out here. I...I wouldn't want to pin down any particular type in any area until we had more time to look. We've got a couple of surprises for you. We have one fragment (the Seatbelt Basalt) on the order of 6 inches which is a fairly well rounded, highly vesicular basalt with vesicles on the order of 3 millimeters all over it, apparently quite old and rounded, and it's a brownish gray. We also have a large piece of glass, just sheer glass, apparently, which is about a foot long and about 6 inches wide and very rough-textured surface; and that was the one that was right out the front window here that I described yesterday. And the basalt we picked up halfway back when I had to change my seatbelt; I saw it on the ground, and I just couldn't resist it. And it's unlike anything you've seen from the Moon before as is the large piece of glass. And I think those are indicators, to me, that we have a great variety of samples out there, and we really need to do some good careful looking as we head down towards the Front.

129:18:18 Allen: Roger, Dave. Read you loud and clear on that, and that really brings us to our last question. We're in the process of starting to plan your traverse tomorrow. It's going to be a good one. We have no equipment problems that we're looking at right now and we'd like to ask you if there're any particular inputs you would like to make into the planning team regarding tomorrow's traverse. Over.

129:18:48 Scott: Okay, let us talk it over a minute, please.

[Comm Break]

[Scott - "Silver used to debrief us on field trips. It's too bad we didn't take this transcript and the photos, and sit down and spend a year going back through it. I wonder if that would have been scientifically useful. It would have been interesting, but would it have contributed much more to what they learned anyway?"]

[Jones - "We've talked about it in the context of the Mars mission - that part of the job of the crew is to spend the voyage back going through the material and doing thorough debriefs."]

[Scott - "Absolutely. Nine months would be a great opportunity to do what they're supposed to be doing, anyway. Which we never did. Unfortunately. Yeah, I always thought the job ought to continue through to the final report, which has to be like a dissertation. I mean, gosh, think of the time and effort that goes into it, and then, after you get all your raw data, you walk away. That's not real smart."]

[Jones - "It's not uncommon, though."]

[Scott - "Unfortunately. So, coming back from Mars? Nine months, what a wonderful opportunity! I mean, you ask me a question now, and I've really got to think hard because it was so long ago. Whereas, you hit me six months or so after a mission, it wouldn't take as much hard thinking, cause there wouldn't be as many cobwebs."]

129:21:25 Allen: Right on, Dave. We copy that, and I think we're going that direction. Sounds good. We got a couple more general questions and then a comment about the 16-millimeter camera, and after that we're going to be closing up shop down here. One more geology question. Do you have any feel for whether the frags around the small fresh craters that you've called out to us are, in general, pieces of the projectile or do you think they're ejecta frags? Over.

129:22:06 Scott: Well, Joe, we're pretty sure they're projectile frags, and that's one (type of crater) we really need to stop and sample.

129:22:12 Allen: Agreed, Dave. We think the same thing here. A quick comment on your 16-millimeter film. We think that that camera, the DAC, is still in good shape. That Mag Charlie was a bad magazine, and we think you can help us out on the other magazines left, tomorrow, by advancing the film with your finger just to make sure it's moving freely in the magazine before you clip it onto the camera itself.

129:22:45 Scott: That's a grand analysis, Joe. We're ...

129:22:46 Allen: And that's something you can do while you're packing the ETB. Can do it tonight. Over.

129:22:56 Scott: Rog, Joe. That's a good analysis. We took Mag Charlie and tried to run it with our fingers and it won't run. It's absolutely jammed right in the beginning. And we'll run the others through tonight to make sure they'll work.

[See the discussion following 120:36:40.]

129:23:38 Scott: Okay, he's got his pencil out. Go ahead.

[Jones - "There were, in fact, forms with blank spaces? And did you mean a literal 'pencil'."]

[Scott - "And pens. I've still got my pencils. Most of the time I think we used Pentels, which were the first felt-tipped pens. In fact, we used those back on Gemini."]

[Jones - "Capillary feed rather than gravity feed."]

[Scott - "Every time that we need to write down something that the ground reads up to us, there is a block in the flight plan to record that data, or in the checklist or whatever is appropriate at that time. You don't just get a blank piece of paper; it's pre-planned. If we did have a problem and had to lift off, we knew exactly where to go to get the information because it was always in the same place."]

129:24:19 Irwin: Okay, Joe, beginning on 28: 132:17:54, 134:16:02, 136:14:10, and 138:12:19.

129:24:34 Allen: Readback's correct. Jim, you've been doing good work all day.

129:24:43 Irwin: Well, we're trying. (Pause)

129:24:55 Allen: Roger. And, Dave and Jim, one last comment, which we're pretty sure you're aware of. We think we're looking at an EVA tomorrow that'll run about six and a half hours, about the same thing we did today. And we do have a few miscellaneous (ALSEP) items to clean up, most likely at the end of the traverse, so it's liable to be a little shorter distancewise, but otherwise, other than that, it'll be more or less unchanged. Over.

129:25:26 Scott: Okay, very good, Joe. By the way, did you notice that I had a higher O2 usage all the way through, and is that why we're looking at six and a half instead of seven hours?

129:25:37 Allen: That's correct, Dave. We've got very good data points on you. It's a steady curve, and the O2 rate is just a little bit higher than we predicted. From the looks of it, you've really been doing some work up there.

129:25:54 Scott: Well, do you have any idea why there's a rate? Perhaps maybe a (suit) zipper could be lubricated or something like that?

129:26:03 Allen: Dave, this is a metabolic curve, plain and simple. It's not a leak rate at all.

[Jones - "What does Joe mean by 'metabolic rate'? That, when you were working harder, the use rate went up more than expected?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, I discussed that when I was down in Houston (being interviewed about the suits). Let me recall if I can...I don't know how they plan the metabolic rate but, obviously, the amount of "work" work that you do determines the amount of oxygen you consume. So they were looking at the consumption of the oxygen, I guess, relative to the heart rate and everything else. And that gives you the metabolic rate and the amount of oxygen you use; and I guess the conclusion was it wasn't a leak, it was usage. And even when I was down in Houston in March, they didn't have any reason. And I don't know where they got the predictions in the beginning, anyway. Somebody must have predicted what the rate would be - obviously, because the suits were designed for seven hours. And we ran a lot of tests in the suits. And now you find that the suits don't produce seven hours, so that means either their prediction and design was wrong or, for some reason, more is being used than the predictions. I don't think that ever got resolved."]

[Pre-flight assumptions about oxygen use rates necessarily were based on estimates of the work load and suit leak rates. These estimates were subject to considerable uncertainty, a fact reflected in changes in the estimation from mission to mission. For Apollo 12, the pre-flight estimation was 0.25 lbs/hr while the actual rates were 0.186 lbs/hr for Pete Conrad and 0.189/hr for Al Bean. For Apollo 14, the assumed use rate was decreased to 0.234 lbs/hr and the actuals were 0.166 lbs/hr for Al Shepard and 0.211 for Ed Mitchell. For Apollo 15, the assumed use rate was lowered to 0.165 lbs/hr, primarily because of the substantial amount of time Dave and Jim were planning to spend driving. However, the actual figures were 0.204 lbs/hr for Dave and 0.174 lbs/hr for Jim. Although Dave may have had a higher leak rate, the simple fact that he was very active during all of the EVAs was undoubtedly an important factor in his higher-than-expected rate. For Apollo 16, the pre-flight estimate remained unchanged at 0.165 lbs/hr, and the actual values were 0.173 for John Young, 0.187 for Charlie Duke. For Apollo 17, the mission planners raised the pre-flight estimate to 0.19 lbs/hr and the actuals were 0.191 for Gene Cernan, and 0.198 for Jack Schmitt. In hindsight, Dave's rate is not significantly different from Jack Schmitt's, while Jim's is not significantly different from John Young's and the 'problem', clearly, lies in prediction uncertainties.]

129:26:15 Allen: We don't recommend that - (joking) although the Surgeon's working on it right now. The numbers though, actually that we're coming up with, Dave, is about...The two numbers are 1150 Btu's per hour, working; and about 700 Btu's, riding. Over.

129:26:41 Scott: Okay; that's a little higher on the riding than I think we expected, but it's sort of a sporty job to drive this thing to make sure we don't run into the craters; and if you can get that front steering figured out, it'll sure help. (Pause)

129:26:59 Slayton: Get six and a half hours like you did today, guys. Nobody's going to complain.

129:27:06 Scott: Okay. Roger. (Long Pause)

[Scott - "There is an excellent book written by a guy named Baker in England. It's almost a coffee-table book. But it's almost all words. He put it out in the mid-70's. It weighs a ton. But it is really good. He has gone through Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. All the flights. And, in the back he has tables of the quantitative information related to each flight. Just an excellent source."]

[Journal Contributor David Harland notes that the book is "The History of Manned Spaceflight" by David Baker and published in 1981 by New Cavendish Books, London. Harland agrees that " it is, indeed, excellent in all respects".]

[Scott - "One of the things I found in the interview I did in Houston on the suits and backpacks is that the guys on the early missions didn't spent much time with the suits and the backpacks. I mean, Neil and Buzz had one time out(side), not very long. And then the big jump when you get to the J missions. So our experience on J missions was very different from the early missions. Pete had a little bit more, 14 had a little bit more. But then the big jump. So, when you start talking about the impressions of the life-support system, your conclusions would be quite different depending on how much time you spent in it. I would think. And how much time you're prepared to spend in it. Those quantitative things help you compare the results of the EVAs. (Similarly), if you talk about Neil and Buzz and you try to compare their geology output with Gene and Jack's geology output, it would be unfair, because the first and the last missions were so different. But a lot of people are trying to make that comparison of six missions when, (in fact), they're six different missions."]

[Jones - "The missions are each part of a sequence which, itself, is a very important fact. For 11, the EVA was an afterthought; and that was entirely appropriate for that mission. Psychologically - and programatically - it was necessary to do an EVA. If you're going to another planet for the first time, you have to get out and walk around on it for a little bit and you'd better pick up some rocks because the scientists will kill you if you don't. Indeed, I think that, during the Apollo 11 review we did, Buzz was a bit frustrated that I didn't know the flight details the way I know the EVA detail; but my interest is in the EVA."]

[Scott - "You don't need to know the flight details."]

[Jones - "I don't need to know what Verb 63 does, because that's specific to the LM and when people go back, they're going to be using an entirely different spacecraft-operations philosophy and a different spacecraft. And, for Pete and Al, as well, the flight itself, the pinpoint landing was the focus of the mission. They did a longer EVA and they demonstrated more capability, which was an important part of the progression in being able to work on the Moon. But it's not until you get to the J missions that the focus is the EVA rather than the landing. The ability to land had already been demonstrated by the time you guys got down. It still wasn't easy..."]

[Scott - "But it wasn't the point (of the mission). I think it's important to point all that out."]

129:27:41 Scott: Okay, Joe. You did a superfine job today, and we sure appreciate you keeping track of us and keep us going in a straight line. We'll be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

129:27:50 Allen: Yes, sir, wouldn't miss it for the world.

[Long Comm Break]

129:32:38 Parker: And, Falcon, we'd like biomed, right, please.

[Houston wants to look at telemetry from Jim's sensors. Biomed left would give them Dave's telemetry.]

129:32:50 Parker: Roger. Yes. We understand.

[Very Long Comm Break. During this half hour, Dave and Jim are probably finishing their meal.]

130:00:23 Scott: Go ahead, Houston.

130:00:24 Parker: Roger. You got 5 minutes before you have to turn the lights out (by raising the window shades), and we'd like Suit Gas Diverter (Valve) to Cabin, Cabin Gas Return (Valve) to Auto. And the doctors would like a crew status report, can you believe.

130:00:41 Scott: Okay; we'll come back to you just for that later (garbled).

[Very Long Comm Break. As indicated in the following conversation, Dave and Jim are performing the PLSS oxygen and water recharge procedures on checklist pages 5-5 and 5-6. As is detailed in the commentary following 140:43:49, in order to do both at the same time, they have tilted Jim's PLSS and, as a result, don't get all of the air out of Jim's water tank. After the rest period, they will have to do another, unplanned recharge in order to get rid of the air bubble.]

130:31:59 Scott: Go ahead, Houston.

130:32:01 Parker: Rog. We noticed over the last half hour or so, a 25-pound drop in the water quantity. We're wondering if you guys have been doing something. Know anything about that you could clue us in on?

130:32:16 Scott: Rog. We just recharged both PLSSs.

130:32:19 Parker: Rog. Was that in the last hour and a half?

130:32:24 Scott: Rog. Just in about the last, oh, 30, 40 minutes.

130:32:28 Parker: Okay. Copy.

130:32:33 Scott: Does that fill the gap for you? (No answer)

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Each of the PLSSs holds about 12 pounds of water.]

[Scott - "I'm saying 'What are you telling us? You just told us we had a big problem, by asking us that question.' Because it's always nice to have the guys on the ground tell us we don't have a problem. If they do think we have a problem, then we ought to start doing something. We're sensitive to those kind of questions, even if they're off-hand questions."]

[Jones - "And it's not fair to leave you hanging."]

[Scott - "It's an uncertainty. You don't want those; and, obviously, if you've got a problem, you want to go work on it now before it becomes a worse problem."]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I had the impression we had more time there. We were moving pretty slowly. We could have easily got some of that recharge while we were eating, which we did later."]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "We could have combined some things, as we did do later. We were sort of going slow, feeling our way around the cabin, trying to get settled down to some sort of system to control the dirt and stay organized."]

130:53:52 Parker: Go ahead, Hadley.

130:53:57 Scott: Okay. We've got a crew status report for you.

130:54:04 Parker: Go ahead.

130:54:10 Scott: Okay. No medication; and the PRDs on CDR is 5019, and the LMP, 8023. Both PLSSs took their recharge well, and I think they're ready to go for tomorrow. And I guess we're done for the day, so we're going to roll up the (window) shades (as per checklist pages 5-7 and 5-8). (Pause)

130:54:42 Parker: Roger, Dave.

[The following comment relates to the risks the crews were willing to take, as symbolized by the Personnel Radiation Dosimeters.]

[Scott - "Sights, smells, and sounds are different on the Moon than the Earth. We've talked about the smell of gunpowder in the cabin. And the sound taking off. Yeah, it's a totally different environment. And the radiation environment, which is another interesting thing. Man, everybody is really turned on about rad-hard things these days. And I don't think we had a lot of that discussion in those days, even though we were during a period of pretty high solar activity. In fact, we were peaked in the cycle; and I don't remember a discussion comparable to today's where everything's got to be rad-hard and it's a big deal. They bought our watches off the shelf. I don't think they were rad-hard. And I don't know how much protection we actually had."]

[Jones - "Not much."]

[Scott - "Was the Rover rad-hard? Because, now, when people talk about sending objects to the Moon, one big requirement is that they have to be rad-hard. And I keep thinking, is that another overkill? Especially things like little Rovers which are only going to be there for one lunar day. How much rad-hard do you have to have?"]

[Jones - "Something's that's going to be sitting there for a few years, you'd want it to be rad-hard. Well, you'd want to stick it underground for starters."]

[Scott - "Or, if you're going to get some big solar flare - which you probably don't know you're going to get...]

[Journal Contributor Mike Poliszuk, who works at Naval Air Systems Command, adds in a 9 October 2000 message: "Part of today's greater concern with radiation hardness may be due to the expanded use of microprocessors. In order to improve performance the chips have to be made with increasingly smaller feature sizes. As the feature sizes get smaller they are more susceptible to getting corrupted by radiation. Thus either the chip or the case around it has to be hardened.]

[Scott - "This (subject) just occurred to me in recent discussions about all these things having to be rad-hard. I know we had our personal dosimeters, and I wonder, are those the levels (300 millirad exposure during the entire mission, mostly due to passage through the van Allen belts) that give you great concern, or requires focused protection?"]

[Jones - "It depends on the level of risk you are willing to accept. And, for whatever reason, I don't think we are as willing to accept risks these days, as a society. To hell with what the pilots are willing to accept. If the media and the public won't accept it, it isn't going to happen."]

[We then looked in the Mission Report for the radiation exposure experienced by the Apollo 15 crew and saw that it was comparable with allowable exposures by radiation workers and "well below the threshold of detectable medical effects."]

[Scott - "This has to do with what we do next. And, as you say, we are no longer risk takers. Are we boxing ourselves into an intolerable canyon where we can't get out because we have so many requirements and so much protection and it gets to the point where it costs too much money? If I have to make everything rad-hard, then you're never going to go everywhere. It was not a big deal, as I recall. Did my helmet have a lot of lead in the top to protect me? I don't think it did. But, now, if you send a robot to the Moon, by god, everything had better be rad-hard. And people spend a lot of money on that."]

[Dave then switched to the subject of conservatism in other aspects of space operations.]

[Scott - "People are putting a lot of conservatism in for orbit-maintenance propellant (in the context of operations in low-Earth-orbit, in lunar orbit, or in Mars orbit) because of all these maintenance maneuvers you're going to have to make to stay in the proper orbit. I don't remember that being a big deal, after the mascon thing was resolved early on. I happened to be talking to our (Apollo 15) Flight Director (Gerry Griffin), and I said, 'Gerry, do you remember any orbit maintenance to keep the orbit right? I don't remember that.' And he said, 'Well, I think maybe we sent you guys up a couple of maneuvers but less than a foot per second. And we were there for six days. But, today, you talk to people and they put lots of propellant in to maintain an orbit. Maybe it has to be more precise. But we had to be pretty precise to find the landing spot."]

[Jones - "And to make sure Al was in the right place to pick you guys up."]

[Scott - "Sure. Today's mindset just seems to be more and more restrictive, more conservative, riskless - to (the point) where you're never going to do anything. Or maybe we were just all stupid. Right? Like rendezvous. Today, it's all got to be closed-loop, autonomous, precise. Where ours was sort of back of the envelope. And I've been asked, 'Boy, didn't you guys worry about rendezvous on the lunar mission?' No, not really. And we nailed it. And Al could come get us if we didn't."]

[Jones - "You basically had to launch in the same plane that he was in and at the right time, within a second or three. And that was it."]

[Scott - "Yeah. I've also been looking at that. And I went through some of the old rendezvous documents and found that, on 15, during our training Jim and I had this time problem on our (lunar) work day. And part of the last work day (after EVA-3) was the typical lunar rendezvous, which took, I guess, four maneuvers. And Jim and I worked in the simulator to cut it down. Instead of four maneuvers, we cut it to two maneuvers, because we wanted to save two hours, maybe one rev difference. We figured by shortening the rendezvous, we could save two hours of our work time. And we took that from the simulator to the mission planning and analysis guys and they liked it and, in fact, they liked it so much that they used it on 14. So everybody went from the four impulse to the two impulse rendezvous which, in the beginning of Apollo, wouldn't have been heard of, because you'd never make it. And, yet, I think we all nailed it. I don't think anybody had any real problem with rendezvous."]

["And, yet, today the Shuttle has problems with their rendezvous. They've almost blown a couple. They've had serious problems because they've changed the rendezvous procedures. Shuttle rendezvous technique and procedure is different from Apollo. It's like, 'Wow, guys, where are you all going?' In fact, the story goes, when they started the development of the Shuttle rendezvous, John Young was in a meeting and said, 'Why don't we just do it like we did on Gemini and Apollo?' 'Oh, no, no, no. You can't do it like that. The Shuttle's different.' And they swept John to the back of the room, again. Anyway, this discussion drags out a lot of stuff, and that's why it's useful."]

["We may be drifting down paths and roads that, in whatever number of years when somebody wants to go back to the Moon, they won't be able to; and they'll have to go back to this to find out how it was done. Because they won't be able to do it with the conservative mindset and all that. They get too precise and too mathematical and they get afraid to do any serious engineering; whereas a great deal of what we did was serious engineering. I mean, engineers got in there and they made engineering judgments and built things that worked. And it may well be that, with the mindset and technology in 50 years - or 150 years - it won't be possible. And they'll have to go back to this and discipline themselves to throw all the conservatism and rad-hard and precision and whatever, 'cause it won't work. And go back to the stuff that, at least in one program, worked pretty well."]

["This is a sidelight but, these days, every time I run into something, I wonder if it's me or...And that's why this (mission review) is good, 'cause I'd like to go back and see what we really did. Like the radiation stuff. I say to myself, 'What are these guys talking all this rad-hard stuff? I must have missed something back in Apollo."]

[Jones - "Well, it must be easy enough to calculate the probability of losing a piece of equipment if you don't rad-hard it and compare the cost of all your rad-hard efforts. And I suspect the answer is that you don't gain a lot. 'Cause you waste a lot of money, and you make things heavier and more expensive."]

130:55:04 Scott: My! No, except that, when we got in, that little plastic connector on the - yeah - on the bacteria filter was broken and there was water running out of it.

130:55:22 Parker: Roger; understand. More or less a steady stream?

130:55:27 Scott: Yup. That's about right.

130:55:31 Parker: Roger. Copy. And I guess we're steady now, and you can go to sleep on that note. And we will promise to try and not wake you up (early) this morning.

130:55:43 Scott: Well, if you see something that you'd like to look at, we'd rather have you wake us up.

130:55:47 Parker: Yeah, I'm sure. (Long Pause) Okay, Dave. I think we've said all we want to say on that, and I don't think there's anything else you can do about it at the moment, and we'll just let it go.

130:56:21 Scott: Okay. What does that do to our profile on the water?

[Dave is asking if the loss will impact their ability to do EVA-3.]

130:56:37 Scott: Okay, fine. See you in the morning. Thank you.

130:56:41 Parker: Good night.

130:56:45 Scott: Good night.

[The LM water tanks were loaded with a total of 496 pounds at the start of the mission. Planned usage was 391 pounds, with the remainder constituting a reserve. Actual usage will be 419 pounds. The estimated 25-pound loss due to the leak is a significant fraction of the 105 pound reserve, but not enough to cause cancellation of EVA-3.]

[In a 1996 letter, Dave noted that no one, he and Jim included, seems to have asked where the 25 pounds of water went.]

[The following is taken from the 1989 mission review I did with Jim Irwin.]

[Jones - "Let me ask you a question I asked Jack. When you got back in the LM, were you conscious at all that the Earth had rotated during the EVA? Let's see, there was an overhead, rendezvous window over Dave's position. Was there one over on your side? (No) So you wouldn't have seen the Earth at all when you were inside the spacecraft."]

[Irwin - "I don't ever remember looking at it. You would have thought we'd looked up, even though it was a small window. And that would have been right over where my head was when I was sleeping. I could have almost looked up and moved my head a little bit and have seen the Earth. I don't know why I never did that."]

[Jones - "I was wondering if anybody was conscious of the rotation of it and using it as a clock. Jack said he did, on occasion. He noticed how bright Australia was, for instance, with the deserts and all."]

[Irwin - "I never looked at it. Only a few glances at it, because it was difficult to look straight up, unless you had something to hold on to."]

[Jones - "Like the ladder, for instance."]

[Irwin - "Yeah. When I came down (at the start of EVA-1) I grabbed the ladder (to keep from falling) and, in doing that, I looked straight up and there was the Earth, directly overhead. It was a startling sight. But then, I was trying to catch my balance. So I didn't look at it other than that one glance. But Dave looked at it sometimes, because he was positioning the (high-gain) antenna for the TV. So he had to sight on the Earth every time we stopped the Rover. I just wish I'd taken more time to look at the Earth. (Chuckling) I would have liked to have just stretched out on the surface and watched the Earth for a while, but I never had that opportunity."]

[Jones - "When you did glance at it, did it really seem four times the size that the Moon looks from here? I mean, there are several people who mention how small it looks."]

[Irwin - "I was impressed that it was so small. I usually go through a visual experiment (when giving public talks). I usually have a marble in my briefcases, and at arms length, the Earth is about that size. And the people I talk to are also amazed that it appeared so small. So I ask them, 'How large is the Moon?' And some people consider it the size of a baseball."]

[I have relatively long arms and could get a marble about 65 cm from my eyes. At that distance, a half-cm, pea-sized ball subtends a half-degree while a 2 cm ball subtends two degrees. If the marbles of Jim's youth were similar to the ones I owned 15 years later, Jim is talking about what we called a shooter. Ordinary marbles were about 1 cm across.]

 

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