EVA-2 Close-out

Wake-up for EVA-3

 

Post-EVA-2 Activities and Goodnight

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1997 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library.
Video credits in the Video Library.
Except where noted, audio clips by Roland Speth.
Last revised 21 January 2015.

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[John and Charlie are now doing the steps on Surface Checklist page 5-1 although, in fact, they are reading the Prep & Post Card which has the same steps. Because of the landing delay and the decision to do a rest period before EVA-1, they are about 18 hours behind the times listed in the checklist. The NASa PAO commentator mentions that, although the signal is coming thru the 210-foot dish at Goldstone, it is very weak due to the fact that, in the effort to conserve on-board power, the signal is being transmitted with one of the LM omni antennas.]

150:01:28 Young: Okay.

150:01:33 Duke: "Dump valve goes to Auto."

150:01:35 Young: Okay. This valve goes open...

150:01:36 Duke: ... going on.

150:01:38 Young: Okay. I believe I've got a water flag.

150:01:41 Duke: Okay.

150:01:45 Young: It's probably because we turned the water off.

150:01:47 Duke: Yeah. Okay, go ahead.

[The PLSS warning system is telling them that there is no feedwater flow into the sublimator, a confirmation that the warning system is working.]

150:01:51 Duke: It is.

150:01:52 Young: "Circuit breaker (panel) 16: Cabin Repress to close."

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150:01:55 Duke: Coming closed. Mark.

[The sound of repressurization becomes audible.]

[Jones - "What did the cabin do when you repressurized it? It was a pretty lightweight vehicle. Did it pop and flex?"]

[Duke - "No, you didn't hear anything. The only thing you could tell was the gauges. You know you could hear it - pssssss, you know the oxygen going in - and you just watched the cabin pressure gauge and it started climbing."]

[Jones - "And the walls didn't do anything."]

[Duke - "Well, I'm sure they did. I mean, they popped and they got firm and there was probably some seating of the hatch, you know, and things like that. But I don't remember any noises. I know, when it's unpressurized, the Lunar Module was sort of like a beer can, it felt like. But, when it got pressurized, it got very firm. But it wasn't like a crumpled beer can that crinkled out; it just got firm. You could hear and you could watch the pressure gauge rise, and that was about it."]

150:02:02 Duke: Okay. I've got a water flag, too.

150:02:06 Young: I've got a water flag and an O flag. Cabin press is up to 1.

150:02:11 Duke: Houston, we're repressing.

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150:02:12 England: Okay, we see it.

150:02:15 Young: Verify Press(ure) Regulators A and B coming to Cabin, Charlie.

150:02:18 Duke: Coming to Cabin.

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150:02:22 Young: "PLSS O2, Off, at cabin greater than 2-1/2."

150:02:29 Duke: We got 2-1/2 yet?

150:02:30 Young: No. I'll tell you when.

150:02:31 Duke: Okay.

150:02:33 Young: Okay, Mark.

150:02:34 Duke: Okay, I'll get yours. (Pause) I think. There it is. Yours is off. (Pause)

150:02:49 Young: I think yours is off. Let me try it again.

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[The Public Affairs commentator announces an EVA duration of 7 hours 23 minutes 26 seconds.]

150:02:57 Duke: Good.

150:02:59 Young: (Garbled) is off.

150:03:00 Duke: I've got a press flag.

150:03:03 Young: Okay, "Cabin warning light off. Verify cabin pressure stable at 4.6 to 5."

150:03:10 Duke: It's there. Yeah, it is. It's there.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 10 min 31 sec )

150:03:13 Young: Looks like 4.6. What a contraption!

150:03:15 Duke: Isn't that amazing?

150:03:16 Young: That's something else. (Lost under Tony)

150:03:17 England: Okay. You guys had a 7-hour 23-minute EVA.

150:03:23 Young: Beautiful.

150:03:26 Duke: That's super! That's a lot of fun. Let's go back out.

150:03:31 England: (Hearty Laugh) Tomorrow, Charlie, tomorrow.

150:03:36 Duke: I mean it. I feel great.

150:03:39 Duke: (To John) PLSS O2 Off?

150:03:40 Young: PLSS O2 off and...Okay, "Cabin warning light on. Verify cabin pressure stable at 4.6 to 5. Use purge valve to depress PGA as req'd (sic)".

[John playfully pronounced "req'd" (meaning "required") as "rickered".]

150:03:52 Young: Okay, "Post-EVA System configuration, 15 minutes."

150:03:58 Duke: Okay, "verify the EVA CBs".

150:04:02 Young: Yep.

[They will now verify that the circuit breakers shown as in white ("white dots") on Surface 1-4 and 1-5 are open and the ones shown as black are closed.]

150:04:08 Young: Now where do you see that one? Okay, Suit Fan 2 and Suit Fan Delta...

150:04:11 Duke: That's right after ...

150:04:12 Young: Okay, power-saving circuit breakers are out, and the old others are out.

[John is confirming that the breakers are still out of the systems that were powered down to save power because of the late landing and extended surface operations.]

150:04:24 Young: Why do those circuit breakers go in and out on you like that?

150:04:28 Duke: I don't know. (Laughing) Why do we do that every time (we get ready to go out and come back in).

[The obvious reason is that, while they are wearing the PLSSs, they can accidentally knock some of the breakers.]

150:04:43 Duke: Okay! (Long Pause) Must admit my finger's a little tired, though. Just a skosh. Could you turn up your A-9 numerics lighting when you get a chance, John? Let's look at the caution panel. Okay. That's good. We're in good shape. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "You also had quite a bit of forearm fatigue after that first EVA. How about here?"]

[Duke - "Same. (And) my fingers were a little bit sore. They did get sore and (I had) the forearm fatigue, just like the first EVA."]

150:05:56 Young: Yep.

150:05:56 England: And, John. That OPS latch on Charlie's OPS may be hot to touch since that cover was up.

150:06:07 Young: Let me see. (Pause) Well...(Pause) Okay. (Pause) Okay; It's cool as a cucumber. (Laughing) Thanks for your thermal-dynamicist's advice.

150:06:43 England: So much for a thermal analysis.

150:06:47 Young: Yeah. (Laughing) It's about 72 degrees F on the top of that thing.

150:06:52 Duke: (To John) Okay. Go ahead.

150:06:56 Young: It's hard working from absolute zero.

150:07:02 Duke: Okay, "Descent Water's Open. Remove..." We're right here.

150:07:07 Young: Yeah.

[They probably removed the helmets while John was joking with Tony.]

150:07:10 Young: Water's open; "remove purge valves; stow in purse". (Garbled)

150:07:15 Duke: I'm not either. (Pause) That (EVA) was fun.

150:07:27 Young: Sure was, Charlie.

150:07:28 Duke: Go.

150:07:30 Young: Okay.

150:07:31 Duke: Okay, "disconnect OPS O2 hose". Turn around and I'll get yours.

150:07:36 Young: Okay, I got yours. (Garbled) (Long Pause)

150:07:55 Duke: (To himself) The outboard one, huh?. Okay, yours is loose.

150:07:59 Young: Okay.

150:08:01 Duke: Okay, "disconnect LM O2 hoses, red to blue and blue to red; PGA (diverter valve), horizontal. Suit Flow; PLSS Pump, Off; and Fan, Off." (Pause) Wrong switch. Okay, that's. We don't...We'll bypass that.

150:08:19 Young: Okay.

[By putting the PLSS diverter valve in the horizontal position, they will get some oxygen flow into the suit torso once they get connected to the ECS.]

[Charlie is probably trying to turn around enough that he can reach the Suit Isolation Valves on the front of the ECS cabinet.]

150:08:30 Duke: Wait, wait, wait...Oh, yeah, we did. Not that one. We sure do. I was thinking about EVA-3. Okay. (Pause)

[A comparison of the procedures on Surface 5-1 with the post-EVA-3 procedures on 7-1 and with the post-jettison procedures on 7-4 does not suggest an explanation for Charlie's statement. Evidently, they have not properly stowed their OPS oxygen hoses. There is no discussion of the skipped step in the Technical Debrief.]

150:09:18 Duke: Houston, the lunar dust smells like gunpowder. (Pause)

150:09:27 England: We copy that, Charlie.

150:09:31 Duke: Really, really a strong odor to it.

150:09:36 England: Yeah, remember on hammering on rocks, fresh rock powder does have a strong odor.

150:09:47 Duke: I hope it's not the (LM) oxygen (supply) that has the peculiar odor. But it goes away after a little while but...

150:09:53 Young: Well, you can bet this Moon has been hammered on. That's for sure.

150:09:58 Duke: But it is really a strong smell.

150:10:03 Young: Boy, I'll tell you.

[Jones - "Do you have any idea what you meant by 'Hope it's not the oxygen'?"]

[Duke - "Well, it could be an oxygen contamination and, when we repressurized, if it was (ECS) oxygen contamination, the odor could have been in the oxygen and not from the dust. So we were hoping, you know, we didn't have any contaminated oxygen."]

150:10:11 Duke: Okay. Stand by. (Pause)

[As per Surface 4-5, they had put the Cabin Gas Return valve into the Egress position prior to the EVA and hadn't planned to change it until they got to the last paragraph on Surface 5-4. Houston may be trying to clean some of the dust out of the air that is producing the gunpowder smell.]

150:10:33 England: That's affirmative. Push-Cabin.

[Charlie is asking if he should change to Suit Gas Diverter Valve, too. Prior to the EVA, they put the Suit Gas Diverter valve to Pull-Egress. As indicated in the accompanying ECS schematic, by opening the Cabin Gas Return Valve, Charlie was letting oxygen flow from the cabin into the ECS. To complete the circuit, he needed to open the Suit Gas Diverter Valve to let oxygen flow from the ECS into the Cabin. Had he not opened it, oxygen still would have flowed into the cabin, but by going into the suits and then out the neckrings.]

150:10:48 Young: Well, it's my fault.

150:10:51 Duke: (Pointing at the Prep & Post Card) Okay, we got this, we got that, (garbled)

150:10:54 Young: (Garbled)

150:10:57 Duke: You're cutting out now. "Disconnect PLSS H2O from PGA; connect LM."

150:11:04 Young: There you go.

150:11:05 Duke: That sounds like a good deal.

150:11:06 Young: (Eager to get cooling) Now that's just one step right there.

150:11:08 Duke: The trouble is, yours is back under the rock box right now. (John laughs) There you go.

[This statement confirms that Charlie put the rock box on the Ascent Engine cover when John passed it in and hasn't yet moved it out of the way.]

150:11:35 Young: (Hearty Laugh)

[This is a reference to John's sneaking up on a boulder at Station 9 to collect a Contact Soil Sample. See the discussion following 147:57:04 in the Station 9 portion of the transcript.]

[This is a reference to one of two sampler heads John used in the experiment.]

[Jones - "It seems to me that you two had a tremendous amount of fun doing this. And I think most of the crews did. Neil and Buzz, maybe because of the pressure of the moment or their personalities didn't joke and laugh and marvel at it quite so much. From my point of view, it's a little bit of a shame that that was the case on Apollo 11 because a lot of people only watched 11 and never became aware of how much fun it was."]

[Duke - "Oh, yeah. It was a lot of fun. We just enjoyed ourselves and we wanted everybody to share in that. And that's just the way John and I trained and our personalities were that way and we kidded back and forth a lot. He's really a funny guy and he likes to have fun. I mean, you first meet him and you think he's dead serious, dead pan. When you get to know him, he's really a fun-loving guy. He's got a great sense of humor. And I like that; so we just worked real well together."]

[Jones - "Do you look back on it as fun experience?"]

[Duke - "Oh, yeah. I don't believe I could have flown with anybody that I had more fun with than John. On the backup (crew) for 17, we would have had a great crew; it would have been John and me and Stu Roosa. Stu's like we are and it would have just been a ball. We didn't ever get to fly together, but we had fun training."]

150:11:47 Duke: Have you got yours hooked up yet? Your water?

150:11:50 Young: Yep.

150:11:51 Duke: Okay, I gave us some water (by briefly closing the LCG Pump breaker).

[Next, they will get hooked up to LM comm as per Surface 5-2.]

150:12:00 Duke: Okay, did you get your pump Off (as per the bottom of Surface 5-1)? Your fan and pump.

150:12:02 Young: (Garbled) (Long Pause)

150:12:59 Duke: Okay. Audio, Close.

150:13:02 Young: Okay, Charlie.

150:13:05 Duke: Ready for the audio check? (Long Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 2 min 33 sec )

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31.]

150:13:41 Young: Okay. A to Receive; B to Off; Mode, ICS/PTT (Long Pause)

150:14:31 Duke: Houston, how do you read? Over.

150:14:34 England: Five by, Charlie.

150:14:38 Duke: Okay. Thank you.

[Long Comm Break]

[At this point, NASA Public Affairs switches their audio feed to the conversation between CMP Ken Mattingly and CSM CapCom Hank Hartsfield and will tape any conversations with the LM crew. As of November 2005, I do not have that audio.]

[Ed Mitchell, the Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot, takes over at CapCom. Tony England has probably gone to the Backroom to discuss the scheduled EVA debriefing. ]

150:23:01 Mitchell: Go ahead.

150:23:05 Duke: Okay. My initial O2 recharge's complete and I got 95 percent.

150:23:17 Mitchell: Roger; 95, Charlie.

150:23:27 Duke: Ed, how are you doing today?

150:23:30 Mitchell: Pretty good, Charlie. And it went real great. We're real pleased down here.

150:23:38 Duke: We're happy as a clam. We just had a great time, having fun as well as the work. (Long Pause)

150:24:12 Young: You know, Ed, when we got up on top of that mountain and I'd been driving up it all the way, and I turned around and looked down, I thought, man, you've just nearly bit off more than you can chew here.

150:24:24 Mitchell: Trying to cut through. You've got a lot of hash and I couldn't read you very well.

150:24:31 Young: Just as well.

150:24:36 Duke: That's his beard sticking in the mike.

150:24:45 Mitchell: Well, maybe you're starting late, but you'll catch up in 3 or 4 months with a beard.

150:24:53 Duke: Don't rub it in. (Pause)

150:25:09 Duke: Hey, Ed, how about a little news from you. Anything going on down there that's interesting?

150:25:16 Mitchell: Is that news you're asking for, Charlie?

150:25:21 Duke: Yes, sir.

150:25:22 Mitchell: Okay. Stand by. We'll see if we can get you something.

[Comm Break]

[No answer. Long Comm Break]

[Houston has LOS from the Command Module and switches back to the LM audio, starting at 150:31:52, below.]

150:31:17 Young: Go ahead, Houston.

150:31:20 Mitchell: Okay. We're running down some news reports for you right now. And we're not pushing, John, but we would like to stay fairly close to timeline so you can get plenty of sleep tonight. You're going to have a hard day tomorrow.

150:31:36 Young: Wait a minute, they said we had 2 hours extra tonight where we could just sit around and talk to each other.

[This is another reference to the two hours Houston said, at 128:18:33, would be added to the timeline prior to the start of the upcoming rest period.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 5 min 36 sec )

150:31:52 Young: Neither do we. We were going to use it to sleep with. Or at least take it easy on fixing things up.

[John is saying that he would prefer to use the extra two hours to go through the remaining procedures at a leisurely pace.]

150:32:10 Duke: He said we're gonna use it for sleeping, Ed.

150:32:12 Mitchell: Great. Just what we wanted.

[Comm Break]

[In the following transmission, Charlie reports the OPS tank pressures as per the last paragraph on Surface 5-2.]

150:33:38 Mitchell: Read you. (Long Pause)

150:33:56 Young: Houston, we've finished the initial PLSS recharge. Charlie had 95 (percent) and I had 92. Over.

150:34:07 Mitchell: Roger, John. Say again your percentage.

150:34:10 Young: Houston...(Stops to listen) 92 percent.

150:34:16 Mitchell: We copy, John.

[Long Comm Break]

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31. A change-of-shift is underway with Gene Kranz and the White Team taking over.]

150:42:52 Mitchell: Orion; Houston.

150:42:58 Duke: Go ahead, Ed.

150:42:59 Mitchell: Well, if you're in a position to where you want to listen, I've got a little sports news for you. If you'd like to hold off, let me know when (you'd like to hear the news).

150:43:10 Duke: Oh, go ahead. We'll listen, Ed. We're just changing out the batteries and stuff for the PLSS (as per Surface 5-3).

150:43:20 Mitchell: Okay. Right now, we've got New York (Knicks professional basketball team) won 3 to 1 over the (Boston) Celtics in their series. The (Los Angeles) Lakers have finished up theirs, 4 to 2 over Milwaukee (Bucks). And are standing by to see the outcome of the rest of the New York and Celtics games. And the (Houston) Astros (professional baseball team) have finished up 4 in a row today.

150:43:46 Duke: Won or lost?

150:43:50 Mitchell: Now that wasn't a kind question. Won, of course.

150:43:55 Duke: Super. Great.

150:43:57 Young: There goes Charlie's tickets.

[Duke - "(Laughing) We used to get free tickets to the Astros. They wouldn't be very pleased when I said 'lost'."]

150:44:18 Duke: Okay; stand by.

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[Very Long Comm Break]

[At about 150:57, PAO takes down the live feed and records LM comm for later playback.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 13 min 39 sec )

150:58:19 Mitchell: Orion; Houston. Would you give us a clue as to where you are in the checklist?

150:58:27 Duke: Okay, we just finished changing out my LiOH and we're stowing the PLSS O2 and the OPS is removed.

150:58:34 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Charlie's report indicates that they have completed their work on John's PLSS and are about halfway through the procedures, shown in the left-hand column of Surface 5-3, for Charlie's PLSS.]

150:59:29 Mitchell: Go ahead.

150:59:30 Duke: Okay, Ed, we had one small...(In) looking over the gear here, we had one small casualty. John's OPS antenna has about 2 inches broken off the top of it. That's the only thing we can see wrong with the gear. Over.

150:59:48 Mitchell: How much, Charlie?

150:59:52 Duke: About 2 inches. And I checked the comm when I noticed it. When he came in, I checked the comm and he was still sounding the same to me.

151:00:06 Mitchell: Okay, he sounds good to us. Do you happen to know when it occurred? Or when you first saw it?

151:00:15 Duke: Well, I think it was during the ingress. We got behind and y'all reminded us of it once (at 149:47:03), but we were still working and we didn't do it at that point. When we started dusting, Tony said get on in, and so we forgot it. I got in and then when I saw John coming up the ladder, it was gone then.

151:00:38 Mitchell: Okay, so we're missing a couple inches of antenna. Understand. (Pause)

151:01:57 Duke: Okay, Ed, we're ready for the battery management (as per the right-hand column of 5-3).

151:01:59 Mitchell: Okay, Charlie, I'll give you the overall plan here to put the Lunar Batt on the LMP Bus, take Batts 1 and 2, Off, and Batts 3 and 4, On, and I'll give you the details if you feel like you want them.

151:02:14 Duke: Oh, no. We got that. No problem.

151:02:16 Mitchell: Okay. (Long Pause)

151:02:34 Duke: Okay, that's done, Ed. We got Batts 1 and 2; Off, 3 and 4 are on; and Luny Batt is on the LMP Bus.

151:02:44 Mitchell: Okay, Charlie. (Long Pause)

151:03:34 Duke: Okay, Ed, I don't see the Luny Batt carrying much of a load here. Is TELMU satisfied?

151:03:47 Mitchell: Stand by, Charlie. We're observing that. (Brief Pause) You're Go.

151:03:53 Duke: Okay.

[Long Comm Break]

[Charlie is probably seeing proof of the power conservation steps they have taken.]

[Jones - "I can't tell from the comm here whether you're pressing or not. Were you in a hustle-hustle mode here?"]

[Duke - "No. Just relaxed. We weren't hurrying up. Once we got back inside, I don't believe we ever...You know, we were steady working; but we weren't hurrying. I don't remember being rushed at all."]

[Jones - "You had plenty of time to do things, but not much time for sitting around, though?"]

[Duke - "Well, not here. No; we had a lot to do. Get out of the suits and charge the PLSSs and all that stuff. I don't think we're out of the suits, yet. We were steady, but not rushed."]

151:08:02 Mitchell: Go ahead, Charlie.

151:08:06 Duke: Okay, Ed. I got some (sample container) weights for you (as per Surface 5-4). You ready to copy?

151:08:09 Mitchell: Stand by one.

[ After weighing the sample containers, John and Charlie record the weights on page 2-2 of the LM Lunar Surface Checklist. and are now ready to read up the numbers.]

151:08:18 Mitchell: Go ahead.

151:08:23 Duke: Okay, the SRC number 2 weighs 41 pounds (18.6 kg). SCB-3, which is in sample containment bag number 3, weighs 30 pounds (13.6 kg). SCB-1, which is in sample containment bag number 4, weighs 26 pounds (11.8 kg). Over.

[Sample Containment Bags were flown on the J missions to help reduce the amount of dust in the cabin. The Sample Collection Bags were put inside the Containment Bags. Photos of containment bags in the National Air & Space collection courtesy Allan Needell.]

[The empty Sample Return Container (SRC or rock box) weighs 14.7 pounds (6.7 kg) and the empty Sample Collection Bags (SCBs) weigh about 1.7 pounds (0.8 kg) each.]

151:09:01 Young: That's Charlie's. (Pause)

151:09:14 Mitchell: Keep going like that, you may have to throw away "Mully".

[Readers should note that Ed pronounces the rock name as "Mull-y", rather than Charlie's "Mule-y", a clear indication that he knows it's been named for Geology P.I. Bill Muehlberger (pronounced "mull-ber-ger"). See the discussion following 127:16:40.]

[Long Comm Break]

151:17:38 Mitchell: Okeydoke.

[John has started the suit doffing procedures listed in the right-hand column of Surface 5-4. They had planned to reach this point in the checklist 1 hour 20 minutes after starting the Post-EVA System Configuration on Surface 5-1 at 150:03:52. They have gained about five minutes on the timeline.]

[Long Comm Break]

151:22:59 Mitchell: Go ahead, Orion.

151:23:04 Duke: I gather Doc's worked on a metabolic assessment for us. Would you let us know in a little while?

151:23:11 Mitchell: Charlie, come at me again on that, please.

151:23:17 Duke: Roger. We're just curious (about) the metabolic rates today. Could you have the Doc work on that for us, and let us know in a little while.

151:23:24 Mitchell: Yeah. I got it, Charlie. On John, the average ran about 785 (BTU/hr) average; and the LMP, on you, Charlie, ran about 870.

151:23:40 Duke: Okay. John, 785, and me, 870. Thank you.

151:23:46 Mitchell: Yeah, we had predicted, on both of you, 890, so (you're) running to the good there (meaning that they are using less oxygen and cooling water than predicted).

151:23:54 Duke: That's great. Thank you. (Long Pause)

151:24:36 Mitchell: And, Orion, the Docs tell me you were running about an 88 average heartbeat today.

151:24:45 Duke: Okay. Okay, thank you. Is that both of us?

151:24:51 Mitchell: That's affirm. Both of you.

[Very Long Comm Break]

151:38:40 Mitchell: Orion, Houston; did you call?

151:38:44 Young: That's affirmative. I'm out of my suit, and Charlie's getting out of his suit now.

151:38:55 Mitchell: Fine. I understand that John's out of his suit and Charlie's coming out now, is that correct?

151:39:04 Young: Yes, sir.

151:39:06 Mitchell: Okay.

[Long Comm Break]

151:47:06 Young: Go ahead, Houston.

151:47:08 Mitchell: Rog. Ken's passing overhead right now. Could you give him a call and verify that he's on left VHF antenna. We're not receiving the VHF downlink on the bistatic radar. (Pause) And come up on Transmitter A - Simplex - (garbled). (Pause)

151:47:54 Young: Hey, Ken. How do you receive? Over. (No answer)

151:48:03 Young: Ken, this is Orion. How do you read? Over. (No answer)

151:48:09 Young: Hey, Casper, this is Orion. Houston, you said VHF A to Transmit, B to Receive, right?

151:48:20 Mitchell: That's correct, Orion.

151:48:23 Young: Okay, I'm not reading anything. (Pause) Houston, what do you want me to tell him, again?

151:48:42 Mitchell: To verify he's on the...

151:48:43 Young: Okay.

151:48:44 Mitchell: ...VHF left antenna.

151:48:48 Young: Roger.

151:48:53 Young: Casper, this is Orion. Over. (No answer)

151:49:01 Young: Casper, this is Orion. Over. (No answer)

151:49:09 Young: Casper, this is Orion transmitting in the blind. Houston wants to verify that you are on the left antenna. They are not receiving VHF. Over. (Long Pause)

151:49:40 Young: Is he overhead yet, Ed?

151:49:45 Mitchell: That's affirm. He's just about directly overhead. We kind of suspect he's off the headset since he is maintaining radio silence this pass for the bistatic (radar experiment).

151:49:55 Young: I'm sure he is. (Long Pause)

[Journal Contributor Thierry Bisiaux notes that, in the audio clip we currently have, the track jumps back at this point to just before 151:47:54, including a transmission of Ed's " Okay, belay that. It's Transmitter A, Voice, and B, Receiver.". Because this audio was accumulated during the change-of-shift press briefing, the clip currently in the ALSJ may come from two tapes.]

151:50:31 Young: Okay, we'll do it. Sorry we couldn't raise him. But I believe he's off the headset. If he was told to maintain radio silence, he don't hear. You know Ken.

151:50:41 Mitchell: We're all convinced you're right, John. Thank you. (Long Pause)

151:51:35 Young: Okay. Charlie's almost out of his suit now.

151:51:40 Mitchell: Good show.

151:51:45 Young: You know, Houston, it would sure be handy to have something like a false floor to lay down in this thing, because we sure can't stand on the floor right now (because of all the dust).

151:51:56 Mitchell: You'd like a bath mat, eh, Charlie?

151:51:58 Young: Do what? Say again.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Duke - "You've got your suit off and you're still in your LCG and it's got those cotton socks sewed to the bottom of it; and the socks are going to get full of dust and, the next time you go into your suit, all that dust goes in with you. So that was a worry we had. It turned out it wasn't a big deal; but there was a lot of dust on the floor. So we got the feet of the LCGs covered with dust. And our idea was - and it says bath mat here - you know, sort of a little grate you could unfold and you could stand on that and the dust would be down under."]

[Jones - "Was there any way you could have cleaned up that dust?"]

[Duke - "Well, we had a few towels and we could have gotten some towels wet and, you know, mopped it up. But I don't think we did. That would have been the only way; we didn't have a vacuum cleaner or anything."]

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31. The following audio was provided live to the press.]

152:06:47 Young: Okay, Houston. We're ready for the lift-off times for revs 40 to 45. (Pause) And the EVA debriefing.

152:07:02 England: Okay, John. We're ready to go when you're ready. (Long Pause)

[John and Charlie have now reached the last paragraph in the left-hand column on Surface 5-5. They started the suit doffing at about 151:17:32 and took 50 minutes to do so. They had planned to spend 30 minutes and, obviously, are in no hurry.]

[Note, the following times are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31.]

["T-41" is the lift-off time for Command Module orbit 41.]

152:08:28 Young: Okay, readback: 41, 154:02:12; then 156:00 plus 41; 157 plus 59 plus 13; 159 plus 57 plus 44; 161 plus 56 plus 16.

152:08:48 England: Okay, good readback.

152:08:53 Young: What ground-elapsed time (GET) do you have now, Tony?

152:08:59 England: Say again, John. (Pause) Okay, your GET is 152 plus 20.

152:09:07 Young: 152 plus 20?

152:09:11 England: Right, and I can give you some times in your Surface Checklist for the different periods if you want them.

152:09:18 Young: Yeah, I would appreciate that. We don't have any idea what time it is. Not that it makes any difference. (Pause) Charlie says it's 8 o'clock here.

152:09:37 England: Okay, John, I didn't catch that. Do you want these times for page 5-5?

152:09:46 Young: That's affirmative.

152:09:56 England: Okay. On page 5-5. The EVA debriefing should start at 151 plus 55. Eat period, 152 plus 10. PLSS O2 and H2O recharge, 152 plus 55. Okay, on 5-6, the midcourse conference - or MCC conference, correction - is 153 plus 25. Pre-sleep is 154 plus 10. And rest period begins at 154 plus 35. That's on the bottom of 5-7, and that goes for 8 hours.

[The MCC-Conference is a 70-minute cushion built into the timeline in case extended procedural discussions are needed.]

152:10:52 England: Okay, the rest period at the bottom of 5-7 is 154 plus 35 and it's for 8 hours. And we're gonna try to get you to bed even early.

152:11:08 Young: There you go. (Pause)

152:11:15 Duke: Tony, you can't believe how dirty it is in this lunar module.

152:11:22 England: Okay, a couple of bits of information we'd like from you before we start the debriefing. We'd like to know if you drank all of the in-suit drink?

152:11:35 Young: Every drop. Both of us.

152:11:37 England: Good show. Did you drink any water when you got back in...

152:11:39 Young: (Lost under Tony)

152:11:40 England: ...and can you estimate how much?

152:11:46 Young: What? (Pause) Yeah, we had a lot! There's no way to tell it unless you keep count of the swallows and we didn't do that (garbled).

152:12:01 England: Okay. Understand. And we'd like to remind you that you have some ointment in your medical kit if your fingers are sore there. And just to make you feel warm, the next hand-off, we go to the 210-foot dish and we'll have High Bit Rate and Data for all your entire sleep period.

[The last site hand-off - from Madrid to Goldstone - was done at about 149:57. The next one will be at about 158 hours from Goldstone to Honeysuckle. However, what Tony is saying here is that, before the sleep period starts, the 210-ft receiver at Goldstone will be available. Houston is currently using the 85-ft dish at Goldstone and, with the larger antenna, even with the LM transmitter operating at the lowest power level, Houston will be able to receive top-quality data and voice. See Tony's transmission at 152:23:16.]

152:12:24 England: (Laughs) Okay. When you're ready, we'd like to go on with...

152:12:29 Duke: Tony...(Stops to listen)

152:12.30 England: ...a few questions here in the geology debrief.

152:12:38 Duke: Okay. On the water, we were reconsidering the dosage. It went down like a cool one (meaning a cold beer) after a geology trip, if you know what I mean. There was about the same amount (or about 12 liquid ounces or about 360 ml).

152:12:54 England: Okay. (Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 11 min 06 sec )

152:13:04 Duke: Go ahead. We're all ears.

152:13:07 England: Okay. Discussing Station 4 here, we'd like your general impression of the rocks. Especially the bigger blocks. You described mostly breccias and white crystalline rocks. Were there any others; and could you just talk about them a little bit?

152:13:33 Young: Well, if we'd seen any that we recognized, we'd have told you about it. I think the big blocks were just big brothers to the littler blocks. That secondary that we were working up there was a classic. It really was. And the pan will show that. Must have come from South Ray. It had a great block land in the middle, and then the fractures...ran off into all kinds of little blocks. (Pause)

[John is saying that the Station 4 crater upslope from the Rover was formed by a big block that hit the site and then broke apart into numerous small blocks.]

152:14:54 Duke: I think, Tony, my view is the same. We had only a predominance of South Ray ejecta all around. Mostly some of the smaller rakes (meaning rocks collected in rake samples) were given to Descartes. It just occurred to me that everywhere we were, there was a boulder field of varying sizes and intensity and you could see eruptive force - you could look back at South Ray - and you could see the rays coming our way and spreading and fanning out as they flow.

152:15:34 Young: You know, it just may be that that South Ray Crater is so recent it's mantled everything - or most everything - around here. You know, like we said about the rays at South Ray, some were white and some were black rays and just a little layer of dust. I didn't see hardly a clear surface all day long. I felt right at home like we were back in the United States studying geology and everybody said the rocks would be crystal clear. Well, here it's all covered up. And it is my opinion when you hit one and got a cleavage surface, that made all the difference in the world to a rock description. But a person may not be able to do that (meaning breaking a rock to get a fresh surface) often. (Pause)

152:16:30 Duke: Does that answer your question, Tony?

152:16:32 England: Right. And the Station 4, 5, and 6 area, you mentioned that (at) 5 and 6 the surfaces got progressively firmer. I wonder, could you see any contact or was it a gradual thing?

152:16:51 Duke: No, we couldn't. Just when we got off the Rover and you felt it under your feet. The softest spot was up on the top, at Station 4. Progressively firmer as we went out, like you say, went down to 6. And you just noticed it when you got out.

152:17:10 England: Okay. Understand.

152:17:12 Young: Of course, we were working in a couple of craters on Station 4. Right on the - you know - right on the rim of the craters, where you'd expect it'd be softer, too.

152:17:25 England: Okay. And Station 4, 5, and 6 also, we're pretty confident that the rocks at Station 4 were from South Ray. At 5 and 6 in particular, though, was there any indication that the craters - either by their orientation or from the secondary blocks lying around - that the source was, in fact, South Ray?

152:17:51 Young: Yeah, I would think the crater at 5 was a South Ray crater. Although the rocks generally looked more rounded, maybe from a different layer (at the South Ray site). (Garbled) pattern, you should be able to see that in the film, but the pattern of rocks were all in the far wall, which was away from South Ray Crater.

152:18:14 England: Right. Incidentally, the Backroom is really impressed. They are very excited about your choice of sampling on that inner wall of that crater - I guess it was at 5 or 6 - and think that you had a good chance there of getting real Descartes. In fact, they think they've got it in the box. What they're thinking right now is that the areas where you're able to kick up and see white underneath are (South) ray materials. But you didn't see that (white underlayer) at 5 and 6. So, we think you may have gotten Descartes there.

152:18:47 Young: Okay. (Pause) I'll tell you one thing. If this place had air, it'd sure be beautiful. It's beautiful with or without air, but the scenery today up on top of Stone Mountain you'd have to be there to see and to believe it. It's just dazzling. And I hope it showed up good on television...

152:19:15 England: It sure did, John. We're really impressed.

152:19:17 Young: ...(Lost under Tony)

152:19:18 England: Hey, we have a bunch of questions we'd like to ask. But we're going to knock it off and let you get some sleep and we'll try to pick your mind when you get home here. But there's one thing on the Rover there. On the drive from Station 10 back to the LM, did you notice that the Nav system worked? Whether you got any distance (reading) on there in particular?

152:19:40 Young: No, we only came about 25 yards (garbled) I didn't notice, though, to tell you the truth.

152:19:48 England: Okay. Did the numbers go to zero when you reset at Station 10?

152:19:54 Young: That's affirmative.

152:19:58 England: Okay. We copy that.

152:20:03 Young: I tell you, that beauty is holding up like a real jewel.

152:20:09 England: Okay. And we've lost one piece of...

152:20:11 Young: (Lost under Tony)

152:20:12 England: ...hardware here. We wonder where SCB-2 went? (Pause)

152:20:23 Duke: Okay. I emptied that in the SRC and it's on the Rover. We're gonna use it tomorrow.

152:20:31 England: Okay. I understand you dumped it into the SRC and the bag's on the Rover, still.

152:20:38 Duke: Yeah, Tony. It's just like we did in training. You pack those SRCs and I could never...I mean those SCBs (into the SRC) - and I could never get the SRC closed.

[Charlie is saying that, when he tried to pack the entire SCB - bag, samples and all - in the SRC, he couldn't get the lid closed. So he chose to just dump the SCB contents into the rock box.]

[Jones - "Was the original thought to put the whole SCB in the rock box?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. The SCBs would go in the rock box. You know, you'd just put it in and then close it. But it would never close, with all that other stuff....You could never pound 'em out right when it was full and get the box to latch. So I ended up emptying 'em in and not put the SCB in; that way, you could just shove the little individual sample bags into the corners and it would close."]

152:20:50 Duke: We started dumping the stuff...(Stops to listen)

152:20:54 England: We were wondering if...(correcting himself) wondering what happened to the (unused) SESC that was in the pocket there, but it looks like we're in good shape.

152:21:01 Young: The SESC is back on the Rover. I was looking at it just before we got in.

152:21:06 England: Okay. That's the extent...

152:21:08 Duke: Yeah, that's (lost under Tony).

152:21:09 England: ...of the debriefing here. Why don't you head on with your meal and we'll have your Flight Plan updates for the (MCC)-conference period.

152:21:19 Duke: Okay. We'll do it.

152:21:27 England: And what our plan is: we've got a lot of Flight Plan changes here - about seven pages worth - and we'll put them in your conference period and if we don't get them all up tonight, we'll send you to bed on time and we'll sneak them in the morning.

152:21:43 Young: Okay. Tell everybody in the Backroom "thank you" and we really enjoyed it today. By golly, that view from up on Stone Mountain is something else.

152:21:56 England: I'm sorry, John, our comm's pretty bad. We missed that. Could you say again...

152:21:59 Duke: Hey, Tony...(Stops to listen)

152:22:01 Young: No, I won't say it again. I just wanted to say thank you to the Backroom boys.

152:22:10 Duke: Tony, I'd like to say the same thing. "Thanks." I think they did a great job and they kept us thinking and on our toes and came up with the right suggestions at the opportune times and thank you, too, for keeping us going. It was a good job.

152:22:28 England: Hey, I went back in the Backroom after the EVA and they're just ecstatic back there. I know we didn't see exactly when we expected to see (meaning evidence of volcanics), but we think you got everything that we went up there for. We're in really good shape.

152:22:45 Young: That Rover really...If you could have seen some of the things that that Rover did today, you wouldn't believe it.

152:22:57 Duke: You just can't believe the ridges and valleys and rilles, here. I tell you, the local slope might be 2 or 3 degrees, but, man, that Double Spot, whoever picked that place to land, it's the only level spot around here. Any place else, you'd really be in trouble.

152:23:16 England: Okay, in about 50 minutes, we're going to get the 210 here, and then we'll have pretty good comm, so why don't you go eat now and do whatever you want, and we'll give you a call when we get the 210 and see if you're ready for the (checklist) updates.

152:23:30 Young: Okeydokey.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Jones - "How was the comm quality at the LM end."]

[Duke - "No problem."]

[Jones - "Because they could push it through."]

[Duke - "Yeah. They could blast through the Moon, almost, with their big antennas and transmitters."]

[Jones - "I was thinking, last night, how surprising it is to me that the comm is so good when you're on the Rover, when you've basically just got that low-gain antenna, compared to the LM omni(-directional antenna)."]

[Duke - "Well, the LM omni is what it is - omni. It just transmits out. It wasn't actually pointed at Earth. The antenna that we had on the Rover was small, but it was directional."]

[Jones - "Four pi (steradians) on the omni versus a smaller angle on the low-gain would certainly help."]

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 5 min 35 sec )

152:58:07 Duke: Houston, Orion. Over.

152:58:11 England: Go ahead, Charlie.

152:58:15 Duke: Tony, (as per Surface 5-5) we'd like to start on that PLSS O2 recharge, topoff-type thing if it's been an hour (since the first oxygen charge). Could y'all confirm that for us. (Pause)

152:58:34 England: Charlie, I didn't understand your question. You say you'd like to do it in an hour?

152:58:43 Duke: No...No, the checklist says, "Connect LM O2 to PLSS; Hi PLSS O2 fill, open, then close." So, we're supposed to verify that 1 hour has elapsed since initial recharge.

152:58:58 England: Okay. We'll start your hour.

[Tony still thinks they want to do the next recharge one hour from now.]

152:59:33 England: Stand by 1. (Long Pause) Okay. It's 2 hours since you started the original charge. If your question is, can you go right ahead with the topoff, the answer is "yes".

153:00:26 Duke: Okay, Tony, we're proceeding. Thank you.

153:00:32 England: Okay, Charlie. Sorry; the problem here (is that) our comm is really bad.

[Very Long Comm Break.]

[Although the comm is not good, it is not exceptionally bad and another factor may be the fact that, except for the time he spent in the Backroom, Tony has been at the CapCom console since 139:22:52. After 13 1/2 hours he is probably tired, too.]

[England, from a 1996 letter - "I suppose that all of us were tired, but it was absolutely essential that I do all of the EVAs so that I would know what John and Charlie had seen and done. The real challenge was to go home during the periods between EVAs rather than work with the scientists who were considering changes to the next EVA. I did force myself to get adequate sleep and I don't remember being overly tired. I am sure that we were all running on a lot of adrenalin. Some of the (verbal) slips that you might be seeing may have had to do with maintaining several conversations. Toward the end of each EVA, both the scientists and the systems people would have requests for the crew to do things. Some items I could decide whether or not to pass up, but many needed concurrence of the Flight Director. I would often be talking with them and then have to interrupt that conversation to respond to the crew. I don't remember any details, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had messed up a few times in that process."]

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update in Houston at 118:06:31.]

153:10:59 England: Orion, Houston. Go Normal Voice and Hi Bit Rate. We have the 210. (Brief static; Long Pause; Comm improves dramatically)

153:11:27 Duke: Okay, Tony, you ought to have it. Over.

153:11:30 England: Okay, that is outstanding. (Pause) I can almost understand what you're saying, Charlie.

153:11:42 Duke: Yeah, get the grits out of my mouth. Is that our friends in Australia tonight?

153:11:51 England: Okay, we're on Goldstone 210.

153:11:57 Duke: Hello, our friends out on the Mojave. Good.

153:12:08 England: And why don't you give us a call when you're ready to take these Flight Plan updates?

153:12:16 Young: Wilco.

[Very Long Comm Break]

153:25:46 Duke: Houston, we're going off biomed for a little bit.

153:25:51 England: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 10 min 59 sec )
(This clip begins with a 2 minute 36 second interval without comm.)

153:40:04 England: Orion, Houston.

153:40:11 Young: Go ahead. Over.

153:40:13 England: Okay, we'd like to try to get the bulk of this Flight Plan update up tonight because we won't have the 210-foot dish until 2 hours before lift-off. How you doing up there?

153:40:25 Young: We're coming right along, Tony.

153:40:29 England: Okay.

153:40:33 Young: We'll be with you as quick as we can. Honest.

153:40:36 England: Understand.

153:40:40 Young: No, I don't think you do; but it's all right.

[Comm Break]

[John is telling Flight to relax, that he doesn't want to rush anything and will call when he is ready.]

153:42:08 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

153:43:02 Young: Hey, Tony. What's your best guess about where we landed?

153:43:12 England: About where you landed? We're just going by what you said. Originally, we had you, I think, 150 meters north and 200 west and you said, today, that you were just north (of the LM). We thought that the first estimate of 150 north and 200 west was compatible with the LRV data that you've got, the nav data, we kind of liked that one, but I haven't seen anything from the planners yet.

153:43:42 Young: Okay. It's pretty hard to tell. From where we were at Station 4 up at Stone Mountain, it looked like...I could see Double Spot and maybe we're just a little past it (to the west), but not much.

153:44:07 England: Okay, we copy that. Much as I'd like to sit here and talk about the landing site, Deke's here looking over my shoulder, and he's telling us we've got to get on with this Flight Plan update.

153:44:22 Young: Okay. Let me get Charlie on comm. I want him to hear it, too.

153:44:25 England: Rog. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "Does John sound tired to you, here?"]

[Duke - "No, that's just the way he talks."]

[Jones - "You'd had a good night's sleep. And it didn't sound like it had been a particularly tiring day. Just busy."]

[Duke - "No, I didn't think it was a tiring day, at all. We're jumping out now, raring to go."]

153:44:59 England: Okay, in your Surface Checklist, page 5-7.

153:45:06 Young: Go.

153:45:08 England: Okay, change: "Stow hammocks, roll up with sleep restraints" to - that's on the right-hand column about three or four lines down - change it to "Stow hammocks and sleep restraints in jett bag." (Pause)

153:45:35 Young: (Amused) We could probably have figured that out. Go ahead.

153:45:38 England: Okay. I'm sure you could have. Okay, on that same column, at the bottom of the page, says "Lift-off time data in book for rev 37 to 43," we'll change that to "46 to 51".

153:45:59 Young: 46 to 51.

153:46:01 England: Okay, and right under that on the "Pro Verb 37:06 Enter," we'd like to delete both of those lines.

153:46:11 Young: They're deleted.

153:46:13 England: Okay, on page 5-8. On the left-hand column, it says "Empty ETB as follows." We'd like to delete "1 - HCEX MAG D and LCG compartment."

153:46:36 Young: That's deleted.

153:46:37 England: Okay, and after "Stow in ETB" at the top of the next column, we'd like to add "1 - HCEX MAG D." (Long Pause)

153:47:01 Young: Okay, "1 - HCEX magazine D."

153:47:04 England: Okay, that's D as in Delta. And then in the same column down, it says "2 - 16 Mags R and S." We'd like to change that to "1 - 16 Mag S."

153:47:25 Young: Okay, " 1 - Mag S."

153:47:27 England: Okay, that's S as in Sugar. Okay, on 5-9, left-hand column near the bottom of the page, it says "Stow ICG in ICG bag." (Pause) We'd like to change that to "Stow ICG (empty pockets) in jett bag." (Long Pause)

153:48:12 Young: Okay.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 13 min 26 sec )

153:48:13 England: Okay. And then at the bottom of the page after the "Used food in containers," we'd like to add two lines. The first one is "LCG adapters," (pause) and the second line is "Urine receptacle."

153:48:46 Young: Okay, "LCG adapters, two; and urine receptacle, one."

[Jones - "What does 'used food' mean?"]

[Duke - "It's uneaten food."]

[Jones - "It seems to me that they gave you tons of food."]

[Duke - "(Chuckling) Seemed like it. Well, it was a standard meal, but it just seemed like it was just huge! And I think it's probably a little bit bigger than normal because it was two meals a day. And it was a little bit more than normal; they had one or two other things in there that you normally wouldn't have had."]

[Jones - "So, is the main thing that each meal is half again as big as a normal meal?"]

[Duke - "Well, I don't know that it was half again. But it just looked like a lot! So we had to work at eating it all."]

[NASA photo S72-19887 shows Apollo dietician Rita Rapp posing with some of the Apollo 16 food packages. The package in the center foreground is labeled 'Day 4, Meal A'. Details for the meals can be found in the LM Menu given in the Apollo 16 Press Kit ( 5.6 Mb PDF ).]

[During the Apollo 15 post-mission debriefings, Jim Irwin said, "Did we mention that we ran out of food there in the LM? We could have used a little more food." On that mission a 7.4 pound (3.4 kg) 'food assembly' as flown in the cabin and two 4.0 pound (1.8 kg) 'food assemblies' were flown in the MESA. The total was 15.4 pounds (7.0 kg).]

[Additional detail is provided by the Apollo 15 Mission Report, "The food system on this flight was similar to that of previous Apollo missions with the exception that additional food stowage space was provided in both the CSM and the LM to accommodate the extra food required for a 12.3-day lunar mission. Prior to flight, each crewman evaluated about 100 available foods and selected his menu. The food was arranged in meal packages for the first 10 days of flight. Menus and supplemental food for the remainder of the mission were selected in real time from the food pantry."]

["The inflight menus were designed to provide approximately 2400 kilocalories per man per day with 400 additional kilocalories in beverages and extra food supplied in the pantry. Thus a total of 2800 kilocalories were available for each crewman on a daily basis. On launch day, each crewman was also provided with a specially prepared and packaged frozen sandwich, a package of bacon squares, and a beverage powder. These items were stowed in a pocket of the pressure suits."]

["Estimates of the crews' food consumption, based on the onboard food log and the returned food, indicate that an average of 2801, 2372, and 2568 kilocalories per day were consumed by the Commander, the Command Module Pilot, and the Lunar Module Pilot, respectively. The crew commented favorably after the flight on the quality of the inflight food and the food systems. The new insuit food bars were used by both lunar module crewmen on the first and second extravehicular activities. They did not carry the food bar on the third extravehicular activity."]

[In comparison, for Apollo 16, a 10.5 pound (4.8 kg) 'food assembly' was flown in the cabin and two 4.6 pound (2.1 kg) 'food assemblies' were flown in the MESA. The total is 19.7 pounds (9.0 kg), about 4.3 pounds (2.0 kg) more than was flown on Apollo 15. Note that the 'food assemblies' do not include the in-suit beverage assemblies which, in the case of Apollo 16, each included a 32-(liquid)ounce bags of potasium-fortified orange drink, which was provided to prevent a recurrence of the heart arhythmias experienced by the Apollo 15 crew.]

[Additional detail is provded by the Apollo 16 Mission Report: "Menus were designed to provide a minimum of 130 milli-equivalents of potassium per man per day for this mission. Foods high in natural potassium were selected and some beverages were fortified with potassium gluconate. The menus supplied approximately 2600 kilocalories per man per day. This value was based on the calculated nutritional requirements of each crewman."]

["For the first time on an Apollo mission, a preflight and postflight control diet was provided to the crew. The purpose of this control diet was twofold; to insure that each crewman was in an optimum nutritional state prior to launch, and to facilitate postflight interpretation of medical laboratory data. The control diet was initiated three days prior to flight and terminated two days after recovery. In addition, food and fluid intake was closely monitored during the flight. Preliminary estimates of the inflight food consumption, based on crew reports, indicate that an average of 2150, 1408, and 1900 kilocalories per day were consumed by the Commander, Command Module Pilot, and the Lunar Module Pilot, respectively. Postflight, the crew commented favorably on the quality of the food, but stated that they could not consume the quantity provided. They also stated that they had an inadequate amount of time to prepare and eat their food because the meal periods were continually interrupted and shortened by other activities."]

[The available information indicates that the flown Apollo 16 weight of LM 'food assemblies' was 28 percent higher than on Apollo 15. Although the average caloric allowance for the mission as a whole was reduced from 2800 to 2600 kilocalories, this reduction may not be representative of the food flown in the LM. Most importantly, while the Apollo 15 crew consumed nearly all of their foodstocks and had overall caloric intakes close to the planned 2800 kilocalories per man per day, the Apollo 16 crew ate far less than their 2600 kilocalorie daily allowance. Charlie's statement about there being enough food to feed 'the trojan army' may say more about his appetite and John's than about the actual amount of food.]

[Ulrich Lotzmann calls attention to page CDR-7 from John's EVA-2 cuff checklist, with a comment about the food.]

153:49:36 Young: Okay, "Battery management at 164 hours and 45 minutes."

153:49:41 England: Okay, I'll send up the stuff for your cue cards later. We'll go on to page 7-1. (Pause) And I'd like to know if you'd like the change in times in the Surface Checklist. That's what some of these changes are.

153:50:13 Young: Not particularly.

153:50:15 England: Okay, I won't send those, then. (Pause) Okay, we'll have to go on to 7-5, then.

153:50:33 Young: Okay, we're at 7-5.

153:50:38 England: Fine. Okay, on 7-5, delete "Battery management", "On Houston cue: Telemetry PCM, Lo", "S-Band, Voice and Down Voice Backup". We'd like to delete all that. (Pause)

153:50:59 Young: Okay, that's all done.

153:51:01 England: Okay, and after "BSLSS/rock bag against hatch," add "Report PRD readings to Houston." (Pause)

153:51:25 Young: Okay. "Report the roentgens to Houston."

153:51:27 England: Okay, on 7-5 and 6, delete all of the "Doff suits." (Long Pause)

[Note on the digital version of the on-board checklist, John and Charlie crossed out all of the right-hand column. In a moment, they will realize their error and will add the notation "Still in Flight Plan".]

153:52:02 England: Okay. On 7-6, delete "EVA debriefing with Houston", and delete "Eat period" right after it. (Pause)

153:52:16 Young: Okay, go ahead.

153:52:17 England: And change "158:22 pre-sleep and equipment stowage" to "172 plus 32 equipment stowage", and that's 27 minutes. (Pause)

153:52:42 Young: Okay, go ahead.

153:52:44 England: After "Equipment stowage, 27 minutes" add "Circuit breaker panel 11 ( CB(11) ), Heaters AOT (Alignment Optical Telescope), Closed."

153:52:58 Young: (Wondering where this should be written in the paragraph) Okay...

153:52:59 England: (Answering the question before John can ask it) That would be right below the "Solar wind ISA..."

153:53:01 Young: ...before the...(Stops to listen) Okay.

153:53:09 England: Okay, and we'd like to...I'll hold. (Long Pause)

[Deke Slayton may have told Tony to wait until John confirms they've made the change. Readers should note that, now they are talking about flight procedures, John has perked up.]

153:53:31 Young: (Before he could have heard Tony's "You ready?") Okay. Then what?

153:53:32 England: Okay. On the "Stow the ETB against the hatch" in the next line, change to "Stow ETB in ISA (Interim Stowage Assembly) big pocket." (Long Pause)

153:54:05 Young: Okay. "Stow ETB in ISA big pocket." Go ahead.

153:54:08 England: Okay. On page 7-7, delete everything except the first three lines in the left-hand column. (Pause)

153:54:26 Young: Understand; delete everything on page 7-7 but the first three lines.

153:54:33 England: That's right. And page 7-8, delete the whole page. (Long Pause)

153:54:51 Young: That's done.

153:54:52 England: Okay. On page 7-9. we'd like to add at the left top side, "Rendever..." Correction, "Rendezvous Radar Operate, Close (pause) ; Rendezvous Radar Standby, Open (pause); Circuit Breaker Panel 11, LGC/DSKY, Close (pause) ; Circuit Breaker Panel 11 ( CB(11) ), Mission Timer, Close." (Pause)

153:55:59 Young: Okay. Go ahead.

153:56:01 England: Okay. After the "Gimbal Lock Light, Off," about halfway down the page, write in "Delay Verb 16 Noun 65 Enter, mission timer up" - correction, "Mission timer check until after up-links." (Pause)

[Interested readers can find a discussion of gimbal lock in the Apollo 11 transcript at 104:59:35.]

153:56:37 England: Okay, on 7-9 still. After "Verb 21 Noun 27 Enter, 0 Enter," add "Wait for go-ahead from MSFN." (Long Pause) Okay. First, some information here; you might note that this is about the time we'll be getting the 210, and we'll be able to watch the power-up.

153:57:14 Young: Okay. But we always wait for a go-ahead from MSFN on E(rasable)-memory dumps.

153:57:24 England: Right. That's correct. But we're adding it here anyway. Okay...

153:57:33 Young: Okay.

153:57:34 England: On the "Telemetry, Hi, verify," the Telemetry will be in Lo, so we'll add "Telemetry, Hi and Voice to Voice." (Pause)

153:57:57 Young: Okay.

153:57:59 England: Okay. And we'd like to change the up-links to "Lift-off time update, time increment update, RLS, and CSM state vector." (Pause)

153:58:36 Young: Okay. Understand MSFN will up-link the lift-off time update, time increment update, the CSM state vector, and the RLS.

153:58:45 England: Okay. Good. After "Updata Link - Off", add - that's at the bottom of the page - "Verb 05 Noun 01 Enter, 1706 Enter", and "Verify T-ephem(eris)".

153:59:08 Young: Okay. What is it supposed to be?

153:59:13 England: We'll give you a call on that.

153:59:18 Young: Okay, is it the same as it was in the Activation Checklist?

153:59:24 England: Negative on that. You should see it in the DSKY.

153:59:29 Young: I wouldn't think it would be. (Hearing Tony's reply) Yeah.

153:59:36 England: Okay. On the top of the right-hand column, add "Circuit Breaker Panel 16 ( CB(16) ), Inverter 2, Close," (pause) and "Inverter 2." (Pause)

154:00:09 Young: Okay. "Circuit Breaker 16, Inverter 2, Close. Select Inverter 2." Go ahead.

154:00:13 England: Okay. And that "Power Amplifier, Primary", change that to "Secondary". And change, in the next line, "Telemetry, Hi" to "Lo". And delete "Voice to Voice".

154:00:31 Young: Okay. "Power Amplifier to Secondary", "Telemetry to Lo", and delete "Voice to Voice".

154:00:36 England: Okay. On the bottom of the page, delete the P22 acquire time. (Pause) And change lift-off time to...

154:00:45 Young: That's deleted.

154:00:47 England: Right. Change lift-off time to 175 plus 44.

154:01:00 Young: 175:44.

154:01:05 England: Okay, on 7-10.

154:01:11 Young: Okay. Go ahead.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 10 min 35 sec )

154:01:13 England: On the A/T 3 star - correction - delete the box with the A/T 3 star. (Pause) And on the next line, there, it says, on the right-hand column...

154:01:31 Young: Okay.

154:01:32 England: ...it says "Noun 25 00014, PRO (Align Complete)", change that to "Noun 25 00014, Enter, 00 Enter."

154:01:54 Young: Okay. "0014 Enter, 00 Enter." Go to POO.

154:02:00 England: Okay, fine. And delete the star marks procedures.

154:02:10 Young: Okay.

154:02:11 England: And on "Parking the rendezvous radar antenna", we'd like to change that to "Trunnion 0, Shaft 030.00." (Long Pause)

154:02:41 Young: Okay. Change it to "Trunnion 0, Shaft 030.00."

154:02:47 England: That's affirmative. On page 7-11, change the time "168 plus 10" to "173 plus 29". And delete the rest of the page. (Long Pause)

154:03:16 Young: Okay. That's done.

154:03:18 England: Okay. On page 7-12, delete everything except the "VHF voice check" on the left and the "Ascent pads update" at the bottom. (Pause)

154:03:39 Young: Okay. The P22 is out.

154:03:42 England: Okay. On page 7-13, delete; and page 7-14, delete. (Long Pause)

154:04:05 Young: Okay. That's completed.

[Jones - "As somebody completely unfamiliar with this process, this all seems to be a very large number of changes in a complicated machine and system and, yet, I hear you just write it down and get the impression it all made sense to you. Can you give me any sense of how they went about these changes?"]

[Duke - "Well, the kids were experts in the systems. And it was a monumental job. And, while we're out on the surface, they're changing everything. ('They' being) the guys responsible in the support rooms in Mission Control and, also, the engineering staff at Houston. And they've got contractor support (and) they've got simulator support."]

["So, they would get everything in the configuration we were in and then they would power up. First, they'd go through the systems to get everything on line, using schematics and stuff like that. And then they would verify everything in the simulator. And even with all of that, we found one or two little mistakes later on. But I was really impressed, you know, trying to re-write all this stuff. 'Cause, I mean, these books took weeks to get published; and they were doing these changes in just a few hours. The most monumental task, of course, was Apollo 13. It was an emergency and it had to be right. But (on Apollo 13), we just went through all the simulators and everything we sent up to them, we had tried out in the simulator to make sure it worked. And I think, most of this they did in the simulator or, at least, checked it out in a procedures trainer."]

[Jones - "Now, what's the difference between a procedures trainer and a simulator?"]

[Duke - "The simulator was actually a whole vehicle. The astronauts didn't have any procedures trainers. But these people who were responsible for those systems, they had a panel with switches and stuff, just sort of an engineering mock-up, more than anything. I wouldn't call it a procedures trainer; that's probably a bad word. And, so, they would check it out on that - switch positions and stuff - and, most of the time, it was powered up. And, then, they would run the whole thing in the simulator (and) make sure it was okay. But it was a big task; I was really impressed."]

[Jones - "Would there be dozens of people involved in this, between writing down what they thought the changes were and then actually going and trying things out."]

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

[Jones - "And all of them about thirty years old..."]

[Duke - "Well, probably younger than that, on average. They were young, dedicated guys and gals, who knew the systems and they knew how it worked. They could look at these schematics and say, 'Oh, yeah; we need to do this and do that' to get it all to work. And they just knew how to do it."]

154:04:27 Young: Okay. Go ahead.

154:04:28 England: And right under that line, we'd like to add, "Stow purse in ISA bottom pocket". And right under that, "Stow ISA on the aft engine cover". (Long Pause)

154:04:51 Young: Okay, stow purse in ISA which pocket?

154:04:54 England: The bottom pocket. (Pause)

154:05:14 Young: Okay, "Stow purse in ISA bottom pocket"; and "Stow ISA on the aft engine cover".

154:05:19 England: Okay. On page 8-1. Change the time "170 plus 30" to "174 plus 29". (Long Pause)

154:05:40 Young: Okay. Go ahead.

154:05:42 England: Okay, on 8-2, top line, third from the left, "open S-Band Antenna" (Pause) 8-3...

154:05:57 Young: Okay, go.

154:05:58 England: ...third line, seven from the left, "Open S-Band Antenna". And on the fourth line, again, "Open S-Band Antenna" about right under it.

154:06:15 Young: Okay. "Open AC S-Band Antenna, open the S-Band Antenna in the Comm, and the S-Band Antenna Heater."

154:06:26 England: Okay, on 8-5, on the AGS column, change "373 (plus 010502)" to "(plus 03440)".

154:06:56 Young: Okay, "plus 03440."

154:07:00 England: That's correct. On 8-6, change the time "170 plus 50" to "174 plus 49". (Pause) And delete the...

154:07:22 Young: Okay, go ahead.

154:07:23 England: ...steerable antenna Pitch and Yaw procedures. (Pause) And right under that, change the "170 plus 55" to "174 plus 54." (Pause)

154:07:46 Young: Okay.

154:07:47 England: On 8-7, change "171 plus 00" to "174 plus 59". (Pause)

154:08:02 Young: Okay.

154:08:03 England: On 8-9. change "171 plus 10" to "175 plus 09". (Pause) And change the Program 12 Tig (Time of ignition) to "175 plus 44". (Pause)

154:08:33 Young: Okay.

154:08:37 England: On page 8-10, change the time "171 plus 15" to "175 plus 14". (Pause)

154:08:56 Young: Okay.

154:08:57 England: On page 8-12, change the time "171 plus 28" to "175 plus 27". (Pause)

154:09:15 Young: Understand "175 plus 27".

154:09:18 England: That's correct. On 8-13, "171 plus 30" to "175 plus 29". (Pause)

154:09:34 Young: Okay, "175 plus 29".

154:09:37 England: Right. On page 8-14, row 1, "Open S-Band Antenna". (Pause)

154:09:50 Young: Okay.

154:09:52 England: Okay, on 8-15, row 3, "Open S-Band Antenna". Also (make that change) on row 4. (Pause)

154:10:03 Young: I got you.

154:10:04 England: On 8-16, change the time "171 plus 33" to "175 plus 32". (Pause) Change the time "171 plus 35" to "175 plus 34". (Pause) And at the bottom change "171 plus 40"...

154:10:30 Young: Okay, 175:32 and 175:34.

154:10:33 England: ...to 175 plus 39. And I copied yours.

154:10:44 Young: Okay, 175:39.

154:10:48 England: Okay, and we'd like to go to your EVA-3 cue card. (Pause) Okay, John, we're gonna hold that cue card. We'll pick it up first thing in the morning. I've given you a lot of stuff here.

154:11:08 Young: We're ready to copy. It ain't so much, Tony. You're not doing anything but changing it so we can lift off without throwing everything out. (Garbled)

154:11:20 England: Right. Okay, on the EVA prep.

154:11:25 Young: Okay.

[These changes are being made to the Cue Card version of the procedures on Surface 6-3.]

154:11:26 England: (Reading slowly) Add to "PLSS comm check" (on Surface 6-3) after "Comm" on the third column: "S-Band Mode, PM; Transmitter/Receiver, Secondary; Power AMP, Secondary; Voice, Down/Voice Backup; PCM, PCM; and Range, Off".

154:12:14 Duke: Okay, we copy that, Tony. Go to PM, Secondary, Secondary, Down Voice Backup, PCM, and Off.

154:12:21 England: Very good. And the Telemetry Biomed, we'll go to Right on that instead of Off. And change Recorder, On to Recorder, Off.

154:12:40 Duke: Okay. Telemetry Biomed is Right, and scratch Recorder.

154:12:46 England: Rog. Okay, and on the EVA-3 Post card, "Prep for Equipment Jett 1" (see Surface 7-3), change "31 percent" to "22 percent". (Pause)

154:13:06 Duke: (Looking for the line) Stand by 1.

[On Surface 7-3, the line is "Verify Total DES O2 QTY (Tank 1+2) > 31%" which is near the middle of the left-hand column.]

154:13:18 Duke: Yeah, I see it. Okay, "22".

154:13:25 England: Right. And change "Remove ISS" - it's right under that - "Remove ISS, wrap and tie" to "Stow in jett bag." (Pause)

154:13:40 Duke: Okay.

154:13:42 England: After "Yo-Yo's (2)", add "ISS and helmet bag".

154:13:58 Duke: Okay, "ISS and helmet bag".

154:14:02 England: Okay, and on up in the next column at the top, under "Cabin repress" (see Surface 7-4), delete "Comm: Uplink Squelch, Off". (Pause)

154:14:23 Duke: Okay, that's third column, two lines from the bottom?

154:14:30 England: Right, that's correct. Third column, two lines from the bottom. Okay...

154:14:37 Duke: Okay.

154:14:38 England: ...and that's it. (Pause) And we have some questions on the OPS antenna.

154:14:48 Duke: I was afraid you would.

154:14:51 England: (Laughs) Sorry, John.

154:14:52 Young: Okay.

154:14:53 England: They keep piling them in front of me. Okay, on the broken CDR's OPS antenna, we'd like you to: one, remove any of the sharp edges with the scissors and examine the entire length of the antenna for cracks. And we'll give you time to dig that out.

154:15:26 Young: Okay. The reason that it's broke is on account of I climbed in here with it open, because we're being rushed there toward the end.

154:15:34 England: Rog, John. You're exactly right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you get so far behind.

154:15:41 Young: Well, that's all right. There's no problem! We had plenty of consumables, and where's the fire?

[Duke - "John's just saying, 'we have plenty of consumables, why are you rushing us?'"]

[Jones - "As in, 'everybody's rushing around, there must be a fire someplace'."]

[Duke - "Yeah. You know how it is. 'Fire! Fire!' And everybody's rushing around. So he says, if we've got plenty of consumables, why are we doing that? And you listen at the Flight Director's loop and the docs are saying 'don't eat into the sleep period, don't eat into the sleep period'."]

[When John and Charlie are on the surface, only John is transmitting to the LM and Houston wants John to have the good antenna. Charlie will always be close to him and won't really need an intact OPS antenna. Jim Irwin broke his OPS antenna at the start of the first Apollo 15 EVA and there was no noticeable comm degradation.]

[Ulli Lotzmann provides a TV still at 170:00:15 during the EVA-3 closeout showing John on the left with the red CDR strip on his helmet and Charlie on the right wearing John's OPS with the CDR strips on the back.]

[Prior to 1967, NASA had planned to have only one of the LM crewmen go outside on an EVA. When that decision was changed, it was discovered that it would not be possible to easily re-design the communications system so that both astronauts could transmit simultaneously to the LM. It was decided, however, that one of the PLSSs could serve as a relay station, picking up voice and data from the non-relay astronaut and then sending the combined voice and data from both astronauts to the LM. The Commander's PLSS was modified to serve this function. See Figure 2 in "Apollo Experience Report: Lunar Module Communications System", NASA document MSC-04031 by R.H. Dietz, D.E. Rhoades, and L.J. Davidson, 1972.]

154:16:24 Young: Three loops of tape?

154:16:27 England: Rog.

154:16:32 Duke: Okay, Tony. The antenna is about a half inch longer than the pen-lights that we carry, and it's in good shape except for a little crack at the top where it broke off. (Long Pause)

154:17:08 England: Okay. That crack on the end there, we'd just like you to trim that back. And, examine the thing down where it goes into that connector there and make sure it isn't cracked down there.

154:17:23 Young: Okay. We already did that, and it's not cracked down there.

154:17:25 England: Okay, good show.

154:17:26 Young: Just right up at the end.

154:17:28 England: Rog.

154:17:29 Young: And Charlie's got three loops of tape around it. (Long Pause)

154:17:48 England: Okay. As far as we're concerned, the Government's gonna allow you to sleep. We'd like you to go into your pre-sleep now, and we expect an (ECS) LiOH (canister) change, and we understand you're gonna call your PRD readings before you go to bed. (Pause)

154:18:14 Young: First we've heard about it, but we'll do it, I guess. (Long Pause) Okay. Tony, could we beg off on a PRD readings unless (lost under Tony but probably something like 'really necessary'.)

154:18:46 England: Rog. It's my error. The PRD's in the morning. Sorry, John.

154:18:52 Young: Okay. We got the suits piled one on top of the other, and it'll be a mess. The bags are up around the legs. It'll be a mess to dig them out of there.

154:19:00 England: Rog. Don't mess with it. (Long Pause)

[Jones - "Were the PRDs in a suit pocket or something?"]

[Duke - "They were in the suit somewhere - I've forgotten exactly where - and we had the suits all folded up back on the Ascent Engine cover and it was just going to be a big deal digging those out. I remember; they were inside the neckring. There was the silk liner inside the suit; you just un-Velcroed that and there was a little pocket that they stuck in, if I remember. So it was going to be a big deal getting them all out."]

[A composite image (2.5 Mb) made by Ed Hengeveld from Apollo 17 post-EVA photos AS17-134-20522 and 25, giving a wide view from the LMP's station.]

154:19:37 Young: Okay.

154:19:39 England: And, I sure agree on that beautiful day's work.

154:19:41 Young: Where's this MCC (Mission Control Center)-Houston...(Stops to listen) Where's this MCC-H conference at?

154:19:49 England: It's just over. You just had it.

154:19:55 Young: Oh, I thought maybe you guys were going to the Wheel or something.

154:19:59 England: (Laughs) You mean you didn't enjoy it (meaning the MCC-H conference)? (Pause)

[The checklist item "MCC-H" was a scheduled opportunity for extra discussions with Houston but, in reality, it was usually just padding in the timeline that could be dropped if the crew was running behind.]

[The following is from a 1997 exchange of e-mail.]

[Jones - "One of our eagle-eyed Contributors, Brian Lawrence, suggested that the Wheel might be local hangout. If so, what do you remember about it? Is it a place you might have gone with John and others during training, say after a long day of sims?"]

[England - "The Wheel - maybe it was Singing Wheel or Swinging Wheel - was a Country-and-Western type place near JSC. I didn't go there more than a couple of times, so I don't remember very much about it. John hardly ever joined others after work; but Charlie, the backup crew, the trainers, any visiting scientists, and I often went out for a beer if we were on travel - but not in Houston. We didn't socialize that much when we were in Houston. When we were home, most of us wanted to take advantage of it."]

[Journal Contributor Chris Gainor notes that Gene Kranz discusses the Singing Wheel on page 152 of his book Failure is Not an Option, providing a description and indicating that it was a hangout for Gemini-Apollo-era flight controllers.]

[Sy Liebergot, one of the veteran flight controllers, discusses the Singing Wheel at some length - pages 87-89 and elsewhere - in his excellent book with David Harland, "Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime", and mentions that, of the astronauts, only Jack Schmitt, Charlie Duke, and Fred Haise frequently joined the flight controllers at their favorite hangout.]

154:20:23 England: No. We haven't said anything about it. The planners will be back working on it. I can tell you what it looked like before EVA-2. It was a 5-hour EVA with about an hour up on North Ray and about 20 minutes at Station 13 and essentially the rest of the time back in the LM/ALSEP area, especially east of the LM, there.

154:20:50 Young: Okay. It's probably subject to a change, huh?

154:20:55 England: Yeah, it probably is. You got a lot of good data today, and that'll make them think about it overnight, anyway. But I'm sure everybody's sort of drooling about North Ray.

154:21:05 Young: Yeah. I kind of feel like if we're ever going to be able to sort this out, North Ray's probably the place. Personally, to be able to get down 200 meters is something we probably ought to do to see just how complicated this thing really is.

[The North Ray impact dug out rocks from a depth of at least 200 meters and, because it is 10 km from South Ray, may have sampled a different formation. Similarities and differences between samples collected from the two impacts will say a lot about the site.]

154:21:43 Young: Okay, Lo Bit Rate and Down Voice Backup. You got it.

154:21:46 England: Okay.

154:21:47 Duke: Okay. Tony, whose arrhythmias y'all want to look at tonight?

[This is a reference to the heart irregularities seen in both members of the Apollo 15 crew, a condition believed to have been caused by potassium deficiencies. Because John and Charlie are getting plenty of potassium, they are not showing abnormalities. Journal Contributor Garry Kennedy notes that occasional problems with arrhythmias crop up in the Shuttle/Mir era. In July 1997, during the days following the collision of an unmanned Progress supply ship with Russia's Mir Space Station, the mission commander experienced what were probably stress-induced arrhythmias and was sufficiently incapacitated that repair operations were postponed until a fresh crew arrived.]

154:21:57 Duke: Yea! (Static)

[This means that the Flight Surgeon wants to look at John's heart and that Charlie can take his sensors off.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 1 min 50 sec )

154:22:13 Duke: Okay. We still put in a strong vote for North Ray. It looks accessible, and there's a tremendous block up there we'd like to look at.

[This is House Rock.]

[Jones - "If I'm remembering right, you saw House Rock during the landing. Could you see it from the spacecraft, here at the landing site?"]

[Duke - "No, not from...I couldn't look out the window and see it. When we pitched over and I looked up there, that's when I was talking about it."]

154:22:33 Young: Okay. Take it easy, Tony. Thank you, now. That was a good day's work for yourself.

154:22:38 Duke: Hey, Tony, one final comment. We've been talking about that crater that we took a pan of as we spun around and...I said, looked like Big Sag. John and I are leaning towards endogenic on that, and hopefully from the films that we got you might be able to sort that out.

[This is the feature they encountered at 148:39:07 during the drive back to the LM. Charlie is suggesting that it was created by some process having to do with the Moon, itself, as opposed to being an impact feature.]

154:23:25 Young: Okay, Lo bit rate. And Charlie's changing the (ECS) LiOH canister right now.

154:23:35 England: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break]

MP3 Audio Clip at 154:51 ( 0 min 18 sec )

[Astronaut Stu Roosa, who flew as the Apollo 14 Command Module Pilot, has taken over as CapCom.]

154:36:13 Duke: Houston, 16. Over.

154:36:22 Roosa: Yup.

154:36:24 Duke: Hello, Houston. Houston, Orion. Over. (No answer) Houston, Orion. If you're reading me, you have a lot of static on the up-link. Over.

154:36:49 Roosa: Okay, Percy Precision. Sorry about that, and we had the up-link turned down. Now I guess somebody...Did you hear us comment?

["Percy Precision" is what Charlie called John at 104:31:06, Shortly after the landing.]

154:37:17 Roosa: Yeah, Charlie! Boy, you're sure looking good up there.

154:37:21 Duke: Hey, babe, how you doing?! Nice to talk to you.

154:37:26 Roosa: Yeah...

154:37:27 Duke: Hey, you were right. Greatest thrill of my whole life. Really big. Really a thrill, really great.

154:37:33 Roosa: Oh, man, you're really swinging. (Pause) Okay. Charlie, we'll do something about that uplink, and we're working maybe the switch configuration now. (Pause)

154:37:57 Duke: Okay, this is beautiful right now, Stu.

154:38:04 Roosa: There would be an old saying that would apply to that, then, wouldn't there?

154:38:12 Duke: That's right.

[Duke - "Probably something like 'that calls for a cool one'. I would imagine."]

154:39:18 Duke: Yeah, it's Off right now. (Pause)

154:39:25 Roosa: Okay, Charlie. We're going to kill the uplink. I'll be standing by. If you hear the noise, give us a call back. And have a good night's rest, boy; we'll have a cool one (meaning a cold beer) for you.

154:39:41 Duke: That sounds good. Hey, we haven't gotten to the pre-sleep checklist part. If it calls for Squelch, Enable, I can turn it on, and we'll be okay. (Long Pause)

154:40:10 Roosa: Okay, Charlie. Looks like we wanted you to go to sleep a little early, and we got ahead of you. Could you call us just when you finish your pre-sleep checklist, and at that time we'll have the right configuration.

[Houston had assumed that John and Charlie were ready to go to sleep and had changed comm configurations to match the presumed, rest-period configuration in the LM.]

154:40:40 Roosa: Okay. Stand by. (Long Pause)

154:41:28 Roosa: Okay, Charlie. We're going to wake you up 8 hours from now. I'm showing around 10:35 (p.m. Central Standard Time, April 22, 1972), so you'll be getting a call around 06:35, in the morning.

154:41:43 Young: Okay, but we're about a half hour away from being asleep. (Pause) We're still gonna get up at 08:35, right? 06:35?

154:42:00 Roosa: Okay, John. We'll give you a call at 7 o'clock. (Pause)

154:42:14 Young: Okay. (Long Pause) Hey, only with the understanding that that doesn't take a half hour off our EVA, huh? (Pause)

154:42:49 Roosa: Okay. Flight says that since they got all those good up-links changes to you this evening, everything looks real clean. And he feels that you can get into the EVA on time.

154:43:07 Young: Okay.

[Houston will make the wake-up call at a Ground Elapsed time of 162:38:32 or 6:32 a.m. Houston time and not 7 a.m. as Roosa indicates here.]

[Jones - "I don't remember if you talked about it in 'Moonwalker' or not, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the mysterious thing about how Deke picked people to be on crews."]

[Duke - "I think we mentioned it. Just to recap, to me it's a mystery how crews were selected. My suspicion is that Deke and Al Shepard, who was Chief of the Astronaut Office, got together and they picked the Commanders and the Commanders sort of looked at the pool of potentials and said, well, I think this guy ought to go, he's ready. And this guy, etc. And then it had some approval process it went through up the chain of command, which I don't know how much that was changed. The only change I know of that happened after the crews were announced...I mean, sicknesses, that's a different matter. Apollo 13 had a change right before launch, but that's because the doctors just said he (meaning Ken Mattingly) couldn't go because he might get the measles. But the only other thing was on Apollo 14; the backup crew was Cernan and Evans and Engle and Joe didn't get to go because they put Jack in. And he hadn't been on a backup crew. So that was a change that was probably done by management because of the nature of Jack's education background. But even that was...They just made an announcement one day: that's the way it's going to be. Everybody salutes and says, 'Yes, sir!' And you go on your way. There was never any politicking for missions, that I knew of."]

[Jones - "Were there, in a general kind of sense, some people who came up to speed on the spacecraft systems and showed real competence..."]

[Duke - "No."]

[Jones - "Or was it kind of uniform across the pool of people?"]

[Duke - "Well, you never got in a simulator. They didn't know. You didn't have any tests; 'cause they only had a couple of simulators and the only people who ever got in the simulators were the crews."]

[Jones - "Prime and backup"]

[Duke - "They'd have two or three missions working towards the beginning. While Apollo 7 was flying, 8 and 9 were training and they were already picked. If you weren't on one of those crews you didn't get in a simulator. So it wasn't a matter of knowledge and expertise in the systems. I don't know what it was."]

[Jones - "Perception on Deke's part, I would guess. Certainly, everything that I've read that any of you have ever written says it was a mysterious process."]

[Duke - "Still is today, to me."]

[Note, the times mentioned by the PAO Commentators are 11 minutes 48 seconds later than the corresponding transcript times because of a clock update.]

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