Traverse to Station 2

Grand Prix

 

Station 2 at Buster Crater

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 01 May 2018.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 6 min 57 sec )

[Station 2 activities are detailed in Brian McInall's Station 2 Planimetric Map.]

[Charlie will take a pan from the rim of Spook as indicated by the circled "1" on LMP-24. LMP-25 lists the planned tasks for both of them.]

124:22:02 Duke: What? You did it again?

[Charlie's first guess is that John has pulled out his purge-valve locking pin, which is true.]

124:22:05 Duke: Oh, I know it. I saw that. It was on those stanchions there. I'm sorry, I should have said something to you. (Pause)

124:22:15 Young: Okay; well, I won't need it (meaning the hammer). Do you need it?

124:22:17 Duke: No.

124:22:18 Young: Put it in the seat. (Do you) want to put this thing (meaning his purge-valve pin) back in one more time. Charlie?

124:22:26 Duke: You're kidding!

124:22:27 Young: No.

124:22:28 Duke: Okay, I'll put it in. Come on over. You start the LPM (Lunar Portable Magnetometer), and I'll be over in just a minute.

124:22:32 Young: Okay, I'll get the (high-gain) antenna up.

124:22:36 Duke: Okay.

[The purge-valve-pin problem is discussed following 128:46:06.]

124:22:48 Duke: The blocks are angular, but they are definitely coming out of Buster.

124:22:50 England: Okay, very good. (Brief Static)

124:22:56 Duke: (Lost in the static, which then clears) dissipate very quickly. In fact, they don't even come to Flag (probably means Spook).

[What Charlie is saying is that the blocky ejecta from Buster thins out as you move away from the rim and that none of it reaches the rim of Spook.]

[TV on. Smoky Mountain can be seen on the northern horizon with Kiva Crater on its flank. As can be seen in Figure 6-4 ( 648k ) from the Preliminary Science Report, Kiva is about 900 meters in diameter and is about 4 km from Station 2.]

Video Clip ( 3 min 4 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 27 Mb MPEG )

124:23:20 Duke: John? Old Orion!

124:23:23 Young: Where is it, Charlie?

124:23:25 Duke: Right...Just to the left...Right under the Sun, as a matter of fact.

124:23:29 Young: By golly, we did park it in the right place!

124:23:34 Duke: I think we did!

[Charlie is probably taking his first Station 2 pan , which consists of frames AS16-109- 17811 to 17827.]

[Frames 17813 and 17814 show John working at the front of the Rover.]

[Frame 17820 is the up-Sun picture and, although Charlie says he can see the LM, it is not easy to pick out in the Hasselblad images. It may be 0.7 fiducials left and 1.3 up from center. David Harland has assembled the portion of the pan showing Spook Crater with Stone Mountain and the South Ray ejecta blanket in the background. Spook has a diameter of 370 meters.]

[That is, John hasn't yet pointed the high-gain antenna at Earth. On 15, during a straight drive along smooth ground west of Station 9, Scott and Irwin left the TV on in an effort to give the folks back home a view from the Rover in motion. That experiment did not succeed.]

[Fendell starts a clockwise pan.]

124:23:57 Duke: (To John) How's your pointing from that...? (Pause) Okay; since you don't...(Since you) just do LPM, John and I'm gonna do the 500, I won't put your bag back on. Okay?

124:24:11 Young: Okay.

124:24:12 Duke: And take that time.

[Charlie goes past the TV, probably headed for the CDR seat. John dusts the TV lens.]

124:24:23 England: Understand. (To John) Hey, that does a good job on the lens there.

124:24:28 Young: Your eye looks clear to me here, Houston.

124:24:30 England: Yeah, that helped a lot. (Pause)

[John now uses the big dustbrush on the LCRU mirrors. We get a good view of the top of his camera - including the "CDR" label. John moves out of the way as he continues his dusting and we get a view toward the southeast into Spook. Stone Mountain is in the background.]

124:24:53 Duke: Thirty. Okay. (Pause) That's gonna be cross-Sun, so I'm going to do it at f/8. (Pause)

[We have an unobstructed view toward South Ray Crater and the raised rim is visible even at the low resolution of the TV picture. The rim diameter is about 700m and South Ray is about 6.3 km SSW of Station 2.]

[In a few moments, Charlie will start a series of 500-mm pictures of Stone Mountain and South Ray Crater.]

124:25:08 Duke: How you read me, Houston?

124:25:09 England: We're copying you fine. (Pause)

124:25:17 Duke: Doesn't sound like they're reading us.

124:25:20 Young: (To Houston) (If you) read, wag your TV. (Pause) (Garbled), Charlie. (Will you) fix this thing for me?

124:25:35 Duke: Let me take these pictures.

124:25:38 Young: Look, Charlie?

124:25:39 Duke: Huh?

124:25:40 Young: I've got to do this LPM.

124:25:41 Duke: Okay. You don't want to go ahead and get started with that?

124:25:42 Young: (A little sharply) I want us to do it, but I...

124:25:43 Duke: (Backing off) Okay, okay, okay. (Pause)

124:25:49 Duke: Houston, do you read? Over?

124:25:50 England: We're copying 5 by. How us?

124:25:56 Young: Did you knock your (RCU) Mode switch Off? Or did I knock mine Off?

124:25:58 Duke: We're both in AR.

124:26:05 England: John and Charlie, this is Houston. You copy?

124:26:10 Young: Yeah, loud and clear. Where you been?

Video Clip ( 3 min 4 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 27 Mb MPEG )

124:26:12 England: Well, you've been there all the time. I don't know. (Pause) (We've) Got great TV; really fine.

RealAudio clip ( 21 min 24 sec ) by Siegfried Kessler

124:26:21 Duke: Okay, there it is.

124:26:26 Young: What am I hung up on now, Charlie?

124:26:28 Duke: Okay, you got on that what-cha-ma-call-it, that...

124:26:31 Young: Hangs out there?

124:26:32 Duke: That hangs out there. Yeah.

124:26:34 Young: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Fendell reaches the clockwise pan limit and finds Charlie, who is getting the Hasselblad with the 500-mm lens out from under John's seat. Charlie walks off-camera to the right and John comes into view, going to the back of the Rover to deploy the LPM.]

[Training photo KSC-72PC-143 shows Charlie practicing with the 500-mm lens at the Cape. There is no viewfinder and the camera must be aimed by sighting along the top of the camera body and lens.]

124:27:10 Young: Ol' LPM. (Long Pause)

[John is at the right rear of the Rover, behind the LMP seat. He looks at his checklist and, after examining CDR-34 and CDR-35, turns the page to read CDR-39 which lists detailed LPM procedures.]

[Comm Break]

[John goes to his knees at the back of the Rover pulls some pins to release the LPM. Once he has the sensor free, he stands up and pulls a supporting tripod out of a mount on the gate and then attaches the sensor to it. In Apollo 14 photo S70-56721, the sensor is the small, gray box mounted on the top of the tripod. The box that houses the readout gauges, the on/off switch, and a gain switch is mounted on the back of the Rover. Training photo KSC-71PC-776 shows John working at the back of the Rover, possibly stowing the LPM cable reel. Note where the cable enters the readout box mounted on the top back corner of the Rover near John's right hand.]

124:28:40 Duke: Hey, Tony. I'm going to take a few (pictures) of South Ray here, with the 500. We got a good view of it here.

[Charlie has finished his 500-mm pan of Stone Mountain, which consists of frames AS16-112- 18193 to 18232. Unfortunately, many of them are badly blurred and only 18199, 18217, 18221, 18230, 18231, and 18232 are sharp. The assembled pan was included in the Apollo 16 Professional Paper as part of Plate 10 (4 Mb PDF).]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Let me talk about the 500-mm targets, John, just a little bit. I took those of Stone and the only thing that was significant about Stone was these lineations that I described; and they trended southwest. It looked as if they started at the east and gradually climbed upslope and over the ridges; and you could just follow them all around. They did not follow any contour lines or any of the bench lines. They seemed to transect all that stuff. They were very closely spaced when I took the 500s. But, later on, we looked back over there on each EVA and, as the Sun (elevation) changed, the spacing between those lineations changed."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Not only that. When we got up on Stone Mountain, I didn't see any lineations."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "You couldn't see it."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I don't know what that means; but they sure weren't there."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "At Flag Crater, in the undisturbed regolith, you could see lineations that were mostly (oriented) northwest/southeast. (See the dialog at 123:56:33.) It looked as if the regolith was loosely compacted and the particles were standing up and the lineations were formed by the Sun shining on these particles - creating little, slight shadows. I think that's really what those little lineations are. I took some pictures of that, (AS16-109- 17806 and 17807). I hope it'll show. That was the feeling I got. If you just kick dust over it, it'd mask it and be gone. I think maybe those things up on the mountains were the same kind of feature, but on a more gross scale."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "On Hadley Rille (Meaning Mt. Hadley at the Apollo 15 site), it might have been."]

[See, also, the discussion at 124:02:31 and 124:03:36. Charlie's photo AS16-112- 18217 shows some of the lineations.]

[Charlie's 500-mm pan of South Ray consists of AS16-112- 18233 to 18239, of which 18236 and 18237 are the least blurred.]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The 500 worked great. It was a little bit more difficult to stabilize it than I thought. I used the ring sight and fired off the pictures. We could see into Stubby and we could see into the southeast wall of Stubby. You could not see the apparent flow that is on the (pre-mission) photograph. It was not apparent to me, looking at it, I thought."]

[The sensor falls off the tripod but John manages to catch the ribbon cable on his wrist and retrieves the sensor easily. He finally gets it attached.]

124:29:08 Young: Okay, the LPM has got its sensor head on it, and the power switch is coming on Mark.

124:29:14 England: Okay.

[The power switch is on the LPM electronics box which is mounted on the Rover behind the LMP seat.]

124:29:20 England: All right.

124:29:20 Young: All of 'em are black.

[A temperature label - or 'tempa-label' - is patch with a series of spots which change from white to black at successively higher temperatures. A detail from Apollo 16 training photo KSC-71P-111 shows a tempa-label on the handle of a UHT.]

124:29:26 England: Okay. We copy that.

[John walks sideways as he moves away from the Rover. The ribbon cable is wound on a double reel (lower right in the photo) - with the sensor end of the cable emerging from one side and the Rover side emerging from the other. After a few feet, John stops, puts the LPM down, and manipulates the cable, probably getting some twists out.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Let me say something about the LPM. The thing that surprised me was that there were no problems reading it in the Sun. We also anticipated that it would be hard to wind up (based on Ed Mitchell's Apollo 14 experience with the instrument); but it was easy to wind up. The problem was to unstow it. After each deployment, it got harder and harder to pull loose and I thought on the last one that the cable might bust before we got it completely unwound. Just shows, you never know what your problem is going to be up there. It just got harder and harder to pull free. But, it was easy to wind up and it's easy to set up and easy to operate and we'd probably have made a few more readings if anybody had been interested."]

124:29:46 England: Okay, we copy that.

[With the cable now straightened, John moves away from the Rover, going in a northwesterly direction. Fendell follows and we see the reel bouncing wildly at the middle of the lengthening cable. As he gets near the end of the cable, he moves sideways toward the south.]

124:30:05 Young: Buster is really an impressive crater, Houston. The walls are so darn steep, and the blocks are all over it.

124:30:13 England: Okay, we copy that. And Charlie, sounds like you've got a good plan there.

124:30:19 Duke: Okay. (Pause) And if you'll notice, I'm carrying John's bag, and the shovel, and I'm not taking the gnomon. (Pause)

[Charlie runs north toward Buster, starting with the foot-to-foot, loping stride and then switching to his distinctive, sideways hop. He goes off-camera to the right. John reaches the end of the LPM cable and sets the tripod on the ground. As can be seen in Figure 6-29 in the Preliminary Science Report, John is about 20 meters WNW of the Rover.]

124:30:45 Duke: Man, that's gonna be a little steep ridge to climb (up to the rim of Buster). (Long Pause)

[John orients the LPM relative to the Sun and then presses the legs into the surface to level it.]

[Fendell pans right to find Charlie. Buster has a diameter of 90 meters.]

[Fendell zooms in on Charlie, who is standing on the south rim of Buster, obviously above the level of the Rover. John's SCB is upright on the ground next to Charlie. In the foreground, we can see the inbound Rover tracks; and, in background, a portion of the north rim of Buster. We know this is the north rim of Buster - rather than the summit of Smoky Mountain, in part because of the visible rocks scattered on it. The Rover tracks indicate that John and Charlie drove nearly to the rim when they were trying to figure out which crater was Spook at about 124:19:23.]

124:32:14 Duke: And...(Stops to listen)

124:32:18 Young: I know, boy.

[John crosses our field-of-view as he returns to the back of the Rover. He needs to be well away from the instrument while the measurement is being made. Consequently, the recording switch is mounted on the Rover.]

[Charlie starts his left-to-right partial pan, which consists of AS16-109-17828 to 17836.]

[Frame 17828 is a down-Sun which shows the southwest wall.]

[Frame 17829 shows part of the rubble pile at the bottom of the crater.]

[Frame 17832 shows the central mound. Note the linear patterns of boulders running from the upper right to the lower left on the far wall.]

[Frame 17834 shows the central mound and the deep shadow on the eastern wall.]

124:32:26 Young: Mark.

124:32:27 England: Okay; we started the clock. (Pause)

124:32:33 Duke: Tony, if that is a secondary, that is a big rock that hit in there.

124:32:37 England: Rog.

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Buster was really an impressive crater. We had some 3- to 5-meter blocks that covered 70 or 80 percent of the bottom of that crater. And they trended up to the northeast slope and out the southeast slope of the crater. There were large, meter-size blocks on the northeast rim. Around on our side, the southeast side, we didn't have anything greater than half a meter. I'm not sure Buster was a secondary crater. If it was a secondary crater, it was really a big (piece of ejecta that hit), 'cause it was a big crater. It was a primary crater and it had excavated into bedrock down there."]

[The following is taken from the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report. "Buster Crater appears to be too young to be a secondary from any primary crater in the region, with the possible exception of South Ray Crater. Its relatively large size, compared to South Ray secondaries, and its long distance from South Ray Crater make a secondary origin for Buster Crater unlikely. It is therefore interpreted to be a primary crater."]

[Extensive studies of terrestrial and lunar impact craters - supported by the results of numerical simulations - indicate that the largest pieces of ejecta are derived from deep in the crater - where shock pressures are relatively low - and don't travel far beyond the crater rim. Pieces flung out at high enough velocity to travel many crater diameters away are generally subject to high pressures and, consequently, tend to be smaller. Although the EVA-1 sampling area is liberally sprinkled with ejecta from both South Ray and North Ray, none of the pieces are anywhere near big enough to have dug a 90-m crater like Buster. If Buster is a secondary, the projectile that dug it would have to have come from a far larger crater outside the local area.]

124:32:38 Duke: The rocks down there are very fractured, though. The rocks down there are extremely fractured. You can see a major fracture set running...(correcting himself) dipping about north 30 degrees on one rock. The other one is subhorizontal, so it's just a very impressive sight as far as the boulder goes. They're all angular. Some of them...Well, I call some of them subrounded, but the majority of them are angular. And they have a grayish texture to them and that's about all I can tell. I got a partial pan from up here on the rim. And I'm gonna start sampling.

124:33:21 England: Okay; that sounds good, Charlie. And why don't you press on sampling now?

[Charlie plants the scoop near the SCB and takes a stereopair of "befores" from the north. These are AS16-109- 17837 and 17838. In frame 17838, note the rock just to the left and beyond the scoop.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I think Charlie got some rocks from Buster Crater that came from the bottom."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The rocks were very similar to the ones that we saw at North Ray (during EVA-3). We sampled rocks out of South Ray Crater up on Stone Mountain (during EVA-2), but the rocks down there (at Stone) looked very similar to the rocks up at North Ray and the rocks at Buster. So, there could be some underlying formation that goes across the whole Cayley Plain. That might prove to be totally wrong, but at least from a color inference, these black and whitish rocks were everywhere. They were everywhere, I think."]

["The rock types you could classify as angular to subangular and with very little filleting around them. There were some rocks from North Ray that had fillets developed, and I think that might be a way to tell one from another (that is, South Ray ejecta from North Ray ejecta)."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "The rock from North Ray was a little more rounded and not as sharp (as one might expect if the North Ray impact pre-dated the South Ray impact). We had rocks from North Ray and South Ray in the landing site (and you can probably tell them apart) only by the angularity and the (fact that the) old rocks have more zap craters and are rounded off."]

[Mattingly, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "You are saying that those are North Ray rocks which had fillets? That's a hypothesis."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Yes. That's a guess. But I would say that is the best way to tell them apart."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I bet you five bucks that's right."]

[Mattingly, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I thought maybe you had traced them on the way up there (to North Ray)."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Of course, some of them could have been from Buster, too."]

[As indicated in USGS Professional Paper 1048, "Geology of the Apollo 16 Area, Central Lunar Highlands", South Ray Crater is believed to be 1 to 4 million years old while North Ray is 30 to 50 million.]

124:33:30 Duke: (Responding to Tony's transmission at 124:33:21) All right.

124:33:32 Young: Okay; (are) you going to give me...(Hearing Tony's go-ahead) Okay, X, 657; Y, 363; Z, 440. (Pause) X, 655; Y, 360; Z, 437. (Pause) X, 654; Y, 354; Z, 440.

124:33:57 England: We copy.

[The LPM consists of three fluxgate sensors, each of which is mounted at right angles to the other two. The X, Y, and Z readouts correspond to the three sensors, respectively.]

[Charlie gets a sample bag off his camera.]

124:34:03 England: We sure did.

124:34:06 Young: Okay; we'll turn it around. (Long Pause)

[John crosses the field-of view, headed back to the LPM to rotate the sensors 180 degrees horizontally. In the background, Charlie grabs the scoop and raises it. He doesn't yet have a sample and, hidden by his own shadow, is probably getting the top of the bag open enough to receive the rock he wants to collect. After a few seconds, he steps his left foot forward, bends the knees, gets the scoop under the rock, and raises it.]

[Fendell pans left.]

124:34:32 England: Okay, bag 5.

[John lifts the sensor off the tripod and manipulates it.]

124:34:54 England: Okay. (Pause)

[These samples are 62230-38. The big fragment is 62235, a 320-gram piece of igneous rock. 62236 and 37 and 60-gram anorthosites. Anorthosites are white and give the lunar highlands their light coloration.]

[Charlie's cross-Sun "after" is AS16-109- 17839, which shows the rock noted previously in 17838. Frame 17840 is a "locator", showing John at the Rover. Note the Rover tracks in the foreground, the magnetometer at the right, and Spook Crater in the background.]

[John puts the sensor back on the tripod and, because the tripod had moved slightly, re-adjusts the level.]

124:35:15 Young: Yeah, I never...I forgot to raise it.

124:35:17 England: Okay. (Pause)

124:35:24 Young: Thank you, Tony. (Pause)

[There is no notation related to John's visor in either the Station 2 checklist pages or on the LPM page, CDR-39. Just before the flight, John may have decided that he needed to have his visor up to be able to accurately read the light-emitting diodes on the LPM display.]

[Having rotated the sensor block 180 degrees horizontally, John runs back to the Rover. After a few start-up steps, he gets into a very long, loping stride. Although Fendell tries to follow him, the TV moves too slowly to keep up.]

124:35:46 Young: Mark, Tony.

124:35:47 England: Okay. (Pause)

[The interval from the start of John's 18-m run to his "Mark" was just under 13 seconds. The implied average speed is at least 5.0 km/s and, clearly, his sprint speed during the middle of the run was far higher.]

124:35:56 England: Yeah, sure did. It (meaning John's "Mark") started the clock.

[Fendell zooms in on Charlie, who is slightly beyond and below the Buster rim, apparently taking a "before" picture of a second sample. Note that the SCB is tilted slightly to the right, having been moved when Charlie put in bag 5. The "before" is AS16-109-17841 and is similar to 17840.]

[Duke - "In 17841, you can see where we were coming east and we turned and went south and parked down near Spook. And these were the rocks (meaning the samples)...When you uncovered them they were the real friable ones, the white matrix that I called the shock rocks. Most of the surface is unconsolidated regolith. It looks real soft but, as you step in it, you don't make too deep a footprint. There's a footprint in the lower right that's probably a couple of centimeters deep. And we just used the shovel to give us sort of scale and a vertical."]

[Jones - "And a shadow as well."]

124:36:10 Young: Okay; (I'll) do that right now. Is that okay?

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124:36:15 England: Okay, that's fine.

[Off-camera, John takes two "locators". The first is AS16-114- 18433 taken across the back of the Rover.]

[Duke - "The gate on the back of the Rover is open and you can see the penetrometer and the two tongs, the rake. I've got the shovel along with me. And you can see the wire going out as part of the LPM. And he's basically looking directly west, there. And Buster's back off to the right. We didn't use the tongs too much."]

[Next, John takes 18434 across the seats. Although the picture is out of focus, note the vertical member of the gnomon sticking up out of the stowage pouch behind John's seat.]

[Fendell aims the TV down at the inbound Rover tracks and then moves his aim to the left to image a second section of track. He then raises his aim as Charlie grabs the scoop to get the next sample.]

[Charlie gets a one-handed soil sample and, with the end of the handle in his left hand, raises the scoop, and gets his arms far enough apart that he can pour some of the soil in the bag he is holding in his right hand. He spills some.]

[Charlie plants the scoop and then spins the bag before folding the tabs across the top.]

124:36:43 Young: Okay, wait a second. (Long Pause; probably taking AS16-114- 18434)

[Charlie steps over the SCB, picks it up by the top, and puts in sample bag 6. He then sidesteps until he is north of the scoop and takes an out-of-focus "after" of the soil sample, AS16-109- 17842.]

124:37:06 England: Okay.

124:37:07 Young: (Garbled) picture.

124:37:10 Duke: That's the rock I want, but it's too big for the bag (meaning it is too big for an individual sample bag). (Pause)

[Charlie sidesteps to his left and puts the SCB down. Fendell follows to keep him centered and we see John at the back of the Rover.]

124:37:25 Young: Okay, Houston. We're ready for the reading.

124:37:27 England: (To John) Go ahead.

[Charlie plants the scoop, backs away to the north, and takes a cross-Sun stereopair of "befores" of the next sample. These pictures are AS16-109- 17843 and 17844. Charlie steps to his right between them.]

124:37:39 England: Go.

124:37:42 Young: 116 is X, 360 is Y, 366 is Z. (Pause) 116 is X, 357 is Y, 374 is Z.

124:37:58 England: Okay, we copy that.

[Charlie tries to slide the scoop under the sample but only manages to push it along the surface toward the SCB.]

[John will now rotate the sensor head 180 degrees vertically.]

124:38:03 England: Sure did. And Charlie, we'll be leaving as soon as John's finished.

[John crosses the field-of-view and Fendell follows. Just before we lose sight of Charlie, he gets the rock on the scoop head and raises it.]

124:38:18 England: Okay; bag 7.

124:38:20 Duke: Dust covered.

[This is sample 62255, a 1.2 kg anorthosite.]

124:38:27 England: Okay.

[Fendell finds John as he removes the LPM sensor head and turns it.]

[John re-seats the sensor head and adjusts the level.]

124:38:50 Duke: (Sub vocal) Got a cramp. (Pause)

[John runs back to the Rover. This time, Fendell leads John enough that we see most of the run and, with the help of John's shadow, can time the end of it with reasonable accuracy. The 18-m run takes 11.5 seconds and John's average speed is 5.6 km/hr.]

[Off-camera, Charlie's "befores" of the next sample are AS16-109- 17845 and 17846.]

124:39:04 Young: I got a couple hours, Charlie.

124:39:05 Duke: I've got (lost under Tony) six hours.

124:39:06 England: 05:45, Charlie. And I've got a Mark, John.

[Tony is reminding John to give a mark when he starts the next LPM measurement.]

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124:39:11 Young: Mark, Tony.

Movie Clip ( 0.9Mb )

124:39:15 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Fendell zooms in on Charlie, who is getting a sample bag off his camera. He then gets the scoop and uses it to turn over a flat, hand-sized rock. He gets the scoop under it but, as he tries to lift it, the rock falls off. After a second failed attempt, he rolls the rock toward the SCB.]

124:39:58 Duke: John, the only trouble is that you can't put the bag...

124:40:00 England: Okay, John, (you can read the LPM).

124:40:00 Duke: ...(lost under Tony).

[Charlie has been holding the bag in his right hand and the scoop in his left. He now transfers the bag to his left hand, leans down to get his right hand on the scoop about half way down the shaft and then runs forward as he lifts the rock with the scoop. The rock flies up off the scoop and Charlie runs forward to try to catch it. He grabs at the rock with his outstretched right hand and manages to bat it up and to his left. He reaches out with his left hand, but his momentum forces him to overshoot and he only manages to bat the rock back to his right. Once again, he almost catches it in his right hand but, finally, the rock falls off-camera to his right.]

[Fendell pans left and, while John does the readings, Charlie gets the scoop under the rock, raises it, tosses it up, steps forward, grabs at it with his right hand and pulls it in against his shoulder. Finally, as he clutches the rock, the sample bag in his left hand falls to the ground.]

124:40:13 Young: Okay: X is 104; Y, 403; Z, 423. (Pause) X, 107; Y, 404; Z, 425. (Pause) X, 110; Y, 405; Z, 425.

[Charlie plants the scoop, transfers the rock to his left hand, and shakes his right hand vigorously to get the dust off.]

124:40:38 Young: Did you get those (readings), Houston?

124:40:40 England: Sure did.

124:40:42 Young: Visor is down.

[Charlie has the rock in his right hand, again, and has it up close to his faceplate as he examines it.]

[Charlie reaches for another bag but pulls the whole dispenser off. It falls to the ground.]

124:40:52 Duke: (It) is a very friable rock, and it's the most shocked rock I've ever seen; it's just pure white. The whole matrix is pure white. And it's not a breccia.

[This sample is 62275, a 0.43 kg anorthosite.]

[Fendell pans left to watch John as he goes out to retrieve the LPM.]

124:41:05 Young: (Stopping and turning) Yeah?

124:41:06 Duke: I hate to tell you this, but I dropped my bags.

124:41:09 Young: I'll get it.

[John starts toward Charlie.]

[Duke - "I asked John to come over because I had a rock in my hand and I couldn't lean down and...You know, you just ran out of hands."]

124:41:16 Young: You've got to tape those.

[Part way out, John slows, reaches back, and adjusts his cooling.]

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124:41:30 Young: Okay, move back and let me get it on the fly, Charlie.

[John slows again as he gets close and, as Charlie backs out of the way, John draws even with the dispenser, leans to his right, sticks his left foot forward, drops to his right knee, grabs the bag, and jumps back up with ease.]

[The run out to the sampling site took about 26 seconds. As can be seen in figure 6-29 in the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report, the distance is about 14 meters and John's average speed is a very leisurely 1.9 km/hr.]

124:41:38 Duke: (To John, under Tony, commenting on John's kneeling prowess) Just beautiful.

124:41:43 Young: (Acknowledging Tony) Okay.

[John hands the dispenser to Charlie and heads back to the LPM. Fendell follows.]

[John slows as he approaches the LPM but the entire trip takes only about 19 seconds. On this trip, his average speed is about 2.7 km/hr, which is the average speed assumed for walkbacks of more than one hour.]

124:42:10 England: That'll do fine.

124:42:12 Duke: It just broke in two in my hand.

[John gathers the tripod legs in his left hand and runs back to the Rover, letting the cable train along behind.]

124:42:15 England: Geochemists are always telling us how little rock they need.

[John bounds very high as he runs back and, at one point, begins to get off balance. In mid-air, he sticks his right hand out to the side to stop the rotation. He then does the rest of the short trip to the Rover at a more sedate pace. Although it is difficult to estimate how high he gets, it appears that his RCU rises about a half meter on the highest bounds. During his longest stride, he is airborne for about 1.25 seconds. This figure suggests a maximum height of 0.32 meters and, if his forward speed was 5.5 km/hr or 1.5 m/s, a stride length of 1.9 meters.]

124:42:26 England: Okay; bag 9.

124:42:29 Young: They're going to get a lot of nice rock samples today.

124:42:34 England: Good show. It sure sounds that way.

124:42:35 Young: (Lost under Tony) nice little rocks.

124:42:39 England: Sounds like a lot of rocks.

124:42:41 Duke: That was a real balancing act, Tony.

124:42:43 Young: And if somebody cleans our suits, they can get another 5 pounds.

124:42:49 England: That's our comprehensive sample.

[John goes to get the cable reel.]

[Without support, John drops to his knees, grabs the cable reel, and then jumps up. When he retrieved Charlie's bag dispenser, he made a dynamic grab and wasn't motionless for more than a fraction of a second at the bottom. Here, he stays down long enough that we can see the effort he has to make to keep from being pitched forward by the suit.]

[There is a crank on one side of the reel and John begins to wind up the LPM cable with his right hand.]

[Mitchell operated the LPM during Apollo 14, the only other mission on which it was deployed.]

124:43:20 Young: Will it unwind on itself? (Hearing Tony and laughing) Yeah.

[As the cable lifts off the ground, it jumps and snakes around.]

124:43:30 Young: What I hope is, it (meaning the loops) doesn't end up going into the mouth of the (reel)...(Pause) (Chuckles) (Pause)

124:43:46 England: Well, you're doing pretty good there, John.

124:43:51 Young: Oh, yeah. (Long Pause)

[Once the LPM cable is completely off the ground, John walks toward the back of the Rover, continuing to wind as he goes. He winds for a total of about 53 seconds.]

[In the background, Charlie is bagging a sample. His "befores" of this sample are AS16-109- 17847 and 17848. Readers should note that, because he isn't using the gnomon, he isn't taking any down-Suns, which are designed, primarily, to get the sample and the color/gray scale in the same picture.]

124:44:10 England: Okay, bag 10.

124:44:12 Duke: It's an angular rock.

[Standing next to the SCB, Charlie leans the scoop against his leg and spins the bag to close it. This sample is 62295, a 0.25 kg igneous rock.]

[Fendell zooms in as Charlie drops bag 10 in the open SCB and grabs his scoop.]

124:44:24 England: Say again, John.

124:44:26 Young: I was worried about...On the geophone experiment...(Hearing Tony) Huh?

[John is probably talking about the LPM cable, rather than the geophone cable.]

124:44:35 Young: Okay.

[Charlie gets a sample bag and collects a quick, left-handed soil sample. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the sample bag completely open and, during the following exchange between John and Tony, brings his hands together to try to get it open and, in the process, loses the entire sample.]

124:44:40 Young: I said...Have we got a problem of some kind? Are we needing to get Charlie back?

124:44:49 England: It's no problem. We're just trying to...You're a little bit late on this station and, to get everything in and so to get back in on time, we might be a little late.

124:45:00 Young: Okay.

124:45:02 Duke: We understand.

[When John and Charlie first arrived at this station, Houston told them that it was going to be a 19-minute stop. They have already been here about 24 minutes and, back in Houston, there has been an ongoing discussion about which tasks have to be completed back at the LM before the end of the EVA.]

[Once Charlie gets the bag open, he gets another scoop of soil and bags it easily.]

[Jones - "Was the scoop you had the sort that had the little squeeze plates on the side and you could angle it?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. Uh-huh"]

[Figures 46 and 47 in Judy Allton's Tool Book show the Large, Adjustable-Angle Scoop that was flown on Apollo 16 and 17. A smaller version was flown on Apollo 15.]

[Jones - "It's interesting that Jack had a relatively easy time getting rocks solo and a terrible time getting soil; and you had a relatively easy time getting soil, most of the time."]

[Duke - "It didn't seem like it was any problem. If I was real slow with it - you know, bringing it up...The problem is that you'd hit it, and the rock would be in there and it'd be hung up a little bit - half buried - and you'd break it loose and it would pop like that and up it would fly (as happened at 124:40:00). And that was really the problem. But, with soil, you could just pick it up smooth, with one smooth motion."]

[Jones - "Looked to me like you might have the scoop head angled at about the 45-degree position."]

124:45:10 Young: (Incredulous and pleased) 8 minutes!

124:45:11 Duke: (Laughing) We'll settle for that. (Pause)

[Charlie leans the scoop against his leg but decides it won't be stable and pushes it into the ground. He then spins the bag once and "Z"s the tabs.]

124:45:25 England: Okay, bag 11.

[Charlie hops back and drops bag 11 in the SCB]

[Charlie grabs the scoop and hops sideway, probably to avoid a small crater hidden by an intervening rise, and heads toward the Rover. Fendell follows and, as Charlie goes around to the CDR seat, we see John working at the back of the Rover.]

124:46:02 Duke: Houston, I hate to tell you this, but those rocks, these light ones here, (chuckling) they look like caliche to me.

[Caliche is a calcium carbonate deposit usually associated with water deposition and, therefore, very unlikely in the dry lunar environment.]

124:46:12 England: Well, who knows?

[Fendell pans right to follow John as he goes to the front of the Rover to turn the TV off. Charlie is putting the full SCB under the CDR seat.]

[TV off.]

124:46:41 Young: You just got mine. I gave you the last rate count on the...

124:46:46 England: Right.

124:46:47 Young: ...on the LPM (documentation photo).

124:46:49 Duke: Okay, I'm...(Static)

124:47:00 Duke: (Static clears) really works great. (Long Pause)

124:47:16 Duke: And the old pallet (the gate on the back of the Rover) is closed. Locks right in there; look at that beauty.

124:47:24 Young: Okay, Charlie, check Minimum on the cooling?

124:47:26 Duke: Oh, yeah. Okay, I am. (Pause as Charlie gets into his seat) There we go. I did it that time.

124:47:45 England: And John...

124:47:46 Duke: (Lost under Tony)

124:47:46 England: ...can you check and make sure your purge valve pin's still in?

124:47:51 Young: Is it in, Charlie?

124:47:57 Duke: Ain't no way I could tell, unless you...Yeah, it's there. Uh-huh, I saw it.

124:48:01 England: Outstanding.

124:48:03 Duke: Whew! (Pause) (Playing verbally) We are mounting upon the vehicle! As they say, Houston.

124:48:14 Young: Okay.

124:48:15 England: That skill is awesome.

124:48:15 Young: (Lost under Tony) Charlie.

124:48:16 Duke: Okay. (Pause)