Geology Station 4

Geology Station 6

 

Geology Station 5

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 1 May 2018.

[Post-mission analysis shows that when John and Charlie arrived at Station 4, they parked about 80 meters west of the center of Cinco A, or at about BF.9/82.5. See Figure 3 in the Stone Mountain chapter of USGS Professional Paper 1048. As is discussed below at 145:11:04, John and Charlie will now retrace their outbound path and make their next stop about 500 meters north. The actual Station 5 location is near BJ.4/82.3, which is midway between the planned locations of Stations 5 and 6.]

[Brian MacInall has produced a planimetric map of the traverse from Station 4 to Station 5. The outbound path is shown in black. They rejoin the outbound track about the halfway point, not long after Charlie takes AS16-110- 17984]

145:03:19 Young: You all ready to go, Charlie?

145:03:20 Duke: Yes, sir. Strapped in. Let me turn the (16-mm) camera on.

145:03:23 Young: Okay; now watch my arm now. Okay? Don't hit my arm.

145:03:30 Duke: Okay, wait a minute. I don't feel it running. (Long Pause)

145:03:50 Young: We'll have to get it next time.

145:03:55 Duke: Must not have the mag in there right because it's not running.

145:04:01 Young: Can't fix it without getting out. (Pause) Don't, don't. Let's worry about that when we get to the (next) station.

145:04:11 Duke: Okay, Tony, the camera's not running this time. I'll fix it when we get down to 5. You won't miss much.

145:04:17 England: Okay; fine. (Pause)

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145:04:31 Duke: And this is going to be sporty! See that string of - excuse me, John - see that string of secondaries in Stubby?

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145:04:42 Young: Yeah.

145:04:43 Duke: On the south flank of Stubby?

145:04:45 Young: Yeah.

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145:04:48 Duke: Okay; (Reading the console) I think, at seven tenths (0.7), we are starting at four-oh (4.0). Five-two (5.2).

[Charlie's "four-oh" is the indicated 4.0 km range to the LM and "five-two" is the 5.2 km distance they drove to reach Station 4. His "seven tenths" is the distance they have to drive on a heading of 354 to reach the crater they passed on the way to Station 4 as per the dicussion at 145:01:51.]

145:05:03 England: Okay, it'll be 3...(Stops to listen)

145:05:05 Duke: The one we came...(Stops to listen)

145:05:07 England: Right; it'll be 354 at 3.4.

145:05:16 Duke: Okay. We're headed 354 and going...That thing (meaning the LRV Nav system) is taking us straight for the LM, John. (Pause) Downslope is easy!

[In a detail from traverse photo 17978, Don McMillan has labelled both the LM and House Rock.]

145:05:26 Duke: Yeah.

145:05:27 Young: ...it's going to be easy, Charlie.

145:05:28 Duke: Have you got the brakes on?

145:05:29 Young: Partially.

145:05:31 Duke: Isn't that something?

145:05:32 Young: Have to.

145:05:33 Duke: Yeah. (Long Pause)

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "Travel to Station 5 was downhill all the way with the brake on. Driving downhill, I did it with idle power and sometimes put on the brakes. That's all we had to use. I wasn't going too fast, maybe 4 or 5 kilometers (per hour). On a straight stretch (meaning 'level'), (we) might get up to 10. But coming up to a ridge, I'd slow back down 'cause I had no idea what kind of slope was on the other side of that ridge. You sure can tell that, if you let that rascal loose, she'd go down that hill in a big hurry."]

["When you got the Rover up to about 10 clicks going down a hill, it's just like riding a sled on ice. No matter which way you turn the wheel, the thing's going straight. I mean, it'd be sideways, but still going in a straight line downhill. Lot of mass there."]

[During the drive to Station 5, Charlie takes AS16-110- 17975 to 17990. These have been assembled as a PDF document (15 Mb).]

145:05:54 Duke: 354 for 3.4. (Pause) You know, it was really not apparent we were climbing this steep a slope.

145:06:14 Young: 354 for 0.4?

145:06:17 Duke: 3.4.

145:06:19 England: Okay, that's the bearing and range that...(Stops to listen)

145:06:20 Duke: Okay, Tony, was that bearing and range...Was that at Stop 5...(Stops to listen)

145:06:24 England: Okay, the heading and distance (to the target crater)...

145:06:25 Duke: Okay, stop 5. Roger.

145:06:28 England: ...is 352 at 0.7.

145:06:33 Duke: Okay, we've got a 354 bearing back to the LM right now, so we'll just keep on that.

145:06:38 England: Okay. Sounds good. (Long Pause)

145:06:58 Duke: Man, John. You're doing a great job! Okay, Tony, coming back downslope 354 at 3.8 is about the same stuff.

145:07:13 England: Okay. (Pause)

145:07:17 Duke: Okay. We're about to cross our tracks. (Long Pause)

[Charlie probably takes AS16-110- 17985 at this point.]

145:07:36 Young: Only way to fly, Tony.

145:07:37 England: I understand.

145:07:39 Young: Charlie, you said you were going to see some other tracks on the Moon.

145:07:43 Duke: Yeah.

[This is a reference to a pre-flight dream of Charlie's in which he and John encountered vehicle tracks during the drive to North Ray Crater. See the discussion following 104:27:08.]

145:07:52 Young: No wonder we broke the pitch meter. Just as well we did.

145:07:55 Duke: Yeah.

145:07:56 Young: Ya-ho-ho-ho-ho. (Pause) Look at this baby. I'm really getting confidence in it now. It's really humming like a kitten.

145:08:07 Duke: Oh, this machine is super.

145:08:08 Duke: Yeah. (Pause)

145:08:13 England: Probably a good idea you couldn't see how steep it was going up.

145:08:18 Young: Darn right it was. (Pause) Okay. I've got the power off, and we're making 10 kilometers an hour. Just falling down our own tracks. (Pause)

[As can be determined from Figure 23 in the Stone Mountain chapter of USGS Professional Paper 1048, John and Charlie are not going straight downhill but, even so, they drop in elevation about 100 meters over a distance of 600 meters. This corresponds to an average descent slope of 9.5 degrees. Parts of the traverse are, of course, steeper than this average. In comparison, the average downhill slope of Stone Mountain in this area is 12.3 degrees.]

145:08:50 Young: Uh-oh. (Pause)

145:08:59 Duke: Almost spun out.

145:09:03 Young: How about this one right here, Charlie?

145:09:04 Duke: Yep, that's it, John. That's a good one.

145:09:13 Duke: Okay. It's Stop 5. We're supposed to park at...

145:09:16 England: (A heading of) 180 (south).

145:09:18 Duke: (Reading LMP-10) 180. (Hearing Tony) Say again, Tony.

145:09:23 England: Roger. I was just saying 180.

145:09:25 Young: Say again.

145:09:30 Duke: (Acknowledging Tony's repeated '180') Rog. (Pause) That doesn't look like a secondary, John.

145:09:38 Young: It doesn't look like one to me either. Well...

145:09:41 Duke: It might be a primary impact, but I think those blocks - the rocks there - are from South Ray. I think we ought to get a rake sample here.

145:09:50 England: How big is that crater?

145:09:55 Duke: About 15 meters across.

145:09:58 England: Okay. Understand 15 meters.

145:10:03 Duke: That's affirm.

145:10:05 Young: Okay. Well, we're parked right on the rim of it. We'll let you see.

145:10:08 England: Okay.

[Figures 13 and 44 from chapter D4 from the USGS Apollo 16 Professional Paper show the location of the Station relative to local craters (fig. 13) and a planimetric map of the Station (fig. 44).]

[Brian McInall has revised and elaborated the Planimetric Map using LROC image M175179080LR and the Hasselblad images taken at Station 5. Note that the initial LRV paking place is indicated by a black rectangle. In just a moment, they will decide to pick up the Rover and move it about its own width farther east to the location indicated by the LVR icon.]

145:10:58 Young: In a hole?

145:11:01 Duke: Well, it's downslope for me over here.

145:11:03 Young: It is?

145:11:04 Duke: Yeah. (Long Pause)

[The bearing to the LM of 353 and the range of 3.5 puts them near BH.7/82.7. As indicated above, I believe they are 500 meters north of Station 4 and near BJ.4/82.3. The difference is about 160 meters. Figure 1 in the USGS Professional Paper shows a Station 5 location about 750 meters north of Station 4 and I believe that this is an error. My main reason for this conclusion is the simple fact that the range to the LM indicated by the LRV Nav System has only decreased by 0.5 km and, although there are clearly errors in the bearing and range, there are no indications of changes this large over so short a distance during any of the Rover missions. If my conjecture is correct, then the Station 5 crater is more likely to be the one at the bottom of Figure 13 in the Professional Paper, the crater which is bisected by the bottom of the image about 30 meters left of center. Readers should note that I have assumed that Station 4 is, indeed, about 80 meters west of the center of Cinco A. Figure 23 in the Stone Mountain chapter of the USGS Apollo 16 Professional Paper places Station 5 about 580 meters north of Station 4.]

145:11:23 Duke: Well, I'm out. I'm not getting out again, and getting back in.

145:11:26 Young: No, I don't mean that. I mean let's bring the Rover back up here.

145:11:29 Duke: Oh, you want to pick it up, huh?

145:11:30 Young: Yeah.

145:11:31 Duke: Okay. (Pause)

145:11:36 Young: Okay, now. We've got to swing it around. (Pause) There we go.

145:11:50 Duke: Okay.

145:11:51 Young: That's more like it. (Long Pause)

[As indicated above John parked on a heading of 174. Frame AS16-110-18010 suggests that they may have put it on a somewhat easterly heading. Because they don't re-initialize the Rover Nav system before the leave for Station 6, the indicated Rover heading and the bearing to the LM will be off by the difference between the initial heading of 174 and whatever the heading was after they moved the Rover.]

[Duke - "Like I always say, 'If you don't like your parking place, you just pick it up and walk off with it.' It was easy to pick up. I don't remember the details. I'm trying to picture it in my mind; but, apparently, we parked and it was pointed down a slope and there was a little bench behind us, so we just picked it up and hauled it back."]

[Jones - "One at either side at the midpoint?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. You just get out, right where your seat was, and there was a handle on the frame."]

[AS16-107- 17511 shows the handle on John's side of the Rover. The Rover has a terrestrial weight of about 230 kg (500 pounds) and a lunar weight of about 40 kg (88 pounds).]

[Jones - "Both hands on the handle?"]

[Duke - "I don't remember exactly, but I think both hands on the handle. It was sort of like you could reach up and...There was a handle down there and, also, you could reach up under the chassis and pick it up - spread your hands apart a little bit, that gave you a little balance on the thing. It was easy to do."]

145:12:13 Young: What'd you say? Didn't run?

145:12:16 Duke: No The camera didn't run. "X" is still there. The film looks good. (Pause)

145:12:29 Young: Okay. (Pause) (LCRU) Mode switch to 2. (Static; Long Pause)

145:12:55 Duke: Okay; now it (meaning the 16-mm camera)'s working. (Long Pause)

[TV on.]

145:13:23 Young: Got the Earth in the (sighting) tube. Okay.

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145:13:27 England: Okay. And while you're brushing...

145:13:29 Young: Brush the LCRU.

145:13:29 England: ...off the LCRU there, make sure you do a good job. We notice it seems to be heating up. (Pause)

[The TV was at maximum zoom when John turned it off at Station 4 and, now, Fendell pulls back on the zoom. He is looking toward the northeast.]

145:13:40 England: Okay. We understand.

145:13:44 Duke: I'll vouch for that, Tony; honest.

145:13:47 England: We believe you! (Pause) Our best bet here at this crater is to look for...

145:13:54 Duke: Okay...(Stops to listen)

145:13:55 England: ...a rounded, as well as angular. The angular boulders are probably from South Ray. And maybe the rounded ones are working their way out of the regolith here. So that may be a cue to our getting Descartes.

145:14:10 Duke: Good point.

145:14:12 Young: Roger. (Pause) Well, I'll tell you what. If we do a rake sample in the wall, would probably be our best bet.

145:14:20 Duke: That's what I would like to do. (Pause)

[Fendell pans clockwise and, after a moment, finds John dusting the left front of the Rover.]

[At about this time, Charlie is taking the Station 5 Pan a few meters west of the back of the Rover. See, also, Figure 14 in the Stone Mountain chapter of the Professional Paper. The pan starts with frame AS16-110- 17991 and ends with 18018.]

[Frame 17991 is a down-Sun toward Baby Ray Crater.]

[Frame 17999 shows North Ray Crater. Note the Rover tracks, which may be the ones John and Charlie made as they came past Station 5 on their way outbound from the LM. In a detail, Don McMillan has labelled both the LM and House Rock.]

[In frame 18005, we see the tracks John made as he approached from Station 4 and turned toward the south to park.]

[Frame 18006 shows the position of the Rover after John and Charlie picked it up and moved it. Note that the Rover is not sitting on either the outbound or inbound tracks.]

[Frame 18008 shows John at the front of the Rover. Note that the rake is still on the back of the Rover.]

[Frame 18009 shows John as he starts toward the back of the Rover to get the rake. Past the front of the Rover, we may be seeing both the inbound and outbound tracks, although in some circumstances the double Ackerman steering can result in an offset between the front and rear tracks. See, for example, Apollo 15 photo AS15-90-12192.]

[Frames 18012 to 18018 show the Station 5 crater but, because of the high elevation of the Sun, the crater is hard to pick out. In a few minutes, John will take a rake sample on the west wall of the crater near the second fiducial left of center in 18018.]

145:14:33 Duke: You know, John, looking back, I can't even see our tracks.

145:14:37 Young: They're back there, I guarantee.

145:14:39 Duke: I know it. Man, we('ve) come a long way! I thought this thing (meaning Stone Mountain) was just right next door to us (at the LM). (Long Pause)

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145:15:07 Duke: That rake is sure a great way to get a lot of rocks - in a hurry.

145:15:14 Young: Yep, sure is. (Pause) Boy, I tell you, even South Ray looks like it's accessible. I'd hesitate to say, though. There may be blocks down there that won't quit.

145:15:27 Duke: There's some big black ones. See those big black blocks there, John?...

145:15:30 Young: Yeah.

145:15:31 Duke: ...On the side of it. And there's some big white ones there, too. The black ones are the biggest.

145:15:37 Young: It almost looks like we could just go right down there and right up on South Ray, doesn't it?

145:15:41 Duke: No, we couldn't. (Chuckles) I don't believe they're going to let us, but it looks it. I agree with you.

145:15:46 Young: I don't think we could.

145:15:49 England: Judging by the blocks here, I sure don't know.

[Tony is probably referring to the block concentration at Station 4. Here, at Station 5, the few rocks that are visible are no more than fist size. Fendell finds Charlie at the back of the Rover. The following dialog suggests that he is configuring his camera after finishing the pan.]

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145:16:13 Young: Let me get the rake sample, Charlie.

145:16:16 Duke: Okay. f/11 and 11 (foot focus). (Pause)

[John joins Charlie, gets the rake, and goes off-camera to the right.]

[Charlie has hopped sideways around to the CDR seat to get the gnomon - with Fendell following - but John already has it.]

[Fendell begins a counter-clockwise pan.]

145:17:27 Duke: John, I don't think this big crater is a secondary.

145:17:31 Young: That's what I mean. But this...

145:17:33 Duke: That little one is.

145:17:34 Young: This little bitty one is probably a primary, too, because look at the glass on the bottom. Man, you've got to have velocity to do that.

145:17:42 Duke: Yeah, I agree.

[Ejecta from South Ray would impact at too low a velocity to create glass, although it could deposit glass created in the South Ray impact itself. John and Charlie have commented on several rocks with glass coatings, which was probably acquired as the rocks were being dug out of South Ray. A primary impact, on the other hand, usually will involve an impactor traveling 20 km/s or more and that is more than enough velocity to vaporize the impactor and melt some of the target material. Most of the crews found and commented on small fresh craters with a puddle of glass in the bottom.]

[Fendell finds John and Charlie. As indicated in Figure 14 in the Stone Mountain chapter of the Professional Paper, they are collecting a first rake sample about 10 meters WSW of the Rover. Charlie is standing between us and the gnomon and is in position to take a down-Sun, AS16-110- 18019. John is in position to take cross-Suns from the south. His first picture is AS16-107- 17492 and, as he steps to his right to get a stereo companion, 17493, we see that he is standing on the inner wall of the crater with his right foot six inches (15 cm) or so below his left.]

[Even on the lunar mare, the regolith layer is 4 to 5 meters thick and a typical 0.5 meter crater will have dug down only 10 to 15 centimeters and will not have brought up bedrock. It could, however, have punched through the South Ray ejecta blanket and have brought up samples of Descartes that were already buried in the regolith at the time of South Ray - if this small crater formed more recently than South Ray.]

145:17:49 Duke: Okay. (Listens to Tony) Yeah, there is...

145:17:50 Young: Yeah. I don't think the rocks that are there were there because...

145:17:55 Duke: Yeah, it does, John. There's some rocks right in that corner there, right by your footprint.

145:18:00 Young: Oh, yeah, right by my footprint.

145:18:03 Duke: See that one right there? Right by the rake?

145:18:04 Young: Yeah.

145:18:05 Duke: And here's one right in the very bottom. Why don't you get that scoop going? And I'll go over here and get a locator.

145:18:16 England: Okay. Sounds like a good plan. (Pause)

[Charlie has hopped up to the crater rim about ten meters beyond the gnomon and turns to face the Rover. His locator is AS16-110-18020. In the foreground, John has done one swath with the rake and is shaking the dirt out.]

145:18:30 Young: Okay. Well, we've got several. We've already picked up a couple of beads for you, but we didn't document them. (Long Pause)

[Charlie goes to the rim of the crater to get a bag out while John waits. Note that John is standing a half meter or so below Charlie. After getting the bag open, Charlie turns to his right and steps down onto the crater wall with his right foot and holds the bag low so John can pour.]

145:18:56 Young: Yeah.

145:18:57 Duke: One scoop.

145:19:00 Young: Want me to do it again?

145:19:02 Duke: Well, we got a bagful.

145:19:03 Young: Notice the color of the material, Charlie, in the bottom of it. It's white. (Pause) We get a kilo of soil.

145:19:11 Duke: That's what this is. This isn't rocks.

145:19:14 Young: Friable soil?

145:19:15 Duke: Yeah.

145:19:16 Young: That could be Descartes, Charlie.

145:19:19 Duke: Okay, Tony, that rake sample was in 332, and I just - with an experiment - pinched one of the rocks, and it all...It broke.

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145:19:33 England: Okay. We copy that.

145:19:34 Duke: It's probably going to be a bagful of soil when we get it back (to Houston).

145:19:38 England: Well, that may still be Descartes.

145:19:44 Young: It may be.

[Charlie has come down to John's level so he can put bag 332 in John's SCB. In the meantime, John has turned the rake head 90 degrees and is ready to lift a soil sample.]

145:19:47 Young: The lower material in the crater is...(Long Pause)

[Charlie hops partway up the crater wall and gets a bag out for the soil. John pours the soil without difficulty.]

145:20:10 Duke: Yeah.

145:20:11 Young: (Returning to his description of the material in the crater) (It's) lighter albedo, much lighter albedo. And if I had my druthers, it's somewhere between the gray and the white out on the plains.

145:20:22 England: Okay.

[John pours a second rakeful of soil.]

145:20:25 Young: It's somewhere between the gray of the surface and the white material that we picked up out on the plains. And we got a bagful of most of that from scooping underneath the rock sample.

[Charlie spins the bag, folds the tabs, and puts the bag in John's SCB. At some point, John takes AS16-107- 17494 and 17495.]

[Clearly, Houston thinks they have not yet sampled the main crater at this site. Charlie's prior description of it being a "blocky rim" crater at 145:08:41 probably led people in Houston to believe there is something more like the Station 4 crater in the immediate vicinity.]

[Charlie hops backwards up to the crater rim.]

145:21:01 Duke: Where?

145:21:02 Young: Right there. (Pause)

[John picks up the glass sample with the edge of the rake and holds out his right hand and drops it in.]

145:21:11 England: Okay. We'd like a documented glass sample, if you have a chance.

[After examining the glass sample, John drops it to the ground and gets the gnomon.]

145:21:19 England: Okay.

145:21:20 Duke: Okay; we'll look for a rock that's glass-coated, Tony.

145:21:22 England: Okay, fine. (Pause)

[John has turned to look at the south wall of the crater.]

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145:21:51 England: Okay. That sounds like a good idea.

145:21:52 Duke: That's a good plan. (Pause)

[What John may be saying is that, if the main Station 5 crater is older than South Ray, the south wall would not have been struck by much South Ray ejecta, having been shielded by the rim. However, during the Technical Debrief, he voiced a different hypothesis.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It became apparent after we were at Station 4 that we weren't going to get what everybody thought was true Descartes, because we kept picking up what looked like South Ray ejecta. The only way we could think to do it was to sample towards the South Ray side of the secondaries, or find a primary and sample there. It just wasn't clear that any of those things (meaning the small craters they saw on the side of Stone Mountain) were primaries, because of the way those blocks were distributed in them. They (meaning the blocks)'re all on the side away from South Ray. Maybe there were a few primaries up there, but we sure didn't see any, did we?"]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "No."]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "It makes you think that there's a lot of craters on the Moon that must be secondaries. This is the first time that we've had a clear-cut example of it. A lot of those craters on the Moon must be secondaries - as opposed to (high-velocity primary) impact craters, because they don't look any different except for the block distribution. As many secondaries as the South Ray must have made in that region, it is sure clear there must be a lot of craters that are not primary impact craters. I mean a lot."]

[Because this is a highlands site, the problem is distinguishing secondaries dug by South Ray ejecta and very old, eroded, primaries and secondaries. All would be expected to have pieces of South Ray ejecta on the side away from South Ray. The Apollo 14 crew also landed at a highlands site, but one without the complication of a young, nearby crater on the scale of South Ray. Shepard and Mitchell encountered countless eroded craters that literally overlapped each other and most of these were probably very old. I expect that many of the craters Young and Duke saw are also very old.]

[John walks around the inside of the crater to the west wall while Charlie walks toward the south, angling away from the rim, and then stops to look at a rock.]

145:22:08 Young: Okay.

145:22:09 Duke: Remember that right by this...Right by that footprint. (Pause) Right where I stopped walking.

[Charlie starts down into the crater to join John. Before doing so, he reached forward with his right foot and planted a prominent footprint to mark the galls-covered rock. He then moved sideways down onto the inner crater wall so that there would be no doubt about where he 'stopped walking'. From the following dialog, I infer that John is not at the bottom of the crater but is on the wall, still well up from the bottom, although that fact is not obvious from the TV picture.]

145:22:19 Young: No, I'm not.

145:22:20 Duke: I'm not going to get a down-Sun of that.

[Duke - "We're inside the crater. We're inside the rim and, to the left, it went way down, deeper. It just seemed too dangerous to try to get down there so we could get a down-Sun picture."]

145:22:24 England: No, let's forget the down-Sun.

145:22:25 Duke: I'll get the cross-Sun, okay?

145:22:27 Young: Yeah. (Pause)

[Charlie takes a cross-Sun "before" from the north and then hops to his right - upslope - to get a stereo companion. These are AS16-110- 18021 and 18022.]

[A fresh Crater which has penetrated through the regolith to bedrock will show a bench partway down the wall at a depth that corresponds to the base of the regolith. The Apollo 12 and 15 crews saw a number of craters with benches on the mare. As a crater is eroded by the constant rain of small impactors, the benches are worn away and covered. Here, however, the lack of a bench is probably due to the fact that the crater is not large enough to have reached the regolith base. Analyses present in USGS Professional Paper 1048 indicates that typical regolith thicknesses at the Apollo 16 site are 5 to 10 m, with the 12 meter depth determined with the active seismic (thumper) experiment being at the high end of the range. The 25-m Station 5 crater would have penetrated to a depth of about 6 meters and probably did not reach bedrock.]

[John turns to his left, going halfway around to face Charlie. As he turns, he stumbles slightly and his movements suggest he standing on a slope. In addition, the soil he kicks in the general direction of the Rover clearly falls down a slope.]

145:23:06 Duke: And just right here in front the gnomon and see what you get. One scoop and it might be...

145:23:12 Young: Okay.

[John backs up to take two cross-Suns from the south. These are AS16-107-17496 and 17947.]

145:23:16 Young: You do, huh?

145:23:17 Duke: Yeah.

145:23:18 Young: Okay. (Pause) I don't think you're going to get anything but soil.

145:23:29 Duke: I don't (think so), too.

[John stands with his left side slightly upslope, bends his left knee until it is almost touching the ground and drags the rake through the soil. Both this swath and the next one are below the gnomon and run in a north-south direction. John then stands partway up and shakes the dirt out.]

145:23:35 Young: Yeah. (Long Pause)

[John does another swath, this time without changing position. He shakes the soil out. Charlie comes downslope, diagonally, to join John.]

[Jones - "One thing I am always aware of in listening to the missions is constant stream of chatter at the geology station, really in all the missions, although particularly so in the J missions. The notable exceptions are the 11 and 14 crews, so personality may play a big role; but I've wondered, too, if a factor in the talkativeness could have been the fact that your field-of-view was somewhat restricted in the helmet and you couldn't always see each other. Would there have been a tendency to talk more as a result of that?"]

[Duke - "Well, I'm not conscious of that being the reason. You're right; we had not only the normal visor - the LEVA - that restricted some of the view, but then we pulled down these opaque sides on the helmet. We had one that came down from the top and ones that came out from the side; and those were like putting blinders on! I think the reason we talked so much is because we were just getting better at geology and we wanted to make good descriptions of what we were seeing. To me it was just normal to talk."]

[Jones - "I'm glad you did!"]

145:23:58 Young: Okay.

145:23:59 Duke: I bet we'd be in a better position. (Garbled) (Pause)

[Charlie takes the rake, gives the bag to John, and pours.]

[Charlie turns to face the slope and takes a radial swath on the south side of the gnomon.]

Video Clip ( 2 min 35 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPEG )

145:24:23 Young: No, they don't. There's at least one of them that's glass-coated. (To Charlie) Hey, there's some. (To Tony) These are whitish-type rocks, very small. They may have come from South Ray. (Pause)

145:24:49 Duke: Let's try one more scoop, John.

145:24:51 Young: Okay.

[Charlie takes his next swath on the north side of the gnomon.]

[Charlie shakes the soil out of the rake.]

145:25:10 Duke: Hey, look at that! And all of those are rounded.

145:25:14 Young: (To Tony) I know...Charlie points...The different characteristics of these rocks that we're just getting right now, and maybe that's the key - is that they're all more rounded than the South Ray crater rocks are.

[Charlie starts another swath on the north side of the gnomon.]

145:25:31 Young: There are a few angular (rocks) in there, but these are mostly rounded; and I see some little black glass on one. But they're mostly rounded, whitish rocks covered with dust, of course.

[Charlie shakes the soil out.]

[John steps in with the bag and Charlie pours.]

145:25:49 Duke: Bag 334.

145:25:50 Young: Okay.

145:25:54 Duke: That's bag 334, Tony.

145:25:57 England: Okay; 334.

[John folds the bag to seal it, rather than spinning it. Charlie turns to present his SCB but doesn't turn all the way to avoid facing downslope into the crater. John goes diagonally upslope to get to the SCB. At some point he takes a pair of 'afters', AS16-107- 17498 and 17499.]

145:26:06 Duke: They want us to get a glass-coated one, and there's a good one right up on the...

145:26:08 Young: Okay.

145:26:09 England: Okay, did you get...

145:26:10 Young: Let's go up there and get it.

145:26:11 Duke: Okay.

[John grabs the gnomon and heads up over the rim to the glass-coated rock Charlie noted earlier.]

145:26:15 Duke: Do what? Huh? Say again.

145:26:18 England: Okay. You got your soil there?

145:26:22 Duke: No. We didn't. I'll get a scoopful.

[Duke - "It doesn't look steep, here; but we're on the inside of this rim and it was...See, as I try to get started, how I slip backward?"]

145:26:27 Duke: (Lost under Tony)

145:26:27 England: ...inside the rim there, we'd kind of like you to stay inside the rim and just kind of work around and see what you can find.

145:26:35 Duke: Okay. Let me get us some soil here. (Long Pause)

[John turns and comes back to the rim where he drops the gnomon. Charlie gets a rakeful of dirt from the general area where they did the swaths. He is standing just inside the crater rim.]

145:26:51 Young: (Getting a bag out) Wait a minute, Charlie.

145:26:53 Duke: This ain't...You really feel like you're on the verge of instability, don't you?

145:26:59 Young: Yeah.

145:27:02 England: That's probably only because you are.

145:27:04 Duke: (Pouring) I got your the gloves so dirty. (Joking) There's a 100 kilos.

[Charlie turns to face south, presenting his SCB to John. The terrestrial weight of a bag full of soil is about one kilogram.]

145:27:13 Young: Okay. That's 100 kilos that's going into bag 402.

145:27:15 England: Okay; bag 402.

145:27:16 Young: Hope you're able to document it with the TV, because we've stepped all over it.

145:27:22 Duke: (Laughing) Tony, these "after" pictures are going to be...On this kind of terrain, you're bouncing so much trying to keep your balance, that you just sort of obliterate whatever you've picked up...The place you picked it up.

[Charlie hops part way up the crater rim and starts around it going counter-clockwise. John follows.]

145:27:39 Young: Okay. We'll go around about a...(Stops to listen)

145:27:41 England: ...any of that white soil. Is that right?

145:27:43 Young: That's correct; we're not. I kicked some of it away to see just how...

145:27:49 Duke: Hey, John?

145:27:50 Young: Yeah?

[Charlie stops on the south side of the crater.]

145:28:01 England: That's what we're looking for, Charlie.

145:28:03 Young: What, Charlie?

145:28:04 Duke: I was going to say take a picture of that. (Long Pause)

[Charlie gets the gnomon from John and puts it down. However, apparently he does not take any pictures]

145:28:17 Young: That one right there?

145:28:18 Duke: Yeah. That one right there.

145:28:19 Young: Okay, I'll get a...I'll get a cross-Sun.

[John backs up to take a photo from the west, AS16-107-17500.]

[What Charlie means is that the slope is going to make it impossible to take any pictures other than the one John is getting.]

145:28:29 Duke: Man, I'm feel like I'm...

[John hops to his left to get a stereo companion, AS16-107-17501. He then steps back to his right and takes a third picture, AS16-107- 17502.]

[John bounds up to the rim and turns to take a locator.]

145:28:42 England: Okay. We can get the location off the TV.

145:28:44 Young: (To Charlie) It's not worth it. (Responding to Tony) Okay.

[Apparently, John does not take a picture.]

[England, from a 1996 letter - "We planned to use the camera to help guide the sampling. We had seen features in the Apollo 14 pictures that we would have liked to have had sampled and hoped that we could use the TV to reduce the number of these misses. In fact, we saw a few features that we asked about and that sometimes led to changes in sampling, but John and Charlie were such good observers that they didn't miss much. The biggest advantage was that John and Charlie didn't have to spend much time explaining what they were doing. I could stay ahead of them and have information ready when they needed it. Using the TV, I could also prod the Backroom to think about some alternative strategies before the crew got to the point where a decision had to be made. It also aided the thinking-out-loud periods when the crew and the ground were trying to interpret what the crew was seeing. We didn't do too much of that, but there was some. We were aware that if we proposed too strong of an idea about what they were seeing, we might bias their sampling too much toward a new hypothesis."]

["While we wanted to take advantage of what was found to guide some of the sampling, we also wanted to ensure that they sampled systematically. In the heat of the surface activities, it is easy to become captive of a new idea that wouldn't stand up too well under more careful thought."]

[Charlie is standing far enough down the slope that the gnomon is at about waist level. He reaches up with the rake and drags it a short distance through the soil near the gnomon.]

145:28:54 Duke: It was; it crumbled to pieces. (Pause)

[Charlie shakes the regolith out of the rake to see if he got any rocks.]

145:29:05 Young: Get that right there.

[Charlie is hopping upslope sideways, leading with his right foot. He makes only slow progress.]

[Jones - "Had you done any walking like this at a place like White Sands (National Monument near Alamogordo, New Mexico)?"]

[Duke - "Not in the suit. We did, just in shirtsleeves."]

[Jones - "This looks very much like sidehill walking in that kind of stuff."]

[Duke - "Yeah. Well, you can see we're having a real problem here, maintaining our balance, getting started, and walking in a...You tended to go downhill, tend to slide down."]

[Jones - "Was there any particular problem in the inflated suit with having one leg lower than the other one? Did it produce any stress on the legs?"]

[Duke - "No. I don't think so."]

145:29:10 Young: Here, let me. Hand me the rake, I can get it. (Pause)

[Charlie steps on a little mound of soil, which crumbles under his weight. He starts to fall forward and starts running in place, trying to get his feet under his center of gravity.]

[Charlie gets the rake planted on the ground and, using it for support, finally gets his body under control.]

[Charlie scoops up the rock.]

[Although Charlie was blocking our view, it appears that, when they tried to get the rock out of the rake, it started to fall and Charlie had to do a little juggling act - rather like the ones he did at Station 1 and 2 - before he could catch it.]

145:29:34 Duke: Okay, that's got...(Stops to listen)

145:29:34 England: ...and the ones you just have here, can you see any crystals in it?

[John gets an individual sample bag off his camera.]

145:29:49 Young: Bluish?

145:29:51 Duke: Well, that's what it looked...Grayish maybe. And one corner of it's got a glass rind on it about half a centimeter thick.

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145:30:03 England: Okay. We copy that.

[Charlie hands the rock to John and moves upslope toward the gnomon to do some more raking.]

145:30:12 England: Outstanding.

[As shown in Figure 48C in Professional Paper 1048, this sample broke after it was collected and arrived in Houston in four pieces, the largest being 108 grams. The sample is a breccia and, according to the authors of the Professional Paper, is believed to be a piece of the Descartes formation, primarily for the reason advanced by the crew. Namely, it is more rounded than the likely pieces of South Ray ejecta collected at Station 4.]

[Charlie completes a long rake swath and then shakes the dirt out.]

[A breccia can, of course, contain crystalline inclusions.]

145:30:33 England: Okay, 403.

[Charlie maintains his position, with his SCB on the uphill side, so John can stow sample bag 403.]

145:30:43 Young: (Closing the top of Charlie's SCB) Okay

145:30:44 Duke: ...that's about it. (Pause) Want to move on around there about 10 feet or so?

145:30:50 Young: (Grabbing the gnomon) Okay.

[John continues counter-clockwise around the crater rim. Because of the slope, he chooses to walk rather than run. Fendell follows.]

[After following John and Charlie for a while, Fendell reverses direction and pans right to look at the last sampling site. He aims the camera at the sample site long enough for someone in the Backroom to take a Polaroid picture of it and then pans left to find the crew.]

145:31:12 Young: Okay. Let's get it, Charlie.

145:31:14 Duke: Okay. (Pause) I'll back off and get the cross-Sun here.

145:31:26 Young: Yeah, I'll have to get an up-Sun here, or else do a lot of work. (Pause)

[Charlie takes a cross-Sun stereopair of the gnomon from the north, AS16-110- 18023 and 18024. John is in a position to take an up-Sun.]

[There is a fist-sized rock next to the up-Sun gnomon leg. Charlie plants the rake on the surface just to the left of the rock and then, holding the top of the rake handle in his left hand, leans forward, almost to the point where his right knee touches the ground, and grabs the rock. At this point, John takes up-Sun photo AS16-107- 17503. Charlie then pushes back on the rake and stands. The sample 65035, a 446-gram "white matrix" breccia which can be seen in Figure 46C in Professional Paper 1048. John gets a sample bag off his camera and, during the following, steps in to get a better look at the rock as Charlie holds and describes it.]

145:32:09 Young: Defies description.

145:32:10 Duke: (Laughing) Defies description. (Giggling) Yeah.

145:32:12 Young: 404 is the bag number...

145:32:17 England: Okay, bag 404.

145:32:19 Duke: Y'all got us on the big eye?

[Charlie twists his torso to his left just far enough that, by turning his head inside the bubble helmet, he can see the front of the Rover. John is putting bag 404 in Charlie's SCB.]

145:32:24 Duke: Yeah. They do.

145:32:25 Young: (I'll) close the top, Charlie.

145:32:30 Duke: Okay. Let me try a rake here. Let me get an "after".

145:32:32 Young: Get an "after", Charlie.

145:32:33 Duke: Okay. (Pause) Got it.

[Charlie hops back slightly to get cross-Sun "after" AS16-110- 18025.]

[Charlie tries to hop upslope but has trouble making progress and runs in place, "treading moondust", for a moment to keep his balance.]

[Charlie does a shallow rake swath and then shakes the soil out of the rake.]

[Charlie raises the rake to pour the sample into the bag John is holding open. Charlie's next transmission suggests that, on this first swath, he only got one rock.]

145:33:00 Duke: That was a whitish rock. That one probably came from South Ray. (As John starts to close the sample bag) Wait a minute. (Pause)

[Charlie does a second swath, closer to the gnomon, that starts well down slope from the top of the first swath. In "after" photo AS16-110- 18026, the first swath is the one on the far left and the second is the one on the far right. As Charlie shakes the soil out, John turns and takes AS16-107- 17504.]

145:33:24 England: Man. It sure looks like a good thing we had that rake along.

145:33:26 Young: Yeah, most of those are either little rocks...(Stops to listen)

145:33:30 England: Go ahead, John.

[Charlie starts his third swath between the first two but only drags the rake a short distance before he starts over a little higher up slope. Charlie drags the rake through the soil about a half meter and then it catches on a buried rock. He then tilts the rake head to the left to free it and then continues the swath.]

145:33:34 Duke: (Finishing the swath) Hey, there's a great one, John. There's a good rock, right there.

[John holds the bag as low as he can and Charlie pours. By this time, John has probably already taken AS16-107- 17505.]

145:33:45 England: We concur, John.

145:33:46 Young: ...you...

145:33:47 England: We sure do.

145:33:48 Young: ...get the rocks back because they're so darn (dust covered)...It's 405.

145:33:53 England: Okay.

[While John describes the large rock Charlie just collected, Charlie takes "after" photo AS16-110- 18026.]

145:34:16 England: Okay. We copy that.

[This sample is probably 65315, a 300-gram breccia which is shown in Figure 50C in Professional Paper 1048.]

145:34:22 England: Okay.

[John stows bag 405 in Charlie's SCB.]

[John turns and takes an "after", AS16-107- 17506 and then steps downslope to his left to take 17507. In the first of these, note that the rake marks were made after John took 17505. These marks may be just incidental marks made as Charlie walked a step or two to the east and moved the rake without lifting it completely off the ground.]

145:34:38 Young: Let me do that, Charlie.

[John gets the gnomon and then turns to look back to the west side of the crater. Charlie is looking east.]

145:34:42 England: Okay, can you dig into the face of the slope a bit?

145:34:45 Young: Let me dig. Let me...Charlie?! Let me do that.

145:34:49 Duke: Okay. I'll swap with you.

145:34:53 Young: Hold the gnomon.

145:34:54 Duke: (To Houston) Okay...(Pause)

145:34:58 Young: Watch it now.

[Charlie backs downslope several feet.]

[John starts walking clockwise around the inner wall of the crater.]

145:35:07 Young: Find a steep slope.

145:35:08 Duke: Okay, right to your left is a good one. Right where we been.

145:35:15 Young: (Turning to face upslope toward the southwest) Steepest is closest to the rim.

145:35:18 Duke: That's right. Right up there. (Pause)

[John walks upslope a few feet and Charlie follows, albeit with some difficulty.]

[Duke - "The regolith was loosely unconsolidated here, on the inner rim; and you can see as we try to go upslope, we're going in 3 or 4 or 5 inches."]

[Jones - "You're pushing with the uphill foot, trying to follow with the downhill. This is very reminiscent of the work that Dave and Jim did in a 10-m crater below the Rover at their Station 6."]

[Facing upslope, John starts digging into the crater wall at a point about two meters clockwise and slightly upslope from the last gnomon position as can be seen from the location of the fist-sized rock just above the spot where John starts digging. He uses the side of the rake - which is a solid surface - to get penetration and to move dirt.]

[By this point, John has made 11 strokes with the rake.]

[John stops after his fifteenth stroke.]

[Fendell zooms in on the footprints Charlie made climbing up to his present location. Fendell is probably getting this view for the soil mechanics experts.]

145:36:19 Duke: (To Tony) Just a minute.

[Charlie is standing below John and to his right. He puts the gnomon down to his left and starts walking uphill.]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 41 sec )

145:36:28 Young: Move out of the shadow, Charlie. I can't see it.

145:36:31 Duke: (Continuing uphill to get his shadow off the hole) Okay, there you go.

[Charlie turns, backs up the slope, and nearly loses his balance. John is now standing on the north side of the hole, facing it with his left leg downslope. In this position, he is able to get down on his right knee.]

[It takes a bit of effort to get a sample from the bottom of the hole but, after several seconds, John stands and shakes the soil out. Apparently he doesn't get many rocks. He then runs the rake through the pile of dirt he removed from the hole. The soil on top came from the bottom of the hole, so he is increasing his meager collection of buried rocks.]

145:37:17 Duke: Looks like just indurated regolith (meaning clods), doesn't it.

145:37:20 Young: Uh-huh.

145:37:21 Duke: Don't see any rocks. Here let me do this. (Pause)

[Charlie has a bag out and takes up a position down slope of the hole so that John can pour the samples easily when he is ready.]

145:37:36 Duke: Yeah. (Pause)

145:37:42 Young: There's some.

145:37:44 Duke: Okay. (Pause as John pours) Yeah, they're rocks all right. Going in bag 335. Three little ones, Tony.

145:37:54 England: Okay. We copy that.

[Despite Charlie's next statement, there are three small rocks in the sample, 65925 to 927, which are shown in Figure 53B in Professional Paper 1048. All three are breccias.]

145:38:03 England: Okay.

145:38:05 Duke: But, anyway, 335. Did I say 331? 335.

145:38:10 England: You said 335.

145:38:11 Duke: John, let me have the rake a minute. Let me try something. Here you go.

[Charlie hands the bag to John and takes the rake.]

145:38:27 Duke: Apparently so because, in this wall here, we're not getting a thing.

[This is a reference to the fact that, while they have found rocks on the surface and down to a few inches, they haven't found many at depth.]

[Muehlberger, from a 1996 e-mail message - "My understanding of this (part of the dialog) is based on the common scene in a desert setting. The usual gravel-covered surface in the desert is a lag gravel - meaning that the infrequent rains have washed away all the fine particles (sand or finer) leaving an 'armor' of gravel at the surface. This is sometimes called 'desert pavement'. Someday, when you are on one of these surfaces, get out a shovel and dig through it. You will find a surface layer of coarse material covering a layer of fine material with the occasional rock. I assume that is what Tony was asking the crew."]

[England, from a 1996 e-mail message - "Bill captured the meaning of my question, of course. On Earth, if you have coarse material on a surface and fine material beneath, it got that way by winnowing - removal of the fine material. To make a "lag surface" (most places) on the Moon, the coarse material was probably tossed in on top of the fine material. Because the location (where John was digging) was on a slope, I was probably looking for a way that the fine material had worked its way down slope. I was probably reaching a bit to even ask the question. I might have done that as an hypothesis to get them to examine what they were seeing a little more closely. It might also have been just a dumb question."]

[Charlie makes his way upslope to the south side of the hole. He turns and goes up backwards the last step or two.]

[NASA photo S72-38433 shows Tony at the CapCom console. Deke Slayton is seated beyond him and is talking to Fred Haise, the backup Commander, who is sitting behind Tony. The digital readout above and slightly to the right of Tony's video monitor gives Mission Elapsed Time and is reading 145:38:32. Note that Tony has a traverse planning map open on the desk next to the coffee cups.]

145:38:34 Duke: And there looks like...

145:38:35 England: ...fill up a soil bag.

145:38:37 Duke: Okay. And there's less soil here...I mean less rocks here than on the other side of the crater. (Pause) The side towards the Rover is...

[Charlie digs into the bottom of the hole.]

[Charlie shakes the soil out of the rake.]

145:39:04 Duke: Now there are two rocks, right there.

145:39:08 Young: Okay, Charlie, I got to put this one (meaning bag 335) in your bag before I can get it.

145:39:11 Duke: Okay.

[John comes around the east side of the hole and Charlie turns to present his SCB.]

[John stows bag 335 in Charlie's SCB.]

[Charlie had started to get a soil sample and then remembered that he had a rock in the rake. He pours it into the new bag John is holding out.]

145:39:39 Young: Okay. Let's put the soil in there with it ...

145:39:41 Duke: Okay.

[Charlie pours a rakeful of soil into the bag.]

145:39:50 England: Okay, sounds good. (Pause)

145:39:55 Duke: Let's fill up the bag.

145:39:56 Young: Okay.

[Charlie gets more soil from the bottom of the hole.]

145:40:12 England: Okay.

145:40:13 Duke: ...out of this crater. (Pause) You know, John, I think if we got a running start straight at the Rover (across the crater), we'd make it up the other side.

145:40:20 England: Ah, let's go the other way.

145:40:22 Young: Let's go around the rim.

145:40:23 Duke: Okay.

[Charlie presents his SCB and John stows the soil sample.]

145:40:38 Duke: Okay. Sure will.

[John takes AS16-107- 17508 and 17509.]

145:40:46 England: Yep, we'd like an LPM.

[Charlie grabs the gnomon and starts counter-clockwise around the crater. After a few steps, however, he decides to cut across the center of the crater to the Rover. John continues around the wall.]

[Charlie goes down the slope with his body turned to his right, leading with his left leg. He makes five steps with his left foot. Once he reaches the bottom of the crater, he switches to his skipping stride and is making good speed across the crater when he goes out of view to the right.]

145:40:58 England: Okay. I believe it was about 20 gammas less, something like that 110 gammas. It's...

145:41:02 Duke: (Laughs, probably as he heads up the near slope)

145:41:03 England: ...plunging pretty steeply.

[Tony's phrase, 'plunging pretty steeply', could be a reference to possible geographic variations in steady state magnetic field or to possible time variations due to interactions with the solar wind. According to the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report, the field strength was 231 gammas at the ALSEP, 180 at Station 2, 125 gammas here at Station 5, 313 at Station 13 near North Ray Crater, and 121 at the final Rover parking place east of the LM. Variations due to the solar wind were, in fact, less than about 5 gammas. The field strength values Tony quotes here are the results of the first, rough analysis of the available data. Readers should note that, although the field orientation was similar at the three sites near the LM (ALSEP, Station 2, and Rover parking place), the field orientation at Stations 5 and 13 was dramatically different. See Table 12-II in the Preliminary Science Report.]

[John has been angling upslope toward the crater rim, with Fendell following, and has now reached the level surface.]

145:41:12 Duke: Okay.

145:41:13 Duke: I had a tough time walking up there, on the side like that.

145:41:16 Young: I've got big feet today, Charlie.

145:41:18 Duke: Ah, so. (Pause)

[John is referring, of course, to the size of his Lunar boots.]

[John reaches the Rover and goes out of view on the right side. Fendell is looking more or less southeast toward the summit of Stone Mountain and starts panning left.]

145:41:39 England: Okay. That sounds good, John.

[John had not planned to do an LPM measurement at this site but, as shown on cuff checklist page CDR-45, he would normally take the LPM sensor out 48 feet on the right side of the Rover. As shown in Figure 14 in the Stone Mountain chapter of Professional Paper 1048, the Rover is parked on the northeast rim of the crater and pointed south southeast. In going out from the right rear of the Rover, he will be going along to the crater rim.]

145:41:46 Duke: Okay, we've got a ton of them. We'll get them for you.

145:41:51 England: Good show. (Pause)

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145:41:56 Young: Okay. (Pause)

145:42:07 Duke: Lots of luck with that LPM.

145:42:11 England: And, John, why don't you take a pan when you document the location of that LPM tripod. That'll take care of our pan.

145:42:20 Young: That's a good idea. All right, fine. Good head.

[Houston is under the impression that no pans have yet been taken at Station 5.]

145:42:24 Young: Well, they want another one.

145:42:26 Duke: Okay.

[Charlie comes into view at the CDR seat. He is carrying the scoop. The blade is fully extended, parallel to the extension handle. Frame AS16-108- 17628 shows the scoop head down in an angled sampling position during Station 6 activities. Frame AS16-107- 17544 shows the scoop resting against a boulder at Station 8 is the same angled position.]

145:42:36 Young: Mark.

145:42:37 England: Okay. We got it.

[Fendell resumes his pan, just as Charlie goes out of view to the left. Fendell stops his leftward pan and pans right to follow. Most likely, he had hit the button to do another three-degree, leftward pan increment just before seeing Charlie move and, although he responded quickly, the inherent delays in the system meant that Charlie was out of view before the camera started moving to the right.]

145:42:50 Duke: Hmmm. On the south rim of that crater.

145:42:55 England: Okay.

145:42:56 Duke: About 10 feet to the 4 o'clock position of the Rover.

[Fendell is now panning clockwise.]

145:43:09 Young: All right. (Long Pause)

145:43:31 England: Okay, John. A minute (has elapsed).

[Evidently, Tony thought that John's 'mark' was the start of a measurement rather than the power-up of the sensor.]

145:43:38 England: Oh, I thought you gave a Mark. All right. I understand.

145:43:39 Young: Turned it...(Stops to listen)

145:43:40 England: I understand.

145:43:43 Young: Yeah, I did. For turning on. (Long Pause)

[Fendell finds Charlie, who has his back to us. He takes a step to his right, a clear indication that he is taking a cross-Sun stereopair of "before" photos of his first sample. These photos are AS16-110- 18027 and 18028. Charlie turns and goes off-camera to the left, probably to get a pair of tongs off the back of the Rover.]

145:44:10 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Fendell starts to pan left, just as Charlie returns with the tongs. Fendell reverses direction to re-aim at the scoop, which Charlie had stuck in the ground before taking his pictures.]

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145:44:41 England: Okay. (Pause)

145:44:48 Duke: It's captured in the old tongs. (Pause)

[Charlie picks up a rock with the tongs but then, as he tries to get the rock in his right hand, he drops it.]

145:44:57 Young: Okay, that (meaning the LPM)'s aligned perfectly. (Pause) Phew. Here we go (back to the Rover). (Pause) Okay. Now start your minute, Tony!

145:45:12 England: Okay. Will do. (Long Pause)

[Charlie has retrieved the rock and, after getting the rock in his right hand, plants the tongs in the ground so he can examine it. He then gets a sample bag off his camera and bags the rock.]

145:45:53 England: Okay.

[This is sample 65095, a 560-gram, white-matrix breccia show in Figure 49C in Professional Paper 1048.]

[At about this time, John takes two LPM documentation photos. He takes AS16-107- 17510 at the back of the Rover, but does not aim the camera high enough to actually show the instrument. He then takes 17511 across the Rover seats.]

145:46:03 Young: I'm about to...I'm gonna knock...Well, I'll get it. It's under my seat?

145:46:07 Duke: I thought so. The one that we were...

145:46:09 England: Okay, John, Mark.

145:46:12 Duke: No, it's not there; it's under my seat. Excuse me.

145:46:15 Young: Okay. (Pause)

[Charlie goes around the front of the Rover to the LMP seat.]

145:46:58 England: Okay. Fine.

145:47:01 Duke: Did you get those (readings), Tony?

145:47:02 England: We sure did.

145:47:04 Young: Did you get those? I forgot to ask you. (hearing Tony) Okay.

145:47:07 England: And visors down.

145:47:08 Young: Stow the moose. (Responding to Tony) Visor's down. (Pause) Hey, Charlie, where I tripped over here is a lot of white rock.

145:47:21 Duke: I got some over here, too. (Pause)

[Charlie returns to his sampling site and puts the extra SCB down near the tongs and scoop.]

[Charlie grabs the tongs and scoop and walks forward, awkwardly, a few steps before re-planting the scoop.]

145:47:51 Young: (Possibly kneeling to get the rock) Ouch. Boy, Charlie, look at this rock! That has got to be plage.

[John can see the characteristic glint of plagioclase crystals, a common component in the anorthosite rock that is believed to be a major component of the ancient lunar crust.]

[Charlie turns down-Sun to face John, who is probably west of the Rover.]

145:48:07 Duke: Oh, yeah.

145:48:08 Young: ...with all that white rock...

145:48:09 Duke: Uh-huh.

[Charlie turns back to his work and takes a stereopair of "before" photos, AS16-110- 18029 and 18030.]

[This is sample 65015, a 1.8 kilogram "metacrystalline" rock shown in Figure 44 in Professional Paper 1048. John is probably not wearing his camera and doesn't document the sample. In the meantime, Charlie has picked up a rock about 5 cm across with the tongs.]

145:48:41 England: Outstanding...

145:48:42 Young: I believe we'd have to break it in two.

145:48:43 Duke: Oh.

145:48:43 England: No, we don't need that in a padded bag.

[Charlie plants the tongs, gets a bag off his camera, and bags his small rock. He then grabs the tongs to get another sample. During John's next transmission, Charlie picks up a larger rock and tries to put it directly into the bag, but drops it.]

145:48:54 Young: It's about 6 centimeters...(correcting himself) 12 centimeters long, and it's got a head on it like...It looks like the head of, maybe, a viper or diamondback (rattlesnake), if you lay it down flat. You won't have any trouble recognizing it. And it's white, and when I hold it up to the Sun, (chuckles) it has a greenish cast to it. A greenish-bluish cast.

145:49:24 England: Okay.

[The green tint suggests the presence of olivine. Charlie retrieves the rock and bags it successfully.]

[The striations would suggest the rock is a breccia. John is just being cautious in his classification.]

[The first rock Charlie collected is sample 65056, a 75 gram "glassy agglutinate" with crystalline clasts. It is shown in Figure 47E in Professional Paper 1048. The second rock is 65055, a 500 gram crystalline rock shown in Figure 47D. Both are believed to have been ejecta from South Ray.]

[Charlie spins the bag closed and seals it.]

145:49:51 Duke: I'm in...Okay, John. (Long Pause)

[Charlie picks up the SCB and stows the sample bag. He then knocks the tongs over.]

[Charlie grabs the scoop and puts it in his right hand with the SCB. He then uses the scoop as a cane as he tries to get down low enough to retrieve the tongs. He doesn't make it on his first try and stands. He then drops to his knees and his momentum takes him low enough that he grabs the tongs before the suit can force him up.]

145:50:31 Young: I don't blame that pitch meter for falling down.

145:50:34 Duke: (Heading off-camera to the left) Man, (laughing) I've fallen down twice. Not badly. The Rover wheels are covered with dust, John. (Pause)

[Fendell is panning left.]

145:50:52 Young: I made a grab sample out of it, Houston.

145:50:54 England: Okay.

145:50:58 Duke: Too big for a bag, wasn't it, John?

145:51:00 Young: Yeah, it was too big for a bag.

145:51:01 England: Okay.

145:51:03 Young: It's...

145:51:04 Duke: You dog, you!

[Charlie may be at the back of the Rover stowing the scoop and tongs. Fendell reaches the counter-clockwise pan limit without finding Charlie. He then reverses direction.]

[Comm Break]

[Jones - "Do you have any comment about the length of these stations? Were they long enough that you were feeling forearm fatigue or, maybe, feeling it in the legs?"]

[Duke - "No. These were some of the longest stops we had. Except up around North Ray. That was a long one."]

[Jones - "That was an hour up there."]

[Duke - "Well, we were an hour up at Cinco, almost. You know, watching this, it looks like we didn't get much done. But the science guys were real pleased. I think you need to plan an hour or so at each stop because, by the time you get off and get all the equipment ready and, you know, talk back and forth and describe and just sit there and think, for a few minutes, about what you're going to do, anything less than forty-five minutes or an hour is short-sighted. You just can't get it all done. You can't do a good job."]

[Jones - "Is the efficiency starting to go down after an hour?"]

[Duke - "No."]

[Jones - "Most places you could go longer?"]

[Duke - "Oh, yeah. In a way, you get better because you get used to the terrain and what you're walking on."]

[Jones - "So you'd suggest at least forty-five minutes or an hour at a stop."]

[Duke - "That's right."]

[Fendell finds Charlie at the LMP seat with the extra SCB.]

145:52:55 Duke: I already did; and it'll be running (during the drive to Station 6).

145:52:57 England: Okay. Good show. (Pause)

[Fendell finds John at the back of the Rover where he is stowing the magnetometer cable. Charlie reaches into the LMP seat pan and pulls out sample 65015 for examination.]

145:53:05 Young: Yes, sir.

145:53:06 Duke: That is the best sample we got.

145:53:07 Young: I know it.

145:53:10 Duke: I'll tell you. That is a crystalline rock if I've ever seen a crystalline rock.

145:53:14 Young: First one today!

145:53:16 Duke: Yeah.

[Charlie re-stows the sample.]

145:53:19 Duke: That is a great rock. (Pause)

[Charlie puts his seat down and then removes his used film magazine.]

145:53:30 Young: Okay.

145:53:31 England: I guess we could...

145:53:31 Duke: Which one do you want me to use, Tony?

145:53:32 England: Call that one the "Great Young."

[This is a reference to Apollo 15 sample 15555, a 9.6 kg basalt known as Great Scott that Dave Scott collected at the edge of Hadley Rille. Great Scott is the second largest rock returned by the Apollo astronauts. Only Big Muley, the 11.6 kg breccia Charlie collected at Flag Crater is larger. For reference, the largest Apollo 14 rock is a 9.0 kg breccia known as Big Bertha. It was collected by Al Shepard near the rim of Cone Crater at Station C1; and the largest Apollo 17 rock is 70215, an 8.1 kilogram basalt Jack Schmitt collected near the LM.]

145:53:40 Duke: It's not very big, but it's just a nice rock.

145:53:44 England: Okay.

[Charlie raises his seat again to stow the film magazine and John goes to the CDR seat.]

[Charlie lowers his seat.]

145:53:59 Duke: Any black and white. It doesn't matter. Wrong (underseat) pocket.

[Charlie leans across his seat to watch what John is doing.]

145:54:07 Duke: Yeah, ain't but one...

145:54:08 Young: Okay.

145:54:09 Duke: ...magazine I.

145:54:10 England: Okay.

145:54:11 Young: You already shot up a roll of black and white?

145:54:12 Duke: Yeah. 170. Okay. (Dropping the magazine) Uh-oh. I got it. (Pause)

[The new film magazine apparently dropped between the seats. Charlie retrieved it, removed the dark slide, and passed the dark slide across to John.]

145:54:24 Duke: There you go.

[Jones - "Do you have any comments on the detailed finger-work that was involved in manipulating the dark slide?"]

[Duke - "Practice."]

[Jones - "Never having worn those gloves, it seems almost amazing to me that you can manipulate that dark slide."]

[Duke - "Big objects you could handle, like those film mags. You could hold the magazine with fingertips at each side, and it had a little slide at the bottom. You just dropped it in and held it forward and then there was a lock at the top. I had to practice, but it was pretty easy to do. We didn't have any trouble. It took me a little bit to get that one locked - two or three tries - but no more than normal. You get much smaller than that, though, and that was the hard part - trying to manipulate little, small objects with those gloves. Threading a needle would be almost impossible in those gloves. The bigger the object, with the bulky gloves, the easier it was to get a purchase on them and do what you've got to do."]

[Jones - "That film magazine looked like it was maybe fist-sized or a little bit smaller."]

[Duke - "It's fist-sized; yeah."] [It wasn't until March 2006 that I realized that the dark slide had a wire handle large enough to accomodate the glove fingers.]

145:54:35 Duke: (Examining the magazine) Hope it runs; I got dust on it. (Pause)

[Charlie installs the magazine.]

[Charlie shoots two frames and, as he does so, we can see a lever/crank on the side turn. The first of these is completely lightstruck but the second, AS16-108- 17584, is partly useful.]

145:54:52 Young: (Lost under Tony)

145:54:53 England: ...see it works.

145:54:55 Duke: Okay, Tony. (Stops to listen) Yeah, magazine India (which is also known as AS16-108).

145:54:59 England: Okay.

145:55:01 Duke: And starting with frame count number about 3. I guess I fired off a couple.

145:55:07 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Charlie appears to examine his checklist, probably looking at either LMP-10, the Station 5 page, or LMP-11, the Station 6 page. He then reaches to turn on the 16-mm camera.]

145:55:27 England: Okay, and just to make sure you didn't get any dust on that LCRU while you're working around there, we would like you to brush it off again. We're really heating up on that.

145:55:36 Young: It's clean!

145:55:38 England: Okay.

145:55:40 Duke: (Looking at the LCRU) It is clean.

145:55:43 Young: Yeah, it's clean. Honest!

145:55:46 England: Okay. That's okay.

145:55:49 Young: Want to shut it down for a while? (Pause)

[The LRV shakes, possibly as John does some dusting at the front of the vehicle.]

145:56:05 Duke: Okay. (Pause as he reaches across to change the switch) Got it in Amps.

145:56:14 England: Okay.

145:56:16 Young: Okay. It's dusted. Going downhill (from Station 4), it doesn't get near as much dust as it did coming up, for some reason. (Pause) Maybe that's because (chuckles) it was 4 kilometers one way (from the LM to Station 4) and half of one the other (from Station 4 to 5). That's probably the reason.

145:56:37 Duke: (Grabbing the inboard handhold) I hope I can get back in this beauty here now. (Pause)

[Charlie was standing beside his seat, facing directly forward, but now turns slightly so that, when he pushes up and back, he will be moving toward the seat back. He jumps and, possibly, pulls himself inboard with his left arm.]

[When Charlie lands, he isn't squarely in the seat but quickly gets himself settled by planting his feet, lifting his rear off the seat and sliding sideways.]

[Jones - "Did you do any training in the one-sixth-g airplane for getting on the Rover."]

[Duke - "Yeah. We did that."]

[Jones - "What was involved in an aircraft exercise? You'd be up for several hours, right?"]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. Well, it depended on how many parabolas you could take before you got sick. I could go a couple of hours. Some guys, you know, two or three hours the airplane'd run out of gas and they never got sick. Nobody actually got sick, at least in the crew, 'cause you'd stop before you actually throw up. But you'd start feeling woozy - at least I would - and then I'd just stop and then we'd go back and land."]

[Jones - "How big an area did you have in the back of the aircraft."]

[Duke - "It was a 707. Thirty or forty feet. We could get a Rover back there and a pallet or so. There was just plenty of room. You couldn't do much walking. I mean, you couldn't take the cables out to the ends, of course; you just practiced putting the experiments down. And getting in and out of the Rover and setting up the Rover and putting on the LCRU and getting the TV mounted and all the plugs and all of that stuff. It was pretty good training, really. You just had to do it in short spurts. You couldn't build a good timeline from that, is one problem."]

[Jones - "Would you have several support people in there with you?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. 'Cause they'd have to help you get up and get you down. When you start to pull out (of the dive that gives one-sixth g), it's a 2 1/2-g pull-out and, you know, 360 pounds is a lot of weight and your legs couldn't support it. So, as the airplane started out, they'd ring a big bell and, if you couldn't get down, two guys'd would slam you to the floor and you just sort spread-eagled on the floor while doing this 2 1/2 gs. Then, when you were ready to push over the next parabola, the guys would help you get up so you'd be ready to go when you got to the right g level."]

[Jones - "Boy, that sounds tiring for them."]

[Duke - "No, it wasn't too bad."]

[Jones - "Spread eagle face down?"]

[Duke - "Generally face down. Sometimes you'd be face up; it didn't matter. And when I say spread-eagle, your arms might be down by your side or you might be on your elbows; but you were on the floor so you didn't have to stand 2 1/2 gs in that suit."]

[Jones - "You had 30 seconds of one-sixth g...?"]

[Duke - "30 to 40..."]

[Jones - "And then how long to climb up the other side of the parabola?"]

[Duke - "Maybe a minute or two. They had to dive and accelerate and get up to speed, and then he had to make that turn and then he had to establish climbing up at the right kind of pitch attitude. And then he'd push over. It was probably twice the time, or more, doing that part."]

[Jones - "NASA aircraft? NASA crew?"]

[Duke - "Used to be an Air Force aircraft, but now it belongs to NASA. And I think they provide the crew and everything. In fact, I know they do, now. Back then, I think it was an Air Force crew. They'd fly it down from Wright-Pat(terson AFB) to Houston or Kennedy."]

[Jones - "Did you do those exercises frequently? Or just a few of them?"]

[Duke - "I don't remember. We didn't do that many. In 2 1/2 years, ten times, maybe. It was pretty good training for, you know, balance and experiments and getting in and out of the Rover and stuff like that. Like I say, for building timelines, it wasn't very good. So we'd build a timeline out behind the MSOB (Manned Spacecraft Operations Building), at our training site."]

145:56:53 England: Okay, we've got the...

145:56:55 Young: Don't do anything with the...(Stops to listen)

145:56:57 England: ...magnetometer reading. Station 5 there is 125 gamma down; the ALSEP site was 230 gamma - correction: (the Station 5 field is) up. The ALSEP site was 230 gamma down; and Spook was 180 down. (Pause)

[Here, Tony is giving the vertical magnetic-field components at the three sites. The Station 5 field is oriented in an upward direction while the ALSEP and Spook fields point down.]

[Charlie gets his seatbelt off the console and lays it across his lap. We can see the large hook that goes on the outside handhold and the lever assembly that pulls the belt tight.]

145:57:16 Young: No, I'm going to 1 right now.

145:57:20 England: Okay. Good show.

145:57:21 Young: (Garbled) the TV.

[TV off.]

145:57:27 Young: TV's on CCW (counter-clockwise).

145:57:28 England: Okay. (Static; Long Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 12 sec )

145:57:42 Young: (Answering Tony) Oh, no. TV is CCW. Heading for (Station) 6.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 0 min 49 sec )

145:57:49 England: That was a very interesting magnetometer reading.

145:57:50 Young: Yeah. I didn't think I'd ever...(Stops to listen) Well, give you a good alignment and read the numbers right, but (laughing) other than that I...

145:58:07 England: And, John...

145:58:08 Young: Okay. Station 6...

145:58:09 England: ...We'll need your frame count

145:58:10 Duke: ...should be about...(Stops to listen)

145:58:17 Young: (Answering Tony) You'll have to wait. Oh, no. I can see it. It's 96, Tony, 96.

145:58:19 England: Okay. Very good. (Pause)