Drilling the Deep Core

Preparing for the EVA-1 Traverse

 

Thumper/Geophone Experiment

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 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 24 May 2017.

[Brian McInall has created a planimetric map of the ALSEP deployment (10 Mb).]

[John is near the RTG and has his back to us. He is working with the geophone equipment. Charlie heads out to join John but, after skipping through the soft-rimmed crater north of the Rover, stops for a second to look at the soil he has disturbed. He then continues on his way. See Brian McInall's ALSEP Deployment Planimetric Map (10 Mb).]

121:54:46 Duke: Tony, on the rim of that little crater, as I walked through there, there was a...Underneath the regolith there was a white area. I kicked up some very white soil, about 3 centimeters down. (Pause)

[White soil was found at various places by most of the crews and, here, it probably represents a layer of fine ejecta from South Ray Crater. The light color is due to the fact that the South Ray impact shocked the material near the impact point and created countless, highly reflective, angular fragments. In the time since the ejecta was laid down, micrometeorites have hit the top layer and each impact has produced a small puddle of brownish glass, gradually returning the top layer to the normal color.]

[Charlie goes east around the PSE to avoid getting dust on anything. John is putting the geophone anchor in the ground about eight feet north of the Central Station, as per CDR-26 and CDR-27. The anchor will ensure that, should John put any tension in the geophone cables, the Central Station will not move. In AS16-113- 18347, the anchor is the object to the right of the Central Station with arrow-like fins.]

121:55:10 England: Roger.

121:55:12 Duke: (Garbled)

[Charlie was supposed to bring a camera out from the Rover. Neither of them is wearing a camera for the simple reason that the cameras protrude out nearly a foot and would get in the way during the instrument deployment and drilling. Here, Charlie needs a camera to document the deployment of the geophone line.]

[John may be looping the geophone cables around the bottom of the anchor.]

121:55:17 Duke: (Garbled). Okay.

121:55:19 Young: Okay.

[John sticks the tip of the anchor in the ground and Charlie moves in to push it in.]

[Charlie jumps up enough that he can scoot his feet behind him and put his full weight on the anchor. It sinks a foot or so into the ground.]

121:55:25 Duke: Huh? How's that?

[As Charlie gets up, his heels nudge the mortar cables which are strung out behind him.]

121:55:30 Duke: Okay. I am.

121:55:36 Young: (Chuckles as he examines the anchor) That's pretty good.

121:55:39 Duke: Okay, Tony. I stuffed the geophone stake in, by just pushing on it about, oh, a...about a foot. Y'all better think about that two-tenths cone penetration at Stop 10. It looks like the five(-tenths cone) would be the best, all the way out. I think I'll just go right up to the hilt with the two.

121:56:10 England: Okay. We copy.

[Charlie is referring to the penetrometer experiment, a long rod with interchangeable conical tips. When using the penetrometer, he pushes the instrument into the soil and a built-in sensor measures the penetration depth and the force used. Figure 8-1 from the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report shows the penetrometer and attachments. The three cones in the figure have base areas - perpendicular to the penetration axis - of 1.29, 3.22 and 6.44 square centimeters. According to the Preliminary Science Report, only the two smaller cones were flown and Charlie's 'two-tenths' refers to the 1.29-square-centimeter cone and 'five tenths' refers to the 3.22. Journal Contributor Keith Hearn notes that 1.29 cm² = 0.2 in² and 3.22 cm² = 0.5 in². Station 10 is a stop planned at the end of EVA-2 when John and Charlie are almost back to the LM. EVA-2 cuff checklist pages LMP-18 and LMP-19 show the penetrometer activities planned for Station 10.]

[Duke - "They had three or four sizes of cones for the head of the thing. The smallest was that 'two' and my fear was that, if I put that on, it was going to go into the ground all the way - (maximum penetration possible is 76 cm) - and not give us a good reading. In fact, later on here (during EVA-2), you'll see one time I did push on one and it did go all the way in and I fell down."]

[Jones - "Had you already done enough pushing of the geophone stake and the penetrometer to get a feel for that?"]

[I was thinking about training, but didn't ask the question well. Charlie thought I was asking about his EVA activities up to this point.]

[Duke - "Yeah, apparently. Not the penetrometer - we hadn't used that yet - but the geophone stakes and the other things we were pushing in. You know, the heat flow (drill stem), the first one; I could push it in three or four centimeters. It just felt soft to me."]

[John has picked up the thumper assembly. Apparently, Charlie has gotten close enough to the geophone cable to concern John.]

[John and Charlie are working with the thumper assembly, releasing the first of three geophones which Charlie will plant in the ground near the Central Station as per LMP-17, CDR-26, and CDR-27.]

121:56:31 Duke: John, things just stand up...The wires (and) everything just stands up off the ground about 6 inches here.

121:56:40 Young: I know it. Never thought of that. We should have (garbled)...We never thought of that. (Pause)

121:56:50 Duke: Okay. I got it. (Pause)

[Charlie has taken the geophone from John.]

[The conical geophone is attached to the cable and, holding the cable in both hands, Charlie lowers the geophone to the ground, point first. He then steps on the top of the geophone, apparently pushing it straight in.]

121:57:13 Duke: Super! Okay. This is going to be a lot easier than carrying that big...other backpack.

[This is some kind of training reference, perhaps to an early deployment system.]

[John is positioning himself so that he can walk west, away from the anchor, with the cable reel outside his right hand.]

121:57:27 Young: Okay. Now I'm going out and parallel these (Rover) tracks.

121:57:29 Duke: Okay. Let me make sure (the cable loops in the anchor don't slip in tension, as per the reminder on CDR-27.)

121:57:30 Young: You want the hammer?

[John has the hammer in a pocket on his right shin and wants to know if Charlie will need to use it to emplace a stake at the second geophone site.]

121:57:34 Young: You don't need the hammer; we don't need the hammer.

121:57:35 Duke: I know it.

121:57:36 Young: The other stake is over there.

121:57:37 Duke: Oh, okay. Near the pallet?

121:57:40 Young: Yeah.

121:57:41 Duke: Okay. I'll get it. (Pause)

[This is a second anchor that they will use to secure the cable after they deploy the second geophone 150 feet from the first.]

[John starts walking west along the Rover tracks. He move slowly and deliberately to avoid jerking the cable.]

121:57:45 Duke: Sounds like the (Far UV) camera re-moding.

121:57:47 Young: Yeah.

[As John noted at 119:58:06, the UV camera emits an incidental VHF radio signal when it re-modes. John and Charlie's OPS antennas pick up that signal and, consequently, they can hear the camera in operation.]

[Charlie was watching John but turns to look at the first geophone.]

121:57:55 England: Yeah, Charlie. I think you need a (Hasselblad) camera (to document the geophone deployment).

121:57:59 Duke: Yeah, I'm going to get one. I'll go run get it now.

121:58:02 England: Okay.

[Charlie starts for the Rover. Fendell pulls back on the zoom and then pans left to follow John.]

121:58:06 Duke: Okay. (To Houston) I'd better do that, Tony. I'll get the camera (later).

121:58:09 England: Okay. Fine.

121:58:11 Duke: (To Houston) (Wait) just a minute. Okay?

121:58:12 England: No hurry.

121:58:15 Duke: We know we need a...(Hearing Tony) Okay. (To John) You're walking a little bit sideways, John; you're pulling against it with your left side. There you go. Looking good, John. The geophone's still in, and the stake is looking good. (Pause)

[Charlie runs to catch up with John, this time using a loping, foot-to-foot stride.]

[Charlie switches to his sideways skip, leading with his left foot.]

121:59:07 Duke: I know it.

121:59:09 Young: Especially me.

121:59:12 England: (Exaggerating) Roger; 2 inches at a time like that, it's a long way. (Pause)

[John is walking slowly, but not that slowly. In one 45-second interval, he takes about 40 steps. He is walking, flat-footed, with a wide stance, and covers about 15 meters in that interval.]

121:59:24 England: Ah, that's all right. They'll probably erode away in about 4 billion years.

[They have gone over a small ridge and John's feet are no longer visible.]

121:59:31 Young: What's that, Charlie?

121:59:33 Duke: What's what?

121:59:34 Young: That thing hanging up there.

121:59:35 Duke: No, it's okay. (Looking back) Man, that's a long way, John! Stake is still up (near the Central Station).

121:59:44 Young: Okay.

121:59:45 Duke: Keep going. Okay, there's a double one.

121:59:46 Young: There's a double one.

[This may be a warning mark on the cable that tells them they are nearly 150 feet (45 meters) from the anchor. The cable section containing the second geophone is about to come off the reel.]

[Charlie runs around John's left side, goes in front and ends up on John's right so that he can free the geophone. John and Charlie are now far enough down the far side of the ridge that we can no longer see their knees.]

122:00:02 Duke: There they come.

122:00:03 Young: Here we are!

[John stops. It took him about 130 seconds to walk 45 meters and his average speed was about 1.2 km/hour. For comparison, typical running speeds achieved by the astronauts when they are unencumbered are 5 to 6 km/hour.]

122:00:09 Young: Agh. (Pause)

122:00:16 Duke: (Garbled) Got it. (Pause)

[John frees the second geophone and Charlie lowers it to the ground.]

122:00:26 Young: Okay. That's right, we have to put that (geophone) in before we put the stake (a second anchor) in.

122:00:29 Duke: Yeah, I can't do anything till I get that in. (Pause) (Talking to the geophone) Come on. (Pause)

[Although we can't see exactly what is going on, Charlie is probably having trouble keeping the geophone vertical.]

[Just before Charlie's next transmissions, his upper body movements indicate that he finally steps on the geophone and gets it planted.]

122:00:55 Duke: Okay, that one's buried too, Tony.

Video Clip ( 3 min 55 sec 1.0 Mb RealVideo or 35 Mb MPEG )

122:00:58 Young: Charlie buries the geophones.

122:01:01 England: Okay.

[Charlie is positioning the second anchor.]

122:01:04 Young: It pulled out this way.

122:01:05 Young: No, that's right.

122:01:06 Duke: No, you want it this way, don't you?

122:01:07 Young: No, that's right. That's right.

122:01:08 Duke: Yeah.

[Once again, Charlie jumps up to get his feet back and pushes the anchor a foot or more into the ground.]

122:01:12 Duke: Why?

122:01:13 Young: Liable to cut the line.

122:01:14 Duke: Oh no; it's all right. You're right about that...We're all right.

122:01:20 Young: Get the flag open, so we can see it.

[John may be referring to fins like those on the top of the first anchor. Their primary purpose may be to make the anchor easily visible in documentary photographs. See AS16-113- 18347.]

122:01:25 Young: Yep.

[John positions himself to resume the cable deployment.]

[Charlie frees the snag he noticed.]

122:01:35 Duke: Okay; there you go.

122:01:36 Young: Thank you.

122:01:37 Duke: Yes, sir. About to get it again. There you go. Okay. The stake's holding fine. (Pause) Adios.

122:01:48 Young: Adios. (Pause)

[Charlie heads for the Rover. He is off-camera most of the time but, during two brief glimpses we get of him, he is using the foot-to-foot, loping stride.]

[Duke - "If I wasn't carrying anything and it was fairly level, I'd just usually run normally."]

122:02:03 Duke: Hey, John. You got to wait. They got to change out your air hose.

122:02:07 Young: (In mock annoyance) Charlie.

122:02:09 Duke: Where's the...Hey, Tony, where is the Bendix air compressors?

122:02:14 England: It doesn't look right with them not out there. (Pause)

[During training, John and Charlie could not have worn or used functional PLSSs. The real PLSSs were far to heavy and, as well, the cooling system would only operate in a vacuum. Instead, they wore lightweight PLSS mock-ups and got oxygen and cooling water through hoses which were handled by support personnel who followed them around to keep the hoses out of the way. Training photo 72-H-100h shows the air compressors and tanks.]

[Jones - "I take it that this is a training reference."]

[Duke - "We had the cooling water guy and one with an oxygen hose and they just followed us around. They had different lengths of hoses so that they could get farther away from us."]

[NASA photo KSC-72PC-141 shows John Young (left) on 31 March 1972 as he prepares to collect a sample with the Contact Soil Sampler, a task discussed at 147:56:47. The tech on the left side of the picture is holding John's cooling water hose (black). Behind John, we can see the shadow of another tech handling John's air hose and comm cable. Charlie's three cables/hoses go out the picture to the right.]

[After a while, all we see is the top of John's PLSS.]

[Jones - "That's really a deep hole!"]

[Duke - "Yeah; it's a big ridge. We're sort of up on a ridge and it's going down. You really can't tell it, just looking out can you?"]

[Jones - "Those little rocks on the edge of it help a little bit."]

122:02:43 England: Outstanding. (Pause)

122:02:52 Duke: How about that (running) pace, huh? (Long Pause)

[The distance from the second geophone to the Rover is about 70 meters and, although we don't actually see Charlie arrive at the back of the Rover, we get glimpses of his shadow which suggest that the trip took no more than 1 minute 10 seconds. His running speed, therefore, was about 3.6 km/hr. By Apollo standards, this is a leisurely pace; but, of course, it is still early in the first EVA. Charlie's efficiency will improve.]

[The TV picture shakes as Charlie works around the Rover. As we will hear in a moment, he has found the locking pin from John's purge valve on the ground next to the Commander's seat. The amplitude of the TV motions suggest that he may be leaning on the Rover as he goes down to get the pin. Fendell pans right and stops when the Central Station is in view. One end of the deep core is visible at the right side of the picture. It is lying across the back of the Rover, secured in the vise on the top of the geopallet.]

122:03:46 Duke: Okay, Tony. I have LMP's camera.

122:03:50 England: Okay. (Pause)

122:04:01 Duke: The back of...The bottom of the bit is (capped) with Bravo. And I'm going back out and take some pictures.

122:04:11 England: Okay.

[Charlie stops briefly to make sure that he had, indeed, put cap Bravo on the bit end of the deep core.]

122:04:22 Duke: John, how about an EMU status check? You pulled out your pin on your purge valve.

122:04:23 Young: I'm doing okay. 70...(Counting marks on the pressure gauge) 50, 60, 73 percent is what I read.

[The next four minutes of video is missing from the tape Ken Glover is currently using to create RealVideo files for the ALSJ.]

122:04:54 Young: Okay.

122:04:55 Duke: (It was) right next to the Rover.

122:04:56 Young: Well, we'll get it.

[Jones - "If you need to open the purge valve and you pull the pin, do you then actually do something mechanically to the valve to get it flowing?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. And I'm not sure exactly what you had to do. I think you had to twist it one way or the other."]

[Jones - "So the chances of starting to lose oxygen out of the suit if the pin fell out were (slight)..."]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. The pin was just a safety, like most all pins. You pulled the pin out and then you had to make an action of turning it or pulling it - I've forgotten. You had to take a distinct action; but I suppose there was a possibility of brushing up against something and you could twist it or pop it and you could start flowing (oxygen) out. Your suit would make it up, but you'd be using quantity out real fast and it would shorten the EVA. So I asked John to check his EMU and make sure the purge valve wasn't popped open and he wasn't losing O2."]

[Jones - "Because you found the pin next to his seat, I suppose it probably came out when he was getting on or off the Rover."]

[Duke - "Apparently so. It might have hung up on the seatbelt, probably."]

[See the dialog at 122:26:34.]

[Jones - "And your first thought, when you found it, was to have him check (his pressure gauge and oxygen quantity)..."]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. Make sure his quantity's okay."]

[Charlie covers the 30 meters between the Rover and the Central Station in about 30 seconds. Once again, his average speed is about 3.6 km/hour.]

[Charlie is asking John if he has reached the end of the geophone line.]

[John is probably planting the third geophone and an associated flag, as per CDR-27.]

122:05:31 Young: I guess that's a pretty straight line, Charlie.

122:05:33 Duke: Looks straight to me, John. Okay, here's your picture.

122:05:38 Young: Wait a minute. I haven't got the flag up.

122:05:40 Duke: Okay.

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I'd say it was within 1 foot in 100 meters of being straight down that line."]

[Charlie's first ALSEP photo is AS16-113- 18345, taken straight down the geophone line. John is visible from about the chest up just to the left of the central fiducial. The objects in the foreground are discarded pieces of ALSEP packaging material. Post-mission analysis indicates that the geophone line lies on a heading of 287 degrees. The nearest of the Rover tracks that John laid down when he first arrived at the ALSEP site are about 3 meters (10 feet) north of the geophone line.]

122:05:42 Duke: Tony, there's a...(Stops to listen)

122:05:43 England: ...to put John's (purge valve locking) pin back in.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 5 min 21 sec )

122:05:47 Duke: All right, I'll go get it; just a moment. (Pause) Man, that sky is black.

[Houston loses the TV signal because of a transmission problem from the receiving station near Madrid. TV coverage resumes at about 122:09.]

122:06:16 England: Stand by one.

122:06:20 Young: Oh.

[Twenty-one small charges - single-bridgewire, Apollo standard initiators - are mounted in the base plate of the thumper. John will fire these charges at 15-foot (4.57 m) intervals along the geophone line to generate seismic signals. The pattern of arrivals at the three geophones will give investigators information related to the depth and velocity structure of layers in the regolith. Figure 10-1 from the Preliminary Science Report shows the preliminary results of the experiment. Vp is compressive velocity, the sound speed of acoustic waves in soil. The Apollo standard initiators were used for such purposes as opening valves and severing connections between spacecraft stages.]

122:06:31 Young: Blow it off, Charlie.

122:06:32 Duke: Oh, I can't do that.

[At some point, Charlie takes AS16-113- 18346 of the PSE. As he has told Houston, there is a sprinkling of dust on the north side. At about 122:08:50, he backs up and takes 18347, which shows the rock between the PSE and the Central Station, the RTG beyond and to the left of the Central Station, and the geophone cable anchor to the right.]

122:06:45 Young: I'm 100 yards from Charlie.

122:06:46 England: Understand.

122:06:48 Young: That's 100 meters. (Pause) 3.85 (psi) and I'm between Minimum and Intermediate on the cooling. I got 73 percent and no flags. You want me to run on back to Charlie and get that (pin)?

122:07:09 England: Negative. (Pause)

122:07:16 Young: It must have pulled out on the geophone somehow. Where did you pick it up, Charlie?

122:07:21 Duke: Right next to your...to the Rover.

122:07:25 Young: Huh. (Pause)

122:07:29 England: Okay, John. We're ready for the thumper.

122:07:30 Young: You sure it isn't yours.

122:07:31 Duke: No, it's yours.

122:07:34 Young: (Responding to Tony) Okay.

122:07:35 Duke: Okay, Tony. I got 60 percent. I'm all clear on the flags, my pressure gauge is 3.8.

122:07:43 Young: Okay, Charlie. Hold still.

122:07:45 Duke: I'm still.

[As per CDR-28, the experimenters need to have John and Charlie stand still for ten seconds before John fires each shot. This prevents confusion of the thumper signal with signals generated by footfalls. John places the thumper firmly on the ground and, after ten seconds of quiet, selects the next initiator - in this case, the first one - rotates the arm switch, counts four seconds, and depresses the fire switch.]

[As we can see after the TV resumes, the thumper jumps in reaction to the charge detonation and kicks up a small cloud of dust. On Apollo 14, equipment problems produced a number of misfires but, thanks to equipment modifications for Apollo 16, John will not have any appreciable difficulties.]

[Jones - "Did John fire the thumper in the training exercises?"]

[Duke - "The training model didn't fire; I mean, they didn't load it up. I believe he fired the flight one - or maybe the backup flight one - once. He actually fired the thing. And, of course, this time he's firing it. He could feel it. It'd hit and it would splash out a little dust on the side. I could look down and see that; but I couldn't feel it in my feet."]

[Readers should note that the Thumper/Geophone experiment was previously flown on Apollo 14 and was used successfully by Ed Mitchell. The accompanying picture shows John training with the thumper at the Cape on 22 December 1971. Charlie is in shirt sleeves at the right side of the image.]

[John and Charlie stand still for an additional ten seconds and then John moves forward 15 feet, toward the Central Station, for the next shot. Readers should note that, by now, John seems to have completely regained his composure and confidence.]

122:08:09 Duke: Okay.

122:08:10 Young: Number 2, Houston. (Pause) 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. Nope; let me try that again. (Pause)

[John has had a misfire but, on the second try, is successful. In a number of cases, Mitchell tried repeatedly to fire particular charges without success. Post-mission analysis indicated that John had a misfire because his 5-second count between arming and firing was a little too fast.]

122:08:50 Duke: Okay.

Video Clip ( 2 min 38 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPEG )

122:08:53 England: Hey, John. We got an outstanding signal here; it looks great!

[TV coverage resumes. After taking AS16-113- 18347, Charlie positions himself south of the Central Station.]

122:09:07 Duke: I'm steady. (Pause)

122:09:14 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause)

122:09:25 England: Ah, you got a beauty there, John.

122:09:27 Young: Okay (to move), Charlie.

122:09:28 Duke: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Charlie hops three steps to his left and takes AS16-113-18348, which shows the back of the Central Station and, coiled up on the ground, the severed heat flow cable. At the lower right, note the bright, orange-colored patch of sunlight reflected off the Central Station's Mylar curtain. ]

[Duke - "18348 is looking to the north. Smoky Mountain's in the background, in the upper center of the picture. There's a big boulder in the near background. This is a picture of the Central Station and you can see the spaghetti. The cable off to the left goes to the RTG. It was more of a round cable. But the flat cables that go to the various experiments, you can see, were coiled up like spaghetti on the lunar surface. That was what we had complained about before the mission - that we might have a problem with those things - because we saw that, occasionally, in the one-sixth-gravity training in the airplane."]

["We didn't see it out on the training site in one g; the stuff was used so much in training that it didn't have a set in it like these cables. You know, these things had never been unwound before and had just set in its coil. And so, when you tried to undo 'em, they just tended to curl up."]

[Jones - "The stuff you used in training, could you coil it up and then put it out and it would..."]

[Duke - "It would lay flat. So John could just step over it. But, up on the Moon, you tended to shuffle. In one-sixth gravity, you tended to shuffle more than you did down on the Earth. In training, the suits were sort of lumbery, so you just sort of stepped and you had real definite steps; but up on the Moon, you tended to shuffle a lot. You didn't get your feet up in the air as much; and that's why John got all tangled up and, unfortunately, ripped off the heat flow. You can see one of the connectors here. In fact, just to the right of the RTG connector is where the heat flow cable had been connected."]

122:09:49 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause)

122:10:02 England: Charlie, when you get a minute there, we got a couple of questions.

122:10:04 Young: Okay.

[Charlie moves in to the Central Station, probably to take a look at the heat flow cable. This is what is on Houston's mind, too.]

122:10:10 England: We would like for you to look at the end of that heat flow cable that was broken off and tell us how far from the heat central station it broke, and also describe the end of the broken cable. If you can get that in between (shots), when John's walking.

[Charlie drops to his knees so that he can pick up the end of the cable.]

[Jones - "When you grabbed the cable, did you take the connector off the Central Station?"]

[Duke - "No. The connector was sort of locked on. It was latched on pre-flight and, as far as I know, we couldn't get it off without a screwdriver or a pair of pliers or something to get it unlocked. So I just looked at it and I saw that it had broken off right flush with the connector. The connector was a wide connector and that flat wire just sort of slipped in. And the connector was clamped on both sides and how..."]

["We could have probably fixed it, but we would've had to have taken the connector off. We would've had to pick up all the electronics and the heat flow probes and everything and haul all that back into the Lunar Module. And getting all that folded up...We probably could have stuffed into the ETB or something like that; but they decided that it was going to take us too long. They decided that you could scrape and get an abrasive surface to get a better contact and we could stick it in there. (Backup Commander) Fred Haise demonstrated it, and we probably could have done it; but it was too long (a job), so they decided just to abandon ship."]

[Jones - "So Fred and others had tried to work the problem?"]

[Duke - "Yeah. They were our backup; and, when you had problems like that everybody in mission control got to work, especially the people that were interested in this. So they'd corral the backup crew and the engineers and the Principle Investigator and the Bendix folks - who made this ALSEP - and see if they could work out a procedure to fix it. And they probably developed something. They never did radio it up to us because they decide it was going to take too long."]

[Jones - "Rather like what you did for the 17 crew when their fender came off."]

[Duke - "Right."]

[Because he is so close to the Central Station, Charlie can't get down on his hands and then push back to get up. He will have to lean back just enough to get his center of gravity over his feet and then get to his feet without kicking dirt all over the Central Station.]

[With the heat flow cable in his right hand, Charlie leans back but doesn't get back far enough that he can make the attempt to get up. He leans forward slightly to try again.]

[Charlie leans back again, jumps up and then hops back to get his balance. It is a well-executed maneuver.]

122:10:41 Young: Okay.

122:10:44 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Long Pause)

MP3 Audio Clip ( 11 min 18 sec )

122:11:01 Young: Sound doesn't travel too good in a vacuum. I don't hear a thing. But it (meaning the thumper) jumped. Okay, Charlie, I'm going to the next station now.

[Charlie lifts the end of the cable so that he can describe it to Houston.]

122:11:18 Young: Okay, number 6. (Pause)

Video Clip ( 3 min 15 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 29 Mb MPEG )

122:11:23 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause)

122:11:29 Duke: Okay, Tony, the cable is broken off right at the connector. And there's about an inch and a half of silver material right in my hand at the end of the broken piece, and, as I look at the cable it's right at the...(correcting himself) the connector, rather, it's (severed) right at the connector (at the base of the Central Station). It's broken off right there. Over.

122:11:54 England: Okay. We copy that.

[As indicated in Figure 14-51, the break occurred at a line of solder joints. "Pull tests performed on the cable/Astromate connector configuration indicated the strength at the cable/board interface was 31 pounds. A modified joint assembly (Figure 14-52) which provides strain relief and has a pull strength of over 100 pounds will be used for the heat flow experiment connector and (other) similar connectors on Apollo 17."]

[Charlie tosses the end of the cable to the ground at the base of the Central Station.]

122:12:01 England: (To Charlie) How does the connector look? Is there any damage on it?

122:12:09 Young: Okay.

122:12:10 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Long Pause)

122:12:29 Duke: Tony, there's no damage on the connector. Over.

122:12:32 England: Okay. (Pause)

[Charlie turns to face down-Sun so he can start a pan.]

[Charlie taps the top of his camera, probably to remove dust.]

122:12:59 Young: Okay. (To Houston) Am I holding still long enough? (Pause)

122:13:07 England: Yes. (Pause)

[Charlie bends his knees and pulls his head and shoulder back to raise his aim. He starts his ALSEP pan with a down-Sun picture, AS16-113- 18349, which shows the magnetometer. Prior to 122:13:16, he takes eight or nine more pictures, turning slightly to his right between frames.]

[Duke - "On 18349, you can see how, if you look down-Sun, it's very bright. And zero-phase it just washes out completely and you can't even see the details in the surface. But, just away from that, you can begin to see the rocks and the footprints and stuff like that that were on the surface. Good view of the sort of the slope of the terrain on the horizon. It looks likes it's sloping down from north to south. And that was a little more pronounced than we had expected."]

[Frame 18350 shows the magnetometer.]

[In 18351, John is visible beyond the foreground rise. He is about 10 meters west of the central Geophone and about 55 meters west of Charlie. The RTG is in the foreground.]

[The RTG is also visible in 18352, 18353, and 18354.]

[In an animated gif, made by Yuri Krasilnikov from 18352 and 53, we see John turn to his right between frames, apparently to look toward Charlie.]

[Frames 18355 and 18356, show the south face of the Central Station.]

[Frame 18357 shows Smoky Mountain in the background. This is about the point in the pan where Charlie stops so that John can fire his 9th shot.]

[Jones - "In training did you take pans and develop the film to see how you did?"]

[Duke - "We practiced all the photographic sequences that we had. Every time we put out the ALSEP in training, we would go through not only the experiments deployment but we'd go through the photo layout and sequence so we knew what to do and it was second nature."]

[Jones - "Did you have film in the camera."]

[Duke - "Yeah. Uh-huh. And then they would develop it and we would look at it to see how we screwed up and if we were in focus and make sure the horizon was right. And that gave us a good idea of just how much we had to lean back and how to point the camera. It was a single-reflex lens and you just sort of had to, you know, point right and try to get it. What you thought was right. And it turned out pretty good. We tried to get it so that we had just a little horizon. We didn't want to get too high and get, you know, this black sky. And that took some practice but, by the time we got going, we were okay."]

122:13:25 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire.

122:13:31 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Charlie resumes the pan just before his next transmission. He stops before he faces the TV camera.]

[Frame AS16-113- 18358 shows the LM at the left side of the frame.]

[Frame 18359 is an excellent picture of the LM and also provides a graphic illustration of the undulation of the terrain. In the foreground, we see the PSE, The mortar pack is at left center. At the lower left, note the bright, orange-colored patch of sunlight reflected off the Central Station's Mylar curtain. The Central Station is out of the field-of-view to the left.]

[Duke - " 18359 is part of the pan and, in the near field, you can see the Passive Seismic, to the left, in the middle foreground, is the mortar package. It's just sitting out there, waiting for John to get the plate in place. And, of course, you're looking more to the east now, back at the Rover (means 'LM'). You can see the little rise we had to walk up. Really, we're almost eye-level with the Ascent Stage. Looking back to the edge of the valley to the east, you're looking at the shadowed side of the rock and the soil, so it's a darker gray."]

[Jones - "And this is the rock we've been looking at over near the Central Station."]

[Duke - "Right. That's actually the rock, I think, that John leaned on to pick up the cable he broke."]

[Charlie continues turning to his right as he takes AS16-113- 18360, 18361, and 18362. He picks up the left flank of Stone Mountain in 18363 and part of the Rover in 18364.]

122:14:22 England: Yes, you're holding still long enough.

122:14:28 Young: Okay.

Video Clip ( 2 min 50 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 25 Mb MPEG )

122:14:32 Duke: (Facing the Rover, unable to see John) (Are) you moving, John?

122:14:33 Young: Yeah.

122:14:34 Duke: Okay. (Long Pause)

[An animated gif, made by Yuri Krasilnikov from 18365 and 66, shows the TV in motion. Charlie almost certainly resumed his pan once he knew John was moving to the next thumper location.]

[Frame 18365 is centered on the Rover and shows the large breccia on Charlie's side of the vehicle. The drill is at left center near the drill-stem rack.]

[Frames 18366 and 18367 also show the Rover.]

[Duke - " 18365 is looking in toward the Central Station, where I took the pan, and shows the drill sitting on the near foreground, a lot of the footprints, and then you can see Stone Mountain in the background. Cincos is just off to the right."]

[Jones - "There's some nice, deep footprints on the rim of that crater you were talking about. Just over the drill."]

[Duke - "I remarked about that; it was real soft in that area. And you can see the Rover in the background. And it was parked basically facing south. I think 195 degrees was the heading and the (TV) camera's looking at us taking a picture. To me, the ground looks like what I call 'freshly plowed' and it just looked like it had been rained on. You can see where the unspoiled surface was. And you see, when you step on it, it makes it a brighter albedo. Why that is, I don't know. The surface was fairly unconsolidated in this area. Later on, when we looked at the core, it had, you know, various sizes of grains; but it was all mostly fines. As you stepped on it, you never sank in more than an inch or two in this area. You can see the footprints."]

[Frames 18368 and 18369 show the western heat flow hole.]

[Charlie completes the pan with 18370, which shows the magnetometer at the right side.]

[Duke - "In 18368, we're looking off towards South Ray Crater which would be the southwest of our position. You could see, off in the distance, right below the horizon, is South Ray Crater. It's the lighter area. Most of the surface around here is undisturbed. I had drilled one hole in; and that's on the right."]

[Fendell pans left to watch John. He overshoots him but reverses direction to get him centered.]

[The 'white thing' may be one of a series of markers attached to the cable at 15-foot intervals to show John where to do the shots.]

122:15:08 Young: Okay.

122:15:11 England: The one we don't want is the next one along the cable.

122:15:16 Young: (Lost under Tony) Yeah, okay. I remember now.

[John places the thumper plate on the ground.]

[Charlie may have just taken AS16-113- 18371, a close-up of the RTG from the south.]

[Jones - "This cable coming off the RTG is sitting well up off the ground and one can see the waves and wiggles even in these ribbon cables."]

[Duke - "And you can see it was real dusty around here. The footprints are some of the deeper ones that we had on the lunar surface. The ALSEP site was sort of on a crown - which, generally, makes it less dusty; but, in this place, it was real dusty. You can see John has kicked up some dust on the base of the RTG. It hadn't gotten on the fins or anything, so it didn't bother it as far as its performance."]

122:15:48 England: Okay, we're sure getting good signals here, John.

122:15:57 Young: (Moving forward) Okay. The next one we skip because it has got a black wire on it. (Long Pause)

[As Fendell follows John, Charlie comes into view. He is on the northeast corner of the magnetometer, trying to release the sunshade as per the instruction printed on LMP-18 under the symbol for the 3-foot close-up of the magnetometer.]

[Because of the skipped location, the distance between shots 11 and 12 is 30 feet (9 meters).]

[Charlie appears to be pulling a lanyard to deploy the sunshade and the southwest arm moves inward in response. AS16-113- 18372 is Charlie's close-up, which has probably been taken by now. The sunshade is the roll of gold-foil material on a string suspended between the SW and NW arms.]

[John walks forward to the top of the ridge and positions himself for the next shot.]

[Now that John is out of the depression, we see the spray of dust kicked up by the thumper.]

122:17:11 Young: It's getting me all dirty.

Video Clip ( 2 min 44 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPEG )

122:17:14 England: Great. Not great it's getting you all dirty; great it's working. (Pause)

[After standing motionless for ten seconds, John moves forward for the next shot and Charlie goes around to the southwest arm and pushes it down.]

122:17:42 Young: Well, lock it, Charlie.

122:17:43 Duke: How do you do that? By pushing down?

122:17:46 England: Charlie, they don't lock.

122:17:47 Young: No, it doesn't arm (means 'lock'). They don't lock.

122:17:51 Duke: But I can't unravel this sunshade; it pulls up the arms. (Pause) Go ahead (with the next shot).

122:17:59 Young: Okay. (Pause)

122:18:03 England: Okay, if you can't get that out there...

122:18:05 Young: Houston; number 14.

122:18:06 England: ...just leave the sunshade down.

122:18:10 Young: Okay, 4, 3, 2, 1, (Fire)...(Long Pause)

[After the thumper fires, John forgets to remain motionless and starts forward after only a couple of seconds.]

[Charlie steps between the SW and NW arms and reaches in carefully to take hold of the sunshield.]

122:18:38 England: Okay.

122:18:41 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1...(Long Pause)

[This time, John remembers to stand still. Just before Tony's next transmission, Charlie frees the sunshade.]

[John runs forward to the next location. He covers the 4.5 m distance in 8 strides.]

122:19:01 Duke: I got it. It was wrapped around a couple of times. I didn't touch (it more than a) little bit, or disturb (the) level. It's okay.

122:19:07 England: Okay.

122:19:14 Duke: Wait a minute, John. Okay.

[Charlie moves away from the LSM and gets settled for the next shot.]

122:19:19 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause) Okay. (Long Pause)

[John moves forward and Fendell follows him.]

Video Clip ( 2 min 55 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPEG )

122:19:53 Duke: Just a minute, John. (Pause)

122:20:02 Young: Ready, Charlie?

122:20:03 Duke: Yeah, go ahead.

122:20:04 Young: Okay, number 17 again, Houston.

122:20:07 England: Okay.

122:20:08 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause) Okay.

[John moves forward.]

122:20:37 Duke: Okay, I will.

[The concern may be that reflections off the trash might create thermal problems for the experiments.]

122:20:48 Young: 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Pause)

122:20:58 England: And we're still getting good signals.

[John now moves forward 9 meters to do the last shot next to the geophone they deployed near the Central Station.]

[John reaches the final thumper location. He is about 3 meters west of the anchor.]

122:21:35 Young: All right.

122:21:36 Duke: Wait a minute, John. (Pause) Okay. Go ahead.

122:21:41 Young: Okay, Houston. Last one. 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire. (Long Pause)

[At about this time, Charlie takes two up-Suns of the magnetometer, AS16-113- 18373 and 18374. Both show the deployed the magnetometer sunshade. The RTG and the Central Station are in the background. John is near the Central Station firing shot 19.]

122:22:18 England: Okay. You can go.

122:22:19 Young: (Amazed at how long they are having to stand still) Houston, you got to be kidding. (Hearing Tony and chuckling) Okay. Was the signal reverberating that long?

122:22:28 England: Right. It really rings down. (Pause)

[Figure 10-7 from the Preliminary Science Report shows the signals recorded at the three geophones for shot 17. The pre-arrival noise at the left side of the figure is not indicative of the true noise level because it includes residuals from prior shots and the crew's movements between shots. By having John and Charlie stay motionless for about 25 seconds after the last shot, the experimenters get a better idea of the true noise level.]

[John moves a few steps to the northwest and uses a sidearm motion to toss the thumper off to the north. Charlie comes into view.]

122:22:40 Duke: All finished (with the thumper). Good show. Tony, ain't there some way we can fix that heat flow?

122:22:48 England: Looks pretty bad there, Charlie. We suggest you just not worry about it there. You've got a good ALSEP, and the other experiments are working fine.

[John has moved northeast of the Central Station and throws a piece of trash off to the north. Charlie takes a picture across the top of the Central Station from the north. This is AS16-113- 18375. Stone Mountain is in the background.]

[Charlie takes a moment to go through his checklist. John waits for him to get out of the way.]

122:23:33 England: Okay. (Pause)

[Charlie has taken the camera off his RCU bracket and sets it down on top of the Central Station for John's use. John moves in and gets a UHT. He moves away from the Central Station, looks at his checklist, and turns pages until he gets to CDR-28.]

[The 'hockey stick' is the locking pin that fell out of John's purge valve. Charlie stowed it under John's seat after he found it on the ground next to the Rover.]

[John goes around to the south side of the Central Station, stepping carefully over cables as he goes. He is making sure that the mortar package can't get a signal from the Central Station and fire a mortar while he is working around it.]

122:24:00 Duke: I'm going to get it right now.

122:24:02 England: Okay.

[Charlie uses the foot-to-foot, loping stride until he gets to the soft-rimmed crater and then switches to his skipping stride.]

122:24:08 England: Rog. Seeing you coming.

[John turns the mortar package switch and then uses the UHT to clear some debris from around the Central Station.]

122:24:16 Young: About 10.

122:24:19 England: Okay, you're going about 110 right now.

122:24:24 Duke: Am I? Thank you.

[It takes Charlie about 42 seconds to cover the 35 meters between the Central Station and the Rover.]

122:24:32 England: John, you're about 80.

122:24:36 Young: That figures. (Pause)

[Figures 10-3a from the Mission Report shows John's heart rate and 10-3b shows Charlie's. John's is the lowest it has been since he got off the Rover at the ALSEP site. Charlie has also just come through a minimum, and in both cases they have both gotten quite a bit of rest, standing still while John did the series of thumper shots. If Charlie had a brief period of 110 beats per minute due to the run back to the Rover, it doesn't show up in the plot, probably because the plotted points represent averages over intervals of a few minutes.]

[John is north of the Central Station, flipping more debris out of the way. Charlie holds something in front of the TV camera; but I, at least, couldn't make it out. It probably would have been better if Charlie had held the object a bit farther away from the camera.]

122:24:44 England: Yep, sure do.

[As Tony indicates at 122:25:23, he sees what he thinks is the so-called 'red apple' which the astronauts would use to open the purge valve. I was expecting to see the locking pin.]

122:24:53 England: Good job.

122:24:54 Young: All the junk is gone somewheres.

[John heads for the mortar package carrying the UHT.]

122:25:00 England: Yeah, we sure did.

122:25:04 Duke: It was a solid piece of glass - spherical - and part of it's broken away, but it really (is the) most unique piece of glass I've ever seen in all the samples. I think.

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and we see John going past the Central Station to get a piece of equipment.]

122:25:33 Duke: No, it's a solid piece of glass!

122:25:37 England: Fantastic. (Pause)

[We get a glimpse of Charlie's shadow as he heads for the Central Station.]

122:25:42 Duke: And it was right out here by the drill. (Pause)

[In looking at the video again, I finally picked out the glass sphere. It is about two to three centimeters across. Charlie held it between his thumb and forefinger and it is very difficult to see against the dark background of his very dirty fingers. Charlie collected the glass sphere at 121:53:10 just after he dropped the rammer-jammer down the core hole. According to the Apollo 16 Voice Transcript Pertaining to the geology of the landing site by N.G. Bailey and G.E. Ulrich, this is sample 60095, which weighs 46.6 grams. The glass sphere is shown is NASA photo S72-39426. It arrived in Houston more or less in the condition Charlie described and was probably created in the South Ray impact.]

[John has picked up the base he will put under the Mortar package. Charlie joins him.]

122:25:54 Duke: Okay, wait a minute. Let me get this thing (meaning the purge valve pin) in, and I'll go back and start on that heat flow. (Correcting himself) I mean the (core)...Can you step away so I don't get these (mortar package) cables?

122:26:05 Young: What is it you want to do?

122:26:07 Duke: I got to get this in.

122:26:08 Young: Oh. Gosh, it is it, isn't it? Can you see it?

122:26:17 Duke: Yeah.

[John has backed away from the mortar cable. Charlie bends his right knee and leans to his right to get at John's purge valve. He then puts his left foot back and sinks down onto his right knee to get a little lower. John bends his knees and pulls his head and shoulders back to raise the purge valve.]

[Charlie is now down on both knees.]

122:26:33 Duke: Okay, it's in.

[Charlie rises without difficulty, possibly keeping himself steady by taking John's hidden right hand or by grabbing part of his suit.]

122:26:37 Duke: Probably.

122:26:38 Young: I'll bet you 100 dollars.

[Charlie turns to head back to the Rover. Once he has a little forward momentum, he springs up off both feet and does an elegant kangaroo-hop over the cables, clearing them easily.]

[John's 'red-apple', which is on the end of the lanyard for his purge valve pin, can be seen in a frame capture ( 162k ) from 16-mm film of the LM/LRV checkout on 4 April l972.]

122:26:42 England: Good show. (Pause)

122:26:48 Duke: These Rover tracks are amazing. They're just barely (sinking in)...(Pause)

[Post-mission analysis of photographs indicates that the maximum depth of the Rover tracks is about 5 cm. The deepest penetration, of course, was seen in the rims of small, relatively fresh craters. The average track depth was 1.25 cm. Based on lab tests done with crushed-basalt lunar-soil simulants, the track depths indicate a typical porosity of 41 percent.]

122:27:25 Young: Gah. (Long Pause)

[John has attached the mortar base to his UHT and carries it over to the geophone anchor. As per CDR-28, he will align it with the geophone line and read off a sun angle which he will then use to properly align the base under the mortar package. Photo AS16-113- 18380 is a close-up of the deployed mortar package and base. At the present moment, John has the UHT fitted into the hole at the center of the compass pattern on the base and the UHT shadow gives him the proper alignment. The UHT will, of course, serve as a gnomon during the deployment as well.]

122:27:56 England: Outstanding, John.

[The western half of the geophone line was on the other side of the ridge and John is proud of the straight-line deployment he achieved. He mentions the fact again during the post-mission Technical Debrief.]

122:28:10 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

Video Clip ( 2 min 55 sec 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPEG )

122:28:24 Young: I mean the thumper (actually means mortar) package. Excuse me. (Pause)

[John's difficulties in picking the right word are legendary. Readers may want to consult the discussion he had with the Apollo 17 crew during their EVA-2 Preps. During the rest period between EVA-1 and EVA-2, John had tested a design for a makeshift replacement fender for their Rover and had some difficulty describing the procedures. This is all part of the John Young 'Country Boy' demeanor which masks a superb intellect.]

[John turns and walks toward the mortar package. In the foreground, we see the core stem move as Charlie tries to break the core between the second and third sections.]

[John puts the base down and goes to his knees so he can grab the mortar package in his left hand. He has the UHT to help with his balance and rises easily.]

122:28:56 England: Charlie, what was the cap on the bottom end? We missed that.

122:29:02 Duke: Baker.

122:29:04 England: Okay.

[John has backed off-camera to the right, fully deploying the mortar cable. Fendell follows and, in the foreground, we see Charlie rotate the bottom two core sections so he can look at the top of the second one.]

122:29:08 England: Outstanding. (Long Pause)

[John gets to the end of the mortar cable and then moves back in a meter or two and somewhat to the west, possibly to find a level spot. He puts the base down and then sinks to his knees. He puts the mortar package down and then stands, picks up the base and knocks some dust off with his free left hand.]

[Baker is the cap on the bit end of the first (deepest) core section; and Delta is the cap on the top of the second section.]

122:30:18 England: Okay. We copy that. (Pause)

122:30:25 Duke: Man, the trick of the week (is) getting this wrench off of here. (Pause)

[John is still working with the mortar base. Charlie comes around to the LMP seat.]

122:30:39 England: Yeah, you look fine.

122:30:43 Duke: That's amazing. That (TV) camera is so good.

122:30:51 England: The lens must be like a pinhole camera.

122:30:56 Duke: Yeah, okay. I'll go put these stubs...(correcting himself) these cores, back out there. (Pause)

[Charlie takes the capped core stem sections to the rack. John is still working with the mortar base.]

122:31:08 Young: And I'm unable to get one of the legs of the mortar package deployed here for some reason. (Pause)

[John is referring to one of the anchoring stakes shown in the sketch in Figure 14-65 in the Apollo 16 Mission Report.]

122:31:30 England: Yeah, why don't you just leave it setting there?

122:31:35 Duke: In case you guys come up with something? (Pause) Okay. (Pause) Boy, am I filthy. (Long Pause)

[Charlie returns to the Rover and goes around the back to work at John's seat as per LMP-20.]

[In Houston, Flight Director Pete Frank is told that there will be a meeting after the ALSEP deployment to see what might be done about the severed Heat Flow cable.]

122:32:41 Young: Okay.

122:32:42 Duke: And I'll...

122:32:43 Young: Be there as soon as I can, Charlie.

122:32:44 Duke: ...put your bags on and et cetera, et cetera. (Pause)

[Charlie will put sample bag dispensers and film magazines on John's Hasselblad. Charlie's camera is still on top of the Central Station.]

[John has mis-spoken. There are actually four legs.]

[Charlie goes around the front of the Rover to work at the LMP seat and blocks our view of John.]

122:33:09 Young: Well, Charlie, it's a question...I can't get this pin around this angle in here. I mean, I don't know how it got the way it is, but unless I got it around the angle, it won't deploy.

122:33:27 England: Which leg was it, John?

122:33:32 Young: The third leg on the mortar pallet. Will you take three out of four?

[Charlie goes out of view around the back of the Rover.]

122:33:47 Young: Well, I don't see any way with my gloves. If I took my gloves off, I could get it out, but I ain't going that far.

122:33:55 England: Okay, we'll just go with three, John. (Pause)

122:34:03 Duke: Sure I can't help, John?

122:34:04 Young: No, there's nothing you can do. Unless we could pull it, it won't come out. And there is no way to pull it without a...(Thinking) Hmm, pair of pliers. Without a screwdriver.

122:34:22 Duke: Well, we ain't got one of those.

122:34:24 Young: No. Three out of four will work.

Video Clip ( 3 min 10 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 28 Mb MPEG )

122:34:28 Duke: By golly, they ought to be satisfied with that. (Garbled) go with that.

122:34:30 England: Yes, John, we're satisfied with three. Let's just go with that.

122:34:35 Young: Okay. (Pause)

[John takes hold of the UHT and holds the mortar base just off the ground as he gets it aligned.]

[Comm Break]

[John presses the anchor stakes into the ground. Charlie comes around to the LMP seat and we get a close-up view as he turns his checklist pages. He is looking at prior pages to make sure he has done everything.]

[Jones - "It seemed like you just pulled a page up with a finger and then brushed it across."]

[Duke - "That's the way we turned it. It was more of a brush. The pages were real stiff and they'd would begin to curl up and then they'd flip over - on the spring. There was a spring they were around - or a wire, a coiled wire. It was sort of like a spring - like a spiral notebook, really."]

[Jones - "But bent back over the shape of your wrist to hold it open."]

[A detail from Apollo 13 training photo 70-HC-83 is a good side view of Jim Lovell's cuff checklist.]

[Once Charlie moves out of the way, we see that John has disengaged the UHT and, apparently, is using it to press the southwest corner down. He is trying to get it level. The first few times, it rocks in response to his efforts. Eventually, it doesn't move enough to show in the TV picture. Every once in a while, he puts the UHT back at the center to create a shadow and check the alignment.]

122:36:16 Young: (Moving around to get the mortar pack) Okay. The mortar pallet is in and flat; and the level is still...No. (Pause as he tries to adjust the alignment) Shoot, it's now about (pause) 330.

122:36:43 England: Okay, John. (Long Pause)

[As shown in Figure 10-3 in the Preliminary Science Report, mortar No. 1 will be fired a distance of 1500 m and, at that distance, the 3-degree pointing error will result in an impact about 80 degrees off line to the north. This will necessitate a small adjustment in post-mission data analysis but will not have any significant affect on the value of the results.]

[John sticks his left leg out behind him, leans to his right, and grabs the mortar pack. He then moves to the east side of the mortar base, sticks his left leg out to the side and slightly to the front and then bends his right knee as he carefully places the mortar pack on the base.]

Video Clip ( 3 min 15 sec 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 29 Mb MPEG )

122:37:28 England: Sounds good, Charlie. (Long Pause)

[Samples are documented with photographs taken before collection and additional photographs taken after collection. These show exactly what rock was collected and what its situation was on the pristine surface. Often, the "before" photos include a "cross-Sun" stereopair taken from either the north or south, and a "down-Sun" taken from the east.]

[Charlie is using John's camera with Apollo 16 magazine 114/B and takes a stereopair, AS16-114- 18383 and 18384, stepping to his right between frames. As is also indicated in Figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report, he is sampling in a small crater near the front of the Rover The sample is 60035, a 1.053 kilogram brecciated anorthosite.]

[John has moved around to the north side of the mortar pack. He turns the UHT around so that he is holding the tip, puts the handle on the ground and uses it as a support as he kneels. He has been careful to avoid fouling the tip. He adjusts the leveling and alignment with his left hand.]

[In terrestrial gravity, kneeling was relatively easy because the astronaut's body weight was high enough to overcome the pressurized suit's resistance to bending, as evidenced by a pre-flight photo showing Charlie kneeling during a suit fitting session. On the Moon, his total weight - including his backpack - wasn't enough to overcome the suit's resistance to kneeling. For some reason, John and Gene Cernan were better able to bend their knees and stay down in a kneeling position.]

[Duke - "You could go down on a knee but, to keep your balance, you really needed like a three-point suspension - like a football lineman - so he's using a Universal Tool there to balance himself while he's working with his left hand. And I used the shovel a lot to bend down on - and the other equipment we had, like the rakes and stuff like that, too. Or, you could lean against the Rover or lean against a rock to get your sample if you had to bend over. When you leaned on something in a three-point, you could bend your knees and get down on your knees. But it was difficult to do that just by trying bending down and hold your balance because, if you tried to go down, it seemed like it was going to throw you forward. It took a lot of energy to hold yourself back when the knees were bent. The suit wanted to pitch you forward when you bent your knees."]

[In hopping back to get his balance, John may have kicked some dirt on the base.]

[John uses the UHT to straighten the cables.]

122:38:26 Young: Yeah, it is.

122:38:28 England: That's fine, then

122:38:29 Young: Reasonably enough. (Long Pause) Okay. I'm going to raise the radio antenna (on the mortar package as per CDR-29). Red flag. (Long Pause)

[John tries to reach down to get the antenna but doesn't quite make it and, in the end, uses the UHT as a crutch so that he can get on his knees. Note that, now that he is finished with the instrument deployment, he doesn't bother turning the UHT end-for-end and sticks the tip in the ground.]

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans counter-clockwise.]

[Three of the four mortars were successfully fired on May 23, 1972, about a month after John and Charlie left the Moon. The mortar that was to have been fired to a range of 1500 meters was not launched due to the fact that the experimenters were no longer sure that the mortar package was level. After the third mortar was launched, either the pitch sensor failed or the mortar package tipped at an unacceptable angle. Excellent data were obtained from the three successful launches and these data, when combined with the thumper data and data recorded during the LM launch, were used to determine the subsurface structure shown in Figure 10-1 from the Preliminary Science Report.]

[Fendell stops his pan just as the magnetometer is about to go out of view and reverses direction. On comm, we can hear Charlie's breathing.]

122:40:37 England: Charlie, you might want to slow down a little bit.

122:40:42 Duke: Yeah, I am. My problem was I fell down. And with this camera on (the RCU), it's hard to get up. I'm okay.

122:40:53 England: Okay.

[Jones - "You're out in front of the Rover now, off-camera collecting a couple of rock samples. Do you have any comments about solo sampling versus team sampling?"]

[Duke - "Well, the solo sampling, generally, you just picked up rocks when you were solo. It was hard to get a soil sample, solo, because you'd get a scoopful and it was really difficult to try to pour it in the bag yourself. Generally, you did that when you had a rakeful or a scoopful, one guy'd pour it into the other. And it was easier to document the samples - you know, the down-Sun, cross-Sun, and all the photographs that we had before and after - with two people. So the real documented samples we always did together. But a lot of times we worked separately because you could pick up more rocks that way."]

["You know, John and I were like two little kids up there, really. You know how hard it is trying to keep two kids going in the same direction at the zoo or Seaworld or something like that. The same problem you have up on the Moon. I see something over here and there I am and there's John. So a lot of times we worked independently; but we told Houston and a lot of our geology stops had independent sampling."]

[Jones - "Would you have used the scoop here to grab these rocks or just go down and get them with your hand?"]

[Duke - "I think I was just bending over - you know, doing splits - and getting them with my hand."]

[Fendell pans past John, who is headed for the Rover at a leisurely pace, apparently looking around as he goes. Fendell reaches the clockwise pan limit.]

122:41:02 Duke: No, it's on the Central Station.

122:41:03 Young: Oh yeah. (Laughing) I remember the last time we put it on the Central Station (during training), the thing collapsed. I figured you left it over at the car.

[Fendell zooms in on the heavily-shadowed LM, which is visible over the top of the Rover console.]

122:41:24 England: Okay, and, John, after...(Stops to listen to Charlie's next transmission)

122:41:26 Duke: And, I wouldn't even take an "after" for you. You'll never...(Stops to list to Tony's previous transmission)

122:41:30 England: After taking pictures of the mortar package there...

122:41:32 Young: Two seconds.

122:41:32 England: ...we would like a picture of that last thump imprint.

122:41:38 Young: (Thinking about it) All righty.

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans counter-clockwise, He finds John near the Central Station holding Charlie's Hasselblad.]

122:41:43 Duke: Ah, my first rock!

122:41:45 Young: Houston...

122:41:46 Duke: I was just saying 'my first rock'. Even though I had to fall down to get it. (Long Pause) Tony, I'm taking this lens brush and cleaning off this (CDR Hasselblad) camera.

122:42:18 England: Okay. (Long Pause)

[John runs to the mortar package and starts with an up-Sun picture, AS16-113- 18376. As Fendell zooms in, we can see that John hasn't mounted the camera on his RCU and is taking handheld photos. John moves around to the north side of the mortar package and takes a cross-Sun, 18377. John then moves around to the northeast side, examining the camera as he goes.]

122:42:42 Duke: Well, I think it's just the outside.

122:42:45 Young: I looked at the lens; it looks clean.

122:42:47 Duke: Yeah. (Pause) Check this one. (Pause)

[John takes two pictures, AS16-113- 18378 and 18379, backing up slightly and stepping to his left between frames.]

[Duke - " 18378 shows the mortar package with the red flag extended and it's facing off parallel to the geophone line. You can't really see the geophone line in the background, but you can see where John walked. That's basically his footprints along the geophone line and it trends off to the northwest. And you can see the spaghetti cable that goes back to the Central Station - not only for the data but also for the power. The magnetometer's in the far background, just over the mortar package. You can see the RTG and Central Station in that photograph. There's another piece of little white stuff over here to the upper right but it's, I think, just some debris."]

[John takes his final mortar-package picture, AS16-113-18380, from the southeast. The TV image jiggles as Charlie works at the Rover.]

122:43:24 England: Cross-Sun on it. Normal cross-Sun.

122:43:31 Young: You want a stereopair?

122:43:32 England: That'd be fine.

[John runs toward the geophone anchor. Fendell follows. John stops to adjust the camera settings.]

122:43:38 Young: You okay?

122:43:41 Duke: (Coughing). Ah, the old orange juice went down wrong. (Long Pause)

John takes a stereopair of the last thumper imprint, AS16-113- 18381 and 18382, stepping to his right between frames. He then goes out of view to our left.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I tell you, we weren't disappointed about this EVA. We'd been practicing with real deployments on the training gear. Every time we deployed it, we'd have some kind of problem that nobody had ever seen before. Well, we had the same thing in flight. I think all the problems we had with the training gear oriented us for our real-time problems."]

[Duke, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "We had ALSEP deployments and that was really good training. I felt right at home with every piece of gear we had."]