Apollo in Real Time Forum
Message Boards => Apollo 13 Moments of Interest => Topic started by: MadDogBV on October 16, 2023, 11:22:17 am
-
FLIGHT Milt Windler had surprised the flight dynamics crew by calling for the PGNS to be activated early, partly due to generous power margins, but mostly to help warm up the freezing crew. As a result, the trench suddenly became very active, but the backrooms and computers are still operating on a skeleton staff due to not anticipating a power-up until the planned midcourse at 137 hours. It's currently 134.
GUIDO Gary Renick has been trying to get the dynamics officer in the RTCC, Ken Leach, to run a starsearch. However, Ken is the only dynamics officer on duty* and he has been prioritizing the FIDO's requests. After Gary complains about his slowness in computing the search, Ken fires back a blunt rejoinder about the trench's lack of organization. Then FIDO Dave Reed, who is about as stressed out as any flight dynamics officer can be, decides it's time to have a word with his guidance officer.
https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=133:58:34&ch=21 (https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=133:58:34&ch=21)
The two have argued with each other before; when Dave had pressured him to tell Windler that it was not practical to run a P52 in the current compressed entry timeline, Gary buckled: "He is the FLIGHT, Dave."
Edit: Ray Reynolds is actually working in the backroom with Ken Leach, but he isn't heard on the loops at all. Based on how he struggled through the Gold Team shift, he might still be very tired by this time.
-
You can really hear the exhaustion and frustration in their voices and language. In the movie, there some scenes that showed the astronauts getting testy over time, but in the movie the mission controllers are always pretty calm.
In reality though, constant work, little sleep, maybe sleeping on floors and not showering for a few days, takes its toll. CAPCOM Jack Lousma sounds as cool as always of course.
-
A small addendum to this one: Compare and contrast FIDO Dave Reed at 134 hours with FIDO Dave Reed almost exactly 20 hours prior. He sounds more like a pilot on a commercial airliner flying to Honolulu. ;D Everybody must have felt pretty confident about how the last day of the flight would play out, until of course the actual reality of the situation hit everyone in the face.
Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=114:57:57&ch=20 (https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=114:57:57&ch=20)
-
To be fair, compare and contrast Dave Reed before the accident, having an argument with Booster because Marshall want to use his vector and he says agreed procedure is that they should calculate their own. (This is part of an argument that started much earlier.)
https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=005:28:02&ch=20
He certainly sounds fresher but equally testy. I think he had a little bit of a temper.
-
Oh yes, I've listened to him in some of the prelaunch dialogue; he does have a little bit of a temper, yes. ;D
Listen carefully in this one, when he speaks to Gary again (he slams the desk!): https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=134:14:44&ch=20
I've regarded him as probably one of the most senior FIDOs in the Trench, particularly after Bostick and Shaffer became leaders of the Flight Dynamics branch. Jay Greene was brilliant, of course, but Reed had all the confidence in the world - a must when dealing with other members of his cohort.
-
I've regarded him as probably one of the most senior FIDOs in the Trench, particularly after Bostick and Shaffer became leaders of the Flight Dynamics branch. Jay Greene was brilliant, of course, but Reed had all the confidence in the world - a must when dealing with other members of his cohort.
No argument on "one of the most senior." You only have to look at the fact that Reed and Greene were the only two FIDOs ever to work a lunar descent. Their reputation must have been high indeed.
Of course there was a little bit of rivalry between Reed and Greene. As you may know already, Ed Pavelka assigned Greene to work descent on Apollo 11, and as he says: "Dave Reed was incensed. He could not stand it... I heard a lot of complaints over the years from Dave on that and I think it ended up frustrating him to the point where... he quit NASA." (Greene says the same thing in his own oral history; Reed denies it.)
It occurs to me that Reed might well have become a flight director if he hadn't left. Shaffer and Greene both did. (Bostick interestingly not.) The position of FIDO seems to have been a good launching pad, unsurprisingly.