Messages

16

Apollo General Discussion / Apollo 12 launch EECOM loop?

« on: July 10, 2023, 02:56:01 am »

This might be off-topic, at least for now, but does anyone know if the Apollo 12 launch EECOM loop (and maybe GNC too) is available somewhere?

17

Apollo General Discussion / Listening to multiple loops efficiently

« on: July 06, 2023, 03:21:26 am »

What's the best way actually to listen to just the backroom chatter?

The problem I find is that all the loops seem to include the flight director loop. They also mostly, except for EECOM, have huge amounts of silence. So if I want to listen to say 8 loops in the 3 hours after the accident, I'm listening to the same Flight Director loop 8 times. 8 MORE times since much of it I've heard before many times. This would take 24 hours of real time and be super-boring after a while.

How have others addressed this issue?

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / "While we're playing these games": Dick Brown's role in EECOM

« on: July 06, 2023, 03:12:55 am »

This sequence occurs while EECOM is attempting increasingly desperate and improbable attempts to save the power in the CSM in Apollo 13 (culminating in turning the fans on in O2 tank 2 when the tank was obviously empty and there were minutes of power remaining.)

Dick Brown is kind of skeptical of these efforts on the EECOM loop:

"I'd like a little stiffer main A bus while we're playing these games". GET 56:44:25 . https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:44:18&ch=16

I feel like Dick Brown is under-appreciated in the literature. In the EECOM loop, he's the most protective of the battery and seems the first to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Actually though he always seems a little on the gloomy side.

Brown was also a key part of the SCE to AUX story. When John Aaron first noticed the instrumentation anomaly in the test a year before Apollo 12, it was Dick Brown whom John chose to work with to try to help figure it out.

That collaboration of course led to the SCE to AUX solution and the rescue of Apollo 12. See Apollo 12 Flight Journal, quoting from a 2000 oral history interview

I sat down with Dick Brown, who was a Rockwell [engineer]...We sat down and went through all the circuitry to find out just how does this thing work? Why would those patterns of numbers have come up?

at https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/01launch_to_earth_orbit.html

Let me know if anyone knows more about Brown, and why he's rarely mentioned in the SCE to Aux story.

19

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Looking for Ed Fendell, who is playing softball

« on: July 04, 2023, 11:25:28 pm »

GET 56:22:38 Procedures Jim Fucci on Procedures loop calls someone, maybe "Lines", https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:22:38&ch=5

Fucci is trying to track down Ed Fendell, whom he must have learned was in his softball league:
Fucci: Hey Lines [not sure of this name]
Lines: Yeah
Fucci: Do you know where Fendell plays ball?
Lines: Diamonds all over. Oh, wait a minute. It's in Ellington Airforce Base
He's probably still in the local league, so it's probably still at Ellington.
Fucci: You know how to get them?
Lines: No. Unless you call security at Ellington and have them - that would be the only idea I would have about having them send a car to anyone to put on the field.


A little later, GET 56:25:02 on the Procedures loop:

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:25:02&ch=5

 Procedures Jim Fucci calls someone, maybe Ellington Air Force Base, to try and locate Ed Fendell, an off-shift INCO. He asks for Security and tells them:

Fucci: I'm trying to get in touch with an Ed Fendell and I believe he is playing softball....
Security: This is an emergency call?
Fucci: It sure is... [understatement of the decade]

Ed had already left the softball game but they later track him down at his apartment. See Fendell interview here: https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/FendellEI/FendellEI_10-19-00.htm

Also, you can hear Fucci earlier at GET 56:13:49 trying to track someone, maybe him, down earlier, calling his wife I guess: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:13:38&ch=5

Fucci at GET 56:13:45 , where she says he might be at a school. I'm not sure who Fucci is trying to track down there, if it's also Ed Fendell (see

20

Apollo General Discussion / Re: How to listen to Control (LM GNC) backroom Apollo 13 after accident

« on: July 04, 2023, 04:01:20 am »

Thank you for this information. If I understand correctly, currently CONTROL is unavailable for the accident period.

If you have a link to your spliced INCO/PROCEDURES tape, that would be interesting.

I thought Glynn was just about ready to lose it when INCO said there would be a 2-minute data loss for some reconfiguration and it took 20 minutes or more. INCO even on the FLIGHT loop just after the accident is interesting to listen to, as the controller is incredibly laconic and calm but one can tell a lot is going on behind the scenes.

For what it’s worth, I still observe many issues viewing the site on iPad.

 Re the CONTROL tape, ideally there’d be a site release notes that describes key outstanding problems so users don’t waste time rediscovering known issues.

21

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 138:19:41 Tense moment on GUIDO loop when CMC won't go to standby

« on: July 02, 2023, 07:42:06 pm »

That's hilarious!

22

Apollo General Discussion / How to listen to Control (LM GNC) backroom Apollo 13 after accident

« on: July 01, 2023, 10:35:17 am »

I am having difficulty navigating the site in an iPad.

Specifically, when I try to select LM/GNC, which I suppose is CONTROL, around GET 57:00:00 I get 99% standard flight director loop, but with an echo. There is some GNC backroom chatter but it’s rare and hard to hear. What’s the best way to listen to the CONTROL (LM GNC) backroom loop ?

I also can’t figure out how to usefully listen to Telmu or INCO after the accident.

By contrast the EECOM backroom is completely clear.