Topics

31

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 122:18:04 Attempt to track CSM with LM rendezvous radar

« on: June 08, 2020, 01:49:39 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=122:18:04&ch=21

Really enjoyed this GUIDO-eye view of the attempt to locate the LM on the lunar surface by using a P22 to track the CSM with the LM's rendezvous radar. I've given a time tag that offers a little bit of the lead-up – it kicks into being a mad scramble about three minutes later, with Steve Bales nearly failing to give Buzz Aldrin permission to hit "proceed"; Aldrin requesting to do a Verb 83 and being told no; the AGS getting mis-initialized; and finally Jack Garman announcing at 122:25:11 that they can't lock on again because "that vehicle's GONE! We saw it go overhead."

It all sounds far more exciting from the ground than it does on the air-to-ground loop.

There is some good background information from the top of the relevant page on the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.launch.html

It quotes Buzz Aldrin from the Technical Debrief: "I don't think we had our AGS configured (properly) and the ground was not as helpful as they might have been had we run this sort of thing previously in simulations and had a bit more training on it."

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 168:29:19 FIDO sings show tunes

« on: May 24, 2020, 02:36:33 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=168:29:19&ch=20

FIDO Jay Greene gets a call from a young woman trying to arrange an interview for him with Henry S. F. Cooper of the New Yorker (author of several books on space exploration). He greets her with a chorus inspired by "Hello Young Lovers" from The King & I. Apparently his nickname was 'Broadway Jay.'

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 131:50:06 FIDO: "Finally we said, fuck it, Flight, we gotta stop"

« on: May 23, 2020, 12:54:37 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=131:50:06&ch=20

Head of the Flight Dynamics Branch Jerry Bostick calls in to ask why they've jettisoned the LM a rev early. FIDO Jay Greene recounts the whole saga, which he found "so traumatic it's funny."

This was an example of some really messy last minute planning, not the Trench's finest hour. Having listened to the tapes, it doesn't surprise me that they (Jay Greene again) later wound up messing up the separation burn on Apollo 15 – to the extent that it was only the attention of the astronauts that kept them from burning towards the LM, rather than away from it as planned.

Having given you the retrospective of the incident, I'll now add some links in subsequent comments that show the drama playing out. Spoiler: no one actually said "fuck it, Flight." Sadly.

34

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 119:49:49 Lunney's ascent pep talk

« on: May 22, 2020, 03:54:57 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=119:49:49&ch=50

Glynn Lunney gives his version of a pep talk to his controllers at the start of the lunar ascent shift: "Okay, Black Team members, the time has come!"

This includes him telling GUIDO Steve Bales that "I'd like you to get all your people standing by and looking alive because by the time these guys wake up, we're going to be two and a half hours from liftoff, we don't have any time for any debates or anything else like that, OK?" And Bales then passes this pep talk on to AGC Support Jack Garman in his back room: "we're going now, this is serious." https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=120:38:14&ch=21

Predictably Lunney gets testy an hour and a half later, when new requests are still coming to light: "I'm talking to anybody who'll listen... you should have mentioned it earlier." https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=122:09:10&ch=21

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 057:42:05 Lunney: "Come on, I need some oxygen"

« on: May 22, 2020, 03:40:52 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=057:42:05&ch=50

Another classic Lunney moment from that period of the highest of high drama, when the CSM's oxygen supply is finally failing and they urgently need to get the oxygen on in the LM.

He absolutely rides his poor TELMU: "Okay, how about ECS? Come on, I need some oxygen... Give me some oxygen right now... Do I need some oxygen?"

36

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 057:58:06 Lunney: "That's 64 amp hours! I can't afford that!"

« on: May 22, 2020, 03:34:25 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=057:58:06&ch=50

Glynn Lunney gets testy about the idea of leaving the IMU heaters turned on.

This clip was featured in that classic 1994 documentary, Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back. "I can't afford that!" has been a bit of a catchphrase between me and my mother ever since.

37

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 128:20:30 First female flight controller Poppy Northcutt

« on: May 16, 2020, 12:45:19 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=128:20:30&ch=19

Here we have Retro Chuck Deiterich doing some planning with his backroom, Retro Support, who I'm almost certain is Poppy Northcutt. She's widely agreed to have been, on Apollo 8, the first female flight controller. (Albeit not in the MOCR itself.)

She can be heard sporadically through the rest of this shift.

Understandably she got a good bit of press coverage. Later on Jay Greene tells Chuck Deiterich that "your assistant is calling you... your TV star...": https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=135:22:51&ch=20

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 022:07:04 Ground computer goes down; 40 minutes of data lost

« on: May 13, 2020, 06:16:27 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=022:07:04&ch=50

A computer goes down and they have to restore to a backup from a checkpoint 40 minutes earlier, meaning that 40 minutes of data is lost. A bit of banter ensues with Flight Director Glynn Lunney telling FIDO Jay Greene that "you took [the checkpoint] in the wrong place!" Discussion continues until 022:10:00 or so.

Earlier in the shift, he'd been questioning Greene on the reasons for needing to take checkpoints: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=019:56:49&ch=20

However, as Greene says to his backroom later, the real incident provided the best illustration of why checkpoints are needed. "We scored on the flight director... it's better than any words of explanation." https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=022:13:21&ch=20

39

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 168:51:48 "I wish FIDOs had cool things like that to say"

« on: May 12, 2020, 03:29:50 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=168:51:48&ch=20

FIDO Jay Greene, age 27, worked the descent shift on Apollo 11 and landed men on the moon. Now, a couple of days later, he's complaining that he doesn't get any cool catchphrases.

"I wish FIDOs had cool things like that to say. 'This is when we commit to MSFN.' The Networks can say 'battle short.' The FIDOs can't say anything but 'checkpoint.'"

"Everybody's got their own thing."

"Yeah, but I don't say mine on the loop."

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 134:43:51 "The next word I say will make you not give this recording to anybody"

« on: May 06, 2020, 08:42:46 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=134:43:51&ch=20

So says FIDO Jay Greene to RETRO Chuck Deiterich.

"It's not the only one running," replies Deiterich.

"Yeah, but it's the only one they're going to play back."

If the 'word' did end up getting recorded, I haven't been able to find it yet!

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 098:08:19 "Someday I'll learn to love Retros"

« on: May 05, 2020, 06:11:31 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=098:08:19&ch=20

FIDO Jay Greene tells himself that someday he'll learn to love Retros, but we know that he never did. He abolished the role, I think when he became branch chief of the flight dynamics branch which would have been at the beginning of the 80s. Per his oral history:

"I decided I didn’t need RETROs. Didn’t matter whether you were going forward or backwards, one trajectory guy was all we needed. That’s in my autobiography. I got rid of the RETROs. John Llewellyn hasn’t spoken to me since, which isn’t all bad. Actually, he has, but not lovingly."

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 099:45:20 Oh hell... it's those guys from Goddard

« on: May 05, 2020, 04:36:09 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=099:45:20&ch=20

It seems that the "Goddard Maneuvers" team at Goddard Space Flight Center (responsible for all the Apollo comms and tracking) called the flight dynamics team in Houston periodically to ask for updates about vectors, maneuver times, etc. It also seems that FIDO Jay Greene viewed these calls as a personal thorn in his side.

Further encounters between Mr Greene and "those guys from Goddard" can be found at:

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=128:55:48&ch=20
https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=129:36:59&ch=20
https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=132:57:39&ch=20

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 121:48:10 Dealing with program alarms: "I'm gonna make Steve feel bad"

« on: May 04, 2020, 06:04:51 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=121:48:10&ch=21

Further discussion between Jack Garman and Steve Bales about computer duty cycles and the level of utilization to be expected during ascent and rendezvous. Despite Jack's ominous opening, Steve's conclusion is that "I'm not really too worried."

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 121:14:45 Dealing with program alarms: duty cycle utilization

« on: May 04, 2020, 06:01:28 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=121:14:45&ch=22

Preparing for lunar ascent in the wake of the program alarms on descent, AGC Support Jack Garman briefs GUIDO Steve Bales on what a large percentage of computer time a 'monitor' program such as Noun 85 will utilize: "are you ready for this? I know you aren't, I'm not either... seven percent."

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 058:06:19 Jack Garman checks Jim Lovell's arithmetic

« on: May 04, 2020, 03:12:32 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=058:06:19&ch=21

The set-up for this will be familiar to anyone who has seen the film Apollo 13: Jim Lovell asks the ground to check his arithmetic to ensure that he's correctly transferred the guidance alignment from the CM into the LM. (You can hear this at 058:04:03.)

In the film you can see the line of controllers in the Trench frantically scribbling out calculations and immediately giving the thumbs up. In actuality, Glynn Lunney had to chase Guidance about it... three times.

And then who actually did the checking? That voice from the backroom is as clear as a bell: it's Jack Garman, the backroom hero of Apollo 11.

"OK, we have LGC data, look at the (?), and when you're satisfied, as we are, tell him that his arithmetic is good."