Messages

16

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 044:01:05 Jerry Bostick's missing headset

« on: July 18, 2020, 03:12:01 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=044:01:05&ch=20

Jerry Bostick's (chief of the Flight Dynamics Branch, AKA the boss of the Trench) headset goes missing and the saga enlivens another dull sleep shift. It had a long cord and everything.

Discussion runs until 044:05:36 or so, at which point the participants are commenting: "it's good to start a flap over something simple... hey, we could probably carry this on for two or three hours."

17

Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / 015:01:11 Even on Apollo 11 there are boring shifts...

« on: July 16, 2020, 08:39:56 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=015:01:11&ch=20

FIDO (Jay Greene): Hey, if you've memorized the flight plan, I'm all set to give you a spot quiz on what's happening this shift.
GUIDO (Will Fenner): Sleep
FIDO: You just flunked. It's sleep and PTC. You only knew half of what's going on, Fenner.
GUIDO: I have been watching the PTC here for an hour. It's going around and around.

18

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Apollo 13 Film vs Reality

« on: June 25, 2020, 05:07:10 pm »

Apollo 13 (1995) - A New Mission Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLMDSjCzEx8
(didn’t happen)

In a way this did happen, just not as it was depicted in the movie.

Obviously a decision was made not to try to use the SPS for a direct abort. I'm certain it was discussed in many places by many different people, but at one point Gene Kranz just decreed on the loop that this option should be ruled out in the abort planning. This was a mere hour after the accident. No one argued with him.

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:50:51&ch=8

Whatever planning you do, I want to do assuming that we're going around the Moon and we're using the LM for performing maneuvers, because in the present configuration, unless we get a heckuva lot smarter I think we're wasting our time planning and using the SPS... So I think all of our return-to-Earth type planning should be assuming the use of the LM DPS and/or RCS. And I think third priority down the line should be CSM RCS.

19

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."

20

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.'

21

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

« on: May 23, 2020, 05:28:19 pm »

Saga continues with the separation maneuver...

Now FIDO has to compute a whole new maneuver to ensure separation: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:09:12&ch=20

Flight (and others) now don't like the timing of the separation maneuver for 130:15. "Okay," says FIDO, "you want to pick a time way out in the future? Because we're gonna be chasing this five minutes at a time all night. I give up, I'll just wait." They finally agree on 130:30. Flight concludes with: "let's everybody settle down and get away from this bear."   https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:11:44&ch=20

FIDO is having a moment - "I am getting beaten to my knees," he tells his backroom. https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:12:57&ch=20

FIDO is continuing to have a moment as the PAD is being read up to the crew - "I refuse to put up a PAD again ever." The noise he makes at the end is almost un-transcribable, but "MEHH" probably gets us closest.  https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:21:15&ch=20

Separation maneuver actually happens at 130:30 or so

22

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

« on: May 23, 2020, 05:13:31 pm »

The saga of the LM jettison...

Flight Director Gene Kranz starts pondering an early LM jettison, because they closed out the LM early and the LM systems guys are worried that it will die prematurely if they do it at the planned time: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=129:53:01&ch=50

Flight asks FIDO for a new jettison time and planning starts - Flight then accepts a suggested time of 130:30 (compared to 131:52 as originally planned): https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=129:54:28&ch=20

After completing a fair amount of planning, the Trench team realize that they can't jettison the LM in the attitude they had planned, because it's already in ATT HOLD and it would fight them, Hence back to the drawing board: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:00:01&ch=20

LM jettison time is moved up again, now to 130:07. FIDO says "this is a bad plan": https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:02:56&ch=20

Now Flight asks FIDO to move the planned time to 130:14. More argument about attitudes and the best approach to separation ensues within the Trench: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=130:04:25&ch=20

LM jettison actually happens at about 130:09

23

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

« on: May 23, 2020, 01:16:09 pm »

Prelude to the saga...

FIDO (Jay Greene) and RETRO (Chuck Deiterich) start planning for LM jettison and TEI, with the help of FIDO's "groovy picture": https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=128:01:52&ch=20

FIDO tells FAO they want to keep LM jett where it is in the flight plan: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=128:04:42&ch=20

Planning by FIDO and RETRO resumes, with the return of the "groovy picture." RETRO doesn't approve and asks, "why don't you get out your little work schedule like I got?" Discussion about the timing of the preliminary and final PADs gets a bit heated. FIDO tries to shush RETRO after "break" doesn't work.  https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=128:25:09&ch=20

24

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.

25

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 139:00:13 TELMU "Shocking tie"

« on: May 22, 2020, 06:22:20 pm »

Having had a listen, I can't make out the name, but I'm pretty sure the response is, "it's his life, never mind."

26

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

27

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?"

28

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.

29

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 062:10:11 Lunney: "Somebody tell me what the point of that is."

« on: May 22, 2020, 03:29:43 pm »

Classic.

30

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 115:02:00 Lunney on the LM jettison plan "don't argue with me"

« on: May 22, 2020, 03:27:36 pm »

I love it when Lunney gets testy with the flight controllers too - which is just about all the time, usually.

It's so true! Although I think it's not anger so much as impatience. As Jay Greene said years later, "Glynn would drive you crazy, because his mind would race so fast that he could churn out action items quicker than you could absorb, much less answer."

He tends to be polite with the CAPCOM though, probably because they're astronauts and ultimately his voice link between the ground and the spacecraft.

The CAPCOM is presumably also less likely to argue with him or to keep him waiting for an answer! There were certainly times when he was no respecter of astronauts. I would love to hear the Flight Director's loop on Apollo 7, when Wally Schirra's insubordination (as he saw it) left him absolutely incandescent with rage.

I am going to go through my notes on these recordings and see if I can pull out some more Lunney moments to share with the class. In the mean time I can recommend one I've already posted, where he (jokingly) berates Jay Greene for taking a checkpoint at the wrong time and losing 40 minutes of data as a result: https://forum.apolloinrealtime.org/index.php?topic=225.0