Messages

16

Apollo General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« on: October 05, 2023, 02:23:28 am »

Is Apollo 16 planned to include the Mission Control loops?

(I swear I've spent more than 20 years lying awake at night worrying that all these tapes are going to crumble into dust before they're digitized. I'm glad that the NSF-funded project got extended but I'm not going to relax yet.)

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Apollo 11 Moments of Interest / Re: CONTROL and the bet on Eagle's lifespan

« on: October 05, 2023, 02:16:33 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=136:46:43&ch=57 There's a question of whether "Merlin" (I think?) is going to leave. "No." "What, you gonna stay here 'til it quits?"

Guessing that will have been Merlin Merritt, who was a TELMU.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 140:03:43 RETRO Chuck Deiterich gets spooked by YAW

« on: October 05, 2023, 02:06:23 am »

Nice find!

To pick up on the following discussion, one of the most "un-military" flight controllers has to be Steve Bales, hands down. His work was clearly massively respected, or he wouldn't have been chosen for both the lunar landing and take-off shifts on Apollo 11, but he was very excitable and prone to interrupting. The contrast between him and Jay Greene during their backchannel discussions around the Apollo 11 landing is very clear.

Greene, although clearly non-military and often tongue-in-cheek during ordinary shifts, was pretty calm and collected when the chips were down. Like this when he's reminding his backroom to 'stay with it' while the room is still clapping after the landing: https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=102:45:55&ch=20

But then he later became a flight director - not coincidental I think.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 041:02:42 Manned Spacecraft Center at its finest

« on: April 14, 2023, 10:29:09 am »

Color me completely unsurprised that it was John Llewellyn!

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 054:21:56 RETRO asks FIDO and GUIDO for a slide rule

« on: January 04, 2022, 11:26:21 am »

Edit: I think near the end of the conversation, Will Fenner is referring to an "alidade in the back room" though he gets cut off so it's hard to tell.

Pretty sure it's actually "an Olivetti," ie a calculator: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-calculator-that-helped-land-men-on-the-moon

For example Jay Greene (whose accent is more comprehensible to me anyway!) saying here, "I went back and I divided it on the Olivetti." https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/?t=-08:59:31&ch=20

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Apollo General Discussion / Re: Identifying speakers/ Mission Control teams

« on: January 04, 2022, 11:19:35 am »

Ah, got you. I agree it makes a nice collection all of people calling for Flight.

I'll see who else I can find during my own listening. Off the top of my head it would be relatively easy to include Bob Carlton (CONTROL) and Phil Shaffer (FIDO) from Apollo 11.

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Apollo General Discussion / Re: Identifying speakers/ Mission Control teams

« on: January 04, 2022, 02:06:34 am »

An ingenious idea! I'm afraid that I don't have any knowledge of NETWORK and FAO, but I did have a listen to all the samples I do know as a double check, and they all sound right to me.

If you do know the first names of some of these people, I would suggest looking at the manning lists which might help to narrow down the suspects.

Would it be useful if I kept a look-out for people in the back room identifying themselves, or would that be going too far? I could also provide links to samples for some of the Apollo 11 controllers who aren't represented here.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 051:40:50 MIDCOURSE asks FIDO Stoval if they're just doing busywork

« on: January 02, 2022, 05:27:31 am »

I think Stoval had a reputation for being overly keen!

See the discussion between Bales and Paules here: "Oh, Stoval will be running vectors, and then Boone will come on and run more vectors, and then they'll just run the ephemeris into the ground..." https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=018:50:34&ch=21

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 018:42:34 Bales and Paules long informal conversation

« on: January 02, 2022, 05:20:37 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=018:42:34&ch=21

Gran Paules, Steve Bales' boss in the Guidance section, calls him to check in before heading off for his Navy Reserve duty in Galveston. This is the longest check-in call I've encountered so far, around 10 minutes of wide-ranging conversation, much more informal than exchanges on the loop. Subjects of discussion include:

The fact that Bales was asleep at his console with his headset off (and is terrified that he was spotted asleep on TV!)
The eternal question of the SIVB impact point
Midcourse correction ("big Booster screwup")
Who went to the Booster post-launch party
Jack Swigert having set a "new all-time speed record" doing P23
Bales complaining again about how tired he is ("you woke me up by calling though, that's good")
Bales complaining about the "slow-rent, low-rent Procedures guy" (you can hear this incident here: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=016:53:07&ch=21)

All kinds of gossip.

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Apollo General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« on: January 02, 2022, 04:55:23 am »

Yes! We're working on Apollo 16 now. It probably not going to be ready for the 50th anniversary, but we'll try.

Apologies if this is an obvious answer one way or the other, but is this going to include the Mission Control audio as well, or will it be like 17?

I've been keeping my eye on the relevant NSF grant page and the project is clearly going ahead but I can't tell where they actually are, if anywhere, with further digitization of the tapes. It's clearly planned, though, and the project is due to end in 2023, so here's hoping. https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2016725&HistoricalAwards=false

Needless to say I know that everyone involved in all of this is doing all they possibly can! This has been such an amazing resource and it will be wonderful to hear and see more, in whatever order it comes. (But yes, if I were wishing I would put in a vote for 7 or 8.)

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 058:15:52 Greene calls FIDO console, gets briefing from Stoval after accident

« on: January 02, 2022, 04:05:58 am »

Per his oral history, he actually heard about it from his then-girlfriend...

I was at home, because I had a shift and I was going to do descent. I was lying on the couch, and my wife, who wasn’t my wife, she called and she said, “You see what happened?” And I hadn’t. So I drove onsite. We all sort of responded to what we heard on the radio and drove onsite. It was pretty grim. I don’t think there was anybody who expected that crew to live. A lot of them, in retrospect, will tell you how macho and cool, but it was pretty grim.

Obviously everyone was stressed and worried but I do think he sounds shaken. He took a much more pessimistic view of the situation than many/most of his colleagues – a couple of whom, Sy Liebergot and Chuck Deiterich, have since indignantly refuted his claim that no one expected the crew to live – so maybe it stands to reason that it would be audible in his voice.

And of course he, like everyone else, went to the MOCR even though he was told he wasn't needed immediately!

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 058:15:52 Greene calls FIDO console, gets briefing from Stoval after accident

« on: December 26, 2021, 02:58:23 pm »

Nice find! I'd missed this for some reason. He sounds uncharacteristically subdued.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 052:38:46 Liebergot chats about his day with John Aaron

« on: June 12, 2021, 03:56:45 pm »

Nice find! I love these check-in calls.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 003:01:39 Kerwin messes up instruction to crew; Garman aghast

« on: May 26, 2021, 05:52:31 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=003:01:39&ch=22

Kerwin (Capcom): And, 13, Houston. Check your Noun 17 for extraction pitch attitude. It should be 319 degrees. Over.
Garman (AGC): Noun 22, Noun 22!

Guidance (Yaw?) tells him they'll wait and see what happens. Garman replies, "if the Capcom is gonna say something, he should say it right."

Later, Garman, watching what the crew are doing: "Now maybe he's catching on.... Yay! He figured it out.... No, he still didn't figure it out. Let's see what he does. No, no! I'm gonna have a heart attack... If I were you I'd lean back and tell the Capcom that he figured it out despite him."

It's easy to be a critic from the back room...

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 021:10:58 Bales forgets his own callsign and then Swigert's name

« on: May 26, 2021, 04:02:04 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=021:10:58&ch=21

"AGC from Yaw... uh, Guidance. Which one of the fellows did the P23, was it Lovell or was it the other one... the CMP?"

He makes the "Yaw" mistake several times, which I guess is unsurprising given that those two roles did swap off (Yaw usually being a more junior, assistant role). Forgetting Swigert's name is a bit less forgivable, even if he was a last minute replacement!