Messages

121

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 084:48:25 Lousma: "You got any recovery plans, FLIGHT?"

« on: April 08, 2021, 01:58:56 pm »

CAPCOM Jack Lousma asks FLIGHT (Milt Windler) if he has recovery plans. Milt misunderstands at first and thinks that Lousma is joking around, but then as the conversation progresses, he realizes they are referring to the crew on board the spacecraft (since the MPL and AOL has been changing frequently throughout the flight).

Pago Pago, or Hawaii?

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=084:48:25&ch=8

Edit: Looking back at the clip, it sounds like Milt is laughing at Jack's Freudian slip of referring to him as "fright" instead of "flight", rather than the recovery plans inquiry. Most people in the business would probably agree that if anyone would be referred to as a fright director, it would likely be Kranz or Kraft.

122

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

« on: April 06, 2021, 02:13:49 pm »

Didn't Ed Fendell also suggest shutting off both BIOMED and the POWERAMP to save power and water during Lunney's shift immediately after the explosion? Unless they turned BIOMED back on for some reason or another. (Maybe SURGEON got antsy about having it off indefinitely.)

Edit: And indeed, as I listened to the loops later on, that is exactly what happened; the SURGEONs wanted BIOMED data to serve as a backup sensor while they were running the LM LiOH cartridges to their limits.

123

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 056:12:37 RECOVERY gets ready to abort

« on: March 30, 2021, 02:37:41 pm »

Immediately after news of the O2 leak, RETRO is already preparing for the worst and getting abort procedures underway with RECOVERY coordinator Edward Bullock.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:12:37&ch=32

RECOVERY does later dial up PACIFIC RECOVERY to lay down the law on a potential PC+2 abort and/or T+60 fast abort plan and ensure that the Navy ships are still in recovery range.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=056:33:18&ch=32

124

General Discussion / Re: Way to skip gaps in audio?

« on: March 30, 2021, 01:48:40 pm »

One thing I've done mostly as a side hobby is downloaded the audio files for the loops directly from the NASA Audio Collection on Archive.org, ran a noise removal algorithm in GoldWave to get rid of the warbling noise in the background produced by the tapes, and then a silence removal to get rid of the gaps. The result is a relatively seamless track that can be listened to through a multimedia player like VLC or AIMP. I could produce a step-by-step guide for doing this if need be.

Of course, this is not the same thing as skipping the files directly through the Apolloinrealtime.org website, but I can imagine that being a general pain to program in.

125

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 064:38:54 Jay Greene's first appearance on the FLIGHT loop since accident

« on: March 28, 2021, 02:39:17 pm »

Pretty self-explanatory. He's not explicitly identified as Jay, but the voice is unmistakably his. I haven't monitored the FIDO loops to determine if Jay was chatting to the backroom prior to this, though I gather there were multiple FIDO's and GUIDO's working the consoles after the accident occurred. He's not heard from again on the FLIGHT loop until Lunney's second shift at around 089 hours or so.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=064:38:54&ch=7

Edit: He was actually on the FIDO loops a good while prior to this, to talk to SELECT specifically. Jay wanted to sort out some confusion regarding tracking requirements after Bill Boone scared the hell out of them by suggesting they might not have the transponder beacon for more than an hour at most.

126

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 065:06:14 Minor goof: Kerwin on the wrong loop

« on: March 20, 2021, 09:10:41 am »

Short but sweet one here. In his first shift in the MOCR as CAPCOM after the explosion, Joe Kerwin tells the crew to commence the planned yaw maneuver. Problem is the crew can't hear him.

I suspect Kerwin probably didn't get much sleep after the accident. 

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=065:06:16&ch=7
Isolated Flight Director Loop: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=065:06:14&ch=50

127

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 064:43:08 Fendell wants to reconfigure comm to save power

« on: March 16, 2021, 11:50:40 am »

INCO Ed Fendell puts through the idea to FLIGHT Glynn Lunney about saving power in the LM by turning off the power amplifier for the comm unit. It wasn't but a few hours ago that a test procedure also initiated by Fendell to bring up TM caused a significant loss of comm, so Lunney is quick to remind him of this. Thankfully, Fendell is undeterred.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=064:43:08&ch=50

128

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 054:52:55 Liebergot laughs about the ultimately unnecessary SHe procedures

« on: March 16, 2021, 10:19:13 am »

If you listen to the start of the FLIGHT loop of the Kranz shift just prior to the accident, then go all the way to the end, you'll notice there is discussion about how to manage the SHe problem on board the LM, in case the pressures are too high. It even gets to the point where Kranz has a meeting with the LM guys and some folks in SPAN on what steps need to be taken if the SHe pressures are too high, requiring the AFD to take over in the interim.

By the time Kranz returns, Haise has already entered the LM and has reported a nominal SHe pressure.

EECOM Sy Liebergot laughs about the amount of time and effort that went into creating a plan, and how it all turned out to be for nothing. The sense of relief and elation throughout the MOCR (at one point requiring Kranz to bark at the controllers to "keep the chatter down") is especially ironic given what happens an hour later.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=054:52:55&ch=16

129

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 051:18:06 Houston, Kranz has a problem (with ASPO)

« on: January 25, 2021, 08:53:51 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=051:18:06&ch=50

Five hours prior to "the problem" on Apollo 13, an interesting conversation between White FLIGHT, PROCEDURES and NETWORK. Kranz expresses his frustration about a new ASPO policy that on-site tapes at remote locations be shipped to Houston after 24 hours. Of course, this has no actual bearing on the disaster and ends up becoming a moot point shortly after the tank explosion.

130

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

« on: May 22, 2020, 01:57:12 pm »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=062:09:45&ch=50

Lunney gets into it with his flight controllers. Shortly after the disaster and the mental strain of the course-correction burn, Lunney is trying to get the crew into some semblance of PTC. However, SPAN is trying to come up with a new PTC procedure, which is causing delays in the process at a time when management of power and consumables is a priority. FLIGHT becomes progressively annoyed by this.

(Unfortunately, the TELMU/CONTROL loop is drowned out by the noise of the comm, otherwise I'd post that also.)

131

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

« on: May 22, 2020, 12:22:41 pm »

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

I particularly enjoyed a sequence of the flight director loop (one that wasn't in the original 8 hours posted to YouTube, but came immediately after the free-return course correction burn at ~62 hours), where he was trying to come up with a PTC procedure but SPAN was making him wait for a preferred procedure of their own.

"I'm not getting anybody to come out and agree with me, so I guess we're about to press on here with what we're gonna do... And I'm getting tired of waiting... -forced laughter-"

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=062:09:04&ch=50

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

« on: May 21, 2020, 09:13:34 pm »

Best part about that is when he effectively pulls rank and says he was there "when we did it on Apollo 10".

133

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 060:05:41 INCO: "You guys have really done me in, buddy."

« on: May 15, 2020, 09:13:52 am »

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=060:05:41&ch=53

INCO Ed Fendell expresses his (rather understandable) frustrations with the PROCEDURES and TRACK officers after an attempt to establish tracking with the LM results in a lengthy loss of comm, which in turn results in flight director Glynn Lunney getting rather testy at INCO.

Most of the INCO channel around here (starting at 59:45:00) is worth listening to, to get an inside look at the comm disaster that took place, by way of the conversations between INCO, TRACK, and the Honeysuckle and Goldstone tracking stations. Although they do come up with a workaround, the poor INCO officer does spend the next several minutes lamenting the trouble that this new procedure got him into. 

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 138:24:06 Bold joke by Kerwin to Lovell

« on: May 01, 2020, 03:08:46 pm »

Astronauts are a very tight fraternity and they do rib each other from time to time. There probably would have been an uproar if the joke came from Glynn Lunney or Gene Kranz. 

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 56:17:26 "Did it just kinda go away? Is it just a glitch?"

« on: May 01, 2020, 09:24:21 am »

Thanks! I was listening to the Trench loops and wondering who that voice was.