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21

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 029:21:52 GUIDO Fenner wants to look at the telescope

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 25, 2024, 11:34:46 am »

Prior to MCC2, GUIDO Will Fenner asks RETRO Bobby Spencer how to get into the observatory to look at the telescope, presumably to watch the spacecraft or the S-IVB. Aside from walking directions, Bobby gives Will the "magic words" on how to get into the building, since he was apparently denied entry the last time he had attempted.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=029:21:52&ch=21

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 125:28:47 AFD needs Xerox copies of the entry checklist ASAP

« Last post by bfeist on October 23, 2024, 05:50:19 pm »

That's great. They sure left that detail out of the Ron Howard movie

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Improved Apollo 13 MOCR audio transcripts

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 22, 2024, 10:35:46 am »

Apollo 13. However, it has been a while since I cleared my cookies and cache for Apollo 13 In Real Time. I might try that next.

Edit: Sure enough, that fixed the problem. The transcripts now look wonderful. You might make it a recommendation to previous users of AIRT to clear their cookies and cache to get the updated transcripts.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Improved Apollo 13 MOCR audio transcripts

« Last post by bfeist on October 21, 2024, 03:55:31 pm »

Is that example from Apollo 13? Just asking because I'm still in the process of retranscribing Apollo 11 and expect these kinds of errors there. 13 shouldn't have them.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 091:46:05 FIDO Boone tries (and fails) to micro-manage Chuck Dieterich

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 21, 2024, 02:13:01 pm »

This could simply be reckless speculation, but as I look back over the tapes, the times of 107 to 113 would have put MCC5 squarely in the Maroon team shift which Bill Boone was scheduled to work. 114 to 116 was the next Black team shift with Dave Reed back on the console. Boone seemed to have a very strong preference for 116 in all of the conversations on the FIDO loop.

I don't think any flight controller would necessarily shy away from doing a midcourse, but this was a novel procedure that had never been tried, and as of 91 hours it had not yet been simulated. With all the public pressure on Houston as a result of Windler and Weichel's alarming press conference, I have to imagine that being the FIDO on console for a manual course correction burn to get back in the corridor carries a metric ton of responsibility.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Improved Apollo 13 MOCR audio transcripts

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 21, 2024, 01:47:20 pm »

Looks good, thanks Ben. It does seem a bit more accurate. There were some quirks I noticed such as duplicate text or inconsistent words ("P2" and "P-tube" got mixed up a couple times in the transcript of a recent Moment of Interest I posted), but on the whole it seems pretty strong and if nothing else gives a good baseline to work with. It does pretty good at transcribing quiet parts in particular.

For example, parts like the attached image seem to occur a fair amount. (Having listened to these clips, I can say fairly confidently that "the, uh" is not repeated 15 times like the transcript implies here.) 

Edit - 10/22/2024: Per my updated post below, the transcript errors were due to my computer storing an outdated transcript in the browser cache. This was fixed by clearing cookies and cache for Apolloinrealtime.org.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 125:28:47 AFD needs Xerox copies of the entry checklist ASAP

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 21, 2024, 10:52:37 am »

It is often overlooked just how rushed and slapdash the last few hours were prior to reading up the re-entry procedures for Apollo 13. The reason it took so long to read the procedures up to the crew was because someone (possibly Gerry Griffin or Neil Hutchinson) insisted on ensuring that all of the flight controllers could get copies of Mattingly's checklist to review simultaneously with the reading of procedures -- and the Xerox machine nearest to the MOCR was broken.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=125:28:47&ch=6

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 125:12:38 FIDO Stoval doesn't want to know his P-tube station number

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 21, 2024, 10:28:52 am »

RETRO Bobby Spencer and RETRO SUPPORT Bob Davis (a backroom SSR person whose technical capability is comparable to John Aaron's) wants to send FIDO Bill Stoval some data to help him answer an inquiry he received from NORAD. There is a problem, however, and it's nothing to do with the data, but rather the ingenious method that NASA built into the MOCR to help mail documents from one room to another - the pneumatic tube (P-tube) system.

Each engineer's console is fitted with a P-tube station, which is assigned a simple one or two-digit number.

Bill Stoval, the FIDO who was on duty for three burns during Apollo 13 -- MCC2 in translunar coast, the PC+2 abort burn in circumlunar space, and MCC5 in transearth coast -- is currently working his most "lax" shift in the MOCR, with both crew and MOCR practically on standby while the entry procedures are being finished up. He is nonplussed when asked to give his station's number.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=125:12:35&ch=19

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Improved Apollo 13 MOCR audio transcripts

« Last post by bfeist on October 18, 2024, 02:11:01 pm »

I've taken the 7200 hours of MOCR audio recordings and have re-transcribed them using the latest Whisper "large-v3" model and a wrapper system called WhisperX. This has provided fewer hallucinations in the transcripts and provides much better utterance timestamps.

These new transcripts replace the existing "large-v2" transcripts and are now live on apolloinrealtime.org/13

New stats:
3,936,510 utterances
37,503,659 words
199MB of text

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 136:12:29 "We've got the BOOSTER consoles completely occupied."

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 17, 2024, 09:11:50 am »

At roughly 6.5 hours prior to re-entry, Neil Hutchinson in SPAN calls up GNC Buck Willoughby and proudly proclaims that the CSM engineers have completely filled up the SSR rooms, including the consoles that would have presumably have been used by the Booster engineers (or in Neil's parlance, the "Booster dummies") to spectate on re-entry. Earlier in the night, he had warned the CSM backroom folks to get in early to beat them to the punch.

As a humorous note: At around the same time that Milt Windler warned about access being restricted to the MOCR and SSRs due to overcrowding concerns, EECOM Charlie Dumis had cleverly asked his backroom personnel what they planned to be doing during re-entry. Dick Brown (EPS) said that he would be working on the Olivetti punching up numbers - and all of his colleagues thereafter said they would be helping him on the Olivetti. These "jobs" helped to justify them being in the SSR, ensuring they'd be able to view the re-entry.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=136:12:29&ch=18