Recent Posts

91

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 133:58:34 Reed: "If this damn PGNS gets in the way, I'm gonna raise hell!"

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 30, 2023, 02:51:29 pm »

A small addendum to this one: Compare and contrast FIDO Dave Reed at 134 hours with FIDO Dave Reed almost exactly 20 hours prior. He sounds more like a pilot on a commercial airliner flying to Honolulu. Everybody must have felt pretty confident about how the last day of the flight would play out, until of course the actual reality of the situation hit everyone in the face.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=114:57:57&ch=20

92

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 133:58:34 Reed: "If this damn PGNS gets in the way, I'm gonna raise hell!"

« Last post by kendradog on October 16, 2023, 07:22:04 pm »

You can really hear the exhaustion and frustration in their voices and language. In the movie, there some scenes that showed the astronauts getting testy over time, but in the movie the mission controllers are always pretty calm.

In reality though, constant work, little sleep, maybe sleeping on floors and not showering for a few days, takes its toll. CAPCOM Jack Lousma sounds as cool as always of course.

93

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 133:58:34 Reed: "If this damn PGNS gets in the way, I'm gonna raise hell!"

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 16, 2023, 11:22:17 am »

FLIGHT Milt Windler had surprised the flight dynamics crew by calling for the PGNS to be activated early, partly due to generous power margins, but mostly to help warm up the freezing crew. As a result, the trench suddenly became very active, but the backrooms and computers are still operating on a skeleton staff due to not anticipating a power-up until the planned midcourse at 137 hours. It's currently 134.

GUIDO Gary Renick has been trying to get the dynamics officer in the RTCC, Ken Leach, to run a starsearch. However, Ken is the only dynamics officer on duty* and he has been prioritizing the FIDO's requests. After Gary complains about his slowness in computing the search, Ken fires back a blunt rejoinder about the trench's lack of organization. Then FIDO Dave Reed, who is about as stressed out as any flight dynamics officer can be, decides it's time to have a word with his guidance officer.

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=133:58:34&ch=21

The two have argued with each other before; when Dave had pressured him to tell Windler that it was not practical to run a P52 in the current compressed entry timeline, Gary buckled: "He is the FLIGHT, Dave."

Edit: Ray Reynolds is actually working in the backroom with Ken Leach, but he isn't heard on the loops at all. Based on how he struggled through the Gold Team shift, he might still be very tired by this time.

94

General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« Last post by MadDogBV on October 06, 2023, 10:18:05 pm »

Oh my goodness. Apollo 8. That one is going to be a blast.

And evidently Apollo 9. On the EECOM loops in Apollo 13, when the question is asked by an ECS man "how can I tell it's night on Apollo 9?", John Aaron tells him jokingly to look for when "Liebergot woke the crew up." Which makes me wonder what he did.

95

General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« Last post by Naraht on October 05, 2023, 08:39:47 am »

In case anyone is interested, I've been digging for information about how the digitization process is progressing, and this paper from June 2022 is highly encouraging:

"The years 2020 and first half of 2021 were marked by slowly moving digitization efforts due to COVID-19 restrictions. Even with these restrictions, CRSS-UTDallas was able to digitize an additional 50,000 hours of audio. This audio is recorded at 44.1Khz at NASA, JSC which houses the only existing system that can play the Apollo analog tapes. Entire Apollo 8, 9, and 10 were digitized, providing valuable information on MCC speakers." Source: https://aclanthology.org/2022.nidcp-1.3.pdf

96

General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions

« Last post by Naraht 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.)

97

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

« Last post by Naraht 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.

98

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

« Last post by Naraht 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.

99

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: 068:57:10 Discussion about DPS engine liner problem

« Last post by kendradog on September 27, 2023, 10:37:56 pm »

To save future readers some googling, GOSS means "Ground Operational Support System", can't say I know what they do exactly.

What is the "liner" that the speakers are so concerned about?

By the way, SPAN is transcribed as SPAM in this clip.

100

Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 068:57:10 Discussion about DPS engine liner problem

« Last post by MadDogBV on September 24, 2023, 11:06:39 am »

This was a topic actually discussed in the 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13 series. The decision to use the LM DPS engine to perform a PC+2 abort and fly around the Moon was considered one of the most vital choices ever made to save the lives of the crew, as it discarded the need to use an SPS engine that (at that time) was in unknown condition given its location in proximity to the explosion.

However, although DPS aborts had been practiced in sims, there was a concern regarding whether the engine liner could stand the treatment of a long burn of 800 ft/s or greater, particularly after having already used it for a midcourse to free return and with two more MCCs planned after the abort burn. During the Accident+1 Griffin shift, FIDO Dave Reed and CONTROL John Wegener discuss these potential problems, as it has a pretty major effect on their abort planning.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=068:57:00&ch=56

Note that due to the tape drift glitch, the GOSS-4 loop is used to capture CONTROL's portion of this conversation.