This forum is for discussion about content found on https://apolloinrealtime.org 

Very little of the thousands of hours of Mission Control audio on the website has been heard or documented. As you find moments of interest, post them here for discussion.

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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / 010:05:55 INCO:- "This thing is recorded..."
« Last post by RobatRobot on September 06, 2023, 08:04:59 am »
https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=010:05:55&ch=53
INCO cautions his wife against getting too soppy as she says goodbye..  :D
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General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions
« Last post by bfeist on August 30, 2023, 11:08:57 pm »
Not for several years. Hold-up at the National Archives.
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General Discussion / Re: Apollo 13 Mission Ops Report - Sections of interest
« Last post by MadDogBV on August 29, 2023, 12:04:12 pm »
ITEM 1 - Comm Problems

Three major INCO incidents occurred during the mission. These incidents went virtually unstated in the Flight Directors Report, even though the FDs on duty for each one were progressively annoyed with the INCOs' apparent incapability of resolving each issue. In two of the incidents, the scheduled controller was accompanied by a second INCO, Ed Fendell - you may know him as Captain Video - a former Air Force air traffic controller who knew his stuff. When the comm guys became aware of the deteriorating situation on board the CSM after the accident, Fendell was one of those called for reinforcements. You can tell just from listening to the FLIGHT loops from the LM lifeboat procedure all the way to the building of the Mailbox that he was in it for the long haul. As he put it in the Oral History: "The mission, it was really tiring, but you weren't tired. I think I worked three straight days without any sleep." Even then, he's right there during the re-entry shift, sitting next to Tom Hanchett at the INCO console.

But even if the mission was regarded in all respects as a total success and the communication problems went mostly undocumented by the Flight Directors, who wanted to praise their employees in every respect possible, you can tell from reading the mission ops report that Ed Fendell (and his friend in PROCEDURES, Jim Fucci) wanted to really put it to the simulation team for the inadequate training on how to deal with the INCO problems that occurred during the mission.

From INCO section on simulations:


From PROCEDURES section on simulations:


The flight director losing confidence in INCO is not a trivial matter either, particularly for performance of the mission. During the entry anomaly when they were forced to go to low bitrate after repeated problems with locking up with the CSM for uplinking a state vector and target load, INCO Tom Hanchett had told FLIGHT Gene Kranz that they were finally in the proper configuration to go back to high bitrate and speed up the uplinking. Kranz told Hanchett bluntly, "Let's not take a chance."
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General Discussion / Apollo 13 Mission Ops Report - Sections of interest
« Last post by MadDogBV on August 28, 2023, 09:01:27 am »
This thread will serve as a compilation of several interesting sections or pages from the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Report. That document was published after the completion of the mission, written by the flight controllers who were scheduled to work during the mission. It served the following purposes:

  • Provided a debriefing from flight controllers regarding events and anomalies specific to their position.
  • Allowed controllers to suggest recommendations to existing procedures in order to resolve future anomalies.
  • Served as a repository for special documents that were used or created throughout the mission, such as the diagram for building the Mailbox (CSM-to-LM LiOH adapter), the modified re-entry checklist, and the LM power transfer.

The document is available for everyone's perusal from the Apollo 13 Flight Journal, and I encourage everyone to partake in it.

I'll post the first section of interest later today in this thread.
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General Discussion / Re: Other Apollo Missions
« Last post by Kasper on August 24, 2023, 01:20:11 pm »
Yes! We're working on Apollo 16 now. It probably not going to be ready for the 50th anniversary, but we'll try.

Hi there :-)
Any news about when Apollo 16 is coming online?
I am really looking forward to that :-)
/Kasper
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The only flight controller on the loops who seems to be the most calm and collected, during either the accident or the re-entry, is the GNC on the White Team, Buck Willoughby. And to your point... he was a former Major in the U.S. Marine Corps, an aviator just like the company he kept.
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It's interesting how the speech patterns under pressure of some of the controllers are sometimes clues to their background, specifically whether they had military piloting or only civilian experience. Gene Kranz, the astronauts, the CapCom all clearly were pilots just from their speech patterns that were virtually unaffected by pressure. Sy Liebergot ("Nooo...") clearly was not military. Gene Kranz, cool and calm the entire time, clearly was.
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Chuck Deiterich is quite a character, in a way that I think is underestimated by listening just solely to the Flight Director loops. When listening to the Flight Dynamics loops in particular during the re-entry phase, you can detect a great deal of anxiety and chariness about him in a way that tends to be somewhat charming. 😊

The below recording is just one of many instances in which his nervousness is on display when YAW asks him a question that sounds innocuous on paper, but which would understandably prompt panic under different circumstances. Given the proximity to entry interface and considering the fact they've already done a midcourse and an SM sep, their options for recovering from a mistake were greatly limited.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=140:03:43&ch=19
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Apollo 13 Moments of Interest / Re: Apollo 13 Film vs Reality
« Last post by kendradog on August 06, 2023, 02:53:42 pm »
Regarding the biomed sensors, I've always been a little unclear as to exactly how severe Fred Haise's fever was (I've seen reports of 104 degrees) and what was done for it. Was he taking antibiotics? If he really did have a high fever, then medical sensors would have been useful, if just to monitor his temperature.
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If you listen to 13 Minutes to the Moon podcast season 2, they explain John Aaron’s role. He’s also interviewed.
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