139:13:22 John Aaron proposes unthinkable power-saving solution

[MadDogBV]

During the re-entry shift, EECOM John Aaron and EECOM Sy Liebergot make their case for turning off the glycol pump at around the EI-2:30 (two and a half hours prior to re-entry) mark in order to save power in the CSM. John cites 2TV-1, a test run where Apollo mission-critical equipment was tested under thermo-vacuum conditions to determine when it would actually fail, and makes the supposition that the spacecraft could still make a GNN re-entry safely even without glycol cooling.

Both Arnie Aldrich and Neil Hutchinson in SPAN explode with outrage at the idea. Although John's engineering analysis makes sense, it's unthinkable precisely because no CAPCOM would be willing to make the call to the crew to shut off cooling equipment required to preserve the spacecraft's sensitive electronics.

Thankfully, this was relatively far down on the list of the "emergency power-down" list and never ended up being needed.

Link: https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=139:13:22&ch=16