Apollo 8

This is Apollo Control, Houston. 79 hours, 46 minutes into the flight. Mike Collins has sent up two calls and has gotten no response - we think we have some key action, but that's all. To date, we've - on the basis of earlier revs, we've gotten used to now, turning to our EECOM and asking the first question as we come around the corner - how is the evaporator and the answer is this time it is working great. They apparently have the right handle on it. As I mentioned earlier, it is seeing large temperature excursions - apparently no larger than people within the project office and at North American and, I'm sure, at the Air Corporation had felt they might see. And I know many people in those positions who are very much relieved to see these excursions and all - excursions of only 40 to 50 degrees."

It still no answer, no additional calls or anything. Mike Collins tries again. And we might have a ground antenna problem. Checking our ground stations now. In this temperature area, the evaporator, of course, isn't the only area seeing the same order of temperature excursions. I am looking at a Command Service Module RCS summary here, which shows - presents temperature readings at four or five points, on various tanks surfaces in the Service Module and see one valve in the temperature here which is a specific ... digit identified point which marries the low and the high over any given rev and they happen to range from 50 degree Fahrenheit to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. There are four other readings in the Service Module, which range from 50 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It's been nearly six minutes now since we acquired and just getting a general back ground noise in orbit. No additional attempts to raise the spacecraft. So based on what EECOM says, we may wait a few minutes before trying additional calls, we will be back up then. It is 79 hours, 51 minutes into the flight, this is Apollo Control, Houston."

Apollo Control Houston here. We are locked up and Jim Lovell is giving us some interesting description of his use of the auto optics in his tracking tasks on the back side of the Moon. ..."

Apollo Control here. In this lull, we perhaps should take advantage at least to point to the people in the news rooms, who, may not - have not noticed it yet. Our latest data display on one of our walls, there's the words Merry Christmas, Apollo 8. The Merry is in red letters, the Christmas is in white letters, and the Apollo 8 is in blue letters. That display went up about an hour ago. I guess it technically should be called data. The consensus here is of course, that the crew is and remains quite busy and we are going to have some updates in the course of this pass, the sixth rev. ..."

And this is Apollo Control, Houston, at 80 hours, 1 minute into the flight. We apparently are not going to have very much communication at this point. We will come back up when we do. This is Apollo Control Houston."

This is Apollo Control, Houston. 80 hours, 15 minutes into the flight. In the last few minutes we recorded some most enthusiastic comments from Jim Lovell on his assignment. Comments from Lovell and from Anders on their tracking assignment during these middle revs around the Moon. Lovell pays astronaut Jack Schmitt - Harrison Schmidt actually, a PhD in Geology - a great compliment with the work that he and other members of the Lunar Mapping Science Laboratory here in MSC has done in picking various Moon marks or land marks leading to the sites we've picked out as probable landing sites for subsequent lunar missions. Jim, as I say, is most enthusiastic about the clarity of the ridges and rilles that he was given to work with. And Anders chimes in that he thinks it's all great, too, except he wishes the windows were more easily seen through. ..."

Apollo Control, Houston, here. 80 hours, 36 minutes into the flight and I think we are going to have a little pause here perhaps for another 10 to 15 minutes before we come upon a final conversation. Then the spacecraft goes over the hill on this sixth rev around the Moon. That orbit's apogee, 62.3; perigee, 59.8; velocity, 5,338 feet per second. At 80 hours, 36 minutes this is Apollo Control, Houston."

This is Apollo Control, Houston, at 80 hours, 57 minutes. We're - we've just lost signal with the spacecraft. ... I want to mention one or two things. I don't think we've made mention of the fact today that we have finally, after 6 revolutions, gotten used to watching the spacecraft go from the right side of your front wall map to the left, just as it is proceeding around the Moon in a retrograde orbit. This, after all these years of watching the spacecraft move from the left side of the wall map to the right. It's quite a transformation in just one brief day. Another point regarding the windows; obviously that this has to be the worst system we've turned up with on this flight, and we've been talking to several experts about it here. This particular condition that we're seeing, the fogging on the hatch window and on - to a considerable degree - and on windows one and five, is similar to a condition that existed on spacecraft 101, commonly known as Apollo 7. The situation has, within very recent days, been - if not duplicated very closely - approximated in test within the Spacecraft Industrial Government Complex. The test has shown that the material used in the window caulking, if you will, substance around the window that provides the trough in which the three pane windows ride. It has been demonstrated that some outgassing occurs. That's the particular kind of rubbery material being used in these windows joints, that is the window joints in windows 1, 3, and 5. In the rendezvous windows 2 and 4, a different material treated under different conditions is being used and apparently it is quite successful. Some changes will be made on the next spacecraft. And that represents about all the information we have on that particular area.