The crew of Apollo 11 continue with housekeeping duties on their spacecraft systems, and in between times observe and photograph Earth. They make a television broadcast of the view, and also show the interior of the Command Module.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
029:32:09 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
029:32:13 Aldrin: Go ahead, Houston.
029:32:14 McCandless: Roger, 11. We've been watching your activity on the DSKY there, and by selecting another major program with a Verb 37 Enter and all that, we show you collapsing the deadband in PTC and having driven the CMC rate from 0.3 degrees per second down to 0 degrees per second, although of course, with all the Auto RCS coils shut off, you're not firing any thrusters. Over. [Pause.]
The Apollo 11 stack is currently in its barbecue roll mode, more formally known as Passive Thermal Control. This is in order to distribute the heating effect of the Sun and the cooling effect of space across the spacecraft's exterior. The rate of rotation is 0.3° per second and this was set up using a value stored in the computer. According to McCandless, this value, and another for the deadband (the allowed tolerance in attitude before active correction occurs), both have been set to low values due to the crew using another program. Normally, this would cause the RCS thrusters to fire frenetically as they react to the new parameters. Specifically, the spacecraft would be made to stop rotating and then hold its orientation within a narrow tolerance (probably ±0.5°). However, at this time, the thrusters have been disabled so the spacecraft will continue to rotate.
029:32:54 Aldrin: Okay. What do you recommend?
029:32:59 McCandless: Well, you can just continue in your present configuration in PTC. However, if you go to turn any thrusters on, the CMC would then try to bring you into an attitude-hold position rather than continuing with the PTC. Over.
029:33:20 Aldrin: Roger. I understand.
029:33:21 McCandless: Okay. [Long pause.]
029:33:38 Armstrong: And, Houston, we're just looking at you out our window here. Looks like there's a circulation of cloud that's just moved east of Houston over the Gulf and Florida area. Did that have any rain in it this morning?
029:33:59 McCandless: Roger. Our report from outside says that it's raining out here, and it looks like you've got a pretty good eye for the weather there.
029:34:09 Armstrong: Yeah, well, it looks like it ought to clear up pretty soon from our viewpoint. The western edge of the weather isn't very far west of you.
029:34:20 McCandless: Okay.
Very long comm break.
That was Neil Armstrong.
This is Apollo Control at 29 hours, 40 minutes. Apollo 11's distance from Earth 117,682 nautical miles [217,947 km]; velocity, 4,726 feet per second [1,440 m/s].
Based on image measurement and triangulation, it appears that AS11-36-5362 is taken around this time.
AS11-36-5362 - Earth at about 218,000 km or 117,700 nautical miles. North is to the right with the Greenland icecap visible. North and South America run through the visible daylit face separating the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. The Western Sahara is visible at the terminator. Image by LPI
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
029:58:15 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
029:58:22 Armstrong: Go ahead, Houston.
029:58:23 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. As a result of our venting through the waste management drain, why, we've concluded that your O2 flow rate sensor is, in fact, malfunctioning. I mentioned when we - you talked us through the cyclic water accumulator dump that even though it was moving, probably indicating a higher flow rate, it didn't seem to be indicating a flow rate that's high enough; and based on that and the flow that we're getting right now, we've concluded that the transducer is malfunctioning. We'd like to continue the O2 flow for about another hour, shutting it off at about 31 hours GET, to get the O2 concentration in the vehicle up to - in the vehicles, up to where it will be acceptable for LM checkout. Over.
029:59:27 Armstrong: Okay. Does it look to you like it just has a bias on it? [Long pause.]
029:59:45 McCandless: Roger, 11. It does seem to be a bias. Looks like it has a fairly high threshold before it starts indicating. EECOM seems to think, though, that for high flow rate purposes, it will still give you a relative indication during the mission. Over.
030:00:10 Armstrong: Okay. We understand. Thank you.
Very long comm break.
This is Apollo Control at 30 hours into the mission. Apollo 11's distance from Earth; 105,853 nautical miles [196,040 km]; velocity, 4,233 feet per second [1,290 m/s]. And that was Neil Armstrong conducted a conversation with CapCom Bruce McCandless on the O2 flow rate transducer.
The PAO announcer will shortly correct his figure for the distance from Earth, these figures being referenced to the Moon.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control. We have a correction on those last distances and velocities. That distance and velocity is in reference to the Moon instead of the Earth. To the Moon - Apollo 11's distance from the Moon is 105,729 nautical miles [195,810 km] at the present time. Velocity in reference to the Moon, 4,230 feet per second [1,289 m/s].
Apollo 11 has passed the halfway point in its journey in terms of distance and the Public Affairs Officer has corrected his error. Readers may note that an Earth-referenced velocity is different to a Moon-referenced velocity. This is due to the fact that the spacecraft is coasting towards a moving target - the Moon.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
030:12:20 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. We'd like you to terminate charging on Battery A at GET 30 plus 15. Over.
030:12:31 Armstrong: Okay. 30 plus 15 for Battery A charge terminate.
030:12:36 McCandless: Roger. Out.
Comm break.
This is Apollo Control. Apollo 11's distance from the Earth is 119,116 nautical miles [220,603 km]. Its Earth-referenced inertial velocity, 4,679 feet per second [1,426 m/s].
This is Apollo Control. Based on the present trajectory, Apollo 11 will enter the lunar sphere of influence at an elapsed time of 61 hours, 39 minutes, 58 seconds.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
030:15:34 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
030:15:41 Armstrong: Go ahead, Houston.
030:15:42 McCandless: Roger. If you're free for a minute, I've got some updates to the P37 PADs that we passed up to you yesterday afternoon, I guess. As a result of doing Midcourse Correction number 2, the Delta-V required in the TLI plus 35, 44, and 53 PADs have changed slightly. Over. [Pause.]
030:16:18 Aldrin: Roger. Standing by to copy.
030:16:21 McCandless: Okay. TLI plus 35 PAD: the Delta-VT should be 7992 instead of 8016. TLI plus 44: it should be 6112 instead of 6141. And TLI plus 53: it should be 8172 instead of 8209. Read back. Over.
At 010:59:29, Mission Control read up a set of abort PADs that could be used at various points during the coast out to the Moon to bring the crew home expeditiously. The data in these PADs would be used by program 37 to calculate the details of the burn. The names for the PADs were given with reference to TLI and and the first of those opportunities has already passed. Each PAD included a value for Delta-VT which is the total required change in velocity to make a safe return at that time. Having recently burned a midcourse correction manoeuvre, the Delta-V values for the remaining PADs have changed slightly.
The crew begins to transmit television signals, even though they do not currently have the High Gain Antenna deployed. Therefore, when the signal from the current omnidirectional antenna reaches Earth, it is very low level and therefore noisy. Although the image is quite broken and torn, it is clearly showing the green displays from one of the CM's DSKY units.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control. Goldstone reports they're receiving TV from the spacecraft and are recording it.
030:29:28 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
030:29:34 Aldrin: Go ahead, Houston.
030:29:39 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. Goldstone reports they are receiving a TV picture coming down from you all. A little snowy, but a good TV picture. Over.
030:29:54 Armstrong: Roger. We're just testing the equipment up here.
030:29:59 McCandless: Roger.
030:30:03 Aldrin: Ask them if they can read the numbers.
030:30:06 McCandless: Okay. Stand by. [Long pause.]
Buzz is referring to the numbers that are appearing on the DSKY's seven-segment displays.
030:30:24 Network (CapCom): Goldstone, this is Houston CapCom. Over.
030:30:42 Comm Tech: Houston CapCom, Goldstone M&O. Go ahead.
030:30:45 Network (CapCom): Roger. Stand by a minute, Goldstone.
030:30:51 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. What numbers are you referring to? Over.
030:31:00 Aldrin: Well, I guess if they can't see any numbers, why, it's kind of a lost cause.
030:31:04 McCandless: Negative. Stand by. We wanted to know...
030:31:06 Aldrin: [Garble.]
030:31:07 McCandless: We wanted to know what numbers, before we asked them.
030:31:12 Aldrin: Okay. I'm showing them the DSKY, and I'd like to know whether they can read what's showing on the DSKY, and also whether they can see P-R-O-G, V-E-R-B, and N-O-U-N. Over.
030:31:31 Network (CapCom): Roger. Did you copy the spacecraft request?
030:31:34 Comm Tech: That's affirmative. I am reading the numbers on our monitor here.
030:31:38 Network (CapCom): Okay, that's - standby. Roger. That's both the numbers on the DSKY itself, and the little words like Program and Verb, Noun, Computer Activity, things of this sort?
030:31:58 Comm Tech: Roger. I can read the numbers clearly. We can't distinguish what the words are, because it is a little snowy.
030:32:09 Network (CapCom): Roger. Thank you.
030:32:11 Comm Tech: Okay. I read Verb, Noun, and Program.
030:32:19 Network (CapCom): Roger. Do you see - Over in the left hand corner, there's a big square one that says Computer Activity, Comp Activity?
030:32:25 Comm Tech: Roger. I see a flash occasionally in that area.
030:32:28 Network (CapCom): Right. That's the one.
030:32:31 Comm Tech: Okay. It looks like he's moved the camera at this time.
030:32:34 Network (CapCom): Roger.
030:32:36 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. Goldstone M&O reports that they can read the numbers on the DSKY. They can also read Verb, Noun, Program, and see the Comp Activity light flashing. Over.
030:32:49 Aldrin: Very good. Thank you
030:32:51 McCandless: And they also report you appear to have panned the camera over to another location now.
030:32:57 Aldrin: Yeah, we're going to work on something else.
030:33:01 McCandless: Roger.
Very long comm break.
This is Apollo Control. We do not have lines called up between here and Goldstone at the present time, and so we cannot receive the pictures in Houston. Goldstone is recording. The lines will be up for the scheduled TV pass, approximately 6:30 this evening, Central Daylight Time.
This is Apollo Control. The tape from this unscheduled TV pass will probably be fed from Goldstone to Houston following the regularly scheduled TV transmission this evening.
Over the coming minutes, more television is transmitted to Earth. These two clips, kindly provided by Mark Gray, do not currently have any reference to the mission clock so are presented as is. The first shows little except a few frames of Mike. The second is mostly taken through one of the windows looking at the top of the LM, its overhead window and the external element of the Alignment Optical Telescope.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
030:51:11 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11.
030:51:14 Duke: Go ahead, 11.
030:51:18 Collins: Oh, Charlie. That you?
030:51:20 Duke: That's me. How are you there?
030:51:25 Collins: Oh, just fine. How's the old White Team today?
030:51:27 Duke: Ah, the old White Team's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We're ever alert down here.
030:51:33 Collins: Ever alert and vigilant. Hey, you got any medics down there watching heartrate? I'm trying to do some running in place down here, and I'm wondering just out of curiosity whether it brings my heart rate up.
030:51:44 Duke: Well, they will spring into action here momentarily. Stand by. [Long pause.]
030:52:12 Duke: Hello, 11. We see your heart beating.
030:52:18 Collins: Okay, Well - look at the CDR's and the CMP's and see if they go up any. We're all running in place up here. You wouldn't believe it.
030:52:26 Duke: I'd like to see that sight. Why don't you give us a TV picture of that one.
030:52:31 Collins: I think Buzz is trying.
030:52:33 Aldrin: You got it.
030:52:36 Duke: Okay. It's coming into Goldstone, Buzz. As Bruce said, we don't have it here in the center. [Long pause.]
030:52:58 Aldrin: I'm afraid this isn't going to help out the PTC very much.
030:53:05 Collins Yeah. I don't know if it's a vibration or what it is, but it makes the pitch and yaw rate needles on FDAI number 1 jump up and down a little bit where we jump up, and down.
030:53:19 Duke: Rog. Rog. Goldstoners say they see you running there, Mike.
030:53:29 Collins: Okay.
030:53:31 Armstrong: Ask him what he's running from. [Long pause.]
030:53:48 Duke: 11, Houston. Mike, we see about a 96 heartbeat now.
030:53:56 Collins: Okay. Thank you. [Long pause.]
030:54:27 Collins: Well, that's about all that is reasonable, without getting hot and sweaty.
030:54:32 Duke: Rog. We copy.
The TV transmission ends.
Long comm break.
Another TV transmission begins at about 030:58 though still via an omni antenna.
031:00:03 Duke: I'm not talking to them directly. Stand by, Buzz, Let me see what they - how they describe it.
031:00:13 Network (CapCom): Goldstone M&O, Houston CapCom. Could you put the TV guy on the loop, please?
031:00:19 Comm Tech: CapCom, Goldstone. Roger. [Long pause.]
031:01:01 Comm Tech: Houston CapCom, Goldstone M&O Net 1.
031:01:04 Network (CapCom): Go.
031:01:05 Comm Tech: The TV people do not have access to Net 1 in that area. Suggest we use Net 2 for that purpose.
031:01:10 Network (CapCom): Okay. Going to Net 2. [Long pause.]
031:02:02 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. The Goldstone TV guys say that they have some horizontal banding across the upper part of the picture and across the lower part. They would consider the lines just straight, no waviness to them at all. Over.
031:02:24 Aldrin: Roger. Understand. They do seem to distort vertical lines though.
031:02:30 Duke: Say again about the vertical lines, Buzz.
031:02:35 Aldrin: Rog. When there's a vertical line, these horizontal bands tend to put small waves in it.
031:02:44 Duke: Rog. I copy. He didn't mention that. Stand by, I'll check again. [Long pause.]
031:03:30 Duke: Hello, 11. Houston. The Goldstone TV said that when you get a sharp vertical line on the picture, when the horizontal banding goes across, it does appear to bend it slightly. The same as Apollo 10, they said. Looks okay to them. Over.
031:03:47 Aldrin: Okay. Understand. It's not our monitor. It must be the transmitter or the system.
031:03:52 Duke: Rog. I guess so, Buzz. We'll have them look into it, and see if they can suggest anything.
TV transmission ends.
Comm break.
This is Apollo Control at 31 hours, 5 minutes. Here in Mission Control we're changing shifts at this time. Flight Director Gene Kranz is replacing Flight Director Clifford Charlesworth and our Capsule Communicator on this shift will be Charlie Duke.
031:05:12 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We've lost our command interface with Goldstone. We'd like you to switch to Omni Delta. Over.
031:05:24 Aldrin: Roger. Going to Delta.
031:05:26 Duke: Rog.
Comm break.
Mission Control has the ability to switch between omni antennae B and D remotely.
Apollo 11, at this time, is 121,158 nautical miles [224,385 km] from Earth, traveling at a speed of 4,613 feet per second [1,406 m/s]. We anticipate that the change-of-shift briefing will begin at about 4:00 pm Central Daylight Time.
At some point during the last hour and a half, three photos, AS11-36-5363 to 5365, are taken out of the left rendezvous window looking at the docking target on the LM.
AS11-36-5363 - The LM docking target as seen through left rendezvous window. Image by LPI.
AS11-36-5364 - The LM docking target as seen through left rendezvous window. Image by LPI.
AS11-36-5365 - The LM docking target as seen through left rendezvous window. Image by LPI.
Meanwhile, Earth photography continues and based on image measurement and triangulation, it seems that three photos of Earth are taken around this time, AS11-36-5366 to 5368.
AS11-36-5368 - Earth at about 226,200 km or 122,100 nautical miles. North is right with the Greenland icecap visible. The eastern Pacific Ocean is now dominant with North and South America plainly visible. Image by LPI.
031:07:20 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We'd like you to terminate the O2 purge if you have not done so already, and the TV camera people say that the lines are inherent in the camera, Buzz; and it's something that we expected. Over.
031:07:41 Aldrin: Roger. Understand about the camera. Say again about the O2 purge.
031:07:44 Duke: Roger. We can terminate the O2 purge at this time. Over.
031:07:50 Aldrin: Oh, okay. Fine. Will do.
Long comm break.
Columbia begins transmitting TV again at about 031:10:30. This is mostly of Earth at the long end of their zoom lens. This clip was kindly provided by Mark Gray,
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
031:13:18 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Please select Omni Bravo on board. Over.
031:13:26 Collins: [Garbled, may be 'Take on the'] Bravo, Charlie.
031:13:28 Duke: Rog.
As the spacecraft rotates, the presentation of the current omnidirectional antenna changes. Although there are four such antennae spaced around the periphery of the CM, adequate coverage can be achieved with just two on opposite sides.
031:13:32 Collins: How's everything going down there? You guys happy with the spacecraft systems?
031:13:37 Duke: Rog. Affirmative. Everything's looking really good to us. Over.
031:13:44 Collins: Okay. Same here. [Long pause.]
031:14:23 Collins: Charlie, how far out can you pick up TV off the Omni?
031:14:27 Duke: Stand by.
031:14:37 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We're just about to the limits where we can get any kind of picture at all on the Omnis on the TV. It - the picture, I guess, would be just almost zero at this point.
TV transmission ends.
031:15:02 Collins: Okay. Well, for this TV program coming up in a couple of hours, you might give some thought to how you want us to stop PTC, if you do, for the best High Gain angle; and also it would be nice if you could stop us at such an attitude that we'd have the Earth out of one of our windows.
031:15:21 Duke: Roger, 11. We're thinking about that.
031:15:25 Collins: Okay.
Long comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
031:18:48 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We got a - some PIPA biases and gyro drift updates for you if you give us P00 and Accept. Over.
031:19:01 Collins: Okay, Charlie. Stand by one.
031:19:04 Duke: Roger, 11. The...
031:19:05 Collins: You've got it.
031:19:07 Duke: Okay. Thank you much. Our biggest drift on the gyros is 0.03 degrees per hour with - on the X-Gyro. On the PIPAs, the Y-PIPA's the biggest and it's 0.006 feet per second so we're just trying to tweak it up. The biggest we have is about one-sigma on both gyros and accelerometers.
031:19:33 Collins: Sounds good.
One of the major components of the guidance system is the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). This basketball-size piece of kit contains a platform that is stabilised by gyroscopes. This carries a set of three orthogonally-mounted accelerometers. The gyroscopes resist any change in the orientation of their rotation axis and when this happens, they generate an error signal that can be used to return them to their starting point. The gimbals within which the platform is mounted are motorised to achieve this. But the process is not perfect and even the best mechanical gyroscope stabilising system is prone to a small amount of drift in its orientation. For this reason, Mike makes regular checks comparing the platform's alignment with the stars to ensure it is orientated just as it ought to be.
Accelerometers on the platform measure changes in the spacecraft's velocity that are due to any kind of propulsive impulse; mostly engine burns. They do not measure changes brought about during free fall, when the spacecraft is on a ballistic path. An accelerometer will also suffer from slight imperfections in its ability to measure and this usually appears as a small bias in its output that can be compensated for.
031:19:37 Duke: The system really looks good to us.
031:19:42 Collins: Glad to hear it, Charlie. [Long pause.]
031:20:31 Duke: 11, Houston. You can go back to Block. We've got the load in.
031:20:38 Aldrin: Okay. Roger.
Comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 31 hours, 22 minutes. We're scheduled to begin the change of shift briefing shortly. During the briefing, we will record any conversations with the crew and play those back following the briefing. At 31 hours, 22 minutes; this is Apollo Control.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
031:22:25 Collins: Boy, you sure get a different perspective in this thing in zero g. Right now, Neil's got his feet on the forward hatch, and he can, with his arms, reach - all five windows. He can reach down into - the LEB where the overboard drain is. He can practically reach over in the cockpit.
031:22:33 Duke: Sounds like Plastic Man to me.
031:23:00 Collins: I'm hiding under the left-hand couch trying to stay out of his way.
031:23:04 Duke: Be a good idea, Mike.
Comm break.
031:25:18 Aldrin: Houston, Apollo 11. You got a cloud over the Houston area right now?
031:25:24 Duke: Roger. We just had a really big thunderstorm here about a hour ago. Couple of storms around the area (garbled). Over.
031:25:28 Aldrin: Yeah, I see one fairly large and isolated one. There are a couple more off to the left, but this one looks [a] fairly good size. It could very well be the one that just passed over you.
031:25:33 Duke: Roger.
031:25:34 Aldrin: Yes, and it looks like the Cape has been having a little bit of rain, too.
031:25:47 Duke: Roger. The one we had here came in from the west and is moving east - or nearly so, as far as I could tell.
031:25:59 Aldrin: That view through this sextant's fantastic. I can see Alaska right up - right up along the LM, and I'm running the crosshairs right now down the coast of California, the west coast of Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula, up around the Gulf, Florida, Cuba, down Central America, and I'm running into the stop right now, on the sextant.
031:26:44 Duke: Roger. It sounds like a pretty fantastic view.
031:26:51 Collins: The guys in the weather office at Patrick wanted a report on the tops but I guess all we can say is we're above them.
031:26:58 Duke: Rog. We'll pass it on to Metro. [Pause.]
031:27:09 Duke: 11, Houston. Do you see any predominant weather systems as far as frontal type or any build-up of tropical storm type? Over.
031:27:25 Aldrin: Not any large ones. There are a couple of smaller disturbances. Well, there's one maybe 300 miles north of Cuba, but it doesn't look cyclonic.
031:27:39 Duke: Rog.
Very long comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 32 hours, 21 minutes. During the change-of-shift Press Conference we had about 3 minutes of conversation with the crew. During that conversation, Buzz Aldrin reported on - what appeared to be a weather disturbance off Cuba in the Caribbean, and we also had some descriptions from Aldrin on the view of Earth from the spacecraft's present position. We'll play that back for you now and then stand by for any further live conversation with the crew.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
032:24:58 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We got a TV attitude for you and also an update to your CMC erasable load and your alternate contingency checklist, if you could break that out too. Over.
032:25:16 Aldrin: Roger. I'm not sure I caught all of that. Go ahead with what you have.
032:25:23 Duke: Roger, 11. If you'll break out your alternate and contingency checklist for the CSM, we got an update to some of the erasable loads on page F2-20. Over.
032:25:42 Aldrin: Okay. Be getting that out, and you can give us the attitude for TV.
032:25:48 Duke: Roger, 11. Your TV attitude will be roll 261, pitch 090, yaw 000. High gain angle: pitch plus 28, yaw 271. That puts the left-hand window pointed at the Earth. We recommend exiting PTC with your updated procedure in the checklist. Over.
032:26:29 Aldrin: Roger. We copy roll 21 - 261, pitch 090, yaw 000, High Gain pitch plus 28, yaw 271. And we'd like this with the procedure we have in the book. Over.
032:26:46 Duke: That's affirmative. [Long pause.]
032:27:01 Collins: Charlie, Apollo 11. I have a couple of questions on stopping the PTC. It seems to me the easiest way to stop it would be - we're essentially, of course, at 0 degrees yaw and close enough to 90 degrees pitch, so it's just a question of stopping at 260 roll, roughly, and - How about for a procedure going Manual Attitude, three, to Rate Command and then, seeing as how our deadband has already collapsed, I'll turn on the panel 8 RCS thrusters, at which time it should stop at whatever attitude it finds itself in. And if I do all of that as it comes up on 261 degrees roll, we should stop right there. Is that sufficient?
032:27:46 Duke: Sounds pretty good. Stand by one.
032:27:50 Collins: Sounds like it might save a little gas.
Comm break.
Mike has realised that as the spacecraft continues to rotate in its barbecue roll, it will come upon the correct roll angle required for the TV transmission quite naturally. Pitch and yaw are already correct. This attitude will allow the HGA to directly face Earth as well as making the planet visible in one of their large windows. Additionally, from an earlier exchange, he knows that the computer's deadband tolerance is narrow and that the roll rate for the barbecue mode is zero. The spacecraft is only still turning because the thrusters have been disabled. Therefore if he re-enables the thrusters as they reach a roll angle of 261°, then the computer should bring them to a stop at near enough the correct attitude.
One problem with this arrangement is that the jet firings are uncoupled. That is, a rotation might be initiated by a single thruster but the direction of that thrust does not act through the spacecraft's centre of mass. Therefore some of the force acts to rotate the spacecraft, but some acts to translate the spacecraft (i.e. like a propulsive manoeuvre) and this affects the trajectory.
032:29:06 Aldrin: Houston, Apollo 11. What page do you want in that revision? Over.
032:29:11 Duke: Roger, 11. If you'll turn to page F2-20. Over.
032:29:28 Aldrin: Okay, I have it. [Pause.]
032:29:32 Duke: Roger, 11. Under column A on page F2-20. [Pause.] Line 5, line 05, the new data is 01042; line 07, the new data is 00256. Skipping down to line 11, 00070; line 12 is 00042; line 13 is 77730. In column Bravo, lines 3, 4, and 5, which are blank, should be all zeros for line 3; line 4 is 20017; line 5, 20616. Over.
032:32:09 Duke: Roger. Good readback, Buzz. And stand by, Mike, on the 'coming-out-of-the-PTC' recommendation. Over.
032:32:17 Collins: Okay. Fine. [Long pause.]
032:33:06 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston, with a recommendation on exiting PTCM. Over.
032:33:13 Collins: Go ahead.
032:33:14 Duke: Roger, Mike. We'd like to see you go to Accel Command on the Manual Attitude switches. Then to turn on the Auto RCS Select switches, and then go Rate Command. That will prevent us from firing jets uncoupled. Over. [Pause.]
032:33:36 Collins: Okay. Fine. And I would guess, go Rate Command and roll first, and then followed by pitch and yaw.
032:33:45 Duke: Okay. That sounds good if - And when you get to the roll attitude desired, just go Rate Command at that time and it'll stop us right on.
032:33:58 Collins: Yeah. I agree, Charlie. That sounds right.
032:34:00 Duke: Rog.
Long comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 32 hours, 39 minutes. This is a relatively quiet period in the Flight Plan. The crew will be getting the spacecraft set up for the Passive Thermal Control termination, and the television transmission. CapCom Charlie Duke has just put in a call. We'll pick that up.
032:39:11 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston with some more words on exiting PTC. Over.
032:39:18 Collins Go ahead, Charlie.
032:39:20 Duke: Roger. Mike, when you were playing with the P37 a while ago and we collapsed the deadband back down, the DAP assumed that the deadband was centered around the new attitude that we happened to be at, at that time. Since then, we've drifted out a couple of degrees in both pitch and yaw from that attitude such that if we did the procedure as we called it up to you of going Accel Command, turning on all of the Auto RCS Select switches and then Rate Command, it would attempt to fly back to the pitch and yaw attitude that it had when the deadband collapsed. We can prevent that by - just immediately prior to going to Rate Command on the Manual Attitude switches, if you cycle the Spacecraft Control switch to SCS, then back to CMC. Over.
032:40:13 Collins: Sounds like a winner.
032:40:14 Duke: Okay. [Long pause.]
032:40:33 Collins: Not going to let these LM guys play with my DSKY any more.
032:40:38 Duke: You sound like you'd better protect it. It looks like just about anything that you do with that DSKY is going to collapse that deadband back down.
032:40:49 Collins: Understand.
Comm break.
032:43:14 Collins: Charlie, we just Stab[iliz]ed to 261 degrees roll, and it looks like whoever figured it out did a good job. It's right there, dab-smack in the middle of window Number 1.
032:43:23 Duke: Sounds great.
Comm break.
Based on image measurement and triangulation, three photos of Earth appear to have been taken around this time, AS11-36-5369 to 5371.
AS11-36-5369 - Earth at about 231,500 km or 125,000 nautical miles. North is up and the eastern Pacific Ocean dominates the daylit portion of Earth. South America is on the terminator and the western coast of North America is clear, including the Baja peninsula. The reddish out-of-focus object at right of frame is the edge of the Command Module window. Image by LPI
AS11-36-5370 - Earth at about 232,200 km or 125,600 nautical miles. North is up and the eastern Pacific Ocean dominates the daylit portion of Earth. South America is on the terminator and the western coast of North America is clear, including the Baja peninsula. Image by LPI
AS11-36-5371 - Earth at about 232,700 km or 125,400 nautical miles. North is up and the eastern Pacific Ocean dominates the daylit portion of Earth. The western coast of North America is clear, including the Baja peninsula. Image by LPI
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
032:46:00 Aldrin: Looks like Houston's still got a little cloud over it, Charlie.
032:46:04 Duke: We've got a constant overcast here in the room. We'll be right there. Stand by.
032:46:08 Aldrin: Of course, a little cloud from up here probably covers 8 or 10 states. [Long pause.]
032:46:31 Duke: 11, Houston. Some of our guys just came in from outside and said it's pretty clear over the Center here. It's cleared up completely. All the storms have moved on.
032:46:42 Collins: Okay, good.
Comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
032:49:17 Collins: Oh, yeah, Charlie. I can see it through the sextant now, and I can see the coastline is clear. Those clouds are just inland a few miles.
032:49:26 Duke: Okay. We copy. [Long pause.]
032:49:49 Collins: Looks like the southeast part of the country is all socked in. [Pause.]
032:50:04 Collins: California looks nice. The San Joaquin Valley shows up as a real dark spot with a lighter brown on either side of it. You can't tell that it's green. It looks just sort of dark gray or maybe even real dark blue.
032:50:16 Duke: How does the Mojave look? Is it clear?
032:50:26 Collins: Ah, yeah. As usual.
032:50:28 Duke: Rog.
032:50:29 Collins: The - around - It looks like there are some clouds just to the west of the Sierras, northeast of Bakersfield a little bit; and crossing over into the Mojave from Bakersfield looks clear; and then as you get on further to the southeast of there, there's a few clouds.
032:50:48 Duke: Roger, 11. Can you pick out Edwards in the sextant? Over.
032:50:58 Collins: I can see a 104 taxiing out for take-off on the runway.
032:51:03 Duke: Hey, man. That's super.
032:51:07 Collins: Pretty safe bet there's almost always a 104 taxiing out for take-off. [Long pause.]
032:51:48 Duke: 11, Houston. Could you pick out anything around Edwards, a dry lake or anything? Over.
032:51:56 Collins: Negative, Charlie. I just - I don't have that resolution. But to give you some idea, I can - on the lower Texas coast, I can see - knowing what I'm looking for, I can see Padre Island. I can just barely make out the fact that there's a thin spit of land and then there's a little dark zone which is the Laguna Madre between it and the mainland.
Mike Collins is sending us this description from about 126,000 [nautical] miles [233,300 km] from Earth.
032:52:39 Collins: How far out are we, Charlie?
032:52:41 Duke: Stand by. I'll give it to you exactly. Looks like around 130,000, but stand by.
032:52:47 Collins: Okay. [Long pause.]
032:53:16 Duke: 11, Houston. The exact range is 125,200 [nautical] miles [231,870 km], and you're traveling 4,486 feet per second [1,367 m/s].
032:53:29 Collins: Pretty far and pretty slow. Just past halfway. [Long pause.]
032:53:48 Aldrin: Hey, Charlie, what's the latest on Luna 15?
032:53:53 Duke: Say again, Buzz? Over.
032:53:58 Aldrin: Roger. What's the latest on Luna 15?
032:54:02 Duke: Stand by. I'll get the straight story for you.
Very long comm break.
Another pair of photos of Earth, AS11-36-5372 and 5373, have been taken, this timing being based on image measurement and triangulation.
AS11-36-5372 - Earth at about 236,600 km or 127,700 nautical miles. North is up and the eastern Pacific Ocean dominates the daylit portion of Earth. The western coast of North America is clear, including the Baja peninsula. Image by LPI.
AS11-36-5373 - Earth at about 236,600 km or 127,700 nautical miles. North is up and the eastern Pacific Ocean dominates the daylit portion of Earth. The western coast of North America is clear, including the Baja peninsula. Image by LPI.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 33 hours, 34 minutes. We've been advised that we are getting television transmission from Goldstone at the present time. This is an unscheduled TV transmission apparently of the crew checking out their on-board system.
We have lost lock on the High Gain Antenna at this time. Apollo 11 is presently 127,991 nautical miles [237,039 km] from Earth, traveling at a speed of about 4,400 feet per second [about 1,340 m/s]. The regularly scheduled time for the television transmission is 6:47 pm Central Daylight Time, and we are anticipating that that transmission will occur as scheduled.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
We're getting momentary lock-on. We seem to have a somewhat better picture now. And here's a call to the crew from CapCom Charlie Duke.
033:37:44 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. Over.
033:37:48 Collins: Go ahead, Charlie.
033:37:50 Duke: Roger. Latest on Luna 15 - TASS reported this morning that the spacecraft was placed in orbit close to the lunar surface, and everything seems to be functioning normally on the vehicle. Sir Bernard Lovell says the craft appears to be in an orbit of about 62 nautical miles [115 km]. Over.
Sir Bernard Lovell (1913-2012) was a British physicist who established a radio astronomy in Cheshire, England, where he arranged the construction of what was then the world's largest steerable radio telescope that now bears his name, the 76.2-metre (250-foot) Lovell Telescope. During the early years of space flight, Lovell and his team often tracked spacecraft on their journeys to the moon and planets, on occasion intercepting image transmissions and helping to have them published before the craft's own agencies had done so.
033:38:17 Collins: Okay. Thank you, Charlie.
033:38:20 Duke: And also, President Nixon has reported - or declared a day of participation on Monday for all federal employees to enable everybody to follow your activities on the surface. Many state and city governments and businesses throughout the country are also giving their employees the day off, so it looks like you're going to have a pretty large audience for the EVA.
033:38:46 Collins: Oh, that's very nice, Charlie. I'll tell Neil about it.
Long comm break.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 33 hours, 41 minutes. We are going to be standing by here in Mission Control for the possibility that the crew would want to transmit that television pass early. The scheduled time for it was 6:47 Central Daylight Time and about 15 minutes was scheduled. That would be at a Ground Elapsed Time of 34 hours. We will have the system set up here in Mission Control to receive and release television should the crew decide to send us the transmission early.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 33 hours, 45 minutes and we do have a correction to the time given for the beginning of that TV nominally. The Flight Plan time is beginning at 34 hours, to 34 hours, 15 minutes Ground Elapsed Time. The previous conversion of that, that we gave you for Central Daylight Time was in error. It should be 6:32 pm Central Daylight Time beginning, assuming we start as the Flight Plan nominally has the transmission listed at 34 hours Ground Elapsed Time. At the present time, Apollo 11 is 128,431 nautical miles [237,854 km] from Earth and the velocity, continuing to drop off slowly, now reads 4,386 feet per second [1,337 m/s].
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
033:47:57 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11. We've stopped PTC. We're in the right position. We're setting up for TV.
033:48:32 Duke: Roger.
Long comm break.
You've heard that comment from the crew. They've stopped their Passive Thermal Control, they're starting up the TV and we'll be standing by for - for a picture.
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
033:52:31 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. We have you stopped in the PTC; attitude looks good to us. Mike, I'd like to get a Comm check. The last couple of transmissions from the spacecraft has been garbled, from especially Buzz. Could you both give me a Comm check? Over.
033:52:51 Aldrin: Roger, Charlie. It's Buzz here. How do you read? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
033:52:56 Duke: Roger. You're about four-by with a slight decrease/increase in volume, sort of a wavy volume to it. Over.
033:53:09 Aldrin: Okay. I moved my mike around. How about now? Is this any better?
033:53:12 Duke: Hey, that's beautiful right there. Thank you.
033:53:17 Collins: Okay, Charlie. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. How do you read me?
033:53:21 Duke: Roger. You're five-by. Is Neil on?
Download MP3 audio file. PAO loop. Clip courtesy John Stoll, ACR Senior Technician at NASA Johnson.
This is Apollo Control at 33 hours, 57 minutes. We're less than 3 minutes now from the scheduled television transmission from Apollo 11. We're continuing to stand by for that. We've also been asked to advise that the Delta launch of Intelsat III, scheduled for Friday night at 10:00 pm has been postponed for 24 hours. To repeat, the Delta launch of Intelsat III, scheduled for Friday night at 10 pm, has been postponed for 24 hours. Further details on that will be available in the News Center.
033:59:11 Duke: Hello, Apollo 11. Houston. We got the network all configured for the TV. You can start any time you want. Over. [Long pause.]
This scheduled TV transmission begins with a view out of the window at Earth, but with the zoom lens set to wide angle. This clip is presented in the journal courtesy of Mark Gray.
033:59:45 Duke: Okay, 11. We have a picture. We see the Earth right in the center of the screen. Over.
033:59:52 Armstrong: Roger, Houston. Apollo 11 calling in from about 130,000 [nautical] miles [241,000 km] out. And we'll zoom our camera in slowly and get the most magnification we can. Over.
034:00:06 Duke: Roger.
Comm break.
This view is coming to us from about 129,000 nautical miles [239,000 km].
034:01:16 Duke: 11, Houston. The definition is pretty good on our monitor here. The color's not too [garbled], at least on this set. Could you describe what you're looking at? Over.
034:01:31 Armstrong: Roger. You're seeing Earth, as we see it, out our left-hand window, just a little more than a half Earth. We're looking at the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the north half of the top half of the screen, we can see North America, Alaska, United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. South America becomes invisible just off beyond the terminator or inside the shadow. We can see the oceans with a definite blue cast, see white bands of major cloud formations across the Earth, and can see coastlines, pick out the western US, San Joaquin Valley, the Sierra mountain range, the peninsula of Baja California, and can see some cloud formations over southeastern US. There's one definite mild storm southwest of Alaska; looks like about 500 to 1000 miles, and another very minor storm showing the south end of the screen near the - or a long ways off of the equator, probably 45 degrees or more south latitude. Can pick out the browns in the landforms pretty well. Greens do not show up very well. Some greens showing along the northeastern - northwestern coast of the United States and northwestern coast of Canada.
034:03:44 Duke: Roger, 11. It's a pretty good picture on clarity here. We're having - can you tell us - It appears to us that there are two distinct cloud formations trending east-west, one approximately about along the equator, and one around 30 or so south latitude. Could you tell us exactly where those cross the land masses? Over.
034:04:13 Armstrong: Well, yes. They cross just south of the lower part of Mexico, probably through Central America. That is the equatorial band which we assume to be the inter-tropical convergence zone. The other band, which is about 30 south correctly, seems to appear to join the equator at the far left, or just beyond the horizon on the left edge of Earth, or at least it looks like it's going to join it. We don't have an explanation for that banding.
034:04:53 Duke: Roger, Neil. Thank you. It also appears that just to the left of the terminator, up in the northern hemisphere, there's a cloud band trending - a gap in the cloud, trending northwest/southeast. It appears to us that that comes in about over the northern United States, or perhaps the central United States. Is that about correct? Over.
034:05:26 Armstrong: I can see on the monitor the thing you're talking about, but right now I can't get my eye to the window to pick out just where it crosses the shore line.
034:05:35 Duke: Roger. [Long pause.]
034:05:42 Duke: You guys are doing a good job. It's a real steady picture, here. We're - Clarity is excellent. The color, it's - the clouds are - The whites are distinct. The rest if it looks like, to me anyway on the monitor I'm observing, is a fairly greenish blue is the way I'd describe it. Over. [Pause.]
034:06:09 Duke: It appears that the...
034:06:11 Armstrong: Well, we can't observe... [hears Duke] We can't observe much green from the spacecraft.
034:06:18 Duke: Roger. On this monitor, the landmasses appear to be just a darker grayish color rather than a brown.
034:06:31 Armstrong: Well, it's true that we do not have the depths of color at this range that we enjoyed at 50,000 miles out. However, the oceans still are a definite blue and the continents are generally brownish in cast, although it is true that they're tending more toward gray now than they were at the closer ranges.
034:07:03 Duke: Roger, 11. We've been - I've just been vectored to another monitor and sure enough, the browns are coming in a lot more distinctly on the Eidophor that we have up on our screen in the Control Center. Over. [Pause.]
Eidophor was a video projection system that was used in Mission Control for one of the large display screens at the front of the MOCR. It used a slowly rotating disk on which was deposited a film of oil. A scanning electron beam wrote the TV image onto that oil film, causing it to become transparent in some areas. Light was then shone through the film on its way to a screen, as in a conventional projector.
034:07:21 Collins: Okay, world, hold on to your hat. I'm going to turn you upside-down. [Long pause.]
034:07:36 Duke: 11, that's a pretty good roll, there. [Long pause.]
034:08:03 Collins: Oh, that was pretty sloppy, Charlie. Let me try that one again. [Pause.]
034:08:12 Duke: You'll never beat out the Thunderbirds. [Long pause.]
The Thunderbirds are the formation aerobatic demonstration squadron of the US Air Force.
034:08:37 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. That practice did you some good. It's looking - real smooth roll, there.
034:08:43 Duke: Oops! Spoke too soon. [Pause.]
034:08:53 Collins: I'm making myself sea sick doing it, Charlie. I'll just put you back right-side up where you belong.
034:08:58 Duke: Roger.
034:09:01 Collins: You don't get to do that every day. [Pause.]
034:09:12 Duke: 11, Houston. Could you describe, from your view, the polar cloud cap? It appears to us to extend down the western coast of North America. Would you estimate how far it extends down? Over. [Long pause.]
034:09:47 Aldrin: Trying to fit everybody into the window.
034:09:50 Armstrong: It appears that the cloud cap comes down a little bit below the southern extremity of Alaska.
034:10:24 Duke: Okay. Apollo 11, Houston. We've got the picture back now. [Pause.]
034:10:36 Armstrong: Unfortunately, we only have one window that has a view of the Earth and it's filled up with the TV camera, so your view now is probably better than ours is.
034:10:47 Duke: Roger. We copy.
034:10:51 Duke: 11, Houston. If you could comply, we'd like to see little smiling faces up there, if you could give us some interior views. I'm sure everybody would like to see you. Over.
034:11:06 Armstrong: Okay. We'll reconfigure the TV for that.
034:11:08 Duke: Roger.
Comm break.
034:12:31 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. It appears to us that we're seeing a view from outside plus a little of the inside. It appears you've taken the camera away from the left window now. Over.
034:12:45 Armstrong: That's correct. We're moving it back and reconfiguring for interior lighting.
034:12:50 Duke: Roger. [Pause.]
034:12:56 Duke: We can still see the Earth through the left window, and it appears that we can see a floodlight off to the left, either that or some Sun shafting through the hatch window.
034:13:10 Armstrong: It's a floodlight.
034:13:11 Duke: Rog.
034:13:14 Duke: Now we're coming in. Can't quite make out who that head is.
034:13:24 Duke: That's big Mike Collins, there...
034:13:25 Collins: You got a little bit of... [hears Duke.] Yeah, hello there sports fans. You got a little bit of me, plus Neil is in the center couch, and Buzz is doing the camera work this time.
034:13:34 Duke: Roger. It's a little dark now, 11. Maybe a bigger f-stop might help.
034:13:44 Collins: Yeah, that's in work. [Long pause.]
034:14:05 Duke: It's getting a lot better now, 11. Mike, you're coming in five-by. I got a good...
034:14:14 Collins: I'd have put on a coat and tie if I'd known about this ahead of time.
034:14:18 Duke: Is that Buzz holding your cue cards for you? Over.
034:14:25 Collins: Cue cards have a 'no'. We have no intention of competing with the professionals, believe me. [Pause.] We are very comfortable up here, though. We do have a happy home. There's plenty of room for the three of us and I think we're all learning to find our favorite little corner to sit in. Zero g is very comfortable, but after a while you get to the point where you sort of get tired of rattling around and banging off the ceiling and the floor and the side, so you tend to find a little corner somewhere and put your knees up or something like that to wedge yourself in, and that seems more at home.
034:15:05 Duke: Roger. Looks like Neil is coming in five-by there, 11. Mike, see you in the background. The definition is really outstanding. The colors are good. It's a real good picture we're getting here of Commander Armstrong. We - Buzz, when you take the camera over towards the window where the Sun's shafting through, it tends to blank it out, though.
034:15:35 Collins: Yeah, Neil's standing on his head again. He's trying to make me nervous.
034:15:40 Duke: Roger. [Pause.]
034:15:50 Collins: He's disappearing up into the tunnel, of course, as he would going into the Lunar Module, only backwards.
034:15:57 Duke: Roger. We can see portions of the LEB now. The systems test meter panel in the lower part of the picture, or we did have it, anyway.
034:16:09 Collins: Okay. And then directly behind his head are our optical instruments, the sextant and the telescope that we use to take sightings with.
034:16:19 Duke: Roger, copy. And we see the DSKY flashing with a 6 51. In fact, we can read Registers 1 and 2 quite clearly.
034:16:31 Collins: The old High Gain angles telling us which way the Earth is.
034:16:35 Duke: Copy. That's a beautiful picture. Clarity is outstanding. [Pause.]
This still frame, taken from the TV transmission, shows the DSKY display as seen at about 034:16:30.
To further decode the DSKY display, the Verb number, 06, means 'please display the decimal values...' and and Noun number, 51, means 'the High Gain Antenna angles'. These are then displayed with a precision of hundredths of a degree. In this case, the angles are plus 27.82° in pitch, and plus 272.41° in yaw.
034:16:47 Collins: We can also give you the time of day in our system of mission elapsed time. Elapsed time: 34 hours, 16 minutes and umpteen seconds. Can you see that clearly enough, Charlie?
034:16:59 Duke: Roger, Apollo 11. We can see it counting up every - every second. We got 34:17:02 now. [Pause.]
034:17:13 Collins: Okay. Back to the High-Gain angles.
034:17:15 Duke: Roger.
034:17:18 Collins: Now we have amputated those. [Long pause.]
034:17:45 Duke: 11, Houston. It's a - We have a beautiful rainbow there now as you move the camera around. That looks like the star charts coming into view, now. Over.
Duke's rainbow refers to the colours that become visible on the TV picture when the content moves across the field of view at speed. They are an artefact of the way that the camera works. At the moment, the camera is being moved about at speed.
In order to save weight in the TV camera, its designers used just one imaging tube whereas a conventional colour TV camera of the time had three (or even four) tubes, one each to image the three primary colours; red, green and blue (and maybe one for fine detail) simultaneously. Having just one imaging tube meant that the three colours were imaged sequentially by rotating a filter wheel in front of the sensor. In this arrangement, each television field (of which there were 60 per second) represented the analysis of the scene in red, then blue, then green, over and over. When the signal reached Earth, engineers would pass it through equipment to reconstruct a full colour signal from these fields. A disadvantage of this was that if anything moved quickly across the field of view, then the separate colour analyses would become visible.
034:17:58 Collins: Yeah. Those are Buzz's two star charts that he is using right now as sun shades over the right-hand window, window Number 5.
034:18:07 Duke: Roger. We see the Sun shining in through it behind him and blotting out the equatorial - correction, ecliptic plane, and the stars that you're using for the navigation.
034:18:20 Collins: You're right. He doesn't really need the charts. He's got them memorized. They're just for show.
034:18:27 Duke: We copy.
034:18:28 Aldrin: While we're pointing up in this direction, we see out our side windows the Sun going by and, of course, out one of our windows right now we've got the Earth. Right behind my window, of course, we have the Sun, because the Sun is illuminating the star charts that we see. This line represents the ecliptic plane and these lines, vertical lines, represent our reference system that the spacecraft is using at this time. As we approach the Moon, the Moon will gradually grow larger and larger in size and eventually it will be in eclipse. It will be eclipsing the Sun as we go behind it, as we approach the Lunar Orbit Insertion maneuver.
034:19:19 Duke: Roger, 11. We've - Could you attempt a little bit better focus there, 11? Over. [Long pause.]
034:20:01 Duke: 11, Houston. That's a lot better on the star chart now. We can make out the ecliptic plane and the planets and the Sun and the Moon as it - as they have gone at various places throughout the ecliptic plane. Over.
034:20:19 Collins: Okay, Charlie. [Long pause.]
034:20:41 Aldrin: If we can get some of the wires untangled here, we'll give you a demonstration of how easy push-ups are up here.
034:20:52 Duke: 11, Roger. Good view of Buzz, there. [Long pause.]
Buzz is having fun with the concept of weightlessness. He does some mock push-ups facing the top of frame, then turns over and does more facing the bottom.
034:21:24 Aldrin: When it gets pretty hard doing it that way, why, we just roll over and do it the other way.
034:21:30 Duke: Rog. We copy. We couldn't figure out whether that was a chin-up or a push-up. Just take your choice, I guess. [Long pause.]
034:22:05 Collins: Well, it looks like it's probably almost your dinner time down there, Earth. We'll show you our food cabinet here in a second.
034:22:14 Duke: 11, Roger. [Long pause.]
034:22:38 Duke: 11, Houston. We see a box full of goodies there. Over.
034:22:43 Collins: We really have them, Charlie. We've got all kinds of good stuff. We've got coffee up here in the upper left and various breakfast items, bacon in little small bites, beverages like fruit drink. And over in the center part we have, oh, all kinds of things. Let me pull one out here and see what it is.
034:23:04 Duke: Rog.
034:23:11 Collins: Would you believe you're looking at chicken stew, here? All you have to do is - 3 ounces of hot water for 5 or 10 minutes. Now we get our hot water out of a little spigot up here with a filter on it that filters any gases that may be in the drinking water out, and we just stick the end of this little tube in the end of the spigot and pull the trigger three times for 3 ounces of hot water and then mush it up and slice the end off it and there you go, beautiful chicken stew.
034:23:46 Duke: Sounds delicious. [Pause.]
034:23:56 Collins: Yeah. The food so far has been very good. We couldn't be happier with it.
034:24:00 Duke: Roger.
034:24:01 Collins: Could I borrow that flashlight a second?
034:24:05 Duke: The surgeons are saying thank you, there, for that.
034:24:10 Collins: And it is sort of down in a dark corner, so we have a flashlight here to help us see things; and if I can let go of it carefully, it'll just hold itself right where it is.
034:24:24 Duke: Roger.
034:24:25 Collins: As long as it's still, it will.
034:24:36 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. That's a pretty good demonstration. You started off really stable there, Mike. It...
034:24:44 Collins: Well, the problem is, no matter how carefully you let go, you bump it just a tiny little bit, set it in motion and once in motion there she goes. Try that again.
034:25:00 Duke: It looks fairly stable now with slow rotation. [Long pause.]
034:25:29 Collins: Well, so much for the food department. I'm going to close up the store down here.
034:25:33 Duke: Roger. We copy.
034:25:39 Aldrin: Charlie, we checked out the cable lengths, and we're thinking we might want to see if we can take the TV into the LM with us tomorrow for part of the time. Over.
034:25:49 Duke: Roger. Good show. We'd like to see it if it'll reach that far. Over.
034:25:57 Aldrin: We'll give it a try.
034:25:59 Duke: Rog. [Long pause.]
034:26:31 Collins: And where I sleep is down underneath this couch.
034:26:37 Duke: Houston. Roger.
034:26:42 Duke: Slowly sinking into the sack there. [Pause.]
034:27:01 Collins: Forgot to give Buzz his flashlight back. [Long pause.]
034:27:22 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. Could you give the folks a view of your patch if - on your CWGs? Over. [Pause.]
CWG is Constant Wear Garments, essentially what they wear around the spacecraft when not wearing their suits. It is also used as an undergarment for the suit.
034:27:37 Collins: Stand by one, Charlie; we'll try and give you a close-up.
034:27:40 Duke: Rog. [Long pause.]
034:27:52 Duke: 11, Houston. We have the patch. Could you attempt to improve the focus slightly? Over. [Long pause.]
034:28:13 Duke: 11, Houston. The scan on the camera makes the - that's a little bit better now. The flashlight seems to flicker, due to the scan on the TV. We can't see the eagle. Now it's a little bit better. Over. Could you open the f-stop a little bit more? Over. [Pause.]
034:28:41 Collins: It's open all the way. We're going to have to move Buzz around little bit.
034:28:44 Duke: Roger. [Long pause.]
034:29:23 Duke: Okay, Apollo 11, Houston. The color is better now. It's coming in. We could attempt a little bit better focus on it. There we go; it focuses a lot better now. We see the eagle coming right in on the lunar surface. Over. That's very good now.
034:29:56 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. That's very good now. We can see the Earth in the background, Apollo 11, and the eagle coming in.
034:30:05 Collins: It's probably pretty hard to see the olive branch, isn't it?
034:30:08 Duke: Roger. It is.
034:30:12 Collins: Well, that's what he has in his talons, is an olive branch.
034:30:16 Duke: Copy. [Long pause.]
034:30:39 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. We're really impressed with the clarity and the detail that we have in the picture. The colors are - now, it's a really, an excellent picture now that I'm looking at it on our monitor, which is about 12 seconds before the networks can get it out due to the conversion that we have here on our TV converter. The - We're looking at the controls in the display - the main display console and we can see the DSKY up on the panel. Over.
The conversion of the spacecraft's sequential colour TV signal to composite colour as used by the TV networks was convoluted. The analogue TV systems at the time were very intolerant of timing errors on the signals and those from the fast-moving spacecraft were particularly excessive. The solution adopted was to record the incoming TV signal onto a broadcast-quality quadruplex videotape recorder. The take-up reel was replaced by a looping system which provided a buffer of tape before it was then fed to a second videotape machine. The first machine was locked to the synchronising pulses in the spacecraft's TV signal. The second was locked to a master clock at the TV electronics site on Earth. Having sorted out the timing issues, a magnetic disc system was used to temporarily store the sequential colour fields so that they would be read out available simultaneously and thereby put together into a standard composite TV signal.
034:31:32 Collins: It would be nice if you could take a look at all the circuit breakers; make sure the right ones are in and the right ones are out.
034:31:38 Duke: Roger. Big Brother's watching.
034:31:43 Collins: And we're glad of it. [Pause.]
034:31:53 Collins: Boy, you guys have sure been doing a good job of watching us, Charlie. We appreciate it.
034:32:00 Duke: The spacecraft's been beautiful, 11. We've really no complaints at all. Looks - Things are really great. [Pause.]
034:32:12 Collins: Can you see this DSKY on the MDC?
034:32:15 Duke: That's affirmative. It appears that - can't quite tell what program went P00. We see you punching in a Verb 35, I think it is. Over.
034:32:28 Collins: Yeah. Might as well tell the EECOMs or tell the GNC and everybody to hold on to their hat and I'll push the Enter button.
034:32:36 Duke: Rog.
034:32:41 Duke: We see a real display now. [Long pause.]
034:32:56 Duke: That's a good demonstration of how the crew has the interface with the computer, talking to the programs and all that we have in the computer.
034:33:09 Collins: Well, that's right, Charlie. Sometimes it tells us things and sometimes we tell it things and mostly it talks to us. [Long pause.]
034:34:14 Duke: 11, Houston. We just lost our pic - I see we're going back outside now. Over. [Long pause.]
034:34:31 Duke: 11, Houston. You copy? Over.
034:34:35 Armstrong: Roger. We copy, And as we pan back out to the distance at which we see the Earth, well, it's Apollo 11 signing off.
034:34:50 Duke: Roger, Apollo 11. Thank you much for the show. It's a real good half hour. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Out. [Long pause.]
TV transmission ends.
This is Apollo Control. That TV transmission lasted about 35 minutes.
034:35:22 Collins: Okay. That's it, Charlie.
034:35:24 Duke: 11, Houston. We appreciate the show. Thank you very much. Over.
034:35:29 Collins: Right.
034:35:49 Duke: Apollo 11, Houston. Would you key Error Reset on the DSKY, please? Over. [Pause.]
034:36:00 Collins: Okay. We should be straightened out now, Charlie, and back in P00. [Long pause.]
034:36:43 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11. How do we stand on this O2 fuel cell purge? You want to go ahead and do that as scheduled in the Flight Plan?
034:36:51 Duke: Stand by, 11. Over.
034:36:54 Collins: Okay.
034:36:58 Duke: 11, Houston. You can commence the O2 fuel cell purge now if you'd like. Over.
Impurities in the oxygen and hydrogen reactants for the fuel cells can build up and impair their operation. They are purged from the cells by flowing either of the gases at a high rate across the cell reaction surfaces.
034:37:04 Collins: Okay. Fine. [Pause.]
034:37:13 Collins: While Buzz is doing that, I'll change the lithium hydroxide.
034:37:16 Duke: Rog.
Long comm break.
Day 2 continues in the next chapter with spacecraft maintenance activities, Flight Plan updates and an experiment.
