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Apollo 11

Day 4, part 2: Lunar Orbit Circularization

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 2009 by W. David Woods, Kenneth D. MacTaggart and Frank O'Brien. All rights reserved.

[Apollo 11 emerges from the far side of the Moon and reports a successful insertion into lunar orbit. The crew get their first good look at the Moon, observing the crater Aristarchus by Earthlight and transmitting television views of their landing site. They prepare for another lunar engine firing which will bring them into a tighter lunar orbit, then make this burn over the far side.]

[We pick up the flight 90 seconds before the spacecraft emerges around the limb. Initially, reception is very weak.]

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076:14:09 Aldrin (onboard): (Coughing)

076:14:17 Collins (onboard): I rolled too slow - doubt that we'll make it. Oh, look what I got. [Garble].

076:14:32 Collins (onboard): Golly damn! A geologist up here would just go crazy.

076:14:40 Aldrin (onboard): You want the Flight Plan?

076:14:43 Armstrong (onboard): Yes, please.

PAO: 30 seconds.

076:14:57 Collins (onboard): Okay, we shouldn't take any more pictures on this roll until Earth comes, I don't think. This is...

076:15:01 Armstrong (onboard): About out?

076:15:02 Collins (onboard): ...just about out and it's on our last color roll, so we'll switch to black and white as soon as we get to Earth.

076:15:07 Armstrong (onboard): We might make it in time.

076:15:09 Collins (onboard): Yes.

076:15:13 Aldrin (onboard): There it is, it's coming up!

076:15:15 Collins (onboard): What?

076:15:16 Aldrin (onboard): The Earth. See it?

076:15:17 Collins (onboard): Yes. Beautiful.

076:15:21 Aldrin (onboard): It's halfway up.

076:15:23 Armstrong (onboard): We ought to have AOS now.

076:15:25 Collins (onboard): You got your...

076:15:26 Aldrin (onboard): Right over the LM.

076:15:28 Armstrong (onboard): Are you set up?

076:15:30 Aldrin (onboard): Just about to be cut off by the LM. Boy, does that ever look beautiful in the sextant.

PAO: Madrid AOS, Madrid AOS.

076:15:36 Collins (onboard): Have you got...

076:15:37 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, how about MSFN...

076:15:39 Collins/Aldrin (onboard): You got them.

076:15:42 Armstrong (onboard): We're in Omni...

076:15:45 Aldrin (onboard): Down Voice Backup.

076:15:46 Armstrong (onboard): ...Bravo.

076:15:48 McCandless: Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston. Do you read? Over.

076:15:52 Aldrin (onboard): Yes, we sure do, Houston. The LOI-1 burn just nominal as all getout, and everything's looking good.

076:15:59 McCandless: Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston. Do you read? Over.

PAO: Telemetry indicates that the crew is working on the antenna angles to bring the High Gain Antenna to bear.

076:16:59 Spacecraft: Houston, Apollo 11. Over.

076:17:00 McCandless: Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston. We are reading you weakly. Go ahead. Over.

076:17:08 Armstrong: Roger. Burn status report follows. Delta-T_IG zero, burn time 5:57, [garble] on the PAD. VG_X minus 0.1, VG_Y minus 0.1, VG_Z plus 0.1, Delta-V_C minus [garble], fuel [garble] plus 390 [garble]. Over.

076:17:44 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. These residuals, do you have minus 0.17 [garble], VG_X minus 0.1, VG_Y minus 0.1, VG_Z 1.1, and a burn time of 5 plus 57. Stand by, maybe the comm will improve a little bit. Over.

[Comm break.]

[Comm break.]

076:21:43 Armstrong: Reading you loud and clear, Houston. How us?

076:21:46 McCandless: Roger. Reading you the same, now. Could you repeat your burn status report? We copied the residuals and burn time, and that was about it. Send the whole thing again, please.

076:21:56 Collins: It was like - it was like perfect!

076:22:00 Armstrong: Delta-T_IG zero, burn time 5:57, PAD values on the angles, VG_X minus 0.1, VG_Y minus 0.1, VG_Z plus 0.1, no trim, minus 6.8 on Delta-V_C, fuel was 38.8, ox 39.0, plus 50 on balance, and we ran an increase on the PUGS. Noun 44 showed us in a 60.9 by 169.9.

076:22:35 McCandless: Roger. We copy your burn status report. And the spacecraft is looking good to us on telemetry.

076:22:47 Armstrong: Roger. Everything looks good up here.

[Very long comm break.]

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076:35:11 McCandless: Roger. We concur, and we certainly wish we could see it first hand, also.

PAO: That was Neil Armstrong.

076:35:32 Armstrong: We're going over the Messier series of craters right at the time, looking vertically down on them, and Messier A, we can see good-sized blocks in the bottom of the crater. I don't know what our altitude is now, but in any case, those are pretty good-size blocks.

076:35:56 McCandless: Okay. Just roughly, it looks like you are about 120 miles or 130 miles right now. Make that 127 miles.

[Comm break.]

076:37:24 Armstrong: There's Secchi in sight. [Long pause.]

076:37:48 Armstrong: We're over Mount Marilyn at the present time, and it's ignition point.

076:37:55 McCandless: Roger. Thank you. And our preliminary tracking data for the first few minutes shows you in a 61.6 by 169.5 orbit [114.1 by 313.9 km]. Over.

076:38:10 Armstrong: Roger.

076:38:12 McCandless: And Jim is smiling.

[Comm break.]

[The mountain is named after Marilyn Lovell, the wife of Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell, who is in the Control Room at this time.]

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076:41:35 Armstrong: Go ahead.

076:41:37 McCandless: 11, Houston. During your SPS burn as played back on tape down here, we've observed the nitrogen tank Bravo pressure in the SPS system dropping a little bit more than we anticipated. It's holding steady right now. We'll continue to watch it and keep you posted if anything comes up. Over.

[High pressure nitrogen gas is used to actuate the valves that feed propellant to the SPS engine. During the burn, engineering data from the spacecraft was recorded on the DSE tape recorder. this data, along with crew voice recordings is played back to Earth on an auxiliary radio channel as soon as the spacecraft comes back into view.]

076:42:04 McCandless: Right. And it has held steady...

076:42:05 Armstrong: Currently going over Maskelyne, Mas...

076:42:10 Armstrong: Okay.

076:42:11 Armstrong: And Boot Hill, Duke Island, Sidewinder, looking at Maskelyne W, that's the yaw round checkpoint, and just coming into the terminator. At the terminator it's ashen gray. As you get further away from the terminator, it gets to be a lighter gray, and as you get closer to the subsolar point, you can definitely see browns and tans on the ground, according to the last Apollo limb observation anyway.

076:42:49 McCandless: Roger, 11. We're recording your comments for posterity.

076:42:57 Armstrong: (Laughter) Okay.

PAO: And again, that was Neil Armstrong with the report.

076:43:04 Collins: Did somebody in the background - do they accuse us of being compromisers?

076:43:08 McCandless: Huh! [Long pause.]

076:43:19 Armstrong: And the landing site is well into the dark here. I don't think we're going to be able to see anything of the landing site this early.

076:43:42 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. When you have a free minute, could you give us your onboard readout of N₂ tank Bravo, please. And we'd like to make sure you understand that ever since you stopped thrusting with the SPS, the temperature in this tank has remained steady. Over. Make that the pressure has remained steady.

076:44:07 Collins: Rog. We understand tank pressure has stayed steady. Thank you.

076:44:12 Aldrin: Roger. We're showing the N₂ tank pressure in tank Bravo to be 1,960, something like that, and Alpha is, oh, about 22 - about 2,250. Over.

076:44:34 McCandless: Roger. We show 2,249 in Alpha and 1,946 down here.

076:44:44 Aldrin: Okay.

[Long comm break.]

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076:53:28 McCandless: Roger. Standby. [Long pause.]

076:53:45 McCandless: We'll have them for you in a minute, 11.

076:53:51 Collins: Okay. And time to stop also, please.

076:53:55 McCandless: Yes, indeed.

[Comm break.]

076:56:41 Aldrin: Go ahead, Houston.

076:56:42 McCandless: Roger. We show you, in the Flight Plan, staying in orbital rate until about 79 hours, 10 minutes. Do you have some particular attitude or reason for wanting to go inertial? Over.

076:57:00 Collins: No, that's fine. I just wanted to confirm that. Until 79:10, then we'll breeze around here in orbit.

076:57:07 McCandless: Roger. And we've got an observation you can make if you have some time up there. There's been some lunar transient events reported in the vicinity of Aristarchus. Over.

076:57:28 Aldrin: Roger. We just went into spacecraft darkness. Until then, why, we couldn't see a thing down below us. But now, with Earthshine, the visibility is, oh, pretty fair. Looking back behind me, now, I can see the corona from where the Sun has just set. And we'll get out the map and see what we can find around Aristarchus.

076:57:54 Armstrong: We're coming upon Aristarchus right now...

076:57:55 McCandless: Okay. Aristarchus is at Tango Echo 9 on your ATO chart. It's about 394 miles north of track. However, at your present altitude, which is about 167 nautical miles, it ought to be over - that is within view of your horizon: 23 degrees north, 47 west. Take a look and see if you see anything worth noting up there. Over. [Pause.]

076:58:34 Armstrong: Both looking.

076:58:36 McCandless: Roger. Out.

[Long comm break.]

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077:03:09 McCandless: Say again, please, 11. [Long pause.]

077:03:23 Armstrong: You might give us a time of crossing of 45 west, and then we'll know when to start searching for Aristarchus.

077:03:32 McCandless: Roger. You'll be crossing 45 west at 77:04:10 or about 40 seconds from now. Over. Thirty seconds from now.

077:03:45 Armstrong: Okay.

[Comm break.]

077:05:14 Armstrong: Okay. That sounds better because we're just - just went by Copernicus a little bit ago.

077:05:18 McCandless: Roger. We show you at about 27 degrees longitude right now.

077:05:25 Armstrong: Right-oh.

[Comm break.]

077:07:16 McCandless: Roger. We copy.

[Comm break.]

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077:09:29 Aldrin: Okay. Going to Omni Charlie.

077:09:32 McCandless: Roger. Out.

[Comm break.]

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077:12:01 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Go ahead.

077:12:06 Aldrin: Roger. Seems to me since we know orbits so precisely, and know where the stars are so precisely, and can time the setting of a star or a planet to a very fine degree, that this might be a pretty good means of measuring the altitude of the horizon.

077:12:32 McCandless: Roger. [Long pause.]

077:12:51 Armstrong: Hey, Houston. I'm looking north up toward Aristarchus now, and I can't really tell at that distance whether I really am looking at Aristarchus, but there's an area there that is considerably more illuminated than the surrounding area. It just has - seems to have a slight amount of fluorescence to it as a crater can be seen, and the area around the crater is quite bright.

[Aristarchus is the brightest crater on the face of the Moon.]

077:14:23 Aldrin: Houston, Apollo 11. Looking up at the same area now and it does seem to be reflecting some of the Earthshine. I'm not sure whether it was worked out to be about zero phase to - Well, at least there's one wall of the crater that seems to be more illuminated than the other, and that one - if I'm lining up with the Earth correctly, does seem to put it about at zero phase. That area is definitely lighter than anything else that I could see out this window. I am not sure that I am really identifying any phosphorescence, but that definitely is lighter than anything else in the neighborhood.

077:15:15 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. Can you discern any difference in color of the illumination, and is that an inner or an outer wall of the crater? Over.

077:15:34 Aldrin: Rog. That's an inner wall of the crater.

077:15:43 Collins: No, there doesn't appear to be any color involved in it, Bruce.

077:15:47 McCandless: Roger. You said inner wall. Would that be the inner edge of the northern surface?

077:16:00 Aldrin: I guess it would be the inner part of the west-northwest part, the part that would be more nearly normal if you were looking at it from the Earth.

077:16:20 McCandless: 11, Houston. Have you used the monocular on this? Over.

077:16:28 Aldrin: Stand by one.

[Comm break.]

077:18:08 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. We're - we're hearing only a partial comm. Say again please.

077:18:20 Collins: I think [garble] [Long pause.]

077:18:41 Aldrin: Houston, we'll give it a try if we have the opportunity on next rev, when we're not in the middle of lunch, and trying to find the monocular.

077:18:51 McCandless: Roger. Copied you that time. Expect in the next rev you'll probably be getting ready for LOI-2.

077:19:09 McCandless: So, let's wind this up, and we've got some other things to talk to you about in a few minutes. Over.

077:19:19 Armstrong: Okay.

[Long comm break.]

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077:22:49 Armstrong: Go ahead, Houston.

077:22:53 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. We're targeting, or planning to make the LOI-2 burn now using bank A only. We'll have the PAD and everything for you next time around. Just trying to economize a little on bank B. Bank B is holding, though.

077:23:15 Armstrong: Roger. Understand.

077:23:18 McCandless: [Inadvertent keying] CapCom.

[Long comm break.]

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077:32:02 Armstrong: Go ahead.

077:32:04 McCandless: 11, Houston. In order to improve the communications a little bit here, we'd like to try to get you on the High Gain Antenna. We're recommending a pitch angle of 0, yaw 355 - I say again 355, the Track switch to Manual, and Wide Beamwidth. Over. [Long pause.]

077:32:42 Collins: Okay. You ready to switch to High Gain now?

077:32:45 McCandless: That's affirmative. [Long pause.]

077:33:09 McCandless: 11, Houston. Do you read? [Pause.]

077:33:19 Aldrin: Roger. We read you. It seems to be rather marginal on the High Gain.

077:33:24 McCandless: Roger. We concur. [Long pause.]

077:33:42 Collins: Houston, Apollo 11. Could you give us a time of crossing the prime meridian 150 west? Over.

077:33:47 McCandless: Roger. Stand by about a half a second, here. Okay. Your time of crossing the 150 west meridian will be 77:50:05. Over.

077:34:10 Collins: Thank you. [Long pause.]

077:34:24 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. We have about 6 minutes remaining until LOS, and in order that we may configure our ground lines, we'd like to know if you're still planning to have the TV up with the beginning of the next pass. Over. [Pause.]

077:34:48 Armstrong: Roger, Houston. We'll try to have it ready.

077:34:50 McCandless: This is Houston. We are inquiring if it is your plan to. Over. [Pause.]

077:35:00 Armstrong: It never was our plan to. But it's in the Flight Plan, so I guess we'll do it.

077:35:07 McCandless: Houston. Roger. Out. [Long pause.]

077:35:47 McCandless: 11, Houston.

077:35:53 Collins: Roger. Go ahead.

077:35:54 McCandless: For use in connection with that time on the prime meridian crossing, you have an orbital period now of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 37 seconds. Over.

077:36:10 Collins: Thank you.

077:36:11 McCandless: Roger. Out.

[Comm break.]

077:38:40 Aldrin: Rog. 78:23:21.

077:38:43 McCandless: Roger. That was 31 on the end.

077:38:50 Armstrong: Okay.

[Very long comm break.]

077:41:15 Collins (onboard): That's why I'm trying to get it out.

077:42:16 Armstrong (onboard): No alignment this rev, huh?

077:43:02 Aldrin (onboard): Mike, I guess the name of the game is to go back to - B Omni?

077:43:10 Collins (onboard): Huh?

077:43:12 Aldrin (onboard): Go back to B in Omni?

077:43:17 Collins (onboard): Well, let's see - when we come over the hill next time, we're supposed to have them on the High Gain, I think.

077:43:25 Armstrong (onboard): Not sure of that.

077:43:29 Collins (onboard): [Garble].

077:43:31 Aldrin (onboard): Did you use this thing?

077:43:33 Armstrong (onboard): No.

077:43:34 Aldrin (onboard): Well, let's get rid of it then. I can't see a crapping [garble].

[This appears to refer to the monocular.]

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077:48:19 Collins (onboard): Oh, shit! This pitch here is no good. 32, huh? Pitch 315 I want to be at, huh? Alright. They keep - all they do is they say Orb-rate and that little attitude right there and right there applies to the rest of this page, all of that page, and over to this page.

077:48:46 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, so that's the one we'll do.

077:48:50 Collins (onboard): Okay, that's the way I'm rolling.

077:48:51 Armstrong (onboard): And we'll take the - we'll have High Gain...

077:48:54 Collins (onboard): Yes.

077:48:55 Armstrong (onboard): ...and we'll get the camera out of the center window, if that looks reasonable.

077:49:02 Collins (onboard): Okay.

077:49:06 Armstrong (onboard): We'll have to give them pictures of the Moon.

077:49:07 Collins (onboard): [Garble]. I've been plotting on them [garble]. 50:05.

077:49:14 Armstrong (onboard): We'll have a gauge as to where we are.

077:49:22 Collins (onboard): 55...

077:50:35 Aldrin (onboard): Outside, huh? Alright, the switch is set for outside.

077:50:41 Collins (onboard): Could I have that map that y'all were looking at before, that lunar map? Thank you.

077:51:03 Armstrong (onboard): Hmmm - here comes the Moon.

077:51:16 Aldrin (onboard): Really beautiful.

077:51:29 Armstrong (onboard): Hey, you...

077:51:30 Collins (onboard): I wonder where we are.

077:51:31 Armstrong (onboard): ...we're going to stop here pretty soon, right?

077:51:33 Collins (onboard): Yes, at 315.

077:51:41 SC (onboard): (Whistling)

077:51:56 Collins (onboard): Man, that's really...

077:51:58 Armstrong (onboard): It really looks gray to me now.

077:52:07 Armstrong (onboard): [Garble]?

077:52:10 Aldrin (onboard): [Garble] right down toward the ground here.

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078:22:10 Armstrong (onboard): ...and you could be busy getting up supplies if you...

078:22:16 Collins (onboard): About a minute from AOS.

078:22:19 Aldrin (onboard): Okay, let's get out of this. Let me get Verb 62. Okay, Mike?

078:22:22 Collins (onboard): Oh, I really need these [garble], Buzz. I really need these goddam [garble].

078:22:26 Aldrin (onboard): Well, we're not going to have much of a TV unless we get High Gain.

078:22:30 Collins (onboard): Alright.

PAO: Mark. 1 minute now from time of predicted acquisition. Continuing to stand by in Mission Control Center, Houston.

078:22:32 Aldrin (onboard): I'll give it back to you - [garble].

078:22:50 Armstrong (onboard): You got yourself some rates going about, like, what you want?

078:22:55 Aldrin (onboard): You got - you got High Gain right now, I mean the angles, right now.

078:23:00 Collins (onboard): And we're 23 - we're 30 seconds from AOS, so those angles should be okay. You reading them?

078:23:08 Armstrong (onboard): Minus 30 pitch...

078:23:10 Collins (onboard): Yes.

078:23:11 Armstrong (onboard): ...150 yaw, okay.

078:23:12 Aldrin (onboard): No, that's not 150 - that's 15. Isn't it?

078:23:14 Armstrong (onboard): Just a second. Yes, minus - I'm sorry, minus 31 and plus 15. Right. You got it?

078:23:27 Collins (onboard): Yes.

PAO: Mark. 10 seconds away now. Standing by for acquisition. We've - we've had AOS by Goldstone. Television is now on. That's Bruce McCandless, our Cap...

078:23:34 Armstrong (onboard): I don't know what f-stop I ought to be at. Well - see what it's doing, Mike?

078:23:42 Collins (onboard): [Garble].

078:23:44 Armstrong (onboard): The flicker I don't know about, the white dot is...

078:23:47 Aldrin (onboard): Yes, the flicker...

078:23:48 Armstrong (onboard): ...the flicker is what I'm - Nothing I can...

078:23:50 Collins (onboard): Okay, we got it solid.

078:23:52 Armstrong (onboard): ...nothing you can do about the flicker?

078:23:55 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

078:23:55 Collins (onboard): Got it solid on Auto.

078:24:09 Aldrin: This is Apollo 11. Are you picking up our signals okay?

078:24:11 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Affirmative. We're reading you loud and clear on voice and we have a good clear TV picture, a little bright crater in the...

078:24:23 Aldrin: ...No, no, no. That's...

078:24:24 McCandless: ...the bottom of the picture. I guess that's the spot on the tube.

078:24:30 Aldrin: I'm sorry about that one.

078:24:33 McCandless: And if you could give us P00 and Accept, we'll uplink a new state vector and target load to you.

078:24:45 Collins: Okay. [Long pause.]

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078:26:24 McCandless: Roger. Do you have a location on that one? [Pause.]

078:26:34 Aldrin: No, not a precise one. I've got several pictures of it, though.

078:26:38 McCandless: Roger. We copy. [Pause.]

PAO: This - That was Buzz Aldrin making a report, geological report on back-side pass.

078:26:47 McCandless: We're getting a beautiful picture in down there now, 11. The color's coming in quite clearly, and we can see the horizon and the relative blackness of space, and without getting into the question of grays and browns, it looks, at least on our monitor, sort of a brownish-gray.

078:27:10 Aldrin: That's a good, reasonable way of describing it. It appears to me as though it made a difference just sitting back in the tunnel and gazing at all windows; it makes a difference which one you're looking out of. For example, the camera right now is looking out the number 5 window, and it definitely gives a rosier or tanner tinge, especially when you look straight through it and not at an angle. Over.

078:27:45 McCandless: Roger.

[At this point in the air-ground recording, the Flight Director's microphone finds its way onto the recorded audio.]

078:27:53 Collins: Oh, we're about 95 or 100 degrees east. Coming up on Smyth's Sea.

078:27:54 Flight: Okay.

078:28:02 McCandless: Say again, 11?

078:28:07 Collins: I'd say again we're about 95 degrees east, coming up on Smyth's Sea.

078:28:11 McCandless: Roger. And for your information, we show you at an altitude of about...

078:28:15 Aldrin: Houston...

McCandless (continued): ...92 miles [170 km] above the surface right now.

078:28:21 Aldrin: Okay.

078:28:22 Aldrin: Houston, Apollo 11. Did you observe a difference in the N₂ pressures before LOI? It seems to me as though the two were not equal on the [garble]... 078:28:33 Flight: Standby.

Aldrin (continued): ...B tank was a lower pressure. Over. [Long pause.]

078:28:40 Flight: Yeah, I think that's right.

078:28:57 Collins: I'm flying it in SCS minimum impulse, Houston, and it's rather difficult to keep it on a constant theta. The LM wants to wander up and down. I'm not sure if it's in response to Mascons or what, but I can get it completely stabilized in theta and let it alone, and in another couple of minutes it will have developed its own rate.

[Mike is flying the stack in 'orb-rate' so that the windows stay facing the Moon as they go around. In this mode, the angle between the spacecraft and the flight path is called 'theta' and is similar in concept to an aircraft's pitch angle. However, there is a phenomenon called gravity gradient stabilisation whereby a spacecraft with an uneven mass distribution (the CSM and LM being a pretty good example) will eventually align itself with its long axis radial to the planet it is orbiting.]

[Mascons are areas on the Moon where there is a mass concentration. These are high density areas below the surface, often beneath lunar maria, which perturb the flight path of orbiting spacecraft. In this case, they have nothing to do with what Mike is experiencing.]

PAO: That was Mike Collins making that report.

078:29:30 Aldrin: Houston, we'll be moving shortly from the side window to the hatch window, and we'll try and pick up some of the landmarks that we'll be looking at as we approach powered descent. Over.

078:29:47 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. Roger. And we're through with the uplink; the computer is yours. You can go to Block and we'll have the information on nitrogen for you shortly. Over.

078:30:01 Aldrin: Roger. Copy. [Pause.]

078:30:08 Collins: Okay, Houston. Several minutes ago I was exactly steady on theta, and since then I have been moving toward the LM, pointed straight down toward the radius vector, and that's been despite a number of down minimum-pitch impulses.

078:30:30 McCandless: Roger. [Long pause.]

078:30:49 Collins: We're over Smyth's Sea right now.

078:30:51 McCandless: Roger.

078:30:56 Collins: We're about 88 degrees east, I would estimate.

078:31:04 McCandless: We show you about south of the - southwest of the crater Jansky right now. [Long pause.]

078:31:28 Collins: Smyth Sea doesn't look very much like a sea. It - The area which is devoid of craters, of which there's not very much, is sort of a hilly looking area. It's not like the maria at all.

078:31:41 McCandless: Roger. We copy that about the sea, and it looks like you were just giving us a view of the crater Neper, the large crater on the left, and Jansky on the right. [Long pause.]

PAO: That exchange between CapCom Bruce McCandless and Mike Collins aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

078:32:06 Collins: We think you're close, but no cigar.

[Comm break.]

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078:33:20 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. Would you care to comment on some of these craters as we go by?

078:33:29 Armstrong: Roger. We're approaching the approach path to ignition. This is equivalent to 13 minutes before ignition, and we're at about 80 degrees east, I guess - 83 degrees east. That correspond to the location you're holding there presently?

078:33:59 McCandless: Roger. We're showing your present position as about 77 - 76 degrees east looking back towards the east. [Pause.]

078:34:16 Collins: Hey, you should be looking back at Smyth Sea now.

078:34:19 McCandless: Roger.

PAO: We've now heard from all three Apollo 11 crewmembers during this television pass. The individual talking earlier was Neil Armstrong.

078:34:23 Armstrong: Okay.

078:34:25 Aldrin: Houston, what you're seeing in the middle of the screen now is the crater Schubert and Gilbert U is in the center right now; and this comes up at about - a little over 12 minutes before powered descent. Instead of me looking - Instead of looking back at it, we'd be looking straight down at that time.

078:34:50 McCandless: Roger.

078:34:55 McCandless: And we show you at an altitude now of about 110 miles. And, of course, you'll be considerably lower at the initiation of powered descent. [Long pause.]

078:35:18 Collins: Okay, Houston. Look at register 3 on the DSKY data. This data is increasing toward my desired of 315; and I'll let the hand controller alone here, and I'll bet you it reverses itself. [Long pause.]

078:35:46 CC: Roger, 11. We're watching the DSKY now, and it's still coming in beautifully on the TV. [Pause.]

078:35:59 Armstrong: Okay. There's - on the right side of the screen at the present time, there's a triple crater with - with a small crater between the first and second; and the one at the bottom of the screen is Schubert Y. [Long pause.] Zoom in - it does have a central peak in Schubert Y. Actually, several of them, and you can observe those, plus the rim craters at the bottom of your screen.

078:36:36 McCandless: Roger. We're seeing the central peak quite clearly now. [Long pause.]

078:36:53 Armstrong: Okay. We're zooming in now on a crater called Schubert N. Schubert N, very conical inside walls and the bottom appears to be nearly flat.

078:37:11 Collins: Look at data on the DSKY. It's stabilized and is holding steady now.

078:37:19 McCandless: Roger.

078:37:20 Armstrong: Looking out the window I can see a number of small craters on the bottom of Schubert N.

078:37:32 Collins: We're coming up on the Foaming Sea where I'll be doing some P22 marking on a crater of my choice; name of crater, KAMP.

[Crater KAMP is not a formal lunar feature name. Rather, it was named by Mike who planned to use it as a navigational landmark much as Jim Lovell used Mount Marilyn for a peak near the crater Secchi. KAMP honours Mike's family, being the initials of his three children and his wife: Kate, Ann, Michael and Patricia. The Foaming Sea, Mare Spumans, is on the eastern limb of the Moon as viwed from Earth.]

078:37:49 Collins: And notice register 3 has reversed itself, and it's heading back the other way now without any pitch thruster firing.

078:37:56 McCandless: Roger, Mike. We confirm that you've changed the direction of your pitch rate. [Long pause.]

078:38:28 Collins: Generally speaking...

078:38:30 Aldrin: The crater...

078:38:31 Collins: ...The tendency seems to be to pull the LM down toward the center of the Moon there as in a gravity gradient experiment.

078:38:40 McCandless: Roger, 11. We copy...

078:38:43 Collins: It may have something to do with mascons or it may...

078:38:46 McCandless: Roger. We copy...

078:38:47 Aldrin: ...

078:38:48 Collins: It may have something to do with Mascons or it may just be the peculiarity of the DSKY display.

078:38:51 McCandless: Okay. We've observed the behavior of your DSKY, and I think we've got the data here to work on it. Let us grind around a little while on it, and we'll report back to you, probably in a rev or two.

078:39:08 Collins: Okay. Well, in the meantime, I'm going to pitch down toward 315.

078:39:14 McCandless: Roger. [Pause.]

078:39:25 Armstrong: Three craters - three horizontal craters that you now have in the field of view are immediately underneath the ground track. The right-hand, and the largest crater that you see, is Dubiago P. [Pause.]

078:39:49 McCandless: Roger. We concur on the identification of that crater. [Pause.]

078:40:01 McCandless: And we show you coming up on landmark Alpha 1 here shortly.

078:40:11 Armstrong: Roger. Mike's having his first look at Alpha 1 at the present time. [Pause.]

078:40:22 Collins: Yeah. It's a great bright crater. It's not a large one but an extremely bright one. It looks like a very recent and, I would guess, impact crater with rays streaming out in all directions which should make my... Correction - the Foaming Sea easy to see coming up on it now. Crater KAMP is one of the smaller ones out on the - on the floor of the Foaming Sea. [Long pause.]

PAO: We've been some 17 minutes now into this television pass and standing by, continuing to monitor.

078:41:34 McCandless: Here we show you over the Sea of Fertility now, and we ought to have Langrenus down south of track a few degrees, about 9 degrees south of track.

078:41:48 Aldrin: Now the crater that's in the center of the screen now is Webb. We'd be looking straight down on it at about 6 minutes before powered descent. It has a relatively flat bottom to the crater, and you can see maybe two or three craters that are in the bottom of it. On the western wall, the wall that's now nearest the - the camera, near the bottom of the screen, we can see a dimple crater, just on the outside. And then coming back toward the bottom of the screen and to the left, you can see a series of depressions. It's this type of connected craters that give us most interest to discover why they're in the particular pattern that they're in. I'll zoom the camera in and try and give you a closer look at this.

078:42:48 McCandless: Roger. We're observing the dimple crater now. The central peak we can see on the Orbiter photos doesn't seem to stand out very well here.

078:43:02 Aldrin: Well, they're not central peaks. They're depressions in the center.

078:43:05 McCandless: Roger.

078:43:08 Collins: And you'll notice on the pitch thruster activity, I've still - I've put in, oh, a dozen minimum impulses in pitch down, and I'm still far from correcting back to 315.

078:43:20 Aldrin: We're moving the camera over to the right window now to give you Langrenus, its - its several central peaks and...

078:43:29 McCandless: Roger. We got Langrenus in our screen now. [Long pause.]

078:43:54 McCandless: Okay, 11. This is Houston. We're getting a beautiful picture of Langrenus now with its rather conspicuous central peak.

078:44:07 Collins: The Sea of Fertility doesn't look very fertile to me. I don't know who named it.

078:44:12 Armstrong: Well, it may have been named by a gentleman whom this crater was named after, Langrenus. Langrenus was a cartographer to the King of Spain and made one of the - one of the early reasonably accurate maps of the Moon.

[To flesh Neil's story out a little more, although Michiel Van Langren was one of the first telescopic mappers of the Moon, almost every name he gave to its surface features failed to stick. Much of the Moon's major nomenclature is attributed to Giovanni Riccioli and only one name has survived from Van Langren's map, the self-named major crater Langrenus.]

078:44:41 Collins: I'll have to admit it sounds better for our purposes than the Sea of Crises.

078:44:46 McCandless: Amen to that.

078:44:52 McCandless: Okay. It looks like you're coming inside now on the camera.

078:44:59 Aldrin: Well, I can't get behind to see the monitor. I'll bring the focus in, but we're going to be looking down past one of the LM quads and one of the antennas, almost straight down at the ground track that we'll be seeing coming in now. I guess this is maybe 2 or 3 minutes before powered descent. [Long pause.]

078:45:37 Aldrin: Alright, that should put the LM structure about in focus, and I'm going to move it out to infinity and then expand the field of view. [Long pause.]

078:46:00 Aldrin: Crater Secchi is out my window now, window number 2. [Pause.]

078:46:09 McCandless: Apollo 11. This is Houston. We show you coming up on the terminator at 78:53, about 7 minutes from now, and we've also got the LOI-2 and TEI-5 PADs ready for you after the TV, whenever you want to terminate. Over.

078:46:31 Aldrin: Roger.

078:46:33 McCandless: And we're getting a good view of the track leading into the landing site now. [Long pause.]

078:46:58 McCandless: Okay. And it looks like we got Secchi K, went by about 10 seconds ago. Coming up on Apollo Ridge. [Long pause.]

078:47:36 McCandless: And in the right-hand portion of our screen right now, we can see Messier Alpha and Bravo with the light-colored rays streaming off in one direction. [Long pause.]

078:48:00 Collins: I don't know if you can make out, but in the Sea of Fertility there are a number of craters that are just barely discernible. Old, old craters whose outlines are just barely able to be seen.

078:48:14 McCandless: Roger. I think we can make them out. The color really enhances our ability to discern features and craters over what we see in real time on our black and white monitor.

078:48:31 Collins: Right. The - At these low Sun angles, there's no trace of brown, it's now returned to a very gray appearance and, like the 8 crew says, it has a look of plaster of paris to it at this Sun angle, which is completely lacking at higher Sun angles.

078:48:49 McCandless: Roger. [Long pause.]

PAO: We're now some 25 minutes into our television pass.

078:49:06 Armstrong: Okay. This is very close to ignition point for powered descent. Just passing Mount Marilyn that - that triangular-shaped mountain that you see in the center of the screen at the present time with crater Secchi Theta on top of the far northern edge of the mountain.

078:49:32 McCandless: Roger. We're getting a good view of Mount Marilyn and of Secchi Theta. [Pause.]

078:49:45 Armstrong: And now we're looking at what we call Boot Hill; occurs 20 seconds into the descent. [Long pause.]

PAO: Watching this pass with a great deal of interest in Mission Control Center is Pete Conrad, the commander for the Apollo 12 mission.

078:50:08 Aldrin: The bright, sharp-rimmed crater at the very right edge of the screen, Censorinus T. [Pause.] Now passing the - the 1-minute point in powered descent.

078:50:30 McCandless: Roger. And for your information, your current altitude is 148 nautical miles [274 km] above the surface. [Pause.]

078:50:52 Armstrong: [Garble].

078:50:43 Collins: I'm unable to determine altitude at all looking out the window. I couldn't tell whether we were down at 60 or up at 170 [111, 315 km resp.].

078:50:50 McCandless: I bet you could tell if you were down at 50,000 feet.

078:50:57 Collins: I wouldn't be surprised. [Long pause.]

078:51:11 Armstrong: We're passing some steep ridges here, the edges of old craters that were photographed by Apollo 10. And those - the crew of Apollo 10 was very impressed with the steepness of these ridges when they came over them at about 50,000 feet.

078:51:36 McCandless: Roger. We can observe they're also steep even from this altitude. You got quite a shadow being cast by the Sun at these low angles.

078:51:47 Armstrong: The entire surface is getting considerably darker than the surface that we looked at previously when the Sun was quite high above us. The crater in the - bright crater in the center of the screen, - well, the smaller one is Censorinus.

078:52:09 McCandless: Roger. And we show you a little over 1 minute from the terminator at the present time. [Long pause.]

078:52:24 Aldrin: How's the brightness of the picture you're receiving? You think we ought to open up the f-stop some as we approach the terminator?

078:52:34 McCandless: Yeah. The brightness is still doing quite well. You can go ahead and open it up a stop or two. The automatic light level compensation seems to be working beautifully. [Long pause.]

078:52:58 Armstrong: There's a good picture of Boot Hill.

078:53:02 McCandless: Roger. We're...

078:53:03 Armstrong: Three minutes and 15 seconds into the descent.

078:53:08 McCandless: Roger. We're seeing Boot Hill now.

078:53:10 Armstrong: And the next crater coming into the bottom, that's Duke Island right there, and to the left, the crater - the largest of the craters near the center of the picture right now is Maskelyne W. This is a position check during descent at about 3 minutes and 39 seconds, and it's our downrange position check and cross-range position check prior to yawing over face-up to acquire the landing radar. Past this point, we would be unable to see the surface below us until getting very near the landing area.

078:53:57 McCandless: Roger. I imagine you get a - you'll get a real good look at that tomorrow afternoon. [Pause.]

078:54:14 Armstrong: Sinuous Rille is the one that was referred to in Apollo 10 as Sidewinder.

078:54:21 Collins: That's a good name, too: Sidewinder and Diamondback. It looks like a couple of snakes down there in a lake bed. [Long pause.]

078:54:42 Armstrong: And we're approaching the terminator now. See the...

078:54:48 McCandless: Roger.

078:54:49 Armstrong: ...contrast has increased and only the sunlit side of these ridges remain illuminated, while the dark sides and the shadow will become completely black.

078:54:59 McCandless: 11, this is Houston. The picture's getting a little grainy now. You might go ahead and open up the f-stop. [Long pause.]

078:55:19 Collins: Landing point is just barely in the darkness. That one crater, the upper part of which you see, lower part completely in darkness. The small, well-defined crater is Moltke, which is about abeam of the landing site.

078:55:32 McCandless: Roger. We can just see - it looks like a little less than half of its rim right now. [Pause.]

078:55:45 McCandless: And we can make out, just barely, some features on the surface, maybe from Earthshine. [Pause.]

078:55:58 McCandless: Are you wide open on the f-stop at this time?

078:56:03 Collins/Aldrin: Affirmative/we are.

078:56:06 Aldrin: Yeah. And it looks like we're just about to get the Sun coming into the lens, so we'll have to move the camera away.

078:56:12 McCandless: Roger.

078:56:14 Collins: We can't see any Earthshine or any surface features at all in Earthshine now, due to the fact that the LM is very bright and is causing our pupils to contract.

078:56:25 Aldrin: It's a very fantastic view to see the terminator as you look along the edge of it. I think you'll agree that some of these craters that you're seeing in the picture now are really accentuated by the lengthening of the shadows as they approach the terminator.

078:56:42 McCandless: Yes. It's a very beautiful and a rugged sight that we've got on the screen now. [Pause.]

078:56:52 Collins: And I think you've got some interesting data on thruster firings versus pitch angle. It looks like that LM just wants to head down towards the surface, is all.

078:57:01 McCandless: Roger. I have a comment here that says that's what the LM was built for.

078:57:12 Collins: I believe! [Long pause.]

078:57:45 Aldrin: And as the Moon sinks slowly in the west, Apollo 11 bids good day to you.

078:57:50 McCandless: Roger. We sort of thought it was the Sun setting in the east.

PAO: There you have it. Our first glimpse of the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. The eleven crew took us on a guided tour of the front side, plus talked their way through the powered descent that lies ahead in tomorrow's activities. At 78 hours, 58 minutes into the flight of Apollo 11; this is Apollo Control, Houston, continuing to monitor.

078:58:00 Collins: Well, it depends on your point of view.

078:58:04 McCandless: Roger. Out.

078:58:20 McCandless: Apollo 11, Houston. When you're ready to copy, I have an LOI-2 PAD and a TEI-5 PAD. Over.

078:58:30 Collins: Okay. Stand by.

078:58:46 Collins: I'm passing 182 inertial. I'm going inertial now.

078:58:54 Aldrin: Ready to copy LOI-2 PAD.

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079:01:55 Aldrin: Roger, LOI-2: SPS/G&N: 38320, plus 1.66, minus 0.81; 080:11:36.03; minus 0140.8, minus all balls, minus 0074.3. All zeros, 196, 359; 0065.7, plus 0053.7; 0159.2, 0:17, 0153.1; 23, 116.0, 13.8. Vega, Deneb, 243, 183, 012; two jet, 19 seconds. DAP; R1, 20101. Sextant star between 79:30:10 and 79:52:10. Attitude is heads down, retrograde pitched up 28 degrees. H_A after the burn - Was that Noun 42 for H_A and 64.6 and H_P 54.6? Over.

079:03:19 McCandless: Roger. On the Noun 42 value, the last stuff you gave, H_A is 65.6, H_P is 54.6. Otherwise, I readback correct. I'm standing by with your TEI-5 PAD. Over.

079:03:37 Aldrin: Roger. H_A 65.6 for Noun 42. And ready to copy.

[The PAD is interpreted as follows:

Purpose: The LOI-2 PAD gives the necessary parameters for their second burn to properly insert into lunar orbit at about 110-km (60-nm) altitude. Their first LOI burn brought them into lunar orbit but was deliberately made slightly short so that any errors would not put the spacecraft at risk of impacting the Moon. LOI-2 is a relatively small burn and leaves teh CSM in the orbit it will keep for the remainder of its time at the Moon.

Systems: The burn will be made using the large SPS (Service Propulsion System) engine at the rear of the Service Module, under the control of the Guidance and Navigation system.

CSM Weight (Noun 47): 38,320 pounds (17,382 kg).

Pitch and yaw trim (Noun 48): +1.66° and -0.81°. These are the angles through which the SPS engine should be swivelled to ensure its thrust acts through the spacecraft's centre of gravity.

Time of ignition, T_IG (Noun 33): 80 hours, 11 minutes, 36.03 seconds. The burn will occur about halfway around the far side as the spacecraft reaches its pericynthion, the lowest point in its orbit.

Change in velocity (Noun 81), fps (m/s): x, -104.8 (-31.9); y is zero; z, -74.3 (-22.6). Since the change in velocity is expressed relative to the Local Vertical/Local Horizontal frame of reference, we can see that this burn is a pure retrograde burn and therefore meant to slow the spacecraft down with respect to the Moon.

Spacecraft attitude: Roll, 0°; Pitch, 196°; Yaw, 359°. The desired spacecraft attitude is measured relative to the alignment of the guidance platform. The current alignment of the platform was set prior to their entry into lunar orbit and was calculated to match the orientation, in space, of the landing site at the time of landing. This orientation is called the 'Landing Site REFSMMAT'. This is interestingly different from both earlier and later flights. It was more usual on Apollo for the LOI burns to be made using a REFSMMAT specifically calculated for them. This was arranged so that the FDAI displays would read 0,0,0 during the burns and allow them to be easier to interpret. LOI needed to be accurate to avoid the possibility of a wayward burn taking the spacecraft into the Moon's surface.

H_A, expected apocynthion of resulting orbit (Noun 44): 65.7 nautical miles (121.7 km).

H_P, expected pericynthion of resulting orbit (Noun 44): +53.7 nautical miles (+99.5 km). The inclusion of the plus sign is a welcome confirmation that their pericynthion is above the surface of the Moon and not below it.

Delta-V_T: 159.2 fps (48.5 m/s). This is the total change in velocity the spacecraft would experience. (It is a vector sum of the three components given above.)

Burn duration or burn time: 17 seconds.

Delta-V_C: 153.1 fps (46.7 m/s). This value is entered into the Delta-V display of the EMS (Entry Monitor System) panel. This figure will descend to zero as the engine burns. If the Guidance and Control System fails to stop the burn, the EMS will do so but it has to be given a low Delta-V figure to take account of the engine's tail-off thrust after shutdown.

Sextant star: Star 23 (Denebola, Beta Leonis) visible in sextant when shaft and trunnion angles are 116.0° and 13.8° respectively. This is an attitude check.

Other parameters on the PAD sheet are not applicable to this maneuver.

GDC align stars: Stars to be used for GDC align purposes are Vega and Deneb. The align angles are roll, 243°; pitch, 183°; yaw, 12°.

An ullage burn of 19 seconds using two of the aft-facing thrusters is required to settle the contents of the SPS propellant tanks.

There are a bunch of comments at the end of the PAD, some of which are self-explanatory. The first refers to the Digitial Auto-Pilot (DAP). The values entered into a particular register adjust how the computer controls the spacecraft's attitude. There is then a point about when a particular star can be used as an attitude reference. Next is a brief description of their attitude during the burn and finally a note about the calculated values for their orbit's apolune and perilune.]

079:04:44 Aldrin: Roger. TEI-5 SPS/G&N: 37201, minus 0.60, plus 0.47; 086:09:36.66; plus 3352.1, plus 0344.1, minus 0145-458, NA, 032. The rest is NA. Two jet, 16 seconds, undocked. Over.

079:05:16 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Readback is correct. Out. [Long pause.]

[The PAD is interpreted as follows:

Purpose: The PAD is for an emergency burn to return to Earth at the end of Rev 5.

Systems: The burn would be made using the SPS engine, under the control of the Guidance and Navigation system.

CSM Weight (Noun 47): 37,201 pounds (16,874 kg).

Pitch and yaw trim (Noun 48): -0.6° and +0.47°.

Time of ignition (Noun 33): 86 hours, 9 minutes, 36.66 seconds.

Change in velocity (Noun 81), fps (m/s): x, +3,352.1 (+1,021.7); y, +344.1 (+104.9); z, -145.8 (-44.4).

The large positive number in the X direction implies a large prograde component, essentially adding to their orbital velocity, exactly what would be expected from an escape maneuver.

Spacecraft attitude: Roll, NA; Pitch, 32°.

All the subsequent items on the form are not applicable to this maneuver.

The final comments are that there should be an ullage maneuver prior to the burn of 16 seconds using two rearwards-facing thrusters, and that the maneuver would be made after undocking from the LM.]

079:05:44 Collins Houston, you want us back on downvoice backup? Over.

079:05:49 McCandless: Apollo 11, this is Houston. That's affirmative on the downvoice backup. We'd like you to confirm your Up-telemtry switch in the Normal position. Over.

079:06:04 Collins: Roger. It's in Block. Did you get us the - You got us a new CSM state vector and an LOI-2 target load in between all that television, didn't you?

079:06:13 McCandless: That's affirmative.

079:06:16 McCandless: And what I'm asking for is the switchover to...

079:06:17 Collins (under McCandless): Thank you.

079:06:18 Aldrin: The Up-telemetry switch is in Normal. Over.

079:06:22 McCandless: Roger. Out.

[Very long comm break.]

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079:21:57 Collins: Go ahead, Houston.

079:21:58 McCandless: Roger. During the LOI-1 burn, your engine burned a little bit more propellant than we predicted, and consequently, we'd like to update - or send you a new TEI-4 PAD. Over.

079:22:19 Collins: Okay.

079:22:23 Collins: Our chamber pressure onboard was higher that time, too. It's all on the onboard tape, the time entry, and the chamber pressure. But to make a long story short, it worked its way up to 100.

079:22:34 McCandless: Roger.

079:22:39 McCandless: And down here, we showed a chamber pressure of, on the order of, 103 to 104 psi during your burn on playback.

079:22:50 Collins: Okay.

079:22:52 Armstrong: Go ahead with the TEI-4.

079:22:54 McCandless: Roger. TEI-4 revised: SPS/G&N: 38320, minus 0.55, plus 0.60; 084:30:27.49; plus 3138.0, plus 0347.5, minus 0103.2; roll NA: pitch, 034. Rest of the PAD is NA. Ullage two jets, 16 seconds, undocked. No LOI-2. Over. [Pause.]

079:23:52 Armstrong: Understand; TEI-4 SPS/G&N: 38320, minus 0.55, plus 0.60; 084:30:27.49; plus 3138.0, plus 0347.5, minus 0103.2; NA, 034. All the rest of the PAD's NA. Two jets, 16 seconds, undocked. No LOI-2.

[The PAD is interpreted as follows:

Purpose: The PAD is a revised version for an emergency burn to return to Earth at the end of Rev 4.

Systems: The burn would be made using the SPS engine, under the control of the Guidance and Navigation system.

CSM Weight (Noun 47): 38,320 pounds (17,382 kg).

Pitch and yaw trim (Noun 48): -0.55° and +0.6°.

Time of ignition (Noun 33): 84 hours, 30 minutes, 27.49 seconds.

Change in velocity (Noun 81), fps (m/s): x, +3,138 (+956.5); y, +347.5 (+105.9); z, -103.2 (-31.5).

The large positive number in the X direction implies a large prograde component, essentially adding to their orbital velocity, exactly what would be expected from an escape maneuver.

Spacecraft attitude: Roll, NA; Pitch, 34°.

All the subsequent items on the form are not applicable to this maneuver.

The final comments are that there should be an ullage maneuver prior to the burn of 16 seconds using two rearwards-facing thrusters, that the maneuver would be made after undocking from the LM, and it assumes the crew would not have made the LOI-2 maneuver.]

[Long comm break.]

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079:32:24 Aldrin: Roger. Go ahead, Houston.

079:32:26 McCandless: Roger. We've been looking at your systems data on playback, and everything is looking good. In particular, the SPS looks good. We'd like to remind you, though, of a request to perform this burn on the Bank A ball valves only, and you are Go for LOI-2. Also, we have currently in the Flight Plan, you scheduled tomorrow to start entering the LM at about 96 hours GET, and we'd like to know if you have any plans to initiate this ingress into the LM earlier. If so, we can call the people in ahead of time. Over. [Pause.]

079:33:15 Aldrin: Well, we didn't have any plans to, no. We just wanted to be ready at that time.

079:33:20 McCandless: Roger. We just wanted to make sure that we were ready when you were ready. Over.

079:33:27 Aldrin: Okay. And to get the sextant star in LOI-2, that's roll zero. Is that affirmative?

079:33:38 McCandless: That's affirmative. Roll zero.

079:33:43 Aldrin: Okay.

[Long comm break.]

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079:43:58 Aldrin: Apollo 11. Roger. Thank you.

079:44:00 McCandless: Roger. Out.

[Comm break.]

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079:46:41 Collins: Apollo 11. Roger.

079:46:43 McCandless: Make that your friendly...

079:46:43 Aldrin: Thank you, Bruce. [Garble] green.

McCandless (continued): ...Your friendly White Team CapCom will see you when you come out from behind the Moon. I think it's basically the Maroon Team here, and we Greenies are leaving.

079:46:56 Collins: Okay. I don't blame you, Hank.

079:47:06 McCandless: I'd rather be up there.

[Very long comm break.]

079:48:01 Collins (onboard): Another 5 minutes, Neil babe.

079:48:05 Armstrong (onboard): Okay.

PAO: 10 seconds.

079:48:20 Aldrin (onboard): This pitch angle is quite a bit off nominal; 196 instead of 212.

079:48:24 Collins (onboard): Umm.

079:48:26 Aldrin (onboard): 16 degrees.

079:48:28 Collins (onboard): Yes, Shaffer screwed up - got to get his eccentric orbit.

[Phil Shaffer was Flight Dynamics Officer. He died in 2007. The eccentric orbit post-LOI-2 was done to compensate to some extent for the lunar mascons. The hope was that by making it eccentric in the first place, it will circularise itself by the time of rendezvous with Eagle's ascent stage.]

079:49:21 Collins (onboard): We is there.

079:49:27 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, I think I got Denebola in sight. Let me look at the - Sure enough, I do. And it's good enough in the telescope. Let me check it through the sextant. It's even in the sextant.

079:49:41 Collins (onboard): Beautiful! Fantastic!

079:49:44 Aldrin (onboard): Let's burn.

079:49:45 Armstrong (onboard): That's Manual and Zero - Zero and Manual.

079:49:51 Collins (onboard): We done paid our debt to society. We done made a star check. 79:50...

079:49:58 Armstrong (onboard): It used to be that you couldn't get control on LOI-2; that any burn, any attitude you made was safer than the regular attitude, but that isn't true any more.

079:50:07 Aldrin (onboard): Yes.

079:50:09 Collins (onboard): Okay, we got the Optics, Zero?

079:50:14 Aldrin (onboard): Yes, I'm sure it is.

079:50:16 Collins (onboard): And we're not going to do any Verb 41, Noun 91, any of that stuff...?

079:50:20 Aldrin (onboard): No [garble].

079:50:21 Collins (onboard): ...so you can - enter on this one.

079:50:26 Armstrong (onboard): Okay. Optics, Zero, Zero, huh?

079:50:29 Collins (onboard): No!

079:50:31 Armstrong (onboard): Supposed to be 0.7.

079:50:32 Collins (onboard): Oh.

079:50:33 Armstrong (onboard): Okay?

079:50:35 Collins (onboard): Verb 37, Enter. 40, Enter.

079:50:46 Collins (onboard): How does that look?

079:50:48 Armstrong (onboard): Looks beautiful. You enter on it, huh?

079:50:51 Collins (onboard): No. Leave it there.

079:50:52 Armstrong (onboard): Alright.

079:50:56 Collins (onboard): Align spacecraft roll, GDC Align.

079:51:06 Armstrong (onboard): Yes, here we go - [garble] doesn't look bad.

079:51:10 Collins (onboard): No, I just got through aligning it a little while ago.

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079:51:42 Collins (onboard): Okay, GDC's aligned.

079:51:46 Armstrong (onboard): Okay.

079:51:48 Aldrin (onboard): Check the circuit breakers.

079:51:50 Collins (onboard): Alright. I got...

079:51:54 Aldrin (onboard): SCS circuit breakers.

079:51:56 Collins (onboard): SCS; they're all in.

079:51:58 Aldrin (onboard): SPS, 12, closed.

079:52:00 Collins (onboard): SPS, 12 of them.

079:52:02 Aldrin (onboard): Att Deadband, Minimum.

079:52:04 Collins (onboard): Minimum.

079:52:05 Aldrin (onboard): Rate, Low?

079:52:06 Collins (onboard): Rate, Low.

079:52:07 Aldrin (onboard): Limit Cycle, On?

079:52:08 Collins (onboard): On.

079:52:11 Aldrin (onboard): Man Att, three, to Rate Command.

079:52:14 Collins (onboard): Okay, Manual Attitude, three, Rate Command. And - sunrise.

079:52:23 Aldrin (onboard): Sunrise's going to be 52:10 - and I missed [garble].

079:52:31 Aldrin (onboard): Man Att, three, to Rate Command, you got that?

079:52:33 Collins (onboard): Three, Rate Command.

079:52:34 Aldrin (onboard): BMAG Mode, three of them, to Rate 2.

079:52:35 Collins (onboard): Three to Rate 2.

079:52:36 Aldrin (onboard): Rot Control Power, Direct, two of them, Off.

079:52:38 Collins (onboard): Off - Off.

079:52:41 Aldrin (onboard): SCS TVC, two, to Rate Command.

079:52:44 Collins (onboard): Two to Rate Command.

079:52:45 Aldrin (onboard): TVC Gimbal Drive, Pitch and Yaw, Auto.

079:52:49 Collins (onboard): Pitch and Yaw, Auto.

079:52:52 Aldrin (onboard): Okay, what time do you have?

079:52:54 Collins (onboard): Okay, we've got - 18 minutes, roughly.

079:53:04 Aldrin (onboard): That TVC gimbal drive's taking up the power?

079:53:09 Collins (onboard): TVC...

079:53:10 Aldrin (onboard): Putting out?

079:53:11 Collins (onboard): ...Servo Power?

079:53:12 Aldrin (onboard): No. The TVC Gimbal Drive, Pitch and Yaw, to Auto. That didn't do anything, did it?

079:53:19 Collins (onboard): No. No, that didn't do a thing. Servo power's what takes it.

079:53:28 Armstrong (onboard): You know not to leave them on too long.

079:53:42 Aldrin (onboard): 19 seconds to ullage; two jets.

079:53:45 Collins (onboard): Okay, 19 seconds, two jets.

079:53:50 Aldrin (onboard): A valves only.

079:53:52 Collins (onboard): Okay.

079:54:06 Aldrin (onboard): What did you get out of P30 as far as H_A and H_P?

079:54:10 Armstrong (onboard): I got the right numbers.

079:54:12 Aldrin (onboard): 65.7, 53.7?

079:54:16 Armstrong (onboard): You got these?

079:54:23 Aldrin (onboard): Yes. 65.6, 54.6. [Garble] should get those up.

079:56:21 Aldrin (onboard): Now, let's see, we can take off the 16-millimeter magazines and the 70-millimeter magazines.

079:56:44 Collins (onboard): I've got your stopwatch.

079:57:46 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, burn time is...

079:57:49 Collins (onboard): Light the motor.

079:57:50 Armstrong (onboard): ...17 and 1 second overburn, almost [garble] minutes.

079:57:57 Collins (onboard): Do it right here.

079:58:07 Aldrin (onboard): When's T_IG?

079:58:09 Collins (onboard): 11.

079:58:10 Armstrong (onboard): 80:11:36.

079:58:22 Collins (onboard): 17 seconds - 17 plus 1, huh?

079:58:49 Aldrin (onboard): Those little - fluorescent things on there must be from the heat and transfer.

079:58:54 Armstrong (onboard): Where are they? On the Command Module?

079:58:56 Aldrin (onboard): No.

079:58:57 Armstrong (onboard): On the LM?

079:58:58 Aldrin (onboard): No.

079:58:59 Armstrong (onboard): I don't know, but the Command Module's got about [garble].

079:59:01 Aldrin (onboard): Little fluorescent - circles?

079:59:04 Armstrong (onboard): There's one of them.

079:59:07 Aldrin (onboard): There's some in a lot of failures.

079:59:10 Collins (onboard): The only thing is all the engineering that went into those damn things, too. There's a lot of time and money down the pipe.

079:59:15 Aldrin (onboard): I mean, this big monstrosity out here, it fails...

079:59:17 Armstrong (onboard): Hey, we're coming up - You can see the horizon...

079:59:38 Collins (onboard): See if that looks pretty good - through the sextant and see if that doesn't come up.

079:59:47 Collins (onboard): Zap.

079:59:56 Aldrin (onboard): Sure has been [garble] back here.

080:00:05 Collins (onboard): Poor old LM is contaminated. It's got urine particles all over it. And, the way the light's shining here, they look yellow. You know, those little - I guess it probably is a little - solid now, the - everything else has boiled off and it's left a little solid.

080:00:23 Armstrong (onboard): [Garble], huh?

080:00:26 Aldrin (onboard): [garble] solid urine particles are [garble].

080:00:29 Armstrong (onboard): I guess.

080:00:34 Aldrin (onboard): Wait until the back contam - forward contamination people hear about that.

080:00:38 Armstrong (onboard): Yes.

080:00:41 Aldrin (onboard): No more urine dumps on the way to the Moon. Put it all in a nice little bag and...

080:00:58 Collins (onboard): You're not - you've got plenty of black and white film, don't you?

080:01:01 Armstrong (onboard): Yes, plenty of black and white film.

080:01:04 Aldrin (onboard): [Garble] terminator, 4.

080:01:07 Collins (onboard): Use as much as you want of anything you want. 80 millimeter, 250, it's all good.

080:01:20 Collins (onboard): We got 20 minutes until T_IG. Oh, excuse me, 10 minutes - 10 minutes until T_IG, excuse me. A little over 10. 80:11...

080:01:31 Aldrin (onboard): Give me a call at about 7 minutes to go.

080:01:35 Collins (onboard): Okay, right now...

080:01:36 Collins (onboard): Mark it.

080:01:41 Aldrin (onboard): Yes, siree! That there is rough - rough terrain.

080:01:54 Aldrin (onboard): I've got kind of an idea that I'm going to be getting a picture of that - [garble].

080:02:44 Aldrin (onboard): [Garble] all those characters back there.

080:03:16 Collins (onboard): 8 minutes until T_IG.

080:03:48 Aldrin (onboard): Boy, there's a crater right in the side of the wall.

080:03:54 Collins (onboard): It's a much bigger crater, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look like it just went in sideways.

080:04:02 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, 7 minutes. Okay?

080:04:13 Aldrin (onboard): [Garble] going to do it...

080:04:18 Collins (onboard): Buzz, you want to read us that checklist? We'll use my panel chart. Which checklist would you like?

080:04:32 Aldrin (onboard): Alright, Main Bus Ties coming On.

080:04:34 Collins (onboard): Okay. 7 minutes...

080:04:37 Collins (onboard): Mark.

080:04:40 Collins (onboard): AC's On - DC's On.

080:04:46 Aldrin (onboard): TVC Servo Power, number 1, AC 1.

080:04:48 Collins (onboard): AC 1.

080:04:50 Aldrin (onboard): TVC 2, AC 2.

080:04:51 Collins (onboard): AC 2.

080:04:52 Aldrin (onboard): Trans Control Power, On.

080:04:54 Collins (onboard): Translation Control Power.

080:04:56 Aldrin (onboard): Rotation Control Power, Normal, number 2, to AC.

080:04:58 Collins (onboard): AC.

080:04:59 Aldrin (onboard): Rotational Hand Controller, number 2, Armed.

080:05:01 Collins (onboard): Number 2, Armed.

080:05:16 Aldrin (onboard): Oh, I see those current - current [garble] went down on the fuel cells. [Garble] right down here.

080:05:24 Collins (onboard): The batteries are carrying the...

080:05:34 Armstrong (onboard): 6 minutes.

080:05:52 Collins (onboard): About ready for a gimbal motor or two?

080:05:55 Aldrin (onboard): Alright. Let's try - Pitch l, Yaw 1.

080:05:58 Collins (onboard): Here comes Pitch 1...

080:05:59 Collins (onboard): Mark it.

080:06:00 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:06:01 Collins (onboard): Yaw 1...

080:06:02 Collins (onboard): Mark it.

080:06:03 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:06:04 Collins (onboard): Okay.

080:06:05 Aldrin (onboard): Translation Controller, clockwise.

080:06:06 Collins (onboard): Clockwise.

080:06:07 Aldrin (onboard): Verify no MTVC.

080:06:11 Collins (onboard): Verified.

080:06:12 Aldrin (onboard): Alright.

080:06:14 Collins (onboard): Gimbal Motors, Pitch 2 and Yaw 2, On. Pitch 2...

080:06:17 Collins (onboard): Mark it.

080:06:18 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:06:19 Collins (onboard): Yaw 2...

080:06:20 Collins (onboard): Mark it.

080:06:21 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:06:23 Collins (onboard): Set GPI trim.

080:06:26 Collins (onboard): Okay, what numbers do we use?

080:06:31 Armstrong (onboard): 166 - and let me see - and minus 0.81.

080:06:43 Collins (onboard): Plus 166 and minus 0.81?

080:06:47 Armstrong (onboard): Yes.

080:06:48 Collins (onboard): Verify MTVC. Okay, there's trim set...

080:06:53 Armstrong (onboard): See if we nulled residuals and all that. [Garble]...

080:06:55 Collins (onboard): MTVC is verified.

080:06:58 Armstrong (onboard): ...[garble] time on it - what? Okay.

080:07:01 Aldrin (onboard): Alright, Translation Controller, Neutral.

080:07:04 Collins (onboard): Neutral.

080:07:06 Aldrin (onboard): Verify GPI returns to zero, zero.

080:07:08 Collins (onboard): Verified.

080:07:09 Aldrin (onboard): ROT Control Power, number 2 - ROT Control Power, Normal, number 2, to AC/DC.

080:07:14 Collins (onboard): AC/DC.

080:07:15 Aldrin (onboard): Spacecraft Control, CMC, verify.

080:07:17 Collins (onboard): CMC verified. How are the needles, Buzz? Showing up good?

080:07:21 Aldrin (onboard): No, we don't need it yet. Alright, BMAG Mode, three of them, to Att 1/Rate 2.

080:07:24 Collins (onboard): Att 1/Rate 2.

080:07:26 Aldrin (onboard): Enter.

080:07:28 Collins (onboard): Enter.

080:07:29 Aldrin (onboard): You got a 204?

080:07:30 Collins (onboard): Yes.

080:07:31 Aldrin (onboard): Spacecraft Control, CMC and Auto, huh?

080:07:33 Collins (onboard): Yes.

080:07:34 Aldrin (onboard): Alright.

080:07:35 Collins (onboard): And we got 4 minutes until T_IG.

080:07:38 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, go. Up - down - zero. It really shakes. Up - down - zero.

[This is the SPS engine gimbals being tested. As the engine bell sways, the spacecraft reacts in the opposite direction.]

[MP3 audio file. 1,165 kB.]

080:10:55 Collins (onboard): Okay, stand by for...

PAO: Mark. 30 seconds. Continuing to monitor - or read those displays that gave us our final readout prior to our passage to the backside of the Moon.

080:11:07 Unidentified speaker (onboard): [Garble].

080:11:07 Aldrin (onboard): EMS Mode to Normal?

080:11:08 Collins (onboard): EMS Mode, Normal. Stand by for ullage. [Garble].

080:11:17 Aldrin (onboard): 20, 19...

080:11:19 Collins (onboard): Ullage.

080:11:21 Aldrin (onboard): You got the ullage?

080:11:22 Collins (onboard): Yes.

080:11:23 Aldrin (onboard): Okay. [Garble]?

PAO: Mark. 10 seconds.

080:11:27 Collins (onboard): Yes. Whoops...

080:11:29 Aldrin (onboard): You want this [garble]? Alright.

PAO: Mark. 5 seconds. We won't know for sure how the burn comes out until we reacquire.

080:11:32 Collins (onboard): [Garble] and Thrust B.

PAO: Mark. Planned time for ignition. At 80 hours, 12 minutes now into the flight of Apollo 11, this is Apollo Control, Houston.

080:11:37 Aldrin (onboard): A?

080:11:39 Collins (onboard): A, open.

080:11:44 Armstrong (onboard): She's holding - she's holding - [garble] looks good.

080:11:50 Collins (onboard): She's all over.

080:11:51 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, stand by for shutdown...

080:11:53 Armstrong (onboard): Shutdown!

080:11:54 Aldrin (onboard): Shutdown, two valves, closed; two, barber pole.

080:11:56 Armstrong (onboard): Okay, Delta-V Thrust, Normal, A, is Off. Stand by for the Gimbal Motors, Off.

080:12:00 Collins (onboard): Pitch 1, Off...

080:12:01 Collins (onboard): Mark.

080:12:02 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:12:03 Collins (onboard): Yaw l, Off...

080:12:04 Collins (onboard): Mark.

080:12:05 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:12:06 Collins (onboard): Pitch 2, Off...

080:12:07 Collins (onboard): Mark.

080:12:08 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:12:09 Collins (onboard): Yaw 2, Off...

080:12:10 Collins (onboard): Mark.

080:12:11 Aldrin (onboard): Got it.

080:12:12 Collins (onboard): Four Gimbal Motors, Off.

080:12:13 Collins/Aldrin (onboard): TVC Servo Power, Off.

080:12:14 Collins (onboard): Both Off.

080:12:15 Armstrong (onboard): Main Bus Ties: AC, Off; DC, Off.

080:12:18 Aldrin (onboard): Verified.

080:12:20 Collins (onboard): Proceed - and look at these...

080:12:28 Armstrong (onboard): [Garble]?

080:12:29 Aldrin (onboard): No, we don't need that.

080:12:33 Armstrong (onboard): Pretty nice-looking engine. [Garble].

080:12:40 Collins (onboard): 0.3 zero, and zero is [garble].

080:12:43 Aldrin (onboard): Alright. Get the EMS Function, Off - How about going Att Deadband, Max?

080:12:47 Collins (onboard): Okay, we're - we're in DAP control.

080:12:52 Aldrin (onboard): Alright, EMS Function, Off. You got the Delta-V_C?.

080:12:55 Armstrong (onboard): Yes - [garble].

080:12:56 Aldrin (onboard): EMS Mode, Stand by.

080:12:57 Collins (onboard): Okay.

080:12:58 Aldrin (onboard): BMAG Mode, three, to Rate 2.

080:12:59 Collins (onboard): Three to Rate 2.

080:13:00 Aldrin (onboard): Att Deadband, Max.

080:13:01 Collins (onboard): Max.

080:13:02 Aldrin (onboard): PCM Bit Rate going to Low. ROT Control Power, Direct, two of them, Off.

080:13:04 Collins (onboard): Off.

080:13:05 Aldrin (onboard): Circuit breakers, Pitch 1, Yaw 1, Pitch 2, Yaw 2, Open? Proceed and go to Verb 82. No!

080:13:21 Collins (onboard): Why not?

080:13:22 Aldrin (onboard): That isn't what it says. It says [garble] and go to P00 [garble].

080:13:25 Armstrong (onboard): You get this...

080:13:28 Aldrin (onboard): ...I want to get the circuit breakers...

080:13:32 Collins (onboard): Up to [garble], and I want to get Average g off, there we go, it's in P00 - Verb 82.

080:13:42 Aldrin (onboard): All those listening to the tape, please report that - we need a change in the checklist.

[Although no-one other than his crewmates can currently hear this, Buzz is leaving a message to those who will review the tape after the mission.]

[MP3 audio file. 3,574 kB.]

080:32:35 Armstrong (onboard): Well, you might save that for some Earth shots.

080:32:49 Aldrin (onboard): Wow!

080:32:53 Armstrong (onboard): [Garble].

080:32:55 Collins (onboard): You got it, huh?

PAO: Mark. 30 seconds.

080:33:04 Aldrin (onboard): I think it focused the second one a little bit better. I think it's beautiful. Just fabulous. Not really sure what you're looking at - but there's some mighty big fresh rocks down in that crater.

PAO: Mark. 10 seconds from predicted time of acquisition.

080:33:37 Aldrin (onboard): The walls actually look pock-marked. Sure enough, and they're not filled in. Pock-marked, and it looks like somebody's painted white paint vertically down the edges and then it's been eaten away.

080:34:15 Aldrin (onboard): [Garble] that one [garble] into the LM.

080:34:38 Collins (onboard): Here is the Earth. Hey, I got the view over here.

PAO: Goldstone has acquired Apollo 11.

080:34:44 Aldrin (onboard): I guess I'd better get the High Gain off, hadn't I?

080:34:49 Armstrong (onboard): Did it just come up?

080:34:50 Collins (onboard): Yes.

080:34:53 Aldrin (onboard): We need that [garble].

080:34:56 Collins (onboard): Do we still got High Gain?

080:34:58 Armstrong (onboard): Yes.

PAO: This is Apollo Control, Houston, standing by at this time at 80 hours, 35 minutes.

080:35:01 Collins (onboard): It's says minus 67 and zero.

080:35:06 Aldrin (onboard): Minus 67 and zero.

080:35:09 Collins (onboard): And zero.

080:35:10 Aldrin (onboard): Okay, Manual - and - Auto - medium. There we go. Can't make up his mind between zero and - 360. Okay, we got them.

080:35:30 Armstrong (onboard): Okay.

[Now successfully in the correct lunar orbit for tomorrow's departure of the Lunar Module, Apollo 11 is about to emerge from behind the Moon and resume radio contact with Mission Control.]

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