Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal

 

ALSEP Off-load EVA-1 Closeout

 

Drilling Troubles

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1996 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan and panorama assembly credits in the Image Library.
Video credits in the Video Library.
Except where noted, audio clips by David Shaffer.
Last revised 3 July 2017.

 

MP3 Audio Clip ( 18 min 09 sec )

124:30:37 Irwin: Okay, Joe. On the shorting switch, I'm reading about 0.8.

124:30:42 Allen: Roger. (Pause)

[The shorting switch diverts the current generated in the RTG through a resistance circuit until Dave and Jim have deployed the ALSEP instruments and are ready to power them up. Jim is on LMP-19. LMP-17 and LMP-18 are halves of a sketch map of the planned ALSEP deployment. If Jim is reading LMP-19 and turns to the previous page, the two halves of the map are both visible. See, also, page 181 in the Lunar Surface Procedures volume.]
124:30:54 Scott: Joe, I might make a comment that it's very difficult to find the Earth in the field-of-view with this sight glass, even with the extension out on the thing. It's just almost too dim. Having a tough time.

124:31:09 Allen: Okay, Dave. Thank you. Important information.

[Although there is no discussion of this problem in the Apollo 15 Mission Report, improvements were made for Apollo 16 and 17 and neither John Young nor Gene Cernan had any particular problems in orienting the high-gain antenna.]
124:31:16 Scott: Okay. (As per CDR-19) Going TV Remote now. (Brief Static)

124:31:23 Irwin: Okay. (As per Proc. p.73) RTG cable is connected (to the Central Station).

124:31:26 Allen: Thank you. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 42 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPG )

[TV on. The TV is pointed aft and we start with a view of the low-gain antenna. Dave is at Jim's seat, removing the LR-cubed. After a few moments, he carries it around the back of the Rover to a position just down-Sun of his seat. Indeed, we briefly see the low-gain shadow on the LR-cubed as Dave tries to find a spot where he can set the LR-cubed down without it tipping over.]

[Scott - "Tell somebody to dust off the TV lens."]

124:32:29 Allen: And, Dave and Jim, we have...

124:32:30 Scott: Okay. (As per CDR-19) LR cubed is off (the Rover).

124:32:31 Allen: ...a beautiful TV picture again.

124:32:35 Scott: Good! (Pause) No good place to set it (the LR-cubed), so it won't fall over. (Pause) There. (Pause) Hey, Jim, when you pick up the LR-cubed be careful you don't knock her over. (Pause)

[Jim is supposed to deploy the LR-cubed as one of his last tasks before they head back to the LM. Because of the difficulties Dave experiences with the drilling, they will re-organize the tasks in real time and Dave will wind up doing the LR-cubed deployment. The problem with having it tip over is that, with the LR-cubed standing on its side in it's current orientation, the handle is in easy reach at about waist height. Were it to fall over, however, it would be relatively difficult to retrieve - at least, without considerable risk of spraying it with dust.]

[Fendell is panning clockwise and, just before we lose sight of Dave's shadow, he turns to go around the back of the Rover to get the drill.]

124:33:04 Irwin: Yeah...

124:33:05 Scott: Because (garbled)

124:33:06 Irwin: (Garbled under Dave) (Long Pause)

124:33:28 Scott: Okay. Drill's off (the Rover). (Long Pause)

[Just as Fendell reaches north and finds the ALSEP Central Station, Dave lopes out to join Jim and get the Heat Flow Experiment (HFE) package which Jim released from the power package before reporting the shorting switch reading. Dave is carrying his UHT. The deeply shadowed southwestern face of Mt. Hadley is in the background.]

[After returning to the RTG package, Jim will release the subpallet, carry it ten feet north, and release the SIDE and CCIG from the subpallet. See LMP-19.

124:33:54 Scott: Hey, Jim, you make white albedo.

124:33:56 Irwin: (Garbled) you've said to me. (Pause)

[Here, Dave notices that Jim has kicked up lighter-colored material in the places where he has walked.]
124:34:03 Scott: Do you want something?

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124:34:04 Irwin: No. Don't want to get in your way here.

124:34:11 Scott: Let me get this thing out of your way, and then...

124:34:13 Irwin: Okay; Rog.

[Jim is removing the subpallet. As per CDR-19, Dave is removing the heat flow experiment pallet. Jim is working at the east side of the Power package; and Dave is working at the north side.]

[Training photo 71-HC-711 shows Dave reaching for the heat flow pallet.]

124:34:13 Scott: You need a little break anyway; you're working hard. (Pause) (Laughing) Boyd bolts really spring when they spring.
[Comm Break]

[Boyd bolts are released by engaging them with the UHT and then turning them about a quarter turn. They have a spring release. With the Boyd bolts released, Dave can then carry the pallet to the heat flow deployment site. Once Dave has the heat flow pallet off, he faces northeast, sidesteps to the northwest until he is north of the Central Station, and then turns to face the RTG. He then releases the heat flow power-and-data cable, drops the pallet to the ground, and side steps toward the Central Station, paying out the cable as he goes. He is still on CDR-19]

[In the meantime, Jim has released the SIDE (Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment) subpallet, backs away about 10 feet to the east, and puts the pallet down.]

[Just before his next transmission, Dave removes a protective cover from the end of the heat flow cable and casually flicks it off-screen to his right (our left). He then removes a cover from the heat flow port on the Central Station and flicks it off-screen to our left.]

124:35:38 Scott: Man, things really grow...(Deciding to finish his mis-spoken sentence) grow when you frow 'em! (Long Pause)
[What he meant to say, of course, was "Man, things really go when you throw them."]

[When Jim put the Central Station in position, he oriented it so that the connection ports are on the top and, therefore, in easy reach at waist height. Once all the connections have been made, he will tilt the Central Station down so that these ports are in their final position, at the bottom, back (north-facing) edge. This is the only video we have of cable connections being made to an ALSEP Central Station.]

124:36:05 Scott: Okay. Heat flow's connected.

124:36:07 Allen: Roger. We got it. (Long Pause)

[Dave does a series of easy, floating, sideways hops back out to the heat flow pallet. He appears to hook the UHT handle under the heat flow pallet and lifts it up high enough that he can grab it with his left hand. He then turns to the north to find a suitable deployment site. As indicated in the deployment sketch on CDR-18, he will take the pallet 30 feet north of the Central Station and needs to find a spot where he can set it and then place two probes 16 feet west and northeast, respectively, of the heat flow electronics package. He needs level ground, away from rocks and craters, for both probes.]
Video Clip   2 min 41 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPG )

124:36:32 Scott: Find me a couple of good spots out here to put the probes in. Looks like about this direction will be best.

[Dave turns to face the Central Station and backs away as short distance, deploying the heat flow cable as he goes.]
124:36:53 Irwin: Okay. (As per LMP-19) the legs on the SIDE are deployed, Joe. (I'm) sitting it down.

124:37:02 Allen: Roger, Jim. (Long Pause)

[Training photo KSC-71PC-470 shows Jim holding the SIDE, possibly as he prepares to extend the legs. The subpallet is just to the left of him.]

[Once Dave gets to the end of the cable, he drops the package to the ground and engages the UHT in order to release the probe container.]

124:37:50 Irwin: Okay. And I'm moving over to connect the SIDE cable to the Central Station. (Pause)
[Fendell pans clockwise and finds Jim just as he starts backing toward the Central Station with the SIDE cable. Jim is now on LMP-20.]
124:38:01 Allen: Very fine. (Long Pause)
[Fendell can't quite keep up with Jim and we don't see him again until he gets to the Central Station. There, he removes the cover from the SIDE cable and then uses his UHT to clear a thermal cover away from the SIDE port on the Central Station. He removes the port cover and flicks it about 5 or six feet to his left.]
124:38:43 Irwin: Got any more slack in that (heat flow) cable, Dave?

124:38:45 Scott: Yeah, I'll put some more in it. I've got a Boyd bolt problem. (Pause)

[Dave lifts the heat flow package with his UHT and moves it a short-distance toward the Central Station.]
Video Clip   2 min 46 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 25 Mb MPG )

124:39:08 Scott: (Still having Boyd bolt troubles) Gummit. (Long Pause)

["Gummit" is a contraction of "Dadgummit" which, itself, is a euphemism for "Goddamn it".]

[Scott, from a 1996 draft review - "Really? I 'd never heard that before! I thought it was just a typical, Texas country-boy saying!"]

[Scott - "When I got back to the office after the mission, I found a thing on my desk that was a block of wood about (holding his thumb and forefinger about 4 cm apart) so thick and, on one side was a Boyd bolt - where you put the UHT - and on the other side was a great big hexagonal nut...rusted! It's really cute. I'm sure Pete and Al talked to you about Boyd bolts and the problems we had in training."]

[Jones - "A little bit in the ALSEP deployment context, but not in the training context so why don't you go ahead."]

[Scott - "In a training context, especially on 12, I remember trying to get the Boyd bolts to work, and they would hang up. One would hang up, and you couldn't deploy the ALSEP. Or, the UHT's hexagonal probe that goes into the socket would sort of strip and get worn and you couldn't turn it. And, if you turned it too hard, you'd strip the edges. The Boyd bolts were challenges. I think all ours worked just fine. But the UHT and the Boyd bolts were a big deal in the thought process; because, if it didn't work, then you didn't get the ALSEP up, or that piece of the ALSEP up. And there were a lot of Boyd bolts."]

[Jones - "The thing that Pete talked about was the problem of seeing into the guide sleeve to get the UHT positioned. Down here on Earth, you've got enough scattered light, diffuse light, and unsharp shadows that you could sort of see in there. Some of their Boyd bolts were positioned so that you really couldn't see down there. Did you have that kind of problem?"]

[Scott - "I don't think so, but we'll see as we go along."]

[The Apollo 14 crew also had problems seeing into the Boyd bolt sleeves and changes were made for Apollo 15.]

124:38:23 Scott: Well; it's out. Stuck Boyd bolt, Joe. Never get those things apart without that though.
[Comm Break]
124:40:22 Scott: There we go.

124:40:24 Allen: Beautiful.

[Dave is partially blocked by Jim, who has made several attempts to get the SIDE cable connected to the Central Station. He is standing on the north side and, every time he pushes down on the connector, the Central Station rocks from side to side, east-to-west.]
124:40:25 Irwin: Dog-gone SIDE cable's not locking down very well. (Long Pause)

["Dog-gone" is, of course, another euphemism.]
124:41:00 Allen: Dave, did the bolt come free?

124:41:05 Scott: Yeah, I got it. (Long Pause)

[Jim has been leaning forward on the Central Station, trying to force the connector and, possibly, to improve his view. He loses his balance and, in catching himself, spins to his left through 180 degrees, and ends up facing Dave. Although we can't see if he has caught either of the cables, he wisely turns to his right, reversing his out-of-control motion. He then steps carefully over the heat flow cable to his right and removes a long-thin object from the top of the Central Station and discards it to our right. Note the carry bar which is still attached to the Central Station on the left side of the image. It is easy to imagine that slight differences in Jim's motions could have torn a cable loose, much in the manner of the loss of the Apollo 16 heat flow experiment at 121:21:37.]

[Jones - "Jim's working real hard to get that SIDE cable connected. Then he loses his balance and spins around."]

[Scott - "He almost crashed, didn't he?"]

[We re-wound the video tape.]

[Jones - "He's pushing real hard. Gets a little bit off balance to his right and spins around, brushing against the ALSEP, but didn't pull any cables."]

[Scott - "That's a funny motion, isn't it? It looks like he might have pushed real hard and it pushed back at him and made him move."]

[Jones - "It kind of looked to me like the ALSEP slid down to his left and he lost his balance."]

[Scott - "He might have been pushing hard - relatively speaking, in one-sixth g. It doesn't take much to upset the static equilibrium, and he spun around."]

[Jones - "With no ill-effect, fortunately. It has always amazed me that there weren't more accidents with pulled cables and busted widgets than there were."]

124:41:37 Allen: Jim, have you gotten that connection yet?

Video Clip   2 min 31 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

124:41:43 Irwin: Not very positive, I'm afraid, Joe. Try to...(Pause)

124:41:52 Allen: Say again, please.

124:41:53 Irwin: (Garbled) right off. That pulls right off. I ought to work on it.

124:42:00 Allen: Jim, just make sure that the ears are pulled back before you plug it in. (Pause)

[Jim checks the ears on the SIDE connector.]
124:42:14 Irwin: Back. (Long Pause)
[Jim steps over the heat flow cable and comes around to the Rover side of the Central Station and leans down to make the connection -successfully this time. In the background, we get glimpses of Dave as he pays out cable for heat flow probe No. 2 and takes it northeast of the heat flow electronics (HFE) package.]

[Jones - "Before I got the tape turned on, you said that Jim was really leaning on the Central Station and that he'd come around to the Rover side to get a different angle at it."]

[Scott - "So he could push with his right hand instead of his left or, at least, instead of across his body. He took another angle. Which worked."]

124:42:36 Scott: (As per CDR-19) Okay; 30 degrees north (of east), 42 degrees to the Sun. Next.
[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "One of the things that we had attempted to do was make sure that the lines were not crossed. As I remember, I unraveled the lines to make sure they weren't crossed and deployed the two probes - one to the south and one to the north (of the Sun line) according to the diagram (CDR-18)."]
124:42:49 Irwin: Ah, I got it, Joe. Got it. Ooh!

124:42:55 Allen: Outstanding. (Long Pause)

124:43:20 Scott: Get the other one. (Long Pause)

[Fendell zooms in on Dave as he drops the heat flow probe and hops back toward the HFE. Once he gets there, he stands on the left side (from our perspective) sticks his left leg back and bobs down, almost touching his left knee to the ground, so that he can grab heat flow probe No. 1 off the top of the HFE.]

[Scott - "This is a good example of bending the suit. I come back in to the heat flow to pick up the other probe and go back out. And it's sitting down on the heat flow, which would probably be a level below the seat of the Rover. It doesn't look like it was too much effort to bend down and pick up the probe."]

[Jones - "Okay. You get the left leg back, right leg forward, flex the right knee and reach down with your right hand."]

[Scott - "Sort of. Not a big left-leg movement. It's more of a right leg bend to the side."]

[Jones - "And it's dynamic, because you hop back up, letting the suit partially bounce you back up."]

[Jim is in the foreground and Fendell pulls back on the zoom and lets us see Jim remove the carry bar and then tip the Central Station tip back onto its base. He is on LMP-20. Dave is off-camera to the left, positioning heat flow probe No. 1.]

124:44:04 Scott: There.
[Jim nudges the southwest corner of the Central Station with his foot, getting it closer to the desired alignment with the Sun.]
124:44:07 Irwin: Okay. The central station is tipped down, Joe.
[Now that the Central Station, which forms the base of ALSEP Package No. 1, is lying flat on the surface, Jim will remove the Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE), the Solar Wind Experiment (SWE), and the Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM) and deploy them before erecting the Central Station. Training photo 71-H-832 probably shows Jim releasing the PSE. The magnetometer is on the corner facing us and SWE is to the right of the LSM.]
Video Clip   2 min 33 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

124:44:11 Allen: Thank you, Jim. (Long Pause)

[Scott - "This is the first time the ALSEP guys - or anybody, for that matter - have been able to watch the ALSEP being deployed on the Moon. So they probably learned a lot from this. Another value of the TV, because now they can look at what the actions are on the Moon and think about how they can improve it, both in training and for subsequent flights."]

[Jones - "'Cause they certainly didn't get a very good look at Ed and Al. On 14, all they had were small, fuzzy, blobby images off in the distance; there was no TV on 12; and Neil and Buzz deployed their two instruments off-camera."]

[Fendell follows Jim to the subpallet, east of the RTG. On the left side of the picture, we see Dave as he gets back to the HFE. Dave is now on CDR-20.]

[Jones - "Did you have a final run-through on the ALSEP deploy close to launch date?"]

[Scott - "Depends on what you call close."]

[Apollo 15 was launched on Monday, July 26, 1971. The final EVA-1 run-through was done on July 16th. The following is a brief summary of the training done during the final week. On Monday the 19th, Dave, Jim, and Al Worden spent 3 hours 15 minutes in the Command Module Simulator at the Cape and 2 hours 30 minutes in an orbital geology briefing with Farouk El Baz. In addition, Dave and Jim spent 4 hours 30 minutes on EVA-2/3 training. On Tuesday the 20th, Dave and Jim spent 7 hours 40 minutes in the LM simulator participating in an integrated simulation. On Wednesday the 21st, Dave, Jim and, Al had a four-hour physical and then spent 3 hours 40 minutes in the Command Module Simulator. On Thursday the 22nd, Dave and Jim spent 2 hours 10 minutes in the LM Simulator, spent 3 hours reviewing EVA Prep and Post activities, and then spent 2 hours 30 minutes with Lee Silver, Gordon Swann, and other members of the geology team in a final Traverse Planning session. Jim also spent an hour using the LM Simulator to get a feel for what they might see during the Rover traverses. On Friday the 23rd, Dave, Jim, and Al spent 1 hour 15 minutes in the Command Module Simulator, Dave and Jim spent 1 hour 30 minutes in the LM Simulator, and Jim spent 1 hour 15 minutes doing another Rover drive in the LM Simulator. On Saturday the 24th, Dave and Jim spent an hour doing a Rover drive in the LM Simulator and, as shown in NASA photos 71-H-1159, 71-H-1160, and 71-H-1163, the all three members of the crew did some T-38 flying at Patrick Air Force Base. Finally, on Sunday the 25th, Dave and Jim did another Rover drive in the LM simulator. This information was derived from training logs provided by the Apollo 15 Training Coordinator, Mike Brzezinski.]

[Scott - "One of the problems getting close to launch date was trying to get everything in - to do everything the last day. Which you couldn't possibly do, because there were so many things. You wanted to run through all the important things the day before launch, but you couldn't; so they had to be prioritized. And I don't recall what the priorities were."]

[Jones - "Flying the spacecraft, I would imagine."]

[Scott - "Yeah, but that got cut off reasonably early, just because we had to get down to the Cape. Flying the spacecraft, to me, means flying the LLTV. The simulator was easy. The simulator becomes pretty ho-hum after a while."]

[Jones - "That's interesting to know."]

[Dave made his last LLTV flights on July 2nd, three and half weeks before launch.]

[Scott - "And the value of the simulator, at this point, was in integrated simulations with Houston, not in the individual things, because we'd had so much with Jim and I running through procedures that it was coming out our ears by now. So, what we do is a tune up on landing the LM. If we need any training at this stage of the game, we're not ready. The last month, the last two months, in terms of LM simulator time was probably minimal. 'Cause, by then, we should have been up on the (learning) curve."]

["But running it with Mission Control was very important, again, because of getting all the players involved up to the very last minute. You have to think of the rest of the team, in terms of the Control Center and the Backroom and whatever. And what you really want is those people involved the day before the launch. So you've got to look at the bigger picture of what you do the last day or the last few days. And, probably the most important thing is to have the team practice before you go. And, hopefully, the individual things, like flying the LM simulator...If we weren't ready two months before launch, we really hadn't done our job. Because we've had plenty of time for that."]

[Jones - "Especially having backed-up 12."]

[Scott - "Especially having backed-up 12. Now, the LLTV is a different thing because its a real-time, dynamic vehicle, so you want that as close to launch as you can."]

[Jones - "Did you get to fly the LLTV before the 14 launch."]

[Scott - "I flew it during 12, as the backup Commander, and I don't recall when I flew it last before the (Apollo 15) flight. Some time reasonably close (July 2nd). And we also had one final field trip, close to the launch (a visit to Gray Mountain, Arizona, on 25 June 1971). Again, get everybody involved, keep us tuned up geologically speaking. So the real challenge was packing everything in, but not having too much, and having enough leisure time to do some thinking and to sort of cool it before launch. You don't want to go out and run a marathon the day before you race a marathon."]

[Jones - "Two weeks before, maybe, but not the day before."]

[According the Apollo 15 Training Log, Dave started training for the mission on 9 December 1969, about a month after Apollo 12 flew. He made his first LLTV flight (since the end of Apollo 12 training) on 16 February 1970 and made a total of 15 flight up to 22 June 1970. Apollo 13 splashdown was on 17 April and, because of the need to assess the reasons for the explosion in the Apollo 13 Service Module, both Apollo 14 and 15 were going to be delayed for many months. Apollo 14 splashdown was on 9 February 1971, with the Apollo 15 launch scheduled for 26 July. Dave resumed flying the LLTV on 28 April and made 18 flights, with the last on 2 July.]

[Scott - "It's just like a football team or a basketball team. You've got to peak at the right time. And, actually we spent a fair amount of time in the simulator, I recall, right before launch driving across the surface, because we discovered that was a new way to try and learn to get from Station 1 to Station 2 or whatever. So they set the simulator up so the camera was down on the surface, on the model. And we'd pretend like the LM was the Rover. And we'd get in there and Jim would get the maps out, and we'd drive - for whatever that was worth, which was probably not much because the model wasn't any better than the maps 'cause the resolution wasn't very good."]

[Training photo 71-HC-938 shows Dave and Jim, with Joe behind them watching, doing a practice traverse on July 25th, the day before the launch.]

[Jones - "But the horizon must have been fairly decent."]

[Scott - "Yeah, the horizon was pretty good. I mean, it was a good exercise for running through procedures but, in terms of the visual acuity, because the maps and the photos weren't good, anyway, it was not instructionally good for us, terrain-wise - lurrain - for identifying specific features, as we found out, because the features weren't really on the maps."]

[Jones - "Now, you couldn't get the simulation to look like you were down, actually sitting in the Rover, it had to have looked like you were up (above the surface a ways)..."]

[Scott - "Pretty close. It was neat. You could drive around the craters. They did a good job."]

[Jones - "Gene described doing that for 17 and said it kind of felt like you were up a hundred feet or something like that."]

[Scott - "Yeah; but, in relative terms, you were down on the surface because, in landing, you're starting way up high. I forget where we started - 700 feet or 7000 feet or whatever - when we looked at the surface and, in relative terms, to put you down on the surface...pretty close."]

[Jones - "Do you remember if the L&A model was available relatively early?"]

[Scott - "The model was a discussion topic, because the site selection determined the model. And the site selection was relatively late, in that we were at Marius Hills for a long time. Marius Hills, Davey Rille. What'd we have, six sites? From November '69, after 12. So, until somebody finalized the site, then we couldn't have a model. And there was some period of time after the site selection that we had to wait to get the model, and I don't recall what that was. Although I don't think the model was that significant in terms of the landing. It turned out to be, because the maps weren't that good, anyway. But it was good to have a surface to which you could LPD and other things, to practice and run through the procedures."]

[Jones - "And to have the mountains and the rille and the big, obvious features."]

[Scott - "Yeah. And just run through the procedures. 'Don't hit the red button! Hit the blue button."]

[Fendell has zoomed in on Dave, who is leveling and aligning the HFE.]

[Each of the instruments has one or more level bubbles and a short gnomon to provide a shadow so that the instrument can be properly oriented with respect to the Sun.]

124:45:06 Irwin: Okay. (As per LMP-20) I'm taking the PSE (Passive Seismic Experiment) stool out.

124:45:10 Allen: Roger, Jim. (Long Pause)

[Jim crosses the field-of-view from right to left, carrying the stool. It is a metal ring about 8 inches across. He is deploying it west of the Central Station. Fendell pulls back on the zoom and moves his aim to the left, just in time so that we can see Jim jumping up and down, straight-legged, landing simultaneously on both feet, and turning at the same time, all in an effort to create a flat, tamped surface to support the PSE. He drops the stool into the center of his tamped circle and positions it with his UHT.]
124:45:50 Irwin: Might take us a little time to level things today, (because of the hummocky ground).

124:45:52 Scott: Yeah. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 35 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

[In an effort to avoid kicking dust on the instruments, Jim walks flat-footed to the Central Station and uses the UHT to remove the cloth thermal cover from the package. In the background, Dave is still leveling and aligning the HFE.]
124:46:07 Scott: Well, my goodness. (Pause) Things just aren't working too good. (Pause) There. (Long Pause)
[Dave uses his UHT to lift the HFE off the ground and then place it in a slightly better location. He then transfers the UHT to his left hand and, using it as a prop, puts his right leg well out to the side and bends his right knee inward so he can lean over to his right and reach down with his right hand to remove a dust cover from the HFE. Reaching down for things present problems to all the crews and this episode is a graphic demonstration of the value of a tool that can be used as a prop. In the foreground, Jim is releasing Boyd bolts holding the PSE on the top of the Central Station.]
124:47:12 Scott: Okay, Joe. (As per CDR-20) the heat flow (electronics package) is leveled, and the (gnomon) shadow is right between 2 and 3 on the index.

124:47:21 Allen: Sounds good. Thank you. (Long Pause)

[Dave carefully removes his UHT from the HFE and uses it to pick up the heat flow pallet. He then moves away from the HFE several feet to the east.]
Movie Clip (43 sec)

124:47:53 Scott: Now I'll give you a demonstration here, Joe. Got the TV on this pallet here?

124:48:01 Allen: Roger. Right on.

124:48:02 Scott: Here it goes. (Long Pause)

[Dave is facing the Rover, with his right foot back. He has the dust cover and the pallet in his left hand and is holding them well out to the left side. He brings his left leg and left arm around to his right, straightening up as he starts the throw and, as he gets about halfway around, lets go. The pallet flies off-camera to the left, the dust cover to the right. Dave continues around, clearly off balance, and gets his right hand down as he starts to fall. Continuing the spin with at least some of his weight on that hand, he finishes up on his feet, once again facing the Rover but several feet to our right of his starting position.]
124:48:13 Scott: Beautiful. But I lost my balance.

124:48:15 Allen: Spectacular demonstration!

124:48:20 Scott: Yeah. Oh well. Enough of that.

124:48:27Slayton: Lovely. (Long Pause)

[Deke Slayton, a former Mercury Astronaut, was director of Flight Crew Operations throughout all of Gemini and Apollo.]

[Scott - "I fell down a couple of times, and everybody said 'Oh, my god!' But I didn't pay attention. It didn't bother me. I didn't worry about the suit popping or splitting. It was, 'oh', and get up and get on with it."]

[Jones - "You were the first crew that was out there long enough to really get comfortable with the suit and get into your work enough that somebody just looking at the TV would say, 'Oh, look at what they're doing in the suit.' But compared to what you guys were doing, the 16 guys - and then the 17 guys even more so - were really aggressive. They had obviously learned a lot from watching you and Jim; and the fact that the rough treatment didn't bother the suits is another testament to how well the suits were built. I think one of the things I want to get across in this exercise - to a generation of people who will have had experience only in the Shuttle and Space Station - is that, when you're in a gravity field on a dirty surface, with rocks and lots of unevenness, you're dealing with a different set of problems."]

[Fendell pans left, finds the HFE pallets, and zooms in on it.]

124:48:49 Irwin: Another demonstration. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 34 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

[Whatever Jim might have done, Fendell wasn't looking at him. Fendell pulls back on the zoom just in time for us to watch Jim use his UHT to spread the thermal skirt around the PSE. The skirt will reduce the effects of ground heating on the seismic readings. Toward the end of this interval, the TV jiggles as Dave gets the drill.]
124:49:38 Scott: Okay, Joe. I'm picking up the drill now (as per CDR-20) .

124:49:40 Allen: Roger, Dave. (Pause)

124:49:45 Scott: (Testing the drill) It works!

124:49:46 Allen: Beautiful. (Joking) And, for goodness sakes, hang on to it there. Don't throw it.

124:49:53 Scott: Yeah, man. You'd better believe.

[Fendell pans right, looking for Dave. He doesn't find his and pans back to Jim, who is now aligning and leveling the PSE on its stool.]

[Dave was supposed to have picked up the drill at 4:37 into the EVA and they are now at about 5:10. They were about 30 minutes behind schedule when they arrived back at the LM at the end of the traverse, 34 minutes behind schedule when they left the LM for the ALSEP site and, despite the troubles Dave had with the HFE, he is still about 34 minutes behind. Jim is at about 4:40 in his checklist and has actually gained a couple of minutes on the timeline. See, also, Procedures page 75.]

124:49:57 Allen: (To Dave) What was that a demonstration of, by the way?

124:50:02 Scott: I'm not sure I know.

124:50:04 Allen: It started out to be of gravity and it wound up being of centrifugal force, I think.

124:50:13 Scott: Yeah, I think you're right. Oh well. (Long Pause)

[Scott - "It was a good demonstration of angular momentum conservation, as Joe says, because I didn't fall down."]

[Jones - "You got one hand down..."]

[Scott - "But the momentum got me back around to the original starting point."]

Video Clip   3 min 04 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 28 Mb MPG )

124:51:06 Irwin: Okay, Joe. The PSE is leveled (as per LMP-20), and the shadow is reading 091.

124:51:13 Allen: Roger.

[Comm Break]

[After watching Jim for a moment, Fendell pans left until he finds a piece of discarded ALSEP packaging. He zooms in on it for a moment and then continues the leftward pan. Once he reaches the LR-cubed, he reverses direction.]

124:52:36 Scott: Okay, Joe. Drill and the rack going to the first probe. It'll be the one on the right (northeast) today, because the rammer was packed in the one on the right, today. (Pause)

124:52:56 Allen: Roger, Dave. (Pause)

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Taking a look at the two-probe parts of the box (at about 124:41:05), I found that the rammer was in the left-probe box and, in training, it had always been in the right."]

[Scott, from a 1996 letter - "Remembering how much of this equipment had never been on a mission before, it's probably not surprising that we had these little glitches."]

[The deployment sketch on CDR-18 has the western heatflow location labeled as "1st probe + (rod) ". This is consistent with Dave's statement about the order in which the hole were done during training. CDR-20 also has Dave doing the western probe first.]

[Fendell pans past Jim, who is deploying the Solar Wind Experiment (SWE) northwest of the Central Station, as per LMP-21. ]

124:53:10 Scott: Check south, huh, Joe?

124:53:14 Allen: Check south.

[Journal Contributor Ken Glover speculates that 'check south' refers to the orientation of the drill relative to the Sun. Another possibility is that Dave wants to make sure that he is facing the Rover, which is parked on a north heading, so that Houston can get a good view of the drilling.]
124:53:21 Scott: Okay. I'm in a shallow depression here, Joe. And there's no way of getting around it. There's just nothing really flat. There's a little rim here, a little slight rise. Further to the north, maybe Mark (Langseth) would like it up there. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 50 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 25 Mb MPG )

[Dave stands next to the northeast probe, facing the Rover and holding the drill in one hand and the drill-stem rack in the other while he waits for an answer from the Principle Investigator for the heat flow experiment, Marcus Langseth. Fendell zooms in on Dave.]
124:53:56 Allen: Dave, drill it there.

124:54:00 Scott: Okay.

124:54:01 Allen: Right where you stand.

124:54:03 Scott: Thank you. Just checking. You know. Like, sometimes those guys have some neat, good ideas. (Long Pause)

[Dave steps forward a few feet and puts the drill-stem rack down to his left and the drill down to the right. The drill has a stiff, wire loop for use as a handle. Dave then spent a few moments removing tie-downs from the drill-stem rack.]

[Training photo 71-HC-712 shows Dave practicing with the drill at the Cape. The buried cannister contains a column of material with drilling properties closer to those of the lunar regolith than those of Cape sand. The stiff, yellow wire loop can be seen hanging down into the cannister. Note that Dave has a UHT attached to his yo-yo.]

124:54:45 Irwin: Okay, Joe. On the solar wind, it's aligned; the door is (confirmed) open (as per LMP-21).

124:54:55 Allen: Thank you, Jim.

[There are two solar wind experiments on Apollo 15: a foil Solar Wind Composition Experiment (SWC) similar to the ones flown on the prior missions, and a faraday-cup spectrometer, which is the one Jim has just deployed. Photo AS15-86-11593 shows the instrument prior to removal of the dust cover.]
124:55:01 Irwin: Going for the LSM (Lunar Surface Magnetometer).

124:55:05 Allen: Right-o. (Long Pause)

[Training photos 71-HC-710 and 71-HC-713 show Jim as he releases the LSM, with it's distinctive gold arms, from the top of the Central Station. In the first of these, the Solar Wind Experiment is about halfway between the Central Station and the bottom of the picture and the Heat Flow Electronics package is at the bottom. The ribbon cable going out of the picture to the right connects the PSE to the Central Station and the cable going out of the picture to the left connects the RTG. The green box behind Jim to the right is probably a communications unit. The Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector is at top left next to the front wheel of the one-g LRV trainer.]

[Scott - "When you add up all the stuff on the Rover all the stuff on the ALSEP, and the MESA, etc, we had a lot of stuff, a lot of little pieces of hardware."]

[Jones - "All of it planned, exercised, trained."]

[Dave removes two drill-stem sections from the rack and threads them together. Each is about 53 cm long. The stem which will be deepest in the hole has a sealed bit at the end. Dave takes hold of the combined sections by the bit and threads the other section into the drill chuck. There is a single thread on each stem which goes around the shaft over a distance of about an inch; and, in shirtsleeves and bare hands on Earth, threading is an easy operation, despite the fact that one's hand is about a meter above the drill chuck. Dave doesn't appear to have any trouble suited, either; but on Apollo 16 and 17, respectively, Charlie Duke and Gene Cernan will have noticeable trouble. Dave sticks the bit into the soil at the desired spot and begins to drill.]

[Scott - (Referring to the considerable difficulties he will have later with the drilling) "I blew it. I got all the smooth part done early, so I wouldn't have to worry about being smooth later on."]

[Jones - "It sure wasn't your fault. A poor design. And terribly frustrating, I imagine."]

[Scott - "I know it. And it cost us the North Complex."]

[Jones - "This and the vise. And the core."]

[Scott - "Whole experiment was a surprise."]

124:55:46 Scott: Okay. First two. Down we go. Huh, it takes a little bit of force. (Pause)
[At this point, Dave has the first stem in and it is only after the joint between the sections goes into the ground that he notices resistance. Jim moves into the line of sight. NASA photo S71-37218 shows Dave training with the drill at the Kennedy Space Center on 27 May 1971. The drill-stem rack is to the right, with four dark-colored stems visible and the rammer-jammer laying on the top. Jim is in the background releasing Boyd bolts on the Central Station. The Solar Wind Experiment is between Dave and the Central Station. The PSE is beyond Dave's left hip and in front of the Rover. Training photo KSC-71PC-469 was taken a moment later and shows the subpallet and carry bar just to the left of Dave and the SIDE/CCIG next left.]

[These training photos show Dave drilling the northeast hole but, as noted above, after having drilled the western hole. Consequently, Jim is seen releasing boyd bolts in preparation for raising the Central Station Sunshield as per LMP-22.]

124:55:56 Scott: As a matter of fact, it's getting a little stiffer. (Pause) As a matter of fact, it's getting a lot stiffer. (Pause) Wow. It's tough down there. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 35 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 23 Mb MPG )

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and, as he does, Dave comes into view, just as he releases the drill handles. He now has both sections in the ground.]
124:56:43 Allen: Jim, you'll get your feedwater tone shortly.

124:56:49 Irwin: Okay, I did. Time to go to Aux-Water, huh?

124:56:56 Allen: It's about that time.

[In order to lengthen the EVAs, an auxiliary supply of water was added to the PLSS. Each of the PLSSs held a total of 12 pounds of water.]

[Jones - "Twelve pounds of water in the PLSS is pretty bulky. Six liters. Six quarts. That's a fair fraction of the PLSS volume. Could you feel it sloshing around back there, or was it in a collapsible..."]

[Irwin - "I think it was well baffled, so you wouldn't get the sloshing around. I was never aware of anything sloshing around."]

[Fendell zooms in on Dave, who is turning the drill, trying to release it from the drill stem. He then pulls the drill up. Neither maneuver works. Finally, he blocks the stem with his right foot, shakes the drill up and down rapidly a few times, and releases it.]

[Scott - "The drill was a chore, even on the best of days, because of all the mechanical interactions."]

124:57:00 Irwin: Dave, can I disturb you to get my Aux-Water?

124:57:03 Scott: Be glad to, Jim. Here. (Long Pause)

[Dave grabs the wire loop and puts the drill aside with the handles down on the ground and the chuck pointed up. Jim runs out to him, using a comfortable, foot-to-foot, loping stride. He gets a good glide between steps. Dave puts his right leg out and bends his right knee inward so that he can get at the Aux water switch on the lower-right, front corner of Jim's PLSS. It takes him two tries to get into position.]
124:57:25 Scott: Oh, wait a minute. (Pause) Okay. Your Aux-Water is On.

124:57:31 Irwin: Thank you. (Long Pause)

124:58:04 Irwin: (Back at the Central Station) Okay. I'm taking the LSM out, Joe (as per LMP-21.

124:58:06 Allen: Okay, Jim. And Min (feedwater) Diverter on your PLSS, please

124:58:15 Irwin: Is that for startup?

124:58:16 Allen: That's affirm. (Pause)

[Dave is threading another pair of drill stems together.]
124:58:23 Irwin: Okay; it's Min. Although I understood it could start up on any position. (Pause) Bet you're trying to make me sweat a little. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 40 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPG )

[Dave threaded the new pair into the drill stem in the ground without any particular difficulty, then picked up the drill and attached it to the top of the stack. Training photo KSC-71PC-468 shows Dave attaching the drill to a double section. The join between the two new stems is at about crotch height while the join to the stem section already in the ground is just above his right ankle.]

[As Dave starts to drill, he obviously has to put considerable force on the handles and, after a few seconds, is up on his toes, with nearly his full weight (only 60 pounds in one-sixth g) on the drill handles, which are at about shoulder height.]

[Jones - "You've got your full weight on it, don't you?"]

[Scott - "Which is a point that people made during and afterwards. They said that was the problem, that I was pushing on it too hard. But you can't push on it very hard, because you don't weigh very much. You can't put a lot of force on it, even if you put your whole self on it, because your whole self isn't very much force."]

[David Carrier of the Soil Mechanics Team provides some comments.]

124:59:13 Scott: Joe, can you see the drill?

124:59:15 Allen: Yes, sir. We sure can. (Pause)

124:59:22 Scott: Now I'll give you a better angle. (Pause as he goes around to the west side)

[At this point, Dave has gotten about a half of a section into the ground (25 cm). The joint between the second and third section is probably now in the ground.]
124:59:29 Scott: That's all I got.

124:59:31 Allen: We agree, Dave. (Pause)

[Dave stands up and releases his grip on the drill. He has gotten about half of the second double-section in the ground.]

[Jones- "Did you notice any forearm fatigue or hand fatigue from gripping that drill?"]

[Scott - "I don't remember having any."]

[Jones - "I know that Gene did and, at intervals, had to stop and give his hands and his arms a little chance to rest."]

[Scott - "I thought his went in in a minute and a half or something like that."]

[Jones - "The heat flow went in nice and easy; but, I think by the time he was doing the second one, he needed to stop at rest every once in a while."]

124:59:37 Scott: There are about three probes (means "stems") in, Joe. And, my goodness, I think that looks like about the end of it. (Pause)

124:59:53 Allen: Tough to argue with, Dave.

[The cause of Dave's troubles was ultimately determined to be a faulty design of the drill stems. The stems have external flutes to carry the drill cuttings to the surface but, because of the relatively low strength of the fiberglass/boron-filament laminate of which these stems were made - chosen because of their thermal characteristics - the walls were made thicker at the joins by decreasing the depth of the flutes. Figure 14-41 from the Apollo 15 Mission Report shows a detailed cross-section. Unfortunately, because the regolith is very compact at depths greater than a few centimeters, the cuttings jammed in the shallow flute areas, causing the stems to bind in the hole. A re-design for Apollo 16 eliminated the problem.]

[David Carrier of the Soil Mechanics Team provides some comments on the re-design.]

[Note that Dave is standing still, with his arms slightly raised and his hands at about waist height as he rests.]

125:00:00 Scott: I guess the next question is do we dig a little trench and lay them in the trench, or do we just put three in? (Long Pause)
[Fendell lowers his aim slightly to give Houston a full view of the drill stems sticking out of the ground.]

[Jones - "Were you waiting for an answer, here, or resting up?"]

[Scott - "I was waiting for an answer. My interpretation was that we were getting into some very heavy induration, somehow. 'Cause it certainly didn't appear to be regolith that I was drilling into - not knowing what the real problem was. Prior to the mission, we had discussed what you do if, for some reason, there was basalt or something right under this site and only a very thin layer of regolith? Well, you dig a trench and you put the heat flow probes down parallel to the surface. So now, I'm saying I can't get all the probes in; so, what do we do? It's clear it isn't going to go in very much further. And it was surprising because, in training, it always went pretty well. So this was a very big surprise. And let me tell you, it felt to me like we'd hit concrete. Absolute concrete."]

[Figure 11-1 from the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report shows the heat flow probe. Dave planned to drill a 3-m-deep emplacement hole but has only reached a depth of 1.62 meters. This is enough depth to allow placement of the entire probe beneath the surface, but not the thermocouples on the cable which connects the probe to the HFE.]

125:00:33 Allen: Dave, this is Houston. We agree that, if you've hit bottom there and think there's no way you'll go any deeper, just press on and put the probes in this hole.

125:00:42 Scott: Okay, Joe. I'll give it one more try here and see if I can get some more; but, ha, I tell you one thing, the Base at Hadley is firm.

125:00:52 Allen: Roger. So much for the "fairy castle" theory.

[Dave tries the drill for a few seconds but gets very little additional depth. Joe is referring to a theory of the detailed structure of the lunar soil by Bruce Hapke and Hugh Van Horn in which the soil is modeled as a very loose aggregation of particles containing mostly voids. In the minds of many Apollo participants, the "fairy castle" theory is associated with astrophysicist Thomas (Tommy) Gold, who was very vocal in advocating that the dust layer was deep enough and soft enough that it would not support the weight of a spacecraft. Gold's idea was disproved by data returned by the Ranger series of spacecraft and the Surveyor landers. Despite this convincing evidence, Gold remained a thorn in NASA's side right up to the Apollo 11 landing. Hapke was provided a valuable commentary on the history of the subject.]
125:00:58 Scott: Yeah! (Chuckles) Oh, I'm afraid that's it. I hate to say that because it (the drill)'s working good.

125:01:05 Allen: Roger, Dave. There's a lot of information right there. (Long Pause)

Video Clip   2 min 40 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 24 Mb MPG )

[Dave tries to get the drill off the stem. With his back to us, he blocks the stem with his right foot and, at one point, puts his left leg out to the side and bends both knees to get better leverage. Despite this effort, he doesn't get the drill off.]
125:01:40 Allen: Jim, this is Houston. The diverter valve is yours, now.

125:01:46 Irwin: Okay. Thank you, Joe.

[The phrase "diverter valve is yours, now" does not mean that Houston could control PLSS functions. They only had the ability to read telemetry. Instead, what the phrase means is that Houston's telemetry shows that the switch to Aux water has finished and Jim may choose whatever diverter setting he wants.]
125:01:48 Allen: You had a good clean startup. (Pause)

125:01:56 Irwin: Okay. I'm on Intermediate. (Pause)

125:02:07 Allen: And, Jim...

125:02:08 Scott: Joe, I can't get the (drill) chuck to reset.

125:02:09 Allen: ...could you verify all your (RCU warning) flags are off?

125:02:17 Irwin: Verified.

125:02:19 Allen: Thank you.

125:02:24 Scott: Joe, I can't seem to get the chuck to reset. It won't go counter-clockwise out of its seat. (Pause)

125:02:40 Allen: Dave, try to rotate it 90 degrees both ways, and then push sharply down.

125:02:47 Scott: (Rotating the drill counter-clockwise) I know that Joe. It won't rotate 90 degrees both ways. It'll only twist the stem (in the ground). Maybe the drilling was so tight for it, it's locked up in there (that is, the stem is frozen in the chuck). (Long Pause) It won't back off, Joe. It turns the drill...(Correcting himself) I mean, it'll turn the stem, but the chuck won't back off.

125:03:28 Allen: Roger. We copy, Dave. Maybe our sim(ulation)s haven't been so bad.

[This is undoubtedly a reference to troubles they experienced during training. Indeed, Dave's last ALSEP training consisted of two half-hour sessions with the drill, one on July 21st and the other on the 22nd, only days before launch.]
125:03:34 Scott: Got any suggestions? (Pause)
[Dave has been working continuously at getting the drill off, trying a variety of motions. Here, he finally stands upright to take a breather.]
125:03:46 Allen: Dave, can you go either clockwise or counter-clockwise 90 degrees without the stem turning?

125:03:54 Scott: (Trying both motions) Nope. (Pause)

125:04:03 Irwin: Okay, Joe. The LSM is deployed. It's level and aligned, and the shadow is on the first degree on the plus side.

[Training photo KSC-71PC-394 shows Jim leveling and aligning the LSM during training at the Cape. this activity is on LMP-21 and LMP-22.]
Video Clip   2 min 55 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPG )

125:04:16 Allen: Okay, Jim. Thank you. Sounds good.

[Dave turns the drill counter-clockwise through about two revolutions, watching the effect on the stem. He then steps back.]
125:04:22 Scott: Okay, Joe. I'll stand by for your suggestions.

125:04:24 Allen: Roger, Dave. Take a breather. (Long Pause)

[On the audio tape, we can hear what sounds like Dave chewing.]

[Jones - "Are you eating a fruit bar?"]

[Scott - "I might have been eating a fruit bar. I really liked the fruit bars. Anytime that was break time was a good time to have the fruit bar and a drink of water."]

[Jones - "And take a look around the horizon."]

[Scott - "At this stage of the game, probably not looking at the horizon. At this stage of the game, probably trying to get this thing done."]

[Jones - "Have a little slice of fruit bar and think about what you might do?"]

[Scott - "Yeah."]

[Once Dave finishes his snack, he walks forward to the HFE. Fendell pulls back on the zoom and, in the foreground, Jim is working on the Central Station, as per LMP-22, releasing Boyd bolts that are holding down what will be the station top. This is about the point in Jim's activities shown in training photo KSC-71PC-394.]

[Just before Joe's next transmission, Dave goes off screen to the right.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "When I got the first two stems in, why, it was apparent I was hitting something very hard which, subsequently, I really think was bedrock. But the first meter was quite easy to drill; and then it was very difficult to get the stem any farther. I go about two-and-a-half stems in and, in trying to remove the drill, the chuck has frozen; and I think that's because of the high amount of torque put on the stems themselves and the chuck just biting into the stems and locking up. We'd never seen this in training, nor had we ever seen any material that was compacted or as hard as that material I was trying to drill in at that time. The recommendation from the ground that came up subsequently was to drill slower - which was a good idea - and just let the drill do the work. We should have probably discussed that possibility before flight, because I really hadn't thought about it. That seemed to help get it in a little ways. It did on the second probe."]

MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 46 sec )

125:05:23 Allen: Dave, this is Houston.

125:05:27 Scott: Go ahead.

125:05:34 Allen: Roger, Dave. We're requesting you spend a few more minutes on this experiment. We want you to take the wrench off the Rover. It's on the rack, as you know, and try to hold the stem with the wrench and turn the drill off that way.

125:06:01 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[Joe is referring to a non-adjustable wrench on the drill stem rack. Figure 14-44 from the Apollo 15 Mission Report shows the wrench and vise. As we will see, Dave does not know the tool called in the figure the "wrench" by that name. In his mind, it seems to be intimately associated with the vise that is mounted on the back of the Rover for separation of the deep core sections.]
125:06:10 Scott: I guess you got to tell me where the wrench is on the Rover, Joe. I don't know of any wrench on the Rover.
[Fendell pans right, looking for Dave, but doesn't find him and reverses direction. Training photo S71-37218 shows this 'wrench' attached to the back of the drill-stem rack.]
125:06:16 Allen: The wrench on the Hand Tool Carrier, Dave. (Correcting himself) On the (drill stem) rack. I'm sorry. I'm giving you bad information here.

125:06:27 Scott: Yeah. There's no wrench. (Pause)

125:06:35 Allen: Dave, that wrench is on the (drill stem) rack that's holding the (core) tubes, right along beside you. Sorry.

125:06:45 Scott: The what?

[This is one of only a very few cases of serious communications problems between Joe and the 15 crew.]

[Scott - "This was a breakdown in nomenclature, because, boy, we spent a lot of time on nomenclature - identifying things, calling things, naming things - so we'd know what they were. Since I do not recall the term 'wrench' being part of the pre-flight lingo, nor do I recall a 'wrench' per se in our pack of tools, it seems that the term 'wrench' must have come from someone in the Backroom who may have figured out the solution to the problem, but who probably had not participated in the training and the development of the terminology that was used. We did spend a fair amount of time attempting to define precise terms to be used during the mission to avoid real-time confusion. The terminology, acronyms, nomenclature, etc. used during these missions were very carefully crafted by consensus - at least, we tried!."]

[Because the tool is, in essence, a wrench and was used as a wrench, I will use that term in the following discussions. Note, also, that by the beginning of EVA-3 at 164:14:23, Dave and Jim are calling it a wrench.]

[Fendell has panned left past Jim and is now looking at the Magnetometer, which Jim deployed 50 feet west of the Central Station.]

125:06:47 Irwin: Must mean the wrench I installed (on the back of the Rover, as per LMP-6)...(Correcting himself) Not the wrench, but the vise.
[Jim, too, seems to think of the 'wrench' as being part of the vise, even though it is currently hanging on the drill stem rack.]
125:06:54 Scott: Oh, the vise! Yeah, why didn't he say the vise? Sure, sure, the vise.

125:07:02 Irwin: If that'll work. I don't know.

Video Clip   1 min 57 sec ( 0.5 Mb RealVideo or 18 Mb MPG )

125:07:06 Scott: I was thinking of a pipe wrench, you know.

125:07:08 Irwin: Yeah.

125:07:09 Scott: That would probably be the thing to do. (Long Pause)

[Fendell has zoomed in on the magnetometer and is now examining the instrument and the cable connecting it to the Central Station.]
125:07:33 Allen: And, Dave, you're about a minute from a flag on your water.

125:07:40 Scott: Okay. Should I go to Aux now?

125:07:43 Allen: When you get the tone.

125:07:48 Scott: Say again.

125:07:49 Allen: Roger. Wait until you get the tone. Just wanted to warn you.

125:07:55 Scott: Okay. You're clipping your transmissions a little bit in the beginning sometimes, Joe, and I miss it. (Pause)

[After pulling back on the zoom, Fendell panned right and is now watching Dave and Jim. Unfortunately, Jim is standing right in front of Dave and we can't see what he is doing to remove the drill from the stem. Note that, because of a coating of dust on the TV lens, the picture is not particularly good. The picture was better when we were looking west but, here, with the camera pointed north, there is sunlight reflecting off the lens barrel and/or shade and onto the dust.]
125:08:16 Allen: Okay, Dave. And if that (wrench) doesn't work right off, we'll ask you to abandon that temporarily and go ahead and deploy the LR-cubed.

125:08:27 Scott: It worked! It worked, Joe. Good thinking back there in the back room.

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "In order to get the drill off the first probe, why, I had to get the vise - the little wrench - off the stand where the drill stems were, and get down on my hands and knees and force it off. I finally ended up physically breaking or bending the top half of that third stem to get the drill off."]

[The deep core stems were made of stronger materials than the heat flow stems. The latter were not made to withstand the forces that Dave had to apply to free the drill.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "But it did come off, and that was a good call from the ground. I had never practiced that in training."]

125:08:33 Allen: And good working...

125:08:34 Scott: Okay. I've got a(n RCU) water flag.

125:08:35 Allen: ...up there on the ALSEP.

125:08:39 Irwin: Do you want me to get it, Dave?

[Jim is asking if Dave needs help with his Aux water switch.]
125:08:41 Scott: No, I can get it. Okay. Aux Water coming on. Want me in Min, Joe?

125:08:53 Allen: Roger, Dave. Thank you. In Min.

Video Clip   3 min 27 sec ( 0.9 Mb RealVideo or 31 Mb MPG )

125:08:59 Scott: Okay. I'm Min.

[Comm Break]

[In the foreground, Jim appears to be having a problem releasing the Central Station top and sunshield. He moves to our left and uncovers Dave. Fendell zooms in on Dave, who has the drill off the stem and is now trying to remove the wrench, without any luck because the stems are loose in the hole and turn with the wrench. He leaves the wrench in place and will come back to remove it at 125:20:36.]

125:10:22 Irwin: Got a malfunction over here on the sunshield, Houston. The cord broke. On those pins that have to come out to release the aft sunshield. (Pause)

125:10:43 Allen: Okay, Jim. We copy that. Is that on the LSM?

125:10:50 Irwin: Oh, no. It's on the Central Station.

125:10:51 Allen: Oh. Rog.

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I guess the first problem that I encountered (during the ALSEP deployment) was when I tried to release the pins that hold the rear curtain cover. When I pulled on that cord, or string, it broke and I could not release the pins. Now, there's a string that goes from one pin to the other. I tried to put the tool (UHT) in there to release both pins, and the cord broke again, so I was forced to physically get down on my knees and pull them out by hand and, fortunately, they came out. That could have been a real glitch because, unless that's off, you can't get to the Boyd bolts on the back side of the Central Station."]

[According to the Apollo 15 Mission Report, the 50-pound-test-rated Dacron lanyard was replaced by 180-pound-test-rated lanyard for Apollo 16.]

125:10:52 Irwin: I guess I'll have to get down on my hands and knees to get those too. Dave, I'm going to have to get dirty and get down.
[Jones - "When Jim said 'Dave, I'll have to get dirty and get down', was that a concern about getting dust in the cabin?"]

[Scott - "Yeah. I don't know why you'd ever get down on your hands and knees, unless you absolutely had to - just 'cause you don't want to get dirty. Going down into the dirt was absolutely the last option. It (dust in the cabin) was bad enough as it was, without making it worse."]

125:11:00 Scott: Can I help you?

125:11:02 Irwin: You might have to help me to get back up.

125:11:04 Scott: Okay, call (if you need help). Joe, my flag's clear.

[During the last minute or so, Dave moved the drill and the stem rack away from the heat flow hole and, then, attempted to retrieve the probe. He bobbed down to one knee in an attempt to grab it but missed and was forced upright by the internal pressure of the suit. Fendell zooms in for Dave's second try. Dave gets himself ready and lets himself drop toward the ground, this time managing to grab the cable in his right hand. As the suit springs him upright, he starts to move forward and to spin to his left. By hopping on his left foot, he manages to stop himself without pulling hard on the cable or snagging it with his raised and trailing right foot.]
125:11:18 Scott: Sure wished I had a UHT. (Long Pause)
[Dave could have hooked the UHT handle under the cable and, thereby, would have gotten it up quite easily; or, as he did at 124:46:07, he could have gotten down much more easily using the UHT as a prop.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I didn't have a yo-yo, which complicated things relative to working with the UHT and the drill. It took both hands to drill and it took the UHT to disconnect all the Boyd bolts. I ended up just sticking it (meaning the UHT) in the ground and it didn't seem to hurt it any."]

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and, in the lower, left corner of the picture we can see the back of Jim's PLSS. He is undoubtedly on his knees. He pushes back, trying to get up, but doesn't get his center-of-gravity far enough back to make it. He then leans forward, out of the field-of-view, probably pushes back hard with his arms and, as he gets his center-of-gravity over his feet, springs upright. He then hops backwards to stop his rotation. Although we don't actually see everything he does, what we can see is very similar to what the 16 and 17 crews did on several occasions.]

[Jones - "That became a standard maneuver, and it looks like Jim did it pretty well."]

[Scott - "Maybe Jim defined a maneuver, out of necessity."]

125:11:38 Irwin: (As he gets to his feet) Oh, I made it!!

125:11:39 Scott: Careful.

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[Comm Break]

[During this interval, Jim continues to release Boyd bolts on the Central Station and Dave prepares the heat flow probe for insertion into the stems. During the following exchange between Joe and Jim, Fendell zooms in on Dave.]

125:12:43 Allen: Jim, this is Houston.

125:12:47 Irwin: Go ahead, Joe.

125:12:49 Allen: Roger, Jim. We think the shorting switch may have been inadvertently depressed. Could you take a look at that for us, please?

125:13:00 Irwin: Sure will. (Pause) Wish I could blow on it (to get the dust off).

125:13:14 Allen: It won't work (because of the helmet), I'll guarantee it. (Pause)

125:13:21 Irwin: Why don't I just pull the pin?

[Dave inserts the probe in the stem. He has to push on it slightly to get it to go in, and then pays out cable as he lowers the probe to the bottom of the hole.]
125:13:25 Allen: Roger. And, Dave, the diverter valve is yours.

125:13:32 Scott: Thanks, Joe!

[Dave reaches back to change the valve setting but runs into the cable in his arm. Inside the suit on each side, there is a cable anchored at the center of the chest which runs out to the arm pit and then into a tube which goes over the top of the arm. At the back, the cable emerges from the tube and is anchored at the center of the back. Friction between the cable and the tube helps the astronaut put his arm in a more or less arbitrary position and leave it there without having to exert force against the internal pressure of the suit. Here, Dave raises his arm up and back to feed cable through the tube and, then, is able to get his hand all the way back to get the valve. The shoulder tubes can be seen in a photo from a suit fit session which shows a subject - probably Gene Cernan - seated on a minimalist Rover mock-up.]

[Jones - "In reaching back for the diverter valve, you're doing a fairly complex thing with your arm."]

[Scott - "It just a natural suit maneuver. Roll your shoulder back and get your hand back. You've got to roll the suit shoulder back, and that's something that you do a lot, in various forms of training and what have you."]

[Jones - "So the first maneuver is to get the suit shoulder (and cable) back, then you move your arm to reach back."]

[Scott - "It's pretty easy. The convolute in the shoulder would let you do that. The suits are very mobile, relatively speaking. And, when people talk about making the suits more mobile, my contention is that they're pretty good. You have to do that little maneuver but, once you do it and you've got your hand back there, it's real easy to work the diverter valve. We bend the suits pretty easy."]

["Of course you can make the suits a little better! But they weren't bad."]

[Jones - "I was just interested in what you were doing there, mechanically."]

[Scott - "I went from the Gemini suit to the Apollo suit. The Gemini suit didn't have the convolutes; Apollo did. So, you learn various techniques which are then natural functions of how you operate. (What I'm doing here) is not searching for a way to get to the divert valve; this is a natural technique. That's a motion I probably didn't even think about. Roll the shoulder back, put the hand back and it's done."]

[Jones - "And you spent enough time pressurized, on the ground, that you either developed some of those yourself or pick some up from talking in the halls with people who'd been through it?"]

[Scott - "I think so. As I recall, we ran the whole exercise in a thermal/vacuum chamber. We ran through all the procedures, all the failure modes, with the flight hardware. And I think that might have been something new, although I'd have to go back and look. You've got things you have to learn how to do. It's just part of learning how to behave on the Moon."]

[As with all aspects of Apollo engineering, a great deal of effort was put into understanding equipment failure modes. Richard Bolt worked at Hamilton Standard during Apollo and, in a 2009 e-mail, shared some memories of his work on PLSS and OPS failure analysis.]

[Jones, during the interviews with Dave Scott - "Was there hand-me-down information about suit operations from either people who'd worn them or suit techs or engineers."]

[Scott - "Probably some of that. You know, we got acquainted with the suits on 12, which is another element of our prior training. By the time we got to 15, we had been through the suit training."]

[Jones - "Did the suits you wore on (Apollo) 9 have convolutes? That was a different model suit, wasn't it?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, it had convolutes. The basic Apollo suit, I think, didn't change a lot. It was a big step from Gemini. Hamilton Standard built the Gemini suit; and ILC built the Apollo suit. I went up to ILC a lot when the suits first got started, for 9, because we had the EVA on 9. I don't think there was a significant change in the suit after Apollo got started. Probably improvements (such as the addition of a waist convolute for the Rover missions), but the convolute was the new idea."]

["The Gemini suit was a rubber bag. There was only one neutral position. In the Apollo suits, there were an infinite number of neutral positions - wherever you wanted to position the convolute, and it would stay there for you. Rolling the shoulder back positions the convolute in an aft position so that you can do all the work behind your back."]

[Jones - "And, as a member of (Apollo) 9, you were one of the first to go through that exercise; you were in on the early stages of learning how to operate it. Whereas somebody like Jack, who was much further down the line, would have gone in and done some playing with it and either members of prior crews or suit techs or engineers at ILC would have given tips."]

[Scott - "Yeah. Because on Apollo 9, we did the first Apollo suited EVAs. Rusty (Schweickart) had the backpack and I just had the umbilicals."]

[Jones - "The Grissom crew and the (Apollo) 7 and 8 guys would have had Apollo suits, but not for EVA purposes. And it would have been a different level of..."]

[Scott - "In fact, in the Apollo 1 days, they were different suits because they were blue. And then, after the fire, there was a complete change in everything because the Beta cloth got added. The suits were made out of beta and then I think there was a whole generation of suit upgrading, if you will. And that's another story for somebody to write - on how the suits evolved."]

125:13:40 Irwin: It (the shorting switch) might have been inadvertently depressed, Joe. (I'll) check it now. (Pause)

125:13:53 Allen: Thank you, Jim.

[Comm Break]

[Here, Dave goes to his knee to get the bag that the probe was packed in. On his first try, he bends his knees and tries to reach down, but doesn't get close at all. On his second try, he sticks his left leg well out to the side, bends his right knee inward and drops, almost to his knee, just missing the bag. On the third try he actually touches his knee and, finally, grabs the bag. Once he is upright again, he removes the rammer and throws the bag away behind him. This time we see most of the trajectory and, in particular, the small puff of dust kicked up by the bag when it lands. The rammer is a thin telescoping rod and, once Dave has it fully extended, we see that it is about two meters long. Dave will use the rammer to emplace thermal shields on the downhole cable and to measure the depth of penetration.]

[Jones - "It's taken quite a while to get the heat flow in the hole."]

[Scott - "I would say the people in the Control Center should be getting relatively impatient - especially those who have never watched the entire exercise - because it's looks like its taking an awfully long time, which it did. Other than the drilling part, this (ALSEP deployment) is going pretty good."]

Video Clip   3 min 00 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 27 Mb MPG )

[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and changes his aim so that Houston can watch Jim, who is still releasing Boyd bolts.]
125:15:29 Allen: Jim, this is Houston.

125:15:33 Irwin: Go ahead.

125:15:34 Allen: Roger, Jim. While you're working there, it looks like that switch is still depressed. It doesn't really make any difference to us, but when it comes time to align the antenna, you will have to be careful not to point the antenna at any of the experiment cables. Over.

["Experiment cables" was originally transcribed as "experiment tables". Although it is difficult to tell which is the correct word from the tape, "tables" does not make any sense. The experiment cables, on the other hand, stretch out away from the Central Station and, as conductors of electricity, could interfere with proper antenna function.]
125:15:54 Irwin: Okay. Remind me of that, will you.

125:15:56 Allen: We'll be watching.

125:15:57 Irwin: When I get around to it. (Long Pause)

[Fendell has zoomed in on the sunlit toe of Mt. Hadley beyond the HFE pallet that Dave threw earlier in his "demonstration". Fortunately, he pulls back on the zoom just in time to see Jim raise the top of the Central Station.]
125:16:13 Irwin: Okay, Joe. Here comes the Central Station.

125:16:17 Allen: In living color. (Pause)

[Jim guides the top up into its fully deployed configuration. The "living color" is the shimmering, gold-plated Mylar which will provide thermal protection on the three sides receiving sunlight. On Apollo 17, the top sprang into place without any help from Jack Schmitt. Here, Jim had to help it overcome some resistance to the springs.]

[Jim is at 5:02 in his checklist (bottom of LMP-22 and at 5:37 into the EVA. He has been staying on schedule, still being 35 minutes down. Despite the troubles that Dave has been having, he is at 5:04 and has only lost about two minutes to the timeline.]

125:16:27 Scott: Okay, Joe. J-5 on the first probe.
[Dave is using the rammer to determine the probe emplacement depth.]
125:16:31 Allen: Roger, Dave. Thank you.

125:16:34 Scott: And I'll go back and get the electronics box (aligned?), after I get this second one done.

[Comm Break]

[Dave was to have leveled and aligned the electronics box at the top of CDR-20 before drilling the first hole.]

[Dave carries the drill and the stem rack over to the second probe and sets them down. He then rests the rammer on the stem rack and appears to reset the chuck on the drill. Fendell has zoomed in on him. Dave then gets two drill stems, threads them together and inserts them into the drill without trouble.]

Video Clip   2 min 25 sec ( 0.6 Mb RealVideo or 22 Mb MPG )

125:18:14 Irwin: That sunshield works a little better here without a breeze blowing.

125:18:20 Allen: Yes, sir. (Pause) Only the solar wind (is blowing at Hadley). (Pause)

[Obviously, during training in Florida, the Mylar curtains were a problem on windy days.]
125:18:36 Allen: And, Dave and Jim, to factor into your thinking here...

125:18:38 Scott: Lost my mark.

125:18:38 Allen: ...we'll be asking you to leave the ALSEP site in about fifteen minutes.

125:18:45 Scott: Oh my. Okay, Joe. (Long Pause)

[They had planned to leave the ALSEP site at about 6:00. They are currently at about 5:40.]

[Dave picked up the drill and then had to spend a moment looking for the mark he made on the ground where he planned to drill the hole - hence his "lost my mark". He finds it and sticks the bit into the ground. He gets good penetration until the join between the sections goes in. Immediately - and visibly - progress slows.]

125:19:06 Scott: It (meaning the subsurface material)'s even tougher here, Joe. (Long Pause)
[We can see the join in TV image. Dave takes about 13 seconds (4.1 cm/s) to get the first stem in and then 28 seconds (1.9 cm/s) for the second one, which he gets into the ground almost as far as it will go. By the end, he has the drill handles at his stomach and is leaning over the drill, apparently with most of his weight on his hands. Finally, he releases the handles and stands.]
125:19:33 Scott: Whew! Boy, that's really tough rock. (Long Pause)
[After a moment's rest, Dave turns the drill handles counter-clockwise about a full turn, leaning to the side to watch the stem turn in the ground.]
125:19:57 Scott: Same problem. (Pause) Okay. I got the same problem on the chuck, Houston. I think the rock is so tough that the chuck bites into the core stem and just won't release it without that vise.

125:20:31 Allen: Roger, Dave. We copy.

Video Clip   2 min 50 sec ( 0.7 Mb RealVideo or 25 Mb MPG )

[After turning the drill both ways a couple of times, Dave has now headed for the first probe to retrieve the wrench which, earlier, he had been unable to remove from the drill stems.]
125:20:36 Scott: And (laughs) I'm afraid I'm going to have trouble getting the vise off of this other piece here. (Long Pause)
[Fendell pulls back on the zoom, pans right, finds Dave, and zooms in. Dave has his left leg way out to the side and his right knee bent inward so that he can get down to the drill stem and the wrench. In his effort to get the wrench off, he is not only turning it parallel to the ground but is also flexing it up and down. In the process, he is putting considerable stress on the drill stem. As a result of the Apollo 15 experience, new procedures and tools were developed for the drilling tasks that Charlie Duke and Gene Cernan were to perform on Apollo 16 and 17, respectively. A wrench was designed specifically for the drill removal task and, after getting the first stem in the ground, they attached the new wrench to the stem, blocked it with an ankle, rotated the drill off, threaded on a new stem, attached the drill and, finally, held the drill while removing the wrench. Obviously, after the last stem had been completed and the drill had been removed, the wrench had to be removed without benefit of the drill on the stems. However, because of a change in wrench design and the fact that the drill stems were made of metal rather than the fiberglass laminate, removal was much easier.]
125:21:29 Allen: It looks like "vise" is a good word for it, Dave.

125:21:31 Scott: Don't know what to tell you, Joe. (Pause) Boy, Oh, boy. (Pause)

[Jim has come into the field-of-view and, as he works at the Central Station, he hides Dave from view. He is carrying a box which probably contains the Central Station antenna gimbal assembly. He is on LMP-23. Photo AS15-86-11592 shows the antenna gimbal assembly - used for accurate aiming - and the antenna mounted on top of the antenna mast. Note, also, the attachment points for the various instruments which Jim removed and deployed prior to raising the Central Station top.]
125:21:46 Allen: Dave, let us suggest to you that you go ahead and deploy the LR-cubed. And, Jim, another reminder on your (Central Station) antenna. (Pause)
[Just as Jim steps out of the way, Dave finally gets the wrench off.]
MP3 Audio Clip ( 18 min 56 sec )

125:22:02 Irwin: Okay, Joe. I'm putting that antenna up now, and I should not point it at any of the experiments. Is that correct?

125:22:10 Allen: Just the experiment cables, Jim, is the thing to steer clear of.

[Fendell pans left to follow Dave to the second heat flow hole. As he pans past the Central Station, we see that Jim has already installed the antenna gimbal assembly.]
125:22:18 Irwin: Okay. Well, the antenna is up now. (Pause) I'll try and level it.
[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I installed the antenna mast, the gimbal, and I leveled it. And I guess the time to level it was about the same as what I'd been spending in training - a little more than I would like to spend. It seemed like the Central Station wasn't very stable because, every time I adjusted it, the bubble would move back and forth. But I did get it level."]

[Dave gets to his knees to put the wrench on the drill stem. In fact, because he drilled so deeply, he has to raise up off his left knee in order to lean over to his right so that he can get his hand to the ground. Once the wrench is on, he stands easily, using the drill as a support.]

125:22:33 Allen: Dave, this is Houston. I think maybe we want to worry about this (heat flow hole) a little later. Could you deploy the LR-cubed for us, please?
[After some experimentation, Dave blocks the wrench with his left foot and puts a counter-clockwise torque (turning force) on the drill handles. As the drill breaks loose, the wrench pops off the drill stem. The motion of the drill and the wrench indicate that Dave was exerting considerable force to break the bond between the drill and the stem.]
125:22:43 Scott: Sure will, Joe. But let me put the second probe in. I got the vise off, and all I got to do is put the probe in. Okay? (Long Pause)

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[Dave has gone over to get the second probe. He does an easy, dynamic bob down almost to his right knee and easily grabs the probe with his right hand. Dave has obviously forgotten that he has only gotten two drill stems into the ground thus far. Had he decided that there was no point in trying to put more stems in the ground, he probably would have discussed it with Houston.]
125:23:15 Allen: Dave, we'd like for you to stand by on that probe. We think we may be able to drill it deeper later on...

125:23:21 Scott: Okay.

125:23:22 Allen: ...and let's ask you to go to the LR-cubed now (as per CDR-23).

[Dave has unwrapped the probe and now heads for the drill-stem rack.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "The ground called a halt to the drill...They said they would like to review it and see what would be the best thing to do. In my mind, I thought at that time we should go ahead and dig a trench and put the heat flow probes in the trench, as we had discussed prior to the flight, if the drill didn't work. It seemed to me that the amount of time being invested in that particular experiment was already becoming excessive. Because of the ground calling, wanting a re-evaluation, I terminated the drilling at that time and proceeded to deploy the LR-cubed and take the ALSEP photos."]

125:23:27 Scott: Okay; on the way! I'll stick the probe in the rack, if that's all right. (Pause while Joe gets an answer from the experimenters)

125:23:37 Allen: Sounds good, Dave. (Long Pause)

[At first Dave is unable to get the probe into the rack but, after spending a moment re-arranging things, slips it in easily.]
125:24:03 Scott: Okay, you want the drill in the Sun, I believe. Don't you, Joe?
[Dave has already headed for the Rover, with Fendell following. Houston can, of course, see the drill to make sure that it is in the desired orientation.]
125:24:09 Allen: Roger, Dave. It looks good to us; handle down, battery away from Sun. It looks good to us, and the LR cubed, we want west...

125:24:16 Scott: Okay.

125:24:17 Allen: ...and some south of the Rover; however far you think is convenient; and super clean.

125:24:25 Scott: Oh, super clean. Yes, sir. (Pause) Keep her clean.

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I took the LR-cubed a good hundred feet away (from the Rover) because of the interest in keeping it clean; and, because the ALSEP was deployed somewhat north of my (east-west) line-of-sight in order to get a level spot, I took the LR-cubed farther south than we had planned in order to try and keep it out of the (LM) trajectory as we took off, to keep the dust off of it."]

[During the next few minutes, the experimenters decide that the drill isn't properly oriented and, at 125:29:09, have Dave go back to turn it.]

125:24:29 Irwin: Okay, Joe. Azimuth is put in (on the antenna gimbals), and I'm working on elevation.

125:24:35 Allen: Okay, Jim. (Long Pause)

[Prior to raising the top of the Central Station, Jim leveled and aligned it. Now, with the gimbal assembly and the antenna mounted on the mast, he can set the gimbals to predetermined values of azimuth and elevation. Those values are listed on LMP-23.]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "One small comment as far as aligning the Central Station after it has been erected. It's quite easy to do. I don't know whether it was just the soft soil where we had the Central Station, or whether it was typical of one-sixth g. Even though it's erected, it's easy to shift to line up the shadow device."]

[Fendell finds Dave just as he picks up the LR-cubed. On his way out to the WSW, he steps into a small crater that, from our perspective at least, is invisible in the down-Sun washout.]

125:25:05 Irwin: Okay; 35.81, and 4.71. And the shadow device is good. It (meaning the gimbal assembly)'s leveled.

125:25:21 Allen: Okay, Jim, beautiful.

125:25:22 Irwin: Going out to get the SIDE.

Video Clip   2 min 55 sec ( 0.8 Mb RealVideo or 26 Mb MPG )

[Comm Break]

[Jim is now on LMP-24 and is about to deploy the SIDE and the associated Cold-Cathode Gauge Experiment (CCGE).]

[Fendell pans clockwise (right). Once he is aimed at the drill, he stops and zooms in on it. After about a minute, Fendell pulls back on the zoom, pans left, and finds Dave just as he finishes orienting the LR-cubed. In his left hand he is holding what appear to be a pair of flat, square protective covers made of a clear, plastic-like material.]

125:28:25 Scott: Okay, Joe. It (meaning the LR-cubed)'s aligned; and the shadow device is right on the index. And it's super clean!

125:28:34 Allen: You wouldn't be proud of anything less, Dave.

[Dave carefully backs away from the LR-cubed.]

[Scott - "Keep it clean."]

[Jones - "Rather than turn around and risk spraying some dust, you're actually hopping slowly back away from it."]

[Scott - "So (that), at least when I left, it was clean."]

125:28:40 Scott: Hope we're far enough south. Does that look all right to you? (Long Pause) Okay, Joe. What would you like me to do in the cleanup part here?
[Because Jim is still busy deploying the SIDE/CCGE, Dave is looking at CDR-23 at the tasks planned for such an eventuality. Indeed, the LR-cubed deployment (LRRR) was to have been one of Jim's tasks as per LMP-25. Note that Houston had Dave do the LR-cubed deployment not because Jim was behind the timeline but because Dave's higher than expected oxygen use rate is forcing an early end to the EVA. Note, also, that Jim does not have a list of tasks to perform in the event that he finishes before Dave finishes the drilling. Clearly, they assigned more work to Jim than they expected him to be able to perform, expecting that Dave would finish first and picked up some of Jim's tasks.]

[Jones - "Did you do any training on each other's tasks?"]

[Scott - "Yeah, I think we ran through each other's and we watched each other, just to get some familiarity. On most of this, we were cross-trained to some degree. Because there was one-man ALSEP deployment contingency. So we must have each gone through it individually, completely, at least once."]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Before the flight we found that, during our training, sometimes we'd finish at different times, so we planned to use the LR-cubed and the ALSEP photos as a buffer. And that was a good plan, because I had the procedures in my checklist. And I had only deployed the LR-cubed once, I think, during our training; and I had never taken the ALSEP pictures. I did have, in my cuff checklist, all those procedures, and they came in very handy because they were straight-forward and it took very little time to deploy the LR-cubed and take the ALSEP pictures. I could do that while you were finishing up. I think, in the end, we ended up at just about the same time."]

[Scott - "It's not a big deal to deploy the ALSEP; it's a matter of time. If you have the checklist, you can go do it all. Step by step (with the crewman in the LM available to follow along in the checklist and answer questions). The problem is time; and, the more proficient you are, the faster you can do it."]

125:29:07 Allen: Okay, Dave...

125:29:08 Irwin: Just take the pictures.

125:29:09 Scott: Yeah, I'll do that.

125:29:09 Allen: ...You're not going to believe this, but the drill has to be turned 180 degrees.

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[Fendell pulls back on the zoom and pans right, looking for astronauts.]
125:29:16 Scott: (Laughs) Oh, I believe it. Okay. (Pause) No problem. Maybe we can get it fixed. Be a great core if we could drill one here, you know; you'd get some good hard stuff. (Pause) Tell you, that time on that stem, Joe, I started hitting good hard, solid material like 8 to 10 inches down. (Long Pause)
[Fendell finds Dave just as he finishes re-orienting the drill and heads or the back of the Rover. He uses a mix of loping and skipping steps.]
125:30:17 Allen: Jim, are you deploying the SIDE now?

125:30:22 Irwin: Yes, I am. Trying to.

125:30:27 Allen: Okay. We'll have to be leaving in about 5 minutes.

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "Then I attempted to take the SIDE out. I had trouble with the UHT locking into the SIDE. I didn't realize this until I got it just about out to the (SIDE deployment) station, and I was about to put it down when it dropped off the UHT. I hope it didn't interfere with the experiment itself. I tried to engage the UHT again and again and had problems. It fell off the UHT about three times there. It was very frustrating. I don't know, maybe there was some dirt on the UHT that interfered with the engagement. We got the screen down, got the SIDE positioned, pulled the safety pin (holding the associated CCGE or Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment in place), (and) checked its level and align."]

[Figure 14-46 shows the UHT-SIDE interface. According to the Apollo 15 Mission Report "The universal handling tool fitting on this experiment is in the highest location above the lunar surface of any of the fittings and presents an awkward position of the tool for insertion, locking, and maintaining lock in the fitting." and goes on to suggest that, because of the awkward tool position, Jim inadvertently triggered the release.]

125:30:34 Scott: Okay, Jim; I got your camera. (Pause) How many pictures does that (ALSEP documentation) take?

125:30:42 Irwin: Takes about 20.

[LMP-26 and CDR-24 are identical sketches showing the desired ALSEP photographic sequence.]

[After zooming in briefly on the Central Station antenna, Fendell finds Jim and zooms in on him. Jim is almost due east of the Rover, deploying the SIDE and is hard to see in the sun glare. He is standing south of the SIDE and his leaning far forward, apparently using the UHT in his left hand for support. He has a coiled cable in his right hand. This is probably the CCGE deployment lanyard shown in Figure 12-3a from the Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report and in Dave's photo AS15-86- 11597. However, as indicated in the dialog at 125:32:45, he has not yet deployed the CCGE. Readers familiar with the difficulties experienced by the Apollo 12 and 14 crews with the deployment of a SIDE/CCIG (Cold Cathode Ion Gauge) combination will notice a dramatic difference in the configuration of Apollo 15 instruments. Compare with Figure 6-3 from the Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report.]

125:30:44 Scott: Okay. I've got (a frame count of) 115 on your camera. We're okay. (Long Pause)
[Each of the B&W film magazines holds about 180 frames. Each of the color magazines about 160. Dave's first pictures are a stereopair, AS15-85- 11466 and 11467. These show a small rock and, just below and to the right, the crater it probably made when it hit at low velocity.]
125:31:22 Allen: Dave, are you picking up Jim's camera now?

125:31:27 Scott: I've got Jim's camera. I'm going to take the pictures.

125:31:31 Allen: Roger. If yours is just as handy, it's got a color mag on it. (Pause) But it's in the noise;...

125:31:37 Scott: But isn't Jim's...(Stops to listen to Joe)

125:31:37 Allen: ...whatever you want.

["In the noise" refers to a signal so weak that it is indistinguishable from the random background noise. Here, Joe's use of the phrase means that it is unimportant whether Dave takes the pictures in color or B&W.]
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125:31:40 Irwin: No, I've been taking black and white, Dave.

125:31:48 Scott: Got shifted around so much there at the end, I lost track. (Long Pause)

[Still leaning far forward on his UHT - which he won't need again to carry anything - Jim drops the CCGE lanyard, lifts the SIDE with his right hand, and immediately puts it down again. He may have moved it to get a better gross level. He then adjusts the SIDE slightly and stands.]
125:32:25 Irwin: Okay, Joe. The SIDE is deployed. Let me level it here.

125:32:39 Allen: Roger. And (as LMP-24) report the pin pulled.

[This pin allows the tube holding the CCGE to drop.]
125:32:45 Irwin: I will. (Long Pause)
[As Jim completes the SIDE leveling and alignment, Fendell pans clockwise away from him.]
125:32:58 Irwin: Pin is pulled; level and aligned.

125:33:00 Allen: Roger. And that's a new Moon record on the SIDE. (Long Pause)

[Jim deployed the SIDE/CCGE in only 7 minutes 20 seconds, easily eclipsing the 13-minute-20-second, trouble-plagued deployment on Apollo 12 and the equally-frustrating, 9-minute deployment on Apollo 14. The main difference is the fact that the Apollo 15 CCGE was attached to the SIDE by a rigid tube, rather than a cable which, on Apollo 12 and 14, retained memory and tended to tip the SIDE. The Apollo 15 SIDE was also built in a much more stable configuration than its Apollo 12 and 14 counterparts.]
125:33:21 Scott: Okay, Joe. I got the LR-cubed pictures, and it's still super clean.
[Dave's LR-cubed photos are AS15-85- 11468 and 11469.]

[Meanwhile, Fendell is looking at the summit ridge of Mt. Hadley Delta at maximum zoom. He then pans counter-clockwise along the ridge and past Silver Spur. He spends the next few minutes scanning the horizon.]

125:33:29 Irwin: Okay, Joe. I'm going to depress the shorting switch, even though you say it probably is.

125:33:33 Allen: Roger. That's good, Jim. Depress the shorting switch and turn Astro switch number 1 clockwise (with the UHT).

125:33:42 Irwin: Okay. It's depressed. Turning switch number 1 clockwise. (Pause) Okay. It's fully clockwise, Joe. Why don't you try transmitter turn on?

125:34:15 Allen: Roger.

Video Clip   3 min 56 sec ( 1.0 Mb RealVideo or 35 Mb MPG )

[Houston will now attempt to operate the Central Station transmitter.]

[Irwin, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "(I) went back to the Central Station and depressed the shorting switch. I couldn't really check amps zero because there was just too much dust on the gauge. I might make a comment here that the dust covers that were put on the various experiments really paid off because we were in probably the worst situation that I've seen as far as dust and soil, but they kept all the Boyd bolts clear of any dust."]

[On his way past the Rover, Dave has switched cameras.]

125:34:22 Scott: Hey, Joe - I mean Jim - when you take your 3-footers, are you leaving the focus at 7 [feet]?

125:34:26 Irwin: No, I'm coming down to...No, no, I'm leaving them at...

125:34:31 Scott: What are you doing?

125:34:33 Irwin: No, I'm coming down to 3(-foot focus).

125:34:36 Scott: Okay.

125:34:38 Irwin: (Probably looking at LMP-26) No, I'm sorry, Dave. Leave it at 11, (f/)11 and 1/250th.

[In this rare bit of miscommunications, Dave is asking about the focus setting and Jim answers with the f-stop setting. Note that Dave's cuff checklist page CDR-24 is identical to LMP-26. Dave may not have practiced the ALSEP photo documentation recently and wants to be sure that he is following the correct procedures.]
125:34:43 Scott: No, that's not what I'm asking.

125:34:46 Irwin: Oh, I stop it down to 3 feet. Focus at 3 (feet).

125:34:51 Scott: Okay. (Long Pause)

[Dave takes two photos of the magnetometer, AS15-86-11588 and 11589. Note that the level bubble is visible near the center of the near surface. He then takes 11590 and 11591 of the Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE).]
125:35:13 Irwin: That Central Station is such an unsteady base. (Pause)

125:35:29 Allen: Okay, Dave and Jim. We want you to move back towards the LM now.

125:35:38 Scott: Okay. (Pause) Get out of the way, and I'll get the Central Station (photos) here real quick.

125:35:48 Irwin: Did you get the LSM?

125:35:49 Scott: Yeah.

125:35:50 Irwin: Let me go over and deploy the sunshield on it then (as per LMP-27).

125:35:53 Scott: No, we got to start heading back.

125:35:54 Irwin: But it won't take but a second.

125:35:57 Scott: Oh, yeah. That'll finish it up. Yeah. Okay.

[Dave's photo of the Central Station is 11592.]
125:36:05 Allen: (Joking) And, Jim, there's a ESP experiment over 240,000 miles.

125:36:14 Irwin: Don't read a thing! (Long Pause)

[Scott - "Joe was thinking, 'Jim, don't forget to deploy the LSM sunshade.' He's thinking that, right, and Jim gets it. So, we're demonstrating ESP, (like) Ed Mitchell on 14. But Jim says he didn't read the ESP."]

[Jones - "Jim isn't the sort who would have put much credence in that."]

[Scott - "No (meaning that Dave agrees that Jim would be skeptical that there was any ESP involved)."]

[Fendell pans past Jim at the LSM. Fendell stops his pan at the drill and after taking a look at that, raises his aim and examines the summit of Mt. Hadley.]

125:36:51 Irwin: Okay, the sunshield's up on the LSM.

125:36:53 Allen: Okay, guys. Let's go back (to the LM).

125:36:56 Scott: Okay. Let's head back, Jim. (Pause)

[Fendell has pulled back on the zoom and does a slow scan of the ALSEP site.]

[Scott, from the 1971 Technical Debrief - "I got all the ALSEP pictures with the exception of the heat flow, which I didn't take because I could see, then, we weren't through with it yet."]

125:37:06 Irwin: Leave the UHT right there. (Pause)

125:37:12 Scott: Okay. I'll get rid of this stuff (under?) the seat. (Pause)

125:37:22 Allen: Okay, Dave and Jim, when you get back to the LM, the name of the game is to start your closeout immediately.

125:37:35 Scott: Okay, Joe. That'll be in work. (To Jim) Let's don't fiddle with the seatbelts. I'll drive slow.

125:37:44 Irwin: Okay.

125:37:45 Scott: Make more time for that short distance. (Pause)

[By not using the seatbelts, they will have to drive more slowly. However, the extra driving time would be less, Dave thinks, than the time it would take to get Jim's seatbelt on.]
125:37:57 Allen: And we're standing by for the TV to come off.

125:38:02 Scott: Yes, sir. (Pause) On PM1/WB.

125:38:20 Allen: Roger. (Long Pause)

[TV off.]
125:38:33 Scott: Okay. Going to go in...Okay. On, On, On, On, On. Okay, ready, Jim.

125:38:46 Irwin: Ready.

125:38:47 Scott: Hold on to that...

125:38:48 Irwin: Yeah.

125:38:49 Scott: ...handrail there, huh? (Pause) Make sure we don't get any dust on anything (from the Rover wheels).

125:39:03 Irwin: (Got) LR-cubed out far enough.

125:39:06 Scott: Say again?

125:39:07 Irwin: Got the LR cubed out a good ways.

125:39:09 Scott: Don't want to get it dusty.

125:39:10 Irwin: Yeah. (Long Pause)

125:39:39 Allen: Dave and Jim, we want you to pick up at 6 plus 28 minutes on your checklist. And, Dave, your choice on the TV.

125:39:50 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

[That is, it is up to Dave whether or not he wants to take the time to turn the TV on and aim the high-gain antenna. Houston wants them to defer the SWC (Solar Wind Collector) deployment, polarimetric photography, flag deployment and LM inspection on LMP-28, CDR-26, and CDR-27. 6 hours, 28 minutes is on checklist pages CDR-28 and LMP-29.]
125:40:03 Irwin: (Probably looking at LMP-29) On, the contents of bag number 1, Joe, have we got...(It's) certainly not full. (Do) we have core stems in there?
[These are the core tubes that they used at Station 2 at 123:07:37. The cores started the EVA in Dave's SCB. Jim removed them so they could fitted together and hammered into the ground. Then, once the sections were separated and capped, Jim put them back in Dave's SCB.]
125:40:22 Scott: I'm reading you, Jim. I guess he's not.

125:40:25 Allen: Jim, stand by on that. I'm reading you loud and clear. Trying to get a reading (from the people keeping track of SCB contents). Stand by.

125:40:32 Irwin: I'm wondering, you know, if it's not full, maybe we ought to take all the samples we have and put in SRC...(correcting himself) in bag (SCB) number 1, so it'll go in SRC number 1. (Pause)

[Dave wore SCB-1 during the EVA, and Jim wore SCB-4. LMP-29 calls for Jim to pack SCB-1 in rock box SRC-1 and to stow SCB-4 on the MESA. He is suggesting that they put the SCB-4 sample into SCB-1 and, consequently, into SRC-1.]
125:40:54 Scott: Okay, let's see. We want it parked heading (at) which heading? Shoot! Been in that little building all the time.
[Jones - "Any idea what that means, about being in the training building all the time. You did some driving outdoors, didn't you?"]

[Scott - "Oh, yeah. But we had been working in the simulator building, with the Rover, on all this closeout next to the LM, with the flag and all that stuff. That's where we'd been working it. So, in there, we had an orientation; but, now, we're out here and we don't have any orientation (meaning that the visual cues are different). So, which way do you park it?"]

[Obviously, Dave had gotten used to parking the Rover inside the building without looking at his checklist and has forgotten what sun-orientation he wants.]

125:41:04 Irwin: Heading northwest, right?

125:41:06 Scott: (Reading CDR-25) Heading north (at the MESA); in the sunlight. (Pause)

125:41:14 Scott: (Possibly as Jim gets on the Rover) Wait a minute. There you go. (Garbled) (Long Pause)

125:41:37 Irwin: Still like Rover readouts when we stop; right, Joe?

[Joe told them to jump to LMP-29 and Jim is asking it they really want him to skip the readouts onLMP-27.]
125:41:40 Allen: Jim, when you get to the LM, we think maybe if you think it is easy, just dump the contents of all your collection bags in collection bag 1, and put the whole thing in SRC.

125:41:56 Irwin: Yeah, sounds good.

125:41:58 Allen: Roger. If that's what you're asking; and the full core tubes, you can just leave there in collection bag 1.

125:42:08 Irwin: Okay, and we'll take the empty one (meaning the unused core tube) out.

125:42:11 Scott: Okay, Jim. I'm stopped; why don't you hop off and let me back up a tad here, and give me the word (on obstacles)?

125:42:14 Irwin: Okay.

[During the 1971 Technical Debrief, Dave and Jim thought that Jim walked back to the LM. However, Dave's "why don't you hop off" strongly suggests that Jim rode this time. In reality, he walked back to the LM from the ALSEP site at the end of EVA-2 at 148:30:41.]
125:42:15 Scott: Easy does it, easy does it. Got to get rid of that tool; that's in your way.

125:42:20 Irwin: (Garbled) what's doing it. (Pause) Okay, you're clear to back up, Dave.

125:42:23 Scott: Okay.

125:42:26 Irwin: Bring it up about another 5 feet.

125:42:28 Scott: Okay. (Pause)

125:42:36 Irwin: Well, that's good, right there.

125:42:38 Scott: Okay.

125:42:41 Allen: And, Jim. Be advised that that empty core tube...

125:42:43 Scott: Okay, Joe, ... we'll say complete out.

125:42:44 Allen: ...was taken out of bag 1. You don't have to worry about that.

[Dave took the unused core tube out of SCB-1 at about 124:10:45, while Jim started the ALSEP off-load at the LM. Jim was probably so pre-occupied with what he was doing that he didn't consciously hear Joe's conversation with Dave about the core tube. There are other examples of this throughout the Apollo record.]
125:42:49 Irwin: Okay. Heading is 315; bearing 059, 103, 001, 100, 110, 100, 100, and motor temps are still off peg low.

125:43:07 Allen: Copy.

125:43:08 Irwin: Getting the circuit breakers.

125:43:10 Allen: Roger.

125:43:14 Scott: Okay, Joe, you say pick up at 6:28?

125:43:16 Allen: Yes, sir.

[Dave is on CDR-28. In a moment, Jim will start pulling circuit breakers per LMP-27.]
125:43:20 Scott: 6:28, okay. I think we'll skip the TV here and get the rest of these things done.

125:43:27 Allen: Sounds good.

125:43:31 Scott: Think we're going to have to do some dusting before we go in, and it's going to take us a little long. I'll get those (circuit breakers), Jim. I'll get them.

125:43:38 Irwin: Can you get that last one? My fingers just can't take any more.

125:43:40 Scott: Here, I'll get it.

[Jones - "Do you remember any finger soreness on your part?"]

[Scott - "That's a subject we've discussed a lot - and discussed with Andy Chaikin, too. Yeah. I guess they were sore. I don't recall it being a big deal at the time because there were so many other things going on. When we get back in, we talk about the fingers. It's sort of a thing you accept, because it's there, and there aren't any options, anyway. Okay. And you press on."]

[Scott - "(Changing the subject) I thought I had pulled the circuit breakers, way back when we got to the LM (124:04:40) Out to the ALSEP site I said (at 124:26:10) that I wished the Nav system were on, because then I could point the Rover better. Remember that discussion? And he said 'look at your shadow'."]

[Jones - "Maybe you just pulled the Nav circuit breaker."]

[Scott - "Probably. I would have left all the rest of them on to drive. So what we're talking about, here, is the rest of them."]

125:43:41 Irwin: Bus B.

125:43:46 Scott: Okay. You only got to pull those?

125:43:49 Irwin: I'm the one that pulls those, yeah.

125:43:50 Scott: Yeah. You just pull those four, right?

125:43:52 Irwin: Yeah.

125:43:53 Scott: Okay, Rover's (powered) down.

 

ALSEP Off-load Apollo 15 Journal EVA-1 Closeout