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EVA-1 Close-out EVA-2 Wake-up

 

Post-EVA-1 Activities

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Scan credits in the Image Library.
Audio clips by Dave Shaffer.
Last revised 17 December 2012.

 

MP3 Audio Clip starting at 124:14:09 ( 19 min 55 sec )

124:14:14 Cernan: Okay. Post-EVA configuration. White dots out and EVA decals.

124:14:20 Schmitt: Okay. Checking.

[Jack is verifying that the circuit breakers and switches marked with white dots and EVA decals are in the same, powerdown configuration they were in prior to the start of the EVA.]
124:14:22 Schmitt: White dot.

124:14:23 Cernan: Okay. Give me a chance to turn around and look. Okay. White dots are out; all the white dots. Okay, they're all out here. Boy, does this feel good to get soft suits. Oh, my hands.

[Cernan - "Your hands just get so tired and sore, both from the work of squeezing your gloves around things all day and from the constant chafing. I wound up with blisters all over my hands, particularly between the thumb and the forefinger."]
124:14:47 Schmitt: Okay, they're all out here.

124:14:48 Cernan: Okay. Okay, on (panel) 16, Suit Fan number 2, Closed.

124:14:54 Schmitt: Suit Fan 2, Closed.

124:14:55 Cernan: And Suit Fan Delta-P, Closed.

124:14:57 Schmitt: Closed.

[They are turning on the fans and a fan sensor in the Environmental Control System (ECS) Suit Circuit.]
124:15:00 Cernan: ECS caution and Water Sep(arator) Component light's on.

124:15:03 Schmitt: Okay, ECS...(Pause) I think it's on. It's hard to see it.

[This indicates, as expected, that the Suit Circuit Water Separator is not yet up to speed.]
124:15:12 Cernan: Okay. (Pause) Doff your gloves. Stow on comm panel. Hallelujah!
[It is a great relief to get the gloves off.]
124:15:16 Cernan: Cabin's stable, Houston. How's it look to you?

124:15:28 Parker: Looks good to us, 17. And I'd like you to know you had a 7-hour and 12-minute EVA, from 3.5 (psi) to 3.5 (psi).

124:15:40 Cernan: Well, until I get out of this suit, I'm still EVA.

124:15:48 Parker: Roger.

[It is now eight hours and fifteen minutes since they started to get Jack's PLSS on, and it will be another forty-five minutes until they are both out of their suits. Preparations for the next EVA will take even longer, since they will have to start with suit donning.]
124:15:49 Cernan: Oh, doesn't that feel good. Whoo!

124:15:52 Parker: And I think it's a tremendous job for what we might call a "challenging" EVA.

124:16:00 Cernan: Bob, that's no pun. It really was. It really was.

124:16:04 Parker: I know it, men. I know it.

124:16:11 Cernan: I tell you, I really wish you guys could have been here with us. You worked as hard at it as we did, if not harder.

124:16:20 Schmitt: Harder, I think. Until today.

124:16:24 Cernan: Ohh! You don't have a tub of hot water I can soak my hands in, do you? (Pause)

[Schmitt - "I had been aware from the experience of previous crews that you could get rough or damaged finger tips and that your fingernails could lift right off the quick as a result of constantly reaching in the suit and getting a little bit of grabbing from the rubber bladder. Knowing that, I wore some nylon liners and also kept my fingernails clipped down as far as possible to delay the process. But, ultimately, all my nails were lifted off the quick and I can remember seeing blood under Gene's fingernails. There was nothing much else you could do about it; it was just a continuous, traumatic soreness which faded into the background."]

[NASA photo S72-56081 shows the crew preparing to cut a cake aboard the recovery carrier, Ticonderoga. Note the blood under the nails of Jack's middle and ring fingers.]

[A detail from NASA photo 72-H-1561 taken on-board Ticonderoga shows signs of bleeding under the nail of the little finger on Gene's right hand and, possibly, under the nail on the middle finger.]

124:16:39 Cernan: Wait until that dust hits the sweat of your hands.

124:16:43 Schmitt: (Subvocally) Oh, shoot. (Pause) I tell you.

[Schmitt - "Other than the times when I was talking to Gene or when Bob had asked a specific question, I don't think I was talking to anyone so much as I was dictating - particularly about the geology, providing a verbal set of field notes that I realized that I or others would be using. So I'm surprised that, even under those circumstances, we had a subconscious avoidance of profanity. Gene would occasionally use his "Manischewitz" as a substitute and I used "Oh, shoot" here and probably used other things on occasion. And I think it was characteristic of each of the crews. They all pretty much avoided profanity except on Apollo 16 when they accidentally had their mikes keyed when they were talking about the orange juice and on Apollo 10 when they had that startling experience with the jets firing when they weren't expected to."]
124:16:48 Cernan: Man! Okay, my gloves are off. (Reading) "Doff helmets with visors, lower shades, and stow in BRA." Well, I guess the first thing is to get this thing off. Boy, let me tell you.

124:17:09 Parker: Okay. And 17 - or Jack and Gene - I'm going to turn you over to Joe (Allen) now. I'll be back in a while.

124:17:19 Cernan: Okay, Bob. Thank you for a job well done.

124:17:22 Parker: Well, job well done on your side, guys. (Pause)

124:17:30 Schmitt: (Subvocally) God Damn. (Pause) Oh, I can't do it. How about getting my glove off? (Pause) Can you handle it?

124:17:48 Cernan: (Garbled; pause)

124:17:52 Schmitt: Thank you. (Pause)

124:18:06 Cernan: Jack, the big one's out of the way. The one (EVA) we really had to get out there on. Boy, look at that visor. No wonder I couldn't see. (Long Pause) Jack, do you read?

[They have their visor assemblies (LEVAs) off, but still have their helmets on.]
124:18:35 Schmitt: Yeah.

124:18:36 Cernan: Okay, I thought you knocked your thing (the RCU comm switch) to AR or to A or something. (Pause) There's a lot of noise in the background. That's why I was wondering. Need some help? (Long Pause)

124:19:00 Schmitt: Stow the visors, huh? What is it?

124:19:04 Cernan: Yeah, stow them in the BRA.

124:19:06 Schmitt: No, but I mean...Keep the protective visor down?

124:19:07 Cernan: Keep the protective visor over it, and stow the whole thing in the BRA. (Long Pause) "Verify safety on the dump valve." I guess I can do that now...

124:19:39 Schmitt: Again?

124:19:40 Cernan: That one's still safe. And that one's still safe.

124:19:47 Schmitt: Smells like gunpowder, just like the boys said.

124:19:53 Cernan: Oh, it does, doesn't it? (Pause)

[They have just removed their helmet and, as did previous crews, notice that the dust in the air smells like burnt gunpowder. There is enough dust in the air to smell, but not enough to see.]
124:20:00 Cernan: Okay, "Descent Water valve, Open." Ohh, boy! I ran out of water out there. I mean the drinking kind. (Pause)
[Gene is refering to his in-suit drink bag.]

[Cernan - "I ran out late in the EVA, so it wasn't a problem."]

124:20:11 Schmitt: Okay, what's next?

124:20:13 Cernan: Okay, "Descent Water Valve, Open." (Pause)

[They are opening the descent stage water supply, having turned it off prior to the EVA. This will provide cooling and drinking water until they get out of the suits.]
124:20:24 Schmitt: Okay. Coming Open.

124:20:29 Cernan: Okay, and then you get your purge valve out.

124:20:32 Schmitt: Not too hard.

124:20:33 Cernan: Good shot. (Both laugh) If they say anything, just say, "I told you so." (Still laughing) Okay. "Remove your purge valve..."

124:20:45 Schmitt: (Laughing)

124:20:46 Cernan: "...and disconnect your OPS hose."

124:20:47 Schmitt: Yes, sir. (Laughing) If I can.

[Twenty years after the event, neither Gene nor Jack remembers what this was about. In 1997, Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence suggested that Jack's purge valve popped out, as a result of residual pressure in the suit, just before Gene's "Good shot." at 124:20:33.]
124:20:54 Cernan: Okay. I tell you, I haven't seen anything...Drilling those holes was a piece of cake until I couldn't get that core tube out. I thought that whole...

124:21:04 Schmitt: (Garbled), will you?

124:21:05 Cernan: I thought that...

124:21:06 Schmitt: I'm glad there were two of us.

124:21:07 Cernan: I thought that whole thing was going to break. It was bending about...at about a...(Laughs)

124:21:12 Schmitt: Well, next time we have to do it...

124:21:15 Cernan: Yeah.

124:21:16 Schmitt: Let's see, OPS. That must be this one.

124:21:18 Cernan: "Disconnect OPS hose. Connect LM hoses, red to red, blue to blue." I don't want LM (oxygen) hoses yet. I'll just get on water right away. (Pause) Let's put...I'm going to..."(PGA) Diverter valve, horizontal."

124:21:31 Cernan: "Suit Isol(ation Valve), both." I'm going Suit Flow, get some flow in this cabin. Okay.

[They are directing the flow of Suit Circuit oxygen into the cabin via the LM oxygen hoses.]
124:21:38 Schmitt: Here, you want me to get it?

124:21:41 Cernan: I tell you, my hands, after working at picking up little things.

124:21:45 Schmitt: I feel the same way. I think you had the worst of it.

124:21:49 Cernan: Okay, let's keep as much dust out of those connectors as we can. (Jack laughs) Wise guy.

124:21:55 Schmitt: Okay.

124:21:57 Cernan: Let's wait on these. Okay, your (PGA) diverter valve horizontal?

124:22:03 Schmitt: Yep.

[By setting the suit diverter valve to the horizontal position, they will direct some of the oxygen flow - once they get the LM hoses hooked up - into the torso, which will help dry the suits.]
124:22:05 Cernan: Okay, and if you can get to the Suit Flow, you can go Suit Flow. In the meantime, get your Fan (and) your Pump, Off.

124:22:13 Schmitt: Fan's Off. Pump's Off.

[These are RCU switches for the PLSS oxygen fan and the PLSS LCG water pump. Astronaut Joe Allen joins the conversation as CapCom.]
124:22:16 Cernan: Joe, are you still reading us down there?.

124:22:21 Allen: Loud and clear, Gene. We're following you close and...

124:22:22 Cernan: Okay. I just wanted to see whether you were there.

124:22:24 Allen: Roger. Following you close here.

124:22:29 Schmitt: Keep us honest.

124:22:30 Cernan: Okay, we're just looking at 5 psi and all the hatches are battened down, and the safeties are on. You can keep a look at the rest of it for us.

124:22:38 Allen: Copy that. And we're seeing the same thing.

124:22:39 Cernan: (To Jack) Okay, disconnect your PLSS water. Now what I do, Jack, is...(Listens to Allen and then continues) I was going to say put your cover on, but we're going to stow those.

124:22:48 Cernan: (To Allen, having started the procedures on checklist page 3-2) Okay, guess we've got to go off the air for a little while. We're both going "O".

124:22:54 Allen: Okay.

[They are turning their RCU Communications Mode Selector switches to the "O" (Off) position. The accompanying photograph shows the top of the RCU, with the front being up. The Mode Select switch is at the right and has four round cut-outs. The second cut-out from the right is larger than the other three and shows the selected communications mode, in this case "AR". The "O" mode is the next position to the right.]
124:22:55 Cernan: And we'll get on our LM comm here, shortly.

124:22:57 Allen: Roger. Check back in.

[Comm Break. Houston is waiting to re-acquire the Command Module, now on its 19th orbit. They expect that Evans went to sleep during this Farside pass.]
124:24:49 Schmitt: (Garbled). Okay, we got to do some more switching, yet.

124:24:51 Cernan: Okay. Connect the...Okay. Now in...Audio circuit breakers, Closed. Now, both panels, VHA...(correcting himself) VHF A, Receive; B, Off. Okay. Mode ICS/PTT.

[Comm Break]
124:26:01 Cernan: Hello, Houston. Do you read Challenger on LM comm?

124:26:05 Allen: Okay, Challenger. This is Houston. Reading you 5 by.

124:26:11 Cernan: Okay, we're going to go ahead and charge up the...let's see...the LMP's PLSS with oxygen.

124:26:26 Allen: We copy.

[Cernan - "We wanted to get all of the housekeeping chores out of the way as soon as we could. Charging the PLSSs let us get them stowed - on the walls, I think - so that we'd have more room."]

[Long Comm Break. The LMP PLSS oxygen recharge is at the bottom of the left-hand column of Surface 3-2.]

124:32:56 Schmitt: Hello, Houston. The recharge on the LMP: 95 percent.

124:33:01 Allen: Copy that.

[Long Comm Break as they recharge Gene's PLSS. Jack's PLSS now has 95 percent load of oxygen. They will top off the oxygen in both PLSSs at about 126:20, after their eat period.]
124:39:40 Cernan: Hello, Houston. This is CDR with a recharge of 93 percent.

124:39:44 Allen: Sounds good, Geno.

[There is, of course, only one recharge hose.]

[Long Comm Break. During this period they doff their OPSs and PLSSs and perform the OPS checkout.]

124:48:18 Schmitt: Okay, Houston. OPS pressures: LMP, 6100 (psi), and CDR, 5900.

124:48:21 Allen: Thank you, Jack.

[Each of the OPSs contains two spherical oxygen bottles, each about eight inches in diameter. The high pressure in these - about 6000 psi - and in the PLSS bottles is necessary for the storage of significant amounts of oxygen in such small volumes.]

[Long Comm Break. The following exchanges were recorded during a change-of-shift press briefing and times are not available from the Public Affairs tape. During this period, they are changing PLSS batteries and LiOH canisters. The used items are placed in the jettison bag for disposal at the start of the next EVA. They are now on Surface 3-3.]

124:58:01 Cernan: Joe, we're changing a (LiOH) cartridge out in my PLSS. We've got the (PLSS) battery changed.

124:5x:xx Allen: Okay, Geno; thank you.

[The lithium hydroxide canister is a 6-inch diameter cylinder which lies horizontally across the two-foot width of the PLSS. The crew has removed the fabric thermal-covering from the PLSS in order to remove the used can and install a new one. The primary purpose of the LiOH can is the removal of carbon dioxide.]
124:5x:xx Cernan: (To Allen) You don't have a cold something or other, do you?
[That is, a cold beer.]
124:5x:xx Allen: I'm sorry you even mentioned it.

124:5x:xx Cernan: We can think about it, can't we?

124:5x:xx Allen: Mercy, yes.

124:5x:xx Cernan: Hey. Does Captain America (meaning Ron Evans) know all about this?

124:5x:xx Allen: (Making a mis-identification) Roger, Jack. He does. He's been fully advised, and his response is (that) he's sound asleep, now.

124:5x:xx Cernan: Yeah. I forgot. He was going to bed before we did today.

124:5x:xx Schmitt: Did he have a good day up there?

124:5x:xx Allen: He surely did. Fine day. And I want to make the observation as a casual bystander: it was a real pleasure to watch your EVA unfold down here.

124:59:55 Cernan: Thank you, Joe. I think you are more than a casual bystander though.

[Long Comm Break. Now they are changing batteries and the canister on Jack's PLSS.]
125:07:23 Cernan: Hey, Joe. We've got 1 and 3 - or, correction - 1's replacing the 3's and 2's replacing the 4's on the PLSS.

125:07:30 Allen: We copy.

[Comm Break]
125:xx:xx Schmitt: Joe, we're in the right-hand column of page3-3 now.

125:xx:xx Allen: Roger.

[Comm Break. They have finished with Jack's PLSS and are now weighing and stowing samples.]
125:15:24 Schmitt: Joe, collection bag (SCB) 2 is 16 (pounds)

125:15:29 Allen: Thank you. (Long Pause)

125:15:50 Cernan: And the SRC is 32 pounds.

125:15:56 Allen: Copy; 32 pounds.

[Comm Break. The crew has a small spring scale which gives them terrestrial weights. That is, on Earth, a two-pound (Earth-weight) rock would register twelve pounds on the scale while, on the Moon, it would register two pounds. The actual weight of rocks collected during this EVA is given in the Mission Report as 31 pounds (14 kg). The 48-pound (21.8 kg) total given here includes the weights of the individual sample bags, the two 1.7 pound (0.8 kg) SCBs, and the 14.7 pound (6.7 kg) SRC. Weights are measured so that the flight engineers can adjust the stowage for center-of-mass control, if necessary.]
125:17:03 Cernan: Okay, Joe. The Heater is On for the (urine) dump.

125:17:09 Allen: Okay.

[Long Comm Break. They are heating the urine line so that, when they empty the urine out of the bladders in their suits, it won't freeze before reaching the sump in the descent stage.]
125:21:51 Cernan: Okay, Joe. The circuit breakers are verified. On both (panels) 11 and 16, with the exception of the (urine) line heater.

125:22:09 Allen: Okay, copy that. Thank you very much.

[Comm Break. They have finished the last of the tasks on Surface 3-3.]
125:24:06 Schmitt: Okay, Houston, we're going to turn the Biomed, Off.

125:24:12 Allen: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break. They have completed the urine dump and are getting Gene out of his suit. After they get his suit off, he will clean the hose connections and the neck and wrist rings, and lubricate the zippers. Then they will lay the suit on the ascent engine cover, cover the legs with a jettison bag to keep the dust down, and attach the LM oxygen hose to dry the suit out.]
MP3 Audio Clip ( 20 min 28 sec )

125:46:44 Schmitt: Houston, Challenger. We'll both be off the air briefly here as we swing into getting our suits and LCGs (Liquid Cooled Garments) off. The Commander presently has his suit off, and I'll start on mine.

125:47:00 Allen: Roger, Jack.

[Very Long Comm Break.]
126:09:43 Cernan: Hello, Joe; you there?

126:09:48 Allen: Waiting patiently.

126:09:54 Cernan: Okay, if you're keeping score, on the bottom of (page) 3-4, we're both out of our suits. And does that feel good.

126:10:02 Allen: Roger, Gene. Thank you.

126:10:07 Cernan: Okay, I'm out of my LCG, if you want to turn the page (to Surface 3-5).

126:10:12 Allen: Okay, Geno, and how are your hands doing?

126:10:18 Cernan: Oh, they're a little tired. On both sides, here.

[Gene's means both sides of the cabin and, therefore, both he and Jack.]
126:10:27 Allen: Can imagine.

126:10:29 Cernan: But I think they'll pull through. (Pause)

[Gene sounds tired. He and Jack have been awake since 105:47 or nearly 20 1/2 hours.]
126:10:47 Cernan: Do I read this (checklist) that the LMP sleeps on bio tonight? Is that right?
[Jack will wear biomedical sensors through the sleep period.]
126:10:51 Allen: Stand by. (Pause) Rog; that's affirm.

126:11:00 Cernan: Okay, so I can take mine off, huh? My sensors?

126:11:09 Allen: That's affirm, Gene.

126:11:14 Cernan: Okay. (Pause)

[Cernan - "The sensors itched, and it was just generally irritating to have them on. We had learned to put them on ourselves, so that we could take them off when we could."]
126:11:26 Cernan: Well, we'll be up to the EVA debriefing time here very shortly.

126:11:30 Allen: Rog. (Long Pause)

126:11:56 Cernan: Joe, do you know how much time has elapsed since we initially charged our PLSSs with O2?

126:12:04 Allen: Geno, it's time to charge them again, if you want to.

126:12:12 Cernan: Okay, I just might pick that up.

126:12:14 Allen: All righty.

126:12:22 Cernan: We'll let you know where we are, though.

126:12:24 Allen: Okay.

[At the bottom of Surface 3-5, there is a notation to verify that one hour has elapsed since the initial oxygen recharge before starting the top-off. They finished the initial recharges at 124:39, well over an hour ago.]

[Schmitt - "My guess is that you did an initial charge and then let things stabilize - let the oxygen cool or the tank relax - and then you topped it off."]

[Comm Break; Deke Slayton joins the conversation.]

126:13:43 Cernan: Say, Joe, I guess the home front was probably listening in. Any one talked to 'em? (Pause)

126:13:57 Slayton: Haven't talked to them today, Geno. I haven't at least.

126:14:06 Cernan: Hello, boss, how are you doing down there?

126:14:08 Slayton: Just fine. Waiting for you guys to go to sleep so we can do the same. (Pause) Had a great day up there, guys.

126:14:16 Cernan: Oh, you don't have to wait for that. We're...(Stops to listen to Slayton's second remark) It was super from here. It's quite an experience, Deke, and quite a challenge.

126:14:26 Slayton: Yeah, it looked beautiful from here.

126:14:34 Cernan: I tell you, it makes you feel like you had a good day's work behind you, though.

126:14:42 Slayton: I can believe that.

126:14:47 Allen: We're about to give you the rest of the day off, Gene.

126:14:54 Cernan: Thank you, Joe. (Long Pause)

126:15:20 Allen: Geno, while you troops are...

126:15:23 Cernan: Hey, it's 3 o'clock in the...

126:15:24 Allen: Go ahead.

126:15:26 Cernan: Go ahead, Joe. I was just going to say, it's 3 o'clock in the morning (Central Standard Time) back there.

126:15:31 Parker: We know it.

[Because of the launch delay, a decision was made to reset mission clocks to give time relative to the planned launch time of 0253 GMT 7 December 1972. It is currently 0308 CST 12 December 1972 in Houston.]
126:15:34 Slayton: It's 3 o'clock in the morning up there, too!

126:15:41 Cernan: Yeah, (chuckles) and we know that too.

126:15:46 Allen: Troops, while you're in a listening mood up there, we're going to be coming at you with a number of items here - not too many -, but the first will be some surface block data. Then we're going to read up to you a LEVA (Lunar Extravehicular Visor Assembly) cleaning procedure which is fairly simple; a real short geology debrief; a one-line change in the Lunar Surface Checklist. And then, we've been doing some thinking down here about how to fix the fender. And it's going to involve - we think, although we'll work on it while you guys are getting some rest - it's going to involve using utility clamps, from inside your LM there, instead of tape, to fasten some sort of stiff material onto the Rover in place of the missing fender. And we'll go with either with one of your cue cards, or possibly with part of insulation that was the flame blanket protecting the Rover during the landing. Or perhaps part of the packing material that was between the Rover wheels and is probably lying on the ground underneath the LM there.

126:17:07 Cernan: Joe, you couldn't be reading our mind more. We were talking about that, and there is a piece of it right outside my window. I saw it after we got in here. Either that or back of a part of a data book or something. I hate like the devil to tear one of those other fenders off. And the reason tape won't stick is that everything's got a fine coating of dust, and the only way I could finally get it to stick was to put tape on it (and then) rip the tape off - or take the tape off - which took some of the dust off and then (another piece of) tape would tend to hold it. But it just won't hack it up here.

126:17:39 Allen: Roger, Gene. That's exactly what we're thinking (see below). And what we're going to do is run through the fix in a pressure suit a few hours from now. And if it looks like we can do it, and it won't cost you many more than say 10 minutes, we're going to have you go through with it. If it takes longer than that, we're going to go back to the drawing board and see what else we can do here.

126:18:08 Cernan: Well, you know John (Young) and Charlie (Duke) can tell you just how bad it is. I wouldn't have believed it and I guess I didn't believe it, or I would have worked a little harder to make sure that fender was going to stay on. But, man, just that short trip back from where we lost it, and we were just covered. The whole...I couldn't even read parts of the panel on the Rover, plus (there was a lot of dust on) all the battery covers and everything.

[Cernan - "It was just an unacceptable situation. Imagine, a little thing like knocking a Rover fender off having the potential of compromising the rest of our mission. I still have no doubt that we had to find a fix. If we hadn't, then at bare minimum it probably would have taken thirty to forty percent of our time to consciously keep the dust off of the Rover, the tools, and the rest of the equipment. We wouldn't have been able to drive as fast, we would have had to spend a lot more time dusting."]

["I was concerned in the sense that I knew that we had to find a fix; but I was also confident that we'd find one. I knew that the ground was going to be working on a fix, but I was also responsible for the mission on our end and I was going to think about the problem, too. I'm the guy on the scene; I'm the guy who's got to actually fix the fender. The help we got from the ground was tremendous. They knew exactly what we had in the LM and were able to try out things during the night. But they were a quarter million miles away and I was going to have to do the fixing. So I spent some time, including while I was lying in the hammock, thinking the problem through."]

["Before the mission, probably no one could have believed that losing a fender could have been that serious. But, if that had been an unmanned vehicle, dependent on the radiator for cooling and a clean TV lens for scientific exploration, you might have been out of business. Of course, maybe you could say that if we hadn't been there, it wouldn't have gotten knocked off; but even an unmanned vehicle can lose a fender by going too close to a rock or something."]

[Schmitt - "As I recall, my perspective on the fender was that it wasn't a big deal; primarily because I had worked those kind of problems between EVAs on other missions. As Gene implies here, there are an infinite number of things that you can do to fix a problem; and that was the tradition of the whole ground support effort. You've got a problem? You go work on it and you fix it. And, so, I wasn't going to worry about it. I never imagined that they weren't going to come up with a solution. The only thing that bothered me - and I do remember thinking about this - was that the fix was going to eat up time out of the second EVA. As you may have noticed, Gene talked about the fender frequently but I never even responded to him, being busy with other things. So, obviously, it wasn't a big concern in my mind."]

[Dave Ballard provides the following account of what has been going on in Houston to come up with a fix. "It was Terry Neal from the Apollo 17 Flight Crew Support Team who put together the scheme and the procedures to rig the fix for the rover fender. I was the A17 Flight Crew Support Team leader and had no direct role in that effort. Our team guys needed no direction or supervision in these type of activities - they knew what was needed and did it!"]

["It just so happens Terry and I were chuckling over this old war story at John Young's JSC retirement party this past December (2004). What happened -in summary - was that Terry went right over to the JSC rover and luner module mock-up because it was obvious a fix was necessary. Since Terry was the A17 Luner Module Crew System's Engineer, there was no one more knowledgable or capable of understanding what was at hand on board the spacecraft to be utilized for the repair. Using the fully stowed mockup's equipment, Terry developed the scheme using - and I may not be completely acurrate on each piece - some combination of clamps, tape, flight data file covers,etc. He passed the procedures over to the EVA procedures guys and they worked a suited-crewman exercise with John Young for verification. Then the procedure was sent up to the crew and the rest is history."]

["However, here's the rest of the story: Post flight, John (and maybe some others) got a big NASA award for this effort - no mention of Terry Neal! This was a common thing - nobody took it very serious. To this day, every time John Young sees Terry Neal, he says, as only John can, 'I'm going to get you an award, Terry'. Thirty some odd years later John still remembers and respects the person who did the real work."]

[Ron Creel has provided a summary ( 1.3 Mb PDF ) of the fender extension losses that occurred on all three Rover missions.]

126:18:35 Allen: Roger, Gene. What we really need, I think, is some white mud flaps up there.

126:18:50 Schmitt: That's a little too old fashioned, Joe. (Pause)

[Both Jack and Joe grew up in small towns: Jack in Silver City, New Mexico, and Joe in Crawfordsville, Indiana. According to Allen, in the late 40's, it was the height of automotive fashion - at least among teenagers in small-town America, to hang white mudflaps behind the wheels of a Ford or Chevy sedan. It didn't matter, Allen says, what color the car was - the flaps had to be white.]
126:19:06 Allen: I guess we'd know wouldn't we?

126:19:15 Schmitt: I'm afraid so. (Long Pause)

[Schmitt - "This was just a bit of small talk between two people who grew up in small towns, two people who carried on a lot of small talk."]
126:19:56 Cernan: Okay, Joe. Mark. I'm giving my PLSS a second (oxygen) charge right now.

126:20:06 Allen: We're watching.

[Schmitt - "The second charge procedure probably came out of people trying to push as much time into an EVA as possible for the J-missions. Probably somebody did a little experiment and realized that they could get another half-hour's worth or something like that. The whole J-mission or Block 2 effort was to extend capabilities over what had been possible on Apollo 11 and the other H-missions. Apollo 15 had originally been scheduled as an H-mission and Scott worked very hard to fly a Block 2 LM."]

[In 1967, NASA drew up a list of mission-types which would lead up to the first landing. "A" missions were unmanned, earth-orbital tests of the Saturn V and the Command-and-Service Module. "B" missions were unmanned, orbital tests of the LM. "C" missions were manned, earth-orbital tests of the CSM. Apollo 7 was a C mission. And the added Apollo 8 lunar orbit flight became a C-Prime mission. "D" missions were earth-orbital tests of the CSM/LM combination (Apollo 9). "E" missions were to have been CSM/LM missions to high-earth orbit and none of these were ever flown. "F" missions were full dress rehearsals in lunar orbit (Apollo 10). The "G" mission (Apollo 11) was the initial landing; and "H" missions were follow-on landing missions. By 1969, NASA was hard at work on significant LM upgrades which would allow three-day stays on the Moon supported by a Roving vehicle. These became the "J" missions. "I" missions were lunar-orbit-only science missions, none of which were ever flown.]

126:20:11 Schmitt: You should be getting LMP biomed. (Long Pause)

126:20:31 Cernan: And Joe, give me a hack after about 10 minutes in case I forget on that PLSS recharge.

[Gene is sounding a bit more alert.]
126:20:36 Allen: Rog. (Pause)

126:20:47 Cernan: Can I do...I can do both the water recharge and the O2 recharge at the same time, can't I?

126:20:56 Allen: That's affirm.

126:21:01 Cernan: Okay. (Pause)

126:21:09 Allen: Gene, a caution not to tilt the PLSS while you're doing that (water recharge).

126:21:16 Cernan: Yeah, good idea. Mine's in the station.

126:21:24 Allen: And, Gene, if you want to get the geology debrief out of the way anytime, just give us a whistle on that.

[Comm Break]

[Cernan - "Listening to these conversations (that) we had once we were back in the LM, out of the suits, and relaxed is kind of a nostalgic experience. For me, it's really, really interesting to listen to this and it really brings back a lot of things that passed by so fast at the time. This is the first chance I've had in almost twenty years to go back and think about the details of some of these things, despite the fact that I see Joe Allen and Bob Parker maybe two or three times a month."]

126:22:33 Schmitt: Joe, why don't you give me the block data, and then we can go on that geology (de)brief?

126:22:44 Allen: Okay, are you ready to copy?

126:22:51 Schmitt: Go ahead. (Pause)

[This list of lift-off times begins with Command Module orbit 21.]
126:23:03 Allen: (Reading slowly, and carefully enunciating each digit) Okay, Jack. Surface block data; lift-off times: T21, 128 plus 47 plus 12; T22, 130 plus 45 plus 44; T23, 132 plus 44 plus 18; T24, 134 plus 42 plus 50; T25, 136 plus 41 plus 28. Over.

126:23:58 Schmitt: (Reading faster, but still enunciating each digit) Okay, Joey. 21, reading in order 128:47:12; 130:45:44; 132:44:18; 134:42:50; 136:41:28. And what's the present rev?

126:24:26 Allen: Present rev is two-zero, and readback's correct.

[Comm Break]
126:25:29 Schmitt: Okay, Joe, you can go ahead and fire away at the LMP.
[Jack is also sounding a bit refreshed.]
126:25:35 Allen: Okay, Jack; and, for the geology questions, I'm going to turn the console over to the well-known geologist of the Seyfert Galaxies.
[This is a reference to the fact that Bob began his career as an astronomer, not a geologist.]
126:25:47 Schmitt: Can't hack it, huh? You've all forgotten everything I taught you.

126:25:53 Allen: I draw my sword.

[Allen is also a scientist-astronaut, trained in physics.]
126:25:56 Parker: Okay, guys, you want me to address first those to Jack, and then address them to Gene later on, or you guys both want to answer them at the same time?
[Bob sounds congested and tired.]
126:26:07 Schmitt: Well, we're both listening. We can answer them.

126:26:10 Parker: Okay, the way you asked that, I wasn't sure. (Pause) Okay. Question number 1 concerns the Rover mobility rates. The Rover mobility rates over the short span you drove, which is hardly representative, are slower than people had anticipated. Do you think this is due to visibility, terrain, or what? Do you think you can still hack a 7.3 or 8-kilometer (per hour) average to Station 2 tomorrow?

126:26:39 Cernan: The answer to that is "yes", Bob. I think it's partly fam(iliarization), but it's also the fact that we did a lot of circling. We didn't drive in many straight lines. Trying to find, for the most part, our bearings, and tried to pick some high spots so we could look around. So I think straight-line navigation out in the area we're going (tomorrow) is going to be easily 8 kilometers (per hour).

126:27:05 Parker: Okay, great.

[Cernan - "One of the things I was expecting to hear myself comment on was the fact that any time you traveled east - particularly on that first day when the Sun was so low - you just couldn't see very well and just had to go slower."]
126:27:07 Parker: Okay. Another question here, Gene, that you should be able to answer with a simple yes or no. Was there any spillage of the material in the drill core while you were breaking it down?

126:27:23 Cernan: Simple "no".

126:27:24 Parker: Okay. And...

126:27:25 Cernan: Spillage out of it?

126:27:26 Parker: Yeah, you know, when you broke the sections, did you lose much material out of it?

126:27:33 Cernan: No, sir; I didn't lose any.

126:27:35 Parker: Okay, next simple question. When you were drilling the deep core where the neutron probe was, could you see the RTG over the rock?

126:27:46 Cernan: Yes.

126:27:50 Parker: Okay. You have any feel for how high the rock is or how low...(correcting himself) how deep the thing (the top of the neutron probe) was with respect to the RTG? Were you down in a level that was below (the RTG), even without the rocks being there?

126:28:10 Cernan: Yeah, I think I...Yeah, I was in a slump. There was a ridge between us and the RTG, and I had the rock in a line-of-sight between it and where I put that core (hole). And I'd say the rock was certainly near the ridge and it was - what, Jack? - I don't know, was it a meter to...(It was a) meter high for the most part. And it sloped off, and I'd say at least a half a meter high in the line-of-sight from where the neutron probe is to the RTG. Plus, there's a lot of undulations...I think it'll be below the line-of-sight, anyway.

[That is, there is plenty of material in the way to absorb the flux of neutrons produced by the RTG and, thereby, keep contamination of the measurement of the natural background to a minimum.]
126:28:46 Parker: Okay. And a somewhat more general question, here. It says, and I'll read it, "We're still puzzled as to whether there is a dark mantle. Could you say something more about the dark regolith surface?" There's a lot of discussion, today, about whether or not it could have been a regolith derived from the intermediate gabbro which you were sampling as boulders.

126:29:15 Schmitt: Bob, I think I don't have too much to add to what I said near the end of the EVA. I do not have an intuitive feeling that the regolith has been derived from most of the boulders that we're seeing. Because those boulders are fairly light-colored, they look like they're probably 50 percent plagioclase. It could be that the regolith is derived from some other material that has blanketed the area. I don't think we have that answer, yet.

126:29:49 Parker: Okay. I copy that.

126:29:51 Cernan: Bob, the boulders we were sampling... think Jack and I both feel that it's probably...We feel we sampled the subfloor because we saw, in the sides of the craters, where some of these boulders were exposed almost as if they were bedrock down there. In driving back from what we called Station 1, we could definitely see the light mantle out in the area where the potentials of a slide are.

126:30:19 Parker: Okay, very good. Yeah, I think that the...At least, it's a going bet around here that we're sampling the subfloor when we're sampling - at least the top of the subfloor - when we're sampling the intermediate gabbro there. The rocks and the boulders.

126:30:34 Parker: Okay. We also...

126:30:35 Schmitt: Yeah, the...

126:30:37 Parker: Go ahead.

126:30:39 Schmitt: Bob.

126:30:40 Parker: Go.

126:30:42 Schmitt: It is sort of strange that we don't see a good population of finer-grained rocks. These rocks look very much like igneous rocks, but they're considerably coarser than comparable...Well, they're about the grain size of some of the coarse-grain Mare basalts that tend to differentiate the crystallobalite and tridymite; but we didn't see any of the finer-grain versions. If it's an intermediate crystalline rock, we have not seen any fine-grain equivalents yet. At least not in abundance.

[Grain size is an indicator of cooling rate and the coarse-grain character of the gabbros suggests that they cooled more slowly than most of the mare basalts brought back by the other crews. Because material at the surface cools most rapidly, where heat radiates away, and then more slowly as one goes deeper in a flow, one would normally think of coarse-grained samples as having come from a relatively deep portion of a flow and that one should also find finer-grained rocks derived from the upper parts. During a final review of the manuscript, Jack Schmitt suggested that one possible explanation for the absence of fine-grain rocks is that they had been pulverized during the process of regolith formation. Journal Contributor David Harland adds, "As an aside, the fact that the coarse stuff was also vesicular indicates that it formed near the top of the flow. Bear in mind Jack's observations that (1) the coarse stuff was rather lighter in color than he expected, and so was probably higher in plagioclase than usual, and (2) that the flow had probably cooled sufficiently slowly for there to be vertical differentation - the plage rising to enrich the surficial material - and you have another piece of evidence that there may not have been very much fine-grained material in the flow."]
126:31:24 Parker: Okay, I copy that. (Pause) We gather that there's no color change in the dark-mantle material at depth. In other words, the footprints, wheel tracks, and the rake sample, et cetera, were sort of uniform in color.

126:31:43 Schmitt: No, there's no major change, but looking out the window - and I think I commented on it - the disturbed regolith (near the LM) is darker. Oh, I don't know, maybe by 10 percent albedo, something like that, than the undisturbed surface.

126:32:08 Parker: Okay, I remember your commenting that when you were walking to the ALSEP, I think, Jack, in fact. (Pause) Okay, during drilling of the heat flow holes, Gene...

126:32:16 Schmitt: (Responding to the first half of Bob's comment) That's right.

126:32:17 Parker: ...was there change in color of the cuttings as they piled up...as you went down in depth? Do you remember any of that?

126:32:30 Cernan: Yeah, Bob, both in the core and the heat flow holes, it really didn't seem to pile it up like you're accustomed to at the Cape, and I guess maybe that's because I was kicking so much dust around there. But I looked specifically when I cleared flutes and what have you, and I didn't see any difference in terms of color, texture, or anything else coming up.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 20 min 53 sec )

126:33:00 Parker: Okay, copy that. (Pause) On the outcrops you think you see in the North and South Massifs, do they appear to be linear, horizontal or subhorizontal? Can you see layers, and do you have any feel for the thickness or the attitude or the continuity of them? Can you discuss these outcrops?

[Bob is asking if the outcrops line up - hence his use of the word "linear" - and, if they do line up, whether they make a horizontal layer or a slightly tilted (hence "subhorizontal") layer.]
126:33:25 Schmitt: Bob, going over (the site) yesterday (during a pre-landing orbit), I thought I could see a structure dipping off to the southeast, apparent dip anyway, on the eastern side of the South Massif. Or northeastern side. We haven't examined them in detail because we were in a rush to get out. We'll put the binoculars (means "monocular") on them and try to examine that question. There's nothing very obvious, any more than you can see on the (overhead) photos, that the ledges were concentrated in the upper portion - (coughs) excuse me - in the upper portion of the Massif's units.
[Journal Contributor Ulli Lotzmann notes that the 10x40 monocular was manufactured by Leitz, Germany, and modified by NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) Houston.]
126:34:03 Parker: Okay. Copy that. Here's a short one that I'll ask Jack since he did it. Again I guess we'll have to prove this. (With regard to) the shade portion of the cosmic ray experiment: the question is, and I repeat - I quote - "Are you sure that the detectors, not the decals, were facing out?"

126:34:27 Schmitt: I am, Bob; because I said I was sure, and I called you on it.

126:34:32 Parker: Roger. I was sure, too, but I had to ask the question.

126:34:35 Schmitt: I...I under...I know. I understand why it was asked, because I did it wrong at the Cape. But that's why I mentioned it when I deployed it.

126:34:44 Parker: Roger. (Pause) Okay, and we can go and recharge the other PLSS whenever you're ready there, guys.

126:35:05 Schmitt: Okay.

126:35:09 Parker: Okay, the next question - which calls for a little bit of discussion - is: The layers of lineaments that you remarked on in the Sculptured Hills, can you say anything about them?

[Bob is referring to the lineations Gene had described on Bear Mountain after the landing.]
126:35:30 Cernan: Yeah, Bob, I did. I think I said...and I commented (that) I'm not sure whether it was the Sun angle or not...But see, I was not looking at the Sculptured Hills; I was looking back at Bear Mountain, I believe. And, to me it looked like there was some organization that was dipping back to the east, somewhere between, oh, 20 and 25 degrees maybe. And it was very obvious to me. But I'm a little hesitant (to say it isn't a lighting effect) because of some of this Sun-angle stuff.
[Cernan - "Because of the low Sun on that first day - and it was a lot better on the second and third days - it wasn't at all easy to look at the Sculptured Hills and see any detail. They were about 20 or 30 degrees north of east and the glare was just too strong."]
126:36:05 Parker: Okay, I copy that. I gather we didn't get any 500-millimeters of these lineations, today, right?

126:36:13 Cernan: No, but I think we will. They were on the western side of Bear Mountain back there, and I think I commented that I thought that Bear Mountain is probably what the Sculptured Hills look like.

[Schmitt - "Somebody at the USGS - or maybe it was Jim Head - noticed that, in contrast to some of the other hills, they had a knobby appearance and said 'Hey, they look like somebody sculptured them'. So they became the Sculptured Hills."]
126:36:28 Parker: Okay, I copy that. Is there a scar above the light mantle material? In other words, the slide. Is there a scar above that on the South Massif? Can you see anything up there to indicate that it might have come off of there?

126:36:43 Schmitt: Nothing obvious yet, Bob.

[They never did see an obvious scar. In the 100 million years since the slide, impacts and downhill movement of debris have erased and covered the source area on the mountain.]
126:36:47 Parker: Okay, copy that. On the way back to Station 1, you described a small crater with light material on the bottom. Can you say anything more about that crater? (Long Pause)

126:37:09 Schmitt: Bob, I don't remember saying that, or...Gene doesn't either.

126:37:15 Parker: Okay. You talked about something that was light. I don't remember; I thought it was a boulder, but the question's about a crater.

126:37:22 Schmitt: You're right. You're right, there was a large zap pit in a boulder that was very white. It must have been...The crater for the zap must have been 2 centimeters diameter anyway. And it had about that, oh, maybe 3-centimeters worth of crushed minerals around it, that gave it a white - very bright white - appearance.

126:37:45 Parker: Okay. Well that was indeed a small crater, so I guess the question was right. (Pause) Let me change the mode here and ask you three or four simple ALSEP questions again, to verify for various people exactly what happened. Just to make sure that they're clear on it. Jack, when you were laying out the geophone leads, you mentioned and asked me if it was all right if the geophone leads crossed one another, if there was EMI (electromagnetic interference) problems. And so that made people wonder whether or not it was possible the geophone positions were reversed; i.e., geophone 1 was laid out in geophone 2s' direction, et cetera.

126:38:35 Schmitt: No, that was just a Geophone 4 problem. The geophones are in the right directions.

126:38:40 Parker: Okay.

[Schmitt - "The instrumentation identified the signals from each of the geophones by number and, in order to interpret the data, the experimenters had to know where I had deployed each one of them."]
126:38:41 Schmitt: Geophone 4 fell out of the module and rolled under one of the other lines, or vice versa, I don't know which, and it's crossing one of the other lines. Geophone 1, I think.

126:38:56 Parker: Okay, no problem. When you went to put the LSPE antenna in the heat flow socket, you weren't able to do it at first; was it because of there was a lot of dust in there?

126:39:11 Schmitt: No, I think it was the same old problem of that piece of aluminum foil or whatever it is going down in the socket and jamming briefly.

126:39:23 Parker: Okay, I copy that. Did you clear out that foil when you did it, or did you just push it on through?

126:39:29 Schmitt: I forced it.

126:39:31 Parker: Okay. When you taped the SEP solar cells down, how much of them did you cover with tape?

126:39:41 Schmitt: We taped the back.

126:39:44 Parker: Ah, very good thinking. And, Geno, a question for you on the Rover when you parked it. Do you have any feeling for the roll angle it was parked at the LM? The roll angle.

126:40:03 Cernan: Yeh, let me look. (Pause) Bob, it's pretty flat. If I had to guess, I'd say zero. And you can bias that by a degree or so, but basically zero.

126:40:18 Parker: Okay, is the pitch scale still on it, or did it fall off yet?

126:40:24 Cernan: No. I was going to comment on that. It's still there.

[The pitch/roll scale fell off during Apollo 16 but, because a modification of the already-built Apollo 17 indicator would have been difficult and the Apollo 16 crew had had no difficulty in estimating the attitude of their Rover, no change had been made.]
126:40:28 Parker: Okay, very good. Okay, when you went to Station 1A - we're calling the new Station 1 "Station 1A" - were the blocks there as well-filleted as those near the LM and the ALSEP? Do they all look the same?
[Fillets are skirts of soil that pile up at the base of rocks due to small, nearby impacts that splash soil against the sides.]
126:40:45 Schmitt: Bob, all the boulders had filleting to a slight degree, but not an extreme amount. I think it no more than what is being caused by the redistribution of the darker, fine-grained regolith.

126:41:13 Parker: Okay, I copy that.

[People in the Backroom are trying to find evidence to support interpretations of the Apollo 15 photography that suggest that only the northern half of the valley was covered by the hypothesized dark-mantling process. If it was a process that occurred late in the history of the valley, then there might have been a difference in the degree of covering of the pre-existing boulders.]
126:41:16 Cernan: Bob, if I had to answer...

126:41:17 Parker: Go ahead.

126:41:18 Cernan: ...if I had to answer that question, I'd say yes. Yes, that the boulders are filleted over there about like they are over here. That would be my impression.

126:41:30 Parker: All right. Is there any indication that the fillets are directional, in other words, that the fillets are heavier on one side than the other?

126:41:43 Schmitt: Bob, haven't noticed that.

126:41:49 Parker: Okay, I copy that. Do you have the feeling that some boulders are more rounded...

126:41:54 Schmitt: Well that's a good ...(Hearing Bob) That's a good...

126:41:59 Parker: Roger. I agree with you.

126:42:04 Schmitt: That's a good re...(Hearing Bob) That's a good reminder, Bob.

[That is, a good reminder to look for directionality in the filleting.]
126:42:06 Parker: Okay, do have any feeling that some boulders are more rounded than others? Apparently this looked this way in some of the TV pictures.

126:42:15 Schmitt: Some of the big ones that are just barely exposed above the regolith looked quite well-rounded. Most of those around the craters are subangular. I got the impression that it's just purely a function of how long the same material's been exposed; but some of the big boulders like the one out near the geophones is quite angular in part and quite rounded on other parts. It's quite variable.

[Schmitt - "Angular boulders have profiles such that you can draw two lines from any point on the rock and the rock will fill the space between them. Subangular is the case where the tip has been rounded off and the rock won't fit between the lines. And "rounded" is the case where you can't draw any fit better than tangents."]
126:42:47 Parker: Okay, do you want to say any more about that boulder (Geophone Rock)? Did it seem to have more or less the same lithology, in addition to the variation in vesicle size that the other rocks in the vicinity of the ALSEP, and the other rocks out at Station 1 had?

126:43:05 Schmitt: No, it's very comparable to the ones that we saw at Station 1, as a matter of fact.

126:43:10 Parker: Okay, I copy that.

126:43:12 Schmitt: Both types of rocks were there, both variations. (Pause)

126:43:22 Parker: Do you have a feeling for where the big blocks in the LM/ALSEP area came from? Do you think they were from Camelot, like (garbled) been saying?

126:43:34 Schmitt: Don't have an idea yet; I'm really not sure.

126:43:40 Parker: Okay, and as you drove along on the traverse from the SEP to Station 1, did the size of the small craters with blocky rims vary? In other words, what we are looking for here is the variation in the thickness of the dark mantle?

126:43:56 Schmitt: I can't answer that one yet, Bob.

[The diameter and depth of a crater depend on the impact energy. In places where the regolith is thin, impacts forming relatively small craters would penetrate to bedrock (the subfloor) and dig up blocks.]
126:43:57 Parker: Okay. Let me sum up by saying that - I guess as I indicated before - our best guess is that the vesicular crystalline rock - probably gabbro, or I think you've been calling it intermediate basalt or gabbro - forms at least the upper part of the subfloor. I don't think we've been close enough to a large crater rim to say what the deep sections of the subfloor form; but we think that this intermediate gabbro, vesicular rock - at least medium-grained, perhaps coarse-grained rock - forms at least the upper layer of the subfloor. Over. (Pause)
[During crater formation, the ejecta blanket can be described as overturning on the surrounding terrain. Material from near the original surface will be found at the bottom of the ejecta blanket and will be exposed only at relatively great distances from the rim. Material dug out from the greatest depth of penetration will lie on the top on the ejecta blanket, but only at the rim or even on the crater floor.]
126:44:48 Schmitt: Yeah, Bob, I think that's pretty safe, right now. Once again, I'm surprised that it's as coarse as it is, that being the upper portion of a plains unit.

126:45:00 Parker: Roger.

126:45:01 Cernan: Say, Bob, driving back from Station 1, where we did some of our circling and what have you, we didn't have time to get off, but we did see down in - I don't remember whether it was in the slopes of some craters, or down on the slope itself - but I'd say several meters down below the mantle where there was what we almost agreed to might be bedrock (on) at least a deeper portion of the subfloor.

[Gene is beginning to sound tired again.]
126:45:34 Parker: Okay, well, I think we'll get to it tomorrow. I think I might just give you a clue to our thinking for tomorrow. But, I don't think we've seen, or done, anything today that is going to make us change very much from the nominal station... (correcting himself) EVA-2 plan. (The next sentence is edited for clarity.) The fact we didn't get to the large boulders at Emory is probably going to mean that Station 5 might be shifted a little bit to the boulders on Camelot. But certainly Station 5 on the subfloor and also Station 10 have assumed a higher priority than they originally had. Other than that I, don't think we'll see an awful lot of changes to EVA-2. Over.
[Station 5 (Camelot Crater) and Station 10 (Sherlock Crater) are planned at the rims of large craters sure to have penetrated deep into the bedrock.]
126:46:15 Schmitt: Okay, Bob. I think that's safe. I suppose somebody's thinking about the possibility of going down to Emory. Maybe you just said that. Going down to Emory late in EVA-3.

126:46:27 Parker: I think at the moment they're thinking primarily about going to Station 10, and not going to Station 1. (Pause)

[Station 10 is on the route back to the LM from the more northerly stops planned for EVA-3; Emory Crater, the original Station 1, is well to the south and, therefore, would require a substantial detour.]
126:46:51 Allen: Okay, Jack, I've wrested control...

126:46:53 Schmitt: Some of your experts might...

126:46:56 Allen: Go ahead.

126:47:01 Schmitt: Some of your experts might think about what they might expect to happen to. What the regolith on a fine-grain pyroclastic would look like.

126:47:16 Allen: Okay.

[Schmitt - "I was asking them to think about the situation of a fine-grained pyroclastic laid down on the subfloor. What sort of regolith would develop in that situation and what would you expect to find? Obviously I was thinking about it, and I wanted the bright guys on the ground to think about it, too. We eventually proved at Shorty that this is what had happened, but we hadn't been there yet and I was asking what might be unique about a regolith developed on a pyroclastic versus a regolith developed on a basalt flow. I don't think I ever got an answer to the question."]
126:47:17 Parker: We'll tell them. I'll see you tomorrow, guys.

126:47:22 Schmitt: Sleep well, Bob.

126:47:25 Cernan: Okay, I've just got one question, Bob, before you run off. Did the TGE perform okay with the (TV) camera on?

126:47:39 Parker: As far as I could tell, Geno, it did. As a matter of fact, I didn't see the gravimeter people afterwards to talk to them. But as far as I could tell, it did. We had one funny reading back at the LM very early when it was on the ground, which I'm at a loss to understand right off. But other than that everything seems to have gone very well. The readings were quite uniform in fact, which is what makes me think they went well.

126:48:03 Cernan: Okay, well, I'd like to leave it...You know it's a little change in my thinking (but) I'd like to leave it on the Rover if we can, although it's a piece of cake to take off. It's very difficult to lean over that far without losing your balance and take your readings and what have you. So if we can leave it on (the Rover), it would be far better.

126:48:20 Parker: Roger. I was noticing that. And I also noticed the only three-ball (three-zero) reading we got was when it was on the ground.

126:48:30 Cernan: Yeah. (Pause)

[This is a reference to the disturbed reading at 123:56:55. Bob remembers that a 000 readout was an explicit indication that the instrument had been disturbed while a measurement was in progress.]
126:48:36 Allen: Gene and Jack, if you'll get Lunar Surface Checklist to (page) 3-5, I've got an easy change to read up to you.

126:48:54 Schmitt: Go ahead.

126:49:00 Allen: Okay. After the line: "Empty ETB As Follows," change the first line which reads, "B&W Mag Golf In Forward RHSSC" (right-hand side storage compartment) to read, "B&W Mag Hotel In LCG Compartment". And then go into the next column, which begins, "Stow In ETB." Change the second line, which reads: "LMP's Camera With B&W Mag Hotel" to "LMP's Camera With B&W Mag Golf". That's Mag G, ETB. Over.

[Frank and Stacey O'Brien have provided a view ( 0.7Mb ) of a RHSSC in a LM simulator taken in 2002 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. The Right Hand Side Stowage Comparment (RHSSC) is on the lower part of the side bulkhead on the LMP's side of the cabin and consists of four shelves into which various soft stowage bags have been secured. Various other bags are secured to the sides. The set of items shown in the CAM photo undoubtedly differs in detail from the flown set in the Apollo 17 LM.]
126:49:59 Schmitt: Got you. Hotel, stow it; and go out with Golf.

126:50:06 Allen: That's got it.

[Gene and Jack had magazines Hotel (or "Helen" as Jack called it when he stowed it under his seat) and Golf ("Gail") out in the ETB at the start of the EVA. During close-out, at 123:31:59 and following, Jack mentioned that he had put Golf in the ETB and Hotel was on the LMP's camera. Jack reported a frame count of 197 on Hotel at 122:50:11 but gives 183 below at 126:58:05 and 126:59:20. It will not be used again. Golf is still unused and will be taken out for EVA-2.]
126:50:08 Allen: And I've got a LEVA-cleaning procedure which maybe you could pencil in there. It's an easy three-step procedure. And I'll go ahead and read it step-by-step here. Step number 1 is: "Tap LEVA base to remove loose dust". Step number 2 reads: "If excess dust still remains, use a towel from the LM tissue dispenser, which has been wetted with water, and gently wipe the visor from the top to the bottom; that is, in one direction. And fold this towel after each wipe to keep the contact surface clean". There's a note: "Take care not to wet the inside - that is, the concave surface - of the gold visor." And the last step is: "Allow it to air-dry". And that's it on the LEVA cleaning. (Pause)
[They are using ball point pens, rather than pencils, for note taking. The Gold Visor is a gold-electroplated, ultraviolet shield.]
126:51:20 Cernan: Okay, Joe, we got that. The Commander's PLSS has had its final charge, and we're in the process of working on the LMP's PLSS now. I guess there's no way to verify how much water you've got in there except to go through the procedure.

126:51:44 Allen: That's right, Geno. And we think you fellows have earned a good meal now, and maybe you can take the rest of the day off.

126:52:07 Cernan: Okay, Joe. Thank you.

[Long Comm Break. Details of the final PLSS feedwater recharge are on Surface 3-6.]
126:57:50 Schmitt: Okay, Joe. Just to bring you up to date on (film) magazines. Mag Bravo has seven-seven frames (exposed).

126:57:57 Allen: Okay. (Pause)

126:58:05 Schmitt: Mag Hotel has eight-three frames.

126:58:11 Allen: Roger.

[Comm Break]
MP3 Audio Clip ( 12 min 40 sec )

126:59:20 Allen: Jack, on your mag Hotel, we'd showed you all the way up to a hundred and eighty three at one time on that. Did you miss the "one", this time?

126:59:38 Schmitt: I may have clipped it out, Joe. One-eight-three, yes.

126:59:43 Allen: Okay, yeah, you did clip it out, clipped it out cleanly. So thanks for verifying that.

[Schmitt - "Joe was just taking a dig at me. I had not clipped the 'one'. He was just sticking one in."]

[Comm Break]

127:02:28 Schmitt: (Sounding very congested) Joe, mag Romeo has two-one frames. And I took a few, random, and probably not very good 500-millimeter (pictures) of the North and South Massifs.

127:02:46 Allen: Okay, Jack. Thank you. (Long Pause)

[All of the South Massif photos, AS17-144- 21983 to 21989 are badly blurred.]

[Frames 21991 to 993 show the North Massif "dark boulder" and its prominent track. As can be seen in Figure 6-15 from the Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report, the dark boulder is about 600 meters west and 300 meters north of the Station 6 boulder. The difference in distance from the LM the dark boulder and Station 6 is only about five percent and a comparison of Jack's dark boulder photo from the LM cabin with his picture of the LM from Station 6 gives a good comparison of the relative sizes of the LM and the dark boulder. The LM is about 7 meters tall and, therefore, the large dimension of the dark boulder is about 14 meters. Compare with a 500-mm photo Gene will take of the dark boulder from Station 9, AS17-139- 21255. Station 9 is about 2500 meters from the dark boulder. Five boulders that can serve as markers are labeled in details from both 21991 and 21255. See, also, AS17-141-21550, which Jack will take on the EVA-3 drive to Station 6. The dark boulder - along with Turning Point Rock and the Station 6 boulder - is labeled in a detail. Finally, a labeled detail from Pan Camera frame 2309 shows the locations of the dark boulder, the LM, and Station 9.]

[Frames AS17-144- 21994 to 21998 show some North Massif outcrops.]

127:03:00 Schmitt: And, Joe, verify that you want mag Charlie substituted for Mag Bravo on the CDR's camera.

127:03:15 Allen: Stand by.

[Comm Break. These photographs were taken through a lens with a 500mm focal length.]
127:04:40 Schmitt: Don't get me wrong. I think it's a good idea, Joe. Don't let everybody work all night on that one.

127:04:49 Allen: Jack, I think the answer to that is "yes". Per the checklist, by the way. That's the way we show it in our checklist here.

127:05:00 Schmitt: Roger. We probably have about 100 frames left on Bravo, so we'll just keep track of that.

127:05:07 Allen: Jack, it'll go out later on, Bravo will. Apparently, it's kind of your backup magazine there. (Pause)

127:05:26 Schmitt: Okay.

127:05:30 Allen: The reason being, we want to start that EVA-2 with a fresh mag.

[Long Comm Break]
127:10:31 Cernan: Hey, Joe. Bob told us earlier (that) the sounder looked like it was working. (Long Pause)

127:10:58 Allen: Gene and Jack, just a general comment on that. SIM bay's cooking along beautifully. We are getting lunar sounder data. It looks quite interesting. We've only got one or two annoying problems with it, but nothing major...That is, with the SIM bay, not with the sounder. One of them being that we have our usual mapping camera extend problem. And we've just decided to leave it extended and it will serve it right if it gets a little contaminated with an occasional (water/urine) dump. And I guess there's a minor problem with one of the big antennas. It didn't pass its retract check properly, so I guess it may have to be jettisoned when we do a plane change. Otherwise, things are working beautifully. Over. (Pause)

127:11:55 Cernan: That sounds great; I'm glad to hear that.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[Cernan - "We were probably eating through this thirty-minute period and I remember that it was almost a relief not to have to talk to the ground or answer questions."]

[Schmitt - "I was hoping they would ask more questions during this eat period. It was an opportunity to chat about the geology. I was tired, but I thought it was a waste of time not to talk. We were on 'push-to-talk' so I don't know what Gene and I were talking about at this point. Probably just the mechanics of eating: 'Do you want this? Or, do you want that?' It was all cold; you couldn't put hot water in it."]

127:42:56 Schmitt: Houston, Challenger.

127:43:02 Allen: Go ahead.

[They have finished eating and have done second oxygen and water recharges on both PLSSs, They are about to configure the LM for the rest period.]
127:43:08 Schmitt: We're sort of around (1)27:30 in the checklist, more or less, and you want the Power Amp and TM (Telemetry) to High? (Pause)
[They are going to a high rate of data transmission.]
127:43:33 Allen: Ready when you are. (Long Pause) And, troops, are you raiding the pantry up there yet?

127:43:52 Schmitt: Yes, sir. We've been hitting it as hard as we can. (Pause) Okay, Power Amp is going to Primary and PCM (Pulse Code Modulator) to High. (Pause) And, while we're waiting for Gene to look at his computer, shall I do the battery management? (Pause)

[Schmitt - "Battery management meant that you were going to check out all the LM batteries and see if they had the right voltages. And, I think, if you found that some had drawn down more than others, you would equalize them."]

[Details of the battery management procedure are given on Surface 3-6.]

127:44:29 Allen: Jack, stand by - until we get the high bit rate - on that battery management. And, a reminder, are you still recharging that PLSS number 2 there, or have you taken that off the line?

127:44:44 Schmitt: No, we're through with that. We caught it with 10 minutes.

127:44:55 Allen: Okay. We've got high bit rate now. Go ahead with battery management.

127:45:07 Schmitt: Okay, we'll play it...Gene'll work the computer, and I'll work the batteries. And the ED volts are 37.2, both batteries.

127:45:17 Allen: Thank you. (Long Pause)

[Jack is also checking the batteries for the Explosive Devices (ED) which will separate the LM Ascent and Descent Stages just prior to lift-off. The voltages are unchanged from the pre-landing values.]
127:45:56 Cernan: Okay, you got P00 and Data, Joe. (Pause)

127:46:05 Allen: Thank you. (Long Pause)

["P00", which is pronounced "pooh", as in Winnie-the-Pooh, is shorthand for Program Zero-Zero.]

[Schmitt - "P00 was the housekeeping program that allowed the ground to communicate with the computer to not only check out the computer to see how it was doing but also load data."]

127:46:43 Schmitt: Okay, Joe, the battery management's complete. How does the rest of the spacecraft look, what you can see of it (through telemetry checks)? (Pause)

127:47:00 Allen: Okay, Jackie. Copy the battery management complete, and the Challenger's looking beautiful from down here.

127:47:13 Schmitt: I guess you don't have telemetry on dust yet, huh?

127:47:21 Allen: Negative on the dust. And the computer's yours. Sounds like you've got hay fever sensors, as far as that dust goes.

[Jack sounds quite congested; Gene much less so. Jack is the only member of an Apollo surface crew to show an allergic reaction to the dust.]

[Schmitt - "After I took my helmet off after the first EVA, I had a significant reaction to the dust; my turbinates ('cartilaginous plates in the walls of the nasal chambers') became swollen. And that went away by the next morning - except for a little bit of residual - and never came back again. Nobody's ever explained that to me."]

127:47:35 Schmitt: It's come on pretty fast just since I came back. I think as soon as the cabin filters most of this out that is in the air, I'll be all right. But I didn't know I had lunar dust hay fever.

127:47:54 Allen: It's funny they don't check for that. Maybe that's the trouble with the cheap noses, Jack.

127:48:05 Schmitt: Could be. I don't know why we couldn't have gone and smelled some dust in the LRL (Lunar Receiving Lab) just to find out.

127:48:12 Allen: Goodness knows we've tried. (Pause)

[Schmitt - "Before the quarantines were lifted, there were a lot of people in the Lunar Receiving Lab exposed to lunar dust when they shouldn't have been. I'm afraid that the geologists didn't really believe in the quarantines and they honored them only in the breech for the most part."]
127:48:35 Schmitt: Okay, I'll wait for your cue on the rest of it. (Pause)

127:48:48 Allen: Okay, Jack. Telemetry PCM Low, and your Power Amp Off, please.

127:48:58 Schmitt: Roger.

[Comm Break. After returning the telemetry system to low bit rate, they will start on Surface 3-7. They will reverse the direction of air flow through the suits and rig the hammocks.]
127:50:42 Allen: Challenger, this is Houston requesting Down-voice Backup, and then configure your ECS for sleep at your convenience.

127:50:51 Schmitt: Okay, we're working in that direction. Down-voice Backup, now.

127:50:57 Allen: Okay, Jack and Gene. And, unless you've got questions, or we can help you out in some way, we'll say good night to you.

127:51:10 Cernan: (Faint) (Or) good morning. (Long Pause) The reason I say that, Joe, it's going to be another 30 minutes or so anyway - probably more like an hour - before we actually close our eyes. (Pause)

127:51:56 Allen: Roger, Gene. You think you'll be able to use about 30 more minutes of sleep tomorrow morning? What's your wish on that?

MP3 Audio Clip ( 15 min 38 sec )

127:52:09 Cernan: Yeah, I'd like to try to get the full amount (of sleep). As I recall, tomorrow's a little bit flexible. If we get out 30 minutes late, it doesn't really hurt us.

127:52:20 Allen: Sounds like a good way to proceed. We'll give you the full 8 hours tonight, Geno. And you do have a time pad in there, so it shouldn't hurt a thing.

[There is some unallocated time in the flight plan, some "padding" in the schedule.]
127:52:33 Cernan: Yeah, the big object tomorrow is to get out, and get back in, and the same thing with the next day. I don't think we're really that time critical either day that we can't go an hour either way. And I think we'd prefer to have the full 8 (hours of rest) tonight.

127:52:50 Allen: Roger. We couldn't agree with you more. And if there's any way we can be helping you now, just speak up.

127:53:02 Cernan: No, you've been doing fine. We just got a little housecleaning we got to do that's going to take us...I expect we'll be an hour late, Joe.

[Long Comm Break]

[Cernan - "We still had to set up the hammocks. Our suits were probably already in the back of the cabin, hooked up to hoses to dry out; and there were always a few things to shuffle around: get our foodstuffs stowed, clean the visors, look at the rocks and pack them away, and so on. We were busy almost all the time."]

128:01:56 Schmitt: Hey, Joe.

128:02:00 Allen: Go ahead.

128:02:07 Schmitt: (There was) some ambiguity in your statement. You want us to use a tissue or a towel on that visor cleaning?

128:02:18 Allen: Jack, they call it...They call it a "towel", but it comes from the LM tissue dispenser, so I would interpret that to mean "tissue".

128:02:36 Schmitt: Well, you and I are thinking alike. But could you ask back there and find out?

[Jack doesn't want to take a chance on scratching the visors.]
128:02:46 Allen: Asking right now. (Long Pause)

128:03:43 Allen: Jack, our guess was right on the cleaning of the visors there. We're to use a tissue from the LM tissue dispenser. And I've got an unrelated question for you. We're chasing (the cause of some apparent) water usage down here. Could you tell us, please, if you refilled the drink dispensers in the suit already? Over.

128:04:12 Schmitt: That's affirm. We have. (Long Pause)

128:04:34 Allen: Okay. Thank you. (Pause)

128:04:47 Schmitt: We have been drinking quite a bit of water, Joe.

128:04:59 Allen: Okay. Thank you.

[Comm Break. During the EVA, water lost from the body in sweat and breath would have built up in the suit had the PLSS not contained a wick-like device to extract excess moisture. This was then stored in a reservoir, although not one connected to either the Liquid Cooled Garment closed-loop supply or to the sublimator feedwater supply. They have just finished recharging the PLSSs with feedwater and, prior to doing that, drained the wicked water into the descent stage sump.]

[Cernan - "The Liquid Cooled Garment was really important to help keep you cool so that you wouldn't sweat too much. Back in Gemini we had nothing but air cooling; and, during my Gemini IX EVA, the humidity in the suit got to be 100% and I got my helmet all fogged up. The LCG made it a totally different ball game. You still perspired and you had to make sure you drank enough water that you didn't become dehydrated; but you didn't have to worry about overheating and fogging up."]

128:07:50 Schmitt: Houston; Challenger. How do you read?

128:07:56 Allen: You're loud and clear. Go ahead.

128:08:04 Schmitt: Joe, I just took a quick look with the hand lens at that large rock I brought in, and I don't think there's much more than 30 percent plagioclase. I'll go back to it being more of a standard basalt or gabbro. It has a fair proportion of ilmenite in it, I believe. There's some bright platelets - in the vugs or vesicles - of ilmenite. Now it could be that, if the soil is very glassy, that it's developed the darker color from the contribution of the mafic minerals to the glass, particularly the iron and the titanium.

[Schmitt - "This was another alternative to consider for the dark mantle, another hypothesis to work on. Because there were more mafic minerals in the basalt than we originally thought, you might have had a darker impact glass develop and, so, you had to continue to consider the possibility that the dark mantle was a dark regolith derived from basalt with a high concentration of iron/titanium minerals in it. In a sense, because the glass beads we found at Shorty were dark because they were rich in iron and titanium, this hypothesis is also a step closer to the truth."]
128:09:01 Allen: Roger, Jack. Copy that. Sounds interesting.

128:09:07 Schmitt: All it means is that we don't yet know the origin of the dark mantle.

128:09:17 Allen: Roger. (Pause)

128:09:26 Schmitt: That rock looks like I may have, by accident, sampled one side of one of the parting planes that I mentioned. (The rock is) very, very sharply bounded on one side by a planar surface.

128:09:52 Allen: Roger, Jack. Say again. You may have sampled by accident the side of what?

128:10:07 Schmitt: No, I mentioned when I sampled it. It had one very planar surface, and looking at it more closely, it looks like one of those parting planes that I talked about even earlier in the EVA.

128:10:17 Allen: Ah, Rog. Copy. "Parting planes", thank you.

128:10:24 Schmitt: That's like a parting shot (for the night). (Pause)

128:10:34 Allen: Of which you've been known to have an overabundance, by the way.

128:10:43 Schmitt: Oh, I didn't know that.

128:10:49 Allen: All us fast finishers do. (Pause)

128:10:58 Schmitt: That's right. You got to figure out what race you're in though, first, Joe.

128:11:09 Allen: I'm sure that Sherlock Holmes would have a suitable quotation to answer that, Jack. I just can't come up with it right now. (Pause)

[Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence suggests "Come Watson, the game's afoot."]
128:11:16 Allen: Something like "therein, Watson, lies the problem"...

128:11:20 Schmitt: That, in itself, is a singular event. (Long Pause)

128:11:44 Schmitt: But the dog did nothing in the nighttime, Joe. (Long Pause)

128:11:59 Allen: And when you've examined all possibilities and eliminated all but the very improbable ones, then the improbable one must mean the truth.

128:12:16 Schmitt: I told you he (Holmes) was a good geologist (pause), one of the experts on the soils of London. (Pause) Not to mention their relationship to all kinds of brands of tobacco. (Pause)

128:12:58 Allen: Jack, maybe we better get off onto another vein. Surgeon's giving me a puzzled look over here. We may be getting in trouble.

128:13:12 Schmitt: You want to talk about veins. Now that's something an old ore geologist could talk about all night. (Pause)

128:13:26 Allen: Ore geologists and cardiologists alike. (Pause)

128:13:42 Schmitt: Thou strikest for the jugular. (Pause)

128:13:53 Allen: Jack, we running a contest down here to come up with a reply to that.

[Schmitt - "Through the years, Joe and I would occasionally pun together. Still do."]
128:13:58 Allen: We're getting a request, many requests, for a weather report. We've been missing your weather reports and wonder what the weather is on the Moon right now. (Pause)
[If Jack is in his hammock, lying with his head to the north and his feet to the south. He can see Earth out his window, unless they've got window shades up by this time.]

[The layout of the hammocks is shown in a drawing from the Apollo 12 Press Kit.]

128:14:16 Schmitt: Well, the Moon's weather is clear and sunny. It's only scattered clouds, and all of those seem to be attached to the Earth. (Pause)

128:14:35 Allen: Except for a cloud of dust around the right rear wheel of the Rover, we've noticed.

MP3 Audio Clip ( 5 min 34 sec )

128:14:46 Schmitt: Yeah, but that dissipates in the morning warmth. (Pause) Believe it or not, Joe, I'm going to be off the air briefly. (Pause)

128:15:15 Allen: So far, I don't believe that.

128:15:23 Schmitt: Well, if you don't get any heartbeat for a little while, don't worry. (Pause)

128:15:32 Allen: Okay.

[Very Long Comm Break]

[On Apollo 15, Jim Irwin slept in his Constant Wear Garment and used the sleeping bag. Dave Scott slept in his 'coveralls' without using the sleeping bag. On Apollo 16, Charlie Duke slept in his Liquid Cooled Garment (LCG). After the mission, John Young said that, the first night, he was very warm and went to sleep naked in the sleeping bag. However, his feet got very cold later during the rest period and he had to put the Interim Stowage Assembly (ISA) over them. For the remaining nights on the Moon, he slept in his LCG.]

[During Apollo 17 and in the post-flight debriefings neither Gene nor Jack mentioned what they wore for sleep. In reply to a January 2004 question, Gene wrote "In the LM because we had to take our suits off, I slept in my LCG. In the Command Module we didn't have to wear LCG, so I slept in my Constant Wear garment and in the sleeping bag for restraint."]

[In reply to the same question, Jack wrote "I think we both slept in the constant ware garments that show up in the interior pictures. I do not remember that we had sleeping bags, just hammocks. I am not sure the bags were even on board. I slept very well, waking only occasionally to listen to the 'comforting sound of fans and pumps.'"]

[NASA Public Affairs reports to the media that Gene and Jack turned off the voice subcarrier at 128:54 but weren't yet asleep. The following message came 8 minutes later.]

129:02:37 Cernan: Joe, we're asleep. There's no need to answer. See you in the morning.
[Cernan - "We'd had a long first day, something like 20 hours. This was PDI (Powered Descent Initiation) and Landing day and the whole thing. And you have to realize that, to me, sleeping on the Moon is the greatest waste of time a human being can conceive. I mean, you go all the way to the Moon; you go a quarter of a million miles to spend three days on the Moon and you sleep through one of them. But you had to sleep; we were just so tired that first night that we didn't have any choice but sleep or, at least, try to get some rest. I can remember just laying there with my eyes closed and thinking, "Hey, I'm on the Moon. Why am I wasting my time trying to sleep or rest?" And yet you'd worked so hard that biologically you just had to get some rest. There had been some discussion of a sleep period before the first EVA, but we decided it wasn't very useful to do that. You'd have to take your suit off, and the next day you'd put it on, and you'd just waste more time. We knew this was going to be a long day, but we had prepared for it. Sure, it was exhausting to some degree because it was a long day, a 20-hour day, and physically demanding. Getting the backpacks on, getting out, getting the Rover deployed, setting out all the experiments: those were all physically very demanding tasks. So we were tired when we finally got into the rest period and I slept fairly well. I'd get some sleep, dozing off. Then I'd open my eyes for a while and then doze off for another hour. It was certainly acceptable rest."]

[Schmitt - "It's interesting that Gene felt that sleep was a waste of time, because there was really no alternative. On Apollo 12, in particular, we found that when the crew tried to sleep in the suits, the continued discomfort - even depressurized - meant they got very little rest. They basically got out for EVA-2 as tired as they had been when they'd gotten in the LM the night before."]

["I never felt that sleep was a waste of time. After the rest period, during which I got about five hours of sleep, I felt well rested and was ready to go again. I can't agree that sleeping was a waste of time, for the simple reason that we couldn't have performed well without it. Even with adequate rest, we were working so hard that, for example, I had a real emotional down time at Station 3, and it took the discovery of the orange soil to rejuvenate me. However, there had never been any question in my mind about trying to sleep the first day in between the landing and the first EVA. That just didn't make much psychological sense, even though it made for a long day. And besides the psychological advantage of getting right out, it also gave us a chance to get the ALSEP deployed and a few samples collected in case something happened that would force us to leave early."]

["I slept much better on the lunar surface than I did in orbit. One-sixth gravity is a very pleasant sleeping environment with just enough pressure on your back in those hammocks to feel like you're on something but not enough to ever get uncomfortable. I slept but my impression was that I only needed about five hours sleep to feel rested whereas ordinarily on Earth at that time I usually felt that I could use seven. But I think that's related mainly to the lower gravity environment. You just don't get physically as fatigued as you would on Earth. You get as fatigued mentally - obviously you're working just as hard with your neurons - but physically you don't work as hard."]

[Ron Evans has been off-comm - and/or asleep - since 123:33 and receives his wake-up call from Houston at 131:23. Three hours later, at 134:42, he has the following exchange with Gordon Fullerton.]

Fullerton - You ever have anything you'd call a visual on the LM?

Evans - No, I really haven't looked that much, Gordo. See, my optics are always pointing up in the air; so I can't use the sextant (to look for the LM). The binocs...I'm having a heck of a time holding them still enough to concentrate on anything very small.

Fullerton - Roger.

 

EVA-1 Close-out Apollo 17 Journal EVA-2 Wake-up