Spacelog Apollo 13

Okay, Vance. First we are going to give you a shot of the sleep station.

Okay. The camera's bounced around a little, but we can see the green computer come in every once in a while.

While Jack is getting the sleep station rolled up, I thought I would show you one interesting corner. We've got a temporary stowage bag here and that's where all our wastepaper and all that goes while we're—after every meal. It's in the right-hand corner down by our dump system.

Roger. Understand. We're looking at the wastebasket.

And the age-old question that is always asked us is how do we get rid of liquid waste and that line that you see, I think you can see it now, it goes right outside where we open up the overboard drain dump, and all of our waste products, liquid waste products, go out through that line and get dumped overboard.

Roger. Understand, and we can see somebody's foot, as well.

Okay. Fred is now going down there, and he is going to try to get underneath the sleep station on his side where we have a sleep restraint. And the whole object of that is to … to position the body between the—between the bottom of the spacecraft and—so it doesn't float up between that and the bottom of the couch.

Roger. The sleep restraint of the hammock is coming into view underneath the couch. It's the white object.

You perhaps can see the zipper of the hammock right now. It's the black lines in that white object.

Right. We can see it.

These hammocks, by the way, are very comfortable. When we first heard about them in the design of Apollo, we thought they weren't necessary, but they turned out to be very nice devices to sleep in.

I'm trying now to get down there with Fred to show you how it works. I keep floating up, though, but maybe we can get a little shot here.

Okay. We have somebody upside down in the photograph now. Realizing, of course, in—in space there is no really rightside up or upside down. It still looks that way to us.

Okay. That's—That's Fred now. I'm trying to put him rightside up, for you folks back there in the sleep station. Fred, would you move your hands there so the folks back home can see you?

Okay. That's coming in real clear, Jim. We see Fred in the sleep restaint—restraint.

As a matter of fact, Vance, I find my—I find Fred down there all the time.

Yes. I can see he appreciates that. Looks fairly comfortable.

Looks like there is a lot of room down there, considering all the boxes on the floor and underneath the couch.

It's surprising. There still is quite a bit of room down there even with the Hycon camera box down. And now, I'm going to bring the camera back up.

Okay, Vance. If there is no more that you would like to see right now, we'll terminate our little TV for you today.

Okay. Thank you very much, Jim. Appreciated seeing inside the spacecraft and getting a look at the Moon that you're rapidly approaching.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Okay. At your convenience we have an item to give you which will have to be copied. It's information on how to photograph Comet Bennett at time 32 hours GET. Over.

That's better. Let's read you what we—what we have. We have what they had in the flight plan, and if it's been changed from the flight plan, we don't have it.

Stand by 1.

We think you're right, Vance. It looks like they used the same set of NOUN 88 for both stars by mistake.

Okay, Vance. That ought to complete the P23s, right?

Okay. Very good, Jack.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

We have some results on your—your first star, if you'd like to hear them. The rest of the stars we'll—we'll have to give you in a couple of hours. Over.

Go ahead.

Apollo 13, Houston.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay. We have several items, here. First, is a reminder on the PTC that R₁ should be 375—0.375 degrees as last night, to get 0.3-degree rotation rate. The second one —

Okay. Copy that.

Okay. The second one, at 32 hours looking at Bennett's Comet—we want the pictures taken when the spacecraft is as stable as it's going to be before starting PTC. The stability requirement is very high. We weren't sure if you understood that from what we passed up. In addition, the photographs might not show as much as the eye can see of the comet, so if you see anything interesting about the structure of the comet, why, sketching it is in order and is encouraged. Over.

Okay, Vance. What we'll do is, when we get to attitude, we'll disable the quads and do like we did last night; we'll let GUIDO and you people down there tell us when you think we are stable enough; then we'll do all this work with the DAC on the sextant, first; and then when we get that done, we'll go back and put the sextant eyepiece back on and see what we can observe visually.

Okay. That sounds good. Also, while you are waiting for the vehicle to stabilize, it might be interesting to have the eyepiece on and be looking at it visually. Okay. Next item: your SPS burn had no anomalies whatsoever. It was a very good burn.

Okay. Very good.

Next item: request hydrogen tank 1 HEATER OFF for balancing purposes.

And Apollo 13, another item: something that we have observed and you might be seeing is a slight TCE fluctuation on fuel cell 3. This fluctuation has been going from about 152 to 160 over a 37-second period. It has been seen on other flights in the past. No one is worried about it, but the usual fluctuation is about 1-1/2 degrees instead of 7 seconds, so I thought you should be aware of it.

Okay, Vance. And one other slight distinction we've noted is the flow of hydrogen versus the oxygen is not exactly matched on fuel cell 3 either.

Okay. We copy. And the last item: we'd like to send you an IRIG update, so at your convenience, request P00 and ACCEPT.

Okay. We are in P00 and ACCEPT, Vance.

Okay.

Quad C and D are disabled, Vance.

Roger. Disabled. And down here, we see that your hydrogen and oxygen on the fuel cell are exactly matched, so we suspect it's purely a spacecraft read-out problem.

Okay, Vance, let us know when you're through with the DSKY so we can load NOUN 88?

Roger. We'll let you know, Jack.

Okay. You're go for the pictures.

Okay, Vance. We tried our AUTO OPTICS and couldn't pick it up there. We're pointing pretty much right into the Sun, and things are pretty well washed out. And I've gone to MANUAL OPTICS and I'm trying to get 0.8, 12.5 on the shaft and trunnion, and I still can't pick it up. So—it's very light in the sextant, so I kind of think maybe we're too near the Sun to see it.

That's right, Vance. The sextant is all—it's—it's all milky and it—any comet that could be seen through there is just going to be missed in the background.

Okay, we copy that. We got some discussion. Stand by.

Okay, Vance, it isn't—we're not looking into the Sun—what we are getting is a large reflection from the Sun behind us off the LM; and it is—it is coming on that quad 1 there, and that quad is reflecting back into the sextant.

Okay, Jack. Understand. Just a question: if you look through the telescope, can you see the comet at all? Over.

No, I can't, Vance. It's—it's still too light.

Say, Vance?

Roger. Go ahead.

Are the flowers blooming yet?

Gee, I sure haven't seen any.

Okay.

Hey, we've—we've got quite a discussion down here on your trying to observe the comet, and this reflection is not unexpected. And give us another minute, and we'll be back with you on something on that.

Okay. I doubt very seriously though, if we take any photographs with high-speed black and white with the light coming into the sextant that you're going to get anything out of it.