Spacelog Apollo 13

And, Joe, do you have the … out for the …?

I'm not sure I copied that, Fred. If you asked me whether I had that powerup procedure, I don't have it for you, yet. Over.

No. The question was, do you have a … from the Moon burn.

Still didn't understand, Fred. I'm sorry.

Okay. We'll be able to get better COMM.

Roger.

Okay.

Fred, Houston. You want to try it, now?

How do you read, Houston?

That's pretty good, Fred.

Okay. Two things: first of all, we noticed a …

Gol darn it. Just as you started talking, it got noisy again, Fred; try it again.

Okay.

Try it now, loud and slow.

Okay. Jack had a question on how far out from the Moon are we now?

On how far out what?

From the Moon we are now?

Oh. Our little plot shows you just touching the 180-thousand-mile line. So you're about 40 K out from the Moon.

Okay. Okay. And the other thing is, we've noticed some fresh new particles floating around outside, so possibly the service module is starting to vent a little bit again.

Okay. Copy that, Fred. On the O₂ flow thing, we clearly saw the DEMAND REGULATOR go to OFF and back to CABIN. TELMU thinks that it's no big thing that you've seen a little change in flow due to the different resistance we've got in the circuit.

Roger.

Aquarius, Houston.

Go ahead.

Okay, Fred. Recommend you go to OFF on the BIOMED switch. We never did get any BIOMED and it might clear up the COMM a little bit.

Okay. How you read now?

Okay, Fred. That might be a little better.

We're on the 180—K line, right now.

…?

We're about 40 050.

… It's 550 over there.

Okay. It's … there.

Just split the difference.

Yes.

Okay. I got a copy of the … K …

Is that right?

EECOM.

That midcourse should be interesting. You know, the mode we're going to do it in.

Manual AGS … DPS burn. We're controlling … TTCA attitude. …

… down under …

Fortunately.

We can't help them too much. Actually it isn't bad … but … … goddamned unfortunate. In part, I get a feeling … now when I get … Just before … goes to zero in 1 second I'm going to pull them out …

Another burn that's never been done.

Go to the—Go to the technique for a lash and … it's the burn technique.

I'm sure they got something written out, maybe …

A what?

Well, hell, Jack. All you—you don't use a very good one … Just if you'll go … at your attitude reference for … and the g-meter backup. Because, really, you can almost … The command module and your odds are 60 to 40 that you're going to hit Earth blunt-end first, without any reference.

… I didn't realize that. That proves you've got a little bit above 50-percent odds that you're going to enter blunt end, and -

We made an entry like that in Apollo 8 in a … with Houston, ol' Buzz went and turned on the command module heaters and left them on. The activators, they went, “Shooo!” both tanks; we had no gas. Just had a real slow rate … We actually went out in the console and started debriefing, but left it running and watched it; and the son of a bitch did a hop-skipout, a hopout, underneath …, but not much, and then we did a long hop … but—The second reentry, also, it did one … both times. It lucked out twice and made a real peculiar … They went to zero g …

Yes.

That's correct. And then on panel 250, circuit breaker BAT B POWER ENTRY/POSTLANDING to open, and verify MAIN BUS B voltage.

Okay. Panel 250 BAT B POWER ENTRY/POSTLANDING, open, and then verify the MAIN BUS voltage.

Okay. That's correct. The last steps are to get the LM back on descent batteries. The first step is BATs 1, 2, 3, and 4, HI VOLTAGE, ON. Over.

Okay. Then the next step is a LM step, BATs 1, 2, 3, and 4, HI VOLTAGE, ON.

That's correct; and the last step in the LM, BATs 5 and 6 to OFF. Over.

Say again; you cut out there, Joe.

Okay, Jack. The last step in the LM, BATTERIES 5 and 6 to OFF. Over.

Okay. BATs 5 and 6 go OFF.

That's correct. That should configure you. Note that circuit-breaker protection on that circuit limits the available current to 15 amps. We think we can do quite a bit with it though. And the LM/CSM umbilical will be hot and MAIN BUS voltage may be monitored by selecting MAIN B on the gage. Over.

Okay. Real fine.

Good deal, Jack.

Okay. And I'll be ready to implement this whenever you call it up.

Roger that.

And how do you read, Joe?

Pretty good, Fred.

Okay. While Jack was on COMM, I was looking out the docking window here, and I could see another good shower of particles coming out of the service module. And the position this time appears to be on the other side. Before, we'd always seen them out of window 1, and where I'm looking at it from here, it looks like it'd be down below window 6 somewhere in the service module. Jack's going upstairs to see what it looks like up there.

Okay. Good deal. We copy that, Fred. And to show you how relaxed we are about the entry, Ken is looking at—giving you guys a chance to—prior to going into entry, PREP to snap a few pictures of the service module.

Ken is, huh? (Laughter)

Yes, he's got all that film up there, and he doesn't want to waste it.

Oh, I thought maybe you'd want me to do a PLSS EVA to go shoot pictures or something.

Okay, okay.

You're right; we got a lot of pictures.

I guess I agree it surely would be nice to document it someway if we can, but it doesn't look like …

Yes, we think it'd be a lot of help.

Joe, how do you read me?

Aquarius, Houston. Go ahead.

Okay. The condensate transfer worked great.

Stand by a minute, Fred. We're in a bad COMM mode.

Okay. How's that?

That's better.

Okay. The waste transfer into the condensate can works real well, Joe.

Okay. Good deal.

So, I guess we can keep FIDO happy with no overboard dumps.

Roger that.

Yes, that brings up one more possibility, Joe.

Say again, Fred.

Brings up another possibility. Now that we've got all of that stowed into the bags and the condensate can, we could probably blow all of that through the PLSS …, I wonder how the sublimator would work on waste water.

It might work if we had to do it, Fred. Right now we're looking at a comfortable excess of water through the sublimator. We were talking among ourselves this morning about having you try out the PLSS to ascent tank water-transfer situation and we decided not to do it, not to recommend it, because we figure it'd take us 30 hours to empty one of the ascent tanks, which you have to do in order to get PLSS water to it, and we'd rather use the descent water and we don't think we've gotten any sweat. Over.

Okay, Joe. I don't think there's any question about it from the plumbing standpoint that we could do that if we had to.

And, how do you read, Joe?

Read you pretty good, Fred. Go ahead.

I think our PTC wobble is growing worse. The Earth now is really up to the top of the window. I have to get way down almost to the floorboards to view it. Conversely, the Moon is way down at the bottom of the window.

Okay.

A lot more wobble.

Roger —

Far more wobble than I noticed on my previous watch.

Okay. Copied that, Fred. And our thermal people will be looking at it. One of the things we're talking about relative to the midcourse correction is we'd like not to do it before the SHe tank goes, if it's going to go, just so it won't give us a problem reestablishing PTC. And right now our people think that the burst disk will pop around 106 hours.