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posted 01-10-2013 11:22 AM            

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Here is a short video clip showing both Scott and Irwin coming down the ladder.

The angle of the lunar horizon in the distance is different when Irwin comes down the ladder. Would that indicate that the LM may very well have "rocked back" and lifted the footpad enough to swivel after Scott stepped onto the lunar surface, as Irwin had suggested?

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posted 01-14-2013 02:29 PM            

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some of the CM splashdowns were harder than others:

• Apollo 8 - BORMAN: The one item that we were perhaps not expecting was the impact at touchdown. There was a severe jolt and we got water in through the cabin repress valves even though they were closed. A good deal of water -- 2 or 3 quarts came in the cabin pressure relief valve.

• Apollo 11 - COLLINS: I felt a solid jolt. It was a lot harder than I expected.

• Apollo 12 - CONRAD: We really hit flatter than a pancake, and it was a tremendous impact, much greater than anything I'd experienced on Gemini. The 16-mm camera, which was on the bracket - and we may have been remiss in this and I'm not sure, but it wasn't in the checklist - whistled off and clanked Al on the head to the tune of six stitches. It cold-cocked him, which is why we were in stable II. Although he doesn't realize it, he was out to lunch for about 5 seconds. Dick was hollering for him to punch in the breakers, and in the meantime, I'd seen this thing whistle off out of the corner of my eye and he (Bean) was blankly staring at the instrument panel. I was convinced he was dead over there in the right seat, but he wasn't, and finally got the breakers in. By that time, we'd gone stable II which was no big deal. I went through the stable II postlanding checklist and uprighted okay.

• Apollo 15 - SCOTT: We came down expecting to have a rather solid impact, which we had. I had the feeling we hit pretty flat.

• Apollo 16 - YOUNG: Really, it was harder than Apollo 10.
  DUKE: I didn't really expect it to be as hard as it was. When I got my eyeballs recaged we were already in stable 2.

NASA photo S69-22728 shows how rough the sea was as Apollo 12 approached splashdown. The Mission Report has more details from the Apollo 12 crew about the hard landing.

Sea-state conditions were fairly rough, and the landing impact was extremely hard. (Editor's note: Later information indicates the command module did not enter the water at the nominal 27.5-degree angle, from which it hangs on the parachute system. Engineering judgement indicates that the command module entered the water at an angle of 20 to 22 degrees, which corresponds to an impact acceleration of about 15g. This off-nominal condition is attributed to a wind-inducing swing of the command module while it was on the parachutes and to the existing wave slope at contact.) The 16-mm sequence camera had been placed on its bracket in the right-hand rendezvous window to photograph entry but came loose at impact and contacted the Lunar Module Pilot above the right eye. Later inspection of the spacecraft revealed that portions of the heat shield had been knocked loose during impact. The spacecraft was pulled over by the parachutes to a stable II attitude. Uprighting procedures were completely adequate, and no difficulty was encountered in returning to stable I.

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posted 01-16-2013 02:14 PM            

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Jim Irwin made some additional comments about the ladder while discussing the transfer of bags up to the LM platform:

SCOTT: You ever have any problems?
IRWIN: No, I really didn't. I guess we had, as far as I was concerned, the worst possible problem as far as getting up on the first rung because the front strut had obviously not stroked. As far as I was concerned, the front pad was off the surface. As I initially came down and stepped on it, it was loose, and I wasn't aware of that and it tilted, pulling me back and I almost went over backwards.
SCOTT: On the first EVA?
IRWIN: Yes. So that was a surprise to me, and from then on it was a real struggle to get up to the first rung.
SCOTT: Was it really?
IRWIN: Yes. Invariably, I'd end up pulling myself up by the arms to get to the first rung, particularly if I was carrying a bag up. If I didn't have a bag, I could leap far enough to just barely get my feet on the first rung.
SCOTT: Did you have any trouble pulling yourself up?
IRWIN: No, it was just, you know, additional effort which probably raised the heart rate a little bit.
SCOTT: Well, I didn't have any problem getting up and I could get to the first rung with a leap with any bag, with a good spring.

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posted 01-17-2013 09:58 AM               

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Here is an interesting quote from former President Eisenhower, in June 1963, about the Apollo program.

"...former President Dwight D. Eisenhower told a Republican breakfast here (Washington D.C.): 'Anybody who would spend $ 40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts.'

Eisenhower has been critical of the Kennedy Administration for the emphasis it has placed on the moon effort and the amount being spent..." - St. Petersburg Times - Jun 13, 1963

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posted 02-11-2013 10:48 PM            

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the lightning strikes during the Apollo 12 launch:

CONRAD: The roll program was on time. The pitch program was on time. I didn't notice the rate changes, because, at 36 seconds, I first noticed that something had happened outside the spacecraft. I was aware of a white light. I knew that we were in the clouds; and, although I was watching the gauges I was aware of a white light. The next thing I noted was that I heard the MASTER ALARM ringing in my ears and I glanced over to the caution and warning panel and it was a sight to behold. There's a little disagreement among us and I'll have to look at the tapes, but my recollection of what I called out was three FUEL CELL lights, both AC 1 BUS and AC 1 OVERLOAD, FUEL CELL DISCONNECT, MAIN A and B BUS OVERLOAD lights, and I was not aware of AC 2 lights. Dick thought they were on. I don't think they were because I remember thinking that the only lights that weren't on of the electrical system was AC 2 and maybe I ought to configure for an AC BUS 1 out.

GORDON: Let me make a comment here. A considerable length of time elapsed between the time those lights came on and when Pete read them off to the ground. I can't swear positively that they were all on. To help Al, my usual habit was, when any light came on during the boost phase, to read it out so that he didn't have to be concerned with which light it was. My recollection is that when I first glanced up there I didn't read any of them to him, but I scanned all of them and the only thing I said to him was, "Al, all the lights are on." I am under the impression that at one time, or initially at least, they were all on. Pete read it out quite a bit later. We'd talked about it and you read them out a minute or so later.

CONRAD: I went back to my gauges and ascertained that everything was running on my side. About this time, the platform tumbled. The next thing I noted was that the ISS light was on. This was obvious because my number 1 ball was doing 360's. I even took the time to peek under the card and we had a PROGRAM ALARM light, the GIMBAL light, and a NO ATT light. So we lit up just about everything in the spacecraft. Since that time, we found out that we were hit a second time and that's probably what did the platform in. When the platform went, Al was telling me that we had voltage on all buses and that we had all buses. I remember him telling me that the voltage was low -- 24 volts.

BEAN: We got all the lights. I didn't have an idea in the world what happened. My first thought was that we might have aborted, but I didn't feel any g's, so I didn't think that was what had happened. My second thought was that somehow the electrical connection between the command module and the service module had separated, because all three fuel cells had plopped off and everything else had gone. I immediately started working the problem from the low end of the pole. I looked at both AC buses and they looked okay, so that was a little confusing.

GORDON: You looked at the voltage meters, not the lights.

BEAN: Yes, that's right. I looked at the volts -- the lights were on. I looked at the voltage and the voltage on all phases was good. That was a little confusing. Usually when you see an AC over-voltage light, either an inverter goes off or you have one of the AC phases reading zero and you have to take the inverter off. In this case, they all looked good and that was a bit confusing. I switched over and took a look at the main buses. There was power on both, although the voltage was down to about 24, which was a lot lower than normal. I looked at the fuel cells and they weren't putting out a thing. I looked at the battery buses and they were putting out the same 24 volts. They were hooked into the mains and it turned out that they were supplying the load. As I did this, I kept telling Pete we had power on all these buses. One of the rules of space flight is you don't make any switch-a-roos with that electrical system unless you've got a good idea why you're doing it. If you don't have power at all, you might change a couple of switches to see what will happen. When you have power and everything is working, you don't want to switch too much. I didn't have any idea what had happened. I wasn't aware anything had taken place outside the spacecraft. I was visualizing something down in the electrical systems.

CONRAD: We had a crew rule to handle electrical emergencies. Al did not do any switching without first telling me what he was going to do. When he told me that we had power on all buses, I remember making the comment to him not to do anything until we got through staging.

BEAN: Yes, that is right. I didn't have any ideas anyway. I knew we had power, so I didn't want to make any changes. I figured we could fly into orbit just like that and that's exactly what we did. The ground came up a little bit later and said to put the fuel cells back on the line. I was a little hesitant about doing that, because I didn't understand that we had been hit by lightning. I gave it a go, and sure enough, things started working very well after that.

CONRAD: Because I could see outside, I made the comment to them several times. I told the ground that I thought we had been hit by lightning. I was the only one that had any outside indications. Dick didn't note anything over his little hole in his center window. I was the only one who noticed anything and that was only the first time. I was aware that something external to the spacecraft had happened. I had the decided impression that I not only saw it, but felt it and heard it.

BEAN: I think the one thing I should have done was put battery C on both buses. I don't think you're going to hurt yourself doing this. I would not have tried to reset the fuel cells or anything else any faster than when the ground called up, because everything was working fairly well and we were in a critical flight phase. I didn't want to take a chance of taking out a bus with a bad switch.

GORDON: I think it was a smart decision. We've all learned that by arbitrarily switching the electrical system around, you can get yourself into more trouble.

BEAN: You could lose the whole ballgame and we had the whole ballgame. We were in pretty good shape.

CONRAD: I never considered any kind of an abort. The only concern that passed my mind was winding up in orbit with that dead spacecraft. As far as I could see, as long as Al said he had power on the buses and the COMM was good, we'd press on. We had a long time to go before we could do a MODE II and so the thought never crossed my mind about aborting at any point. I wanted to make sure we had enough time to psych it out. The main concern I had was getting through staging where we got the g levels back down again and we had a little more time to sort out what was going on.

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posted 02-12-2013 01:52 PM            

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LM RCS checkout prior to lunar liftoff on Apollo 12:

BEAN: ... The other one was when Pete performed the RCS checkout. When he fired the thrusters on the right side, it knocked over the S-band erectable antenna; so we switched over to the spacecraft S-band which didn't even lose lock. We got some good movies, I think. He fired some of the thrusters, and I took some 16-millimeter movies out the window. Hopefully, the geologist can get some feel for movement of dust with that engine and maybe compare or extrapolate down to the descent engine.

CONRAD: I'm going to have Mission Control look over their data, but that RCS firing on the ground appeared to me to be excellent in that I noticed very ragged thruster firing on the first pass through all thrusters. I don't know why that was. The system should have been pressurized and we should have had solid fluid all the way out to all the thrusters, but, they were very ragged. The first trip around roll, pitch, and yaw, they steadied out to be very solid in firing. I'm sure that if they were ragged this shows on the data on the ground but I want to make sure somebody checks that. I'd hate to have that first portion of lift-off and not have very good thrusters during the very critical time of getting that baby off the descent stage.

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posted 02-17-2013 12:34 PM            

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the S-IVB TLI burn (duration 5:43) on Apollo 10:

STAFFORD: The S-IVB lit off exactly to the second on time. It started its pitchdown 5 degrees. We were all getting very sensitive to any motion. The thing we noticed right away was the growling of the S-IVB and these oscillations. There were little lateral and longitudinal oscillations and a growl. Then between 3 minutes and 3 minutes and 5 seconds, a high-frequency oscillation noise and vibration were superimposed upon the growling. All three of us thought the flight was going to be over right then.

YOUNG: It was a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - like that. Maybe 60 cycles or somewhere around there. It's hard to say.

STAFFORD: And you could feel the vibration in the couches.

YOUNG: Feel it and hear it. So we all figured the flight was over right there. So, from 3 minutes on, we held our breath.

CERNAN: It provoked comment like, "burn, baby, burn." You can't call it pogo.

YOUNG: You know, the couple of nights we had Ed James and those guys in for dinner, and they'd briefed us that the math model showed you to expect a pogo in the last 15 seconds of the S-IVB flight.

STAFFORD: But we never had a longitudinal pogo. There was no longitudinal pogo. What we had were these motions.

CERNAN: It was a random buzz.

YOUNG: This might have been a high-frequency pogo for all we know.

STAFFORD: But it just came on like that, and it lasted all the way through until shutdown. We'd never seen it before and never heard about it. It really scared the hell out of us - not from a safety point of view - we thought the flight was going to be over shortly.

CERNAN: And I was trying to figure out how we'd do a TLI - plus 10 abort.

STAFFORD: But the guidance was just beautiful, and it shut off within a foot per second. It was just fantastic. The S-IVB maneuver to separation attitude was on time right to the degree. It was as solid as a rock. Preseparation configuration was satisfactory; MCC GO for pyro arm was good. Again, T&D attitude was good. Okay.

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posted 02-17-2013 03:01 PM            

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a bit earlier during TLI preparations:

YOUNG: We had agreed that we wouldn't wear helmet and gloves for TLI and then chickened out, there, at the last moment and put them on.

CERNAN: It was so easy, we were ahead of the timeline, and we had nothing else to do. We said, "Shall we put them on?"

YOUNG: It was more psychological than physiological, because you know if anything had happened, there wouldn't have been anything you could do.

CERNAN: But it was a case of being ahead of it, sitting there and saying, "Well, why not?"

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posted 02-17-2013 09:37 PM            

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selected comments on LEVA operations during EVA:

SHEPARD: I had no problems with the helmet and no problems with the LEVA.

MITCHELL: The LCG worked properly. And the helmet and LEVA operations were all right, except it certainly is easy to scratch up the helmet and the LEVA. The scratches cause shafting light or diffused light problems and that obstructs your vision. All I can say is that you had to be darn careful with them when you're using them. Just the slightest touch can cause a scratch.

SHEPARD: I had my visor up during the first part of the first EVA and then brought it down. I think it helps vision.
MITCHELL: I brought mine down and left it down continuously. It is difficult to see in the shadows, but it's not that bad. You're not in the shadows that much.
SHEPARD: You can always lift it. It's a very handy device.
MITCHELL: I thought the ballcap was very good. It's the most recent improvement we've had on the LEVAs.

SCOTT: Let's see, HELMET. No comment. Just fine. The visors are all good. They were all useful and it worked. LEVA operation was good.

IRWIN: I had some difficulty seeing my flags with the visor down ... I had to actually strain against putting my nose against the visor to look down and see the flags. I guess, also, I felt that when I was getting out of the LM when it was in the shade, I preferred to have the visor up so I could see better. Then I put the visor down after I got out.

YOUNG: LEVA operations. It was okay, except I didn't mention previously that I got it stuck on the last EVA and couldn't get it off for ingress -- undoubtedly due to the dust.

DUKE: I might comment on the outer visor. When I first got out during the beginning of the EVA I wanted my visor down even in the shade. But after we'd been out in the sunlight during the whole EVA and came back into the shadow, on the closeout, I wanted my visor up because I didn't feel like I could see well enough.

MATTINGLY: The other EMU problem had to do with the visors. I went out and the Sun was just bright as all get out. So the first thing I did was to pull down the inner and the gold visors and that was pretty good until I got in the Sun. Then I still wanted to get that bright Sun out of my eyes, so I pulled down the hard covers on the outside, and John had forgotten to tell me that they didn't go back up.
YOUNG: During our last EVA when I got back in, I couldn't get the visor up. I couldn't see what I was doing. I was going in here and there with my eyes closed.
MATTINGLY: Fortunately, they got that little trapdoor in the front of the visor and I could handle that, but I never got the side blind down and I never got the thing pushed up.

CERNAN: Vision without outer visor during EVA. In effect, I never used mine. I used the protective visor and the gold visor almost the entire time except when I was in the shade and I lifted my gold visor. I hardly ever, except for occasionally driving into the sun mode of operation, used the hard-cover visor at all. I never used the side hard-cover visors and just very seldom used the center hard-cover visor.

SCHMITT: Often, during the EVAs, I would have the gold visor down three-quarters to protect most of my face from the Sun. But for close-in detail I would look through the lower one-quarter, where I'd just have the clear helmet available in order to see more detail without looking directly into the Sun. When we were driving up-Sun with the Sun on the visor (having had some problems with the hard-shell visor movement), I mainly used my arms to shade the helmet or the LEVA so that I could see up-Sun, and that worked fairly well.

CERNAN: Helmet visor reflections - I had no particular problems with the helmet. My gold visor got very dirty and dusty and scratched up very early in the first EVA, and I cleaned it as the ground prescribed before each EVA, but it really didn't do much good. I just learned to live with it, and it really didn't degrade the operations much at all.
EVANS: ... I used your LEVA and I didn't even notice any scratches on the thing while I was out.

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posted 02-18-2013 12:49 AM            

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Lunar Receiving Lab operations on Apollo 11:

COLLINS: I want out.

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posted 02-24-2013 10:38 PM            

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lunar rev number 1 on Apollo 8:

BORMAN: We should point out that we never even saw the moon until we had completed burning LOI. When we saw it, we were in exactly the right position. I don't know the exact altitude. The onboard computer read 69.5 as I recall, which is very, very close to what was given to us.

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posted 03-01-2013 06:21 AM            

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tracking the landing site from the CM in lunar orbit:

COLLINS: I never did see the LM.

GORDON: ... The P22 on the next pass was to be at the landing site. Through most of the conversation, I wasn't really sure where it was. I had an update for the LM charts, giving the coordinates for what the ground at that time thought was the landing site of the LM, near head crater. The targeting was pretty close to the actual spot where the LM had landed, but on the second pass after landing, when P22 came up, I found Snowman and I was actually looking at the Surveyor crater. Lo and behold, right there on the northwest edge of that thing was a bright shiny spot, a long shadow, and it was the only shadow in the area that I saw and as I got closer, it may be my imagination, but I thought I could see details of the descent stage and the landing gear extending from it. As I approached overhead where the Surveyor crater was at the nadir, right in the center of that crater, and the dark shadow was one shiny bright spot that I knew had to be the Surveyor, this excited me quite a bit. I was pretty surprised that we were able to see that and I actually gave the coordinates on Surveyor back to the ground, which I thought was the LM landing site and it turned out to be exactly where they were. So once you know the general area, I should say pretty precisely the area in which they landed, anyone could find the LM itself in the sextant ...

ROOSA: One other area to include here would be my visual tracking pass on the LM. We changed the coordinates of the LM slightly. I received an update to NOUN 89 values. I also took the coordinates off my sight map. I bombed into the area. I had no trouble at all. I had really smoked over the Fra Mauro area and had certain lead-ins coming into it. I picked up Cone Crater and Triplet and had no trouble identifying the area. I was looking on my map at these coordinates, and they were wrong. They had the LM over on the other side of the Triplet. Then I saw the bright spot - the reflection of the LM and the shadow. There is no mistaking the LM when you see that long shadow coming out from it. I had a real good track on the LM. I don't remember how many marks I took, but I got a good track on it. Then I changed the coordinates on my site map and told Ron that I put the LM at different coordinates on the site map. The next day, between the two landmarks that were listed, I had a chance to look at the landing site again. This time the shadow in the LM was down, but I knew exactly where to look. I saw the Sun shining off the LM and also off the ALSEP package. I marked down the coordinates of the ALSEP and phoned those down to Ron. It looked to me like the ALSEP was right out there by this crater.

WORDEN: Next item is LM acquisition. After the P24, after the circularization maneuver, the next pass over the landing site was a LM acquisition pass. It was made on REV 15, and that all went very well. The pad was sent up, I went to the attitude, and there was no problem with any of that. Everything went nominally. As I came over the landing site, I saw the LM shadow very clearly, and once I had identified the shadow, then I could also see the LM in the sextant. I watched the LM until I was near nadir, until I was almost to TCA, and then I took out the visual map, the 1 to 25 000 scale, in the CSM Lunar Landmark Map Book, and marked the spot where I saw the LM.

MATTINGLY: ... We never did try to track the LM itself. I saw a glint of sunlight off of something bright. Sort of like the kind of reflection you'd see from a wave out over the ocean. One time when I was looking with the binoculars, at the landing area, I believe I saw the glint off of the LM or maybe the ALSEP. And, another time I saw a glint over on the flanks of Stone Mountain. Right after that, Hank said that was in fact where the Rover was. It was nothing I could identify or pinpoint, but it was a flash of sunlight reflected off of something that looked entirely unlike any other features that you see around the Moon ...

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posted 03-01-2013 10:36 PM            

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view at LM ascent stage ignition:

ALDRIN: In looking down at the time of the pitchover, I could see radiating out many, many particles of Kapton and pieces of thermal coating from the descent stage. It seemed almost to be going out with a slow-motion type view. It didn't seem to be dropping much in the near vicinity of the LM. I'm sure many of them were. They seemed to be going enormous distances from the initial PYRO firing and the ascent engine impinging upon the top of the descent stage.

ARMSTRONG: At the completion of the pitchover, you could easily detect visually that a strong positive outward radial rate had been established. There was no concern about attitude or falling back toward the Moon. I observed one sizable piece of the spacecraft flying along below us for a very long period of time after liftoff. I saw it hit the ground below us somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes into the trajectory.

MITCHELL: The staging (that was shown on the film) blew out an awful lot of crap from the interstage area; a lot of Mylar, I guess, shrapnel from the bolts. A lot of things blew out and it looked pretty messy on the screen as it happened. The staging sequence and the thrust onset made a pretty good shock. There was no buildup of thrust; all of a sudden it was there, and we were flying.

DUKE: I highly recommend that you put that thing (ALSEP) off to the left side of the LM if you can, if your experiments will allow you to. Because on lift-off, that MESA blanket we had went sailing right straight out front just like it did on 15 and impacted about a 100 meters out in front of the LM. It could have been another wipeout on the central station, like it almost was on 15, so that's probably a good idea to put it off to the left.

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posted 03-07-2013 07:45 PM            

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The amount of lunar dust that the moonwalkers tracked into the LM was a bit of a problem. They had difficulty getting their gloves on and off because of the dust that got into the wrist locks. Young had trouble getting his LEVA off after EVA-3 due to the dust.

The collection bag stowage checklist that you posted above is mentioned in the Apollo 16 mission transcripts after EVA-3:

DUKE: Okay, got you. Line 1 is bag 7. Line 2 is bag 4. Line 2 - line 3 is bag 5, right-hand side; 8, left-hand side. The ISA is 3 and 6.

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posted 03-14-2013 07:15 AM            

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Apollo 16 CDR at LM liftoff:

YOUNG: I'll tell you what happened to me on the launch prep. About 3 minutes prior to launch as I was looking out the window and the Sun was bright overhead my left eye started crying. I had the window down all the way. I normally kept the window up. For launch you want the window down. I couldn't see out of my left eye. It became worse and worse, and it was as bad as it got just prior to launch. It was really bad. I closed my left eye and it was tearing badly. I think it was just due to the brightness.

DUKE: So it made you like snowblind.

YOUNG: Yes. I just couldn't believe it. It was almost like I had something in my eye. I'm sitting there and I can't see out of my left eye and we're going to launch in 2 minutes.

DUKE: I couldn't believe it either. I looked over at him and he looked like both eyes were closed.

YOUNG: Well, there was nothing I could do about it. I sure didn't plan to abort the launch for that. I had my right eye, and I was going to fly it using one eye if I had to. I was going to fly on instruments anyway. You couldn't fly on it out the window on the ground track without really being in good shape. We had at least five guidance systems and four different control modes going for us before I had to use my left eye, so I felt pretty confident. I think it's something you need to think about. Looking out that bright window all the time with a helmet on leaves your eyeballs with no protection.

MATTINGLY: Could you get any relief by holding your hand up?

YOUNG: Yes, I put my hand over my eye and that relieved it. Charlie couldn't figure out what I was doing.

DUKE: I thought you had something in your eye.

QUERY: Sunglasses?

YOUNG: You don't want that under the pressure helmet, because you have to look inside the cockpit and you can't get them off. That surface was some bright, and we were looking upslope. We were looking up the rim of this crater. I don't know why it didn't bother Charlie over on his side, but it sure was -- sure got to me.

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posted 04-03-2013 03:06 PM            

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Gemini 11 on parachutes:

CONRAD: About 2000 feet we saw a helicopter go by.

GORDON: The R and R section.

CONRAD: The R and R section almost hit us. It really came close. I could see it coming down through the chute and it went by Dick's window, about 20 feet away. On landing I thought the first helicopter in was trying to land on us and not help us. Boy, he really came close.

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posted 04-14-2013 11:08 AM            

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quote:

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Originally posted by LM-12:
The hatch strikes the Navy diver

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The Gemini 9A mission report has this explanation of what happened:

After jumping to the spacecraft, the swim-team leader connected the interphone to the spacecraft and established contact with the crew. They reported that all was well, and the swim-team leader then assisted the two other swimmers in attaching the floatation collar to the spacecraft. After inflation of the collar, the swimmers attempted to re-establish communication with the crew through the interphone but were unsuccessful (see section 6.3.3.7). Unable to detect any motion or activity in the spacecraft and thinking the crew was in difficulty, the swim-team leader immediately released the hatch tool and started to open the hatch. While doing so, the hatch suddenly flew open and knocked the swimmer into the raft alongside the spacecraft. The swimmer received a slight head injury but was able to remain at the scene and await pickup by the ship. It was reported later by the command pilot that he noticed the swimmer preparing to open the hatch and, realizing the spacecraft cabin might still be pressurized, he attempted to release the hatch slowly from inside. The forces, however, were too great for him to restrain the hatch.

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posted 06-12-2013 09:09 AM            

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quote:

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Originally posted by Henry Heatherbank:
a PLT getting out the CDR's side ... would be a pretty tight squeeze

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That was standard practice to get to the life rafts after Gemini splashdowns. The crew egress procedure was developed during training:

A predicted spacecraft roll attitude of up to 18° right will place the forward lower corner of the right hatch on the waterline. Though splash curtains offer some protection, opening the right hatch in any sea state other than calm will result in shipping water through the right hatch opening.

This difficulty resulted in the development of an egress procedure in which only the left hatch is opened. Both crewmen exit through the left hatch ...

Posts: 378
From: Herne Bay, Kent, UK
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Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 06-13-2013 09:20 AM            

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Your first link is actually a Gemini 6A photo. The black object is a splash curtain. Schirra and Stafford egressed their spacecraft on the deck of the USS Wasp.

On Gemini 8, Scott closed and locked the right hatch before egressing the spacecraft through the left hatch and climbing up the Jacob's ladder.

Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 06-24-2013 08:24 PM            

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The broken helmet faceplate on Gemini 3 during parachute descent:

GRISSOM: Single-point release was the biggest surprise of the whole flight. When I hit that single-point release, landing-attitude button, I thought all hell had broken loose. For a minute, I thought maybe the whole chute had broken loose.

YOUNG: I thought it had fallen off.

GRISSOM: Threw us forward and broke my faceplate. I surely was glad to look back up and see the chute up there.

YOUNG: When the single-point releases, it allows the spacecraft nose to fall to 45°. Just fall, that's what it did.

GRISSOM: It's like driving along at 20 or 30 miles an hour and running into a brick wall. It really snaps you forward! I probably wouldn't have broken my faceplate, if it hadn't been for the reticle knob below the window.

YOUNG: I am sure I hit just as hard as Gus did.

GRISSOM: You know we talked about the reticle knob a long time ago and felt there was no way of getting rammed up against there. We didn't worry about it.

YOUNG: True.

GRISSOM: In fact, if my faceplate hadn't been closed, I'd probably have it right through my head. The faceplate just slowed my acceleration enough to stop me. It was an abrupt change. You don't notice it on a film like GT-2.

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From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 08-19-2013 04:25 PM            

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The view of Cape Canaveral from Gemini 5:

COOPER: When we came over the Cape here you could see every one of the launch pads.

CONRAD: I should have two 70-mm photographs. I guarantee you that I got a 70-mm photograph of the Cape one day like nobody ever took before. If it came out, it was the clearest picture of the Cape.

COOPER: Boy, that was beautiful. You could see every detail. You could see every causeway and every street, everything that rode around the Cape, and buildings all over the Cape.

Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

Posts: 3324
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010

posted 08-31-2013 10:50 PM            

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SM damage as seen by the Apollo 13 crew after CM/SM separation:

LOVELL: When I first saw it, I saw that the whole panel, the core panel, was missing off the SM. I could see the interior. I couldn't see any specific damage, but I didn't really know exactly what I was looking at, although there seemed to be a lot of debris hanging out. It looked like insulation-type material hanging out, and the panel went all the way back to the high gain antenna. We saw a streak on the engine bell, and that's about all I saw before I got the camera and started taking pictures of it.

HAISE: I guess the two things that were identified very promptly as specific objects sitting out there were two barrel-looking things. I could see one set of tanks that looked to be in place. The streak on the engine was kind of a green-gray color. When I first looked at the bell, I actually said that it looked like it was cracked. Then it turned around in a yaw maneuver and I looked straight up the bell. It was in good shape; it was not cracked.

SWIGERT: I didn't get down there until much later in the time line and it was at quite a distance. I didn't distinguish any of the streaking. I could distinguish that a panel was missing because of the color difference in the other panels and that particular panel. The SM was in a very slow yaw maneuver, which gave us time to observe it all the way around. I did take about 28 pictures with the 250-mm lens. I used the settings Houston gave me, which was f:8 at 1/250th, and it appeared to me when I saw it that the SPS bell was intact. I did see some debris hanging out of the side and even hanging off the high gain antenna. When the SM turned around, either the debris was on the high gain antenna or was sufficiently far out to the side that it appeared to be hanging off the high gain antenna.

LOVELL: That's what I thought. Something got to the high gain antenna because it did not look natural back there.

SLAYTON: Did you notice whether the barrel was a fuel cell or hydrogen tank? Did it look like it was displaced, or did it look like it was in the proper position?

HAISE: No, it just looked like it was - where I would expect it. I guess, from a few schematic pictures I've seen, it probably was a fuel cell. However, it looked physically mounted the way it should have been.

LOVELL: I didn't see anything big hanging. I saw a lot of stuff straggling out; you know, floating in the breeze.

SWIGERT: I guess the noise at SM SEP was what I expected from what I heard of on previous flights.