"I'm naturally concerned. How do things look this morning?"
It is 7:06 a.m. CDT on April 14, 1970. Ten hours earlier, almost to the minute, an explosion on board the Apollo 13 spacecraft ("Houston, we've had a problem") put the mission into peril, threatening the lives of astronauts Jack Swigert, Fred Haise and Jim Lovell.
"My kids aren't up yet and they don't even know what is going on. They went to sleep before all this came up last night. And I was wondering what I could tell them as far as... um, um, in other words, are we really pretty safe right now?"
Philip Member
Posts: 6183 From: Brussels, Belgium Registered: Jan 2001
posted 03-13-2020 12:32 PM
Curious to learn more about the 14 seconds LM DPS burn as former NASA engineer James Ragan recently told during the Fratello Speedmaster event in Hong Kong, that the 14 seconds LM DPS burn on Apollo 13 was timed by CMP Jack Swigert using commander James Lovell's NASA-issued Speedmaster.
A remarkable fact as CAPCOM Jack Lousma was talking to Fred Haise and Jack Swigert was wearing both a NASA-issued Speedmaster and a personal Rolex GMT-master 1675. Although a minor event, it would be amazing to hear Fred Haise or James Lovell's account of this event.
TLIGuy Member
Posts: 230 From: Virginia Registered: Jul 2013
posted 03-13-2020 08:43 PM
I've always been a bit skeptical of that account.
One thing you can do is search the transcripts for references to watches. In the transcript area you will see the search glass where I searched watch, stopwatch, wrist, time, and timer. I find only 2-3 mentions of a watch by Haise. That said, I think this is the ground to air transcript so maybe the conversation did happen between the crew so it would not be here, but like I said I'm skeptical.
If you make the same search in the Apollo 11 and 17 version you will find many references to watches and stopwatches.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 49556 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
The site is currently (April 10) playing back audio from the preparations and countdown to the launch synced to when they occurred 50 years ago (to the second).
BA002 Member
Posts: 205 From: Utrecht,NL Registered: Feb 2007
posted 04-15-2020 11:02 AM
WOW! This website is absolutely spectacular! To be able to listen in to so many different channels as the drama unfolds is amazing, as are the synced audio clips. I was also greatly impressed by the animation of the lunar fly-by.
The sum of all those elements put together is that you feel like being there on the bumpy ride yourself!
Very well done, thanks to all involved in the tremendous effort!
burnsnz Member
Posts: 78 From: Auckland, New Zealand Registered: Jan 2004
posted 04-15-2020 03:01 PM
I have really really enjoyed this (and continue to do so). Well done to all involved with its production.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 49556 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 04-18-2020 08:55 AM
NASA video
Software developer and website creator Ben Feist helps us step back in time with his new website, Apollo in Real Time. Ben, a contractor at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, restored Mission Control audio of Apollo 13.
David Carey Member
Posts: 967 From: Registered: Mar 2009
posted 04-18-2020 05:23 PM
Thank you, Ben, and all others involved in putting this together.
An amazing and immersive tour de force that I enjoyed all week long.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 49556 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 05-06-2020 11:29 AM
The One Club for Creativity interviewed Ben about Apollo in Real Time and his career at NASA:
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 49556 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 11-27-2022 02:58 PM
Apollo 13 In Real Time now includes transcripts for its Mission Control audio:
Unlike the main space-to-ground transcript (left), which is based upon the original mission transcript that was manually typewritten in 1970, the transcripts provided here have been generated using the Whisper model.
The Whisper AI processing of the 7,200 hours of Mission Control audio required over 750 hours of computer time. The resulting transcripts contain over 2,929,556 utterances, consisting of 38,321,298 words, totaling 171.6MB of text. Download the transcripts for all mission control channels in a single file here (version 2022-11-26).
Accuracy and Timing
As valuable as these results are, they remain imperfect. The Apollo in Real Time team will not be endeavoring to manually correct these generated transcripts. Instead, as automated transcription technology improves over time the audio will be re-processed, replacing these transcripts.
The Apollo in Real Time team is grateful to the OpenAI team for the development and open-source release of the Whisper model.
posted 03-13-2020 07:00 AM
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