PURSUE Release 03 — Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing Part1 1965 (NASA-UAP-D016)
Source: U.S. Department of War, PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters) — Release 03 (third tranche), published 12 June 2026. Document NASA-UAP-D016.
URL: release portal https://www.war.gov/UFO/release/03/ · bundle https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/061226/release_03/release_03_documents.zip (file: NASA-UAP-D016_Preliminary-Gemini-4-Crew-Debriefing_Part1_1965.pdf)
Captured: 2026-06-12. Text below is the clean born-digital / OCR text extracted from the released PDF (340 pages).
What this is: Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing Part1 1965. Index/analysis: pursue-release-03-uap-records.
DECLASSIFIED Authority:
82
NW 91526
CLASSIF!CAT:ON CHANGE
I
o_ _ __ 38
By authority of—~4,…L.11.1-…___.~~L—L-…t.-e=---1
hanged by U~1:i:.~1 LDate
1973
42, /0 0
/ /4-
PRELIMINARY GT- 4 FLIGHT CREW DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPI’ PART I
Prepared By Spacecraft Operat ions Branch Flight Crew Support Division June 16 , 1965
This material contains information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws , Title 18 . U. S . C Section 793 and 794 , the transmission or revel a tion of which in any manner to an unaut horized person is prohi bi ted by law .
f
I
Group 4:
Downgr ade at 3 year intervals Declassified after 12 years
NOTICE: This document may be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of lnfor• rnation Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for Its ra• lec1~e to persons outside the U. S. Government should be handled under the provisions of NASA Polley Cir-ecti11e 1382.2,
COI\JFIDENTIAt
PREFACE This preliminary transcript was made from voice tape recordings of the GT-4 flight crew debriefing conducted aboard the recovery ship, the USS Wasp , on June 9, 1965 . Although all the material contained in this transcript has been edited, the urgent need for the preliminary transcript by mission analysis personnel precluded a thorough editorial review prior to its publication.
Errors in this transcript will be corrected as soon as
possible and an official transcript will be published at a later date. This document contains a transcript of the first part of the debriefing, during which the crew described the mission generally from an operational viewpoint .
A preliminary transcript of the re
mainder of the debriefing will be published by June 23, 1965.
It
will cover systems operations, operational checks, visual sightings, experiments , pre-mission planning, mission control, and training.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Paragraph
- 0
Page Number
COUNTDOWN 1 . 1 Crew Insertion . … … …
- 2
- 3
Cornmlll1ications … … …
1.4
Comfor t . … .
.. . 1 .. .. 2
… -..6 .7
-
5 Environmental Control System … ’ … . ,9 Crew Participation and Countdown …
-
6 Sounds … . 1 . 7 Vibrations .. .
-
8 1.9
-
0
… 11
. … 13 . … 13
Visual … .. .
Crew Station Controls and Displays
.1 5
POWERED FLIGHT Lift- Off Cues 2. 2 Roll Program 2. 3 Pitch Program … . 2. 4 Aerodynamics … . 2. 5 Environmental Control System 2. 6 Maximum g … . 2. 7 Windshear … . . 2. 8 DCS Update 2. 9 Engine 1 Operation … 2. 10 Engine 2 Status .. . 2.11 Accel eration g’s .. . 2. 12 BECO … . … . 2. 13 Staging … ...... . 2. 14 Engine 2 Ignition 2. 15 RGS Initiate … . 2. 16 GO/NO GO . … . 2.17 Systems Status … . 2. 1
… 17
… 19 20 . … "" … 20 •
•
M
•
•
… 21 . … 21
…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
M.
•
22
. 22
.23
. … 2 3
. … 24 .. … 25 . .. 25
… … … … ’ … 2 . 18 Acceleration … . 2.19 SECO. … . …
… 26 . .. 28
. … 28 … 31 . … 31 2. 20 Steering … … .... 32
3.0
INSERTION 3.1 Post- S.EDO •… 34 3.2 SECO + 20 Seconds .. 35 3.3 Insertion Activities … … … … … … … … … … … . . 38
…
ORBITAL FLIGHT 4. 1 Sta ti on- Keeping … … .. … . 4.2 Extravehicular Activities … .
… … 50 . … - .. 87
Ot her Orbital Opera tions Preretro Preparations … 5 .0
- 0
REI’ROFIRE 5.1 T - 36 Events … . 5. 2 ~ - 22 Events .. . 5. 3 :5:i- 13 Events 5.4 :5:i- 12 Event s … . 5. 5 !R- 5 Events … . 5. 6 ~R: 1 ~eennttss • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 5. 7 iir.: 0 .c, v •••••••••••••••••••• 5 . 8 Ret r opack Jettison … . 5. 9 Communicat i ons … . … .
… 250
… 273
. … 280 .••• 281
.•••• 282
400 K … .
. … 282
- 4 g … . Accelera tion Profile Spacec raft Contr ol … .
… 284 … 290
100 000 Feet … … … … … ....... .
… 296 … 296
50 000 Feet … . Main Chute Deployment . .
.. •.. 299 . … 302
CommUJ1ications … … … … . ..
Singl e- Point Rel ease … 6. 11 Pos t main Checkli st Items LANDI NG AND REDOVERY Impact … . 7.1 7. 2 Checklists 7. 3 Communi ca tions … 7.4 Systems Configuration 7. 5 Spacecraft Sta tus … . … . 7.6 Post- Landing Activiti es … . 7. 7 C·omfort … . 7. 8 Recovery For ce Personnel
7.9
… ~86
… 259 . … 260 … 260 .. 26 1 . … 265 … 270
REENTRY 6. 1 Reentr y Parameter Update
- 2
- 3 6.4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9 6.1 0
1.0
…
Egress … …
- 10 Survival Gea r … .
- 11 Crew Pi ckup … .
. … 303 . … . … 305 … ·• … 306
… 310 .. 313 … 314 … 316 . … 320
. … 325 … … 325 .. 326
. . 327
…• 328
. … 328
CO ►FIDE►TIAb.
1.0 COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion White
The only problem during insertion was that I fogged up again in my suit before we got the fans on.
I think I’m just going to always fog up in
that suit of mine.
We turned the fans on quick,
but with the visors closed it doesn’t go out. McDivitt
We did have a problem with crew insertion on the Wet Mock and I think we had that probably pretty well taken care of.
They put us on the suit
loops and didn’t turn the fans on.
Normally you
wait for a clearance from the 1:t>acecraft Test Conductor before you throw any switches. Well, after we almost “died” of carbon dioxide poison ing during this +,est~ we got this clarified.
matter
As soon as we got in the spacecraft
and one of us was on the suit loop, we would go ahead and cut the switches on to put us on two
White
fans.
We did this during insertion in the Wet
Mock.
It really went well.
We really went for a long time in Wet Mock.
I
was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to open my visor.
I was really uncomfortable.
COt74 FIDEt~TIAsb-
2
McDivitt
But everything worked out okay on this one .
White
Yes.
McDivitt
The timing was excellent , I thought .
I didn’t
think we had any prob l em at all . White
No.
I don ’ t believe they missed a stroke on the
insertion. 1 . 2 Communications White
I think the communications were pretty well worked out, Jim?
McDivitt
Right .
One thing, the last three minutes or four
minutes, we got a little confused about who was talking to who .
I was getting the Spacecraft
Test CJnductor , the Booster Test CJnductor and the CAP COM at the same time . White
We got a split count , too, on lif’t—off.
McDivitt
The f irst three or four minutes I was hearing the B)os ter Tast C?nductor .
I heard what was going
on on his loop , and I was listening to him get checks in f r om all of the guys .
I really wasn ’ t
getting a clue a s to what was going on .
I was
supposed to be getting the booster clues from the test conductor .
I was supposed to find out when
the engines were going to gimbal and when they
-€9·NFl9E~TIA;t
COl>JIDENIIA
3
were going to open the prevalves and stuff. wasn’t getting it from him .
I
We were getting a
lot of other information that made a lot of sense to the Booster Test C :>nductor, but not an awful lot to us .
There were cal l - outs l ikeVSequence
05003 complete.” Well, thi s just didn’ t mean any thing to us .
On top of this we had the Spacecraft
~es t Conductor calling out the times , and super imposed on all of this was Al Shephard , the Cape CAP COM , calling out events that he was reading off that went on at certain specified times .
He
called out’,‘Stage 1 prevalves Vand we could hear the fue l gushing downstairs and the whole booster rumbling.
He called out ’,‘Stage 2 prevalves’,‘and
you could hear the same thing all over again.
I
thought t hat was a lot more meaningful than the test conductor comments. White
I think that was wrong, the way they were doing it . I think we weren’t supposed to be on any loop except CAP COM at that time .
McDivitt
Well, I think what happened was that we got this thing over-coordinated.
Al was going to give us
all this information, but then as a result of GT-3, (Gus and Jolm said they didn ’ t get enough
-t:ON FI0 Er\JTl~L
r<3 e II TI Rt
4
information about the boosters) they put this in formation on the test conductor ’ s loop too . ha.d too many guys talking .
We
I think if just CAP
COM talked from thr ee minutes on down we would be all right . White
This is the way I thought it was going to happen, and then from three minutes on down it really got busy with the yak , yak, yak of everybody talking .
McDivitt
I don’t lmow whether we got off the Booster ~st C)nductor’s loop or not, but at final countdown , 2 minutes , 1 1/2, 1, 30 , 20 , 10 , 9 ,
Al gave me
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 , 1 .
I got a similar count
from the Spacecraft Test C~nductor but it turned 01 ·. t that they were a second out of sequence on the countdown and Al was giving me 10 and our Spacecraft Test Conductor was giving me 9. went ten- nine , nine - eight, eight - seven . were at the same t ime .
So it
They
All I knew was that we
were getting close to engine ignition and then it started .
So , we got a little over-communicated
there .
I think t hey kept us adequately informed
on the hold .
As a matter of fact , I ’ d say we got
over- informed there at the end .
We had too many
guys keeping us informed and I t hink the pendulum
<Ol<:JFIDel’4TIAl
5
swung from the GT-3 flight where nobody got in formed of anything over to our flight where we got i nformed by three different people about the same event . White
On our flight, too, we were really more aware of t he problem than those people were.
We
could sit right here and see the gantry come down and stop, that was r eally the only problem they had in the whole count . McDivitt
I don’t think radio discipline is a problem, Each guy was disciplined on his own channel .
They were
conducting their tests on their own channel .
But
we were lis tening to three different communica tors at the same time. one .
We should have had only
I think probably what we will need to do is
to get to about T-3, and then just cut in the
CAP COM. White
That was the way it wa.s planned to be, I thought . That’s the way Al planned it.
McDivitt
That’s correct.
I think, because there had been
some lack of information on GT-3, that it some how had been written into the SEDR so that we were also on the Booster Test Conductor ‘s MOPS, so that we were also getting his countdown.
COrq—pf0f:Nfl1tt
I
6
think CAP COM, ‘alone, would have been sufficient . One further comment , I had to turn my ·11HF volume all the way up to hear anybody .
I was at max .
There we were sitting right on the pad , talking to a gu:y two miles away, and there I was with the volume full up .
It didn ’ t give me much confi
dence as to reception I was going to get when I was 200 miles away , or three or four or five hundred miles away .
I thought that the volume
control on the radio was inadequate. White
We were wondering what we were going to have when we got up a hundred miles .
McDi vitt
That’s right.
At max volume we didn’t have enough
and at minimum volume it didn’t shut it off.
We
will cover this later.
1.3 Crew Participation and Countdown McDivitt
I think it was just about right .
I don’ t think
we were over worked and I think we had enough to do to keep us busy. White
Actually, all we really made was a check of switches .
There wasn ’ t really too much else .
Having the back-up crew run that midcount was the the right solution.
I wouldn’t have wanted to
participate in anymore of t he countdown than I
-COt<JFtDEt’4flJ<l
€O ► 4FIDE ► TI/>,
7
did. McDivitt
That’s an excellent point.
The flight crew’s
participation should be the final count, not the midcount and precount.
It doesn’t tire the prime
crew out doing a lot of chores that they don’t really have to do.
I think this is a good pro
cedure. 1.4 Comfor t
White
Initially, the first 20 or 30 minutes, I was squirming around and I felt a little uncomfor table.
But after I had been in for 30 or 40
minutes I didn’t feel there was a real restric tion on staying for several more hours.
I would
have been very disappointed if they had said, “Well you have been in there long enough and we will work on this gantry and try it again tomor row.”
I would have been happy to stay there
several more hours while they fixed the gantry instead of pulling me out. After an hour and 40 minutes,which is the end of the normal countdown,I didn’t feel uncomfortable. We sat in the simulator and were a lot more un comfortable than this. table.
I didn’t feel uncomfor
I had a chance to take a couple of little
CO ► 4FIDE~~TIA~
COl’IFIDE~4TIAt
8
McDivitt
naps .
I noticed Jim was napping too .
Yes .
I concur with F.d, although I don’t want
to get carried overboard.
We shouldn’t scrub
due to crew fatigue . White
I think it is up to the crew.
If the crew is un
comfortable they should come down.
But I don’t
think he should say, “Okay, two hours and 30
minutes .
You cut this off. ”, because it is an
operational procedure. McDivitt
When I first got assigned to the crew I always fe l t one of the toughest things to do would be laying back for an hour and 40 minutes or so prior to launch .
The time we spent in the simu
lator laying on our back, I thought to be a very uncomfortable position.
As we went through all
the training and testing at McDonald , and again at the Cape ,
;ny back got more callouses on it.
I got used to laying with my feet over my head . At launch time I wasn’t a bit tired from laying on my back . White
This is brought out in one of our last simulations , where we ran the whole four hour simulation and we forgot to have them tilt us up to 30 degrees. We just got used to running that way,
COl”I P”te E~~Tl,\l
€Otr4FIDEttftAl McDivi tt
9
That ’ s right, I just don’t think we should scrub the flight because of fatigue.I don ’ t think we should do that.
White
We weren ’ t approaching this point.
We had a long way to go.
1 . 5 Environmental Control System McDivitt
I think we ought to get this water management panel squared away and everybody figure out what we are supposed to do with those switches.
I
don ’ t think we should be arguing about where the switches are supposed to be on the launch pad.
If
I hadn’t asked somebody where the waste manage ment switches should be we would have probably launched with it in · EVAPORATOR.
I knew that
i t wasn’t supposed to be in the evaporator .
At
one of the ten thousand briefings we got on it, we were told it shouldn’t be there .
We ought to get·
this kind of stuff squared away before launch day. Thirty minutes before lift-off we were arguing about where that switch was supposed to be. White
I wasn’t confident that they knew where they wanted that switch to be.
McDivitt
Well, I didn ’ t think we should have it in the eva porator.
So, I think that water panel could have
cost as much as a wee~s slip on our launch because
coNFIDENTIAt-
10
€01’1FIE>Et<ITtAt they didn’t know where to put those valves and it’s only got three valves on it . made much simpli er than it is .
It ought to be
I think they
should get that squared away before the next flight.
F,d and
I knew where we wanted it.
We
wanted it off and the other two switches in NORMAL and leave it alone . with . White
That’s what we flew
That’s the way it ough t to be fixed .
We can get canned , though, for not flying with it in the right position by the checklist . didn’t say that on the checklist
It
Every check
list we got was different . McDivitt
That ’ s right! Fach one was different .
Fi nally
we decided we were going to do it as w.e did and left it thr ough out the whol e flight . thing worked fine .
We had ECS briefings by a
mul titude of peoples from MAC guys who designed it. agreed ,
Evel;‘y
including the
Everyone of them dis
It probably started out to be one of the
simplest things in the whole spacecraft .
By the
time they got t hrough confus ing us with it, I got the feeling nobody knew what was s_i,,.pposed to happen to it .
I consider this the most danger
ous of all.
’€ 0 l<I F’ IE> Et-q ftAt
11
White
I was convinced of that, too, after the mix-up in putting all the water in the lithium hydroxide tan.ks.
McDivitt
There would have been about a 30 minute four-day mission.
McDivitt
The people that built the thing don’t know how it is supposed to go .
They had better decide
this and let us know.
I felt that George Roe at
the Cape knew what was going on except the Cape personnel got the valves in the wrong position and almost lost the lithium hydroxide canister full of water with no water in the tanks.
I ’ m not
pointing a finger at George Roe • I think he’ ·s pret.ty knowledgeable about the system.. Maybe somebody just wasn’t following directions.
But
somebody ought to find out about the water management system and make it clear to everybody how it is supposed to be operated. 1.6
Sounds McDivitt
You can hear the prevalve~ both first and second s tages.
The prevalves and the fluid gushing are
very loud noises comparable to the engine gim-baling. I wasn’t really aware that they were going to be that loud.
C-0tFIDfqflAb
~
‘COI\IFIDE~◄ llAl
12
White
I got that feeling when I read Gus and John ’ s debriefing .
McDivitt
Did you?
I didn’t .
I got the impression that it
was going to be a much quieter noise . White
McDivitt
Well, the whole noise level of the engine girnbal ing
was louder than I thought it was going to
be.
It surprised me .
Yes . Engine gimbaling was much louder than I heard before .
We heard this during Wet Mock and
during precount and at midcount.
You can hear
those engines gimbal around; they really shake t he spacecraft .
But, I really wasn’t prepared for
the big noise that the prevalves make, and such a long noise as that fuel gushed down to the bottom.
I guess that was what it was.
I didn’t like t he sounds and vibrations we got when they raised and
lowered the gantry.
White
It shook the whole spacecraft .
McDivitt
It shook the whole spacecraft—did you notice how it never came up straight?
The spacecraft was
supposed to line up kind of like this and then wham!
I had visions of them knocking us off and
laying us flat on the ground before we were launched ,
co~,Fl0Et’4TIAI:
13
cor:,-~FIDEl’~TIA I 1 , 7 Vibrations White
Those are closely associated with the sounds.
McDivitt
Yes .
I think that the engine gimbaling makes a
tremendous vibration in the spacecraft and pre valves on opening and make a tremendous vibration. The gantry going back and forth vibrated the spacecraft.
I don ’ t think there is anything else ,
do you? White
No.
1,8 Visual
White
Well, you can sure see the gantry lower and the whi te room disappear.
That is about all you can
see besides the sky. McDivitt
That’s pretty impressive.
That’s when I sort of
got excited,when the gantry went down.
That ’ s a
new realm. White
I thought they were going to launch me.
McDivitt
You’re sitting there by yourself
then, instead
of all those people milling around. I do want to make one other comment on this visual thing .
We did Wet Mock about one or two o’clock
in the afternoon.
The sun was shining right in
the window, almost straight down, such that the sun came across my visor from about just at the
GOt~FIDEMTIM
t:Ol-<IFIDEt’4T IAt
14
bridge of my nose on down .
I had a tremendous
amount of reflection inside the helmet, and I had a great amount of difficulty seeing the instru- ment panel .
As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I
could have seen the instrument panel at all . ~ose first few seconds there are extremely cri tical on launch.
You have to be able to see those
tank pressure
We ought to keep this in
sages .
mind for those late afternoon launches . White
That is a problem , but the g loads are so small at this time you could a l most forget ab1ut look ing up .
McDivitt
Did I fly like this for
awhile during l aunch?
White
I don’t think so but you could have, The g load is so small.
McDivitt
I’m not sure whether I did or not.
White
“‘his is what we had to do during Wet Mock.
We
had to put our hand up and cover the window to look down at our instruments to see them , McDivitt
I ‘m not sure I didn ’ t launch that way .
White
I wouldn’t be surprised if you did .
McDivitt
I don’t think I launched that way, but as we tilted over and we got in the sun, I think I put my hand up for awhile .
COMftDEl’1 I IAI.
15 White
Well, if the g’s are so low that—
McDivitt
When sun gets in your face you can’t see the in strument panels because they are just too dark .
White
The sun gets in your eyes.
The point that Jim
was making is towards a late-in-the-day launch, which we might have later in the program , there might be a bit of a problem of seeing the instru ments during launch.
Unless they put something
up, which I really don’t think you want to d~ You are just going to have to put your arms up and shield the sun out and concent~ate on your in struments or you won’t see them .
They are just
gone. There is probably a point even in an early morn ing trajectory as you start to pitch over where the sun will come right in your window and you won’t be able to see your instruments unless you shield your eyes. 1,9
Crew Station Controls and Display White
I found the switches all where they were supposed to be and the cockpit all set up.
McDivitt
So did I, except the comment I made on the water management system.
They didn’t have the control
where it was supposed to be.
At least, they had
16
CNFIOEtTIAt
it in the place where everybody was arguing about
whether or not it should be ,
White
I certainly appreciated the work the backup crew did getting the cockpit all set up fo r us .
Every
thing was ready to go when we stepped in.
That ’ s
the way it should be.
COl<:tll10E~4TIA L
€Ot◄ Fl9ENllAl
17
2.0 POWER FLIGHT 2.1
Lift- Off Cues McDivitt
CAP COM gave lift-off, about as good a cue as you can get .
White
Wasn ‘t any question either.
Boy, you could feel
the first little motions of the booster as it went up .
McDivitt
It was really great!
I think you could feel the acceleration at re lease.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we
were loose. White
That ‘s right.
I don’t know if I could feel the
bolts or hear them . McDivitt
As a matter of fact, it seemed to steady out a little bit.
The vibrations seemed to decrease
a little. Pretty impressive! Not much vibration at lift-off. White
Very low.
Very low.
I got vibrations later on , though,
didn’t you? McDivitt
Yes . Noise.
There wasn’t much noise, was there?
White
No.
There was less than I had expected.
McDivitt
Noise wasn’t a cue to lift-off.
Noise was there
18
if you were bolted down all day long.
I don’t
think the noise changed a bi t at lift- off. White
You could see the visual cues out the window . You were watching your gages, Jim .
McDivitt
Were t here clouds out there?
White
No, but I could see it in the clear blue sky.
McDivitt
Could you?
White
Yes .
I could see the motion.
McDivitt
Okay .
Wel l, I couldn’t.
White
I was looking out ,
McDivitt
I saw a little cloud go by and then I didn ’ t see any more clouds at all,
White
It was beautiful!
McDivitt
The event timer s t a rted just like it should,
Of
course , that ‘s the best display inside the space craft for lift-off.
The event timer starts , and
it did, White
We got both clocks started with the t ime hack. had a watch hack on lift-off and the … going.
I
handle
I knew when the engine ignited , within
half a second accuracy.
Three seconds later I
was waiting for the lift-off and it came right at three seconds , McDivitt
We could tell ignition , too .
‘€0 ► ~FIDEJ>1TJAL
We could hear the
19 things go. White
I agree with you.
I knew we weren ’ t going to hold
it when that lift-off went. 2·. 2
Ro ll Program McDivitt
Roll program came in at ten seconds just like it was supposed to.
I t was smooth, and it was just
the way it was planned, on at ten seconds and went out at twenty seconds.
Could you see it roll
out the window? White
You can see everything out the window, I think.
McDivitt
You can probably tell by the way the sun rays are moving, can’t you?
White
Yes, by change in lighting. a better view.
The right seat has
You have to wa tch the guages so
closely.
- 3
McDivitt
I didn ’ t even look out the window.
White
I know you didn’t.
Pitch Program McDivitt
Pitch program started just like it was supposed to, at twenty three seconds.
Pitched over the
proper amount, the pitch needles looked like they were hanging in there all the way. White
You could see the booster pitch definitely, and that was mainly due to a change in the lighting.
coFIDETIAt:
20
2 ,4
Aerodynamics McDivitt
We were getting aerodynamic noise, which built up to max q .
We got some pretty good vibrations at
max q . White
That’s where I had the most vibrations .
It was
just shaking like this . McDivitt
It was vibrating and noisy.
White
That was the loudest noise we received the whole flight.
McDivitt
Right after max q it got very qui et .
White
This is where I had the most vibrations .
There
were more than I expected. McDivitt
Yes, me too. You can ’ t simulate this in a simula tor .
You get more vibrations than you do noise .
The only thing they have in the simulator is noise, they don’t have vibrations .
It was pretty
loud and the spacecraft was actually shaking around a lot. It was really vibrating. White
Yes, it was .
McDivitt
The whole thing was really going at it .
More than I expected .
like a F-80 or a T-33 at a.bout Whi te
Almost
0.8 Mach.
Very good analogy .
- 5 Environmental Control System White
The cabin started venting shortly after lift-off
O◄ FltJEf<tftAL
21
and continued so until about 40 seconds and sta bilized out at 5. 5 and I made my call in.
I
think I might have called i n on RECORD . McDivitt
You did.
White
I switched and made the final call at about 1: 10, I realized I called on REDORD and switched over,
McDivitt
How high did it go? Did it go to 5.5?
White
- 5 and it stayed right there .
And then I
noticed later on it progressively leaked off until
it got to 4.9 where it st ayed.
The suit? There
really isn ’ t anything to say about the suit. McDivitt
No, I
don’ t have anything to say about the suit .
It oi:erated like it was supposed to .
2.6 Maximum…q McDivitt
The noise built up gradually until we got to max q , then it just dropped off.
White
The deterioration of the noise was almost instantaneous.
McDivitt
Very quick,
It wasn ’ t instantaneous , but it was
very quick. White
In fact, it startled me when we separated .
2 . 7 Windehea.r
McDivitt
I didn’t notice anything on the rate needles that had anything to do with the windshea.r
I couldn’t
eot~FIDE~~“f1At
22
pick out windshear • on them.
- 8
How about you , Ed?
White
No .
McDivitt
Did you see any attitudes?
White
No .
McDivitt
No big divergences from windshea r .
DC~ Updates White
We got both of our ros updates right on time- H’45
a.nd 2 : 25 , Ed is in charge of ros updates .
McDivitt
No comment .
White
I ’ m the button pusher.
I do everything about
pushing the buttons . McDivitt
I can do this with this little stick.
White
You can do it unless I have my knee over it .
- 9 Engin,®. 1 Operation McDivitt
They operated the way they were supposed to as far as I could tell . up fi~
on both
The tank pressures stayed Engine 1 and Engine 2.
There
was never any doubt in my mind that they were going to stay up there .
There weren’t any of
those things like we saw in those simulations where they came on down pretty low on the gages when they were supposed to be at 18 or 15. There wasn’t anything like that . up there .
€0t’1Flf7ENf 1Al
They just stayed on
23
White
Just where they were supposed to be.
McDivitt
Yes.
I followed them a couple of times and said
they were staying up fine.
They were way up.
There wasn’t any problem there, 2.10
Engine 2 Status McDivitt
Second stage pressure stayed right on up there very high.
Just the way they were supposed to.
There wasn’t any problem there,
They didn’t
decay all during the first stage. 2.11
Acceleration g’s McDivitt
They weren’t bad and I don’t know where they went to on the g meter.
White
Just like riding in an old saddle.
McDivitt
That’s right.
It’s very comfortable .
Steady on-
set . White
Not very long.
Gee, we were below—
McDivitt
Wait a second.
This might be a good place to
cover the pogo.
I felt the pogo just prior to
staging, from about 2:15 on to 2:30 .
I could
feel pogo. White
How much were you getting?
McDivitt
Very little,
I could just feel it pull like this.
Did you feel it at all?
- COt~FIDEt ◄ TIM
24
White
No .
McDivitt
I could feel it .
It wasn’t uncomfortable enough
where I had to l ift my head or anything. wasn’t thinking about a pogo at all .
I
It wasn’t
like I was trying to sit there and think about it. But as we were going along I could feel this vi bration.
And then it just crossed my mind, well
t here is pogo, and then we went on to staging. But it wasn ’ t bad at all .
The amplitude must
have been-White
You were paying more attention to your clocks while I was watching the system ,gages and I wasn’t really aware of the times that were going on.
McDivitt
I had my eyes- -
It came around 2: 15 or so and lasted to about 2:30. Maybe it was 2: 10 or 2:05 , but it wasn’t bad .
White
We had one area that I will get into later that I haven’t told you about and that I didn’t like.
McDivitt
Oh .
So , I think we hit the pogo and the g ,.s .
2.12 BEX;O
McDivitt
Engine shut down properly.
The lights came on.
Engine~- 2 light went out and the Engine 1 lights went out.
Just the way it was supposed to at
B~O and staging.
Two Stage 1 lights ON , Stage 2
EOt<I flf)Et ◄ Tl1’c b
COt ◄FIB~1’1llAl
25
light OFF, Stage 1 lights OFF. White
At that time I realized that we were going to feel the pyros and stuf’f—feel the separation.
It
was a very distinct feeling when we sepa r a ted .
Of
course, we immediately dropped in the thrust . There wasn’t any question,we had a good separation, in my mind .
This is just the way it was for all
of our separations.
Ev-erytime we separated, it
was very clear that was what had happened. McDivitt
Oh, yes, there wasn’t a:ny doubt about it when that first stage shut off—Voom!
- 13
Staging McDivitt
Staging was just as it should have been.
- 14 Engine 2 I gnition
McDivitt
Engine 2 started right on up.
Like I mentioned
earlier~the light went out and the tank pressure went down just a tad, but it stayed way up there, about two or three times as high as was necessary for staging.
It never really did decrease.
It
stayed up around 45 or 50 psi, and we need 20 for staging, so-White
I couldn ’ t hear anything.
McDivitt
Didn’t you hear the engine?
White
No.
I was listening but it still was quiet.
€Ot~FIDENllAL —
‘COl’4FIDEl’ff IA-t
26
McDivitt
I didn’t really get much of a cue out of it at all, except the lights went out and I could feel a li t tle bit of acceleration.
Whit e
The acceleration decreased.
Another thing I
didn’t get—I got absolutely no pitch-up associ-· ated with the—the way the centrifuge does you at the end of an acceleration. I think that is associated with the cab on-McDivitt
Yes .
I think that’s the way they rotate t hose
gimbals when you come on down.
If they rotate
them a certain way you can get that pitching-up- White
A very safe forward-type deceleration.
McDivi tt
I think that pitching up on the centrifuge is not a malfunction.
It ’ s just the programing that’s
hooked into the gimbals during the stop program. You’ve got to get them all going the same way so that you keep the vectors through you .
During
l aunch the vector is right t hrough you.
It ‘s not
varying around , but in the shut-down on the cen trifuge those darn gimbals aren’t a lways syn chronized together .
They get shifted back there
and it gives you that peculiar sensation. 2 . 15 RGS Initiate McDivitt
Well, I was really watching closely but my rate
needles just barely changed .
We mus t not have
had any errors at a l l . White
Yes , I got a full error.
McDivit t
Did you have a full error?
White
Yes, my pitch err or went al l the way down , and then it just steered slowly right back up .
Re
member you-McDivitt
You did call and tell me you had a saturated- Di d you call saturated , or did you say we had a bi g one?
White
I called it saturated, I believe .
McDivitt
That ’ s right .
White
I called a saturated error and then I called you that it was steering back to zer o .
McDivitt
Yes .
I remember that you did ca ll that .
White
That ’ s the way they showed this on the plot , t ha t i t would saturate there , am very quickly it s eemed to gradually steer right back up .
McDivitt
The steering rates that went in were on the order of less than half a degree/second .
White
They were very low.
McDivitt
Very , very low because I was on
high scale .
The needle just barely devia ted at all at RGS
GO~JFIDEN”flAl
28
initiate. White
It was beautiful steering.
McDivitt
Nominal, nominal, nominal, except like that saturation on the error needle, but we have been briefed on that.
White
That ’ s right .
That ’ s something to be expecterui
McDivitt
When did it saturate?
White
Right at staging. No, right at guidance initiate .
McDivi tt
Oh , okay.
White
Right there at guidance initiate, which is what
It saturated right there .
you ’ d except. 2. 16
GO/ NO GO McDivitt
They said they were GO and I said we were GO . There wasn’t much problem.
Ed and I had been
checking ba ck and forth on the systems .
I knew
they were all right . 2, 17
Systems Sta tus White
The systems were all pretty good .
There was only
one I didn ’ t like and that was the stack readings on the main ammeters .
One was reading about 28
and the other was reading about 14 ,
But I felt
that this was a ssociated with bringing the batter ies on.
I went through and checked everything.
Everything was readi ng properly.
The control bus
and main bus were all reading all right. it was just a misbalance of loading.
I felt
I talked to
somebody previous to this time and it was explained to me that this could happen this way. I felt perhaps it was in the adapter batteries- would feed through on one of the stacks causing one of them to take more than the other. McDivitt
Yes.
You could have gotten into the knee of an
adapter-White
This is what I had figured- - that a couple of my adapter aatteries were unbalanced, causing this to occur.
I also had seen this on the simulator
quite a few times. McDivitt
When did the unbalance start? When we got in they were-•
As soon as we were on internal
power? White
Right.
And I didn’t feel this was the time to
talk about it.
It was still under 30 amps, which
was my point.
So I didn’t bring it up.
McDivitt
You didn’t want to worry me?
White
I didn’t want to worry you and I didn’t want any body on the ground to start hollering about it .
McDivitt
You should have written me a note.
White
I did feel that this was exactly what it was—
~Q~~ftE)EN:rJAL-
30
that it was adapter batteries.
That was the only
abnormal type of indication we had in the systems. They were all real good . Well, we had good communications with the ground during powered flight. McDivitt
We had pretty good communications.
I called the
“Roll Program”, and nobody answered me .
I said,
“Well , to heck with it, maybe they just aren’t ge t;ti.ng through.”
Then I was just starting to
call Roll Program complete when Gus called and said,“Did you get the Roll Program?”
Now that was
the only transmission I made that wasn’t acknow ledged. White
Yes, I heard you calling, too.
McDivitt
So , if they lost communications it must have been right at the 10-seconds t i me , and it should have been for l ess than 10 seconds.
It couldn’t have
been for more than 20 seconds.
I heard the count
down to lift-off and I heard Gus call and ask me if I had the Roll Program started .
This was a
little bit less t han 20 seconds— around 18 or 19 seconds.
That is the only period of time I
didn’ t hear anybody I should have hea rd .
So , if
we lost communications, that was where it was.
31 2.18 Acceleration McDivitt
Well we got up to 7 1/2 g ‘s. wasn ’ t bad at all.
The acc eleration
I guess when you are really
interested in what you are doing like on the boost or reentry, those g ‘s don’t mean anything. don’t like to ride the centrifuge .
I
7 1/2 g ‘s is
7 1/2 g ‘s on the centrifuge, but on the booster- White
My vision was crystal clear .
McDivitt
Me, too .
I wasn’t even breathing hard .
huffing or :pui’fing or anything .
I wasn ’ t
I was just laying
<there relaxed . White
Particularly on this one, The acceleration burn during powered flight and insertion was very light .
2 . 19
SECO McDivitt
SECO occurred as it should have on my clock.
Ed
thought it ~s about—what did you say it was? White
I thought it was a second or so early and it concerned me because that meant we were going to have to burn.
So I was quite expecting to hear
a big 6V come up from the ground. question on that SECO either.
There is no
It shuts off and
you get that linear straight deceleration. McDivitt
The thing that surprised me was that we weren ’ t talking about it at all.
, CONFID·EN”TtAt
We were just going as
32
straight as an arrow when that thing shut off . White 2 . 20
There weren’t any oscillations or roll .
Steering McDivitt
I was ge tting a sinusoidal oscill ation on my rate needles , and I don ’ t know now whether it was pitch and yaw .
I cal l ed it out a t the time , to
you a:nyway, Eli . White
Right .
And my attitude arrows were- -
McDivitt
Your a ttitude arrows were right on?
Okay.
But I
was getting an oscillation, very small, about plus or minus a quarter degree in rates .
Not so
that the needle was ac tuall y moving back and for th across the dots. was .
It was pretty obvious that it
Now, I sort of felt that I coul d feel that
movement a li tt l e bi t, like this , but not annoy ingly and certainly the stabilization was holding i t close enough.
But it wasn ’ t that the rate
needles were just constantly oscillating back and forth.
It seems to me it was in pitch but I’m not
really sure . Whi te
A booster pitch,
The attitude error needles were the only deviation we had at any time .
Yaw was just about nominal all
the time.
We had the pitch deviation at guidance
initiate.
It went to full scale and steered right
• COt~Ft0ENflAL
33 back in, and also right at the end we had, in pitch, a little bit of a pitch-down needle indi cation which increased to no more than about a degree at booster shutdown. McDivitt
You got about a degree,then,on shut down?
White
Just about a degree.
McDivitt
Yes.
doing,
I kept glancing over to see how you were
They were always right near the center for
me. White
Yeah.
Right near the end they trailed do,.m just
a little bit.
I ‘d be interested to see what the
ground thought on t his. McDivitt
Yes. You’ll have to go over and look. they have them.
€6Nft[:)ENTI.AL
I’m sure
34
3.0 INSERTION 3,1
Post- SECO McDivitt
Yes .
There was a Post-SECO.
In the period be
tween SEX:!O and SECO + 20 seconds, I unstowed the maneuver controller. attitudes were .
I don ’ t know where our
They were the same as they were
a t SEX::O , and it was about 20 degrees pitch-down, wasn ’ t it?
The rates during this period were on
the order of less than a half a degree/s econd. We really had a period of from SECO to SECO + 30 . So, duri ng this time I actually fired the trans lations thrusters at least two times in one axis to kill off the rate in t hat axis, and I think it was probably the booster yaw or spacecraft pitch where I act ually fired the U,rusters once or twice to bring the rates back . been the other way around. son the fairings then .
It might have
But, we didn’t jetti
I did unstow the maneuver
controller and the att itude was the booster burn out attitude and the rates were very low, less than a half a degr ee/second . White
I
think
we
mentioned
prior
to
this
time the feeling that we came off a little half-
(Q~~IQFNTIAL
35 cocked off the 3. 2
second stage.
SECO + 20 Seconds McDivitt
We were going to $ay on the booster until SECO + 30 instead of SECO + 20 .
At 20 seconds the IVI ’ s
started displaying and I read them off as 20 for ward, 11 right, and 5 down. White
Right ,
McDi vitt
This was when we were still in the 90 degree bank position.
Is that correct?
Or was it after I
had rolled right-side-up? White
It was after you had rolled right-side- up.
McDivitt
Okay.
Well, then the IVI’s displayed when we were
still on our side.
It seems to me they were
about 25 feet/second forward , and some other numbers, but anyway they were low enough where I felt we were certainly in orbit.
At least the
IGS was telling us we were in orbit.
During this
time, as I said earlier, I tried to damp the spacecraft rates, the spacecraft booster rates which were quite low.
I checked to see that the
OAMS Power Switch was in ATTITUDE and MANEUVER , and to see that Eli had switched over to DIRECT. I told him I was going to do some thrusting but I wasn’t going to separate yet, so that when he
€ 0 ~~ FfDENT.I.Al
~EIDENJl»,t heard the thrusters go off he wouldn’t push the SPACECRAFT SEP.
Then we did separate the space
craft with
the ·exact
routine we practiced in the
simulator.
I said, “Thrusting, separate”, and you
punched the SEPARATE button and I guess you went to Rate Command.
I thrusted straight ahead for
about five seconds .
This is where I think we
came off crooked.
This is the part Ed was men
tioning before.
We didn’t seem to come off
straight ahead.
We seemed to be getting some
sort of an oscillation that got us going in a dif ferent direction than what we had going on the booster. White
It seemed,, like one side of the separation plane came off with more force than the other. That’s what it seemed like to me.
McDivitt
Yes.
White
It separated at a bit of an angle.
McDivitt
That’s right.
We didn’t separate fore and aft;
we separated with a lot of rotation to this side. White
Yes.
McDivitt
Air-ground communications were all right.
We were
talking to them and they were talking to us .
I
never had any problem there . White
Shortly thereafter they called up and told us we i
C&MFfEiEM IIAL
CO~ ◄ FIDEt><tTIAL had a 153 by 57 orbit. us .
37
So, they were talking to
I don’t think I ought to read off this stuff
now, but they gave us the 2-1 data and all the nominal data we were supposed to get.
It came out
fine. McDivitt
Say again what the IVI’s were while we rolled right-side-up.
White
Right .
At the position we decided on taking our
IVI readings, which was heads up in a zero-zero attitude, you read off the IVI’s to me as 20 for ward, 11 right, and 5 down. McDivitt
Okay.
Then I didn’t bother nulling the pitch -·
needle because we were reall y pressed for time to get around. White
No velocity correction was called up to us and since we had no velocity correction , and we were fairly busy at this time, I didn’t even read out the 52 or 70. in them.
I wasn’t particularly interested
It ’ s a funny thing though—52 was
punched in and had: been read out and it showed 30. It had been punched in so it read out, you see, as soon as something came in the quantity. did have a readout. looking at that.
I read out 30.
So, I
I remember
~O ► flDENTI
38
- 3 Insertion Activities McDivitt
I thrusted and got off the booster.
Then I went
ahead for just a short time, and then I started to turn around right away.
During the turn-around,
I j ettisoned the fairings.
They went off with a
bang.
I could see the fairing over the horizon
scanner go, but I never did see the fairing off the nose go .
I just assumed that it went.
We
were already in just a mass of debris up there, because when we se:p3,rated from the booster there was stuff all over. White
All over.
It really flew by to the side of the
spacecraft. McDivitt
Yes.
It was all over the place.
As we . were
turning around it looked like we were going through a snow storm.
There was stuff all over.
Finally we got turned around, in about a minute and a half, and we could see the booster there. I
I
White
There ’ s one thing I would certainly like to see somebody do—I’d have give my right arm to have had a camera when I turned around and saw tbe booster.
I ’ d like to see somebody carry a camera
in a semi-•stowed position so he could immediately get it out and come around and take pictures of
•CO ►~FIDE~~TIAL
39
the booster.
Either the camera, or better yet a
16 mm camera with a normal lens on it . it to the side of your leg.
Just tuck
If I had thought
about it I think this is what I would have done- just connected the camera, tucked it by my leg, and taken pictures of the booster at this time . McDivitt
I think, Ed, this is probably one of those philo sophical things.
On the first orbit you’ve got to
save to prepare to come back in case you have a bad spacecraft.
You ‘ve got to be ready to reen
ter during the first orbit . Tuis is the kind of bind we found ourselves in up there.
During the
first orbit we really had a lot to get ready for halfway through the second orbit, but on the other hand we had to be in good enough shape so we could reenter it at 2-1.
Now, we didn’t have anything
to go wrong so there wasn’t any problem, but I think when you first get into orbit you’re in a problem.
This kind of a thing, I think, is a
problem you may have later on.
You’ve got to be
ready to eject at lift-off plus one second, and you don’t want to be sitting there holding a camera or something like that. are busy.
Both your hands
But like you said we could stow it
~ONFtDf1’tliAt
40
3omewhere. White
I think you could . in the seat .
You could stow it beside you
I think we over- emphasize the neces
sity , particularly for ejection, of having to have everything stowed when you are only ejecting up to 12 000 feet and at very slow speeds.
We certainly
have a heck of a lot more working against us in our airplanes we ’ re flying around . McDivitt
That’s right .
I agree with you .
I ’ m just saying
this philosophy of being completely prepared to reenter during that first orbit is in conflict with doing this kind of stuff in the first orbit, too. White
We ought to get some of this, though. are missing things .
McDivitt
Yes, I think so.
I think we
I would have really—
We could have really had some
beautiful pictures of that booster when we were close to it. White
I also want to comment a little bit on the booster itsel f .
I looked as closely as I could at the
nozzle skirt and the aft end of the booster , and I saw no damage whatsoever. McDivitt
No, neither did I from our vantage point .
White
As far as I could see the nozzle skirt was com-
,C O I>~ 11;) El>fftAL
41
pletely intact. McDivitt
Okay.
There was nothing wrong .
Let ’ s try to follow this insertion activi
ties list here .
I jettisoned the fairings , as I
said , as soon as I started turning around . Ed went through the checklist for us .
Then
After I
fired the fairings I turned off the BIA Switch and the retro rockets when he called.
I was probably
doing this before Ed called, wasn ’ t I? White
We did things just like we had been doing them on the simulator .
We don’t just take a checklist
and run down it item for item because there ’ re things you have to be doing , and it just doesn ’ t go in a sequence like that .
I realized this was
the way it was going to go, and I actually took a pencil and checked items off.
If you did an item
I checked it off, and if you didn’t I left it un checked and we got it later.
You just can ’ t ex-
pect to run down the checklist item for item because you ’ re not ready to unstow your life vest or to get up out of your seat belt. for some time .
You don ‘t do that
I think the logic on the check-
list we have here is a very good sequence—. McDivitt
We reviewed that checklist 50 times.
00 tq ftf)ENftA-t-
That’s
cor<tFIDENTIAt
42
probably the fiftieth checklist we ’ ve got there , and I don ’ t think i t could have been arranged any better for the two of us . White
I knew Jim wasn’t going to undo his seat belt har ness and I knew I was going to have to because I had to do certain things that he didn ’ t have to . The point that I ’ m making is that the checklist doesn ’ t have to be accomplished item for item , completely done in numerical sequence .
McDivitt
Okay .
I thi nk we ’ ll revert back to the exact
subject of 3,3 now .
Safetying the switches .
I
saftied the swi t ches— the BIA Squib Switch and the four Retro Rocket Squibs Switches.
I tested
the sequential l i ghts, but at a later time because I was involved in turning the spacecraft around.
But X did test them .
As far as stowage , I stowed
my left arm restraint and my D- ring , but I did not put my saf ety pin in. White
I went through and put my arm rest down , put my safety pin in .
That was one of the first things
I did . McDivitt
I might comment that I never did put my safety pin in .
I never put the safety pin in the D- ring .
felt the D- ring cover was adequate , and it was .
co ► ~fiilQ lil)l:rlsA<JL
I
43
White
I know , you never have been particularl y too hot on that .
McDi vitt
Noo
White
Then I went ahead and disconnected myself.
I had
a lot of things I had to squirm around and do.
I
left my life vest on as we had planned to do , then take them off leisurely at a different time.
I did
not find any reason to put the drogue pins in.
I
don’t think they are satisfactory in any way .
I
don ’ t think the pin itself i s sati sfactory , and I don ’ t think the location or type of holes are satisfactory . I will elaborate on them a little further.
We have had aircraft around for a long
time and we have learned a lot about saf ety pins . We have come up with some pretty good designs on safety pins.
We have a design on our drogue pin
right now which is no more than the very first type of safety pin that I saw on an aircraft.
I
think that we are past the point where we should be starting right out at the beginning.
We ought
to put a properly designed safety pin in there that you can insert a little easier into the holes . I ’ m not going to try to design the pin but I think that it should have some type of shaft on it that
r€0NFll}ENftl(L -
-E OI’FI DEITIAL
44
you can use to stabilize the pin when you insert it.
And when I s ay the holes through which you
insert t he pins are unsatisfactory, I ’ m referring to holes through a cylindr i cal shaft that is hollow inside so t hat you not only have t o find the hole to put it in on one side , but you have to work it around and find the hole that it goes t hrough on the other side. satisfactory .
I don ’ t believe that’s
I don’t think the opening into the
hole is supposed to be beveled and they weren ’ t beveled on my seat and they weren’t beveled on Jim ’ s seat , either.
I t hink a beveled hole is a
hole that is bigger on the outside than it is on the inside.
I don’ t believe there is much dif
ference between the outside and the inside of the holes for the drogue pins. time putting my own in.
I had a difficult
I put Jim’s pins in .
took me awhile, but I put them in.
It
I never did
get one of mine in satisfactorily at this time , so I think we should do something better with the drogue pins.
In addition I couldn ’ t even see
the hole. McDivitt
You had an easier time putting my pin in t han you had putt ing your own pin in.
GO~~FIDEl>ITIAL
.-CQ~qfl9tNTIAL White
That’ s correct .
McDivitt
That’s right .
45
I could put yours in fairly easy. I think that when you turn towards
the center of the spacecraft , you end up with more room than if you turned to the outside .
You can ’ t
see a thing if you are turning toward the outside . White
This is probably covered later, but my hose lengths were not long enough to permit me to turn all the way around ,
I knew this when we went through
We ight and Balance .
I knew my hoses were not
long enough but it was too late , as far as I was concerned, t o change them at that ti~ .
But, I
couldn’t see the holes on my side to insert the drogue pin.
I couldn ’ t see the holes for your
drogue pin either, but I could get a better view of them over there so I knew approximately where
t o put the pin ,
I think in all respects the drogue
pins are not satisfactory.
You just can’t see
them ; the pins are incorrect, the holes are in correct, and I think we can certainly do better with them . McDivitt
I think what Ed is saying is that it ‘s lousy.
White
That’s right.
In two letter words, it stinks !
This is the way the batteries were reading out when I checked them at insertion.
CO ► 4FIDE~~rft”AI:
And this is what
€O ►FIDEt4TlL
I had suspected they were doing when we launched-
why we had unbal anced stack readings .
1-A read
6
This accounts
amps, 1-B read 10 , 1-C read 11.
for your high reading on Stack 1. 2-B was 6, , and 2-C was 6 . . they were reading.
2-A
was
6,
Ttis was the way
I ran through a check on them
when we were actually in the booster phase.
So
that is why I felt the reading wasn ’ t bad.
They
were both reading about 23 1/2 or 24 volts .
They
looked pretty good. I got my 2-1 update.
I got the t:N of 167, 6T
of
3+35, and GMT to retro command of 14 48 34. I have the other times too.
The time to 400 000 was 2+18,
as read up to me and the time to reverse bank angle was 8+47.
This is what we wrote down .
This is one time I remember now when I was a little irritated, because they gave times to us in a manner in which I hadn ’ t wanted them to e They were supposed to give elapsed time but they gave it to us in GMT time for our retro.
We had asked
them to give it to us in elapsed,
They came right
back up and gave it to us both ways.
I remember
writing it down twice, on the elapsed time of 01 32 35.
I can see why they did it because it
CONFtf>E~ftAi. was two minutes past
47
one hour 30 minutes, and I
guess they weren’t sure exactly what we wanted. So they gave it to us in GMT and elapsed time also .
But that is the information we received,
as far as our 2-1 area was concerned. McDivitt
I think Ed had better cover unstowage. unstow anything.
I didn’t
I was just trying to stick with
the booster at that time. White
The first thing I got into was my right-hand
stowage compartment and I unstowed the blood pressure bulb.
Then I started into the center
section to get at the camera .
The first thing I
wanted to get out was the Hasselblad and the 16 mm. I was dying to get a picture of that booster.
So ,
I unstowed the Hasselblad and got a good back on it and the 16 mm camera.
I didn’t unstow the
urine nozzle as the flight plan had called.
We
both had decided we were going to use our launch day urine bags as long as we could, and we had hoped to use them right through the ENA. turned out, we did. at this time.
As it
That was about all I unstowed
I unstowed the cameras, the blood
pressure bulb and also got out the film cartridges and the tape cartridges.
CONFIDENTIAb
I put them on the side
48
COt’4FI0EN-l+M. of the foot well , where I planned to keep them, so that we could keep a good tape cartridge available.
---G0N F-40 ENTIA L_,
49
- 0 ORBITAL FLIGHT McDivitt
I think that the orbital flight should be broken down into some very distinct sequences . there are really three of these .
I think
The first one
is about the first three or four orbi ts where we were trying to stay with the booster, where we di d the FNA and where we finally got back in.
The
time that we finally got the spacecraft depressur ized ends one phase of the mission.
The next
phase or sequence of the things that come is really the second phase .
along
This is the middle
50 orbits or so , where we did the experiments and
where we did the flight plan in a highly modified manner . do .
We did the flight plan we started out to
And the last phase or series of sequences
wa s the ~et ro- prepa ration , r etrofire and the reentry .
The retro- preparation was actually
another distinct phase of the mission .
I think
that we ought to divide it up into those three phases— the station-keeping and FNA as Stage 1 , general orbit as Stage 2, and retro- preparation and reentry as Stage 3.
So I think we should
CONFID ~~:rt Al
~-IE>ENTIA L-
50
start in the orbital flight with the station keeping on the booster.
I think that we should
just pluck that thing out and follow it through in its entirety , and then come back and pick up these things like the thrusters , Control :fode Checks , Com Checks , and those things . 4 . 1 Station-Keeping McDivitt
The station-keeping with the booster—Well, as I said earlier on the insertion phase , I started
turning around as soon as I completed the forward thrusting.
I jettisoned the nose fairings after
about 30 or 40 degrees of yaw.
I rolled right
side-up and then I started yawing around to the left.
We saw all kinds of debris floating around
and we finally saw the booster back behind us. It was already in a peculiar attitude.
As Ed men
tioned , when we separated from the booster, it didn·• t really feel like we came off straight ahead . It seemed like we got knocked off to the side of the thing.
The spacecraft-booster combination
sort of bent in half at the separation plane .
We
yawed on around and saw the booster , and I thought it was around 400 feet back. a little closer.
-€0·N FIDE~L
Eli thought it was
£.ONfll)ENTIAf
51
White
I would estimate it at between 200 and 250 feet.
McDivitt
Okay.
We were in pretty good shape right then
and I applied about five or six seconds of
5~
thrusting that should have come out around feet/second .
I was in a hurry trying to get our
separation velocity stopped, so I was thrusting. I had it in Rate Command .
I pointed the space
craft at the booster and started thrusting, and by the time I got the computer in the Catch- Up Mode and the Start Comp button on, I had already thrusted ’ 2 or
3 -~ feet/second out and I
counted up another · 3
feet/second on the IVI’s .
It looked like we were probably stopped, although I couldn’t tell tlBt quickly. much f::.V
I knew I had as
in there as I had at separation, and
possibly a little more, because I tried to hold the separation f::.V feet/second.
down to no more than
•5
We watched it for just a short time
and then it was obvious that we hadn’t stopped our separation velocity—our relative velocity—so we were still separating. ther •• 3
So , I applied about ano-
or • 4 feet/second, which should have
more than overcome the : 4 I put in initially .
or · 5
feet/second
It looked like we had stopped
.CO NFlD-E-~ IlAL
52 then .
Our relative velocity looked like it went
to zero .
Here, I thought, we were out around
500 or 600 feet.
F.d thought we were: probably in
closer than that. White
Yes .
I thought we were in a little clos er.
McDivi tt
I put in a tota l of around· 9
feet/second in
the first minute and a half after we turned around . White
I think we commented together on the speed with which the booster was going away ~om us .
Right
off the bat it looked like it wa.s- -it surprised me that it actually looked like it separated ·rrom us as fast as it really-McDivitt
It looked like it had a lot more velocity than the
4
or
separation.
5
J
feet/second I added at t he
It looked to me , as an off- the- top- of:.
my- head-guess , that something in the spacecra ft separation thing had really built up a lot of relative velocity between the booster and the spacecraft .
I don’t know why or how.
looked like we weren ’ t
Al so , it
inplane anymore .
It was
actual l y out-of- plane so that we had an out - of plane rela tive velocity that I took out .
I
pointed at the booster because , obviously , if
—EONffOfNTt~t.
53
€0NftDEM11:At~
you’re separating away from something, whichever way you ’ re going, if you point at the thing and if you t hrust in that direction you are to take out your relative velocity in all planes .
So , it
looked like the thing was off to the left or to the south of our orbital track by a couple hundred feet and it was going down rapidly . altitude.
Losing
After I thrusted this second time, I
knew I had more than enough velocity, much more
than I needed to kill off the we’d added .
5 feet/second
I watched it and it looked like it
wasn ’ t going away from us anymore. It looked like our relative velocities had stopped.
I wanted to ··
get the platform alined somewhat in case we did have to come down in the 2~1.
We really hadn’t
had much chance to check over the spacecraft yet. So I quickly went to as close to zero-zero- zero as I could get .
I used the zero yaw and the zero
roll off the ball and I went to a pitch at t i tude that looked like it was about zero and tried to get the ball to aline to zero-zero- zero .
At that
time the booster was mostly behind us—mostly back toward the Cape from us—back behind us with respect to our velocity back there .
It iwas in the
<coN FU)1:l’tllA.b-
54
window and I could see it.
Well, I started
alining the platform and left it there for a couple of minutes .
The booster started falling
again, descending below us .
It actually went
out of my view in the window.
At the time
though our relative velocities were quite small,
—
so I felt I could let it go for another 30 seconds or a minute and not have it g e ~ ~ r away__!rom
…= me .
It looked like it was coming toward me again ,
but going below.
So , I allowed myself about
another minute and I pi tched down and looked for it.
It appeared that during that minute it had
gone a lot farther down than I had expected it to go . White
Yes , I was surprised .
Remember that it looked like
the orbit was sure something different than we predicted . McDivitt
Yes.
It looked to me like the booster and the
spacecraft weren’t in anything that even resem bled the same orbit , at the rate it was descending. I don ’ t know what the range rate was at that time. It looked like it was a lot more than a foot/ second , though .
I don ’ t know what it was .
I
quickly pitched back up to zero-zero-zero and
C.ONFDE:r.lAL
55 s t ayed there for about another ten or fifteen seconds and went to Orbit Rate,
I knew I didn ’ t
have a good alinement on the platform but I knew I couldn ’ t stay there any longer and have the booster anywhere nea r us .
So , I flipped around
and pitched right straight down and here ‘s where the problems s t arted,
To get down to the booster
in a long rendezvous
type maneuver, what I should
have done was to jus t stay horizontal and fir e
retrograde and t ake some total velocity out of the spacecraft .
But , when you do this the booster
continues to pull away from you for a whi l e , and then eventually you are going to drop down below it .
Then you are going to be in a l ower-al titude
orbit and you are going to pick up and catchup with the boos ter .
Well, with the sta tion- keeping
we had to do and the fact that the darkness was only a matter of another few minutes-White
Boy it was fas t !
McDivi tt
It wasn ’ t any time a t all . play a rendezvous
I didn ’ t have time to
game with it ,
I had to over
come this relative velocity we had with sort of brute force , s o I thrus ted right a t the booster again.
I got going down and I used about
“CO t’-’ FIO~NT+Al.
5
56
feet/second there . a little vague .
Here ’ s where the numbers ge t
I thrusted down at it and I
watched it go for awhile .
I thought sure we ‘d
start closing on it again .
We weren’t closing,
so I thrusted down on it again .
I must have done
this probably three or four times. I can’t say exact l y. White
I don ’ t remember, precisely, how many times you thri1sted .
McDivi tt
I was keeping my eyes on the booster .
And i t was a lot t ougher to see when it was down with the ground as a background, I t hought, than with the sky as a background .
During this period
of t i me its rotational velocity picked up con siderably, and during this time Fd checked it and got eight seconds for a complete revolution. White
A complete revolution .
Yes.
This was an estimate .
\ McDivi tt
This meant that in the first three minutes after
I
we were in orbit the thing had gone up to a rota tional rate of 40 to 50 degrees/second .
I t seemed
to stabilize at that rate . Its rotational rates stabilized but I don ’ t believe its rotational mode ever stabilized.
It didn’t rotate in a plane
as I thought a loµg body like that would rotate . It seemed to oscillate in just a random
-CE7~1DENTIAL
tumbling
57 fashion .
It was all over.
It looked to me like i t
was rotating in three axes in a completely unpro grarnmed manner .
It might have been that the roll
nozzle was flopping around and the fuel was turn ing it around in different directions.
And as a
matter of fact, at this time we should go back and draw a picture of what the fuel looked like and what was coming out of the no zzle.
The booster
was tumbling and you could see the fuel squirting
out of the roll nozzle in a big fan like this.
I
had the impression that if the booster were per fectly stationary, the fuel would have been comi ng out of the nozzle in a great big cone the way you would expect it to, but because the booster was tumbling so rapidly it was coming out in a long , twisted- - l ike a horn of plenty.
It was very ob
vious ; you could see it, and ther e wssn ’ t any doubt about the fact that there was a lot of fuel coming out .
Whether this was contributing some thrust to
it or not I don’t know . White
I want to comment on something that was quite an experience for me.
When I called out to you, I
was looking down at what I thought , since it was pitch black, was the sky.
cet-4PIDfNT~AL
I could see little
~Ptt>fNT-l;4h
58
sparkles everywhere .
And it looked like almost
a starlit sky, but it just didn’t quite look right to me ; it looked like an artificial starlit sky .
It looked like some of these star dis
plays they have created for us .
And I looked
over at Jim and asked him if he was seeing this and about the same time I noticed that he had nothing but dayl ight out his window.
This was
the first time that I had the daylight- dark experience of one guy looking into pitch black night and the other guy looking into a complete daylight window over there .
Jim remarked rather
disgustedly to me, “We are pointed straight at the ground!”
About the same time I realized I was
looking out at the fire flies everybody had s een, but probably in a much more profuse quantity than had ever been seen before , because we were getting a ll this fuel that was vaporizing into many , many particles from the booster and a little bit of a contribution from the spacecraft also . McDivitt
And we were thrusting, too .
I ’ m sure we had all
that junk on it from our launch. White
That ’ s right .
And the whole area out in front of
my view was just entirely taken up with these
CONFIOENft-AL
little pa r t icles , and this was at sunset .
As the
flight progressed, each time we had a particle or a group of particles such as a urine dump r ight at sunset or sunrise, the sun would pick these particles up and they would act just like litt l e magnifying glasses and make very bright spots. This is exactly what happened . that then?
Did you ever s ee
I think you were more in the daylight
side .
McDivitt
No .
I was on the daylight side .
I didn’t see
what you were talking about. White
It was really something.
The whole sky within my
view was covered with these little particles- thousands of them .
There was obviously a great
deal of that stuff in the air all around . McDivitt
As soon as we got turned around I could see trat t he lights were flashing on the booster, and Ed saw them , too.
It was pretty apparent .
I cal l ed out
r i ght away to the gruund that the lights were working .
I don’t know if they understood what I
was talking about or not.
I also called out
shortly after we came off the booster and we saw it,that it didn’t look like we were going to be able to touch it .. because of the high rotational
CO·N·F~DENTIM
60
rates that we already had .
We were into darkness
by the time that we got turned around, and I had thrusted just two or three times at the booster . We were still quite far above it—I would guess now on the order of 2000 feet or more and it was still dropping away from us rapidly; I had already used about 25 or 30 feet/second to get toward the booster.
I knew I had to catch it during the
night time because when we came out of the dark ness on the next pass, we had to be next to it , because we were supposed to take some photos of it around that time .
So I thrusted some more right
at the booster trying to just overcome orbital mechanics with brute force .
It was too l ate to
start playing fancy games with the orbital mechan ics .
Finally, I got us down to what I considered
a good position , and this was prior to Carnarvon,
I believe .
Remember when we finally got it on
the horizon? White
It looked like it had finally stopped .
McDivitt
The relative velocity had finally stopped.
And
let me now make a general comment about what I thought of the lights on it .
We had two lights on
the booster that flashed and they were diametrically
COFl0ETtAL
61
€01FtDcNfJA
opposed on the center of the booster .
And when
the booster was in such a manner that I could see both of the lights, I could tell relative rates and I had an idea of how far away I was .
Did you
find this to be true too, Ed , or not? White
Well , I can ’ t honestly say I was looking at it with that feeling .
McDivitt
Okay .
Well , what I am saying is that it was
difficult-White
I want to hear what you are going to say.
I ‘m
not sure what you ’ re saying yet , McDivitt
It was difficult to tell how far I was away from it , at best , but when I had the booster in such a position that I could see both lights at the same time , I could tell by the distance between the lights whether I was close or far .
White
Okay .
I agree with that .
McDivitt
And when I could see these lights flashing over a period of time , I could tell whether the distance between them was getting larger or smaller so that I knew i f I was closing or not .
Unfortunately ,
becaus e the booster was tumbling in this scre,ry manner, I couldn’t maneuver around ~he booster because it was tumbling so fast ; I was just trying
CONFtDENftt\L
62
to get close to it and not even maneuver—not to pick specific positions .
All I wanted to do was
just get close enough so I wouldn ’ t lose it.
When
I could see these two lights, I had a pretty good impression of whether I was closing or opening; for a long part of the early part of the mission in the night time it looked like we were holding our own, and then we finally started closing with it .
I finally worked it down where we were at
the same level , the booster.
All this time I had been above
I worked dovm until I was at the same
altitude with it ; at least it was on the horizon .
I felt that by then I had gotten the thing under control and we stood a pretty good chance of still coming out on the daylight side with the booster. I can’t tell you what the range was .
It looked
to me like I had worked the range back dovm (it had been opening up as · we went into darkness)-to 2000 or 3000 feet again—probably around 2000 feet .
It might even have been as low as 1000 feet .
It could have been lower than that .
At one time I
got the impression that we were quite close to it . White
Yes .
You were wondering whether you should retro
grade away from it .
6ONFt01:M”flAL
McDivitt
It looked to me like we could have gotten as close as 200
feet .
It was extremely difficult to tell
how close we were.
What’s your guees , Ed?
Just
pick a number. White
I wouldn’t say that close .
I ‘d say you ’ re more in
the ball park in the neighborhood of 700 to 1000 feet. McDivitt
Okay.
White
You could be magnitudes off.
McDivi tt
Before we got to Carnarvon, I remember , we were in reasonably good shape , because I had finally gotten down to the booster.
I felt if I could
just keep it down near the booster we would be all right .
Then it looked to me l ike we were closing
rather rapidly.
So I thought we were going to get
next to it and then we were going to be all right. ‘I’he reason I felt this was because I could see the two lights .
It must have been rotating in such a
manner that I could see the two lights .
Almost
every fifth or tenth time they blinked I could see them .
I could see two of them .
So I knew by the
distance that we were in quite close and everything looked pretty good then .
And then for a long ,
long, long period of time after that I never
saw two lights again . not .
I don ’ t lmow if you did or
I kept looking and there was a single light
and a single light and a single light, and I didn’t lmow where I was with respect to the boos ter .
And then I started getting the impression
without really seeing the double lights , I guess, that it was going away very rapidly .
Maybe I did
see two lights and I just don ’ t remember it now. My impression was that the light was getting
White
fainter . I think that must have been it .
McDivitt
must have been it.
I think that
But all of a sudden I got the
impression that it was leaving me at a rapid rate .
I
I
It wasn’t that easy to see .
During the few times
that the booster was up against the sky background it was easy to see , but when it was down against a ground background, it was very difficult to see . I think it was just before we got to Car narvon that I felt we were in good shape .
And then
as we passed Carna rvon , I remember calling I could see the lights of the city.
Well, during this
period of time all of a sudden I thought it was starting to pull away again.
So I started
thrusting at it again . And I never really got the
~itAL
EONftE>ENllAL..
65
double blink of the lights for a l ong , long, long time.
And finally I thought I could see them
blinking again, and they were a lmost a single light this time since they were so far away.
And
this occurred over a very short period of time . TRn minutes?
Five minutes?
White
Yes .
McEivitt
Is that right?
White
Yes .
McDivitt
So then I said to Ed, “I ~hink we are losing it .”
Whatever you think, Ed .
I fully agree wit} you.
So I started thrusting a t it again.
All of a
sudden it was apparent that the thing wasn’t as close as it had been.
So we started thrusting
at it . White
In fact, that was one time you said we had lost it, didn’t you?
McDivitt
I said I think we have lost it . sight.
I had it in
I didn’t saj that I had lost sight of it.
White
I thought you meant you had lost sight of it.
McDivitt
No.
White
But it wasn’t getting any bigger.
McDivitt
I didn’t have e:n:y idea in the world where we were .
I still had it all the time.
And I still couldn’t really tell.
Finally , we
could see the sky starting to get a little gray
~NflDENTb\L
GOt\fPID Etft+A L
66
and I thought at least we were going to get to see where t he t hing was.
And all of a sudden the
booster came out just like that, and you could see it .
The lights disappeared and there was the
booster.
It was ·2
or
3
miles away, I’ll bet .
White
You asked me there and I estimated 1 1/2 miles .
McDivitt
So , it had gotten that far away in such a short
I think what really gave
time, and it was down .
me the clue that we were losing it again was that
I had it on the horizon and it had sta~ted going down below us . White
Right .
It looked like it was about 30 degrees
below -McDivitt
It started going down again .
And I could see it
was coming down below the horizon , so I knew that
I wasn’t right with it .
But I wasn’t really sure
how far away I was so I did thrust a couple of times—a foot/second or so—to make sure I always had a closing velocity with it . got the thing down .
And finally I
It was down so that when it
came out it wasn’t directly below me ; it was out in front of me and down again .
And like Eli said,
I guess it was down about 30 degrees . White
That’s what I ’ d estimate .
67
C-Ol<fFJ0ENT1Ai. McDivitt
When it came out of the night and we saw it out (’” there in the daylight- -
White
Right .
I ’ d estimate 30 degrees down.
McDivitt
It was above the horizon, just barel y .
Or was it
above the horizon? White
No, it was below the horizon . I ’ d say it wasn’t more than ten or twelve degrees below the earth horizon , but below our local hori zon .
It was in the neighborhood of 30 degrees .
If you looked out level to what you would call level—but you lmow the horizon tilts away from you , so - - . McDivitt
So here again we were faced wi tr. the same kind of problem- -to cater. up with the booster. _What I should have done was to retrofire right then to drop down , get a lower orbit, and come back up . But we had to get to the booster right then or we weren ’ t going to get to it, becauae we had the mission to take p~otographs of it across the States .
So I thought if I could close with it at
10 or 15 feet/second we could at least overcome our problem.
So I aimed behind it , so to speak,
and down , and I thrusted that way trying to get enough closing velocity down and another one that
-E9NFJDEllA
68
eo~~FtOENllAL would bring us up to it at the same time; but most of the thrusting I did was down . didn’t gain on it .
Then we just
I s tarted thrusting retro
grade with my top thruster, but I was thrusting more back and downward.
I just absolutely could
not get down to the booster.
It kept pulling
away and pulling away until by the time we got to Hawaii . White
You were putting a lot of 6V i n there and we just weren’t doing anything .
We just weren’t making
any headway. McDivitt
It continued to pull away from us and it was falling farther and farther below us until finally—
White
You put in about 40 feet/second to do something with it and it hadn ’ t changed a speck .
McDivitt
By the time we got to Hawaii I told them I thought we were having difficulty doing it .
k:J.yway, I
had decided by that time that if we were going to do the mission at all, the only thing we could do would be to leave the booster.
The fuel was
down to around 75 per cent on my ‘gage and the gage kept going up and down, so it wasn’t a heck of a lot of help .
I had burned around 85 or
eor<IFIDE~~Tl:t\L
90 feet/second .
I had numbers in all three of the
windows, and of course since I was changing atti tudes and thrusting in different directions those numbers were going all over the place .
So I made
up my mind then that i t looked like a hopeless task and that we had better stop this stuff or we were going to lose all the fue l for the whole mission. We probably wouldn’t be able to catch it, and we wouldn’t be able to do what we were going to do . I think the only thing we could have done to save the whole thing would nave been for us just to go forward on t he local horizontal and retrograde a large amount on the order of 20 to 30 feet/second, fall down below the thing and catch it .an orbit or so later and actually perform rendezvous with it .
But because the flight plan was such that we
had to get all the EVA done in the first three orbits , and because Chris and I had talked this over and decided the EVA was the more important of the two things , I felt t hat the best thing to do woul d be to abandon trying to catch up with the booster. White
Let me interject something else , too . had the same feeling .
See if you
I had the feeling that the
~QNFIDENT.IAL
70
booster orbit had changed so much with respect to our orbit that if we really went down after it, it might jeopardize our lifetime . McDivitt
Honestly , I was concerned about that too , because, remember , I called and asked what the heck our orbit was right then .
The booster looked like it
was going down at such a rapid rate .
By the time
we got to the States I would guess it was
5
miles below us at least. White
My impression was even more .
I thought maybe it
wasn’t more a t the time but it was going more .
I
felt that if we really got back with tbe booster we might have a pretty good orbit , but we would be down in the neighborhood of 130 and this wasn ’ t the altitude we wanted to lifetime McDivitt
be, . ,for. the six- day
that we wanted.
The other thing tha t bothered me was that we were going toward perigee where we should have been coming back together .
And we weren’t. We were
pulling away so fast that it wasn’t even funny . Frankly , I just couldn’t figure out what kind of orbit the booster was in.
It looked to me like ,
if we were having trouble , the place where we should have been the farthest from it was at Car-
C.O f)J FID E~tt IA L
eo,~FtDENTIA’l narvon .
71
Apogee should have been far t hest apart .
Our perigee should have been closest together . It was almos t opposite .
We were with it at
Carnarvon , but we wer e way far away from it and getting f arther away from it as we crossed the United States , or Mexico, or wherever we came.
I
wasn’ t looking out at the scenery; I was looking a t the booster .
It.was extremely difficul t to
t rack across the water and as we got to t he land
it was almost an impossibility to track it ,
Here
the distance i s extremely difficult to judge .
It
It could have been anywhere from
5
to 15 miles
directly below us a t this time .
If I had a range
rate I could have told where I was all the time and with range rate I would have been able to rendezvous with it from a mile .
I could have
done the things I lmew had to be done , rather than try to do it .forcefully .
I sort of feel the big
prob lem was that we were so optimistic for those first three orbits that it is almost unbelievable . It became apparent when we tried to do the EVA that we couldn ’ t do it in the t ime allotted.
But
anyway,I had dec ided by the time we had gone by Hawaii, or wherever it was a fter we had been in the
C-eNFIDE-NTIAl
72
daylight for ten minutes or so, that i t was hope less, and I told that t o F.d .
I told him I
thought we had lost the booster for good .
I
don ’ t mean I didn ’ t s ee i t but t hat we weren ’ t goi ng to get back down to it .
He a greed with me .
White
Yes.
McDivitt
I think I could have gotten to the booster i n a dignified , normal , slow , easy manner if we di dn ’ t have the constraint on us of being next to the booster in the first daylight pass over the States, and taking pictures , prepare for the EVA , and be r eady to emerge from the spacecr aft an hour after we came out of t he daylight on our first pass , which was about two hours i nto the flight .
I just fe lt
that if I had had more time, I could have gone ahead and done some of this without using brute force to overcome the difference between the booster and myself.
I could have gone into a
l ower orbit and chased it t hat way .
I could have
just gone horizontal and r etrofired and f a llen away from the thing initially and caught back up with it l a ter on , but it was getting so far a way from us to start with that to purpose ly put yourself fart her a way from it so that you could catch
eor’4FIDEMT+AL
JeG~-1DENT-IA~
13
up l a ter on was not the thing to do. all done at a certain time.
We had to be
We had to be with the
booster when we came back into daylight. it ; that was the thing .
That was
We had to be with the
boos t er , because we had to take those pictures . Then we had to be with the booster again an hour and a half after that so that we could do the EVA
right next to it .
And with those kinds of time
constraints you don ’ t have time to perform a ren dezvous .
You’ve got to get with it right then, but
we just couldn’t get with it right then . \
White
You know another thing too ; I’m darned glad we didn ’ t use any 10 feet/second initially to sepa rate with.
I think we could have used something
in the terms of
1
or ·2, feet/second and that
would have been fine. McDivitt
I cut it short .
Don”-’ t you?
I only burned about
5 seconds,
and I stopped. White
You have been doing that in all your simulations so I knew you were going to do that . cut it less .
You can even
It was amazing to me the sepa r a tion
you get i mmediatel y. McDivitt
I t almost seemed like we had a posigrade rocket on the spa cecraft and a retrograde rocket on the
GQ;NFt0ENllA~ \
74
C.Qt~FIDEtfflAt’ booster, the way we separa ted .
Well, anyway , we
told Guaymas that we had to ge t resolution i mme diately if they wanted us to continue to chase the booster because we had used a lot of fuel and we weren ’ t getting any closer and it was still pulling away from us .
If they wanted to go for i t
they had to make up their minds and we would really go after it . wise .
But I didn ’ t think it was
They confimed this and said,‘Knock it off!’
For cloeing rates at rendezvous, I t hink you could handle 20 , 30 , 40 feet/second if you are coming at it , not if you are gomg away from it .
You
see we never got a chance to do a rendezvous . never rendezvoused with it .
We
The best thing we
ever did was to get close enough to it where I could at least say I was at the same a l titude with· it for a change .
It was the fi r st t ime I had
gotten back to tee same altitude since we left it at insertion .
Yoo just can’t equate it.
You
don’t do an optical rendezvous with the booster below you .
You try to put it above you so you
have the stars and the sky background. below us .
It was
You couldn’t do any line· of· sight
nulling because there wasn’t anything to null the
H)EN=ttAL line of -sight w:ith .
75
On the other hand I found
that if the sun was on the window you couldn’t see beyond the nose of the spacecraft .
This satellite
that I saw over around Ha¼~ii—I saw the thing and we were closing on it.
We might have had a
better rendezvous with it than with our own booster . We were closing on it and I was concerned enough that I checked to see where the a . c. Fower Switch was to see if I had maneuver capability at the time :
The •• sun came across the window and I
lost it just like that . miles out.
It might have been
5·
I don’t knov•. It might have been then.
It might have been 50 miles out, but I had the im pression in the 30 or 40 s econds I saw it that it was quite close because I could make out the shape of it.
Shoot!
The sun came across the window and
that was the last thing I saw out the window.
I
never saw another thing out the window until we were gone and until the sun finally came off the window.
So, if you are doing an optical r endez
vous and you’ve got the sun on the window, I don’t know what you’d do. White
And if you have as dirty windows as we had— our windows had a white film of material on the
GeNFIDENTIAt…
CO t#iDEN Tl,c\ I,,..
76
outside
, which made it very difficult to see out
when the sun’s rays reflected on these particles that were on the outside of the windshield . McDivitt
To just summarize this thing , I think that we came off the booster with a fully unknown relative velocity which was much greater than what we anticipated, and it didn’t seem to be an inplane relative velocity.
It didn ’ t seem to be an inplane
local horizontal relative velocity.
It was out-of
plane and it looked like the booster headed down , with respect to us because i t started separating from us so rapidly , city. prise .
I t a l so had less total velo-
I think that this was the first surIt started tumbling and immediately the
rates built up in just a· very few minutes to something very high— 40 to 50 degrees/second-but it never got any higher , at least the best we could tell .
When we last saw it over Mexico or
over southern United Sta tes it was still tumbling at about the same rate , I guess around 40 or 50 degrees/second.
I felt tret I got down to it all
right and I was in reasonably good shape prior to Carnarvon, and from that time on until we came out of the darkness I lost it , And I think I lost it
£0N·~ll;)ENTIAl-
77
because looking at a single light at night doesn’t give you any depth perception at all. don’t know where the booster is . summarizes it .
You just
I think that
Ed, you want to add anything?
You
weren’t watching it as much as I was , but you saw enough of it to know exactly what was going on. White
Well, you see I wasn’t able to put the pieces quite together because I was either looking out, and I couldn’t see when you were thrusting, or I
was looking in and watching you when you were thrusting and listening and not looking out .
I
tried to interJect my thoughts as we went along and I agree with what you said.
I don’t believe
I want to add anything else. McDivitt
Now that we’ve covered the tracking and the los ing of the booster, I think we ought to go back to the very beginning a t insertion and we will go through the checks that we went through as we proceeded along and the things t hat F,d and I were both doing aside from tracking the booster, the things that we were either doing to prepare to come back in at area 2-1 or t o stay in orbit and proceed with the FNA as we had planned,
In looking over the
fl i ght plan that we had and the briefing guide on
1tONf’IDENTIAt
78
page six,I have already covered the things on platform alinement. the platform.
I did not have time to aline
I tried to get it to somewhere near
the local horizontal so that in case we had to do a retrofire I ’ d be able to do the Etrofire .
I
brought the spacecraft up to a pitch attitude that I hoped was zero,but I never got the spacecraft alined to see that it was zero.
So we really went
into this thing without my ever having seen a zero pitch a ttitude on the spacecraft .
Obviously
I didn ’ t get a chance to see the 30 degree pitch down on the retrofire attitude.
I didn’t really
have time to look out the window and do a single thing that would have prepared us to reenter at 2- 1 because we were so busy keeping track of-\
White
I
You know another thing I ’ d say also is that we were eternally optimistic.
~
We felt we were going
to aline the platform and watch the booster at the same time . r:IcDivitt
As a matter of fact, while I was trying to get the alinement it became apparent to me that I could not aline it.
I even thrusted vertically—
79 McDivitt
I was in a horizontal position and I thrusted down using my top thrusters , so that I would try to keep the booster in my view.
Thrusting,
chasing the booster , and alining the platform all at the same time— those are the kinds of things you have to do . platform alined .
So, I never did get the
I did not have time .
it somewhere near local horizontal .
I got
If I was
within pl us or minus 5 degrees in the axis , I think I did a reasonably gooi job ,
The
Thruster Control Mode Checks that took place at 15 minutes I didn’t do as such .
I would just
thr ow it into a different mode and thrust .
just did it with a catchasatch-can .
I
I did
check out the different modes . White
Everything seemed to be working .
You weren ’ t
getting My thrusters that weren ’ t f iring, and your modes all seemed to me to be working pr operly . McDivitt
It looked pretty good.
White
I had one comment on the Co~munic a tions System Check .
Remember we lost good communications
with No . 1 UHF and we switched to No . 2 and seemed to have good communications with it
80
from th~~1 on?
Now this wasn ’ t representative
that we lost UHF No . 1 beca1lse w0 used bo:h of the sets at different tiJWS throughout mj_ssion later 0:1 .
the
But at this particula:-:- time ,
UHP 1 didn ’ t give us good reception 13:1d we swi t<~hed . McDivltt
I thought comm t”li :-:at.i::ms through the fi1•-it :liv of the flight wi;re atrocious . terrible .
They were
Finally we switchtd to th•) .-~~enry
St ub Antenna and that seemed to fix L!w p:>oblern. I
Didn t you thL1k so?
But you know we went back
to reentry a n tenna, over Carna:::-vo:i one tine . WH got just as good r~cept i ::>:1 o.ff of i t that ti.me as we di.d any other ti-:ne . White
I remember when you were rnak i.ne- yo·.1r Cornmuni catio:J.s Check. ai:;leep.
That wa.1 ·.-.r1hm I was
You were ,;h ecki :,1g the two and you
end<id up with the r eentry antenna . McDivitt
Yes , later on in the flight , as I said, at the end o.f the fi r. st d9-Y or :30.
Wh ite
We seemed t o get better communications .
McDtvitt fact , I
W’.:iS
a little concerned that the
comm..m icati.ons w1;re so lousy th~t W’; might h1we
ce~~FIDElTL
81
to come back in, because we were really losing communic ~tions . of things .
We were trying HF and all kinds
Information just wasn’t getting
up to us . White
That was after EVA.
McDivitt
Right .
Communications just weren ’ t getting 11p
to us . White
I figured we didn’t have any communications with the ground during EVA.
McDivitt
No, we didn ’ t . Our VOX blocked t hem out .
Wh ite
I know i t .
McDivitt
But the Communications Systems Check that was supposed to be performed at 15 minutes-we sort of already acc omplished the thing, because we ‘d used UHF No . 1 and No . 2.
White
I made the check with them.
McDivitt
Did you make the check? — that ’ s right you made the check but we didn ’ t use the HF because we weren’t going to put the antenna out until after EVA.
We didn ’ t do anything with the urine
bags except keep them right where they were . White
At this time we didn’t pressure check both suits , because we did this later .
McDivitt
We didn ’ t aline the platform , as I mentioned.
C:0NFt0ENlt~ L
GQ ~
82
The Control Mode Check was a catch- as- catch can .
You did unstow, the equip~ent that we
were supposed to unstow .
The bl ood pres sure
bulb, the Hasselblad camera and its packs , a11d a 16 mm camera.
During this time when I was
chasing the booster , I did manage to get to reach back behind my seat and pull out the bracket for the 16 mm c amera.
You tracked the
booster while I smoothed the thi.ng ou t . White
That I s right .
McDivitt
We didn ’ t get out the urine nozz l e . the utility cord?
How about
Did you get out that fancy
utility 0ord , the three- axis utility cord? White
Yes, I knew where i t was.
I didn’t give it to
you beca~se you didn ’ t need it . McDivitt
No , I didn ’ t need it .
That ’ s right .
As Ed
said, we did not pressure check our suits a t 30 minutes like we were supposed to . McDivitt
There ’ s this little thing here that says meas11re all LV~ .
All I did was put the co~puter in
Catch- Up, hit the Start Comp button, and just l et the numbers fall where t hey would .
At the
time that we stopped chasing the booster around , I had about 60 f eet/ second in
C-O~ ◄ Ftf}EMTIAL
one window,
03
-€0Nf-U)ENT1Al 30 in another , and 30 in another.
I never really
ea..11e to a posi tio:1. to try to ni1ll all these things out to see what the total 6V was .
I
was putting in the thrust with mostly the aft thrusters and the down-firing top thruster. I don’t think I used the left and right thruster, at all.
I don 1 t think I used the bottom
thurster at all .
There was no difficulty
controlling a~y of them .
I used the forward
firing thrusters once or twice to try to slow dow:i, to take out total velocity. McDivitt
Then there was the Accelero~eter Bias Check which was another one of those things.
I don’t
know hon I let it get into the flight plan . White
We both joked about that one , huh , Mac?
We
were really going to get an Accelerometer Check when we were trying to track the booster. McDivitt
I was putting 1 6V ’ s on the IVI 1 s at a rate of a foot per minute at least.
We ended up with over
a foot per minute, I think , over that period of time .
I
1
We couldn t have checked anybody s
accelerometer bias, so I just didn’t even fool around with it .
We were supposed- to take a
blood pressure.
Did you take that blood
~ F.10ENTIAL
l
OONFIDEN I I.A:L
84
pressure , Ed? White
Yes .
McDivitt
You did ta!<e the blood pressure .
White
I think I did.
I had it out .
I don ’ t know
whether they asked for it or not . McDivitt
Okay.
White
I don 1 t remember on that .
McDivitt
Okey .
We got the ~antity Read off .
I guess
we got a t.ime hack so:newhere in there . White
They called up I believe. I remember them calling the Quantity Read- Off, and I t urned it 0?~‘.
McD.ivitt
That’s right.
McDivitt
Then it says at one hour we were supposed to W1stow and assemble the maneuvering unit in its 16 m:n mount.
I don ’ t think we had that stuff
out by then , did we? White
No .
McDivitt
You see , this whole flight plan was based on me
being able to track the booster withot using
any thrust , ad essentially having the space
craft stationary near the booster, without
any maneuvering at all , where the station
keeping was a matter of just looking out at the
thing and co:1.trolling your attitude with pulse .
85
We thought that if the booster was stationar~ we could get in close to it .
We could
essentially fly a formation by it with moe
a:titude co:1trol than translation control ,
which l eft me then free to help F.d assemble al l
this stuff for the EV.
Well , it turned out that
I didn ’ t dare take my eyes off the booster for half a second .
So all tne things that we were
supposed to do together up until the t ime we f inally said goodby to the booster , Ed had to accomplish himB11lf . help him.
I was completely unable to
The only thing I ma.~aged to do was
to unstow the 16 lllDl camera bracket and put the 16 mm camera on. White
I ~ouldn ’ t quite get at that one .
McDivitt
No .
I could nardly get to it .
So we w~re
probably behind at t he hour mark.
Right?
White
Yes .
McDivitt
Not by an awful lo ~.
White
I knew we had a probl em with the booster , and I was more concerned with our problem with the booster t han getting the gun and stuff o:it then .
I f elt that they w~re both tied together
and onc e w~ l ost t he booster we didn ’ t have a
EONFIDEN:f.lAt”
86
sweat time-wise on making o:1r EVA.
So , I was
trying to be of what assistance I could to Jim on watching the booster during these first critical periods. McDivHt
Yes.
It wasn ’ t unappreciated because this
booster was becoming a speck on the horizon , and if you blinked your eyes you co:1ld very well lose thn dar.r1 thi “lg . W”nite
When wa were out that seconi day, I think you said one tiine you did. lose it for a minute.
McDivi t t
Tha~’ s right .
W!1ite
I was lucky enough to still be seeing it , un~il yo .i started picking it up again . 0
McDivitt
That ’ s r.·I.ght .
So, I’m saying it really took
t ~o pairs of eyes constantly looking at that booster to keep it in sight.
It’s juAt one of
those thingH that just took so much time thkt we hadn ’ t planned on. McDivitt
It was almost unbelievable .
In o:.ir flight plan from an ho:.ir to at1 hour and twenty minutes we don’t really show a’.1.ything. Although, here again , we were busy with the booster.
So, when we got l:l.1’.‘0und to closing with
the boost~r , there wasn’t any closing.
We
finally got clearance over the United States to stop
L
..
OtR0ENrtAf~
fooling with the booster .
s1 I think this was ·.t.n
extremely wise dP.cisioo . McDivltt
I got to Guaymas and I said the booster was pull ing aw,zy from us .
We ’ d already used abo~t
6.V to stay with it , and I r ecommended
100
that w~ just give up on it .
We had to get a
dee ision imm, idiatel y because I couldn ’ t stay 0
with it and 11ot use f\1el at the same t Lme . came back from Texas.
They
I talked to Guaymas and
got their confirmation from Texas , which was only a “Tlatter o.f a couple of m’i.nutes , saying leave the booster .
Th9.t was about the only
thing tney could 3ay .
Wnite
And this was the time I went aft er the gun .
McDivitt
Okay .
At th9.t time we reve.rted fror:i station
keeping , which we were both attempting to do to EVA preparation, which we both had to do . I
Thats when Ed went after the gun, and we st8J’.‘ted our …,c,.;pa::at.i.0.11.
We wc-::-do ’ t .rea1 ly
far bt-~h..:.nd llt this time .
All WH had to do was
get the gun out and get the m!‘l.neuvering unit . The cameras we·c(: already out . Zeiss too , didn ’ t yo~?
-E0NFIDENTJAL
You had the
88
White
Yes .
The Zeiss came out with the Hasselblq,d ,
from that S3Jlle package as the movie ca:nera. And the storagf~ certainly wan :i l ::>t easier .
What do you think? McDiv”a t t
Tbat ’ s right .
White
Particularly getti~g it out that center thing. You can just zip :hem o:.it of there with no probl 1Jra ;lt all.
McD:ivi tt
So, a~ about 1 : 30 we started to assHmble the gun .
If you look at the checklist, yo:.i see
that we probably gcit the gun assembled :Ln nothbg na.t . White
It 1 s no problt:im to assemble the gun .
McDivitt
We started our eg:-ess preparations essentially on time .
As a mattHr df fact , I think we evtm
got star ted a little earlier. White
Then, we weren ’ t worrying abo-;.1t anythi11g else .
McDivltt
Then , we w:ren I t worrying abo·J.”!; staying with the booster. or 1: 40 .
Over the States we started our ~gress
preparat io~. White
We probably started it abo~t 1:35
We went to our .Jther checklist .
You were o,•er Ascension , calling off the check list.
McDivitt
I sta::ted reading the checklist off to Ed and
COl>IFJBEN+iN.
EO·MFIDENTIA’t:we w1:nt through it .
89
He unntowed evet’ything.
Why don ’ t you tell them what you did there, Ed? I just read the checklist off to you , and you went a.head and riid i.t. White
Okey .
I had to get bar.k .i.11”:o the r”ight -h.md
box, and I un:=i tow0d the item:, there .
The
first time I went back in there , I took the
firs t items out, and I did :1 ot unstow the full box .
I rem,~mher I told you,
out , Jim.
II
It I s all comi.r1g
I ’ m gol11g to bring them all out on
the 19.11yard. ”
Remember?
McDivitt
Right .
White
We’d tak~ them o~f piece by piece if we n eed it . At that tim,1 I pill lfld the wh0l,’! lanyard out and the cockpit was full of little bags . I was qu.ite happy that they had prevailed upon me to put a lanyard on all th is equipment .
I had thought
at one time that it woulri be mvt’d des iri-:l,bl ~ not to p,1t a lanya.rcl on .
We ‘d been wo:::-k.ing a lot
in our sim11lations without the lanyard and it seemed pretty easy .
But looking at it now, I
highly recom..n~nd that eve r-ybody k,-lep that stuff on a l anyard . McDiv.i.tt
We would have r eally had a mess if we ’ d had all
-€0NFl0ENflAt· —
90 those thitJ.gs floating ar.ound .
It was bad
eno~gh as it was . Wnito
Yes , eight or ten of those little bags , and I was glad they were all tied Jn to Jne string. I could con trol them in t hat manner . quite simple to U’lsn3.p .
They were
I thought the snap
attachmP-nt made it p:::-etty easy to UtJ.stow , and
selectively pick ot the items that I wa ted .
I unstowed the pouches that I needed, and then
we g,)t ready to tak~ the long um’J il ical out .
h’ld a little difficulty .
It toJk m~ about
three trys to get it out .
It ’ s f airly big
package to come through a small hole .
I
It was a
good thing tht we had takn the Velcro off of
the batch , beoause t here was no tendency for
any th i. ng to hang up as w,~ remewed it .
On
the
third try I got it out . McDivltt
I thought yo~ did an extremely good jJb getting the bag ou~.
You got it out a l ot quicker than
TC’ai.nec in Houston or in the simlll ator at the Cape . Whi t e
You didn ’ t know it .
It took m.1 th:::-ee tr.rs .
McDivitt
Wall , maybe it did , but it sure l:,okH i like it 1
CQtqffDfNTtAtl
CPtl)ETIAL
camP. out a lot eaf-Jier.
91
I thought you got it out
in a big hurry .
I didn ’ t notice that it took
yo:J. three trys .
I saw you stat’t, and then jllst
a f-Jhort t.i.m,1 la7-er, it was out .
White
Well , it d:id come out pretty easy , and I think
the storage was .satisfactory , bllt I ’ d
certainly reco1nm,1ricl thA.t noth.i “lg b ) on ‘;ht1
outside to kep it from coming vllt.
It’s a
real tough-McDivltt
Yes , we need the velcro off of there .
We ’ re
pretty wd 1 sure of tha-~ . White
The reGt of the ::iquipm•:111’;- the ” y” con:1ectors , the bag thA.t contained the “y” connectors , and the attachments for the chest pack , I handed to yot1 .
I thi’lk you wi;c~ k:➔ep.L ,1g tra,)k of most
of those things 1mtil the time I needed them . McDivitt
Yes , I was .
Waite
The storage of the ventilation module froc:i the fioor came off pr~tty easily.
That ’ s when 1
started goi!‘lg ahead ;md putting it all on . read the checklist off to me.
I had gone
ahead. and done a few things anyhow . read them off
As you
I checkP.d them off to be sllre
that I had done them all .
4€0NflDENTIAb
I think we h-’:l.d
You
92
cor ◄ FIE>fIAL
everything out without mch problem at all .
I
think it took •ls longer actually to p1lt it all together. . McDivitt
That ’ s right .
It d id .
We started going
through the checklist here and putting the things on and W’3 started getting more and more rushed .
We were supposed to s tar. t the E[,rress
Preparation Checklist at abo:it 1:44 .
We
probsbly sta::-ted it at about 1: 35 or so .
We
started it about 10 minutes early, roughly , maybe five to 10 min1tes early.
We were
supposed to be ready to start the depressu r.a7,a tion at 2: 30 over Carnarvvn . White
I think I could h.3,ve gone through ari:i l1ook2d
ev8.rything all up , but I felt that we should go -:hc:-ough fairly close to the p~ocedure w1; had set up on the checklist. McDivitt
That I s r igh t .
White
I think this slowed us down .
McDivitt
Well , we set tht, procedure up so tha~ when we finished wlth it, it would be right .
I think
this helter- sk8lter thing that we were being forced into was for the birds.
So an Ne g0t
farther al:mg , it beca;n,~ .:i.ppar,mt to nt, that
eot~Ftl:>ENll-AL
~ I DEN f ~kl111
93
the thing to do wo~ld be to stop . White
Right .
McDivltt
Go aht-,acl with the assembly of the stuff .
Why
d-:m 1 t you cor.1:nP.n~ on that? White
I I ve co;::rnt’.!nted in my Self Debr: ~efing aboc1t th,? equipment and the assembly of it .
I thought
thec-e was no d-i.fficul ty at all in conrn-,cti 1g the “y” connectord, the hoses, pack .
anj
the chest
I thought the connection of th•e chest
pack to 11\Y harness was a good o~e .
With the
velcro I could m•, we it in and -:)Ut wheneve.c I
waaed to s:) th at I could mak ’!}’ connec tiorrn
on the i,il,?t side of the ECS hoses .
It w.mt
along pretty smoothl y , as a matter of fact .
I
think as we progressed along in it though , we felt tha~; we hA.Cl r3ve.cythi’.’.lg d,me .
I
I didn t
rea.11.y feel that; w: hail 13verything done 1,n a thorough manner .
And I think yo’J. had that sarnr~
feel i.ng. McDivlH
That ’ s right .
Wnen W8 got to Kan:) or Tana1.,;1.r·Lve
- ~I th::nk it was TananR:-‘l. ve —I cal’led whoe ver
I was talking to and sai<l that we were :rLl.Ilfl.i.ng late and I thought that we would probably not do the EVA on thi.s particular .cev .
• CONFIDENl~At
I krtew thn,t
94
l:,okld to 1:1,? l i.kc we had ,il 1. the stuff hookr.d
I
up , but Wf; hl3.dn t really had a chance to check it .
I also noticed , Ed , that you W’:re gr~tting
this whol ~ thing off .
So I tol d them over
Tananar.ive- -I believe it was Tannrive- -that
dP.pressurize at the ne xt station .
We went on
ahead and it looked to me like yo~ were all hooked up and 9.bo11 t ready to g’;) except for. <me thing. Wh::.t’:l
W,~ for.got
tht1
thirm.-.11 glOV’: .
I d i.i not have
my ther.,n.-tl. gloves on .
McDivitt
You did not have the the::-m.,l gloves oa , which is aor t of insigaif icant , but we hadn ’ t really
sure that l t wa.~ l.n t”le ri.gh”:; sp-:,t . Wh ite
w,~ l l , we talked a~d yo:.1 said , “~9.t d,:, you think? ”
We talked it over:- and I had the same
feeling . I though”:: it sur.e wolld oe sm,1.r t if we
had abo11t W rni’lntes to just; sit her r,➔ al still
€eNft0EN=J:l-AL
CONFIDEill-
95
befoce we go out .
McDivitt
I think w~ w·are in a situation w~ere it would probably hava gone all right .
We hr-ui cor:ipl,3ted
hai rlo:w as far as the check.i.‘lg w~nt , and I
juat di:in 1 t feel th’3.t we were i11 the right shape .
Ed didn’t think we were , and besides , I
could see Bd.
I
He coul,ln t see himself .
~d
look’.-!d a.wf.1lly hot , s.rvl h;? l:iokt~d like he wa:1 0
getting a little pooped out from playl ng c1..-:-01md
I tho~ght that the best
with that big suit .
thing for his sake , e.nd I knw h~~ ·t1oul<‘l.n ’ t
ad.mi-’.; i. t , wa, to l13t him r~st up for anot’1er
o.cb i. t .
White
I
McDivitt
So , when w~ go-t to ~arnarvon—I g,1ess i t was
agree
that
was
the best judgment .
Carnarvon—I cal led them A. ‘ld sa.:i.n r,m wc-Jra not goi:1g !;o co □c out on tha:’: or’:>:. t .
Whit9
It wa,, Carr1arv0n .
It was just before we
McDivitt
So , we postponed it until the next orbit .
As a
matter of fact , after that w~ j1rnt sat ther::! . We d idri I t dn a thi-ig for abor.1: 10 mi.nutes .
let Ed cool off a li.ttle bit .
EON~l(;)ENTIAL
I
We were on two-
96
fa’1 o;>eration ,q,-: the time. and we were cooled o.! ‘f .
White
Okey .
We j·.1st sat there
We went ~o,x1.d for
The.n as w~ wr:n ’; back around , I asked yo,J.
to go thro:;.gh the checklist ag-‘3.in , a “‘.ln. ·,m wen’; through item by item this time . McDivltt
bi.11-:k to the beg-Lrming checkl i.st , the EgL·ess Prepa’:.‘ati:>n Checklist .
We started at the
top 0111; , and we dU. every step on it again . We verified e ve ry s tep to make s1u·e ,rn hr-tdn ’ t left an;rthi—ig out . WhL te
We actually went in d check8d t hi s time .
Another thi ng ,m ha<ii’i’ t r eally positively
check9d was the posi tio11 of all the locks on all
of the hose i.ne ts and o•J. t.l ,~ ts .
This time ·,,e
ac t ually chi,ckd .<J.11 those lockd .
W<:‘t’e
Al 1 of them
locked in , but it was a good t hing to do,
I believe . McDivitt
You want to rnakA sure .
We di:i d o ou:r Suit
h-tegi.‘ity Check hefor,~ we started a ll this stuff .
Wo.ite
That ’ s rigbt .
We started before we actually went
to the unstowing of the stuff from the righthand a f t fo od bo:x.
We went
GOr~Fl0EN-ltAL
to the S:1i t
eo~+F-10-EN.TJAL
97
It1 ~2gt’-i. ty Check . McD:ivitt
Well , I don ’ t know ‘tihere it is , but we did it when we were s 111)posed to d·::> it .
McDivitt
We did the .&lit I ntegrity
heck befo:ce we
started the .Egt•e ss Pr~paration 0he.-;klist . That ’ s when ·,.e did it , over the States . White
I think we d-Ld thA.t just about the t .ime you decided to give up on the booster . Suit
In~egTi.t;y Check .
We di1 the
Both suits checkHd ::>ut
all right . I t we nt up to 8.5 and it leaked do~ to about 8 . 3 Qr som,,thing l i.kH that . McDivitt
Same thing with mine .
It went up to 8. 5 and
laak1—?d down ju:1t a little bit .
Not enough
to ~e concerned about . White
No .
Oh , one thing that we d id do on that extra
orbit that w~ went around — I discon_~ected the .0epress 0ystem 1ind we Wf.: mt back nn the-McDi vitt
Oh , yes .
We never e ·.ren got on the .;·_e press
system, di.d we? White
Yes , I be lieve w•~ were , but then we turned it off .
We w~re already to depressurize and then
wcj wimt back on the spacecraft ECS system, full,
and ~ent through and reverified the whole checklist again .
The onl y thi 1gs that I would
(;6)N.f-lDENTIM
•
98 I
say we h~dn t done to ffi3” sati.sfacti.,_.,n t”le fi.r;;t time ,1as t:J check the inlet an<l 011tlet positions o f the locks , and I didn ’ t have my tho?rmal
gloves on . McDivitt
It turnAd out I didn ’ t need them .
Also , d 1r.i11g this pe.clod of timr-i 1 R..l i.ned. tht, pL1tfor1n, ;.rh.i.ch war. ~onpl ~ tely in .i. s:i1 i.nP.d .
It
w:.:1s probably alined within a c-:iuple d,=1g1.-ees , but as we went a-r.ou:‘1d in Orbit Rate it g0t farthP.C’ anrt farther 0;1-’; of tol?r-:in.~e .
m:uvv~d ·to a 1 .i.1e the pl-:i.tfo.rra.
So , I
Here agllin , I
m.i..ght com,1.mt on the fan t that ou:::- in i ti,9.l
flight plan was so optimistic that it was
almoat unbelievable .
The both o~ ua wurk~d full
time :>n doing r 10 tn; ‘lg ex•)ept pc,~par.ine for EVA,
aJ1.11 we dldn ’ t quite gHt thA job done .
I ca11 ’ t
believe that we could ·‘lA.ve poss ibly flown f o:-mation w:i. th the booster and taken pictures of it and all the other thi ‘lgs t:i.at we had
and even comH close to compl-? ting it . White
Well , the way we wo11ld h’3.ve had to do it, would have been witho11t a checklist .
I would h~va had
to just go ahead :.md 1:>ok cverything •..p .
I
think tl’J could 111-w-3 do,w it satisfact)rily l-i
C~~ftDEN-l+AL
EONfl0ENTIAL
99
this manner , but it wouldn ’ t have been the way we would have wanted it . McDivitt
Yes, that ’ s right .
I don’t think that ’ s the
way it should be done .
It was just too bad
that we had a time limit on it , but when we did get rid of the booster, or the booster no longer became a part of the flight plan , then the time limit vanished.
We found out that we
really needed that extra orbit, or probably could have used another 20 minutes. White
Yes.
We went back.
And I remember as we came
over Carnarvon, we had about a 15 minute chat back and forth- kind of a rest period .
We
were all hooked up at that time , and that ’ s the time we went on the ~epress flow, ready for the depressurization .
I think they gave us a GO
then for our EVA. McDivitt
That ’ s right .
We depressurized the cabin and
got down to 2 psi to check our blood pressure . We tried to put our blood pressure plugs in the blood pressure plug port and found out that we didn’t have any blood pressure plugs on e ither- suits .
This was quite a surpri se .
unpleasant one , I might add .
An
Well , we dec i ded
100
that from our past experience and our knowledge of the suit that even if we did spring a leak in the blood pressure cuff the size hole that we had in the suit would not be catastrophic , and we decided to go ahead with the EVA. White
It was within the·capability of the syst em we were using.
McDivitt
At Carnarvon we not onl y got the go- ahead to start t he depressurazation , we also got the goahead to open up the hatch , the go- ahead that we weren ’ t supposed to get until Hawaii .
So ,
we went ahead and did that .
- .______ White
Yes .
I ’ m kind of curious of the whole time .
were out nearly an orbit , I think .
We
We didn ’ t
get it closed back again till we got back around to Carnarvon . McDivitt
We were in a whole orbit depressurized .
White
Yes , I don ’ t think people quite realize that .
McDivitt
We ’ ll remind them .
As we got to the hatch
opening t hi ng , we had our first difficulties with the hatch .
The gain gear , I guess you want
to call it—actually I call it the ratchet didn ’ t want to engage into the UNLOCK position .
101
We fooled with it a f ew times a~d it f inally engaged in t he UID.iOCK position , and Ed was able to go ahead and start . White
The first indication of trouble was when I unstowed the handle to open the hatch .
The
handle free ly moved up and dovm with no tension on it at all .
I knew righ t away where the
trouble was .
It was up in that little spring
on the gain pawl .
So , I went up and manipulated
it back and forth in hopes that I could break the lubrication loose in the spring to get it to work.
We must have spent several minutes
with t he hatch.
I thought perhaps it might
have been stuck in the manner that the hatch got stuck
in t he Wet MOc k , where it just was stuck.
You could ratchet it open , but the hatch itself wouldn ’ t open.
It was pretty apparent the trouble
was in the gain pawl .
I jimmied it back and
for t h, and then I decided to go ahead and try the technique of actuating it in sequence with the hatch handle .
If you actually replaced
the operation of the spring with mechanically moving the gain pawl up and down, you can do the same work that the spring does .
EONFtDENTIA~
102
McDivitt
Your fingers sort of take the place of the spring and drive this l ittle pawl home .
White
This is the first time we actually tried this in a suit .
It requires you to press up with
your left arm to get at the gain pawl, and at the same time hold yourself down .
And I think
l ater on t his was a source of some of our problems whi ch I brought out now so that we can find out later on.
I f e l t it start to engage ,
and start to ratche t the lugs out .
Jim also
verified that they were coming open.
I backed
them off , and I remember Jim saying “Ooop ! Not so fast !”, and at t hat time it popped .
The
hatch actually popped open , jumped open about
3 or 4 inches . McDivitt
I was expecting the hatch t o come open with a bang.
Although we had the cabin to vent and it
had bled on down to where there was nothing indicated on the Cabin Pressure Gage , we still really had the repress valve on.
He was
bleeding right into the spacecraft .
We never
got down to a vacuum and even though we had a cabin pressure of only a tenth of a psi , we spread it over t he entire area of that hatch,
OONFl0E~TV\L
103
and that puts a pretty good size forc e on it . I had a real tight hold on the hatch closing device , and when it popped open I was able to snub it . White
It didn ’ t really open with much force , did it?
McDivitt
Well, it did.
It opened with a fai r amount .
It
popped and I couldn ’ t stop it the first inch
or so .
Then , of course , as soon as it opened
that much pressure bled off .
I just sort of
snubbed the thing to keep it from fly ing all the way open.
Now if I hadn ’ t been holding onto
it, I don ’ t think it would have gone open more than two or three feet . White
This is another point too .
There ’ s more force
on the hatch actuator than I thought .
I didn ’ t
just flip the door open with my hand .
I had to
actually forcibly push it open , similar to the forc e with which I opened the hatch laying on my back under one ti g II .
That ’ s about the force
that I had to put on the hatch to open it . McDivitt
This extra force that we are talking about is due to the 0-rings they put in the pyres that are used for jettisoning the hatch .
This is
something that they put in just before the
Ee-NFt0ENTIM.
OO~~FK:>fN—TIAL
104
flight .
Something that we ‘d gone out to the
spacecraft t o feel .
We knew just about wh at t he
force was , but it was pretty high . White
Okay.
At thi s time I had certain things that I
had to accomplish .
I had to mount the camera
on the back of the adapter , and mount t he umbilical guar d on the edge of t he door . I elected, as I had pl anned , to go ahead and mount the camera f irst and then the umbilical guard . I mounted the camera and it went on without too much difficulty.
The t hree little lugs on the
bottom are a good mounting scheme .
I think I
would make a littl e eas ier engaging device for working out in a hard suit .
I had familiarity
with it , and it did lock up there all right . The umbilical guard for the umbi lic al on the side of the door took me a little longer to mount .
Back to opening the hatch—I had the
thermal gloves on when we were opening t he hatch , and because of the fine work I had to do with the little gain and the drive lugs up there , I had to remove the thermal gloves so thtt I could actually actuate those small l evers.
I couldn ’ t do them with any precision
EOl’JFIDEN+JAL
G()NFIE>ENTIAt with my gloved hand .
105
So, I took the thermal
gloves off at this time and I handed them to Jim.
When I got back out I didn’t notice
any temperature extremes .
I felt quite confident
that there wouldn I t be any heat since we just came out of the dark side , so I decided to do the actual work in putting this equipment on with my plain pressure suit gloves . more feel with them .
Let me get back now to the
umbilical guard on the door . well .
I had much
I t went on pretty
It took me a little longer and it took
me four or five trys to get the little pin into the hole that actually snubbed the guard down on the door .
I did something then that I
hadn ’ t planned to do .
The bag had floated up
and out of the spacecraft and now it was above the point where the hose was going through the umbilical guard . inside .
I had planned to keep it down
I left it there for two reasons :
(1)
I figured it was there already and I would have had to take the umbilical cord off again and scooted it back down , and (2) I also felt that Jim might have had a better view if it wasn’t sitting right in front of him on the hose coming
CONflDENTIA~
106
up from th1~r ~press v ,1.lve . and leave the bag there .
I elect ed to go ahead I t hen reported to
Jim that I had everything all mounted and was ready to go .
I had planned to take a short
series of pictures.
Since we had gotten out
early, I had a little extra time at this time , so I went ahead and turned the outside EVA camera on .
I took a short sequence of pictures
that actually gives the egress up out of the
seat .
I kind of went back down and came out
again so they would get an actual picture of it , and then I turned the camera off again . I mounted the camera and I turned it on while it was on the mount .
I took a short sequence when
I asked Jim to hand me my l eft thermal glove , which he did .
I put the thermal glove on while
the camera was running.
I t urned back around .
I wanted to be sure the camera was off , so I took it off the mount and I turned the camera off and actually visually took a look to see if the switch was off. McDivitt
Did you lmock it off one time? said the camera f ell off .
GO MF tf}ENftA L
I thought you
107
€0tt<tFIDENTIA-6 White
By golly , I did . times .
So I must of mounted it four
That ’ s right , I knocked it off one time
during this time when I was out there .
I got
the picture of the egress , and then I asked you t o hand me the gun . wasn ’ t running.
At th is t i me the camera
I had the glove on my l eft
hand , and I went ahead and t ook t he gun and made sure that it was ready to go.
I had the
camer a on at that time and the val ve was on .
I
checked the valve to be sure it was on and I was essent iall y ready to go .
I don ’ t know how
l ong this took , but it took me longer than I thought .
We had had early egress and it wasn ’ t
too much bef ore I got the GO t hat I was ready to leave the spacecraft . McDivitt
I ’ m not sur e whether we got that GO from Hawaii or Guaymas .
I sort of suspect that we
got that GO f r om Hawaii , not Guaymas as we had originally planned . White
Well , it sure seemed short from the time I was mounting all t hat stuff out there to the time you told me go.
McDivitt
That ’ s right .
I ’ m sure we were talking to
Hawaii , and they said you ’ re clear to proceed
-ee·NFI0EN1=·1Ab.
108
with EVA. White
And that ’ s when I went .
I bet we went out at
Hawaii . McDivitt
I think we went out at Hawaii.
White
I delayed from the time you gave just a minute , long enough to actuate the camera on the outside .
This was kind of interesting.
When I
actuated that camera, I had D\Y gun tied to my arm with the tether . right .
It floated freely to my
I turned back around and turned the switch
ON on the camera, and listened and made sure the thing was running. and put it down. the film.
I knew it was running,
I think you ‘ll see t his on
I wanted to be sure it was running
when I mounted it back there .
I actually took
it off and turned it on, and I remember it jiggling up and down when I was trying to stick it on there . film .
It ought to be a funny looking
And it might even show the gun floating
beside me as I was mounting it . you said, “Slow down. hot . ” on.
That ’ s when
You ’ re getting awfully
I was working pretty hard to get that I mounted the camera again and this is
where I tried to actually maneuver right out
109
of the spacecraft .
I knew right away as soon as
I got u~I felt even before - - that the technique of holding on to the bar in the spacecraft and sticking a finger in the RCS thruster wasn ’ t going to wor k .
I mentioned that to Jim before -
that I didn ’ t think I would be able to do it . McDivitt
I think that you and I both knew how you were going to do, and ever-sbody else was planning for us how we were going to do it , but without any real experience in it. People. who didn I t know a lot about it were planning this sequence a~d it wasn ’ t the way it should have been .
White
I couldn ’ t have done that . hands .
I didn ’ t have three
I couldn ’ t hold the gun and put a
finger in the RCS nozzle , and hold the handle at the same t.ime .
I thought it would be more
d~sira.bl:’; anyhow to actually depart the space craft with no ·.re locity, other than that imparted by the gun.
This is exactly what I did .
I
thought t hat I was free of the spacecraft , and I fired the gun.
I real’i.zed that my legs were
still dragging a little bit on the side of the seat , so I pulled myself out until I could see that my feet 1vere actual l’•’ on!; 0f the
CSl>,lflQEDlllA I
110
spacecraft .
I think you called me and said I
was out of the spacecraft . McDivitt
I called and told you that you wer e cl,3n.r . That ’ s right .
White
And that ’ s when I started firing the gw:i a”ld
actally prpelled myself under the influence
of the gun .
I don ’ t believe I ga ve any input
into the spacecraf”t whm1 t 1,3ft that t Lne , did I? McDivit t
No , you left as clea,1 as a whistle .
White
Later on , I gave you some pre tty big ones .
McDivitt
You were relly boun0ing aroud then .
White
Now at the tjme, J l ef t entire ly under the influence of the gun avid it 0arried me right straight oat, a little higher tha”l I wanted to go .
I wanted to ma:.~euver over to your side ,
but I maneuv•;r~d out of the spacecraft and forward ru1d pBrhaps a little higher· than I wanted to be.
When I got out; to whst I estimate
as p~obablyone- half or two-thirds the way out on the tether, I was out past the nose of ·t’ne spacec:::-clf t .
I started a yaw to the left with
the gun and that ’ s when I reported th~t the gun r 8al1J worked quite well.
I believe that I
•
I
111
~ONFl01:~TtAT stopped that yaw, and I started t .1.·a.nsla:b.• back toward the spacecraft .
1-”’
It was either on
this translation or t~‘1P. one following this that I got into a bit of a combination of a pi·tcl-i
roll and the yaw together .
I felt that I could
have corrected it , but I knew tha. t i.t ww.~d h av0 ta.-<e.‘1 mor,-: f…i.el than I had wanted to expend with
the gun , so I gave a little tug Jn the tether and came back in.
This is the first experience
I had with tether dynamics and it brought me right back to where I did not want to be .
It
brought me right bak on the top of the spce
craft , by the adapter section.
Jim was
calling me and said that I was out of his sight . I told him that I was all right , that I was up above the spacecraft , I looked down and I could see attitude thrusters firing , littl-~ white puffs out o~ each o~e .
I wasn I t very close .
They looked j ust like what Chamberlain ’ s report told us .
It looked just like about a foot and
a half or maybe 2 feet of plume from the space craft and certainly didn I t look omin-.11H.~ to me at all .
In fact it looked kind of like the
spacecraft was r eally alive and working down
<;.eN·FtDENTfA-t,.
CDr ◄ FIDiNI IAJ..
112
there .
I knew Jim was doing his job holding
attitude for me . McDivitt
Let me comment on the attitude- holding right now.
Initially we started out in blunt-end
forward. banked to the left about 30 degrees or so .
This happened to be the attitude we were
in .
We wanted to be bl u:~t- end- forward for the
sun . and they told me it didn ’ t make any difference what attitude that we were in when we opened up the hatch .
We had originally
planned on opening the hatch toward the ground . I was CRlled by some station that said it didn’t make any difference what attitude I was in when I opened the hatch .
We opened
the hatch .
We
opened it in that particular attitude, and I held the attLtude for the f irst portion of the time that Ed was out .
When you had th” gun you
managed to stay reasonably well out in front . I held the sp~cecraft essentially stationary with respect to the local horizontal .
After
yvJ. ran out of f uel in the gun yo’J. were on top of the spacecraft all of the tim~ .
I felt that
unless you really had to have the thing stablized , to maintain your S•?nse of balance or
EO~~FIBf~TiAL
CO~◄ FH:>·EN’fl7’L
113
whatever you want to 8all it, I wouldn’t fire the thrusters . White
You asked that already wnen I was out .
McDivitt
Yes .
I asked you if you needed it and you said
no .
So , then I felt it would be better not
to fire the thrusters , because you were drifting back up over the co~kpit . were going up over us .
I could see that you
I couldn ’ t see back
behind me , but I could see by the motions that you had when you went by me that yuu were going to continue on .
I felt th~t it would be a lot
safer if we just let the spacecraft drift unless it got into very high rates .
I fired the
jets a couple of times just to bo~k ,:,.ft the rates .
I let it start drifting when y0u got
on the tether so tha~ you wouldn 1 t get back there on top of one of those thrusters when I fired them .
From abou-: the time? you ran out of
fuel until you got back in I didn 1 t do mu-:::h attitude controlling.
I did some .
Everytime
the rates got up pretty high, I 1 d knock them off .
You were able to ma…~euver around the
spacecraft when the spacecraft itself had rates of say plus or minus • 2 degrees/second in a
<;9·M’FID ENTIAl
114
couple of the axes at the same time .
Here again
before the flight we discussed the axis system. Ed selected the spacecraft as his axis system. It didn ’ t a:;:>pear that he was having a bit of
trouble with i t .
He was maneuvaring with
respect to it , regar,lless of what the earth , sun , moon , a~d stars were doing .
It was
pretty ob\·i,..,us to me th:l.t was exactly what he was doing . White
Well , when I came back the firs t tims to ·~he spacecraft with the gu-:r— I had used the tether to bring me back— I did go back up on the adapter area. happened .
This is the first time it had
I said , “All right .
back out again.”
I ’ m ~omL’1g
This is one of the most
impressive uses of the gun that I had .
I
started back out with that gun, and I decided that I would fire a pretty good burst too .
I
started back out with that g.m , a.d I literally
f lew with the gun right down along the edge of
the spacecraft , right out to the front o the
nose , a..‘1d out past the end of the nose .
I then
actually stopped myself with the gun .
Tha t was
easier than I thought .
I must have been fairly
tD~L
•
115
fortunate , because I must have f ired it right thro..igh my CG.
I stopped out there and , if my
memory serves me right , this is where I tried a couple of yaw maneuvers .
I tried a couple
of yaw and a co:..1.ple of pitch maneuvers , and then I started firing the gun to come back in .
I
think this was the time that the gun r an out . And I waa actually able to stop myself with it out there that second -’;:irne too .
The longest
fi r ing time that I put on the gun was the one that I used to start over the door s up by the adi=tpter section .
I started back out then .
I
probably fired it for a one second burst or something like that . time .
I used small burst all the
You could put a little burst in and the
response was t r emendous .
You could start a
slow yaw or a slow pitch .
It seemed to be a
rather efficient way to operate .
I would have
liked to have had a thre~ f oot bottle out there- the bigger the better. control .
It w~s quite easy to
I f eel that with the gun there would
be no dif ficul ty in maneuvering back to t he a.ft end of the spacecr:eif+ , and r.h;.s was exac tly what I did later oi-1 , j u st on the tether .
COff)EN”FIA
I got
116
CONEJDtNI-l~ all the way back.
So , I ran ou~ of air with
the g~n ani I reported this to Jim .
I didn ’ t
attempt to take al}Y p-Lotures while I was aotually maneuvering with the gun .
The
techniq·.1e th;,.t I used with the gun W 3.S tne te:.!h.aiq 1e ~hat we developed on the air- bearing
I kept my left hand out to the side,
platform.
and the gun as close to my cente::- of grcrri ty as I could .
I think l;hat the training I had ,)n
the air- bearing tables was very representative , especially in yaw and pitch .
I felt quite
confident with the g.m in yaw a:u pitch , but I f elt a little l ess confident in roll .
I f elt
that I would have to use too mich of my fuel .
I f elt that it wo~ld be a little more difficult to control and. I didn ’ t ,,,ant to use my fuel to take out my roll combination with the yaw . We divided our plan so tha.t I would havd a part of it on the ma.YJ.euver and a part of it on the tether .
I don’t know how far along we were
whP.n the gun ran out . McDivitt
Right on schedule when the gun ran out .
We
planned f ollr minutes for the gun port ion of it . We were just abQut on schedule .
GeN FID ENTIA-l
..CE>-NFIDENTl~ l:White
117
I bet we used a little more than four , because I think we came out earlier th’ll1 we thought .
Mc Divitt
No , I sta~ted the event timer to time it .
White
Well, this is where m:r control difficulty began .
I
As soon as my gun ran out I wasn t
able to control myself the way I co-..1ld with the gun .
With that gun , I coi.lld decide to go
to a part of a spacecraft and very confidently go .
I think right no·,. that .1. wish that I ha:i
given Jim t he gun ,u1d taken t he camera off , Nov, I was working on taking some pict.1res
and “lorking on the tethe:r dynamics . realized what was wrong.
I immediately
I realized that our
tether was mounted on a pl ane ohlique .to the angle in which I wanted to translate .
I
remem·i:cL’ i’.c-•.1::n our air-bea:::-ing work that every·time you got at an angle from the perpendicula-:7 where yom.· tether wafl r:iounted , it gave yo.1 a nice a::-cing trajectory back in t he opposite direction.
You I re actuall y like a weight on
the end of a str ing.
If you push out in one
direc;tion , and you ’ re at 911 angle fron ~he perpendicular , when you reach the end of a tether , it neatly sends you in a long ar.c ba:k
e6NFIDENrlAc—
118
in ~he opposite dir ection.
Each time this arc
carried me right back to the top of the ad.9,ptec- , to th~ i;np ,.:;(’ 1,;he s_pa~e(;raft , in fact toward the adapter section.
One time I w11s so
close to the t hrusters back there that I called • . J :i.;n
I s,:u.•d , “Don I t f ire . a.nymor:; . ti , b eca.use
I was right on the thrusters .
I was even
closer than that f oot and a hal f wh.ich I had noted to be tne leng!;1:1 of the thz-uster plumes , and I didn ’ t want to sit on a firing thruster .
°CONFIDENT’IAL
119
White
We were discussing the EVA and I was si:1.ying that I spent approximately 70 percent of my time , it seemed , trying to get out of the area back a:1ove the spacecr aft in the adapter area .
McDivitt
Yes , you intended to go toward the position that was directly over the cockpit . passed it beca.11,•11~ y ::n
White
W1’l ce
You always arced
coming from the front .
This was exa~ t ly rig’•rl. because that ’ s exac Uy wher e my tether was connected .
Chris had been
very emphatic that he wanted me to stay out of this area , and I had agreed to stay out of there . I tell you , I was doing my level best to keep out but the tether dynamics just put me back there all the time . McDivi tt
Let me inter ject something here.
When we were
talking about the control modes and how we were going to control the spacecraft , we decided on the Pulse Mode rather than the Horizon Scan Mode , or anything like th..,t . Mode
would
leave
The Horizon Scan
me free to use both hands to
take pictures of you and that way I wouldn ’ t have had to control the spacecraft .
CONFl0EN-‘flAL~
But since it
120
was an automatic mode and it fired whenever it felt like firing. It didn’t give us any flexibil ity, and . this is why I felt that the best mode to be in was Pulse , in case you did get back there . White
That ’ s exactly what happened .
McDivitt
I didn’t have to worry about the thruster going off in your face .
I didn’t want the thrust ers
to fire and they didn’t fire because I didn’t touch t hem . It was a wise choice . White
I think this was good .
When you look at it
f r om a picture-taking viewpoint , it gave a wider spectrum of pictures.
You got different
views of the earth and the horizon .
I ’ m glad
we weren ‘t held to a specific mode .
McDivitt
I think that the picture we did take or the attitude that we started out , which is shown i n the newspaper , is just about right .
McDivitt
I guess we banked over to the right, I don ’ t know.
White
That must have been just as I came out .
McDivitt
I don’t remember, but it had enough of the ground in the background so that it was certainly
COFTDENTL
ce,Ff>ENsrlAL
121
worthwhile. White
On one of my passes back to the adapter area I got so far back that I was about 3 or 4 feet from the adapter separation plane, perpendicular to it .
It was rather jagged .
There did appear
to be some sharp edges but it really didn’t look very imposing to me . I took a picture of it . That’s one picture that I believe was good and should come out. McDivitt
The trouble is it was probably set on infinity and you were up about 5 feet .
White
No , I set the camera to about 15 feet or so .
It
might be a little fuzzy because it was too close. White
No, I didn ’ t see the far side of the adapter . didn’t go all the way around .
It
I think I could
have pushed off and gotten back that far. McDivitt
No .
Better to s t ay away from it.
White
Well, I felt that if I got going I could h~ve swung all the way around and had my umbilical right on the edge, without anything to hold on to or any gun to control myself.
This didn’t seem
like it was at all safe and I had told Chris that I wouldn ’ t go behind the craft. back there .
-e(:)‘Nf
ro ENrttrt
So I didn ’ t go
122
McDivitt
That must have bee~ just about the time I told you to come back in .
White
No, I would estimate this was about two-thirds of the way and about this time I was after pictures.
I knew this was a part of the flight plan that I had, in my mind , fulfilled satisfactorilly.
So
I tried to get some pictures and this is where I really impar ted some velocities, trying to get away from the spacecraft into a position so I
could take a picture.
I went out to the end of
my tether cord quite a few times doing this . I seemed like every time I would be completely 180 degrees to the spacecraft .
I’d have
beautiful views of the ground but I couldn ’ t see the spacecraft.
It was a definite mistake
to mount the camera on the gun .
That made it
very difficult to use the camera .
I had to
point not only the camera but the gun with the long thrusters mounted out on the little arms. I ‘d want to take a picture of an object like t he spacecraft, • and there were too many loos~ items to get tangled up
in and block the camera .
know my tie-down strap was floating loose .
I I
had left that out intentionally so that I could
-CONFIBENf-1-M
123
get it later on anytime I had to pull my helmet down .
Occasionally when I got in close to the
spacecraft, the bag and strings associated ..,,-; th the bag were tangling up around the vicinity of the gun and the camera .
And it seemed like
the umbilical was right in front of the camera all the time .
So , I think the pictures will
verify that I was flicking my right arm quite a bit in the l atter part of the flight , trying to clear things out from in front of it to get a picture .
Whenever I was in a position to get a
picture it seemed like I was facing away from the spacecraft .
I took a couple of shots in desper
ation and I think I might have gotten a piece of the spacecr aft . I was after .
But I never got the picture that
I wanted to get a picture of Jim
sitting in that spacecr aft, through the open hatch , with the whole spacecraft . didn ’ t get that .
I know that I
In fact, as time went on I
realized that I wasn ’ t going to get much of a picture .
I was trying everything I knew to get
out there and get stabilized so that I could turn around and get a good picture . do this .
I just couldn’t
This was at the time when I was looking
~F-tDEN+IAL
124 a little into the tether dy,1amics , and I actually kicked off from the spacecraft pretty hard . remember Jim saying,
I
“Hey, you’re imparting 2
degrees/second rotational velocity to the space craft when you depart . ”
I was pushing the space
craft quite vigorously .
I wanted to push off at
an angle of about 30 to 40 degrees to the surface of the spacecraft ,
And anytime I pushed off from
the surface of the spacecraft , my main ve locity was perpendicular to the surface .
It shot me
straight out perpendicular to where the tether was attached .
Again , this wasn’ t in the position
that Jim could take a picture of me, and it wasn’t too good a position for myself .
I usually ended
up facing away from the spacecraft . McDivitt
Let me interject something here .
In desperation
I took the Hasselblad camera and stuck
it over
out through :Ed’s open hatch , and asked him if he could see the camera and if he could tell me which way to point it.
He couldn ’ t see the
camera so he never really did tell me which way to point it . White
No .
This was the time that ~rou said ,
in front of my windo;,.· .”
“Hey, get
It just so happened that
co~~FtDENTl:AL
125
I was right up close to the spacecraft and that’s when I came over. over
Do you remember me coming
and actually looking about a foot from your
window, Jim? McDivitt
Yes .
White
Looking right at you.
McDivitt
Yes, I think that was the time the movie camera wasn’t going and I was fooling around with it , trying to make sure that it was running .
White
Oh, that woul d have been a very interesting picture.
McDivitt
I’m not sure it was going, Ed ,
~ecause, as you
know, we had so much trouble making the left hand one run .
We had that t rouble throughout
the remainder of the flight.
You pushed a
switch over and it seemed to run so:netimes, but sometimes it wouldn’t.
I kept worrying about
whether or not it was running so, I would grab a hold of it to see if I could feel it clicking over.
I switched the ON-OFF switch on a couple
of times to make sure I could tell the change in the feel of it.
I’m afraid this time is one of
the times that I didn’t have the camera going, because I was trying to make sure that it was
!eeNFl0ENTIAb—
c»Ot\JFID l:t’4TIAL
126
going .
I ’ m not positive .
I hope I got :,he
picture but I ’ m not sure about it. White
That was the time that I came right in , and I couldn ’ t have been more than a foo t from your window , looking in .
I could actual ly see you
sitting there . McDivitt
That ‘s pr;.,bab ly :,..-hen you put a mark on my window .
White
I think the way I did that—I could actually see you in there and I pushed away with :ny hands a litt le bit .
I think this was t he time t hat eHher
my arm or my shoulder contacted the upper part of your window and you called me a “dirty dog” because I had messed your window up .
You know ,
as you look back in retrospect , I wish you ’ d handed me a kleenex and I wish I’d cleaned up the outside of those two windows . I think we could have done it . McDivitt
Yes.
We’d have never gotten to the kleenex at
t hat time , but I think we might have done some thing about it . Whi te
I think I might have but we might have smeared them so irrepairably that it might have — .
McDivitt
That ’ s r ieht .
When you looked a t that wi ndow
of mine from the inside while the sun was shining
CO~~f1f}fI~TrAL
C-O ►~FIDENll. A b.
127
it looked like it was a black paint smear, such as if you I d take a piece of v:hi te linoleum and a black rubber soled shoe and made a mark on the linoleum .
It had that kind of consistency.
It was absolutely opaque .
Just as black as it
could be . White
Yes, I could tell .
When i hit it I could see
from the outside that it turned white . McDivitt
It tu~ned black from the inside.
White
From the outside it was white.
McDivitt
From the inside it was black.
When I got the
thing turned aro—.md a different way with the sun on it , it was perfectly clear as if you had taken the coating off , and
what I ;.•as
seeing was through a perfectly clear surface.
So ,
I don ’ t know really whether the thing was black, that you placed something on the window that would make it blac~ or whether you ’ d taken something off that was very white , very thin . White
I smeared the film that was on your window.
I ‘m
quite confident that is what happened. McDivitt
I looked at our spacecraft windows after they got it onboard, and I could still see that little hunk of window.
It looks to me like wh•1t
128
COt’4FIDE~l·l1ttyou did was remove a layer off the window, rat her than put something on it. it .
You took something off
Except I can’t possibly imagine why it was
so black and opaque with the sun shining on it at certain angles . White
I’d like to comment on the ease of operation outside on a tether .
If you’ve ever tried to
hang on the outside of a water tower , or about an 8- foot diameter tree , you can visualize the problem I had out there .
The decision to leave
the hatch open was probably one of the very best ~:1at we made .
I had nothing outside the space
craft to stabilize myself on. anything to hold
There just isn ’ t
onto . I think Jim will
remember one time when I t r ied to hook my fingers in the RCS thrusters .
I think Jim could
see because- - . McDivitt
I could see .
Whi te
I was right out in front of Jim I s windo•,.r .
This
gave me really not hing particularly to hold ,):nto. I t didn’t stabilize me at all .
I had nothing
really to hold onto, and so if you have ever tried to grasp an 8- foot diameter tree and shinny up it , you know the kind of feeling that I had
-‘ZO~<J FtDEf’<lflAt
-
~ONFIDEN+IAl.-
129
outside there.
There just ,rasn’ t anything for me
to hold onto.
One thing though that I ’ ll say
very emphatically- - there wasn’t any tendency to recontact the spacecraft in anything but very gentle contacts . conta~ts.
I made some q·,.ite interesting
I made one that I recall on the
bottomside of the right door in which
of rolled around.
I had kind
I actually c8ntacted the bottom
of the spacecraft with my back and the back of my head .
I wa.1 f aced away fror., the r..ipacecraft and I
just drifted right up against it and just very lightly contacted it.
I rebounded off.
As long
as the pushoffs are slow there just isn ’ t any tendency to get in an uncontrol lable attitude . McDivitt
It seemed Fd did hit it pretty hard at one time. I think that was after he pushed off violently; he went out and it seemed he came back and bashed it pretty hard .
I remember a pretty solid thump .
It seemed it was over the right hand hatch or just right behind—. White
I know a couple
of times I kicked off with my
feet , and I think I k~ow the time you are talking about.
I came in with my foot .
the contact with myself—.
CONFIDENTIAl-
It wasn ’ t so much
130
McDivitt
What did you do?
Whi te
I conta cted and pushed with my foot .
McDivitt
I heard a big thump and I think I cal l ed you at
Contact and pushoff?
this time t o take it easy. White
I believe that was on the fro~t end of the R & R Section on my side where yo’.l couldn’t see me .
McDivitt
It was a position that I couldn’t see.
White
One of the pictures that I saw last night in the movies , I think , was made at t hat time .
I was
coming in fair ly rapidly and I wanted to get back out, so I kicked off again with my foot fairly hard .
It was a vary good kick .
I felt th:3,,t
I.
certainly could have controlled myself without the gun out there if I had just some type of very insignificant hand-holds or someth.i.ng that I could have held on to .
I believe that I
could have gone on back to the adapters with a minimum of several hand-holds to go back ➔;he re, going from one to the other.
I was actua,.1:r
looki ng for some type of himd-holdi: out th0re . I remember that the only one that I saw was the stub antenna on the nose of the spacecraft .
I
could see the ceramic covering ()Ver it, I believe it was ceramic , or some kind of covering o,ar it .
,,CQ.N-FIE>fNll’M .
131
McDivitt
Yes, it ’ s white.
White
I felt that this wasn ’ t quite the thing to grab onto , this was at the ti~e when I want ed to get out at about 10 or 12 feet directly in front of the spacecraft.
I certainly had the urge to hang
onto the antenna and push myself out.
But I
didn’t and ther e really wasn’t anything to hold onto .
You really need somethine to stabilize
yourself. McDivitt
I worked around the open hatch .
Let me ask you a question?
How about putting
the hand-hold inside of the nose cone?
A fairing
is up there for launch , just the fairing.We could mount a hand-hold right inside. White
I
think we could have rea’lly made som,~ money if
we had had an attachment for the tether out there right on the nose o.f the spacecraft. McDivitt
Strong the tether out there and then attached there?
White
Right .
Rave a seoond attach point and put it
right out there.
It would give you something
to hold onto out there. McDivitt
Yes .
White
There wasn’t anything to hold onto o~ the R & R Section.
..-::eeNFIDENTIAI:-
CO t>~ ~IDE NTt,AcL,
132
McDivitt
I know it .
White
It had smooth corners and the only thing I could have grabbed was the a 1ten1a , a:id I didn ’ t want to grasp that .
we tho·.1ght one ti:..e of holding
oa out there and th:usting , but— .
McDivit t
There isn ’ t anything to hold onto .
I think you
pt’obc>.bly co’.lld have gotten a hold on the antenn’3.
and held onto it witho~t hQrting it .
I examined
it pretty closely before the 1-3.‘mch , and i t look ed pce~ty sturdy . White
I thought this was somet hing we needed and I didn ‘t want to fool wi th it .
McDivitt
As it turned out we really needed that antenna be~ause that was the antenna thu.t we used the whJle flight - -that stub antenna in the nose .
W’n ite
Yes .
McDivitt
When we opened up the spa~ecraft the hatch came open with a bang.
The air that wa had inside
was obviously of great er pressure tha’:1 that o:1t sitle , and we had a great outflow of t hings inclu ding a piece of foam that we had used to pack our tnA.neuvering gun in it ’ s box .
It was the first
thing t hat we put in o=bit .
But then throughout
the time thit Ed was out, he wanted the doJr wide
CO ► ~FIE>ENTIAL
133 open.
It was pretty obvious that the flow was
from the spacecraft to the outside because part way through his maneuvers his glove floated out and floated away from the spacecraft wi th area sonably good relative velocity .
The entire time
he was out , even after we h.’.l.d the hatch open fo~ 20 to 25 minutes, we were still getting particles floating out thxough the hatch .
It was the flow.
The streamlines were very obvious.
It was from
inside the spacecraft to the outside.
I guess
the spacecraft was out-gassing at a sufficient rate to cause a reasonably large pressu.re differ ential from inside to outside , and it was cer tainly relieving itself.
I noticed this even as
we were trying to get the hatch ~losed .
There
was still a flow from inside to outside. White
Okay.
I think that pretty well covers most of
the things that we actually did while I was out there. McDivitt
Now , as for getting back in—.
White
Yes, let’s go all the way back thxough and come back in .
The time r eally did go faet!
I had
watches with :ne, but I dii:a ’ t look at them . McDivitt
I was watching the time.
1’f)N·FIDENTIA~
I noticed my watch
134 around 4 minutes and 6 mi.nutes and 8 minutes . And t’ .en you got involved in floating 1:3,ro’.l.Yld as we were t rying to get that last pict,\u’e . White
The tim,a really flew!
McDivitt
You kept getting behi.nd me all the t ime and I became distracted from ;he t ime we were on VOX, co’llpletely blocking out the g rou.‘ld .
Our VOX must
have been triggered constantly , be::::ause whenever we were on it they coul::l:o ’ t tra.‘lsmi t to us.
Whi te
That ’ s where the time got away from me .
McDivitt
That ’ s right , and it was 15 minutes and 40 sec onds when I looked at my clock.
So , I th::>‘.lght
that I had better g::> to the ground. the ground ,
I said to
“Do you ha-.re any ,rn,ssage for us? 11
because I knew it was time to get back in. th-9y just sai:i , “Yes . White
Right .
And
Get back in ! ”
I remember hea ring Gus say,” Yes, get
him back in ! ” McDivitt
This is what all the fuss was about .
They
might have been transmitting to us to get back in hut we ware on VOX a.-id couldn’ t hear a t hing . White
I did a few things after this time that I wasn ’ t d·::>ing to deliberately stay out .
Bc1t I was
deliberately t r ying to do one last thing .
I was
135
C-oNflD fz.NllAL t r yi ng to get that last pi cture .
And this was
one of a couple of times that I kicked off the spacecraft really har.d, to get out to the cmd ·‘:l’!: the tether.
And [ wasn 1 t successful in g~tting
t he positi on so t hat I couli get a picture.
I
fe l t this was the one part of the mission that I had:1 1 t completed.
Everything else was successful
and I wanted very badly to get that picture from outside .
I spent a moment or so doing this.
This was also the period of tie in which I
called down to Jim ad said, “I ’ m actually walking o~ top of the spacecra.ft. 11
I took the tether
heU onto it, and ui:ied it as a device to pull me down to the spacecraft.
I walked from about
where the angle starts to break be+ section and the ca~in secti’:ln.
·“l the nose
I walked from there
~robably about two-thirds of the way up the cabin, avid it was really quite strenuo’.ls,
Could you see
me walking along , Jim? McDivitt
No , I couldn’t see but I could feel the thumping on the O’.ltside .
White
That ’ s when 1 got to la11ghing so hard.
This was
when Jim \•tas sa,ying to com,, in. McDivitt
Yes , I think this is when T got a little ster n
136
and said, “Get in here! ” White
When I w,3,s •t1’:il king on the •:,op and w,3,3 .l:3.1.,5·!1ing , Jim pr:.>bably did·:1 1 t think I th:mgh t he wa.s s erious .
But i t was a very funny sensation .
Now
as far as delayi:ig , there were ce::::-tain things that I ha1 to do befo~e I came in .
And there
wasn ’ t anything in the world that was going to hurPy me up in do:l.ng the;n .
We had just agr eed
that we’d do things in a slow manner and this is the way we ’ d do it . McDivitt
Let me talk about the tine here.
It is implied
in the ~apers that Ed didn ’ t really wa”lt to come ba.ck in , and didn ’ t .
I think one of the things
is that we didn’t hear .
We didn ’ t have any
t ransmis s ions fr om the ground after he step~ed outside until I went off VOX at 15 : 4) .
They
said , “Come back in . ”, an:l I told him to come back in .
I think that he pt•obably del q,yed .~’::>out
a minute or t w? minutes . W’:lite
I thi nk so , trying to get the pictures .
McDivitt
And at that t imn I got a little i t-ritated a..“ld
hollered at Ed , too .
Th,~n he started back in.
White
But whe~ I came baJk 1 had things to do .
McDivitt
Yes .
I k-1ow it .
That ‘s what I ’ m t rying to say
COt<tFIDE~+~Al
137
to get tfuis t hing in its proper perspective. White
Yes.
McDivitt
We were 3 minutes 40 seconds late getting started back in because we just lost track of the tine. I couldn’t see Ed any longer.
I was trying to
keep t rack of what he was doing without being able to see, and I lost track of time .
Then I
think he del ayed p·: obably a _ni:mte o.!’ a :nbnte and a half before he started back in . White
That ’ s right.
McDivitt
So , those are the two delays. We ‘d agreed on that he’d start back in after 12 min:1tes .
Fro!ll then on all the time was spent
J.ist trying to g,~t back in. White
I had certain things to d-., .
I hail to disassemble
the camera that was on the spacecraft . this very slowly.
I did
I had to dis,::011J1eot the elect
rical connection to it and hand the camera back in to Jim.
Then 1 had to go out and disconnect
the umbilical, and this really went pretty well. The little tether that I had them put on the ring , a pull ring, to disco:n:.~ect the pii worked pretty well.
I disconnected the umbilical and discarded
the umbilical cord.
EO~~FIDENl~l>.L ..
138
McDivitt
That was the last th.ing Ed put into orbit .
White
Right .
I put that L:1 o~bit.
Earlier , it was
r eal ly quite a sensation to see the glove float ing off .
I asked Jim a few 1.nin.ltes before about
thf~ glova , “.>r Jim had asked me, this other glove? ”
“ne:v , do you want
About a minute 1-9.t e r, I saw
it gQ floating o’.lt of the hatch . McD.ivi tt
All I can say, Fil , war,, about a half hou.’..’ 13.ter I was sure t hankful that we had g’)tte!1 r id of so:ne thing .
We had s·:i much other junk that we didn ’ t
want . I saw t he glove come fioating r)at of the righ > hand hatch , and it was a perfect ly c lear picture of t~ glo·,e as it floated out .
It floated ::mt
over my right shouLler arnl t1ut - -it l:ioked 1 ike i t waG on a defL’li te trajecto:r-y going somewhere . I don’t know where it was going .
It floated very
smartly out of -i:he :Jpa:~ecraft and ,:mt i. n-~o s pace . McD:ivitt
White
I thi n~-< this ha:l. a lot to do ·11ith t hat C’lt- gas sing .
There was a definite stream- -.
Yes .
It was following the s tream:..ine riht :m
of i:he sp~1i::ecraft . McD:ivi t t
It went oat perpendicular to thP spacecraft ,
‘~01\tffl,·l:NTt;~r
139 whichever direction that is . White
Back to getti’lg bade L°l the 3pacecraft- -I hc:l,d the one thermal glove o~ the on~:aand , my left hand .
I always wanted my right hand to be free to op erate that g,m a—id the camera .
The way the cam-
era was mow1ted on there, I had to use both h9.nds - one hand to actually stabilize it with the glll1 and the other ha.;1d to cea.ch over.
Again, I think
dynamics plyed a little bit of a role there .
Everytime I brought my hand in from a position
ou on my left, it tended to tur.n me a. little
bit, which is exactly what we found happened on
the air-bearing tables.
I think that the camera
should have been velcroed to my body somewhere and used independently of the gun. McDivitt
Yes .
I g 1)t that same impression .
I got the
impression that what you reall y should have d•:me was—. White
Dropped the gun.
McDivitt
Unhooked the camera out there floating around and j.1st throW!‘l the g,m away.
I don’t think you
ever should have tried to bring it back. White
Well , what I should have done was fold the g~n and handed it to y◊u,
C~l’JFlDENTI.AL
CO i’<I FIf)EMlt:itt
140
McD:ivitt
That would ·:iave ·j ‘.l St taken longer .
It wo’.l.ld
have taken precious seco::ids out of the very few thA.t we had anyway .
I th i.nk y0u sho’..lld ha•re
j 1st unhook.~d it and throW!‘t the g’1fl ::;,w:~y .
White
This was probably the thing that I was most irritated with not completing.
I dii.1 ’ t .feel the
pictu.ces were satisfactory with the can,~ra out side.
But I think the reason was that my camera
was not in a position so 1 could use it adeqciat ely .
But coming back in was the last thing .
As
a matter-of-fact , before I dismounted the movie camera A-nd dismounted the urnb ~lic:,,1, I folded th,, gi.ln .
White
I took the l::;,nyard off with the camera on it, and handed Jim the gun and the camera .
McDj_vitt
A.11d I stuck it d:,wn between my legs .
White
Tha t was thfi first thing that I handed in .
Then
I handed in the 16 mm -~am•=ra , and then I threvt away the umbilical . s l;,,u· ~..::.1.
Thls wa8 where the fun
I f1)11nd it wa.r:i ::;, 1 ) t mo:-::-e difficult
coming b.3.ck in tha.::i I had :remembered in the zero g training .
It seemed like I was contacting both
sides of the hatch at the same time , much firmer than I had in the zero—g ai cplane .
co~~FIOENflAl
141 McD.ivi tt
You mean you were hitting the hatch o~ one side and the hatch opening on the other side.
White
Coming back in, I was contating the side of the
spacecraft o both sides .
McDivitt
Yes, that ‘s right.
McDivitt
Yo•.l weren’t really hitting the hatch on both sid,=.is, you were ht t ting the hatch opening on both sides.
White
Yes.
I felt a
I was coming down through there.
much fit’mer attachment wedging in there than I ‘d remembered from the zero-g training.
I think
this might be associated with the extr a 7/10 or 8/10 pound of pressurization on thf.l suit.
just mi 6 ht have been a little fatter.
I
I did
notice that the suit was a little harder.
I felt
this type of suit before during my pre-work, so this wasn’t a su£p=ise to me at all .
But I did
feel like I was a little fatter getting in and wedged a little tighter. McDivitt
I really don’t think Ed was ari:y fatter.
I think
that link in the suit holds the suit to whatever volume it’s going to go to.
And I don ’ t th’ink
a couple psi are going—.
White
Well, I felt like I was hitting a little more as
tOfqfl0Et ◄ TIAL
142
I came in . McDivitt
Yes.
I think what happe:.e::1 ·,ms he was stiffer ,
and he wa.sn’ t bending his legs and his arms ai:1y . White
You mean with the harder suit I was stiffer?
McDivitt
Harder .
And your. arms were stiffe:::- a nd yo’J.weren’t
bending
them
around as much .
It looked a lot
more rigid. White
This mig~ ~ hav,3 been .
Mc:Divitt
Not semi-rigi.:i—Ei w:3.s rigid .
White
All r ight .
McDivitt
And that looked to me like i t might have been tht,
This might have been .
prob l3m . Wnite
ThL, might have been part of the recontact 0::1 the side of t;’.,e spacecraft that I noticed .
But
as I came back in, I noti-:::ed that I had to work a little harder , and I hoped the tape was running· because I think we had a very good commentary . We were both talk ing very clearly bal)k a’ld forth to ea-:::h ot~~er during this time and I w~s telling Jim that I was go:‘..ng”to com-3 in slow because it waf-1 a little tought;r than t ha.:i tho 1ght .
We ·-’•=re
talking back and forth ab.::mt being slow and tak-· ing it easy . McDivitt
I actually helped pu:,h ~ down in there .
€01’4FIDE~~TIM
I d,,n ’ t
143 know whether he felt it or not in that suit . Whi t e
No , I couldn’t.
McDivltt
I reached over and I steered his leg::i do,m in , and I sort o f got hi.n settled b the seat a l ittle better than what he was getting himself .
White
Yes.
Right.
I was kind of free wheeli~g my feet
up there.
McDivi tt
Yes .
It looked to me like Ed was holding o~ to
the top of the open part of the hatch and j~st swiveling around that pa-rt.
It looked like he
didn ’ t have enough mobility and strength in his arms to actually t wist his body down against the f orce of the suit into the seat. White
After awh.Lle, I reached my left arm u.nderaeath, the same techniq~e we had used in the zero-g training, and actually I had my hands all over the • ci rc1xi t breakers.
McDivitt
Yes.
White
Yes, and I pulled myself do·..m in and that ’ s when
Ed was a real hazard to the switches.
I really started coming .Ln—when 1 gut hold. of the underneath stde of that circuit breaker pane l and p~lled myself in.
That’s when my first real
progress was made toward actually getting d:>wn in . McD:i.vitt
Because, while I co1.1ld steer Ekl from where I was
—CONFIDE~
144
(:OFlDENTlL
I really didn ’ t have the strength to pull him in .
McDivitt
It was ’;)0 degreea to the ·,my that he t:‘ea.l. ly wanted to be pulling .
I co’.lld steer .
I did do
a lj .,tle bit of pushing , but n::>t a heck of a lot .
I w:as>1 1 t really contributing rn,wh to the effort t her.e e x-~ept- - . were guiding me down into t he fcotwells .
White
You
McDivitt
Yes . That was aoout it .
White
B’J.t once I got my hand,, 11p 11:1dernP-ath the irrntcu
ment panel , I was back pre tty well in familiar groun:is—the work that we ’ d done five dnen times in the zero-g air.pla,He , and I kJ1ew the tecMi.que pretty well. McDivit t
10 0::)0 tim,~s !
White does check pretty …,ell .
White
I really did it a lot;.
Maybe the suit wa,3
stiffer , or maybe I was .fatter , b:.it I wasn ’ t
going in quite as easy as I had b efore—getting
into the initial positio:1 to pull myself dow1
ino the seat .
So it took ma a 1ittle longe.t:’ .
I f you recall , I had to go back o’.lt again one t ime .
I got back do•,1a and started to wedge my
self d::>wn anrl I got t wo fat cr-:1inps at the bot toms of my thi.gha in both legs , whe re the muscles star ted to bal l up a little .
cer<lFrDENT11’L
145 McDivltt
Oh?
Did you. get it in your. thighs o:’:.’ calves?
Whi.te
Bo-th of thP. muscles in the back of my thighs balled up in a ball and I thought , “Well, I have to go back out and l et them straighten up .”
So, I straightened my legs out . McD:i.vitt
We had that problem before in the zero•-g air plane.
White
This is the time Jim said, “Hey while you’ re up, why don’t you throw the vlsor out?”
I
hesitated a minute because I thought, “Well, you son-of-a-buck, you might have problems here. You might have to be spending an orbit or so trylng to get in.” McDivitt
No , as a matter of fat , I don ’ t think tht is
when you did th.row it out .
I think you threw
it out when you ca.me back dow~ and you started to close the hatch.
You were having trouble,
It wouldn’t close, and you said , “I’m going to have to take this visor off so that I can see these things.”
And I said, “Listen, if we get
this thing closed we’re not going to open it again . White
Throw the visor away.”
That ’ s right.
That was when I got the cramps ,
went back up again and then I came back down
CQ N fff)ENTtA L
146 again , and said , “Hey, I can ’ t see them .
I ‘m
going t.o have to take the v•; .~or off.” McD:ivitt
No ,
J
t was a little bit 19.ter than that .
¥0’.l
ha:l all ready started to try to close it and you
were having difficulty 0losing .it . White
Let I s get
Okay .
in .
thP. sequr-mce out .
We came dowi1
I got up to st ~aighten my legs a little
bi. t , went back up , then I came back riown- - . McD:i.vltt
- -with all yot1r. equipment on— .
Whi t e
I hadn ‘t hel d the handle yet, had I?
McDivitt
No .
White
So I got back d ’.)wn into posi ti’.)n- -.
McDivitt
-wi th all yo~~ eq’.lipment o 9.rld pulled the
You ha:ln ’ t done a thing with it.
hatch down. White
The hatch was dO\v.‘1 far enough to close at th i.s time .
M0Divitt
I thought i.t was.
White
I did. , too .
I felt it was d::r,m far e:1:>‘.lgh .
I
can tell by looking right straight d:>1,m at the edge—. McD:ivi tt
Yes .
I can tell by looki’lg ,111 llndernP.ath the
r ight - ha.’:1d side to see where the dogs are. Whi.te
Okay.
So I tho’.lgh t the hatch Has doW!l far
enough to close at that time .
CQ~lfif)·l:NflAL
I reached up and
147
got the handle , but I don’-c k11ow what I said to you . McDivltt
You didn’t say anything .
I do~ ’ t know whether
you said anything to me or not , bu”’:. you didn ’ t have to sa~ anything to me .
I saw you move
that ha..“‘ldle and I saw how easy it was going and I saw that the dogs were~ ’ t moving. White
I thLnk I said somethL’lg. I said .
I don ’ t re1nember w:hat
But I said something anrl you knew
right away what had happened . McDivltt
You didn’t say a word.
I waB watchi.’.l.g the dogs
and that lever a“‘ld I krle•,1 what the trouble was . White
Right .
So I guess that ’ s when I sai d , “I ’ m
going to ha·,re to take the visor off because I can’t see.”
And then we went back up and J i m
said, “Well, we’re not going to open the hatch again .
Why don ’ t
you thro·,1 the visor out .”
I
hesitated for a mir’l.ute to throw it out because I thought that we might have a pt’obl em. McDivltt
Actually , we had a little more difficulty than we had explained .
We fooled around for a min
ue or two or mwbe even th:=ee or four with the
handle.
It was pretty apparent to us that we
weren ’ t going to get the hatch closed with nor-
eQtqFtDfNTIAb
COl<IFIE)Et ◄ TIAl
148
mal st-rai.gh~ - for ward techniques , and tha~ 1ve were g0ing to have to s t art going to ot’·er t hings . Whi.le we say that we came d::>wn and mo·,ed the handle once or t wice , it was oYer about a three or four rnin11te period , at l east . White
The orinal meth::>d of closing the hatch is for me
to coe d::>wi.1 and
wedg➔
~yself down , hold onto
the llttle canvas handle up t~ere , a.”1d ,c1.ctL1ally aJply a <iownward fo::-ce on t he hatch to he lp close
it .
Then with my right hand I use the hatch
handl e to retche t the hatch down . This is no:”..‘mal ly .:>ur techniq·.1e we wollld alway::; use , and !:ever i n t he past , has Jim had to help mo: with t he hatch closing device . this tl!lle .
Thi.;, ·11as’.l.’ t the c>:3.se
As so-::>n as I ha:i go-l;ten np ~here to
operate the ga in lever, I coldn ’ t opeate the
canvas handle anymore .
I co~li n ‘t apply any
torque O’.”..’ pull there beca,1se— . McD:iv.itt
N-::>t only that, b:.it you were actually pushi.ng yourself u p off the seat .
And I ‘m not sure
that even the firs t ti .ne that WE; had the hatch closed far enough . far eno•..igh .
It looked li.ke it was closed
As a ms.tter of fac t , later on when
we got it down to that posit:ion it looked li.ke it
.
149 was closed fine.
It really wasn ’ t closed far
enough because you never did get those dogs out until we - - . Whi t e
No, the dogs came out, Jim, the first time 1 got torque o~ it.
Those dogs started out, then it
closed. McDivitt
Did they?
Okay.
White
Yes.
McDi vitt
It looked t :J me like we did, and I couldn’t
I think we had it down f~r enough.
unde~stand why they weren’t coming out .
I knew
that the :oo.tchet wasn’t engaged, but I got the impressiJn tha t i t was from watching your hand when you came down one time.
You had the ·ratchet
engaged and the littletit pin that sticks in the doer that doesn’t allow things to come closed wasn ’ t there. White
No, the. ratchet wasn’t engaged. There was nothing on the handle at all. free.
It was free, completely
The s:ituation hadn’t changed at all.
Another thing I’d like to point o·.lt now, too , was the chest pack was in the way of bringing the handle down to a full-crank position. wanted definit ely
And I
to do this because you can
interrupt the sequence of the dogs if you don ’ t
150
fully stroke the ha“‘l.dle each ti.maL White
\Je went back up so that I could “ictually see a”ld observe the levers .
This was the time Jim sa..id
to th.row the visor o·.1t because w,~ pr:)ba.bly would n ’ t o_pe’!1 th1, hatch aga.i.n , onca w,3 g8t it closed . And this see~ed like very goo1 so:md advice to me .
The o:’:1.ly thing I was a little q·.1esti::m1ible
abou ~ 1,1a::; that
‘it
this ti.mt, I ha.ii the inkling
in my mind that we ight spend quite a bit of
time g’:tt i ng this hatch closed , and I mi.gh·
want t he visor when 1 was back out ~ i1 j·1. .
B’..lt
I thoilght the judgmfmt to t hro·11 the v ls’.:>r out was best and I threw it 0’.1t —opaned the door
abo’..lt a foot and a half and thr.ew the vlsor out .
The next t ime we canlf? back dow:1, I was s t ill
having the l i ttle bit of p:oblem with the cramps,
but not -9arly the probl:=:m 1 wa’9 having with the
gain lever .
McDivi tt
One superseded the o LheT.
White
That ’ s right .
0~1e p.::-oblem became of much higher
m:agnitude tha!l the other .
So this was the t ime
that we started ·Norki ng .
I k.”lew what I hai. to d-J .
I k new I had to work the gai n lever in sequP.nce
with the han1le again , juAt like e had wen we
~ONFTDENf1AL
151 opened it .
We both had a..“l inklirig that this was
going to happen when we opened it the first time . But this posed the problem of when I reached up with my left arm to work the gain lever. takes a great deal :>f force .
It
This isn ’ tthe direct
io:2 that the suit is designed to reach in .
And
it tak~s a great deal of force to lift your arms up in the vicinity of your helmet to operate something there.
In so doing it pulled me back
up :)Ut of the seat .
An1 I think this is the time
that Jim noticed that I was up higher than I had ever been before, and he actual ly felt that my helmet was up against the hatch.
I tend to agree
that I was up in that posi t ·i on. McDivitt
Yes .
I actually pulled Ed 1own in the seat by
pulling on the—. White
I think so.
McDivitt
I did it in steps. cooe down.
I’d pull down and 3d woul-i
Then I’d pull some more , he’d ~ome
down some more. White
I was actually pushing up with my left hand and IJl.Y helmet was wedged right up against the hA.tch. I had a little bit of area in which they actually see t he dogs that I was working with up there .
-co~~FID[i’~rt,\L
152
McDivitt
You could see them though?
White
Yes, I could see them .
At least I coul:1 3ee what
positions they were in .
I could see the little
lever operating unde-r the spring:…_where I was
actually operating the spring on the gin leve-r.
This is where I think we grJt some very good team
wrk, because it was neces sary that Jim pull
do·tJn in conjunctio-:-i with the time that I pulled
down on the c,1osing handle and Jperated the
ga:i.n l ~ver .
I just hope that the tape worked
because I can rem~mber I was in there .
Jim was
talking to me , and. then when it came to ~he point when we really had to make the big pull I felt a little torque on the handle .
I knew that we had
it at that time if we co:.ild only get the hatch down ,;lose enough so that the dogs W’)uld engage . And I ca..~ remember giving the old—I think I was yelling HEAVE! HE.LIVE!
Is th13.t what I was yelling.’
McDivltt
I think so .
White
.And tt was in perfect ti1d.,1ig, because I could see
Jim or I could see the hatch come don each time
that I was yelling IE.AVE !
I think i t was
probably the mast— . McD.ivitt
The most int eresting mome!‘lt of the flight.
0 ’~~‘F—{;)ENA-ittb
.,.
153
White
Yes . It was the most interesting moment of the flight , but I think i. t was probably the m::.H,t , if you wan~ to say, draimitic. right word . dramatjc
I don 1 t know the
But it was probably the most
moment of my life.
seco:i.ds we spent t’ight there . l~tching.
About those 30 The dogs started
I co~ld feel them going in, and then
I could feel them co~e over dead-center .
Jim
called out that the dogs were in . McDivitt
I knew that once we got them moving we’d be all right .
White
Yes , once they started coming in .
As long as
we got those dogs to engage , with the little lever that permitted them to come out and l~ck, I knew that we hn.d it hacked . McDivitt
Yes .
So did I.
Even i f
e “ould ‘tave had to
reenter with the hatch in that position, we 1 d have been all right.
I don 1 t thi.nk that the
heat leaks were that tremendous. Whi i;P
I knew we could continue and dog it on in all the way.
It seems like whenever you know you’re
right on something, you want to be darn sure that they fix it. mind then.
This was going through my
And I remembered that I felt I was
154
right in that the bar and the attachment on that bar and lanyard were not strong enough .
I re
membered that and I knew how hard you were pul ling on that thing.
I t hink , if nothing else,
they ought to :Je sure .
How many times did we
break that attachment at the bar? McDivitt
We br oke the attachm~:mt ab od; three or four t imes on the zero-g airplane.
Everytime they kept
telling us it wasn’t made out of the right kind of stuff and the st~ff we were going to have in the spacecraft would be the right material. it didn’t break in the spacecraft .
~•‘ell ,
Just co in
cidently, or maybe because we both had doubts about the strength of that particular piece . The same thing crossed through my mind .
I was
thinking t hat the success or failure of this hatch closure depends on whether this hatch closing device s t ays hooked onto t hat spacecraft and doesn ’ t break offo White
We would have been flat out of luck!
McDivitt
We would have been in deep trouble !
I ‘m not sure
we woul dn ’ t have been able to get the hatch closed, because we had put that canvas strap on t here and I might have been able to pull you
~rbENIIAt
155
down that way.
But I had about all the pull I
had in me on that last-White
I know you did .
McDivitt
—on that last thing and I had a lot of mechanical advantage over it.
When we went to that canvas
strap we would have had to go with no mechanical advantage.
As a matter of fact, a mechanical
disadvantage. White
This is one thing that didn’t fail, but I recommend that it be made stronger.
McDivitt
Stronger anywny!
Whi te
I think so .
McDivitt
For nothing else than a psychological purpose .
Whi te
Right.
I’d like to take the spacecraft now and
see if I could break it, because I had the feeling that I never had been confident that that • attachment nor the bar nor the lanyard were strong enough. McDivitt
When I say I was really pulling as strong as I could, I really had some pull left in me, but I guess what I should have said is that I was pulling about as hard as I dared pull at the time. I guess I could have pulled another few pounds, but I hated to apply more than was needed on
~CYEFTTTAT there because of the lack of confidence in the strength of it. White
Everything I had was in it over there .
I was
pulling down with my legs as hard as I could and operating .
I was pulling on the handle .
I
remember one< time you said , “Hey don ’ t pull on that handle so hard ! McDivitt
You’re going to break it! ”
I was cautioning you to take it easy, which you don’t usually have to do.
White
This was when we were yelling HEAVE!
I was
heaving on the handle as I was pulling it down each time .
It felt like to me that the handle
was giving .
But I didn’t give a darn!
broke, it was going to break.
If it
So o:“.e of the
points we learned out of this was we’d like to see the bar and lanyard strengthened. White
Let me say one thing about the decision to go ahead and open up the latch .
I f we hadn ’ t done so
much work together with this hatch and run t hrough just about every problem that we could possib l y have had , I would have decided to leave the hatch closed and skip the EVA when we first started having trouble with it .
We had encountered j , .st
every conceivable pr oblem that we could possibly
CONffDENl~
157 have with that hatch.
If it failed we’d know
exactly what it was. McDivitt
That ’ s right.
I personally had disassembled
this cylinder and piston and spring combination up at McDonald prior to the altitude chamber, so I knew exactly what it was made of.
I am sure
the problem was t hat the dry lubrication coag ulated, or whatever a dry lube does, and was causing the piston to stick. do this thing .
I knew how we could
Carl Stone and I
had dismantled
it and put it back together, cleaned it out, put it back together, relubricated it , put it back toget her, and i t operated fine.
I figured out
how to make the t hing work with it not working properly by using your finger as the spring. White
That ’ s the exact technique we had used.
McDivitt
I f we hadn’t had the training together that we had , and had not encountered all these problems before, I know darn well I would have decided not to open the hat ch.
Whi t e
Maybe we wound overdramatic about the effort we made getting me back i n, and I ‘ll honest ly say it ’ s one of the biggest efforts I ever made in my life, but I don’t think we were all done then .
CONFIE>ENTIAL
158
McDivitt
There were a lot of things we could do.
Whi t e
We could have gone around several orbits working on cl osing the hatch .
That wasn ’ t the last time
we were going to get a chance to close it .
So ,
there were things left if we understood , and ot her procedures we could have used to go ahead and close it .
When we got it cl osed back in , I
was completely soaked wasn ’ t I? McDivitt
Yes .
You were really bushed .
White
Swea t was j us t pouri ng down . hardl y see .
McDivitt
In fact , I could
It was in my eyes .
So I told you , “Just sit ther e and I ’ ll ge t a r epr ess .
Don ’ t even move for 30 minutes .”
I just left the r epress valve wher e it was .
I
closed the vent valve and we had a lot of in•• structions from the ground to close the water seal and e. A1ole bunch of other things that didn ‘t make any sense to me . was repres surizing.
I knew that the spacecraft I watched .
There wasn ’ t
anyt hing else ttat we had to do right then , and we were both bushed , especia lly Fd .
He was
perspir ‘.ng so that I could har dly see him inside the fact plate .
So , I just said ,“You sit there
and I ’ ll sit here and we’ll just coast around .
COl<IFIDEt•cFFi:A”l.
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When we get the thing repr essurized , we’ll start doing something.” did.
That was exactly what we
I did finally extend the HF antenna and t ry
to call somebody on HF and let them lmow that we were back in safely and that the t hing was re pressurizing .
I didn ’ t get any response until we
got to CE:.r “.arvo·1 , which was about three minutes l ater .
I called and told them that we were re
pressurizi ng and had the hatch closed. White
You lmow , that was some pretty good gage reading that we saw when we got the first 1/2 psi.
McDivitt
The first 1/2 psi.
Ha! Ha !
White
That was really a big one.
Since we ’ ve described
the whole operation we ‘d like to go back now and specifically point out the pieces of equip ment that we used and our opinions of them, a few · features that came out loud and clear to us i n operation, general conclusions on EVA as an operation, and what we have to 10 to make it an operational procedure.
So the first thing I ’ ll
do is go down through the equipment.
As an
overall comment on the equipment, I would say I fel t very confident the equipment i,:ould do the job.
And without question the equipment performed
160
ieeJI\JFID~NitAt 11.s it was <dvertised .
It performed just exactly
as it hsd been designed .
There wasn ’ t one thing
on t hem as f ar as the VCM , the umbi l ical, t he gloves , the gun , and the visor that didn ’ t perform just exactly as it had been designed . ·1. 1 11
take them all one piece at a time , and dis
cuss them a little . visor .
I ’ ll start right with the
The visor was a rather controver sial
piece of equipment from the begi nning .
And I,
for one , doubted a little bit t he necessity for quite the pr otection t hat we were providi ng , although I had helped right from the beginning in the design wi th some of our ideas on the viso~ It turned out though , and I commented on this during the t i me that I was out , that I was very happy to have the visor, I was able to look directly into the suniight .
1 did so in instal••
ling the camer a on t he back of the adapter .
I
felt that the vision out of the visor , was about as it would be on a normal sunn;,r day .
This is
because it is so br ight up there in space .
I
fe l t 2:>.s if my vision was what I would consider normal .
I was looking at the different parts
of the spacecraft and down at the ground , and
ctJtffibEM I IAt
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161
the view that I received at this time vas what I would expect on a normal sunny day.
I was cer
tainly glad to have the visor and I left it down throughout EVA .
I think on a later flight we
might recommend going ahead and lifting the visor and observing any changes we might see in visual acuity when looking down at the ground . the ground vision through the visor really didn’t seem to me to be degraded at all.
Eviden
tly just the intensity, and not what I was seeing, was cut down. McDivitt
Let me comment a little bit on that visor .
I
didn ’ t have a visor and the bright sunlight that was in the cockpit didn’t seem to bother me.
I
imagine that the visor turned out just like a pair of sunglasses.
You go outside on a normal
d~y and wear a pair of sunglasses .
If you
don ’ t have them , you ’ re squinting.
But if
you start out without them you tend to get accustomed to it.
I think I was accustomed to
what light there was coming through the space craft , admittedly much less than that outside. F,d was
accustomed to the sun visor and it turned
out just like two people with and without
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162
sunglasses.
They both could have adapted.
I
didn’t look into the bright sun straight ahead. White
Well, the first time I looked into the bright sun, the first thought I had was, “Boy!
Am I glad
I ‘ve got this vis::>r on!” McDivitt
I know you mentioned it on the radio.
White
—because I was looking right atraig-ht into sun.
the
I had to look into it t o attach the camera
onto the a:iapter section. wear sunglasses.
I d-:m’ t normally
As you know, Jim, I have never
worn sunglasses very much , and I didn’t n::>tice it from then on, through·~ the t Lme I was out. I hail n::> impulse whatever to lift my visor .
My
vision was a.s clear as I co·..i.ld have expected it to be without the visor.
There are a few design
points in the visor that we could make better and· I’ll briefly go into them
right now.
When you
are seated in the spacecraft one visor slips up
underneath the other ad back along the back of
your helmet, so tht instead of resting on your
helmet on the headrest you’re resting the visor
o~ the headrest.
that.
You certainly aon’t want to do
The visor should be restrained in some
manner from slipping up along the back of the
163
helmet.
Also, my visor was quite difficult for
me to raise and lower.
Once it was dowr
it fit
quite snugly, for which I was happy.
But it was
difficult for me to raise and lower.
It was
actually a two-handed operation, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t raise it outside; although, I had no impulse to raise it when I was outside.
I think that we might be able to design
them to be raised up and down more easily. McDivitt
Let me make a comment on that visor .
I never
did see any need for the little lexion visor . White
That’s exactly the point I was going to get to next.
I think that one single visor made as
close to the helmet liner as possible, p~oviding
the maximum amount of headroom and a minimum
amount of interference, is what we actually need.
I don ’ t believe we need that lexion outer visor.
As they pointed out to us, it doesn’t really
protect, because it bows in a.d it doesn’t
really give you the protection tht it should
be affording.
I would recommend one visor, one
sun visor only.
It’ll be simpler to operate .
McDivitt
I think so, too.
White
Okay.
The ·v;ntillation Control Module, I can say
CO ►~f JE>EN+IA..L
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164
without qualification, worked exactly as it was planned to work.
There was not one complaint
that I had with it. It provided me with the proper flow.
The flow was lass than with the
no.:-mal ECS suit system, but it was adequate to keep me cool and ventilated, except for two times during the flight.
Those times were when I
atta~hed the camera right before departing the spacecraft and reen t erdngthe spacecraft.
But
I think it performed without fault. White
The umbilical was another item that I thought performed its part of the flight quite well. had no complaints about it.
I
I did tend to get it
tangled up with the bag and the strings that were attached to the bag during EVA. White
I am very thankful that we decided to design the gloves in the manner in which we did, the two piece glove that was easily donned or doffed under pressurized conditions.
As it turned out,
I took them on and off twice while pressuri zed. I was quite happy that we had them designed in this manner.
As it turned out, the heat on t he
side of the spacecraft, or the cold on the side of the spacecraft when we ca.:ne out of the dark
COl<tFtOf:M’f lA’i.
1
65
side , were no t noticeable to the touch at all .
I
didn’t use a right hru1d thermal glove at any time during the flight .
I took it off w~en I was
opening the l’.e.tch and, as I pointed out earlier , it floated off during the EVA operation .
I didn ’ t
have opportunity to use it again if I had wanted to.
Coming back i n we had difficulty closing the
h~tch, and I , at this time , removed my left hand glove and used the plain pressure s-.1it gloves for this operation .
The press’.lre suit gloves
were comfortable .
In fact , there were no sen
sations of either hot or cold through my gloves . White
Th: gcU1 , I think , was an outstanding point in the flight, a highlight of the flight .
It
worked just as we had felt it would work and it was , I felt , simple to operate .
The training
t hat I had. on the air-bearing platform provided me adequate orientation in the use of the space gun .
I think that now that we have a little
more t ime to prepare ourselves for the next time we use this gun , t raining with it on zero-g flights would be appropriate .
I don ’ t believe
we wil l have any t rouble using it in the zero-g aircraft .
• COt«lf tf)[NTIAl
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, CONflDEffAt-
166
White
One mistake lhat we made o~ our E’fA equip~ent was the rno·.mting of the Co, tarex camercl. .
This
camera s):-iould h,•,ve been attached by velcro to Ill:) , s o that I could use it independently of the gun . It W’.)Uld have been easier for m,3 to us9 and I would have had a nnlch higher probability of getting satisfactory pictures with it .
It was a
case of lumping too mu~h together—vJtting tha g-~n and the camera together . White
The attachinAnt of the VCM to the hrness was
a good type of at tachment .
cone c’
It was easy to dis
Lhe two velcro attachments anti move
the che~t pack in and out .
I hai to do this
both when I opened the sp:1.cecraft hatch, so it
would clear the hatch handle , a,d I had to )ve
it out of the way when I c l osed the spacecraft
and pmp~d the hatch handle .
White
Now we can get into some concl usions .
While I
was out , I decided to put a piece of velcro strip on the side of the adapter to see if later on we might use this as a method for attaching i tern:, on tha outside of the spacecraft , if the velcro was still there and if it was in good shape .
I think
the velcro could be madeintoc.. very useful item for
co~~Fi0£N-l1Al-
167
a type of tether.
I think you m.i ght even be able
to do something alog the line of just having
some fenale velcro on the gloves and pieces of
the male velcro at points along th adapter .
This might provide us at least some attach:nents
so th~t we could maneuver o’.lrselves back to the
adapter sect.i.oP..
This wo’.lli be about the sim•
plest kind of handle that we could use .
I do
believe that we need some type of handles on the outside of the spacecraft .
Jim suggested one o~
the nose and in the cover on the R & R section up there .
I thi nk this is an area that we cer
tainly have a possibility of using . would have found it useful.
I certainly
I woul d still be a
little h~sitant, though , o.f breaking the antenna .
You wo’..lld want to be sure that this
wouldn’t be hroken during EVA .
I think the
feeling I had o’..lt there, again, was like holding onto an 8-foot tree .
There wasn’t any
thing to hold onto.
You definitely need some
kind of hand- holds .
The decision to leave the
hatch open was one of the best decisions that we made .
It provided me with a center of oper
ations for my work.
I was able to stabilize my-
€Ot ◄ FIDEN—lJAI
168
self by holding onto the hat ch.
It was also
surprising to me how much force it took to open the h.:i,tch the first time against the p·!‘eload and the actuaters , due to the seals.
One other very
good decision was to have me wear the heavy suit and Jim the light suit.
I think thi~ was one
of the thine-s that made our opera.tio;1. easier.
It
certainly m~de my getting back in the spacecraft a::1d Jim ‘s assista.1ce in closing the h;~tch much easier for him , in a“‘.ld out .
Hlso , I was handing him things
He was performing quite a bit
of coordination in the operation with pieces of equ.ipt1ent thA-t were going in ‘ind o·.1t of the spacecraft , and I l:>elieve t hat by being in that 1 ight s:.ii t he ·11as able to do this tni.1,::h easier than if he had been in a heavy suit . McDivitt
I might make a comment on that suit, too.
When
we opened up t he hatch we were in~ vacuum .
I
n::iticed that the temperature of thA suit dropped slightly so thci.t the suit was a little bit cooler inside .
I was w)ndering if I was going
to get too cold through the suit , but the rest of the time we were out the the temperature never changed .
I don ’ t remember looking ~t the s uit
169
inlet temperature, but the suit itself stayed reasonably warm.
I had sun in the cockpit and I
had the cockpit open w:i.thout the s1.m ii i it for a rel.:1.tively long period of time, four or five minutes at a time.
This didn’t seem to affect
my temperature inside the suit. White
I think you felt the temperature more than I did .
McDivitt
I felt the temperature go down , rather than up .
White
I felt that also while outside.
I would say
H was lery co::nfortable figu.re.
I figure that I
was probably at 68 degrees temperature out there inside the suit , which was cooler than I had been anytime during the flight .
It wasn’t
a cold feeling, just a very natural comfortable temperatnre . McDivitt
~uit inlet temperature was running about 55 degrees during most of the flight .
It got d•:>wn
around 52, s0 it probably might have even been cooler than yo’ir 68 . White
Wel l, it was cooler insi1e the suit when I was outsi:ie the spacecraft thn.n at any other time during the flight .
It wasn’t uncomfortably cool
there at all. White
I t hink that we can go on with some co::1clusions .
170
Some conclusions that I had were: 1.
I didn ’ t notice any extremely hot temperatures on the outside of the spacecraft .
I a l so
didn ’ t cotact surfaces for any period of
time to trasfer much in the way of a hea~
load to any part of my suit including the
gloYes .
2.
There I s a de.fi·-iite req-.ii rement for som(3 type
of hand holds outside the spacecraft .
- We should think a little more o~ where we want to operate during EVA and where to attach the tether .
The tether was not attached at
a po.int that wo·.1ld provide me the capability to operate in the area that I wanted to . McDivi tt
You coul dn’t get to the nose.
It p.i:-ovided great
operatio~ for directly above. White
Straight above.
McDivitt
I just don ’ t know how you would get the thing out there .
You would have to run it along the
spacecraft , then attach it somewhere at thfi
”
front . It would preclude operations in other areas.
You
would either have to accept ,,,here we a.re going to operate or— .
€0~4FIOENT+A L M.oDiv:itt
171
·::·ou conld have n::..lt iple attachment points around the spacecraft .
White
Of course , now , if you have a g-..m with a good air sour0e, I wouldn’t particularl y care where it was attached .
I thi.nk you could go ahead a..‘ld,
maneuver to a:ny point you want if you have a gun . Again, when you’re p~shing off of surfaces , you tend to go perpendicular to the surface from which you push off .
I found when I p·.lshed as
hard as I wanted to I’d still tend to go straight up above that hatch instead of ou t toward the fron ·~.
I think this is a fairly obvious con
clusion, but it proved out .
Everytime I pushed
off I went straight up instead of at an angle to the surface McDivitt
where I wanted to go .
So!lle thi.ag that you should bear in mind is that yo•.1 were pushing off fro!ll the front wh i.ch tended to make the front go down as you went out .
White
Yes.
Everything was working against getting
where I wanted to go.
Everything I did tended
to put me up. McDivitt
When you started you went in a straight li.ne forward and tended to p~sh the spacecraft down.
CO ►J Flf)fNf1M
172
I think , initially , where I was holding the attitude, yo’J. didn’t have that much trouble .
Of
course, you weren ’ t pushing 13.S hard ei·~her, be cause you had the gun . White
No , I wasn’t .
McDivitt
Later on , when we started free drifting, you
w,re bak behind m~J where I couldn ’ t see.
White
Did you feel me stomping around back on the adapter and hitting the adapter .
McDivi tt
We il, I felt you hitting things back behind me and once you went behind the line thEit was dir e ctly over’.,.ead the spacecraft.
l cottldn ’ t see
you t hrough your open hatch. White
I never reaEy had a good co.!ltact with the adapter back there .
McDivitt
Just as -:,.r,21 l .
We W’:r:.ildn ’ t want to disturb those •
radiator tubes too much . White
No,
Well, now that we ‘re back, we’ll have some
conclusions on the adapter area .
I made it a
point right from the beginning -o take
a look at the thermal lines , the thermal pint
on the adapter.
shape .
It looked like it was in good
It was all there.
There was discolor
ation arou.~d the attitude thrusters , particularly,
GONFIDEt>ilTIA!
173
from the thrusting.
The color of the thrusting
is just like the RCS thruating—nice and clear plume.
It looked lik~ from o~tside, thu”.lgh, that
I could see a lot more of the plume than I could when I w~s sitting inside the spacecraft looking out at the RCS thrusters firing.
Again, the
cam,era was not attached in a.n opportune ma.n’ler to operate. McDivitt
Which camera?
White
I’m really after that camera on the gun.
The camera on the spacecraft? That
one wasn’t attached gooa. The cam-era on the spacecraft was okay.
It was a
little difficult to attach because of the attach’Dent on the bottom of it .
You can’t have
it at any angle to make it engage.
It has to
be perfectly flat with the mounting plate on the bottom.
A big co:!1.clusion that I came to— and
I’ 11 see how you feel ab.:mt this one, Jim —I feel that storage in the back of the adapter section wa:s certainly a very high priority for l ater missio:!1.s .
I feel that we can adequately
store eq·.1ipment in the adapter area , particularly larger pieces of equipment that we don’t have room for in the crew station or pieces we don’t
co~~FIDENllAb-..
174
have particular use for in the early part of the flight .
If we ca~ lick the p~oblems in opening
and closing of the hatch, we can store equipment in the back of the adapter section as a routine operation . McDivitt
That ’ s right .
I think the extravehicul ar activ
ities have proved to other people what we all ready knew a long time ago—that ‘FNA is quite simple .
I think the thing we ’ ve got to iron out
is the hatch opening and closing. really our. problem.
This is
I don ’ t think you or I will
ever have any doubt about the extravehicular activity .
That was , I thought , going to be
pretty stra ightforward .
It looked like to me it
was pretty straightforward. White
I felt that I could operate equipment 01.1t there . I co,1ld assemble equipment .
I could put pins
in, pull pins o~t, and screw thLngs in. all these things during the flight.
I did
I tu.rn~d th.a
gun ::m , a::i.d I put i n the pin to operate the um
bilical guide .
I attachad the camera .
I don ’ t
think yo~ could do these operations very effect ively with big heavy gloves on .
Alth:>Ugh my
gloves oper ated satisfactorily, I think that for
CONFl0-Et+T-tAl-
175 assembly of i terns you wa.---it to have …—you ought to look into the glove area a little more thoro’.lg’hly anii try to get a piece of a glo-re ·,1ith so:ne type of a surface that will give us some heat protection and gives us a high sensitivlty of feel through it .
The big conclusions , the final
co~~lusions , that I ’ d like to draw are that EVA can be made a normal routine operation if the following modificatio~s are made to the space craft : 1.
The highest priority is that the spring back there on the gain lug has convicted itself and I don’t believe that that’s a good design. There should be s:>me way ths.t either the l ub ricatio:?1 is :nA.de foolproof or the spring mH.de stronger .
McDivitt
I think what we really want to say here is that the locking mechanism is inadequate as it is , compl etely inadequate .
Until i t is fixed , I
think we should take it easy. White
Th11.t 1 s right . m:,e
I think we almost had a bad experi
with ths.t gain thing .
of ti.me . not fixed .
We knew about it ahead
We thought we had it fixed, but it ’ s I think it convicted itself and it’s
,oMftOf:NllAL
176
guilty and it has -Lo be fixed. 2.
I recommend that at least the egress kit on the right of the crew compartment be remo·red to provide more room in the spacecraft . see no reason for it being in t here.
I
I think
it wo•.1ld be worth the effort a~d the ajdi tion-al money to p.rovlde the extra room .in the spacecraft.
So , my second recommendation ,::m
EVA is to remove the egress k.Lt, at least
from the right -hand side, to provide more head room . McDivitt
Yes, that ’ s good .
I might add that it ’ s a good
thi.ng that we had that egress kit modified- to the m:i.nimu.11 height , because without that we would have been in deep trouble. White
That’s right.
White
Yes .
You and I had been telling each other t hat
that was the biggest thing we did on our whole nine months prior to the f l ight- -to get that thing cut rlown .
I ·t 1.1ink it sure paid for itself
on ou:r. flight .
- My third item is to make the bar and lanyard completely foolproof in strength.
That was a
device that provided us with the added force
Get:Jf:IDENJ]A-1:-
07
COt~ft0ENftAL
177
we !leeded to close the hatch , just as we sat there and said we might need during the SAR of thfl spacecraft in St . Louis.
I think the
attachrnl’9nts of the bat’ and the cable to the
spacecraft shold probably be at least doubled
in strength , so there just isn ‘t any question
in the pilots’ minds or the engineers’ minds .
I guess the eng:ineers were co::winced that
you didn ’ t have Jim and I co!‘lvinced that those
tw attachme!lt points— .
McDivitt
We’ve seen it break too many times, I think .
White
We’ve broken the bar and we’ve broken that atta::)hn:ent point.
I ha::!. actually physically
twisted the attachmen t right off the spacecraft up in the zero-g airplane.
I certainly wouldn’t
have put my full strength into it if I knew my life depended on that attachment.
It should
be ma.de absolutely foolproof. McDivitt
Well , that was t l,‘.e point I was trying to make ea rlier when I said I was pulling as hard as I could .
Then I said that I really wasn ‘t
pulling as hard as I was capable of. White
You did:1 1 t have confidence in that attachment.
McDivitt
I didn’t really think that I shouln p~ll O!l it
€0NflDENitM
178
any harder . White
No .
I think that shouli be t he third recommen
dation and it should be corrected . McDivitt
I think we could spare a couple of extra po1.1.-.ida
of weight there , just for the pilots ’ peace of mind . White
That ‘s right .
Take the time it takes to put a
new attachment on there .
They told us they
d.idn ’ t want to do it beca~lse they ’ d have to re rig it .
I ·~hink t hey ’ d better re-rig it and take
the tim~ to put a good attachment o~ there.
- The final thing really doesn ’ t fit in with the first three recommendations , but I would sure like to have the opportllnity to use that gun 9gain with about a 10-times supply of oxy~n in a great big canister.
I think
that maybe this is one of the items wa could carry in the back of the aiapter.
We could
use a small supply to provide t ~e means to go back there to get a great big canister. Then we ’ d have a :mit that we co’.lld actually do s ome maneuveri ng with . McDivitt
That ’ s r ight .
I think that , in essence , we
proved the usef ulness of a self-stabilized or a
~OENflAl
eQN=F19-ENTIAL
179
man-stabilized maneuvering unit- White
Yes .
McDivitt
- -rather than o.na that is gyro- stabilized with automatic stability features.
I think that al
tho’.lgh you did·’.1 1 t burn up a lot of fuel , you certainly p~oved the feasibility of this type of ma.neuveri ng unit . Whi. te
We had a1 awfully small amcr.1i.‘1t .
We j..lst had the
6 feet/second-White
We p~oved , in my mind , that I had the capability to go .fr om Point A t::> Poi nt B with that mr1.neuver ing U.”lit .
McDivitt
Let me ask you thi8 question , a..“ld be ho::1est about it .
Would yo’.l detach yo’..lr tether and _go without
i.t? Don ’ t be too optimistic , because other people ’ s lives may depe::1d on it. White
I think that we probably have not done enough investigati on to do that at this time , but I fee l we are p:.:-ogr essing toward the point .
We
made the f irst , say 50 percent , of th~ step toward being able to detach the tether and go. I don ’ t believe that I wouli deta:::h the tether aJld 5 o ·,.ii.th that 6 feet/seco::1d— . McDivitt
Oh , no .
I didn’ t mea.”l t hat .
-,Qt\lFtDENflAb
I mean with that
180
type of a unit . White
If T had some more !:::,,V
in a U:‘lit like that I
think that I would be ,.:illi ng t o detach myself on the next fli.gh t , right n::>w , fr,Jm the space craft and go .
That ’ s com’bined with tw-) things,
you see . You h<1:ve two th.ings working f or you . You have the capability to maneuver yourself , and if you should get out of control the space craft still has the capability to come over a~d get close en::>‘.lgh so that you could get yo”.1.c-self baGk .Ln control and get in the spacecraft . White
I think that 40 or 50 feet/second would be a minim’.l.,n.
I hnd 6 and I ’ d like to see , pcobably,
a capability of about 10 times that .
_That may
be a li ttle— . McDi vitt
It ’ s diffi~ult.
I wo~ld think it would be
difficult to fix a number on it until you fi xed the jo’b . White
Yes .
McDivi tt
If you want;ed to go to som.-1thing that was 1::> feet g;way
and come back, you ’ d probably get by with
20 feet/second . White
If I wa-:1ted to get out of the spacecr aft and g •> a long to the back of the a:lapter and get in the
~ONftD ENTIAt
cor~FIDENTI QJ.,.
181
adapter without being attached to the space craft, I ’ d only need two or thr-ee time the a’.‘llount . McDivitt
I’d be happy co go with that .
There are some problems in th,~ capability to alin9 on,3 1 s self onto an object .
I think chasing
the booster around points this o~t.
You say you’d
be willing to go away becaur-Je the spacecraft can oome and g~t you .
Admittedly it can, but
kseping in mind the difficulty wa had with th9 booster .
I don ’ t really aniLpate us ever get
ting into the si tuat Lon like that beca~1se ;rou I d never get so far away that you’re in different orbits, like we were with the booster—. Whi.te
What I vis·,.1al i.ze is a 25 to 50 foot operation where you ’ re goL’lg ou.t to investigate ei-l:her a..“lot~1er spacecraft or another satellite up there, or making a trans.fer similar to the type of trans fer that we visualize as a backup mode for Apollo. I think with the gun I had , if tbc LEM and the Com mand Module were there , I’d be satisfi ed, .i,0 d9part the Command Module aJ.l.d maneuver LEM situated 10 t0 20 feet
Module. time.
over
to
the
away from the Comma·‘ld
I feel I coul::l io that at the present I d:m ’ t think it would be a very smart
-=cot~FH)ENT+Ab-
182
thing at the pcesent time to go m~neuvering off 200 to 300 feet away from the spacecraft with
this type of device.
I , think this device is
designed and has its greatest usefulness in close operation around the spacecraft . McDivitt
That ’ s right.
There is no need to maneuver off
about 4-00 or 50-0 feet away because if you want to go that far, use the spacecraft.
This gun
is for a close working job .
White
I think it’s a valuable tool in this manner.
McDivitt
Okay .
That’s the same conclusion I came to .
We’d be willing to do it at close range . White
I ’ d be willing to do it right now .
I might not
go tell somebody else to god~ it , but I ‘d be willing , with the training that I had with it , to transfer 15 or 20 feet without a te’Lher . But , I think we sho~ld spend mome more time ·..nth the gu..-i . McDivitt
I think so , too .
White
I also think it would be of value to go in the zero-g airplane with it .
McDivitt
Yes , I think so, too .
White
I think the work that we might do in the z.aro- g airplane doesn’t necessarily have to be done in
CONFI0El’<JTl~t
183
full regalia, with all the pressut’e s·.li ts i n a. press uri zed ~onditio:n.
I think we can go up
there and learn a lot abo”..lt the gun wi t ],.ou t pr essure suits on, in a plain flying suit type operation.
Perhaps polish the training off with
a 1 i t tle ·,1or k in press’.l:rized S .lits. 0
If yo”..l work
in the zero—g airplane with ‘:I. p:.-essurized su.Lt it ’ s pretty awkward . White
In pitch and yaw I felt I could maintain effect iv~ly zero rates.
I don ’ t k:no·.., how it looked to
you Jim, but it looked like I could establ ish a rate and take the rate out without too much trou’ol~. The yaw is the lowest moment o.f them all, Pitch was very easy, j”.l st to pitch the . th.ing ,1p and down .
I ’ m still a little suspicious of roll.
That’s the area that I wo”..lld like to look into a little more .
I think that yo”..l could get yo”..lrself
into a kind of balled up situation with pitch, roll, and yaw all coupled up.
It might take a
little bit of fuel to get yourself straightened back out again.
But just in translating from
Point A to Point B, you could care less if you rol l ed , as long as you kept pitch and yaw straight .
And that ’ s why I say I think you can
184
translate and correct pitch a.‘1d yaw -,rery succes.sfully and effectively forget about roll, just as we do .in our reentries or our retros. White
The questio~ is:
Was there any problem with the
g-..m of maintaining a fairly well stabilized at
titude and sti11 get my tra~sla.tion inP’.it?
I
did this actually three different times and this was what I had done when I was coming back to the spacecraft the last time .
I had to put in
both pitch and yaw and had ta..~en them out and I was coming back .
I was going to fire my last
thrust to·,mrd the spacecraft. burst.
I could feel a little bt’..rat and than
it petered out . in.
I got a little
B-:it you can put a tra.-isl.~tion
I was also srpised that I was able to stop
at the time I tried to stop it out there about one half or two-thirds of the way out on the end of the lanyard .
It seemed to stop pretty well.
It was
either the gun or the lanyard dampening me .
It
didn ’ t dampen me in roll, so I think it was the gun that actually did it. McDivitt
I think that this previous bunch of words just spoken covers a lot of de tail, of the firs t three or four orbits of our f l ight, and it covers
‘5FIDEN-lL
185
that first phase of mission sequen~es that I first mentioned . should do :;s
I think the
next thing we
go through the interim o~bits, about
50 or 55 , or hoever many there were, where we set
abo.1t to save up enough fuel to do soJ1ething con
structive, to check on our orbit to see what it
was, to see how we were d,3caying, what our life
time expecta’:lcy would be , and perform the exper
iments that we’d initial ly set out to do on ~ur
flight plan.
Although, it’s not going to be of
much use to go through it in a chronological ord.er , I suppose that is probably the bes t way. As I just finished saying, we’re not going to get a.‘1 awful lot 0 .1t of going thro·.1gh the flight 1
plan sequentially, but we’ll do it quickly and then we ’ ll co:ne back and discuss each experiment o~ operation, check as entity in itself, a”ld we’ll dis8uss the systems as an entity, too . We ’ ll do this, generally, in elapsed time . McDivitt
Going back to the EJVA for J.1s t one moment .
I’d
like to say that the use of the ma’111al heaters on ECS o bottle was abo’.lt two f ive-min1te periods 2 separated by about 10 min:.ites. We really did~1.’ t need an awful lot of ma.ni.lal heater when wa
186
eONF·roeNfl’At.’ were doing the extravehicular activity .
4.3 Other Orbital Operations McDivitt
Let’s see . One thing that we did was to turn off the ES Sensor at 6:35.
White
You have notes along here?
I got all the Rensor stuff down, I think , pretty well.
McDivitt
Okay ,
I have the ES Sensor and the Bio- Med
Recorder No. 1 going off at 6:35, McDivitt
At about 7 hours elapsed time, I checked the OAMS fuel remaining.
We had about 62 percent indicat
ed, 2100 psi, and 88 degrees t emperature .
We
kept getting our GO and NO GO checks as per flight plan. McDivitt
At about 7 : 30 Ed went to sleep.
We didn’t do any lifetime adjust maneuvers. turned the spectrometer-magnetometer on . was while Ed was asleep .
I
This
Extended the boom,
got the ES Sensor on, and we left the spectrometer- magnetometer on for three passes through the ~outh Atlantic Anamoly.
I couldn ’ t really see any
increase in the ammeter when we extended the thing.
We went through a number of extension
cycles throughout the flight to make sure that we got the thing out.
At no time during the
flight did we ever see a rise in the ammeter when
187
we extended it .
The way it operates is, it has
three positions:
EXTEND, OFF, and REI’RACT.
It
was in the OFF position and I put it to the EX Then I put it back to the OFF
TEND position . position.
Periodically, throughout 7-he flight
we put it to the EXTEND position and back to OFF to make sure that if it got screwed up the first time that it would go on out.
The first extension
was supposed to be with the spectrometer-magnetom eter on .
So , I checked to see the circuit
breakers were on , and they were on .
I turned
the spectrometer- magnetometer on and then I ex t ended the boom.
And in this way the experiment
ers hope to get some indication from the lines of force that they were picking up if the thing actually extended at that time .
I hope t hey got
it . White
Incidentally, you got a pretty good operat ion on the swizzle stick ,
I was asleep and Jim was
doing that on my side . McDivitt
That’s right .
I did it with the swizzle stick
way over on Ed ’ s side.
I didn’t aline the
platform or anything.
We were in free drifting
flight at this time .
As soon as we finished the
€01\IFIDENfl~ l-
188
EVA we went into free drifting flight .
We
powered down the platf orm and the computer, shut off the attitude indicator lights—we went through a complete power- down procedure .
We were really
trying to save bettery power , 0AMS fuel , and everything else we had .
We went on a complete
power-down, down the checklist, and we just didn ’ t have anything on . McDivitt
And we stayed in this free drifting mode for about two days .
That right , Ed?
Wnite
Closer to 2 1/2 days .
McDivitt
Mostly for the first 2 1/2 days we were in a free dri fting mode .
We didn ’ t do the platform aline
ment and the translation at around 8 : 10—8 : 20 in the flight plan .
We did not obtain any booster
star measurements .
As a matter of fact, I’d
like to comment on the booster-star sightings , or just the booster sightings .
We saw the l ights of
the booster definitely on the first pass as we were tracking it .
The second pas~ RS Ed sai~
he saw them , and he said he was sure he saw them because they were flashing .
I was pretty
sure i: saw what he was talking about . occurred just at sundown .
COtfftOETI
However , this
Every other time at
189
sundown we’d call out the booster a couple of more times before we finally figured out that this was not the booster, but a planet . White
One or two times I’m fairly confident I saw the booster .
McDivitt
You ‘re pretty sure you saw it?
White
Yes.
McDivitt
Well, I was pretty confident that I saw it
That was the booster .
flashing , too .
But later on I watched th2,t star ,
that particular planet, come up.
I sat right
there and watched i t, and it flickered as it came up t hrough the atmosphere . White
Yes, I agree with you .
McDivitt
So, it could have been that we were just really looking for the booster and at that particular time we looked out and saw this thing and it flickered.
I spent one whole sunset doing
nothing but keeping my eye out for that planet. Sure enough it popped up and I saw it. White
But, you know never flickered .
McDivitt
It flickered .
I watched it as it flickered.
It flickered all the way up
I watched the t hing
as it set , and it flickered all the way down- the last at 10 degrees or so.
~Fif)ENTIAt
This is exactly
eorqFIDENf~L
190
wher e we thought we were seeing the booster , right where it was low on the horizon , as you would expect to see a booster .
That old thing
was flickering away like mad . White
I think that was Venus , too .
McDivitt
It was t he planet that was tra i ling the sun by just a very slight amount .
I made it a point
to check during the remainder of the flight , two or three times to see if that thing flickered as it came up .
It r eall y did .
So , the more I
saw it flicker the more I began to doubt that we had really seen the booster on that second pass . Maybe we did , and maybe we didn ’ t . White
Well, it’s not r eall y too impor tant .
McDi vitt
No , it ’ s not .
But the fact is , that little plan
et was flickering away like mad . White
Let me ask you one more question about the flick er .
Did you see it coming up through the air
glow? Was that where you felt it flickered? McDi vitt
Yes .
White
Everytime it was above the air glow it was loud and clear to me .
McDivitt
Yes , except that you couldn ’ t see t he air glow as the sun was setting.
-COMFID’ENT~
191
White
That’s right .
McDivitt
I nitially you saw the sun out there and you saw this t hing looking like it was flashing .
Once
it got above the air glow , the planet did not flicker anymore.
It was perfectly bright .
White
Very hright .
McDivitt
When we saw that thing that looked like the booster , it was very low on the horizon. always popped out .
It
Remember how that bright
light used to pop out?
You’d have t he light
sky and all of a sudden t here ‘d be a bright light there . White
\Te saw that planet come up so many t imes during the flight, I feel quite convinced that the first sighting or two weren’t of the planet.
McDivitt
Wel l, maybe it wasn ‘t.
White
Actually , I continued to see the blinking on it after the stars were out .
McDivitt
Wait , let ’ s take a look and see which way the booster would be .
The booster was bel ow us so
it should be going out in front of us l ike mad . You’re looking into the sunset which was behind us .
The booster shouldn ’ t have been there .
The
booster should have been out to the f r ont of us .
CO~ftl}ENTIAb
€9-NF~DENTIAt.-
192
It should have been in the opposite direction. White
I ’ m : ot convinced which way we were looking .
McDivitt
We had to be looking to the rear .
The sun
sets to the rear .
We had to be BEF to see the
sun when it set .
You see , ;,,·ou ’ re BEF to watch it
set . White
Were we BEF for the full time or were we in free drift?
McDivitt
We were in free drift but this was near the sun when this thing came out .
White
No , they always come out loud and clear when you ’ re away f r om the sun , when you ’ re looking away from the sun .
McDivitt
Yes .
I lmow it , but at that one time when you
sai d, “There ’ s the booster.” , you were looking at the sun .
Remember , I had turned around?
They told us that they wanted us to be BEF and heads down when we opened up the hatch . where we were .
That ’ s
I turned around to be BEF .
We
were BEF when we saw that thing . White
We’d better l ook at the tapes .
I think we can
probably get better information on this when we check . McDivitt
I think we were even looking in the wrong dir-
eeNFIBENflAf
~ ONFl(:)ENl~Alection .
193
The next pass around I called out and
said , 11 1 see the booster on top at 9 o ’ clock , perpendicular to our flight path.”
I don ’ t
think that ,.ias the booster either . White
It’s
kind of academic .
McDivitt
Yes .
White
The reason that I broughtthe thing back up again is I wanted to be sure it ’ s brought out that the planets are so clear and so bright, even far more brighter than they are looking at them from the ground .
Looking at them up there,
it really is striking the first time you see them .
If we took a l ot of pictures of anything,
i t was a pictl:re of that planet . McDivitt
Sunrise and sunset .
The sunsets all had the
planet in it . White
That ’ s right .
That planet has always been there .
McDivitt
Very pretty .
Whi t e
It certainly was .
McDivitt
Okay, I got a call after Ed went t o sleep that we were going to pass by
myr.hnl”r.
:.:. u.:-o which
would be north of track , at 7:56 . Whi t e
I wasn’t sleeping.
McDivitt
Did you? Okay .
I heard it .
Well , I didn’t have any fuel to
e-0NFl0ENf lAL—
GOt’4FIDENll:A:l
194
point the spacecraft at Typhoon Babe so that was that .
I f I had drifted around so I could see it,
I was going to take a picture of it but I never drifted around so I could see it . passed on by .
I just
A little bit later on , I was
call ed up and told that at 23 : 55 GMT my ascending node would be at 83 degrees East an my 6th Rev .
This was just a map update .
I
was tol d I should eat at some particular time . I t hink it was 00 : 15 t o 01:00 .
It was
already past that time, so, I ate -1hen I felt like it.
The pilot was supposed to do a No .
1 Aero-Med Pass at 02 17 43.
This was the first
instance of us running into a case where a ma n was supposed to do an aero- med pass when he was asleep .
This continued on intermittently
throughout the flight . White
It seems like I was always asleep when I was supposed to be doing an aero- med pass.
McDivitt
This continued on intermi ttently during the flight .
As the flight progressed, the doctors
got more coordiarted on the ground and we got more coordinated with them to tell them who was sleeping and how long we were going to be
’ Ctm:&¥«1’41’L
..Ee~FlD’ENTIAl:.sleeping.
195
We had less requests for aero-med
passes of guys that were sleeping.
We, in
general, refused to wake the other person up to do an aero- med pass .
We were told by the
doctors and the flight planners on the ground, that at 02 30 59 we were supposed to turn on D- 8 .
Now, I don ’ t know why we had to have this
to the nearest second.
I was also supposed to
go to sleep at this time, to t he nearest second .
It seemed a little academic to me.
So I w., !<e Ed up at 02:30
Greenwich Time.
He
turned on the D-8 Experim~rut and I didn ‘t go to sleep until I did something else.
I
think I had something to eat but I’m not real sure .
But I didn ’ t get off to sleep right
away .
Then I told Ed he was supposed to turn
that MSC 2 and 3 off at 03 :00. 06:15 .
I awoke at
But what happened in between that
elapsed tim~ Fil.?
Shoot, that’s not right
White
06 : 15?
McDivitt
I must have awaken —
White
About four hours is what you rad.
McDivitt
Right.
Looking through my notes here I see
that I wrote down “Awake at 06 : 15,” and I
196
didn ’ t get to sleep at 2: 30 and Ed didn’t wake me up at 6 :1 5 .
So I guess we were down
from anywhere from 3: 30 and 4 :30 . White
Right .
You slept approximately four hours .
I
let you go about 30 or 45 minutes after that time of 6:15 , as far as getting you up .
While
y~1 were asleep, the things that I did :
I
believe that I had a meal which you had gotten out.
I believe we had one before this, though .
Di dn ’ t we have one after EVA before I went to sleep?
Or, did I just drink a lot of water and
go to sleep? McDivitt
No , I think we had a meal before you went to s l eep .
White
That was my second meal that I had shortly after I got up .
I believe ihey called and
asked me to give them an aero- med pass, which I don ’ t have the time logged on .
I imagine
the medics will have that.
I ran through a
D-8 Experiment at 02 30 59.
The MSC 2 and 3
recorders were supposed to come off at 3 o’clock, but I didn ’ t turn them off til 04 19 40 . It didn ’ t seem like that was particularly important a:.-..yhow to get them off.
I guess that’s
C6~+Fl,0EN:r+A-b why I didn. ’ t t:iL:k about it.
191
I got
instruc t ions from the ground to maintain the oxygen pressure at between 930 and 960 with the
o2 High Rate .
This is the time I told them
that the Command Pilot was asleep and I ’ d prefer to do it at a later time .
I think they
called me back a few times on it ; finallJ, when it got up to about 960 I went ahead and dumped it . McDivitt
It scared me to death !
White
The o2 High Rate started filling the cabin up , pressurizing it up around 5.4.
At 5,4 on the
button the vent val ve relieved and Jim about came through the top of the hatch . McDivitt
I was there half asleep with my gl oves off , my visor down , and a cover over .
Trie cabin vented
and the cabin pressur e dropped about 3/10 of a pound .
I knew that I didn ’ t have my gloves
on and I figure ,
“Boy, I am going to have
to get those gloves on in the next half a second or I’m going to be—” White
He didn ’ t get his gloves on but he sure was thrashing around for a littl e while til I got him the word .
I didn ’ t want to wake him up .
COt’-f FIDEl>Jl.lAL
198
I didn’t want to wake him up .
I was hoping it
would go through without waking him, but it sure didn’t . McDivi tt
Man!
It liked to have scared me so bad I don’t
think I went back to sleep. White
No, you went back.
You slept better at the end of
your sleep cycle than at the beginning. McDivitt
So you were trying to get to my end earlier.
White
I think I did the other.
I always slept best at
the beginning of my sleep. McDivi tt
No, I al..ra.ys
slept best at the beginning.
White
You did too?
McDivitt
There was a period where I had to get to sleep, then there was a period of solid sleep, sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour .
But after I went
by that first bunch, then I was in a state of semi wakeness . White
Kind of like dopey, fitfull sleep .
That’s the same
type of sleep I had , at least until the last time . Okay.
There really wasn ’ t anything else that went
on except a few tape dumps and an update for the orbital plotboard. ful.
I found this to be very use
I used the plotboard to keep track of my
orbits , where I was during the first part of the
~Otv4FIDEt’~TJAL
CUNFIDl:~L mission , exclusively.
199
It was very accurate .
You
could check the times in the plotboard as against what you saw on the ground and you could locate yourself quite adequately . McDivitt
How about you?
While I ’ m thinking about it, I thought the plot board information early in the flight was excellent . But I thought t hat the plotboard i nformation at t he end of the flight was not correct .
As a matter of
fact , I started ~o ca ll them a couple of times , but I never did .
By the time I would get the stuff
plotted , and get the map put where I wanted it , we would be someplace else .
I ’ m sure that that in
format i on they were sending up to me wasn’t right ; I ’ d be off an orbit or two . White
After about the last day and a half, I used the nominal orbit plot maps exclusively . I could see the time and the location . right with the ground .
I
could spot it
And I think I figured it
was seven minutes behind near the l a tter part of the mission .
This didn’t bother me .
I could tell
how far it was behind, and then update my position on the map quite easi l y . I thought those pre- plots were real good . McDivitt
So did I .
I t hought they were , too .
OONFIBENTIAL,
But I was a
200
little disappointed with the map information at the end of the flight . hap~ening.
I don ’ t know exactly what was
But I ’ m convinced that it wasn ’ t right .
As a matter of fact , a couple of times I was even on the wrong orbit .
They ’ d give me a time and a
l ongi tude and I’d plot it. part of the world .
I wasn ’ t even over that
I’d be over a whole orbit from
that . White
Jim , I made this mistake once , too . plotboard.
I was using my
I ’ d plot evecything out a.nd I came
down in a place in Mexico at night , Tampico , Mexico . So I told them something about seeing t his spot in Mexico . T:!ey didn’t pick up my mistake .
I was back
checking over and I got to looking at my map and sa id , “What the heck are we doing here at nigh t?” I was actually on the other side.
I was clear
around in Australia. McDivitt
Had you plotted east instead of west?
White
No, I don’t think I did. correctly .
I think I plotted it
I went back and checked it and I never
did get the plot .
I went on to do something else
and I didn ’ t get the plotboard squared away on that . But I rea lized that instead of passing over Tampico, Mexico , what I was really seeing on the ground was
201
Sidney. McDivitt
You only missed it by half the world .
White
Tha t ‘s right .
It was exactly on the other side .
But not exactly. McDivitt
It was about 120 degrees off. One that I remember
Mine was something like this .
specifically—they gave me a map update and they wanted me to do a check over El Paso and El Centro . Looking at this I could see that if I was at the right time, I would have come up from the south; whereas, my pass was down l ike this , and I was an orbit or two off. Whi te
Well then , we’re not talking about the same thing .
I think I had probably slipped it somehow on here . McDivitt
You might have plotted 60 Fast instead of 60 West, or something like that .
White
Yes .
McDivitt
But I was off by a time fac t or.
White
It w~sn ’ t too hard to realize that Mexico wasn ’ t at night.
McDivitt
I have a ne t! here that says , “RKV tape dump and a No . 1 Medical Pass on the Command Pilot at 07:02 GMT .”
White
That ‘s right .
And I got you up a few minutes
before 07:00, if you recall .
In fact , just before
QNElDENll
202
you had to make your Medical Pa s s I woke you up , So I’d es t imate t hat Jim got up around 6: 55, just enough time t o transfe r the equipment to him and let him make his Medical Pass . McDivitt
At 7: 15 Greenwich Time I was supposed to eat .
White
Right .
At 11:15 Greenwi ch Time I was supposed to
go back to s leep . McDivitt
I s that when you did?
I don’t even s ee that on
here .
Whit e
Where it says “Pilot s l eep”.
McDivitt
Is that a penci led- in note ?
Whi te
Ther e was just a s eri es of instructions that we got from them .
McDivitt
Okay.
Good, becaus e I don ’ t have that .
White
It doesn ’ t really mean that ’ s when we went to sleep becaus e you know we did t hings somewhat out of sequence .
McDivi tt
At 8: 55 over the RKV we got a list of PLA’s and CLA ’ s .
White
Was this one of’ our first big batches of them? You know, initially, we di dn ’ t ge t too many of them, and then we started getting them on a very regular bas is throughout the flight .
I thought that com
munications of those was quite good , once we started .
203
McDivitt
I have a list of notes here that say:
Rev 12
was over the RKV where we were supposed to get the CLA ‘s and PLA 1 s.
We did.
Rev 13 was over
Canary where we were supposed to have a C-Band track.
I think that meant C-Band went to
CONTINUOUS , but I’m not really sure . • White
This is the time at about 17 or 18 hours that I called down and asked them how the tape dumps were coming out, because we weren’t holding any attitude for them.
We were holding nothing
more than a drifting attitude and I know that over some stations we were blunt-end-down and rolled upside down .
We were t alking , I know,
upside do~m to the stations and getting good transmissions through.
They came back and
204
said all of the tape dumps to this time had been exce11en t . McDivitt
At a GMT of 12 16 00 I got a comment : “No fuel , but do a Flight Track Orientation . ”
This is
like saying, drive from here t o ~he drug store, but don ’ t use any gasoline—a.~d don’t take the car . So as I flopped over near around 12: 16 , I looked down to the ground .
We could do a Flight
Track Orientation pretty well, considering that we had this movable orbita l map and we had a pretty good idea of where we were going to be to start with so we could pick out where we were.
Got a map update at 10 17 49, · 73 degrees
West .
A tape dump at Canaries on Rev 13 and at
Carnarvon at Rev 14,
Around 19 hours , I checked
on our orbit and it was 155 . 7 by 88. At 11 52 43, turned the C- Band Adapter Switch to CONTINUOUS . to COMMAND .
At 11 59 23 we turned it back
This is Greenwich time .
All the
stuff in the flight plan such as the Orbit Navigational Checks and the Apollo Landmark Inves t igation were not done . We were doing tape
-EQNFIDENTtAL
EOtFIDENfL
205
dumps , medical data passes and that was a bout it . The next M- 3 Experiment s wer e a ll par t of medical data passes.
I don’t even lrnow why they ’ re in the
flight plan . White
I couldn ’ t figur e that o:1t either.
McDivitt
We did an HF Check.
Check began at 16 58 30 GMT ,
and ran on t hrough 19 07 00 GMT ; this inc luded the sunrise , sunset , day , night—all the HF checks and we’ ll cover those in the experiment part of our d ebrief ing. McDivitt
During this period of 16 58 30 GMT to 19 07 00 GMT , we did the HF Checks .
White
Oh, here it is!
McD:i vi t t
Where?
White
At 11 : 45 Zulu . Pilot awake at 11 : 30 ,
Command Pilot asleep .
I do~‘t
know when I went to sleep here . McDivitt
Okay .
Whi t e
Okay .
McDivitt
I t’ll take a long t i me to sort that out and I
Let’s check that some other time .
don ’ t think he needs that right away . Whi te
All right .
McDivi tt
Okay.
I got Command Pilot asleep at 11 : 45 ,
I don’t have me up or asl eep or anything.
What I ’ ve got here in my notes is , Ed to bed at
206
20 :15, up at 22 : 15 , back at 23:15 , Zebra times , I ’ m sure .
These are
So I don ’ t know exactly
what happened in there . White
Well , you ’ re clear over on 24 now .
Okay , you ’ ve
skipped the time when you were asleep . McDivitt
That ’ s r i ght .
White
Okay , I have you going to sleep.
I don ’ t have anythi ng on that .
awake at 11 : 30 ,
I logged myself
Command Pilot asleep at 11 : 45 ,
These are Greenwich times .
If you add 8:45 onto
that , it comes out 20 hours and 30 minutes , elapsed time .
You gave me the instructions for
the C- Band adapter times .
I did tur n those on
at 11 52 43 to continuous C- Band ori the adapter , and at 11 59 23 to COMMAND .
Also during that
peri od of time , I had been told
to go ahead and
run Apollo L~ndrnark Investigation without any fuel .
But luckily, the spacecraft rotated right
around as we came up to it and I was looking right down at the junction of , I believe , the … and the White Nile . McDi.vitt
That ’ s right .
That was the first task we had of
finding something on the ground . White
Yes , it r eally worked .
207
McDivitt
I t was no trouble .
White
It -really worked .
That was the one that I was It’s such an obvious
probably most famil i ar with. one .
It’s out in t he middle of t he des ert and
it ’ s t he intersection of the big Nile , where it junctions into two other sec tions, a little island and a northern tip of the island .
I was able t o
pick the island up from the t i p quite clearly. I did take a couple pictures , I believe , of it ,
but we were just passing and I wasn ’ t tracking. I did r eport that it was a good landmark and qui te easy to see . We did get an instruction at this time to go to the normal flight plan at 22 hours.
This was
something that was kind of hard to do .
I don’t
t hink we really ever got back on much of a normal flight plan for the whol e flight , but we did ge t instructions at 22 hours elapsed time to r eturn t o our normal flight plan . still asleep.
At this time Jim was
We got the update th9.t the Hawks
won 3 to 2 . McDivitt
Ha ha ha ha h9. .
White
I r elayed t hat information to Jim when he woke up .
“€76MflDEMTtAi:—
208
McDivitt
That ’ s right.
Okay , I think we’ve already
covered our HF Checks , which were part of the regular flight plan . White
Yes , we did that .
McDivitt
I said they were between 16 58 30 GMT and 19 07 00 GMT .
Whit e
Right .
McDivitt
We scrubbed the Apollo Landmark Investigation at 28 :40 and again at 29 : 10 .
We were allowed to do
the D-9 at about 29 :30 in irifting flight oly.
Doing the D-9 in drifting flight means that you
look outside w:i th the sextant and you pick out
whatever two saTs are there and you measure an
angle betw8en them .
It was a qU1:1.litative rather
than a quantitative type investigation for the experiment .
I ’ m telling you , with D- 9 it was
mostly qualitative throughout the whole mis s i on. We did a few quantitative things , but the number of quantitative things that w~ · quld do were very limited . White
The HF Test took us one and a half orbits .
McDivitt
Yes .
White
I t hink around 28 : 30 , we had a call up for D-9 .
It took t wo hours and 15 minutes at least .
209
McDivitt
Yes .
This is where we did D-9 i n drifting flight
only . White
Yes , and again t ha t was like taki ng the car out of the garage without gasoline .
McDi vitt
All it amou:~ted to was looking t hrough the window and picking out two stars that you can see and t aking a sighting between them.
Jus t a qualitative
check t o see what the sextant woul d do . t hat .
We di d
D- 9 turned out to be a qualitative , rather
than a quanti tative experiment , except in a very isolated instance . White
We weran ’ t even stabilized .
You were t rying to talk me through some of the thines , but I had the helmet off and on—
McDivit t
This was when we firs t discoverad that. the light bulb in t he readout P’Jrtion :,f the sextant was burned out or something was wrong.
White
Right .
McDivitt
We couldn ’ t read out t he angle .
White
We called down, but we nevar got a call up on t hat or any instructions.
McDivi tt
Well, there weren’t any .
Ha ha ha .
Okay , then I
have in my notes here , as I mentioned earlier: ” ‘Ed went
t o bed at 20 :15 , got up at 22 : 15 and went
GONA0ENllA I..
210
back to bed at 23 : 15 , ” That ’ s all Zulu time , but I don ’ t see when he finally got up for the last time . White
Maybe I ‘ve got it in here .
McDivitt
We had another map update in there but it’s really not important .
We scratchsd the Apollo Lanirnark
Investigation-White
What time did yo~ have me asleep?
23 : 15 , Jim?
Okay, well I obviously was up shortly t her eafter
because I got on the horn and you were asleep when t hey called us up and told us we ’ d. passed the U.S . space record-McDivitt
That’s rig},t .
White
At a little past 32 hours,which is 23 :15 .
That ’ s
32 hours . The s pace r ecord was 32 h~ur s . McDivitt
We cancelled the Apollo La1dma:rk Investiga tion , Run 3 , a t 30 hours and 10 minutes .
Got t hat , Ed?
White
Yes .
McDi v.itt
We didn ’ t switch to bio-med r ecorders .
I made a
note here early i n the flight plan on the biomed r ecorders, “Ed slept f irst and turned No . 1 off.” When I slept , we forgot to turn it back Ofl , so we had No . l off , and No . 2 on for a long t ime ,
COlf.ll:lETlAL-.
for a peri od of about eight or Len hours.
211
Then
when 1 went to sl eep t he second Lime , we tur ned N) . 1 on and No . 2 of f , whi ch is the way i t s hould
Bu’.; as soon as I wok8 up, we t uraed
ha ve bPen .
No . ? on agai n and No . 1 off, becaus e you wer e g 0i r,g t o go
to bed .
Now you •i idn’ t go right
back to sleep again so I have a note here, “We h’l ve t o t ur r. or. No . 1 as soon as he .,_,akes up . fl We did .
Ran No. 1 r o’ awhile with No . 2 off .
We t u.med them bot h back on, and 1 eft t hem r ur1-
ning f or the r emainder of the flight . Wha t we di d i s t h9,t we pi ck’=d up a cushi on of about eight hour s on each -recorder and .let them r.un th,? r es t of the flight .
The D- 8 Experiment a t 2300 ho’..lrs-
Ed w1.s a s l eep then .
I t ol d t hem t hat Ed was
s l eeping and coul dn’ t make it . Whi t e
Ri ght .
McDi vi tt
Tha t ’ s right .
I t hink I probably di d t hat later on . Remember we discuss ed t h~ t you
would turn o~ thP- experiment later on when you went through the Sout h Atlant ic Anomaly? White
Right .
McDivit t
You plotted it out on the map a nd turned it on your self .
The port ion of the fli ght plan at 31
212
bout’s elapsed time says , “Prepare for S-6 Experiment , update D-8 , MSC 2 and 3 on . ”
Now- I
turned MSC 2 and 3 on again , about then .
We di d
not do an Orbit Nav Check, Run 3, b,:.cause we dldn ’ t want to use any fuel .
We scrubbed Experiment D-8
and w2 ware going to turn i t on at 23 : 00 or do it at 2300 .
But, I guess Ed ·v1as s till asleep , so
we didn ’ t do it then .
At this t .i.me we were both
in pretty bad shape as far as rest went , s•:> I felt it much better to get some sleep th~n to fool with the experiments . White
Then go i ng through-
Okay , this is the period of time whea you were asleep .
McDivitt
Yes , because I don ’ t have any notes there .
Go
ahead . White
Mc”Divitt
Right .
I had a very busy time shortly after I
got up .
I had a requirement to , ~t 00: 15 ,
Oh , yes .
They called the update to me and I
passed it on to you and then I went to sleep . White
That ’ s right .
I turned on the MSC 2 and 3, and
then I went D-8 at 02 : 15 . McDivitt
00 :15 Greenwich time , you were supposed to take
some pictures of cellular clouds . White
No fuel all otted .
I think I took s ome pictures of clouds .
CQbJ.-f.lDEN·l+Al
~ot;R-E>ENT-IA.J. McDivitt
213
MSC 2 and 3 wera supposed t o go on at a GMT of 00: 30 , and yo~ were supposed to control the spacecraft to BEF for that pass .
White
That ’ s right, and we went with BEF for that pass , for MSC - 2 and 3 Experiments .
At 02:15 I was
supposed to do D- 8 . McDivitt
That’s right.
White
I did D- 8 at 02 : 18, as a matter of fact, and it ’ s logged in the D-8 card.
McDivitt
Then at 22: 35 GMT, w,~ were supposed to do S- 6- I see that I ’ ve got a scratch through it. that you weren’t up.
I think
I was up and I tried to do
it, but there weren ’ t any clouds around.
I wasn’t
pointed in the right direction , so I just scratched it out . White
Yes , this is where I went back to sleep and you got up .
We had a very important tape dump at
03:03 .
I think I relayed that to you before I
went to sleep. McDivitt
Yes.
White
1 must have really snoozed here .
I was gone for
four hours. McDivitt
I’m on 36 right now.
We had a tape playback.
We 11..
’- C0Mft0fNTiM
~OHFtDENTIAC
214
were eating along in here and I can ’ t tell you where we ate becaus e we ate whenever we fel t like it. White
We always ate when we woke up and usually before we went to sleep.
McDivitt
That ‘s right .
That I s when we were eating and
that’s when we had originally planned on it . That’ s the way it went in the original flight plan .
At this time of the mission
I guess we
weren’ t doing much except staying alive .
My
impression of what we were doing was eating, sleeping, and dumping tapes. White McDivitt
and looking at the ground as it went by. As a matter of fact, w1~ were still pretty well pooped out from that long per iod right there—
White
Your eyes were just getting
better .
Your
eye looked l ousy at that time, the first 24-hour point.
Your
left eye was as red as
can be. McDivitt
At about 36 hours it was still pretty bad, but from there on
White
it improved continuously.
I noticed that whenever I slept, I got much hotter when I had my faceplate closed and my
EONF+E>ENf-lM
€0t4FIDEN’.flAL gloves on.
Remember?
2 15
I kept turning on the
double fans. McDivitt
Even when you didn’t sleep in that configuration , you got hotter when you slept than when you were awake, which is the reverse of what I figured it would be .
I figured that when you slept , we ’ d
want to go to one fan all the time . White
Well , I slept good when I had my visor open .
McDivitt
Did you?
The last day or so, though, we had t wo
fans on every time you slept. White
The last day we did.
Of course, I slept the best
then too as a matter of fact.
After the first
day, I had my faceplate open more often than I had my faceplate closed. McD:ivitt
I wasn’t .
I had a problem that whe.v1 Pd put my
visor up, I was really crunched down in the seat, because I’m quite a bit taller than you . ,Jomfortable
It was more
for me to keep my visor down than
it wau t,c, keep it up.
We had an RKV tape dump ,
around 36 hours , and I have an Orbit Nav Check , Run 4, here.
I don’t believe we did thA.t , did
we, F.d , at 36 hours and 50 minutes? White
I was asleep and I can’t tell you .
GO t◄f-tB ENTIltt-
216
McDivitt
We didn’t do any of the Orbit Nav Checks with fuel so it was just a matter if you could see the ground you did one.
They called up some more
S-6 information for me, but I wasn ’ t to use any fuel on it .
They said I was to pass Typhoon
Babe at 06 : 06, point of closest approach , and there was a new storm brewing.
I ’ d have rny
closest approach to it at 06 : 13 .
Oh, yes .
I also
have a period that Ed slept here . White
Which time was that?
McDivitt
Well, you got up at 08 : 15, Zebra time .
That ‘s
about 40 hours and 30 minutes elapsed time .
I
drifted around to where I could see Typhoon Babe, but there wasn ’ t anything to take a picture of , There was just a mass of clouds down below; smooth tops and nothing worth even a frame .
I got another
update that said : “Over Cairo on the 26th Rev I ’ d have rny closest approach at 07 13 37 .
It would
be 90 miles slant range on the closest approach . Don ’ t use any fuel . at it.
We were just supposed to look
We did pick up Cairo and Alexandria both .
I think you were awake at that time, weren’t you? White
It was the tail end of my sleep cycle .
~ ENttAt-
217
McDivitt
Well , you weren’t awake then.
White
What time wa.s it, Jim?
McDivitt
It says 07 18 37. then .
White
You should have been asleep
I have in my notes that you slept to 08 : 15,
Well, I was like you were.
I wasn ’ t sleeping
very good the last—quite often, I had my cover up watching out the window.
You could a l ways
hear everything that was going on the radio, so you knew pretty well what was going on. McDivitt
Well, anyway, Cairo and Alexandria were both clear , but this was the first time we’d seen them and it took a long time to find the targets- the particular target that we were looking for. We could find the Red Sea and we could . find the Mediterranean, obviously. Suez Canal .
You could see the
You could see the river.
difficulty finding the town of Cairo . you, Fil., with Alexandria?
I had How about
You were looking for
Alexandria . White
I found that one .
McDivitt
You found the town all right, but finding the airfield that we were supposed to take a picture of was pretty difficult the first time.
eet<mDENTl,t(l.
Later on
218
when we’ll discuss the experiments, we’ll comment on tha t .
It looks like I was asleep here for
awhile because I don’t have any notes . White
I have a set here.
Okay.
I was given the first
time to take a look at some of the D-6 targets . I had No. 1, No . 12, and No. 13, and I had all the times for them.
I think No . 1 is Tripoli .
We ’ ll
go over these in a little more detail when we go to the experiments .
Tripoli was covered by clouds .
Alexandria was pretty good , and I was able to follow it pretty well. McDivitt
Did you take any pictures of it?
White
Yes .
I took s ome pictures.
Actually, I think
we should go back and look at these.
I got several
passes.
No. 12 was
This was the D-6 Experiment.
Tripoli and it was covered with clouds .
No . 13
was Alexandria , and I took manual pictures with the 20 mm Contarex.
I didn’t actually see—
McDivitt
The 50 mm Contarex?
White
No, the 200 mm Contarex.
McDivitt
The 200 mm . Hand-held?
White
No, I had it mounted. airport
I didn’t actually see the
but I had seen it before.
I was
219
actually looking at the camera when I was firing it, so I - McDivitt
Did you see anything in the ground glass?
White
Not very much .
McDivitt
Were you trying to t rack that way or were you just looking out the window.
White
No .
Just looking out the window.
The point that
I brought out is that they gave me four targets . The t a rgets should be far enough apart so that you can actually get set for each one.
I had
four targets here but I could only use- McDi vitt
Oh, that was when you zapped from Tripoli to Alexandria to Tel-Aviv to —
White
Tel- Aviv and a whole bunch of them a ll in a row.
McDivitt
You could have a thousand miles between targets to evaluate.
You finish one and you’re starting
to take pictures of the other ones . White
I had them at 10 61 51, 10 21 50 , 10 25 30 and 10 30 15 .
Well, that was a beautiful row of
t a rgets in there but-McDivitt
A pair though or every other one would have been enough.
Whi te
And we were still being very parsimonious on fuel
if 10-ENTI-Al
220
and I didn’t feel like zapping the spacecraft all around.
We had some more updates , tape, and a
medical data pass for myself at 45 : 45 . word to delete Translations 2-A.
We got the
At that time
they put in D- 9—the first D-9 with fuel . McDivitt
We also scrubbed the Horizon Scan Moonset Check at 46 : 33 , or whenever that is .
White
Right .
It was schedul ed with the platform up
and we didn ’ t have it up . McDivitt
Also I ’ ve got the Scanner Thruster Plum Checks scrubbed at 47 :40 ,
White
Also a deletion of the ES Sensor - ON because we weren ’ t going to translate .
So at 14:14 we
had our first D- 9 Experiment with OAMS . McDivitt
We were both up .
White
Right .
McDivitt
This was the first one with fuel and the first big disappointment of the experiments .
White
Right .
It was certainly very difficult to use .
McDivitt
This is where we tried to do the dayside pass when we had stars , and we couldn ’ t see past the nose of the spacecraft .
White
We didn ’ t get any stars so actually the run was
CO Nf-ID EN TtA-L quite short .
221
We were not able t o see any stars so
we weren ’ t able to do much on that run at all . This is the t ime we !mocked off any more day star sightings. McDivi tt
We were supposed t o turn on MSC 1 and acq a id off for five minutes between Tananarive and Carnarvon, I guess .
White
Oh !
This is where I missed a sleep period .
i s where we missed a sleep period.
This
We got busy and
ran the D- 9 right through the sleep period .
Then
I got back to sleep at 54 : 55 to 60 :65 elaps ed time . McDivitt
Oh , yes.
You got about one hour’s worth of sleep
between 49:40 elapsed and 50 : 20 elapsed , or something like that. White
Right before D-9, I got a little sleep.
McDivitt
Tha t ‘s right.
I ‘ve got a little note in here t hat
says, “Ed got about one hour of sleep .” White
That I s right .
McDivitt
We were supposed to do S-5 over t he States on Rev 32 .
Start at 17 :40 .
We were supposed t o do Apollo
Landmark No . 4 starting at 15:00 Zebra on Rev 33 . That was El Paso. White
That’s right .
We were both up for that .
t::OMFIDENTtM
222
McDivitt
We did the S-5 Experiment together and that was the best series of pictures we got on the whole flight.
It was really fabulous .
We got good
pictures both for the S-5 and S-6 on this one . White
They should really come out good .
McDivitt
I did the Apollo Landmark Area No . 4.
I did the
tracking task with it at 19 16 42 on El Paso, and it turned out pretty well.
We tried to make
a tracking pass on El Paso International Airport, and we never even saw El Paso. White
This was a very big surprise to both of us because we though we ’ d nail that one cold.
McDivitt
That’s right .
We’ve been in and out of there so
often , you lmow , it’s just like another home base. White
Which leads to one of your conclusions, which is-
McDivitt
You can ’ t have targets out in the middle of a land mass .
They’ve got to be near a body of water .
White
You need something to identify the landmark.
McDivitt
There are some beautiful topographical features near El Paso .
There ’ s a range of mountains just
to the west that show up and the white sands are out there to the west—Shoot! We never saw any thing.
I think I saw El Paso when we were right
COt’4·Fl0EN1°1AL
FtDENflAL over it .
223
I said, ” I think there goes El Paso.
I think we missed it .” White
The next thing we said was, “Yes, it is . Texas .” us .
McDivitt
There ’ s
We could see Corpus Christi coming up on
That ‘s where you took it .
That ’ s right .
So then I went to a tracking task
on a pair of sand pits, with a channel between them , right on the coast—around Corpus somewhere. So, we did a tracking pass on it because we were all set up and we ’ d already used the fuel to get stabilized .
We were all set to do something so
we went ahead and did something.
We took some
200 mm pictures of this . White
I took about 10 pictures,
McDivitt
We’ll just see how the target stayed in sight. This was our first real tracking pass , wasn’t it?
White
I had one good one on Tel- Aviv .
McDivitt
Did you use the fuel required to do it and all that s tuff or did you try to chintz on it?
White
I tried to chintz on it , but I think it was good tra cking.
I actually tracked the airport a t Haifa
instead of Tel- Aviv .
I realized it at the last
minute that I didn ’ t have Tel- Aviv, I had Haifa, but
CO’Mfl0ENTIM
CO f~ftf)‘EMTt,tt-
224
I had an airfield and I had a town so I- McDivitt
You took some fixed-molll’lted 200 mm pictures .
White
Yes .
McDivitt
I took about two pictures of it .
I couldn’t
take a series .
I—
That ’ s right .
You didn ’ t have the gunsight to
t r ack with either. White
No .
I just put it in the middle of the window.
McDivitt
At this time our orbit was 88. 1 by 148. 7 , so we had come down about 7 or 8 miles . 4 , were around 51 hours .
D-9 and Apollo
I don’t know exactly
how that fit into this schedule that we were doing. We were switching back and forth from elapsed time to Greenwich Mean Time so we got a little confused on these .
We got updates of the PLA ’ s and CLA ’ s.
This plan says , “Prepare for D-6 .” Well, we didn’t have a D- 6 Experiment anymore .
Ed went to sleep
again at 54 hours . White
Yes .
McDivitt
Ed as l eep at 54, and I have him waking up at 59 :15.
At 54 : 30 I’ ve got myself asleep.
That was when we started trying to nake you sleep a little longer , Ed. White
Half our notes here are elapsed time and half of them are in Greenwich Mean Time .
COl’fF1D1:Ml+AL
I think this is
225
probably one of the weakest points in our flight pl anning— trying to get times correlated . McDivitt
This correlation between one time and the other time is hard to handle . times in GMT.
We were getting start
We sai d that we wanted these start
times in GMT because this i s the only officia l time that we had. planning.
The elapsed times were just for
We only kept them to the nearest two
or three minutes .
I started my Omega watch on
elapsed time a t take- off, and I just let it run through the whole flight.
I never set it .
never checked elapsed time or anything .
I
It could
have been off two or three minutes , but I was doing the flight plan to the nearest iO minutes off the book here.
When we got retrofire times
and when we got start t imes for things, we got them in GMT .
It made it awfully confusing in the
flight plan by switching back and forth, Fortunately, we got off at 15 : 15 which is better than getting off at 12:36 or some thing like that .
On the Apollo mission we ’ ve got a better set of clocks .
We’re going to have Mission Time and
Phase Time , so whenever you start a new phase
CONFtDENlJ.M
226
you go back and start all over again. White
Wel l, I ’ m not convinced that we couldn ’ t have even handled this one on elapsed time .
McDivi t t
We did .
White
Well, I mean let everything go elapsed time. Forget about your Greenwich Mean Time.
McDivitt
No .
White
I don’t know what we would have lost .
McDivitt
The retrofire times .
White
Put the retrofire time on elapsed time .
Like
you say , it was much clearer to you using that one watch on 12- ho11r increments , and it was to me too .
That ‘s the one I used .
I used this one
watch right here on ela psed time , McDivitt
Well , let ’ s get into that as a separate thing at the end .
We had the MSC Experiment 2 and 3
off at 02 : 25 ,
We turned it on at 22 : 14,
are Zebra times now.
These
I have a note here ,
“Perform D-8 Experiment, Radiation Exper iment, at 55:30 elapsed time , ” and I ‘ve got , “No . Pilot asleep . ”
Did you do that experiment later on , Ed?
White
Which one was that, Jim?
McDivitt
D-8 Experiment .
CONFIDENTl~ L
227
White
At what time?
McDivitt
At 55 : 30 elapsed.
White
I ’ ve got them in Greenwich Mean Time here again .
McDivitt
That’s around 22 or 23: 00 .
White
Yes .
McDivitt
How did you do that?
I ’ ve got one .
asleep then .
Something like that .
I did it at 23 : 58 GMT . You were supposed to be
Maybe you woke up and did it and
went back to sleep. White
You know , this was the time when you went to
sleep,
I ’ ve got you asleep on the fourth day
at 03:30 Greenwich Mean Time . McDivitt
We ’ re not on the fourth day.
We’re still on the
third day .
I ’ m between 54 and 59 elapsed .
White
All right .
That’s the period of time I’m asleep.
McDivitt
I’ve got the D- 9 Experiment was run between 22 : 43 and 23:22 .
I must have done that .
Okay.
We got Ed up at about 59 hours elapsed time, and did a Medical Data No. 2 Pass on m~ except by then I think they were Medical Data No. 1 Passes .
I
went to sleep at about 60 : 15 e lapsed , and I got up about 65 : 30 elapsed .
I had about five hours
there when I was supposed to sleep . White
Shortly after you went to sleep we started having
228
the RCS heater troubles and we had them coming on for the next three to four hours.
We had them
cycled on and I called the times down.
I don ’ t
believe we want to go over them all right now .
I
had them cycled on and off at intervals of about 15 minutes, for a total of eight different times . They started coming on exactly at 06 :47 and the last one I had was on at 08:23.
That was the
last time we had any RCS heaters.
It was rather
peculiar because they alternated.
First the
A-Ring would come on and the B- Ring would come on and the A-Ring would come on, and so on. McDivitt
Is that right?
White
They came on at approximately 15-minute intervals and it took approximately five minutes to bring the temperature down to within limits.
I reported
those down and they seemed to be interested in getting exact on/off times of our heaters to plot our electrical profile curve.
I ran an Apollo
Landmark Run Noo 6 with yaw 15 and pitch 30 .
I
think the results of that are in the other log book.
I reported down at this time that ~im had
a successful bowel movement .
to’&flDENTIA-t!t
I a lready had one .
COt~F·IOENllAl
229
I had an HF Check at Ascension at 05 :09 , which didn’t work out-McDivitt
How could I have a successful BM if I was asleep?
White
You had already had it . time .
I reported it at that
I wasn ’ t able to read Ascension on this
HF Check.
I got the okay for an Apollo D-9 Run
No . 2 for 06 01 44 .
I called down to get
clarification on it and they said I could use stars of opportunity.
This is what I did .
ran the D-9 with the stars of opportunity.
I Why
we did this wil l be brought out in the D- 9 de briefing. McDivitt
This was a no-fuel D-9?
White
No.
This was with fuel .
But, remember , the stars
were placed so it was hard to get much. McDivitt
Yes.
White
We scrubbed the Apollo Landmark Investigation No . l . We didn’t do that .
We gave a Medical Data Pass .
Ran the D-9 Experiment , I believe, and got fairly good information back on that .
As a matter of
f act, I did do the Apollo Landmark Run No . 6 and that information is in the flight log. up, it says, at 08:31 . to me .
I got Jim
This doesn’t sound right
CGNFIDENTIAt
230
McDivitt
I got myself up around 65 :40 something elapsed time . I just drew a mark there.
White
That’s exactly where I’ve got you up—at about
McDivitt
I got a comment here .
This is something that
went on throughout the flight .
I went to sleep
and I looked at the OAMS Quantity Gage and it was reading 60 percent . percent .
When I woke up it read 56
This meant a 4 percent drop and it
was somewhat alarming since we were saving fuel so much. White
He accused me of having to use all the fuel up while he was asleep.
McDivitt
No .
Ha, ha .
I’d noticed that the gage went up and down
before, but it never had gone up and down so much in such a short time .
It would move up and down
by 2 percent quite frequently over a period of 15 minutes to an hour . percent.
It would change by 2
It did this between 60 and 70 percent
for a long , long, long t ime .
We were going pretty
easy on the fuel .
It did move up and down like
this quite a bit .
This is just a comment that
throughout the flight the OAMS Quantity Gage did fluctuate quite a bit .
We had the uncertainty
~fl01:Nt lA!
.eOMrtf>·eNTtA L
231
in the system and this 2 per cent was, in general, about 7 pounds . fuel.
That was really quite a bit of
4 percent was between 12 and 15 pounds,
depending where you were on the scale.
This was
and awful lot of fue l to have suddenly disappear .
I just wanted to comment on that .
It was an
interes ting thing. . We’d been dumping our ECS o 2 pressure. We’d gone to High Rate or cabin repress and dumping the stuff overboard—overpressurizing the cabin and having the cabin vent to keep the pressure down .
Finally around this 66 hours, we’d dumped
the thing down to 880 psi on the gage. we didn’t have to dump it so often.
This was why
We’d been
dumping it before around 960 psi—dump it there and bring it back to around 930 psi and let it build up, and then repeat the cycle again. White
That was about every 4 hours.
McDivitt
Yes .
We had to dump at least every 4 hours .
We brought it dovm to 880 psi and this gave us a period of around 12 hours. White
You know, I thought this was a very clever method of holding the cabin at a higher pressure than normal by McDonnell—putting the vent down so low that
it vented
in a
normal
~itw:rb\ l
mode.
You
232
certainly could tell on the gage when it was going to vent .
It vented right down there at
about 960 . McDivitt
Yes .
I thought we ’ d really hack that apart when
we got to the systems . White
Yes .
All r ight .
I wanted to be sure that we
didn ’ t forget it . McDivitt
I guess we were both awake at this time . We did MSC-10 some place .
Here ‘s where we got into a
bunch of bad flight planning.
Someone on the
ground screwed up . White
They ran our Horizon Scanner and MSC- 10 Checks right together .
McDivitt
We started out our MSC-10 Check and at the same time we were supposed to start powering up the platform and alining it .
White
What time did you have MSC-10 Experiment?
McDivitt
We were supposed to power up the platform at 10 :15 , Let ’ s see if I got the start times here for MSC-10 .
White
We’d have it in the book.
McDivitt
Well, we didn’t get a start time because MSC-10 starts when the horizon comes into view, when we could see the first light .
EONflDENTIAJ.
We started the MSC-10
233
as a sequence of pictures every five minutes. The sequence is three pictures every five minutes, for as many passes as you can get .
So you have to
start this thing at sunup, or as soon as the hor izon becomes light. tures .
We took our first three pic
We went on through and we were supposed
to start our Horizon $canner Check—. White
Jim , the time we started you ’ ve logged in here as 11:04 .
McDivitt
Okay, at 11 :04 we started our MSC- 10 Experiment . We were given instructions to start the Horizon Scanner Sunset Check at 11:54.
It just so turned
out that we were going along and we weren ’ t out of frames of film yet for MSC- 10 . White
It was still daylight.
McDivitt
Yes, it was st.i ll daylight, that’s right, and we could still get some more good pictures, I thought. Here we had instructions to start our Horizon Scanner Sunset Check, and in looking through this thing, it looked to me like that was the only place we were going to get it; so I don’t under stand exactly why we had to run MSC-10 and the Horizon Scanner Check simultaneously.
<iONfJ{)ENl~AL
They
C01’4Flf>ENTIAl
234
couldn ’ t be run simultaneously!
It looked like
somebody with a little foresight on the ground could have seen this . White
That was really the only bad screwup , I think, in our flight planning.
McDivitt
I think so , too .
It was right there .
So we terminated MSC- 10, al
though we had enough pictures , I’m sure , to have completed the experiment .
It would have been
nice to use up all the film .
There ’ s no sense
in carrying it and not using it .
At 11 : 54 we
did the Horizon Scanner Sunset Check—the plat form up and alined .
At 12 : 15 we did the Horizon
Scanner Moonset Check .
At 12: 22 we did the
Apollo Yaw Orientation.
At 12 : 58 we did the
Horizon Scanner Thruster Check.
At 12 : 59 we
did the Horizon Scanner Track Check. did the Attitude Thruster Check.
At 13 : 14 we
At 13 : 20 we
were supposed to power down and at 13 : 20 were supposed to turn off the MSC No . 1 Experiment . What happened as we went through here—we got a little behind because it took a little longer to do some of these things , especially this Horizon Scanner Track Check. taktng so long that
hlFIDENTll
It
was
we eliminated the last two steps in it .
We did
the zero bank angle and the pitch up and down. We did the zero pitch angle and the roll left and right .
We did the bank to one side and the pitch
up and down ,and we did the pitch up and the bank on both sides .
We didn ’ t do the pitch down and
the bank on both sides ,and we didn’t do the roll left and the pitch up and down.
We were running
late and at that time I didn ’ t know how we were doing on electrical’ power and everything, so I elected not to do t he last two portions of the check. White
We had it pretty well ironed out , anyhow .
McDivitt
Yes .
White
Surprisingly broad bands , too.
McDivitt
The scanners seemed to be working perfectly .
The
attitude thruster check was just as it should have been .
We powered down the platform and turned off
the MSC Experiment No . 1 about two minutes late . White
We powered down at 13:27.
McDivitt
Okay , seven minutes late .
We never did take any
16 mm pho tos of the plumes . White
Before you went to sleep on t his one .
<iONFIDENTIA~
C64flDENlAL
236
McDivitt
I hadn ’ t gone to sleep on that one .
White
Before I went to sleep .
McDivitt
Before you went t o sleep , yes .
White
Wr-: were really busy at
McDivitt
Yes , a D- 9 at 20: 51 Zulu .·
White
I have a feel i ng I was asleep here , Jim .
McDivitt
I think you were , Ed.
Wh ite
71 : 15?
McDivitt
Right.
White
At what time, Jim?
McDivi t t
At 20 : 15 ,
White
So you di d the D- 9 while I was asleep.
McDivitt
I have a note here that we ’ re going to be over
Okay D- 9 -
this period of time .
You went to sleep at 71 : 15 .
I did the D- 9 Experiment at 20: 15 .
Guaymas at 15 44 55 . Pass f r om me .
They wanted a No . 1 Medical
They wanted me to turn the TM switch
to REAL TIME and ACQUISITION for three minutes over Guaymas .
Guaymas must have lost it ’ s
command function or something — not for the whole time though . White
Yes , t his is where I was asleep, Jim .
I remember
t hat now. McDivitt
Okay, now I have a comment here .
I turned on our
horizon scanner at 16: 03 with about a 25 degree
237
nose down attitude, with a pitch up rate of about t wo degrees/second , in the Horizon Scanner Mode . The thing caught and held the spacecraft within the deadhand
and finally damped it down , and
we stayed in the Horizon Scanner Mode.
I think
that this is about the time that we went to Horizon Scanner , isn ’ t it? White
You were in Horizon Scanner while I was asleep .
McDivitt
Yes .
I don ’ t have that in my notes, but we went
in the Horizon Scan Mode around 72 hours , I think. I think it was at 16 : 03 GMT that I mentioned it . I didn ’ t do an O.rbi t Nav Check at the 72 hours and 50 minutes as shown in the flight plan . here ’ s where you were up again , Ed .
Oh ,
Because you
were up when the computer screwed up , wer en ’ t you? White
Yes.
I saw the light .
McDivitt
Okay.
During the course of our passes over the
Sta tes , here , around 75 hours , I was told to do Orbital Nav Check N:l.9 at about 75 : 30 , and I was to do Or bital Nav Check NolO at about 75 : 50 , Okay. I completed the Orbi t al Nav Check , Run No . 9, and then you must have waked up , I think . you wer e asleep when I did that .
I think
White
What time do you have me waking up?
I know about
what time I woke up. McDivitt
You woke up around 75 :30 or so .
I was going to
do an Orbit Nav Check No . 10 , and we were over the States .
They wanted us to turn on the
computer to send us a load, so I did .
That ‘s
probably what woke you up , when I was trying to turn on the computer with the swizzle stick. White
Yes .
McDivitt
But this time the computer stuck in the on position.
White
When you tried to turn it off.
McDivitt
And it wouldn ’ t go off .
White
I remember watching.
McDivitt
So it stayed on, and that ’ s when we had all of our
I saw the mal light go on.
computer trouble , which you ‘ll check and cover in systems.
Oh , the time the malfunction light
came on was right when we were about to turn it off. White
I ‘d say around 75 :15 or something.
McDivitt
75 : 50 CS~- Hawaii .
In that area?
I think it was about 75 : 50 or
thereabouts .
They sure do have some peculiar
times here.
It only takes , according to flight
FlOENf lA b
~K)ENTIM.
239
plan , 30 minutes to go from Guaymas back to Guaymas. White
That’s a high speed orbit .
That ’ s right.
It does have that, doesn’t it?
Looks
like a goof , doesn ’ t it? McDivitt
It only takes 40 minutes to go from Hawaii to Hawaii.
We were really traveling!
I don’t know
what time the computer stopped . White
I think they’ve got it on the ground .
They can
read the ma.l light. McDivitt
We were talking to them on the ground . be on the air to ground tape .
It should
Then we were
cleared to do Apollo D-9 in the orbit that covered the night time around 77 1/2 hours or so . White
That was my D-9 at night, wasn’t it?
McDivitt
That’s right. Ed did this.
White
Before you went to sleep, though, we had one other thing.
We had the zodiacal light photographs
that we took, and we had a special procedure called up where we pointed straight down. McDivitt
Oh, yes .
White
Pulsed it , with the shutter speed of the Hassel blad open .
That’s right.
You operated the Hasselblad and I
operated the spacecraft .
EO~F1D·EN11AL
We pitched down and
C@t ◄ Fi0EN-llAk=
240
ran through this test and pitched up and ran through —. McDivitt
The Contarex.
White
You used the Contar ex. T hat ’ s right.
McDivitt
We did this at a bout 78 : 30 , and I went to sleep at 79—
White
No , we didn ’ t .
McDivitt
76 : 30?
White
I just took on Rev 51. You ’ re correct .
We did this at 76 : 30 , Jim .
I have 78 : 30 .
51 they called up wasn ’ t right .
That Rev
Okay , we did it
at 21 :40 , which I have as equivalent to 78 : 25 . McDi vitt
Then at 80 hour s I went to sleep.
White
You went to sleep about 80 hours elapsed time. That ’ s r ight . ran a D- 8 .
Okay , while you were asleep , I
In fact , I had quite a bit to do
while you were asleep this time . at 23 : 57 ,
I ran a D- 8
These are all Zulu times .
on the MSC- 2 and 3 at 23: 57 ,
I turned
This is where I had
the requirement to attitude hold , small-end forwa r d , thr ough the anomaly .
On the first pass
through at 23 : 57 to 01 : 30 , I didn ’ t feel that I had a good atti tude .
From 23 : 57 to 01 : 15 I di dn ’ t
feel my attitude s mal l-end-f or ward was satisfactory.
G20t<iFIDENTIAt
-cet“‘4FIE>Ei’JTIAL
241
I elected’to make a similar pass through on the following orbit, watching the stars and making sure that I had a good small-end-forward.
I
found out that the first pass through was pretty good until the tail end, where I thought the stars were in the wrong position .
It turned out
that this is just the way they came up, and I was good for both of them except for the tail end of the first run through, I logged in two small end passes through the South Atlantic Anomaly. I also ran the D-9 Experiment and I found that by using the fuel and having the H0rizon Scan to hold when you wanted it to hold, the use of the sextant and horizon in making measurements was considerably easier. I made what I feel was a good Apollo D-9 run.
I ran the D-8 Experiment.
I had two times to run the D-8 Experiment. ran it at the Greenwich Mean Time of 01:30,
I I
was to look for Pegasus at O2:28,straight up at 268 nautical miles, and I was all hot to watch Pegasus go over and was just approaching my straight up attitude when-McDivitt
The sun shined on the window.
242
White
No , I was called and t hey said, “Say we got a critical tape dump.
We want you in a level
attitude for it .”
And I said , “Well, you just
gave me instructions to watch Pegasus. ”
And
they said, “No, we want the critical tape dump . ” So I went right down to that attitude , and we got the dump off in time for me to go back up to the attitude prior to 02:28. about . 5
I got up there
minutes prior to that time, but the
sun , as Jim said , was up and was reflecting off the particles on the windshield, and I really couldn’t see very much.
I tried to see Pegasus ,
but I couldn ‘t see it .
I turned MSC- 2 and ~ off
at the appropriate times .
We got instructions
from Houston CAP COM to t ry a few things with the computer.
We were to turn the computer off , the
IGS on , the computer on at 20 minute intervals to try to r ecycle the mal l ight off. that it might have been cold .
€0Nft0·cNll~
They thought
243
-CONfteiENTl~L
McDivitt
Let me step back a little bit to this computer problem .
The computer stuck c.wer
the States at around 75 1/2 hours or so . computer was stuck on .
The
If you’ve got to have
something stick, you’re better off to have it stick on , I guess, than off.
Especially if
you ever want it to work again .
As we went
out of earshot of the ground UHF radio range in the States , I asked them if that they had any instructions .
They said, “Stand by. ”
I sort
of felt that the thing that we ought to do was just leave it on for a while.
We got a call
from Tananarive and they said to place the computer switch to the ON position and a . a . Power Switch to the ACME .
I said that ’ s
certainly a peculiar place to put the switch and they said these are the instructtons from Houston . White
I think we had a good computer at that time .
McDivitt
I know darn well we had a good computer at that time .
I think this is like getting your
landing gear stuck up and you fool around with
C-ONFIDENTD\t- ~
244
it and it comes down and then just for the hell of it you pull it up again to see if it’s going to come up .
I don’t think we should
have ever turned off the computer.
Unfortunate
ly , I didn ’ t have all the infonnation at my fingertips that I needed to really make a de cision on it.
When we got to the next station,
which was Hawaii , I asked them how we were doing on electrical power .
They sai d that we
were 160 amp- hours ahead of the curve .
We had
a 200 amp- hour cushion, so that meant that we had a 360 amp-hour pad on our flight pl an.
In
the meantime , I had checked to see what the computer- ON , IGS Power Supply-ON took .
It
took 5. 6 amp-hours to power this thing.
We
were at 76 hours on a 96- hour mission and we had about 20 hours to go . a little over 100 .
Twenty times 5. 6 is
So, if we had used up these
100 amp-hours , we’d still finish up with a better electrical pad than we started out with , or than we expected when we started out .
So,
I sort of feel that we needlessly threw the computer down the drain .
After we got the
GNFIDENTIAt
245
thing turned off and ruined , we went ahead and turned the IGS Power Supply on , the computer on , and left it on the rest of the flight anyway . So , whoever sent those instructions accomplished it .
I guess what he wanted to do was turn off
the computer.
He sure accomplished that .
It
seemed to me like it would have been more worthwhile to leave the thing on till we got a little more data out of the thing, instead of rushing to get it tur ned of f t he way they d.L<.l, I don’t understand it .
I don’t feel that it
was a wise decision .
Unfortunately , I didn ’ t
have the electrical power consumption at my fingertips right then, or I never would have turned the thing off. McDivitt
Okay, I guess we’re over about 86 hours . up at 86 hours .
I got
That ’ s one of the longest rest
periods that I ’ ve had .
At 05 48 45 Zulu we were
supposed to perform a D-9 Experiment , and I guess we did .
Then I have in my notes that Ed went
to sleep at 87 hours elapsed time . White
And this was my five hours of very good sleep .
ONFIDENTA4,
co,~Fl0EN·l+AL It’s my best and last .
You must have let me
sleep till when? McDivitt
I don’t even have when I got you up, but it was about five or six hours.
I think it was
around six hours . White
No , it wasn’t that long, was i t ?
Because that
would have run us a little short .
You had
about an hour 45 minutes or two -McDivitt
I had an hour and a half nap .
I got up at
three hours before retrofire .
Retrofired at
97 : 45 ,
I went to sleep at 93 hours .
White
Okay.
So, I got up —
McDivitt
Ed got about six hours nap .
White
I got up about 95 :05 that time.
You went to
sleep about -McDivitt
No , you went to sleep at 87 hours and got up at about 92 — a little past 92 .
Whit e
This is what I 1 d estimate , Jim .
McDivitt
A little past 92 .
5 hours .
So , you had about a good
I lmow that you were still sleeping
at 92, because that ’ s when the urine system stopped up, and you were asleep then .
So, I
think you got up — I ’ d guess , around 92:30 ,
OO~~FIE>ENTIAL…
I lmow I went to sleep at 93.
I went to sleep in
pm GMT and 15 after the hour , whatever the hour was , and I woke up again .
During the time that
Ed was asleep , I did two Apollo
Landmark runs
using Area No. 16 for the first one . on Basrah.
It was a good run.
We’ll go into
this a lot more in detail later on. the second one on Cairo .
This was
I did
This was a good run .
I went through some more computer mode checks . Every ten seconds, I changed the computer modes and turned the switches on and off, pushed the malfunction lights , hi t the Start C-omp button, turned the switches on and off, ran the IVI’s and a whole bunch of other things.
The computer was dead and ±twas
pretty obvious that it was.
At 92 hours, the
urine flush system stopped up .
Just prior
to that Ed had urinated and we had a big bellows full.
As it started going overboard,
it always went overboard in squirts. White
Did you have it at 92 or 95?
McDivitt
White
Okay, that was when I was asleep.
CON·FIBENTIA~
248
‘CONFtDt:t+l~Al:-McDivitt
You were still asleep, and I think you got up around 92 : 3(), I would guess . in there.
Sometime around
I know that I got up three hours
before retrofire and I slept about an hour and a half .
You can go back and say that you got
up about 92: 30 or 93 elapsed.
Ed had urinated
in the bladder and the bel l ows was full .
As it
got towards the end , i t started going out very slowly, but it did all go out . the thing off normally.
So , I turned
I l eft preheat on for
a short time, two or three minutes , and then
turned it off .
After my urine dump, I had
about half air and half urine in the bladder, and the bellows filled out.
It just.stopped.
It was pretty obvious that it wasn’t going to go any farther .
I turned off the OVERBOARD
position and went to PREHEA:T on the other switch.
I then went over to the evaporat or
and dumped through the evaporator and it dumped right overboard .
We used the evaporator
dump system one other time during the flight . We played back the tapes and the things we were supposed to do unt il about 93 hours, I
CONF-10EN”FIAl…
-----ceNFl0EN·;pJAL
249
believe , and that ’ s when I went to sleep .
I
woke Ed up and I went to sleep at this time . White
Actually we got our update while you were asleep the time before .
We got the update for
how to perform the retro .
We figured that with
the procedure they gave ue, if we followed it , we would get a three- sigma miss distance of 70 nautical miles.
We were to use an 0AMS
r etor with a manual retro .
At this time , we
were going to push the manuel button .
They
didn ’ t know at this time that the TRS was working all right .
They later came in and
told us to use the automatic mode of time . were to use zero- lift rolling.
We
We were to
start the terminal maneuver at the 400 000 foot marker.
They told us to expect to encounter
about 8 g’s during the reentry .
We were told
the recovery area had three to four foo t waves , 18 knot winds , and good weather.
I 1 ll cover
this more later . White
There wasn ’ t much more .
We got an update .
I
took a few more pictures , and I di d a medi cal pass.
During that hour and 40 minutes there,·wasn ’ t
CONFl0ENTIAL
250
.u1.ything else .
Nothing else was scheduled.
We wer e down through what we felt was all the fuel we wanted to use , so about all I did was a couple of tracking tasks . McDivi tt
Going back for a moment, - at 17 :19 I did an Apollo D- 6 on Yuma.
Okay, I t hink that bri ngs
us t o t he preretro portion of the mission. Right , Ed? White
Yes, sir.
I think you ’ ll find t here are ~uite
a few errors and omissions in what we’ve put on the tape right now .
I t hink you have to com
pare them both—the two tapes together—to get anyt hing. White
That’s like air to ground tape , also .·
McDivitt
That ’ s right .
It has to all be put together .
This is jus t a piece right here.
White
We really started our preretro preparation about three hours prior to preretro .
At this
time we started stowing equipment and pre paring the spacecraft and ourselves for the retrofire.
I think we worked for probably
30 ±o 45 minutes without making a very bi g
CQ~~F-IDENTI—Ab
251
-eOl’<tflDENTl~L dent in the pile of junk that we had in the spacecraft .
IL.was apparent to1,me at ·I.hat
time that we were going to have to go a lot faster than we were going or we’d still be up there stowing stuff away at retrofire time . So , Ed and I then went into high gear and we really started stuffing stuff away.
We put
the film in the middle food box, and we put the caJDeras and some of the refuse, including three defecation bags, exerciser, and some other things, in the left-hand aft food b·ox. I took a lot 1,nger to stow the equipment than we had planned.
Do you have any comments on
that? White
Yes , I thought this also .
We had just every
thing out prior to this time .
We hadn ’ t
really been able to stow anything .
We used
every piece of our equipment right up to the time we started our stowage .
In fact , I think
you were getting a little uneasy there for a little while that we weren ’ t going to get it all in,
McDivitt
That’s right.
At the rate we were going, we
c,;J ~~FI f:}E·N T·IAL-..
COl<IFIDEt\fltAL
252
wouldn ’ t have. White
That ’ s right .
We had to accelerate our pace a
l ittle bit and perhaps get a little faster and not quite as thorough in o~r stowage as we would liked to have been . was put away.
I think everything
Everything was put away except
for the umbilical .
We knew we weren’t going
to stow the urine hose, so we put that in the umbilical bag.
The two meals that we had left
we put in the umbilical bag aleo . McDivitt
We had some other things .
We had the extra
vehicular sleeves off your sujt, the blanket that went over my leg , the launch- day urine bags , and a couple of other things were down underneath my legs .
They were between my l egs
and the seat . White
Right .
I put my launch-day urine bng in the
bag also , so that things wouldn ’ t ric.oohet·. around. McDivitt
I think we had all your stuff in the bag and I had all my stuff wedged between my legs and the seat .
White
We both also had a trash bag on either side .
€0~<1FIDENTIAL
253 We had that on the l aunch also . McDivitt
The trash bag was f ull .
White
Did yours stick on the side?
McDivitt
It stuck.
Wh ite
So di d mine .
McDivitt
It didn ’ t have anything heavy in it .
I put mi ne further up -It was
light weight . White
It was all trash .
McDivitt
Dry trash .
White
It all stayed there pretty well . the stowage done in time .
We di d get
I think we had about
10 or 15 minutes in which to collect our wits f or the -McDivitt
That’ s right .
I was trying to make an -eff ort
such that at the time we arrived over Carnarvon the greatest part of the stowage would be down.
However, we didn ’ t quite make this .
I
had a time powering up the spacecraft , and I had the IGS power on . the IMlJ on.
I had already turned
I was beginning to warm it up ,
and had it in the Cage Mode . When we got to Carnarvon we were still stowing things away .
I t hink by that time I had al-
t0NF1Dc1’ff~L
GOt\J FIDE~I-A=l
254
ready strapped myself into the spacecraft .
I
had my survival gear hooked up, my shoulder harness hooked up and my lap belt on loosely. White
We did the things that I could do by myself, such as
McDivi tt
stow·ing the ventilation module and
stowing the cabl e .
You were doing other things .
That’s what I said .
We were coming up to
Carnarvon .
I was shooting to have all this
stuff put away by then .
We didn’t have it all
put away but we had most of it done, where I could actual ly get around to flying the space craft again .
We checked in with Carnarvon , and
confirmed our retrofire time .
We weren’t
really supposed to pick up our retrofire dat a until we passed over the States .
From Car
narvon on up to the States, we ~ontinued to stow away little bits of pieces that we had . I think you were still eating.
We finally de
cided that you ’ d better stop eating or we weren’t going to be ready for reentry . Whi t e
With a little prethought I had taken one meal , prepared it and set it aside so I coul d eat it just before reentry .
This is what I was
255
doing . McDivitt
As we came up on Carnarvon , I thought that we were in excellent shape . time .
We had a lo t of spare
We could get ready for retrofire .
We
came up to the United States and ran a pass across the United States .
We got the updat e
times and we got all the reentry quantities ~hat we needed, both with and without OAMS . They told us that they had a valid load in the TRS .
At this time , I assumed that they
checked the TRS, but when we got our early retrofire , I wondered if anyone really had checked the time . White
I know it was off at least a second. · I’d estimate it was off a little more than a second.
McDivitt
A second and a half, probably.
No more than
two seconds because we didn’t arm it until three seconds• But it sure fired shor tly after that . White
Yes.
One thing that we got was different .
All
our quantities checked out except for one. They called up a landing time which, the first
256
C.QNFIDENT~AI. time , I copied it as 15: 55 , and t he sec.;ond time I copied it as 17:10 .
This was prior to
firing anything , so I think they corrected one time only.
I thought the rest of it was very
well h8J1dled .
We had the times called up and
verified several times . McDivitt
As we started our pass across t he States , I started alining the :EDJ.atform..
We had the best
alined platform although we didn ’ t really need an alined platform since we didn’t have a closed loop guidance system.
But we sure had
the best alined platform at retrofire that the space business will probably ever see .
I
alined the platform across the United States , and then I went to Orbit Rate .
I had about
a 20-minute al inement on it and went to Orbit Rate .
We left it in Orbit Rate .
I did this
alinement small-end-forward because I wanted to see where I was going for a change .
We
went into the dark side , and we really got into our checklist then.
We performed the P~e
r etro Checklist well in advance of when it was supposed to be done .
It shows it in the flight
,.CO~ FID”EMltAt
257
plan at about 96:40 with the retrofire at about 97 :45.
I think we did the Re,tro Check
list right after we completed our pass across the States .
We did it right at about 1+30 .
Then I did it at one hour.
At TA-1 hour we
went through the checklist again , and got· all those things that we skipped.
Some of them we
didn’t want to do as early as an hour and a half.
We went through it again in an hour,
and we did the Preretro Checklist step by step.
I think at that time we had everything
stowed away.
We took a couple last drinks of
water, and put the water gun away , and then proceeded on down . White
I had one comment on that checklist.
I still
think our HF procedures are not too well de fined—when we do and when we don ’ t put the !::IF out.
Not out, but when we put No . 2 on HF.
It popped up in the checklist again and we questioned this prior to the flight .
Why put
No . 2 audio on HF during this time?
I do not
feel we want to be on HF.
We had the HF on.
We could hear them calling us , if they did call
us on it .
We could switch over t o it quite
quickly .
Thi s wasn’t on the checklist , but
we put my switch on RECORD and recorded the whole sequence of events. McDivi tt
That ’ s right .
I t hink that was sort of a
needless position .
You could l isten on HF
without having the transmitter on . White
That was the only discrepancy t hat I fow1d in our checklist . One other t hing .
Everything else we went through . They had , “Insert a new
voice tape , ” and we both felt we wanted the full reentry on one tape .
If we put a new
voice tape at this time we wouldn ’ t have gotten it .
So , I inserted a new voice tape at
the Minus 36 Checklist and I think this is a good time to do it on future fligh ts . McDivitt
Yes, the TR-36 Checklist was to be done over Carnarvon.
We dec ided that we would check the
maneuver thrusters prior to Carnarvon since we had a lot of time .
There was no sense in
waiting until t he checklist time ca.me around . Since we had a lot of time , which was t he thing I was striving for , I went ahead and
COl\lftD·EN—T ~L
CONFteENTlAL
259
checked the aft- firing thrusters No . 9 and 10 as we had in the TR- 36 Checklist , except we did it between TR-45 and 40 .
Got them all
checked out, so that by the time we came over Carnarvon we just went ahead and started up our event timer on their mark .
We confirmed with
Carnarvon that we had indeed checked on maneuver thrusters and that they were all right .
We got
this checklist completed well in advance too . We went through it a coupl e of t imes , a lthough there really wasn ’ t much to it after the Man euver Thruster Check ,
I guess we could proba
bly follow the retrofire itself here . 5,0 Retrofire 5, 1 Zt-36 Events McDivitt
I juet covered most of this .
I set the event
timer up well in advance of Carnarvon . Carnarvon, I got the TR-36 hack.
At
I got the
event timer started right on the money .
We
got a hack on it later and it was indeed with the ground times .
I checked th e aft-firing
thrusters prior to reaching Carnarvon, and I told Carnarvon that I had indeed checked them
-CONFt0ENflAL-
COt~FIOf:m1”AL
260
and they were operating properly . 5. 2 TR- 22 Events McDivitt
At TR-22 I was alining the platform.
I
started alining the platform over the States , and I put it in Orbit Rate for a while .
Final ly
we got over to the dark side and there wasn ’ t anything else to do , so I alined it some more .
I alined that platform for an hour and a half .
We had the best alined platform at
retrofire in the world .
We were in pret ty good
shape by the t ime we got to the T - 22 checklist, R which is really nothing at all. It ‘s just another platform alinement .
We checked our
ground updates, and again Carnarvon told us that we had a good load in the TRS .
5.3 Tlt-13 Events McDivitt
At TR-13 minutes we started the computer.
We
started our TR- 13 minute checklist at about TR-1 4 to make sure we didn ’ t run into any problems .
We got into Orbit Rate, and I got
all the things out just like the T - 12 checklist R
says .
We had an OAMS burn of 2 minutes and 40
seconds.
They called it up and I
.CONFIDENTlAt’ checked it .
I was exactly right .
261
They were
obviously flying it off the same card that we were , because I checked it and it was exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds .
5.4 !R-12 Events McDivitt
Hawaii said they would give me a countdown to TR-12 , and they gaye me the 3, 2, 1 Mark . started thrusting at that time .
I
Ed had planned
to give me a check at one minute elapsed time , two minutes elapsed t i me, and at 30 seconds to g o , 20 seconds to go , 10 seconds to go , 5, 4,
3, 2, 1, and off . That ‘s exactly what we did. He called me at one minute , and again at two minutes .
We went right on down, and he gave me
the mark .
I was checking t he t i me as he gave
me the counts .
It was agreeing exactly with
my event timer .
At Ed ’ s mark , I released the
attitude controller :end we were within tenths of seconds of exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds of burn time .
During this period of time , I
think I held the attitudP-s probably within plus or minus a degree.
It was very easy to control .
The t hing that I noticed most about it was the
262
absence of noise from the aft-firing thrusters . I could hear the RCS firing , but I could not hear the aft- firing thrusters . White
I could hear them .
McDivitt
You know how the “x” is like this?
My ears were
plugged up throughout the flight , so maybe you could hear t hem. White
I could hear them .
McDivitt
That was in Rate Command .
Whi te
And stopping?
McDivitt
Yes , I heard Rate Command. doing with the stick .
I knew what I was
Maybe what you were
hearing was Rate Command. White
I was going to comment that the way that I was l istening to t hem’:!: thought they were just cutting out .
McDivitt
You were hearing the attitude thrusters , Ed . Here ’ s what would happen .
I would be thrus ting
along and the thing would s t art deviating .
It
has a tendency to deviate more in yaw . White
I s i t continual? Did you hear it all the t ime ?
McDivitt
Yes, almos t all the time except for pauses t hat were frightening, as the attitude would
Nlf
~
IDENTIAt
263
drift off just a slight amount, around a degree . It wasn’t deviating a lot so I was making smal l corrections.
It would deviate in yaw so I would
control it back.
It tended to deviate slightly
to the left all the time.
I control l ed it over
to the right and I would bring the ball back underneath the dot . to zero .
Then I would even go back
Then I would release it .
I would
bring the stick ·back to neutral , and for a shor t time , the rates would bui ld up and the silence would be deafening . whatsoever .
There would be no noise
I would think , “God bless it .
Have the aft- firing thrusters stopped firing?” Then the thrusters tended to yaw the spacecraft some more .
As it came around , it got past
2/10 1 s of a degree/second deadband and the Rate Command started firing Main. White
Okay, that ’ s what I heard .
McDivitt
That was Rate Command . it was really going.
That ’ s right .
When I yawed back around, I’d come back to neutral
and it would stop . White
All right .
Then I couldn’t hear them.
I didn’t
hear them when we took the check on them .
ceNFIE>ENTIAL
264
McDivitt
Neither did I .
I didn ’ t hear a thing.
I agree
100 per cent with Gus that you absolutely
can ’ t hear those aft-firing t hrusters . White
My ear muffs are loose . on my ears .
They are always loose
So if you could hear it outside ,
I would have heard it.
I didn ’ t hear it.
I
heard Rate Command. McDivitt
Those attitude thrusters really make a noise.
White
They make a big noise .
It sounded to me like
I could hear the thrusters firing and I was also detecting these pauses evecy so often .
Several
times I thought, “Oh , heck, it’s stopped! ” McDivitt
That ’ s right ,
Especially , when we started
getting down towards the bottom.
The old fuel
gages were going down toward zero and the ti me was running around.
It looked like it was
going to be a dead heat between which went .out firs t.
There was one··particularly J.ong pause
at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds ,
I thought ,
“There it goes ,” a.nd we made a quick correction. .And when I stopped , I couldn ’ t hear a thing. Nothing changed. White
Okay.
That ’ s all it was .
I retract my statement.
COMF fDEN-slUa. L
,.
265
McDivitt
Well , not knowing exactly what I was doi ng with the hand controller, you—I was making small corrections .
White
That ’ s the first time I’d heard that kind of a sound.
McDivitt
We were getting it when we wer e chasing that thing around , too—when we were chasing the booster around .
White
You were thrusting again .
I thought this was
the other one . McDivitt
Yes , that ’ s right .
So we got through the TR-13
and TR-12 Checklis t s. ~e TR-13 and the TR- 12 Checklists really should be grouped together—the preparat ion and the OAMS retrofire .
- 5 TR- 5 Events McDivitt
Once more we started doing our checklist a little early.
Since we had the t i me there was no since
in wasting it and then rushing at the end.
So
we went through what we could in advance of T -5. R
The things we couldn’t do or that didn’t
need to be done in advance we waited for until exactly TR-5 .
I guess this is where Ed got the
266
first clue that the TRS was ahead of the ground time . White
This is an area where I particularly watch the time .
This is an a.:-ea where I ‘m making a time
check to start the elapsed timer going in order to get our time after retrofire . ing it pretty close .
I was watch
The indication on my
watch was that the TRS vi.as about a second or so early.
I felt we had a good Green·..n.ch Mean
Time hack .
We checked it several times and I
thought we had a good one.
With my time refer
ence it was approximately a second to a little better early.
At this time I had about half
of the checklist completed before we got to the time for it .
I verified it several times .
It’s not a hurried time at all, from 36 down , I don’t believe .
There ’ s no time in there when
you’re really rushed unless it-McDivitt
Yes .
It is not hurried, provided you have
everything else completed and you ’ re not doing anything else but preparing for the retrofire- you have nothing going wrong during this period. At TR-5 the sequence lights came on a little
CONFIO-EN:f~AL
267
bit early and that’s where Ed got his first clue tr·at the TRS was ahead of the other thing. I didn ’ t notice it because I wasn ’ t watching my event timer that closely. watch started .
Ed got his GMT sto¥
Why don I t you go ahead with the
electrical , Ed? White
I turned the main batteries on, verified them on , and verified t hey were taking the load . They were in good shape .
McDivitt
This is where we turned the OAMS off and the RCS on.
Let me talk about the checkout
on the
RCS now .
We had armed the RCS prior to the
TR- 36 Checklist, and checked out each ring. When I was checking the rings out , I felt that I might have a thruster out .
That was because
when I pitched up or down, my top left yaw thruster was firing in one ring.
I felt that
I might be generating a rolling moment by having one of my pitch jets out and the yaw jets were having to take out this rolling moment . I checked it in one ripg. whi ch ring it was . it again .
I don’t remember
I went to Direct 8lld did
It didn ’ t seem to do it , but on the
268
other hand , it didn’t seem to make the space craft roll either.
Then I turned that ring off
and went over and ddd it on the other ring. Identically the same thing happened .
I thought
I might have trouble wi th the roll -gyro . turmid the roll gyro to SECONDARY . seem to make any difference . PRIMARY .
I
That didn ‘t
We went back to
I remember commenting at that time
that the RCS was a lot looser in control than the OAMS.
It seemed to me that the OAMS held
the spacecraft attitude better.
It seemed like
it controlled to a rate deadband that was smaller than the RCS deadband .
I don’t know
why you’re using the same gyros and the same electronics .
The only thing that could be
different would be the attitude drivers on the RCS might be activiating slower than they are in the OAMS.
It seemed like the rates were
such a—seems like there must be a lag in the whole system.
It seemed like the deadband in
the RCS was twice what it was in the OAMS . operated properly.
It
There’s so much difference
between looking at that ball on firing retros
N-FIE>ENlL
269
and looking out and actually seeing the nose of t he spacecraft moving around out there . There’s no comparison with t he simulator. just can’t simul ate t his .
You
When I looked down
at the ball and did t he retrofire, i t was just l ike the simulator.
When I was l ooking outside
and actually seeing what the spacecraft was do ing as I cont rol led i t , it seemed like it was a lot sloppier with the RCS than it was wi th the OAMS . White
We must have fired over New Mexico or Texas .
McDivitt
Our retrofire?
White
Yes .
I could see the old brown sandy earth
down right under us . McDivitt
Yes , Guaymas gave us our countdown , so we were over northern Mexico .
White
That ’ s the area that I thought we were over . Actually , it may even look almost a littl e like west Texas.
McDivitt
It could have been.
Then I did TR-5 .
to our retro attitude. Checklist complete .
I went
We reported our TR- 5
I don ’ t know exactly when
Guaymas came on the radio .
-€0-NFf’DEN·f ~l
COt\JFtE>l:N!TtAI’
270
5, 6 TR- 1 Events McDivit t
Yes.
At TR-1 there wasn’t really much that we
could do in advance , but whatever we could do , There weren I t many steps .
we di d . White
We just waited for minus 1 minute .
McDivit t
All you have to do is really just prepare your self mentally, but at T - 1 I told Ed , “We ’ re R
at a minute . ” , and I guess F,d already knew we were at a minute. White
Yes.
McDivitt
F,d
did it just exactly as we’d briefed it many
times .
You punched the SEP OAMS.
We heard the
bang.
He followed wit h a SEP ELECTRIC , rather
quickly afterward as we had planned. the bang.
We heard
Then we waited a short t ime as we
had planned , and fired the SEP ADAPrER . t here was a great big bang.
Then
The tendancy is
to punch those buttons 1, 2 , 3.
We decided
that we didn ’ t want to go 1 , 2 , 3.
We wanted
t o go 1, 2, (pause) 3.
That was exactly what
we did , and there wasn I t any doubt whether the equipment adapter separated . White
I had no incl ination to look around .
Ee·N-FiDENTIAb
I knew it
271
was gone . McDivitt
That ’ s when Ed hollered , “‘l’here go the pump packages !
I see two pump packages out there .
Just exactly what John Young said! ” White
They separate right off to the left side .
Jim
couldn ’ t see them because of the posi tion of his head .
I could see them .
McDivitt
That ‘s right .
I never saw them at all .
White
I could clearly see the t wo pumps together on the mounting and mounted together . right together . on tha t one.
McDivitt
They were
And I’ll back John up to hilt
I saw t hem too .
We got the ad~pter separated with all the at tendent flying pump packages .
Whi t e
Quite a flourish , isn ’ t it?
McDivi tt
Right .
I t sure is .
It was a big bang.
no doubt about it .
At TR- 30 , the TR- 30
There ’ s
Sequence Light s ceme on , and at that t:Lme Ed said , “The s aquenc e 1 ights came on about a second or a second and a half in advance. ” So , I armed retro squibs , and we discussed whether or not to punch off the Auto- re t r o Button or not .
If the TRS was fast, I didn’t
272
want to p,mch it off ahead and have t he retro rockets go off early, but I figured t hat it· wasn’t in a hurry that much.
But if it c8Jlle
on much earlier than that , i t was really going to make us short.
So, I finally decided that
we’d go ahead and ann the Auto-retro Button at about three seconds so that we weren’ t going to be any more than 15 or 20 miles short as a result of the retrorockets going off early. We’d still get the auto- retrofire, signal through, so that if something went ·,:rong with the manual retrofire signal we’d still get the retrorockets fired .
I felt t hat three seconds
early would be better than a possible 15 or 20 second one in case we had to go through some non-nominal method of firing the retros in case the manual button didn’t make it work .
I told
Ed to arm the auto-retrofire , a.nd he did this at about three seconds and i t fired automati cally at between two and one seconds, I think, in the count. White
Yes .
McDivitt
I felt that we got a one-plus second early
eo·Ft0ETIA1
273
auto-retrofire. \ohite
Ri ght .
I did too .
We went through the little
discussion there from minus 30 down, and I knew what Jim’s point was.
I think I distrusted the
system a tad more than Jim did, but I thought his logic was good.
We had two systems work
ing to fire the rockets.
i was in full agree
ment. McDivitt
We went through and saved fuel for four days so we could do an OAMS retrofire .
I felt if
we’re going to adopt that sort of philosophy and go through
that long of a lean fuel period,
then we could afford another few miles of in accuracy thrown in by an early retrofire if we got the redundancy that you would get from a double-firing .
So , I elected to go ahead and
have Ed push it .
Al though it probably con
tributed on the order of 8 to 10 miles to our miss distance, I don ’ t think it really hurt us that bad.
5.7 TR- 0 Events McDivitt
I had the spacecraft in the retrofire attitude, and when t he retrorockets f ired, I—
‘Ee·N Fl0 ENTtft:t:-’
274
White
I had also pushed the man1lal b’uttG::·. on time . So , it was about a second after they actually fired .
McDivitt
Excellent .
The spacecraft was in the proper
retro-attitude and we got a real good push from the retrorockets .
There are four distinct
pushes, and I never felt a pause between any one of them . Whi t e
Did you?
Yes, a little pause between each one.
I
think my cues wei:e tuned llp in a different manner than yours . controls .
Yours were working on the
Did you feel that you could actual
ly see the acceleration? You weren ’ t looking out the window. McDivitt
I was a little bit .
It looked like we were
actually turned around and started back the other way . White
ila, ha!
I really could feel the g ’ s .
Nothing that was
uncomfortable, but I felt each one of them and I a l so felt looking out that I could see the spacecraft sl owing down .
I know i t was such a
pityingly amount compared to our velocity, but I was looking down on the ground when they fired .
•
-
roNE,IQENTIA::~
275
Your view of the ground is considerable at minus 30 degrees, a~i it did seem like I could see the spacecraft actually slow down . McDivitt
I don’t know what the magnitude of the g’s was during retrofire. tell you that .
We were super- sensitive , I’ll
We’ll get to that later.
As
a matter of fact, later on when I was debating about whether or not the g meter worked , I stopped and hit the reset button, and it did ·:1 come down .
It came down f:r, ~ic. something less
than oL-s· to zero . White
I ‘d say bet;.reen 2/10 of a g and 1/2 g dtiring” retrofire .
McDivi”;~
‘I ‘d guess something about that order too .
It
sure seems a lot . White
Your cues a=e really up,,fo r the g’s.
McDivitt
You’ve been at zero e for so long, anything fe els like it ’ s a lot .
Mcnivi”;•
I was at zero rates ani in the proper attitud~. I was in Rate Command when the retrorocket s fired .
I maintained the attitude very well.
It was very ea$y. all .
There ·were no deviations at
Ed was standing by on the roll rate gyro
—COl>al~IDENl lAL
CO ► lFIDEN·f~At
276
•
in case it looked like I was loosing control in yaw .
He could turn off the roll rate gyro
and get all the authority that I needed in yaw . As far as I could see, it never deviated more than a degree from where I was supposed to be .
I don ’ t think it ever got off that center bar in yaw , :ind it never got a dot- that little dot- -away from the 30 degree mark as far as I could tell . White
Could you see any, Ed?
I was sitting there watching it and enjoying it at that t~me tecause the attitude was stay ing right on.
McDi vitt
Yes .
It was right on .
right direction.
We got the 6V in the
N,:-w, the IVI’ s didn’t read
out , because we didn ’ t have the computer on , so we really couldn’t tell . White
It was as steady as a rock.
You could see the
decelerations and looking out the window , I couldn ’ t detect
any
movement
in attitude .
I was
looking right down on the ground several times during several of the retros, and I think you could detect motion fairly well . any .
C.Q t> j J; I9-EN lLA.L.
I didn’t see
cerftDENTAi.
McDivitt
I’ll tell you .
277
I was really happy after that
OAMS retrofire and the retrorocket re trofire . I figured that we had exactly what we were supposed to , and I was positive we were going to come down on that cotton-picking carrier. I was really quite happy after that , because I don’t think 3ven i :c.. t:‘1"" simulator we ever had on0 t~.d-~· easy. White
Shall we make 01lr a dmission on OAMS retro at this time , Jim?
McDivitt
Yes.
As a matter of fact it might be appro
priate.
I’m probably one of the biggest an
tagonists to the OAMS retrofire that there possibly is at the Manned Spacecraft ·center, because I think it’s a fuel wasting ma~euver and a lot .-:,f other things .
I still think it is.
I ’ ll still say one thing—after I fired the OAMS retrofire and I knew I was going to come down , I was a l •::>t more relaxed than I had been before I got there.
I ’ m going to have to tell
Dr. Gilruth that , but I still think we can get by without it . White
It was nice to see tt work.
CONRDENTJAL
It was nice .
278
McDivitt
It was , and I was real sorry we d:idn ‘·t havG a computer because after those two thingn , which I thought were done certainly as good as I could possibly do them .
I felt sure that ~e
could have landed right on the cotton-pickin~ car rier ’ s deck if we just had a computer to tell us wher e t o go . I would have liked to have tried the guidance .
I worked hard eno,.1g’.l on that
reentry guidance and I didn’t get to use it . Whi te
Jim , I think there is one thing that we left out - -the reading of the percentage of 0AMS fuel left.
I think we called out —3
or 4
per cent . McDivitt
That ’ s right .
I had
3
rema ining on the gage .
or . 4
pe·rcen t
We called it out and
it will be on the tape . White
3 percent McDivitt
3
I wrote it down ~t of
Here it is .
the fuel left after 0AMS.
Yes , an1 it wa~ a little hard to rea1 down there and parallax was ted that it was
White
percent .
3
pretty bad .
I estima
per cent.
I read off the g_uanti ty on the gage and it was a little over 1100 .
279
fl
McDivitt
1100 psi?
Wh1te
Yes .
McDivitt
I’ll tell you one thing about the out-the window view at 30 degrees pitch-down attitude . You’re really pitched down at 30 degrees .
White
That’s another thing that I noticed.
I was
looking out the window, and I srely wasn ’ t
obseving much in the way of a horizon .
I was
looking at the ground . McDivitt
The top · 2 inches of the window has the hori zon in it .
So , if you really had a bad r etro
and you get scr ewed up a l i ttle bi t , you coul d lose your horizon. White
You could lose your horizon , but I think you’ve got a good enough view of the motion of the ground az1d an object on the ground.
I thl.nk
you could do a ver y effective job . McDivitt
If I really hai to do a..~ out-the-window retro I ’ m 11.)t even sure that I ’ d look out and use the hori zon.
White
I think I ’ d pick a spot on the ground .
That ’ s the point I was maki ng. grease pencil on your window.
McDivitt
You’d have to use both .
@9NFll:)ENtL~L
You ’ d put a
280
Whi.te
I LM.nk you’d find a spot on the ground , and. hold it.
McDivitt
Because the spot on the ground is going to move .
Whi.te
Yes, it’s going to move during the fir~ .
That ‘s
exactly what you do on an attitude ball. you know .
You have a horizm1 and you have a spot
and then you fly tha”:; :~pot .
So, it sounds kind
of l ike the thing I think you can do. McDivitt
The retrorockets fired, as I said, in the order 1, 2, 3, 4.
We got t he manual fit’e out—
button punched.
Ed got that .
We had said that
because we’re getting a countdown we were going to fire the Manual. Retrofire Button ex1L-,tly when we got to zero .
We weren’ t going to wait
aro,md a second a f ter that so that we got t he computer and all that jazz on the line .
We
didn ’ t have .any ,;01:iputer to get on the line . We weren’t going to read out anyth:i.ng on the IVI’ s or anything else.
All we were concerned with
was firing the retrorockets . 5, 8 Retropack Jettison McDivitt
I waited 45 seconds. this time.
I started rolling over at
When 45 seconds crune , I had t~e
CONf~DfENTIAb.
/4ONFl0-ENflA t-
281
retro-;;ett squib on , and I punched off tho retro- - White
The light came on And you punched it .
McDivitt
That ‘s right .
The light came on at 45 seconds
and I punched it .
There was a real solid bang,
and I knew we separated from the retropack . doubt there either.
No
As we went on down , we
finally sa•,r the retropack com,::- on around behind us . McDi vitt
Do you have anything else on the retropack jettison?
I guess not .
That ’ s pretty simple .
5.9 Communications McDivitt
We got the com from t:~e ground .
White
I thought we had good communicat.tons wi t h the ground.
McDivitt
No problems with the communications .
I was a
little concerned with the communications earlier in the flight , because we wer en ’ t get-• ting anything .
We weren’t getting retrofire
times or any other i nformation .
But to ~ards
the end of the f light coouwmica.tio:is wer,1 8iC cellent. 5. 10 Update
-E O NFIDENTI-Al!-
282
McDi vitt
The update was awful , I think .
As I mentioned
earlier, they updated our TRS but the TRS was obviously not running with the ground .
6.0 REENTRY
- 1 Reent:cy Par ameters Update Mc:Divitt
We really didn’t have a reentrs parameters up dl:l.te post-retro . quick .
We went intn black-out pretty
There wasn ’ t anything to update.
We
were going to s t art rolling at 400 000 .
Re
gardless of anything else , we had a pre• program_~ed reentry .
6.2 400K White
We were at 400K before you got your
3 -
Minute Update . McDivitt
That’s right .
At two minutes a~d 38 secondA
we were through 400 000 feet. a hurry .
We got there in
I rol l ed upside down, and I flew do,m
to 400 000 feet , which was to be at 2:38 ,
How
ever, I thought that we ’ d retrofired a little early, so I wasn ’ t in any great rush to start my rolling reentry .
I dela¥ed about :another
30 or 40 secondA .
The only reason I delayed
was because I knew there wasn’t any rush to get
eeMfteENl-lAJ_
C6 ► ~Fl0ENTIA ”
283
over , because if we were going to be nnypl a ~e , we were going to be short.
I j”.1st wanted to
get over a.nd get in a good attitude .
So , I
r ol led the thing upside down, got the-White
One thing---on the Post- retro Checklist , we dedded this time to use Reentry Rate Command rather than Direct.
McDivitt
That ’ s r ight .
White
That ’ s a deviation on our checklist .
McDivitt
When I got the thi ng upside dow:n, I was still in Rate Co!llllla.nd.
I held the lift vec t or up,
heads down , until I got down minutes and 15 seconds .
to· about
3
I got my 3 minute
time hack from the ground.
I got my clock
counting up a 3 minutes .
At about 3 minutes
and 15 seconds I started th0 roll .
What I did
was , I put in aoout 15 degrees/second , and then we turned off the roll gyro . thing rolling.
I just left the ·
I controlled the pitch and yaw
inside the rate deadba.nd , which was plus or minus 4 degrees , just a 3 you would i n Direct. I still had the rate deadba.nd
t o take care of
any wild pertubations t hat we got into .
-€0NFl0ENllAL
6. 3
.04 g White
We didn ’ t even have a time for . 04 g’s did we?
McDivitt
No .
We d.id:a ’ t h:we ::1.ny-thing like that .
We
started rolling reentcy at 400 000 feet, except that I didn ’ t start it until ah-.ut 45 seconds after that to make sure that I had good at ti bd9 . I started the thing around the way I wanted it . Just .<.i,lxmt this tim,~ , we saw the retro adapter start floating back past us .
I figured the
other day that thing was small-end- forward rather than blunt-end-fo rward . White
I’d sa:y it was front-end- forward too .
McDivitt
We saw the spherical end of the retrorockets . Remember?
White
Yes .
All four of them .
McDivitt
All fo·..1r of them .
We didn ’ t see the nozzle .
It had done a 180-degree turn small-endforward and it was as stable a8 a rock.
We
could see the whip antennas sticking out to the side . White
Exactly the position it should go to .
That’s
the heaviest end, I would presume. McDivitt
It would tend to trim that way too .
EONi;,IDENTIAL
Except that
CONFtDENTl;ttt-
285
I didn ’ t think there would be any aerodynamics at 400 000 feet . degrees
But it was turned around 180
and was perfectly stable with the whip
antenna sticking out , which at that iime was up to the right . White
Yes .
McDivitt
We were upside down.
It sure was a funny look~
ing sight. White
It sure was .
It was really pretty.
McDivitt
And it was as stable as a rock and very slowly d:t’ifting behind us .
As a matter of fact , for
a while I thought that our opening velocities were too slow, and I thought it would just come back and hit us .
But , it just stayed out
there, a nd we started our rolling reentry there . We were coming on down and we were rolling around and before I got any noticeable g ’ s at all—Isn’ t that right—before we got any notice able g ’ s it s t arted burning? White
Okay.
We saw the reddish pink layer come a
round the spacecraft-McDivitt
Well, didn ’ t we see the retropack start burning before the- - ?
-CONFtDENllM
~ 0 t>J FI l;)f NT IAi.
286
White
Whichever way we saw it , it’s on the tapes , because we discussed it pretty thoroughly .
McDivitt
That ’ s right , as we were doing it .
But I sort
of vaguely recall that watching the retros after us as we s]!lllrl around , it started glowing a little bit and then you could see t his big spray come off the front —shock or someth ing. I t looked like it was just melting and corning away .
It just looked like a great big orange
mushroom back there, and that’s when it really started falling behind us. McDivitt
We hadn ’ t felt any g ’ s at all .
Had you felt any
I gs?
White
Not that time .
McDivitt
I ’ m sure that I hadn ’ t felt any g ’ s .
White
I was wondering why we were so light . looking down at Florida.
We were
We had watched Florida
go by and commented on it . McDivitt
Shoot , we real ly made a low altitude pass across the States .
We should have probably filed a DD-
175 to get clearance . White
We had to come through the control zone , you know, at Eglin.
They’re kind of sensitive about
CONf-H~ENl-lAL-
287
lower altitudes . McDivitt
… started glowing and burning and it was as stable as a rock as long as I could see it . Did you ever see it tumbl e?
White
No , never did .
McDivitt
Okay.
It was behind us and it looked like it
just ate the front tight off, and I guess when we first saw it , it was on the order of 200 feet , maybe? White
Yes .
McDivitt
And the last time I saw it , it looked like it was about 3/4 .. ..
White
That was about the position that I saw the booster for the first time .
McDivitt
I think you ’ re right .
I guess we could see the
dome on it and all that stuff .
As a matter of
fact , it was a pretty good reentry shape .
It
looked stable as a rock . White
I t stabilized right out .
McDivitt
So , we finally saw it drop behind us and burn up .
As it finally started drawing behind us .
White
We started to get
McDivitt
The first thing I saw was the orange flame- - the
- CONFl0ENTl~t-
288
orange or pinkish flames coming out .
It looked
like the flame was coming up around my side of the spacecraft like this .
Was it doing that on
your side , too? White
Yes .
It looked like it was almost coming from
three points . McDivitt
Okay.
Probably what it was doing was corning
around both sides because of the angle of attack and going out this way.
But I definitely could
see the orange fire come up around the l efthand side of the spacecraft and out in front of the window, and pretty soon I saw some green fire-White
Coming out of the top —
McDivitt
Oh, is that where you saw it? I didn’t.
I saw
the green fire down close to the left- hand side coming up over the nose inside of the red fire , and then it was all swirling around there .
Then
while we were coming down, we were coming down in a r oll , but with our relatively high L/D, we were in a great big roll with a big wallow.
I
guess this is really indicative of how much lift we had .
FfDl:NrtA
289
White
It looked to me l ike we were getting a lot of lift out of it .
McDivitt
It looked to me we were getting an awful lot of lift out of it.
White
It was really whipping around there .
McDivitt
And we were going around at a pretty good rate . The needle was off to the left .
That ’ s right .
It moved out sl owly , slowly and got out t o about 2 degrees and it just held there . spacecraft was as stable as a rock.
The
I damped
the thing a couple of times in pitch and yaw and it just stablized right on down there .
I
don ’ t think I even t ouched the pitch again .
I
think I maybe touched the pitch four times all the way down and the yaw maybe six or seven times .
What I was looking at was just a huge
portion of the sky.
I could see the ground,
then I could see the sky, and I really saw a lot of the country as we came rolling by. White
What surprised me is how much it was .
I knew
why it was doing it but I thought it was
eeNFtofNllAL ..
290
arc was that this thing cut out. was a real lifting body.
That thing
You ’ re really getting
a lot of lift initiall y, and if you roll around there, you ’ d kill it all off; and your aero dynamics is such that you really can’t tell, because the stability is so loose right there . White
You know you’re going to get some lift if you have an offset CG, but you couldn’t tell where it was going ,
McDivitt
You ’ re in the area where you’re getting a lot of lift so i f you do a roll , you’ve lost that range right off the bat .
We came down on this
great big spiral, and here I think we ought to get into
6.4 Acceleration Profile McDivitt
-
- the acceleration at retrofire.
I called
down on the ground and told them that we had four retros . retro .
We got automatic.
We got auto
We got all four in sequence .
auto- retro .
We got
Auto- retrofire appeared to be about
a second and a half early .
In the acceleration
profile I said, “Well, here come the g ’ s, Ed . ” and I felt the g ’ s going up.
He said yes.
291
White
I said , “Yes .
There are two of them , aren’t
there?” McDivitt
Yes, and then we waited a while longer and—
White
I said, “Gee, there ’ s nothing on the g- meter. ”
McDivitt
I said, “The g-meter must be broken ” ,so that ’ s
why I reached up and reset it . went down a little bit.
It actually
So we went a little
while longer , and I said, “Ed, I feel a lot of g ’ s ”, and he said , “So do I .”
Then he said 1:We
must be up between three and four. ” White
If felt like that.
McDivitt
And I said, “Yes, I think we’re up about that high too .”
And the g-meter was still reading
zero for all pratical purposes . started building up slowly .
Pretty soon it
It went up to
2 , 3, 4, and I called out at 2 , and I called out at 4, and I called out at 6, and I think I called out at 7. White
About the time you called out the 2, I knew we had been had.
McDivitt
Yes.
It’s just that we were super-sensitive to
g’s and the load pulling us into the seat was on .the order of a tenth of a g . White
It ’ s true .
CONFIDENTIAt-’
cor~FtOENr~~
292 McDivitt
So , we had 1/10 g and we thought· we had 3 . .And we both felt this way . bout 7 1/2 .
The g ‘s went up to a
They told us we would probably get
8 g ’ s coming down .
When we got the instrument
positions back from the spacecraft , the post landing switch positions, they had the g- meter marked at 7 1/2 g ’ s , and I suspect that ’ s probably about as high as it went .
Now , I ’ m
telling you this was really a piece of cake . I thought that maybe 7 1/2 g ’ s aft~r being out there for so long would be tough , but I di.dn ’ t even have to breathe hard to get any air ,
I
just lay there and relaxed and enjoyed the whole thing , and I really got a big kick out of that reentry . White
We chatted back and forth .
We talked through
the whole g- load, and I was watching outside and inside .
I was looking out quite a bit of
the time when things were going so smoothly, particularly the g- load .
When you get to the
high g’s , you might as well look out, because you ’ re not going to do anything about it , and I noticed no dimming in vision . as clear as a bell .
Not a speck.
-CONfJDENTIJXt
Everything was I could see
_c:GNFIDENJIAL
293
everything on the instrument panel , and I could see things very clearly outside . McDivitt
Things were going so smoothly on the inside that
I looked out too .
I enjoyed the scenery on the
way down . White
Once you get in that position and you get the high g ’ s you ’ re not going to do anything inside .
McDivitt
In the amplitude of the oscillations, —all the
simulations show that they tend to decrease as you get to high g ’ s and the f r equency picks up . So the only thing you could do is hurt things if you start screwing around with it , except we didn ’ t have any oscillations anyway .
It was just
as stable as a rock . White
I think at this point I ’ d like to put something in .
I ’ d like to find out when they analyze the
data whether the upper right-firing thrusters on my side were firing a whole magnitude more than the right - hand upward-fir ing thrusters .
In
fact, they very early in the pr ofile became a cherry red and just stayed red hot , even a little bit white hot all the way down . White
There was no frequency to it at all .
It appeared
to me they were firing continually and I think
L’ONFIDEN:J:IAl
294 maybe this might associate itself in some wa;y with something in the system prior . McDivitt
I think it was prior , because we were in Reentry Rate Command and we started the roll.
Then the
yaw needle drifted on out and it looked to me like it never got over about 3 degrees/second . I was trying to read the 0.1 degree/second seal~ It might have gone on to 4 degrees/second with the roll rate we had in there , and the jets just
kept right on firing constantly . What I had done when we started was to leave the roll gyro on , and I rolled the thing over till I got almost full deflection on the needle .
Then
I put the roll gyro off so I’d have 15 degrees and we wouldn ‘t tend to overrate the thing so t hat the Reentry Rate Command was firing all the time .
What I think happened was that as
we went on down, the yaw rate needle tended to drift on out .
I don’t know if you noticed it or
not , but it tended to drift out .
It started at
around 2 degrees/second, and it drifted on out slowly until it got to about 4 degrees.
I
thought it never got out to more than 3 degrees/ second .
Later on , when we started oscillating
CO~ ◄ ftOENf~AL
CONFt-DENTiA-1.
295
around like we did, if the thing were out at 3 degrees and started banging back and forth at all , the yaw thrusters would be on constantly; and also that ’ s the side that they’d be on . would have been on the right-hand side.
It
Are you
sure that it was red that high up, or did it get red when we started getting down where we got all those oscillations?
Because there I ’ m sure
it was firing all the time. White
It was red for a long time , Jim,
McDivitt
Was it?
I was actually watching it, waiting for one of them to bust loose, because it was really firing a lot more than I thought it was out there. Jim asked me about the frequency of it, and I could n’t tell whether it was on or off . all the time.
It was r ed
The other one was hardly heated
up at all. McDivitt
Shoot .
There wasn’t any need for any kind of
firing then. White
It would be interesting to see if the other yaw thrusters were.
McDivitt
Wel l, it ’ ll be interesting when they cut these things apart to see what kind of life cycle —
(!IQl’IFIDENJIAL.
296
White
I t really had a good workout.
6.5 Spacecraft control McDivitt
Spacecraft control was like a dream. engineering description. oscillations.
A good
There weren’t any
It was as stable as a rock .
I
don’t think we need to say much more about that . It wasn’ t like any failure simulation we’ve seen .
It was the easiest thing to control, easier
than any simulation I ‘ve seen.
Shoot! A baby
could have done it. McDivitt
We started getting oscillations around then and the Reentry Rate Command fired a few times and I d~mped it in pitch and yaw.
There really wasn’t
any control problem to it at all, I didn ’ t feel. Did you think there was? White
No .
I would have been watching closer if I had
thought there was . 6.6 100 000 feet McDivitt
The altimeter was at 96 700 feet throughout the entire flight.
It started on down,and we
were still at about 5 or 6 g ‘s when that thing started on down.
It went on down to about
92 000 feet, and then the g’s started off, and the altimeter started back up again.
297 It went all the way back to about 96 000 feet again, and then it started down again.
The
second time it started down, it really started down in a hurry, and I was sure that we were still at 100 000 feet. McDivitt
So , I waited until the g level got about 3, which is around 80 or 90 thousand feet. ing the roll rate there.
I started slow
I wanted to get the
thing to a zero roll rate by the time we got to 40 or 50 thousand feet, certainly by the time we got to 40.
We started gyrating around some more,
but I didn’t think it was exceptional. Reentry Rate Command started firing .
The As a matter
of fact, I said!’H?re comes the Reentry Rate Command, ” and then I was firing on top of .it so that we really weren’t oscillating too much. Then we got to 40 000 feet and I put the drogue chute out, and that’s where things really got exciting.
6.7 50 000 feet McDivitt
I put the drogue out at 40 000 feet. and stable as we went down.
We were nice
We were a heck of a
lot more stable than we were when we put the drogue chute out.
298
White
That ’ s right by several orders of magnitude.
McDivitt
When we put t he drogue chute out, we were concerned about the thing destabilizing rather than stabilizing.
So I intended to put the
drogue out and leave the con trol at Reentry Rate Command .
This I did,
and we oscillated all over
the sky .
We estimat ed pl us or minus 40 degrees ,
and I t hink we were at leas t every bit of that . White
We were, and when the drogue chute came out , I was right in the sun so I couldn ’ t see i t , and I didn’t know whether we had one or not,
You
called it out , and about t he t ime you cal led it out , I coul d see it up there gyrating wildly around . McDivitt
I never could tell whether the thing dereefed or not.
I had a lot of goop on my window and the sun
was out , and all I could see was the shape of the dr ogue up there , and it really was fluttering around .
We wer e plus or minus 40 degrees to it
without any doubt , and I wouldn ’ t be a bit sur prised if we wer en ’ t plus or minus 60 degrees to it . We wer e r eal ly getting tossed around . It was just jer king a l l around . White
It was fast , but I don ’ t t hink it was that big a
GOMftB·Et’4TIAt
‘EON·F l0ENTIM magnitude.
299
(McDivitt is making a noise to des
cribe it.) McDivitt
About like that.
White
I was really surprised the thing held on there, to tell you the truth.
McDivitt
So was I.
I was expecting the drogue chute to
fall off any minute.
White
I was, too.
White
It worked all right.
McDivitt
It held us together.
White
If I went through it again, I’d be perfectly happy sitting there riding through it, to tell you the truth.
White
The way I looked at it, it was rather interesting. I hadn’t quite expected that.
McDivitt
Neither did I.
I know that Gus said that he had
a pretty wild ride and he thought the thing was destabilizing him.
He had a scheme where he just
turned off the propellent valves to stop the propellent flow.
That meant that he had to wait
about 10 or 15 seconds to get the propellent valves back open again to get the jets firing. Well, I wasn’t going to do that.
I thought
the thing to do was to turn off the electronics
COMF10cNTIAt-
OOt◄ FIDE~rtAL
300
and see if the thing was going to become unstabl~ This is what I did . tronics .
I turned off the RCS elec
The thing was that they didn’t get
any worse . It didn ’ t ge t any worse .
I watched it.
I could see enough of it to tell that we weren’t
becomi ng wistable. White
It was unstable to a point and then it stabilized out in this oscillation .
McDivitt
That ’ s right .
It was really gyrating around .
By that time we were down to 20 000 feet and I called , ” 20 thousand feet . Pull down the handles” , or something to that effect . White
You called out 28 .
McDivitt
Is that what I s aid? And then, I pulled the propellant valves, as I had planned to do, and turned the oontrol node to Rate Command rather that. Reentry , because I wanted to burn up all the fuel that I could out of those manif olds .
As a matter of fact, I was interested in burning up all the fuel I could bef ore I got to the ground . White
I have a question .
I thought you put it in
Rate Command before you turned off the valves , and it pretty well damped itself out on the
€QtqftDENffM
301
drogue. McDivitt
No, I don’t think I did.
White
Okay.
McDivitt
I don’ t think I did.
I think I left it i n
Reentry Rate Command until I turned it off and then turned
off the power .
ACME to OFF on both rings . any worse.
I went from
It didn ’ t get
I think what I might have done is
I might have gone fr om OFF to ACME to Rate Command , to turn the propellant valves off rather than going from White
We ll, I know it damped out there considerably.
in the end
I think it was when the Rate
Command, or whatever it was, was firing, McDivitt
Well , Reentry Rate command was going all the time.
We were going at a heck of a lot
faster rate than 4 degrees/second. Whi te
Well, we cut down our oscillations considerably after you did something over there .
I thought
you had put it in Rate Command . McDivitt
I did put it in Rate Command , but I didn ‘t leave the propellant on.
This was why I
wanted to get r id of all the propellant onboard t he spacecraft if I could.
But I didn’t want
€0NFJDEN+1Al-
302
to let those things fire for a long time and maybe eat up t he drogue chute, and find ourse l ves wi thout propellant and without drogue chute , too . So , once we got the drogue chute out, I let the things fire for a while and turned the electronics off.
Maybe I turned it back on and
went to Rate Command , and off with the prop
ellant valves . White
I ’ m not really sure .
I think you had it in Rate Command for a little while - —i)robably while you were firing out the fuel.
McDivitt
Yes, that ’ s what I did .
I went to Rate Command
and let all the fuel fire out, planned .
just as we had
So that I was sure that the rates were
high enough t hat we were going to fire out the fuel without disturbing the thing on the drogue. So we fell on down .
Ed got the snorkel on the
vent valve about 28 to 27 thousand feet . came on down .
We
I watched the altimeter go through
11 ooo. . 6. 8 Main Chute Deployment At 10 600 I punched out the main chute . McDivitt
I saw
it go out with a lot of crap and corruption flying off the nose . It went out and came out in a reefed conditi on, and I saw and I said we had a good reefed chute . I don ’ t guess you
-@!ONftiJEN 1IAL
303
could see that too well, could you? White
No, I couldn’t see the chute out.
I saw it
finally when it deployed. McDivitt
I saw the thing hanging up there just the way it was supposed to, and then the thing de reefed, came billowing out just the way it should, and I :‘said, “We ’ ve got a good chute”.
One edge of it
collapsed and came back in and collapsed about a third of the chute.
We’ve seen a lot of movies
of these chutes corning out, so I wasn’t really worried about the thing collapsing .
It went
in and came back out.
6.9 Conununications McDivitt
There weren’t any communications that I could tell were there? Maybe we received some trans missions on the drogue, but I’m not really sure. As soon as we •deployed the main chute the antenna came off.
So we couldn’t talk to anybody after
that . White
I don’t think we got anythi ng on t he drogue.
McDivitt
I ’ m not really sure that we did.
White
I don’t think we did.
McDivitt
Shoot!
We were getting thrown around so that
we couldn’t have heard anything anyway.
C8t—.J·F ID-ENTIA I:
-cot ◄ FIE>Et~TIAl They tried to communicate with us a couple of times after we came out of the blackout and before we put the drogue out . what he was saying.
I didn’t hear exactly
He wasn’t hearing anything
I was saying either as far as I could tell .
He
wasn ’ t a cting like he heard what I was saying . White
He gave us our blackout times of 5+23 and 9+21, and there really wasn’t too much we could do to check these out .
McDivi tt
After we got the main chute deployed , I told Ed , “Quick!
Take your blood pressure .” The chute
came out around 7500 fee t or so , and when we finally got the thing dereefed we were floating down nice and gently .
F.d s tarted taking t he
blood pressure, and it seemed like it took an eternally long time .
By the time we got down
around 5300 feet or so , I said, ” F.d , get the blood pressure done because at 5000 feet we’re going to go to a two-point attitude.”
He
fooled around and fooled around and fooled around .
Finally we got down to 5000 feet and
I said , “Ed, you ’ ve got about three or four more seconds , and we ’ re going to two- point attitude . ” White
It was a l ittle s l ow.
I don ’ t know why.
305 McDivitt
I didn’t want to trust that altimeter .
Ed
kept fooling around with that blood pressure without getting any air out of it, and finally I said , “Okay, Ed , we’re going to go to two point.”
I guess by then he had the blood
pressure completed, Whi t e
I think we got a good blood pressure .
McDivitt
So , just like we ’ d always practiced, I said,
“3, 2, 1 , MARK “,and punched the single-point re lease . 6 . 10 Single -Point R~lease White
We both had our heads braced up on our arms.
McDivit t
We had our arms up on the windshield and my head wasn’t exactly on my arm.
White
Was yours?
My head was on the arm and pressed over to the side of the spacecraft.
I was well wedged in ,
I felt. McDivitt
So was I.
My head went forward a little bi t,
back a little bit, then back up forward again , and it didn ’ t hit anypl ace. White
No. time.
Did yours?
I had my head pressed on my arm the whole I don’t believe it left the arm very much ,
because I actually had it wedged from behind , too. McDivitt
So , I thought going to two-point was a lot less violent than the ~ide oniihe d:t’ogue.
•CO 1\1 FI i;> E~~TIAt:
306
Whi te
I agree with you .
I think we ’ ve got a good
operational procedure of bracing your head on your arm up against the window—a satisfactory procedure for this . 6.11 Postmain Checklist Items White
We took the blood pressure on the main chute , too. I went through what I call the reinforcement
items on the checklist t hat I wanted to get off right away , and t hen I sat back and pumped off another blood pr essure .
About this time you were
making your calls to the recovery force. McDivitt
Right .
I started calling the recovery forces
as F,d was taking his blood pressure.
We got
some response from Omnibus right away .· White
Good old Omnibus .
McDivitt
Yes.
And we went right on down.
the D-ring covers .
We stowed
We stowed the D-ring
cover s between deploying the main chute and going to two-point, just as we had planned .
We
didn ’ t want the D- ring to flop around there, and once you go to two- point
it’s too late to
eject anyway . White
I call ed Jim to unstow his D-ring at 35 000 feet and he took his out at that time.
€Ot<IFIBEt<ITIAt
I pulled his
.CO~~FID[tqffAL
307
right arm lift up and I saw him pull his left one up. McDivitt
No, I didn’t get my left one up.
I made three
passes and I said to heck with it. White
I thought you got it. finally got it up.
I struggled with mine end
I had both of mine up, and
you went on and completed the checklist . McDivi tt
I knew Ed wanted me to get my D-ring out because I was the guy that was going to have to bail us out.
White
Again I’d come down with this big bag of stuff resting on my legs up against the bottom of the seat, and as we approached 35 000 feet, I pulled this up in my lap, and just held it.
We
had agreed that Jim would do the ejection if we had to, and I would just take the ride. didn’t W1stow my D-ring.
I
I just sat there.
That ‘s why I made pretty sure that Jim got his out. McDivitt
After we got on the main, we went through and turned off all the switches, just as we were planning on doing it.
I turned off all the
switches on the middle circuit breaker panel except the ones on the last couple of rows.
I
€0141 IDEP:~TIAL
308
turned off the IMU, the rate gyros, the horizon scanner, and those switches on the cent er pedas-· tal.
I di dn’t turn off any over on the left
hand side except the Landing Attitude Circuit Breaker . White
May I ask you a question?
Did you think it was
a shorter time from 7500 feet down to the ground than i t was in the simulat or? McDivitt
Yes, as a matter of fact I did.
White
I thought it was a considerably shorter period of time .
McDivitt
Yes , we went from 5000 feet to the ground in nothing flat.
White
You’re not kidding—nothing like we go down in that simulator .
I would be curious if we
have any data that tells us what our descent indicator was telling us on our descent? McDivitt
It was jumping around .
It was between 30 and
40 feet/second like it does in the simula tor.
White
It seemed like we went down awfully fast .
I
would already finished turnfog off everything in the simulator with quite a bit of margin , but , of course , I did take the two blood pressures in here.
I got all the essential
—CO~~FiDE~4TIA-L
309
switches off and started turning off nonessential ones when you called out a thousand feet. McDivitt
At a thousand feet I said to get ready to pull out the water seal.
White
That ’ s right.
McDivitt
You got the water seal out at about 700 feet?
White
I pulled it about 500 feet .
McDivitt
We pulled it lower than we usually do because usually we’re sitting there waiting to go through a thousand feet .
White
Right.
McDivitt
We got down to about 300 feet, and I said let’s prepare for landing.
White
Right.
·€0-tFIDftfl.U
CO t’4 Fie, Et~Tl,1 l
310
7, 0 LANDING AND RECOVERY
- 1 Impact McDivitt
We got down to about 300 feet, and I said, “I guess we ought to get ready for landing.” But as John Young says , “How will you get ready for landing this thing? ”
So as he did, we just sat there,
and we went through zero feet, I believe, on the altimeter . White
We hit very close to the water with zero on the altimeter .
McDivitt
I think we hit at about minus 100 feet or so .
Any
way, we really plunked down in the water.
We hit
ten times harder than I expected to hit .
The
altimeter was set at the lift-off setting.
I
didn ’ t fool around with setting it . vfuite
That ‘s an interes ting point .
They ought to give
you an altimeter setting for the landing area . McDivitt
I don ’ t think that would do any good .
I wouldn ’ t
trust that altimeter within a thousand feet . Whi t e
No, but I ’ d rather have my reading on it that much more accurate .
You’ve got a ship sitting out there
that could give you the exact a ltime+.er setting. Here we had an altimeter that we hadn’t set for
GO~~ FJOPiT I7’t
, CONFID-E-WllAL four days . McDivitt
311
I hadn’t thought about this .
The l a st time that altimeter does me any good is when I go through 10 600 .
Well , I guess I use it
down to about five or six thousand when I ’ m t r ying to get the two- point suspension.
It ’ s useful there ,
too . Whit e
It was a good indication that we were coming up to 1000 feet and to get ready for landing, Jim .
McDivitt
Yes.
Like I said earlier, how do you get ready for
l anding?
All we did was sit there .
White
We ‘ve got to stop throwing switches .
McDivitt
Yes , I guess so.
Whi te
I think it would be a good procedure to go ahead and get an altimeter setting.
McDivitt
I suppose it would.
It only takes you a second to
crank the thing in. White
Yes .
It ’ s there .
We ought to use it ,
McDivitt
Well, we hit the water with a real wallop.
Then I
sort of felt that we went into about a 150-degree roll to the left and were dragged backward .
We
were almost upside-down going through the water backwards ,
Now, the CAG here saw us hit .
us from about 100 feet on down,
He saw
He said it looked
like to him that we came down and hit the water
COt<lflC,Et’<ITIAL
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312
and tilted the thing up over the top .
He said we
were going blunt-end- forward, but we were actually tilted over the top .
We then did a p~tch_down
maneuver about 180 degrees in the water.
I was
surprised that we were being dragged backwards , but I got the sensation that I was going backwards and almost upside-down . White
I had t he kind of feeling that we went in and touched over a little bit, and that’s about all the feeling that I got.
I don’t believe we got dragged very
much. Mc Divitt
No, but I just felt that was the way that I was going.
I was being pressed back in my seat like I
would be if I were being dragged, and I was thrown over to the left like I would have if we had rolled over this way . White
I got the left roll and I also think that I had less water in my window than you did. of spray and stuff.
I had a lot
Did you have solid water in
your window? McDivitt
I really didn’t look that closely .
I didn’t look
at the window to see what I saw there.
I saw
nothing but water sloshing all over the thing.
We
really seemed to hit hard, harder than I thought
EO◄ Flt,EtTI.A”L
313
we would, but it really wasn’t too hard. White
To put everything in a comparison, the ride on the retro was more than I expected , the drop to a two point suspension was less than I expected, and the impact was not as much as I had experienced on the drogue, but more than I had expected. In other words, the biggest surprises I had in order of
~agnitude were the ride on the drogue, the impact, and I didn’t think that I had much surprise at all in the two-point.
I was expecting a big jolt and
got not as much as I had expected . 7.2 Checklists McDivitt
We’d gone over the normal Water Egress Checklist in flight before we came down.
We did this in
that three-hour period while we were preparing for retrofire.
I read it over to E:l while he was
stowing things, and we went over it in detail again as to what we would do.
Also we went over
the emergency egress in case we had to do that. So we had it fresh in our minds. White
We turned everything off that wasn 1 t needed after landing.
McDivitt
Ed had the Post-Landing Checklist and he read it out to me—the things that I had to do.
The only
314
thing
that I didn ’ t do was to take my helmet off
and stow it .
I did get my arm restraints down.
I
didn ’ t put my drogue mortar pins in until I was getting out , and I never did put my seat pin in . It doesn ’ t say on the checklist to put it in . White
I put your seat pin in.
McDivitt
:lli put my seat pin in for me .
Now , we’d got all
the switches in the right positions, I think , except one .
I forgot to put my FDI to the OFF
position. White
I think all other switches were all right .
All
our pyrotechnics were safed .
- 3 Communications McDi vitt
I talked on UHF. I talked with Omnibus; and I finally was talking to Inkspot 64 , the helicopter. I talked to him and I heard him, and we established excellent UHF communications .
I heard Gus coming
through the auto cap two times, I think—very weak , almost unintelligible .
I think he was asking how
we were , or if they had us yet .
I kept making
transmissions in the blind to him .
I don ’ t think
he was ever getting any of them .
Ed operated the
HF , and what do you have to say about that? White
Okay.
I put the antenna out and turned the HF on ,
315 I went through one call, a.nd then I went through a short count on the HF.
I heard nothing and received
nothing from anybody else .
5
This was about
minutes or so after we had been on the water that we ac tually made the HF check. even that long.
Maybe it wasn’t
As soon as I got all the switches
where I wanted them, I went ahead andMcDivitt
I saw you put the antennas up, and you went ahead and put in a transmission pretty quick.
White
Right,
I didn’t make another check on the HF.
I hadn’t been too impressed with the operation of the HF up to this time, and things were getting pretty busy.
Five or
recovery people on• to that.
10 minutes later we had the I guess we’re going to get
I heard them say we had a helicopter
almost overhead, McDivitt
They called just after we retrofired, I think, and before we got to blackout—called and said that they should have a helicopter over us in
5
minutes.
The
We didn’t get any onboard data .
ground information that I got was, as I said, from Gus.
Then right after we hit, Omnibus said, “I
got them in sight.
I’m 48 miles out on TACAN
radial..: “,something or otl-1.er.
So,
I figured we
-COt ◄ FIDE ► ffl A,b
316
were 48 miles from the ship. Well, anyway, I was pretty sure we were 48 miles from the ship.
Then
I heard them calling back and forth saying the helicopters were only 15 or 20 miles away, and they were there in just a.bout nothing flat .
We had a
good status report on where everybody was.
They
were on our frequency, and I could hear them dumping their swimmers into the water and standing by and t hrowing smoke bombs out and seeing the
dye markers ; and we ha.d more activity than the fourth of July. 7. 4
Systems Configuration McDivitt
Okay , as we hit the water, Ed closed the inlet snorket to make sure we didn ’ t get any £umes in as I punched the farachute .Jetti son.
Shortly after
that when we decided for sure that we wouldn’t see any fumes-~ve sort of talked about it a little bit and I peeked out and I guess you peeked out .
Didn’t
see anything but steam coming out of the thrusters and then saw the dye marker out there— I reached up and re-opened the inlet snorkel. White
That’s right .
McDivitt
I put the recirc
White
Actual ly, shortly after we got on the water, I
valve at 45 degrees.
GO~~FID9-llAL-
317
noticed the acrid smell that we were to have for the rest of the time we were out in the water.
On the ECS system I could actually feel the relief that the pumps and the snorke1-open position were giving us .
It did provide some flow.
I really
didn ’ t think tmt the heat was oppressively hot, to tell the truth . McDivitt
No, neither did I.
Whi te
It vJS.S uncomfortably warm—I’ll put it that way- and very stuffy, but I wouldn’t say it was over bearingly hot.
It wasn’t as hot as I thought it
was going to be in the spacecraft. McDivitt
I thought the worst thing about the whole thing was the smell.
Whatever was burning later was the
heat shield, I guess, because I went out and smelled the spacecraft later on when I was onboard· the carrier, and it smelled the same way.
This
terribly nauseating acrid smell was still all over the spacecraft, and it seemed to be worse at the heat shield.
So I assume that’s what we were
smelling inside, White
How was the control, Jim?
McDivitt
Spacecraft control in the water is lousy! take out the motions.
I couldn’t
The rates were terribl e
•co1qflf)fN·l~A-L-
•COl<IFI0Et ◄ TIAt
318
uncontrollable! cal . White
Why don ’ t you discuss the electri
It was over on your side there, Fd .
Well , there wasn ’ t really much to discuss about it .
I turned off the No . 1 and 2 squib batteries
and left No . 3 on and the main batteries on , and everything performed as designed ,
We also had
carried along two adapters and about the time Jim said , “Hey, where ’ s my adapter?”, I realized where it was .
It was stowed underneath a whole
pile of trash on the right-hand side.
So we went
to Plan Bravo , which was our original plan before Chuck Berry sneaked on the extra adapter on the last day before the flight, which is a rather sneaky thing because we’d agreed at breakf~et trat morning that if the adapter were on the spacecraft, we wouldn ’ t kick about it .
But Chuck conversely
agreed that if the adapter wasn ’ t on, he wouldn’t kick about it either .
We later found OUL that
he ran to Chuck Mat thews and-McDivitt
No , as a matter of fact , he didn ’ t run to him ,
Chuck
Matthews said tra.t he decided that on his own . Chuck Berry neverWhite
All right .
I 1 11 have to apologize to him because
I have been falsely accusing him ever since .
-EOt\lFI0~l’1tl>tl
319
Anyhow, we had an extra one on, and it was stowed very neatly under a great deal of trash on the: right- hand outside stowage box; and I felt that we could more readily use the time of switching back and forth .
So we switched the a eromedical
adapter back and forth, and with the microdot con nector it was a pretty easy operational procedure. I don’t think we missed any radio calls, and I think we got probably more blood pressures there
than one every 15 minutes. McDivitt
Yes, we would probably get one every
5
or
6
minutes. White
We were back on the carrier in 45 minutes, and I’m sure we had two or three blood pressures there on the water .
McDivitt
You even got the lightweight head-set on.
White
That ‘s right.
I very dutifully put the lightweight
headset on with my helmet off.
I felt better with
my helmet off, and I think you felt better with your helmet off. McDivitt
I felt a lot better with my helmet on and my visor closed, because I didn’t like the smell of that stench there.
White
I was so hot over there .
I felt better with it off.
J3OMf10ENllAL
(O~~FIDEt ◄ TIAL
320
McDivitt
We did a lot of work when we first landed.
We
were fiddling all over and getting things out of boxes and stuff like that. We probably did more concentrated manual labor in those first
5
minutes after we got on the water than we had done at any other time during the flight except trying to get the hatch closed . White
I think at this time I was completely drenched with s weat .
I said it wasn’t hot earlier, but with t he
combination of the suits and the fairly warm climate that we were in, I was sweating pretty heavy .
I looked over at Jim , and he was pr~tty
sweaty · too , I think .
7, 5 Spacecraft Status McDivitt
We didn’t have any RCS fumes .
We didn’t see any
RCS colored smoke , which is supposed to be red and purple or yellow or something like that . see any fumes at all.
We didn’t
I saw a little steam.
White
I saw steam.
McDivitt
I saw a little steam coming out of the RCS thrusters , and I was sure that there wasn’t any RCS propellant in those manifolds, because at the rate we were gyrating around with that tight deadband on Rate Command , if we hadn’t burned all that fuel up by
COt’4FIDEt~TIAL
<IFIOEmr~r
321
then, we never would have gotcen it out. White
But we turned the RCS thrusters off at about three or four thousand feet.
So they definitely weren’t
on. McDivitt
That ’ s right .
And we turned all the circuit
breakers off on the RCS thrusters , so they shouldn ’ t have been firing from shorts.
The prop valves had
been off at about 25 000 feet.
So we had everything
the way it was supposed to be, and we didn ’ t see anything leaking. White
I’ll comment on this window.
I saw the main chute floating right to the left of us .
I think my window might have been a little
clearer than yours. McDivitt
I jus t was going to comment on the windows. window was terrible!
:rt,
I couldn ’ t see at all.
Remember the helicopter was hovering around in front of us about 200 feet away and I never even saw it. White
You said, “Look at the helicopter!”
He was a lot closer than 200 feet.
He was right
smack-dab in front of us. McDivitt
I never saw the helicopter.
I couldn’t see
through the window. White
I’d estimate he was not farther out than 50 feet from us .
322
McDivitt
I had a couple of little holes right down at the bottom where I could see swimmers down there , and
I could s e e the nose , but I couldn ’ t see up at all . We were talking about the main chute there .
I saw
the drogue chute floating down right next to it- drogue chute and the pilot chute with the R & R can floating down right next to it .
coming down through about- -1et 1 s see . our backs then , weren’t we?
They were We were on
We still hadn’t gone
to two- point? White
I don’t remember .
McDivitt
I don ’ t remember either .
White
I was so busy taking blood pressures .
McDivitt
W~ had the drogue chute and the pilot chute floating down with us for a long time just off to one side going do’Wl’l about the same rate .
I thought that
they were supposed to go down slower , but I guess it doesn ’ t .
I guess what probably happened was
we saw them at single- point , but when we went to two-point , we lost sight of them .
Okay .
have any leaks that I could tell .
We had electrical
power.
I didn ’ t check to see what the secondary
o2 pressure was . White
No .
We didn’t
I didn ’ t .
Did you , F,d?
323 McDivitt
We turned off all our electrical equipment and couldn ’ t read the gages . closed.
We left the hatches
We were in moderate seas, but I wasn’t
about to open those hatches up and take the chance of any water getting in that spacecraft. So we elected to stay in the spacecraft until they got the collar on, and kept all the hatches battened
down , White
Okay, we both discussed this together and decided that the way we ’ d like to leave the spacecraft was in our suits, and we felt that rescue was coming pretty quick.
We decided to go ahead and
stay in our suits.
I think this was a reasonable
decision.
et>r<4FIDEN I (Al
324
.•
McDivi tt
We both t ook our gloves off to get the t hings out of the spacecraft that we wanted .
I left
my he lme t on and Ed left hi s helmet off .
When
we got ready to leave , we dec ided that we would put our gloves back on , take our helmets off, put our neck dams on , inflate our May We s ts , and t hen get out .
That ’ s what we did .
The sea
condi t ion was just like they sa id it was- - t hree to four feet .
Three t o four feet in that thing
is like 2000 foo t waves to an aircra f t car rier . We were bobbi ng around but we had a lot of experience bobbing around before, so it wasn ’ t t hat bad .
I might add that the egress training
in the Gulf of Mexico really made me fe el real confident when I was out there in that water all by myself . White
When we get to that training , I ’ m really going to give some gold stars out .
-COt\JFIDE~ilAL
eeNFIDEt~‘fl·AtMcDivitt
325
Yes .
7.6 Post-La nding Act ivities •
McDivitt
As I mentioned, we stirred around the cockpit and got out a bunch of l.i ttle bi tty things that we needed.
We did a lot of work but we were
doing all right.
We got awfully hot .
I guess
we really can’t say much about the post-landing activities .
It went long as we expected it to ,
just the way we want it to.
Ed , do you have
anything? White
I think we’ve covered it.
7,7 Comfort McDivitt
I was hot .
I think Ed was hot.
perspiring a lot.
We were both
I think we could have lived
in it for a lot longer than we did. White
Yes.
Don ’ t you?
Did we cover the point where they called
and asked what kind of rescue we wanted? McDivitt
No, I didn’t.
Why don’t you?
I was just
plugging in the b,io-med connector and I heard them call you. White
We could either have a heliocopter pickup in about 20 minutes or we could have a pickup by the carrier in the spacecraft in about an hour
EO~FIDENfht\b.
O 1\1 FIDElTIM
326
and 40 minutes . McDivitt
To me it was very clear .
It took Ed a long time to decide — about two or three milliseconds .
White
That ’ s right .
I felt that I knew my buddy well
enough and made the decision that we ’ d take the heliocopter pickup .
I saw that he was actually
on the radio at the time and he rogered the decision .
So we waited for the heliocopter
pickup . 7 , 8 Recovery Force Personnel McDivitt
We had good communications with the recovery forces .
They were on our frequency .
We heard
all the transmissions that were going back and forth .
Shoot , we probabl y knew more about the
recovery than anybody else around .
They got the
flotation collar in the water in a hurry and came over and put it right on .
I saw this thing
around the spacecraft and I saw it start ,-
inflating.
I was really elated when I saw that
t hing pumping up . White
I had the f i rst contact with the real live man.
McDivitt
That ’ s right .
He looked in Ed ’ s window to see
if we were alive , I guess .
C0~4FIDEt\JTIAt
327
White
Very good sight .
The best sight , boy , was
seeing that yellow thing around the spacecraft .
•
I guess I knew we were going to be able to file out pretty quick .
7.9 Egress McDivitt
As I menti oned ear lier, we had decided to go out with our gloves back on and our neck dams on. I stood up in rny seat , disconnected our survival landing gear (rny other hoses were disconnected so that I could stand up), inflated both of the May Wests, snapped them together in the front , and I just jumped right over into the life raft. I landed right on my can, just like I had planned it.
It was so good to get out of there .
got out . White
F,d
He jumped in too.
When I got out I actually leaped in before I inflated rny May West and I think either you or—
McDivitt
I told you.
As a matter of fact, when we
talked it over in the spacecraft about getting out , F,d said, “Aren’t you going to inflate your May West?”
And I sa~d, “Okay’, and then he got
out without inflating his. White
I was so happy to see that raft I jumped right
-CONFID.W IJAL.
€0t4PIDcl~T1Al
328
over the side . 7 , 10 Survival Gear McDivitt
We didn’ t use any of our survival gear . di dn ’ t pull it out . where it was .
We
We just left i t exactly
I disconnected the l anyard so
we wouldn’ t inadvertly pull it out . 7 ,11 Crew Pickup McDivitt
As soon a s F.d got into the life raft a heliocop t er come over toward us and I mo t ioned for Ed to get i nto t he sling and go on up . to .
He didn ’ t want
He wanted to be the last man up and I
wasn’ t going to leave my sinking ship . Whi t e
He wasn ’ t getting up with t he captain going first so he went up last .
McDivitt
No .
Ed got int o the sling and got a nice pickup .
I got a Gulf of Mexico pickup .
He dragged me
out of t he water , bumped me up agains t t he heat shie l d and t he spacecraft, but it was a good pickup t hough .
Shoot , I was so happy to
be out there in that nice cold salt water blowing in my face ,
I was dipping my hands in
it and slinging it over my head . Whi te
Di d you notice the stability of that heliocopter?
COtFIBEP.+JAL
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I never knew they were so stable . McDivitt
•
Yes .
He must have had a good stabilization
system .
They got us picked up safe and sound,
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