NASA-UAP-D019, Interrogatorio técnico del Gemini 5, Parte I, 1965

ng the national defense of the Un ited States within the meaning of the spionage Laws Ti tle 18 Section 793 and 794 the transmission or revela tion of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law Gr oup Downgrade at year intervals eclassified after 12 years [PAGE 3] PREFACE This preliminary transcript was made from voice tape recordings of the GT-5 flight crew debriefing conducted August 30 1965 thru September 1965 at the Crew Quarter Cape Kennedy Florida 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 September 1965 It will cover systems operations operational checks visua sightings experiments pre mission planning mission control and training a i eJ FIDff:!TIAL [PAGE 4] 9'0 Ni;10 ENTll(t TABLE OF CONTENTS Pa ragr aph Page Number 1.0 COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion 1.2 Communications Crew Participat ion and Countdown 1.4 Comfort 1.5 Envi ronm ental Control System 1.6 Sounds 1.7 Vibrations 1.8 Vi sual Crew Station Controls and Displays POWER.ED FLIGHT Lift Off Cues Roll Pr ogram 2.3 Pitch Program Aerodyn a.m ci.c Env ir onmental Control System Maximum Wind hear DCS Update Engi ne Operat i on 10 POGO 10 11 Engine Status 12 12 Acceleration 12 13 BEXJO 12 14 Stagi ng 13 15 Engine Ignition 13 16 RG Initi a 17 Fai ri ng Jettison 15 2,18 GO NO GO 20 19 Sy st ems St a tus 21 20 SECO 21 21 Steeri11g 22 I 3.0 INSER ION Post SEXJO 23 SEXJO 20 Seconds 26 3.3 Inse tion Activities 30 ORBI AL FLIGHT 38 Wf.lE>ENTl [PAGE 5] RETROFIRE 5.5 36 Events 256 Events Events Events Retropack Jettison Communic a tions REENTRY 6.3 6.5 10 11 12 400 Acceleration profile Spacecr aft control 100 000 Feet 50 000 Feet 35 000 checklist items Commtm i cat i ons 10 barostat Main chute deployment Single point release Blood pressure measurements Postmain ch ecklis items LANDING AND RECOVERY Impact Checklists 7.3 Communications Systems Co nfiguration Spacecraft Status Post Landing Activities Comfort Recovery Force Personnel Egre ss 10 Survival Gear 11 Crew ickup Page Number 16 172 173 174 182 183 194 196 197 197 198 202 202 202 203 204 204 205 206 210 211 211 212 213 214 214 214 215 215 [PAGE 6] COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion Cooper The crew insertion I thought wen very well Conrad Yes we had the suiting thing down on my cuffs and everything so tha we got right ou here an boy th& Gunt er was ready for us and i we nt Cooper They were all set There were no delays and eve ry thing went ex ceedingly well on he gantry Communications Cooper Communications I thought were good and no prob em at all on communications and everything went real we ll Conrad Yes Stoney handled that whole thing real well Cooper All right volume was still down on the little comm sets in the transfer van there That Stoney little improvement Crew Partici pa tion in Countdown Cooper Crew participation in the countdown was good I didn see anything at all wrong Conrad Yes we weren rushed We felt hat we had enough time to get the switches in the right position and just ever ything went real good Comfort Cooper Comfort was real fine We went on to two suit fans [PAGE 7] Cooper 1.6 Sounds Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Vibration Cooper right away I thought we felt plenty cool the whole time ECS was good Never any problem with it Sounds I thought the only sounds tha we had that were abnormal we'd been warned about When the prevalves opened they were fairly loud and when the engines gimballed they were qu ite loud and both of those we were aware of the fa ct that they would cause a lot of noise and vibrat on There is something that really dings he booster too when they start I don t--whe her they drop a pla tform away It before they start moving the gan ry Just before they start lowering th at erector Boy something really like it really bang th a booster I thought I still don't know what it is but of course we been up there with the erector down twice before that so we were sort of e~tting used to those kind of sounds Okay vibrations we already covered tr.at Sounds vibr ations [PAGE 8] 1.8 Visual Cooper Conr ad ooper Conr ad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conr ad FCSD REP Conr ad Cooper Visual Nothing Oh yes wait a minute I started getting this win dow fogging Well let cover that under the right area Well it was actually in the countdown when the erector went down before liftoff Well okay allright I mean we still had it later Well you want to cover that now then in systems Well is that what this means is visual or does th at just mean something else Yes that before liftoff Powered flight is next Yes well lri,s-tra-,:5pened 6e:f'1 Allright even before liftoff hat this reall is completely unforgiveable Each window was filthy Just fogged completely over and it was on the inside of the outer pane of glass It was within the sealed unit of glass and it was so foggy when they lowered the erector that it it was frozen over solid neither could Well it had fogged over before they lowered the Conr ad tqflDENTIA I I [PAGE 9] erector and then the guys heated it w:.th hot air to make it go away and that just made th:.ngs wo se when they lowered the erector Cooper It didn't ake it go away all the way Conrad Th at I right it made'"it- a ctually Cooper my side in my window etw eer the inside pane and the two outside panes of\\8-~s I had a sm a ll bee and I had a fly and I ha d\seve ral flecks of things that I had written befo re and never got corrected and they were the whole flight and I sure they will show up on all the films and everything Now between the outer sealed panes of glass there were numerous little specks and of stuff and through out the flight as well we ll cover that later but that was even 7rore the flight sta rt ed The windows were not pla/n a nd we re not in good shape to go forthe--f Crew Station Contr ols and Displ a_y Conrad I think the Gemini cockpit is a pretty good cockpit Cooper I think in general that crew stations eont rols and displays were pretty adequate Conrad I ve got a couple comments on switc es and things but these are FIDENTIAL [PAGE 10] FCSD REP Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Okay how about the time you spent in there on prelaunch Do you think that this is about right Yes yes I think that this is just about right I think that if you cut it down too much more than that you are going to be you could cut it down some more there's no doubt It that cabin purge cycles when you re not doing anything really and that excellent time that you can cut it down but that the thing that takes the time for both the ground crews and that lost time I don know I don think you want to rush the crew and now our count that second day went by the clock boy We got in there at the right time We counted down and lifted off on and I didn feel that I was rushed and I didn feel that I sat in there for an excessive amount of time No I didn either I thought that it went just about right time wise Long as there no holds in the count everything great [PAGE 11] 2.1 Li Off Cues Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FtE>ENTI POWERED FLIGHT Okay lift off cues CAP COM CAP CO didn come into the act until late Stoney counted us down thru ignition and lift-off and th en CAP COM picked us up at ift off Mot ion is an excellen clue Th ere dou bt in your mind when you ljft off You know the second you lift off that yot ve lifted Vibration was very lo It had dropped out almost complete ly a.t lift off felt that shaking was very i ght There was ve ry little vibrat i on at all Okay vibration very ow oise I thought was quite low I was particular aware of the noises of goi ng through the max regiona thing Oh hi is lift-off again I thought the noises were very well at iftoff You know the engines were running from the outside before you kn ow and man they really make a racket but from where you are it's pretty quite You know there running You can here them there's no doubt abo ut th at but kay on visual I don We had a very cl ear day There weren't even any clo uds in sight on IDE NTI [PAGE 12] Conrad Roll Program Conrad Cooper C.(&)H ft0ENTI au to our sight as we were lifting off and I couldn't tell any visual cues to lift off could you You had the feeling that you were moving visually After you get your ro ll program you see it visually and you can see the pitch program starting visually but just at first ift-off you don't really have any visual cues Cockpit displays are ju st ike advertised The two stage one lights go out and just ike the simulator Yes I watched roll program on the gyro I was watching for it to come i on time and in glancing up when the roll program started I was still looking at nothing but blue sky but I was aware visually as you say that the booster was rolling Yes you can have a airplane when you are looking at nothing but blue sky and start a motion and you may not know exactly what the motion is but you know ha you are moving Now on this cockpit display something that I got two different answers to from different people on how the gyro and the actual case was going to be set and it suddenly dawned on me that they actually set the gyro so that you are launching down the 90 degrees You're [PAGE 13] Conrad Cooper FCSD REP Cooper Pitch Program ooper Aerodynamic Cooper progress i ng down to 90 degrees line la the simulator although the booster sets on 85 degrees and when you turn to 72 degrees launch azimuth you are rolling clockwise so far as tr.e crew is concerned You roll to zero But you are rolling to is rea ly to on the gyro as precessed around so that you are net really setting on the actual launch azimuth you are actually setting so that when you stai§'e on over i yaw then pitch over then in your yaw your on the in plane line You re coming down the zero line Y01 re yawing down the zero i ne hat right and I kept getting diffe.rent answers on this and this is in fact the case Roll program was exactly right on time and ended e>:actly on time Pitch program started exactly on time Aerodynamic was nothing new or differE nt about it It was just standard We build up to the noises at max the noise built up to gradual level and the vibration and quantity built up to ma and then dropped off very rapidly i!Ji te ly thereafter FlDENTIAL [PAGE 14] ECS Conrad Cooper Con ad Coop er Conrad Cooper Wind Shear Coop er DCS Up dates Cooper FCSD REP Conrad CONFICtleNTIA igh on th utton ECS was right on the money no problem at all Max we ve already stated The cabin ealed a little bit high like they said it would I forget the number It was about 5.8 About 5.8 or and just gradually dwindled back down And just afte we got in there by the time I looked at it again after insertion everything it bled down on our gage to 4.9 our gage read a little low I thin the actual reading you ill pr obably find the cabin actually was 5.1 but the whole rest of he flight the gage never budged off the 4.9 The gage stayed right there like it was glued The in sh ar we had none and certainly nothing that we could tell but as I understand we ve be en told that for that day anyway we had almost negible in hear DCS update were ri ght on time You had two updates plu 45 plus 25 En ine pe ra i on Cooper The engine operation couldn have been better K)ENTIAL [PAGE 15] 10 10 POGO Cooper Conrad Cooper It was beautiful Just now in between engine operation and engine here we have wo items we will insert in here One was POGO At mi nu tes and seconds we started picking up POGO and I got a fairly gcod amount of POGO on through stopping just at abcu to seconds before staging POGO dropped cl ean out exa ctly the same time there that we programmed POGO on the early days Yes that one surprised me We he1 rd and read tba both John Gus and Jim and Ed i ght that they were hardly even aware of IDGO and boy when it came in on us it was loud anc clear and well Gordon neither one of us could talk hardly we were really vibrating with it and I was hard pressed to read the displays By go ll if I had to re um er on ays think I wou ad a have been hard pressed to do it because we really had it pretty good Yes the rate the amplitude of them were such 11 cps frequency and the amp itude of them was such that you were on you were on the marginal [PAGE 16] 11 i Conrad RCS REP Cooper FCSD REP Cooper FC SD REP Cooper edge of reading of any large gage and any fine reading that you had to read you would never be able to read any numbers It was xac tly li ke the POGO we did all along on the program up at Ames and as the exact amplitude I don lmow but was I thi nk we don wa nt that POGO It was no par icu ar upsetting to me because I really was fa i rly familiar with POGO having bee through a ll that POGO program but this thing kind of i ck led me that we got it to see th at we had still hadn solved it but I don think its something you don want because if you had ot~er thing going wrong during that period of i me it would ak it ecy difficult to say what you had wrong or what It didn upset me but it surprised me you lmow because I just wasn't expecting POGO Wba level would you estimate it to be Well we were sneaking right up there I mean the POGO Oh it was right at about Well I mean plus or minus amplitude Well I my estimate on it was that it was something [PAGE 17] 12 on the orde of maybe three quarters of a ell I don I mow whether it was that high c,r not Conrad I thought it was at least a half if not better App arently it wasn't that high I ws.s really surprised Lik I say we were really ge ttin the ramrod out of it Cooper beyond what we selected as we th~ht should be the cutoff It was more tr an wh we had selected at Ames as being max ac in this.I passed up ver there one of the first things that happened immediately about the time that we got the pitch program was the IGS Stage fuel needle failed in thE full max deflection position And it am back on an was reading af ter staging briefly and thEn failed again duri ng staging It was intermittent 11 En ine Status Cooper Engine status stayed was perfect There was not anything wrong at al 12 Acceleration Cooper Acceleration were right on the piofile were certainly very pleasant Nothing wrong at all with them 13 BECO [PAGE 18] 13 Cooper BECO was right on the money 14 St agi ng Conr ad Boy that staging was smooth too Cooper They told us that BECO was going to occur early but it was Con rad We did loft a little bit apparently like they said we wou becau se right a fter staging 15 Engine I gn ition Conr ad Well Engine ignition I wasn't even hardly aware of that other than we ju started to get a little yc,11 kn ow we just sort of went off the peg at g's and Gordo said aging OK an Engine is good and I wasn even aware that Engine had lit You can he ar it to speak of but you can feel the acc eleration sl ow ly building up FCSD REP Did you see anything visually Conr ad No I didn't see anything I heard the other guys talking about ee the flash at the brig Never saw a thing and I wasn't aware of any flash out there either I Cooper didn see any thing at all at BED The best clue that I av on my si de is that I see the Fuel and Oxidi er needles start coming down as the engine [PAGE 19] 14 2.16 RGS Initiate Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Conrad Cooper Con rad starts burning And then they coming own fairly rapidly at first I mean you get a very definite motion on them right at first there an they kind of settled out Engine ignition we've already covered RGS initiate right on the money I was going to mention that we had of ed and that we were expected to pitch down a.nd we did when it picked up RGS It smoothed in very smooth and the fading was just right The IGS needle really deflected and I as you know I don't think it pitched it didn't peg- out but it did make a large dip and then when the booster came down just pitched down very smoottly down to about 75 or 80 degrees I guess it pitched down almost 10 degrees What rate did it pitch over Very slow but steady at just It took about 20 seconds I guess to fade it in there The needle came in and made a big defl ectio and right after th at the booster started pitching and the needle started back and boy the need was [PAGE 20] 15 CQ~ElDEhJIJA back and thing was right on the money at about 80 degrees It was a very smooth transition and then do you remember they were telling us to look for this one cps oscillation Well I didn't have rate nee dl like Gordo did but I wasn't aware of any osci lations at any time That booster was in pitch and yaw as far as that went Cooper Those rate needles were like they were glued There was never through boost or second stage was there ever any rate except that one tiny little rate one teensy little rate just at when we were in POGO we got one tiny little longitudinal rate just one tiny little fleck on a rate and was the only one Otherwise it was just smooth as silk the whole time rate wi se 2.17 Fairing Jettison Cooper Fairing jettison We jettisoned fairings at 3:2 and man do they ever go Conrad I counted Gordo down to them Okay yes that a good point Cooper Beside the scanner fairing and the nose fairing go and when the nose fairing went it went with all kinds of debris There were pieces flying all [PAGE 21] 16 over Conrad Yes and I don't think it went righ I don't believe it went ri ght because the Rand can was ripped up in the front and I can show you on my side the nose went like that and there wa some tape or fiber gla ss tha goes aroun he It was fiberglas cloth an it was a ll broken loose in jagged fla ps sticking up hat you lmow ha bro ken loo se from a long in here when i ha cover went I had decided impression that the cover went of askew that it didn jett is on he way i shoul have And this could be a good po int of putting it back to a fter ins ert ion Cooper ell it suppo se to go off askew Co nrad Yes well it just di dn go off clean That why this was rip ped up see Cooper ell it something somebody might look into but you don want to recommend that they put ack to after insertion because your taking a weight pe nalty to carry that all the way up onra Yes I realize that but Cooper It wa designed to go off Co nrad Th at was the reason in the first place that they WIDE [PAGE 22] 17 moved it up there anyhow because they weren't Cooper No the reason they moved it up there was because they didn have strong enough propulsion on those squibs and spring combinations or whatever they use We never did get a reading on th at but whatever the total propulsive expulsion system wasn't kick ing the scanner fairing wide enough but what they would come back into the booster But didn't you have the distinct impression that the nose fairing broke into illions of pieces when it blast Conrad I certainly I certainly yes That why wh~n I say askew I mean something didn't look right I can't put my finger on it but Cooper It came off in many pieces anyway There were many many pieces and the whole area was just filled wi th debris Conrad Yes and then I not sure that that's when we got all that gl op on our windshie the spots Cooper Well I noted exactly at that time immediately after the fairing went I noted abo ut or I saw them hi or gray splots just sma ll ones very small little gray type splots and I was distinctly looking for that and watching for it and [PAGE 23] 18 Con ad Cooper Conrad FCSD REP they were not there before they were t'nere and I saw them when they hit They it duri l.g all this debris flying around period I think that you can ti 11 i nd them the windshields They didn burn off during reentry But they re not ba and there are just a few little scattered ones and I think it might be interesting compare how many you get there vers us and how many you get when you jettiso them in orbit It may we be that jettison i ng in orbit would be pre ferab but I didn i nd anything objectionable jettisoning where they went they wenm fine It did add a lot of debris and I agree with Pete there was a big torn something or other out there which may just be a fiberglass thing that is kind of Yes I want to get down and look at the and and and I can tell you what it was describe it a lot etter We ll probably have some pictures of it too in the camera somewhere I know it ll show up in some film How ong was this visible You say there was a big bunch of stuff out there ON FIDEN TIAL [PAGE 24] 19 Cooper There a whole fly Oh you mean the debris It was gone Conrad It was gone like that but it just looked like the whole darn thing exploded Cooper It looked like it just flew into a ji ll ion pieces It was all around you for maybe a period of a second or two Conr ad I didn't think it was that much i was just gone Cooper But it was a defininite period of time when you were aware of all this debris all over and then clear Okay enough for fairing jettison [PAGE 25] 20 GO/NO GO Cooper FCSD REP Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Coop er GO/NO GO We never got a GO/NO GO beeause we lost our number radio in about minutes om etime just prior let see we got a Wti got a over VR of We got a GO/NO GO of You did get a We got a Yes that comes mu ch lat er that com af ter the GO/NO GO Yes that right okay well I don remember ever getting a yea we did we go MCC GO Right we got a GO/NO GO okay but then immediately after we never got any ing at all from there on until af er we were ins i rted and gone to UHF No I think it must be in the antenna pro blem I really do Well there some problem there beca se the same thing happened on one of the previo us flights and we definitely and co mpletely lost radio and I swi tched over just before we inserted I switched over to number and th en when I call but the IVI's we were back with them then [PAGE 26] 21 19 ys tems Status Cooper Syst em Status everything onrad We did have Let describe the delta lights Shortly after liftoff I got the number fuel ce ll delta Plight and I rep orted i and jus about he time I repo rted it then the number fuel ce ll delt a Plight came on They tayed on all the way th ro ugh boost and they were on af er insertion for ten fifteen seconds and a fter that they wen right back out again and th at i it It didn't effect anything on th fue e11 op era tion the voltages thing stayed fi ne bein n----tlier was no other way of telling the was out of toleran ce so I don think it is a problem We expe cted it ooper I glad that we had them changed to or an ge rather than re Co nrad Yeah yeah Cooper Syst em status in addition to th at I don think we had any systems that were exa ct ly right exc ept the radio and the acceleration as we had expected it We were ri ght on the profile SECO was 20 SECO tn currents other than Oa!IIAL [PAGE 27] 22 Conrad Cooper 21 Steering Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD REP Conrad Cooper I think we burned out at Gordo anc 1/4 g's Right SECO was exactly on time just exactly on time and IVI's read 002 AFT Almost ierfect Steering was there was no steerine accelerations or velocities that we could tell Steering was just smooth as silk apparently they t.ad us going right down the slot And when we came off apparently we were lined up well because there weren any rates because when we came off and wajted our 20 seconds there were no rates whatsoever and it was just setting there just as smootr as As stable as a rock As smooth as silk so that and when we started thrusting and separating we came off ust right straight forward No deviation no skidding around or anything Just right straight off I thought the IVI's were plus That what I haVle written down here Plus 28 right t.p I guess that's what it was This velocity you read I was going to cover that in your Your right plus it was that's r·ight Plus [PAGE 28] onrad Cooper onrad Po st SECO Coo per Conrad Cooper Conrad ooper 23 IE>l!NTtAE 002 I hav al the computer readouts 008 right and how many up up MANEUVER CONTRO LER worked fine We we nt rig ht th ro ugh el et go through hat Th way we ad prac ti ce SECO Go rdo got SECO a nd ordo unstowed the CONTROLLER and I armed the BUS ARM Swit ch so that we get th MSC doors OFF ro ught the propulsio power ON roug ht the ATTITUDE CONTROL El ec ric Po wer ON en from RATE COMMAND to DIRECT Arm ed the switch and hit the computer Armed he sep spacecraft thin and Go rdo and I ount ed the seco ds down I th meantime I punched off address 72 so th at it was reading and then in 20 seconds we had SEP s/c In 20 seconds I star ed and I called it out and started thr usting and Pete ould hi the sep spacecraft Conrad Th reason we did that was so that we would have [PAGE 29] the inertial velocity readout on the ga.ge and that was beautiful 5,808 and nominal was S-.lpposed to be 25,80 You can't ask for a better calculation from a computer than that and a lot of people don have much faith in that thing but I think that I'll bet that the computed MCC figure isn't more than a foot or two off I couldn be because everything was nominal for hours and hours in the past Day's it went that way where we stayed on the flight plan to the minute to the second so I know that it was a good computation and I have the five address readouts that we read We read out address 72 as 25,808 address 94 which was dot for gamma was plus 20 feet which is pr tty darn small so we must have almos a zero gamma address 97 hich is the forward IVI was plus feet address 52 was perfect it was zero So there was no adjustment needed and if there had been an adjustment needed that would ha:ve come at 042 seconds on the computer if tbere had been an address 52 correction and nominal 3,008 seconds so the computer computed the nom i nal thing off only by less than a minute about a half a [PAGE 30] 25 minut of what the actua nominal value ee I think th a ts pretty darn good ascent ro ut ine in that compu er and I think hat now that we have Math flow in there his i why I think the guy shouldn't get so darn worried in MCC underspeeds and giving them burn co/rections is Mickey Movse I ve been ooper onrad Co oper Coop er Con rad rying to make tb is pein-t-ewe since we got associa ed wi th I think we had better immedia te data avai abl on board than people have been giving it credit for Th a right and it rea lly plea sed me to see it come out on the computer th is way An had we never gotten our communications ba ck we would have known th a we were i good shape because of th data we ha on bo ard we idn have to worry ab out th ground reado ut and what to do we ould have known what to do whe ther we ad been under or over or anything else Attit udes and ra te he re weren any ra es The thing was steered rig ht down th lot We came off mo th Sp acecraft se pa ra tion NflD~NTlAk [PAGE 31] 26 CONF:10ENT-I A Cooper We separated as smooth as silk just i ht straight ahead Conrad Well we counted down and Gordo said was ready and I SEP spacecraft and he thru3ted and I went back to RATE COMMAND for them and we came straight off I didn't even feel it The first hing we felt was thrust Cooper And rolled upright and went to 000 00 15 which happened to be right on the horizon As it urned out that 15 figure was good It read out the IVI•s FCSD REP That's you know on they thought they came off the booster Conrad Yes that's why I mentioned that because Cooper That's what we were looking for too 3.2 SEGO Plus 20 Seconds Cooper We've already mentioned the IVI displays Space craft separation occurred very smoothly Thrusting was smooth nothing wrong at all Attitude rates were good Conrad Yes I don't understand this I don't understand this guy saying that they can't hear them or they can sense them Boy I was easily aware [PAGE 32] Cooper Con rad Cooper FCSD REP ooper Con rad Cooper onrad Cooper FCSD REP ID Nf lAL 27 You can fee hem al os mo,-e th an you can hear th em You can feel th em vibrate ea lly more than you can ear them I mean you can hear them too but the ibra ion you can hear them to but he vi ra tion you can ee the thrust Have you ever heard a high speed hose or high speed water et Shhh Th at the impression th at I had Yes that right Even fro th aft firing thruster Ever thruster we had on here We hea rd every thruster on th who ight It never occurred in my mind when th thru ers were fired You can fee them and I can hear them I co uldn ear them in the sense of an expl osive so und or a roar It so un ded li ke wa er swishing Yes ery definitely more a Shhh An I was aware of it again hen we made the burns ater on you know we made th reverse coell ipt ic stuff and all that How did these noises the thru ster noises sound compared with the way the last crew se the mission simulator [PAGE 33] 28 Con rad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Con rad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper ey that's another i nteresting point They re not very close on pulse Pulse is a Pulse is more of a thump That the one sound that does sound like you expect a rocket engine to sound ere a sound just about like this knock Yes it very definitely sounds like a knock There is no shhh or roar just a little thud You can hear it just like somebody knccking at the back of the spacecraft You can hear it go tap tap tap tap tap tap Really the simulator doesn I sound tl:.e right way It a general enough nature and it tl::.e same type anner Yes it is close enough to give you a good ue The platform mode for instance you krow when i goes shh shh shh shh id the same thing i the spacecraft except it was all in one thump and swooshes when it was constantly firing the thrusters it sounded like the swish The air-to ground commun icati ons I th ought was xce llent the who time I didn't find any th i ng [PAGE 34] 29 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD REP Cooper Conrad Cooper ONEl0EtslJl~E wrong We really had good comm the whole flight There was never a time the only time the only fault we find was one or two times through the remote site when the MCC was trying to remote to these sites they would get some fading I must say the HF worked excellent When they were r~usic broadcasting music to us my gosh they had us practically the world round on The music quality was quite g0od in most cases I got times on that we can bring out later so that they can correlate how far GO/NO GO there wasn't any problem on that They gave us the GO right away How long did it take them to give this Oh heck immediately Almost immediately vveaf There was no swivel because there was no velocity correction There was no velocity correction needed Orbit quantitites were good they had those for us It took them quite a while to read us our experiments but they just said you have a nominal orbit and then mayb eQNFIE>ENTl~t [PAGE 35] I onrad I've got down here the GMT of liftoff I wrote down 13 plus 59 plus 59 which they ater change to 14 lus 00 plus 00 I have the one A time they got it up to us okay which was 10 pl us 11 Then I ave the da sh they gave us was 01 pl us 27 lus 16 which they later revised to 01 plus 26 plus I wrote those down 3.3 Insertion Activitie Cooper kay et start on inse tion activi tie SAFE he sw i tches we did that just right for our check list In fact we are even more convinced than ever that a good thorough accurate checklist is the only thing to have and Con ad Physically marked them off when they done Cooper We followed it conscientiously The sequential light ests we did it st by the teE ts Stowage we already had modified our checklistE and we already had written on some of it that we wou ld do these i we decided to For instance the rlng safety pin we did install them at right i me an there was no problem on those they we nruch easi under zero to ge in and out than we had thought and I had no [PAGE 36] 31 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad kQ t4FIDf NJ A trouble getting my D-ring in did you I waited on mine remember Yes you waited I towed my ring thing So we closed the cover immediate ly and I decided I wou go ahead and see if I could get mine and I got to i right away and it went righ in so I put it in of course got in trouble in the second orbit but we did not unstrap or put he drogue pins in the sea or unsto any items of gear other than the flight plan books and the 16mm camera and the Hasselblad I take it back We went through the Flight Plan as advertised and then stowed the items We had canera out the Blob out but we did this in the pr oper places in the Flight Pl an But we never did unstrap We never unstrapped and never put the drogue pins in until after we go to GO We got a GO But we restowed too after we got in roub le We throught maybe having to go into 6-4 why we'd put ourselves back into the onf iguration [PAGE 37] 32 Cooper Conrad were never up to reenter lready decided hat I was not going to launch with th£ They are just useless as far as I am concerr ed and I as delighted I did not have them and I didn miss I don't thin I th ink could remove th€m and he arm restrai nts are there for the pressurized case and high altitude ejection I di go with ine up I would prefer to go with thE im down but there wasn't any reaso I didn need to get my hands on the hand control or anything I left th em as they were but I don think tr.ey were necessary [PAGE 38] FtDENTtAL 33 Cooper Okay belts I couldn he belts The harness While we re on the harness I don like that harness worth anything hi nk what we need is a simple type adjustable type harness wi th clips on the legs that you can undo legs to get to some of the functions you have to ur i pa ti on and defecation and so on in the spacec ft I do see why we have to have a big expensi/e custom made ha~ss tha you can readily get on off and this on you can not readily get and if you had one with on it and snaps like you do on arness it would be I think a hundred times useful as this one Conrad Let me ask you a estion Do you really now do you ally I agree Let me say this I agree you should firs be able to get your harness on and off but in zero I not convince that three especially two leg snaps type arrangement In other wor ds a ha rn ess that would come completely lo se and have many straps that hitch to the other straps would be really good in zero What I think we need to do is to be able to et in and out of that harness that we have easier Like maybe you could loosen the leg straps on it but not have them come apart Now I NftDENTrAL [PAGE 39] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper took my harness off in flight twice I took em off once Yeah but you wouldn even have to step through these leg loops if you had just like on an airplane harness You could undo that and you wouldn eve have to worry about the leg loops Th en all you have to do is just slide out of the torso area Yeah Well» lets sees that what I saying If you unhook both of those leg loops and you throw the whole thing down in the footwell and then you pull it back up again you got a leg strap floating off ever here and you got a Well that no problem It no worse i.han it is find ing your lap belt Did you ever have i;roubl getting your lap belt back on after you took it off I always hitched it on the Velcro over on the side But you never had any trouble ting it I didn I let mine float free and I never had any trouble getting th em at all Well I just don lmow now I really i dn think it was that bad getting in and out of this harness My only concern was that if I stayed How many times did you get i and out it [PAGE 40] OhJFt0 35 Conrad Twice The ig problem was having you unhitch the straps on my suit Cooper That right With the cables to go over the harness Conrad Th harness the easiest thing was getting in the legs That was no problem at all Cooper Yeah Conrad Where I needed help was getting over my shoulder and getting the straps on th suit hitched back up again which is a two man operation Cooper Well my point is that for normal wearing around the pad a rea or wearing around when your suited and every thing you be much more comfortable if you could have thos straps loose where they re not gouging you in the legs Conrad Yes well Oh I agree Cooper Or where you had adjustm nts on th em Conrad adjustments see Cooper Okay well Conrad Where you coul make the legstraps loose but you never dis connec them so you don have free floating straps around here It was no big problem Cooper My suggestion would be to have them exactly like you did in a parachute harness You have the leg adjust [PAGE 41] Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper ment and on that same fitting you have the little snap whe you can unsnap in the places you wan to Oh yes you dan do it either way Sure You cou,Yd either loosen them or I just th i we've gone to such complex tailoring devices in orde ovide some company with a great elaborate pro of providing expensive harnesses that they per sonally don think they re worth a darn for what they're ntended for I don think you gain that much I think'y~u loose a lot of it stow that harness The life est Now I disagree wit everybody that ever said that those aren in the way were them all the time mainly because we didn hav a darn place to I i ore them and they're a pain in the Ii,lec get on and off but they are really in the way The;r re in the way everything you do They bump int0 your arms Tbey re there to cut down visibili on rour chest and they re just a nuisance Yeah didn have a place store th em We didn store them or we'd have taken them off and left them off I am here say hat I [PAGE 42] ONFTDENTl~t 37 think they re eally bad where they are Conrad After the big sweat was over and we got a GO and we were relatively sure we were going to stay there for awhile unless we you lmow had some other emergency come up I would have preferred to take off the harness and the life jacket and stow it somewhere if we have had a place to stow it Cooper Right Conrad But the othe thing is that maybe that just my per sonal feeling I extremely ticulous and we kept that spacec aft as empty as possible Everything had it place and it stayed in it place Cooper And that harness and the vest are pr et big bulky items Conrad And I wasn going to have it rattling around down there on the floor loose Cooper Okay on the drogue pins By golly I thought those new i ttle things on the drogue pins made them very easy to get in and out There wasn a bit of problem wit those Conrad I popped the drogue pins in and out on mine Coope I put mine i or out once just to Conrad I think Gordo put his own in and out once to see if he [PAGE 43] could do it and he cou That worked rea well Cooper Okay Fuel Cell and Fuel Cel Hydrogen Quantity Read es we read them at least a million times Fuel Cell Power Readings Yes everything checked out fine on hose Bermuda update fine Orbital Flight FCSD Rep You better get out your flight plan on this because his is the original stuff I was telling you about Conrad Well that all right This probably will go fa ir ly FCSD Rep A ll three if you go the way you did it 4.0 Orbital li ht Cooper Okay on Orbital Fl i ht Platform Alinement Conrad There our first problem Cooper There our first problem Our plat orm mode did ot work and I don lmow what wrong wit but the darn thing does not zero out on the pace I raft It allows a good to sit in there and won zero it out and it is ex remely oppy pitch The whole thing I think tb7:r was something rong with the whole thing because it esn work at I a like the ones in the simulator an the whole thing plu or minus a half a degree a very ver system lucky to be plus or thing really wrong with it I personal think that [PAGE 44] l&f~T A 39 something was wired up wrong or something in i because it was not working right Conrad We didn really get a chance to evaluate it too well because we had trouble with it so we stopped using it and by the time we been able to do anything with it we had other problems fuel problems and so forth So we never did get back to using it again Cooper Wel we had other control system problems which were overpowering platform problem wise but we did try one burn on the platform and it was a terrible mistake The darn th i ng did not have the accuracy to really hold it and we got one foot per second in and out of plane there Conrad Yea That was in those coeliptic Cooper In one of those that oeliptic burns and we ade our other burns then on Rat Command and man that Rate Command system is just beautiful It holds that space craft so tight that it ca vary Conrad Yeah We had a beautiful control system I thought When Gordo made any of the burns on the Rate Command or anything i ke that it really responded well Coope1 Rate Command has tremendous torqueing Boy it strong and it instantaneous an you can just stop it right on the money Really good [PAGE 45] 40 FCSD Rep Okay on this platform alinement thing You went to SEF and caged and SEF and Platform Control Mode Cooper We pitched down to visua when we went to CAGE and then went to SEF and we went to Platform mode and after fid dling around with it awhile we decided the Pl atform mode wouldn work so I went to Pulse and then I just using my needles Platform needles then I just pulsed the er rors out until we torqued around and got the got it on a fine line Conrad Okay Now there no doubt in my mind that the Primary Scanners there no doubt in my mind now but we lost on Primary Scanners We started to aline the primary Scanners and I don think we ever got to platform a li ne orrectly because the primary scanners were not working correctly Cooper Now the primary scanners The funny part of it is the Primary Scanner was working in such a rr.anner working just enough that it checked right because when we checked out he alinement of it and the tolerances on it it was working fine but there was something in it on one of the tests that we did later showed thai it was actually driving tending to drive the spacecraft down Conrad Continuing to torque you down to about fifteen degrees nose down [PAGE 46] Cooper Con ra FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 41 Or more In other words it continued to try to aline he platform at about fifteen degrees It tried to put the nose on he horizon is what it did It tried to aline the platform up at fifteen degrees nose down Or more I figured it was a bout somewhere around Well one time it alined us at about 40 degrees nose down and it still was indicating in scanner limits The scanner got worse as the flight went on but I don think it ever worked correctly No I don't think it did now I look back That the th i ng right there and I think that this I i ke to know what they decided fr om tracking the REP on how we put the REP out because we put the REP out in the proper position but I don think the platform was alined orrectly We had trouble with tha scanner in the sunlight on the horizon and this was right when we were using it to aline ust before we put the REP out Just as we were using it to aline and put he REP out the Scanner began to skew all the platform needles off and it skewed off and went to ORBIT RA TE [PAGE 47] 42 Conrad Now wait til we get the onboard tapes because the tape recorder was working and this all is on the onboard tape the conversation that Gordo and I had about that So we weren really sure it was working right but it asn that fa off that we were going in the dark Cooper Approximately 30 seconds before we had to pitch around or had to yaw around to eject the REP I had to go back to CAGE and try getting a real rapid a tform aline in there SEF and PULSE and I had the neec.les zeroed an we may not have been so far off but you don know That isn enough time to really get it alined In other words I had about the time we did it and got there we probably had maybe 30 seconds to Plat orm aline That about all we had Conrad Well we were just hoping that if it had been pulled off only in pitch why you know we get it right we'd pull the pitch right back in again Cooper But the scanner was acting up very badly by that time FCSD Rep How long did you aline the Platform initially Cooper Initia lly we alined the platform for about 15 to 20 minutes and it seemed to aline allright although at that time Pete and I had a discussion right then that we seemed to be alining nose down [PAGE 48] Conrad Now you see Here something that I've never heard from the other guys Cooper Now there an other thing See we never had a simulat or to show us Never once did we have any darn thing to show us what out the window should look like Conrad And when the Pl atform is alined and you re zero zero zero boy oh boy Th at a just It's a very peculiar looking situation and it not what I expected to see at all Cooper No it isn me either Conrad And I ve never heard either Gus of John or Jim and Ed say Put a off only in pitch why you know we get it right we'd pull the pitch right back in again Cooper But the scanner was acting up very badly by that time FCSD Rep How long did you aline the Platform initially Cooper Initia lly we alined the platform for about 15 to 20 minutes and it seemed to aline allright although at that time Pete and I had a discussion right then that we seemed to be alining nose down [PAGE 48] Conrad Now you see Here something that I've never heard from the other guys Cooper Now there an other thing See we never had a simulat or to show us Never once did we have any darn thing to show us what out the window should look like Conrad And when the Pl atform is alined and you re zero zero zero boy oh boy Th at a just It's a very peculiar looking situation and it not what I expected to see at all Cooper No it isn me either Conrad And I ve never heard either Gus of John or Jim and Ed say Put a little gouge out Now I ve got a gouge th a I can dr aw for you where I sure th a I can put the Plat form in roll and pitch within a degree in roll and pitch of where it should be out the wind ow on the horizon and it by using the corner of the window and the RCS thrusters on the front the front RCS yaw thruster in the lower co rner of the window and you can put the Platform you can put the spacecraft zero ero and roll and pitch just well like that We didn know that before we went Cooper This is one of my strongest recommenda tions if we aren going to have any kind of a visual out the win dow display at least we ought to get some of the great planners to [PAGE 49] 44 Conrad Cooper Conrad dra up on a piece of paper what the window what the horizon should look like through the window whic requested several times and never got to show guy wh at these various things should look like out the window We spent se up and rol right 60 degrees and then we try to find those lines and match them and see the re an awful lot of learning there By golly if we have a Platform Aline Gouge a visual gouge idea we'd have picked up this trouble right off the bat We rea ly didn't think the platform was alined right but we really didn't have anything to tel us hat it wasn Cooper Now looking a it where we know now after we went to th other scanner finally and we got proper operation knowing what we learned during the flight it appears now like we were the number one scanner was trying to aline us several degrees down over what it should Conrad Yeah FCSD Rep Did you ever go back to Primary after that Cooper Oh We checked it a lot of times after that and tried it numerous times and it got worse and worse and worse and it finally was actually driving the spacecraft down to minus 90 degrees and still the scanner that the funny part of it the scanner wouldn't go off until you were about 60 degrees below the horizon [PAGE 51] 46 Conrad It seems to me we ve got some data for them on Primary scanner over the states so they could h~ve it on telemetry Th ey should be able to find out what happened on that Cooper Yes something was really fouled up I think Insertion Check List Conr ad We went through it by the numbers Coo per By the numbers Thruster and Control Mode Check we went hrough by the numbers Everything was fine Conrad ell we were a little bit late We get a little bit behind and it was about the time whe we were late per forming the thruster control mode check because that was supposed to be done before you got to the Canaries and we did it after the Canaries Cooper That right Conrad We were behind but we started catchine up [PAGE 52] Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad ee FID El IT I AI Com Systems Check We were right on the money on time on that Everything checked out okay on that Yeah Com System I did by checkoff list and checked out okay over Carnarvon 6-4 GO/NO GO well that was quite late No We got a GO for over Carnarvon That's just to get past Okay Yeak Okay got the GO/NO GO that right GO/N GO Those were right on the money and everything was fine there Third adjustment maneuver Was nominal Was nominal end everything was fine there Power down was nominal 16mm 35mm equipmert unstowed and mounted and there we begin to deviate a little because just prior to this time we began to get this rapid decrease in the -well- where was it there It was let me go into the log-book here for one second because I got some [PAGE 53] 48 FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad This Perigee adjust Did you do that Rate is that the one you did in Rate Command is that the one you tried in PLATFORM Did that in PLATFORM and it worked fine on that one Did that one in PLATFORM and it worked eat but then on some of these other burns we did I tried it in PLATFORM and it really didn work well at a ll That why I rather suspect the P::.ATFORM thing There's something wrong with it I think i was better at some times than others It was allowing a lot of drift Okay in the log book I have it at 50 m:.nutes which is just prior to Carnarvon that I found the Fuel Cell and Heater Circu i Breaker OFF Now that I found it off becau se they to ld us to heat the Hydrogen not the Oxygen but the Hy rogen final ly drilled down to the 220 and they wan ed us to use the heater and I turned the heater on and I noticed that I didn get any ammeter rise and so I looked at the circuit breaker panel and the Circuit Breaker was OFF So now in re rospect seei?hg·the ON which is on the same circuit breaker burned out I'm sure that it blE,w when this thing burned out [PAGE 54] FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Cooper Conrad We were at the power do on the and Oh Yeah Well about that time I think we were getting back on the Flight Plan We got the 16mm out We got the 35 mm out equipment was Well it really it what it was and I had that work so I decided I ll put together in pieces at the blob and the camera put together separately and they had it all loaded with the right film and everything and had it on the floor and we were ready to go Were you pushed for time to do this We were right on the money We finally caught up after Canaries and we were on the schedule at Carnarvon Yeah We were in good shape at Carvarvon Radar test at 01 30 that worked fine We did bring it on It worked Observed the transients on dot range and range rate Preretro command load came out fine Blood pressure on the Command Pilot there past Carnarvon let's see Now that was back over the Cape he re yeah No you broke the O-ring didn you Right off the IAL [PAGE 55] 50 Cooper Conr ad Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Con rad Cooper Conrad JI bat we broke the ring That right That right That the first one We broke the ring and couldn give them that blood pressure I think that was the one That right We fin a ly gave that one up The -ring was broken on that one Le t's see This first blood press re that you got an hour They got that one and then when Go rdo- When I When we transferred over to me and I plugged it in he -rin broke and didn't have time for th a pass agai We had a bunch more 0-rings I forget when we fixed it but we fixed it Fixed somewhere around there shortly thereafter experiment turned it on on time [PAGE 56] 51 Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Conrad Yeah I got a lot of comments later on that on That thing is so noisy Oh you know I found out what happened you know They went back and recomputed and they found out they had four days worth of air in the bottle Ha Ha Four days Yeah It ran out But the thing You can turn it off and it keeps run ning back there And it goes SMACK CHOO SMACK CHOO SMACK CHOO Yeah it pretty noisy And in a real uiet cockpit it really sounds loud This radar test here at O1:3O Used to turn the radar on Used to turn it on Used to turn it to standby Turn it to standby and warm it up Used to observe the warmup transients And all this happened right Yes and it on the voice tape Like Gordo said you lmow what the radar needle did What it does is it has sort of a cyclic thing when you pu it in standby and it ready to run why it sits there and the lock on [PAGE 57] 52 Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad ig ht blinks Green/OFF Green/OFF Lock on lig ht will blink on and it will come out and dot will go from peg to peg And they ll settle out when it really is warmed up good and you ve gotten past the transient periods and they ll all come back to zer I think what they re looking for are clues to tell you that the set is warming up correc ly Ba.ck in the early days of TACAN we had warmup prob lem In other words this would be your firnt indicati on if somet hing was wrong Purge Section One and Two Well we got our first lo ad this 6-4 load The first lo ad that came up over the DCS sys tem and it came up ri ght over the Cape Purg Section On and Two Got that Yes no Yes That when we were getting rushed Let go back to that Let stop right there he REP was supposed to go out at 02 07 and I purg·ed early and I always had been purging early because I purged it about 1+50 and then I went through the check off list and they were all checked off here I powered up at 1+50 I purged the fuel cells and here I chec ked them off here prop gauge experiments and the RAD on and the cold [PAGE 58] 53 IR on and the power on the exmitter on and the recorder off and I went through these by the numbers Com puter we went to Catch Up We had the hundred feet in the window We were really getting ready to put the REP out and right then and there was when we came over the hill and we were beginning to get to the dark side you know and the sun was getting low and that when the scanner started going out Cooper That's when the scanner started dropping out Conrad And we started getting the scanner light and then now you got to visualize there part of the problem We're coming into this Fuzzy Zone"- horizon and that is the best way to describe it Cooper Yeah you can't see anything Conrad And the spacecraft looks like you're pitched up tremen dously when you're zero zero zero to begin with and we both had the impression that the scanner was pitching us up Well that may not have been true It just may have been that that's the way the sky got to looking as we approached the dark side zero zero zero Cooper Actually you have a transition point there where you cannot see the horizon and it doesn look like either sky or earth or anything It's a complete blank [PAGE 59] Conrad FCSD REP Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper It really a grey area Right at dusk Yeah Right at dusk or right at sunrise Yeah Now the first time we went through there we didn even see it We were working That wan right after insertion So mind you this is the s1~cond time we got to see it and I can emphasize thii point enough even though we were on the flight plan and everything else you got to let the guys learn what going on up there You haven't been up there befor in that darn vehicle you've got to learn it That right where we started getting in trouble That right That's the exact point 1.at we made I made it for six months now For many many months we've made this over this flight plan sticking this REP th i whole REP thing in that early in the Flight Plan before you really have a chance to get the systems ironed out and checked over and everything and if every thing goes exactly right and nothing fails you can run through it time and time and time and time again and you'll make it and you ll make it on time [PAGE 60] 55 Conrad Cooper Conrad Yeah But you add one little failure in there and you ve had it Yeah That where I made my first mistake We got purged in an hour and 50 minutes and I was going by the check off list and right there we got in this discussion about what was happening to the platform and I missed th most important thing on the check off ist I for got to st as sim That the whole been running for the cold IR it been our biggest constraint and a thing that I knew as well as my right arm but there was a glitch and the glitch got us off the scheduled activities and I missed it bigger than eek I di ors on the cold IR and it a ll my fault and I accept the blame for it We went through this quickie aline business and we got turned ar ound and Gordo had it right on the money we we ri ght out of plane and we got the REP out 15 seconds late It went out at 02+07+15 and we turned around waited for one minute got the radar on locked on it and we were whistling away from it and I was back on the Flight Plan and happy as a cl am when I suddenly [PAGE 61] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad OMF I BE 4t4A decided that something wasn't reading right and I realized that I hadn blown the doors on the cold IR and I blew them and at that time the REP was at 25JO feet from us which is the end of the experiment but I think it was still reading But it was still reading on the according to the gage Yeah I think that cold IR read to a great great thing Now the Radar gage this is where here comes the next mystery the radar gage said the REP waE leaving us at this point in time and that Five feet per second Yeah I have 1/2 feet per second written down Oh at that particular point Oh wel i when we first got our first measurement on it he range rate on my analog dial over there read exactly feet per second that it was going away from us Yeah Okay Right on the money To go back to the in time it was 0.2 it was 02+ 16+ 15 when I blew the doors which was corre3ponding to 2500 feet and I ran that REP recorder until 02+37+12 and okay now That darn REP Gordo had the needles right on the REP and that REP was going straight out from us at 270 on the ball It just went I just CO FI Et Ja Att [PAGE 62] CO I DE NJ:1A 57 thought everything was going perfect The REP was moving just exactly out of plane away from us and it was moving at about the right velocity and then the mystery came It just kept on going Cooper Yeah Conrad It kept right on going straight out and Cooper It wasn't slowing down very much Conrad And I got over here on the graph and I kept reading the mileage and we were up to about feet a second It was leaving us and I realized I began to think well gee this is That when I was really convinced that the platform wasn't alined and we must have kicked it out some screwy way Then it started to drift us quite fast It finally did peak out an a he corner at some phenomenal dis ance mile away from us but drift aft quite rapid ent -:;-,i"'T Cooper Conrad and when we got to the nodal crossing time it was behin us by a mile according to the radar Now this is all on radar And now mind you it nighttime and it was right there We could see it plain as day Okay let see we were at the Okay that's when we got to this next screwy thing was almost nine tenths of a [PAGE 63] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad See the REP went straight out and kept on going The REP goes straight out and then it just kept on going It was slowing down very ittl and just kept on going and going and going and going And it never really stopped What it d:Ld was it sorta it sorta starting going off this way you mow and it never got out to a node point wh~re you had a definite stopping range and a start bac in again Well the range rate never got below a foo per second The range rate never decrease You never got a decrease in range rate but it just kept it started drifting slowly of the 270 line on ba ck out but it we nt straight out the 270 line to What was the range Do you remember what the range was when it st i ll was out there It went straight like relative motion to us would have looked like it went out looking down a plan form if we were here It looked like it went out li ke this and it slowly started doing this Ye ah And it never did have a stop to it It finally crossed behind us back in here someplace [PAGE 64] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 59 eNftOf We never got the point where it crossed behind us be cause somewhere when it was about the 210 point was whe we were out of fuel of fuel cell Yeah well you see we went by Carnarvon And this was coming down just BALOOM BALCOM BALOOM BALCOM BALCOM See here we go We went by Carnarvon Here I was trying to figure out in here what was going on and what we were going to take out and everything and we went by Carnarvon and right here at Carnarvon and that's when Charlie called up and says check your heater switch to AUTO Now I had seen it fall had noticed that it had been falling and I had gone to the AUTO position when without even being told You had already gone to nanua.l And then I was doing many other things and I decided it wasn coming up and so I'd gone to manual and held it over there a couple times and sort of looked at it and That didn work either I must have kidded myself into thinking that I was getting something out of it and then I forgot it again and then [PAGE 65] 60 Cooper Conrad But you did go back to the AUT Yeah I put ii back in AUTO you know and then I called em I think it was on the tape and I think I told them I said the f!l itch is on AUTO e're okay Don worry about it and then right af er that we got up to this 240 or so in there and we realjzed that something was wrong and the heater was out and I guess we told them We told them at Carnarvon that he heater was out Cooper Well we checked at that time then on he annneter on and off and on and off hat on both manual and AUTO and it was obvious Conrad And that when we- Cooper And it was coming down so rapidly that it looked like very shortly thereafter we were going have fuel Conrad cell stoppage We were getting below 200 and falling pretty fast and we had a big discussion between ourselves and we just made up our mind to forget the REP We felt we were Cooper really in trouble So we elected at that point to start rowering down because we knew that we were using fuel cells a a very high rate Conrad And we secured the latform and Radar and everything else [PAGE 66] ENTI 61 Cooper So we said okay and we re stopping it right here and of course about this time we were in the boondocks area away from everybody as always ccurs Conrad We were between Carnarvon and Hawaii Cooper And so we just started powering down everything and holding on Conrad So from there on we were of the Flight Plan Cooper From here on to the next twenty orbits the REP was right with us Ha Ha Ha Conrad That wha I cam't figure out How did it get 375 miles from us when it hung around or orbits That darned thing Everytime we went on the night side Cooper It was so Conrad As a matter of fact I didn't see it for a time or two and then all of a sudden the nose of the spacecraft was lighting up Cooper We even saw it in the day side It was so near we could even see it in the day side and at the transit areas when the light wou be shining on it we be just going into the darkness we ould look back and you could even see i the dipole on it as it tumbled Th tumble rate was very very slow Conrad And then you guys called up and told us it was 375 miles [PAGE 67] 62 Cooper Cooper Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad hat impossible That thing wasn't that far away It hung right in there I think that the whole things But 11 tell you there were two differnnt night sides we went into Several Two different night sidg up from it Conrad So I know it couldn have been too darn far away I mean maybe up to five miles or something ike that but it didn get that far away from us I don understand the 375 I was really surprised that those guys called up and said it was 375 miles away Cooper Yes Well I don't believe that figure Con rad It will be real interesting to see what they dig out om it Wel all the radar and every th ing we had is on the tape isn't it Cooper Well that was our first big heart bre aker Conrad We ought to be able to put that all tog the Cooper After all the work we did on he REP then not to pull the rendezvous out we sure Conrad Well from there until we got the GO to we just were along for the ride We just stayed Cooper I knew that I was just so sure of all the time we put in simulating that darn thing I just had a queasy uneasy feel i ng that mayb we better put [PAGE 69] 64 in more time on other things had we were pretty well prepared [PAGE 70] Cooper I do too I tell you the launch we re perfectly normal and right on the mon ey Conrad Yes we were sitting there waiting to find out what they wanted us to do I mean we mew we could go on the batteries long enough to get to a fairly decent re entry place and we we taking bets wi th one another and we were kidding about McDivitt There must have been real pandamoni um at MCC They we re burning up the line to every where Because the eally wasn anyth i ng we could do after that but just sort of a it We re stowed ev rything and we re ready to go i to if they wanted us to We we all prepar ed to go i nt didn ant Coo pe We really didn th i nk we make 18- Conrad Go do was the eternal optimist though I ay 125 pounds and he'd say Well it ha sn't rea lly fallen anymore 11 Then it would fal about another 20 pounds and I'd say Wel that 100 pounds now and he'd say Well that's really not much be ow what it was before I think we had a little more confidence than the guys on the ground I really do I emember old [PAGE 71] 66 NE IDE bll I AJ Cooper Conrad Cooper Steiner saying don't worry about that liq_uid going through that heat exchanger He said it will go through just fine The one thing th at I thought was that we might have dinged the tank with the REP but as long as the q_uantity stayed up there we were in pretty good shape but I wasn't sure that we didn't just might have sorre sort of a hole back there and were just slowly leaking pressure even though the q_uantity- That was one thing we always worried bout that REP with that ig diapole hanging out If it skewed up a little going out what woulcl it wipe out going out It just happened to be with a lot of that OAMS --fuel cell lines and all hat type stuff back there and that was one thing that always kind of concerned us about ejecting the REP now and then So that was one thing we kept running ver and wondering what i had wiped out Yes That was the only thing that kept bothering me but it held to 60 though and that was pretty good kay Let see boresight on REJ?,nodal crossing We didn't get the nodal cropsing I sure wish we toN Fl Et t1'1L [PAGE 72] FpSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper CO Mf lD EN I IA could have hung on long enough to find out where i crossed us behind there Let's back up just a minute on your lock on Okay Boy it just clung right on to it and zap We got the lock on and the darn range and range rate came right on there It was mov ing right out at about feet per second just throttling right down the old line Address 69 was reading just fine Everything was right on the money Address 58 59 The range was moving right on out just like it should and we were sitting right there on our 270 point on the ball tracking right straight out for a long ways out Then is when the variance came in when it kept going out It should have started slowing down on range rate But it seemed like it was slowing down awfully slow It seems like the range ra te kept on for quite a ways You know I had a 58 of 63 and a 59 of a 13~8 at 89 miles and we should have never gotten that far away from i ever in th beginning See with it moving out at the that we had all the figures we had ever run on it we had our own [PAGE 73] 68 little calculations right here--finally we were off our graph up there weren't we Conrad Yes Well you ve got to realize that the graph based on out of plane and this was the hypotenuse to the thing but even so Coo per But i ll you ve got to Conrad It still went away more than it should have Cooper Bec ause you cosine angles were fairly 3mall in he re Con rad It still went away more than it should have Cooper I don't quite understand it Co nrad We ll know what th platform I pres um they can ell how well we had the platform al igned Coo per But th ere again there the irs little ho rse shoe nail that throws the glitch in things When that darn canner cr ewed up right at th most cruc ial tim It probably had een screwing up all alon we just hadn really caught it I really threw the glitch in right therEi at a point when it really shou ldn't have We ma have lucked out still and gotten it out right on the money and it may ot have been the problem I don't know but anyway wit th best we had to or with we got it out the best we could and it looked like [PAGE 74] Con rad FCSD Rep Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad it went out in good fashion I th ink we till would have been all right if we had gone ahead and done the rendezvous with no problem even if we had gotten a little out of plane with it we could have handled this later on But there again it made it difficult for Pete becau se it got him completely off his sched le too It got him late blowing the doors Well we ill were reas on ably well on top of it Let se We can skip all this REP uff You got anything else you want to lm ow a bout the radar It would be best I think to go on through it and say what you did and didn do so we can stay on this Yes well Use your flight plan Well we got as far let see it says when on bore sight read and rec rd address 58 59 and 69 and this was just before 51 when we were supp os ed to have a reading to give ack on the ground This is the reading I got 58 read 63 59 re ad 139 The distance as address 69 was 89 miles and I got that at the ime that it was supposed to [PAGE 75] 70 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Co nrad Cooper Conrad be gotten Why do you bring the fligh plan over here and let's start down it might as well kip what he has in the fli ght plan here because it varies so from th re on From here on you can fo get this flight plan That right Right here Where our little book of the fl i ght plan I've got i right here Oh okay Okay All this time we sweated out getti ng om and that when we wound up- here is where we arted on this flight plan at day a nd 02 hours so that's 12 hour after lift off We fin a lly got back on A ligh plan ani Yes and that the fi rst thing we started to do was to power back up One day Th at's 24 hours No That one day remembe we- We sta ted that one day We went CEl to 2400 Zulu and then th a became day 00 hours and lift-off was 1400 Zulu CO rrD Et if I A [PAGE 76] Coop er From lift off until 2400 hours the day of launch was el ap sed ime and artin a th a ime we star ted calling it day one and then GM Con ra Okay So we went through a i ttle deal here where we started to power up and they let us tum we'd been drift in hadn Cooper Yes I ll say Con rad We turned up th AC ACME inverter on and the ACME bias power on OAMS attitude on an we went pulse and we were supp osed to power back down again at 02 27 25 We were upposed to have this purge a 02 45 00 Th a was the first thing they were just going to let us purge we didn purge th o:xyg en Eve ryb ody was worried about that Th en we were on th flight plan and they gave us an update time fo our first medical pass and we stayed think we took th ese vision tests didn we Cooper Yes we did Conrad We just stayed right on the fl i ght plan had the vision tests and I have a comm nt in he re that at 01 days 04 hour and 32 minutes we saw our first meteor enter Cooper an we saw a lot of those meteorites re enter [PAGE 77] 72 Con rad Cooper Con rad Cooper Con rad Cooper tF t,fN I i.2u below us That kind of startles you when you realize they are 9ntering below you It means ve you Th is is when the exp imenters went out of their minds They handed us this flight pl8l1 you wouldn believe where they had 3,4,5 6,7,8,9,10 11 12 13,14 15 16 17,1 19 20,21 22,23 no 22 experiments they gave us to do in a row an they ir.vol ved everything in the spacecraft anti we ha gear all over You wouldn believe it I never had so much junk --we went wild That when we called up and said Hey gang let be a i t·~le more reasonable The other problem didn't list them seque Yes that right hey put them in the re and we had to keep skipping around on them to get the sequential time on them and that was a mess ow what we did is we copied down in this book and then we'd write it down at th proper time so that we had it sequentially in the flight plan It worked out very well NFIDE [PAGE 78] 73 Conrad FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper You don want to get int which experiments we got done and which ones we didn't or do you Do you want to go through it that detailed Well ther e's an experiment section in there Well let's cover all the experiments in the experiment section might just comment right now how that I think our book arrangement worked out extremely satisfactory and I don't know how we'd have ever kept up with where we were if we hadn't had these books to follow We just passed these books bac and forth and we managed to keep them stowed pretty neatly I knew ight where they were Pete kept them stowed beside his left leg in the seat They slid right do~m the seat Right here and Gordo kept them on his right an if he had them and I wanted one If he was asleep I would just reach over and slide them out and vice-versa And then our Volkswagon pouches held the i ttle on es real fine These books were used a jill i on man hou just back and fo th They really worked out well Th ey're easy to write in and we tried to keep meticulous logs on everything and I think we did reasonably ftBENTIAt [PAGE 79] well Conrad Okay now we also wrote in these little screwy ditties This is where we kept th things if they wanted us to power-up something or pull one of their nutty tests that they dreareed up in the middle of the night We write them down just in order in which they came Cooper Do we just want to go right on down thrcugh here FCSD Rep Okay Why don we go right on down anc list what we did and then when we get in the experiment section we can go into detail Cooper Okay Where did we leave off here now At --okay one day hours and 40 minutes Let fl ee we didn't do this Conrad No we didn't do the cryogen ic tes Tnt's right Cooper Then at day hours we did the I 13 Connnand Pilot Conrad That's another thing They had you doing thes things while one g.:;.y was asleep and one guy was awake You wake up and have a briefing period it's just a bunch of baloney We were both awake and when we took a test why we too it together and got it out of the way Cooper l,'e ate together and slept together and took the together e'd been comp letely st~rtle [PAGE 80] 75 wi th terrible pulse rates when we hear somebody calling from down in that deep ba rr el Gemin i Gemini Gemini Ha ha Lights on all over the place trying to find the radio switch Ha ha Out of a deep sleep Cooper Okay I think maybe if we'd just go down through here and hit these things that particularly Co nrad Tell me where we are in time and then I'l lo ok in here to see what notes there are in here Cooper Well and then we left these pretty well as we we nt through the flight plan her and then we left those pretty well- Conrad Well these are all the ne xt day Cooper These things are all ready listed in there I thi nk were just mainly the things we wrote in here Con rad These passes Cooper weather pass at day hours and 10 minut es day hours 48 minutes 26 seconds Sequence we did that That was the hur ri ane too wasn i And then we had another sequence on th at the next trip ar ound at hours 22 minutes 49 seconds We looked at it again The at hou rs 27 minutes 33 seconds we had a sequence 208 and that was Con rad Man we've got logs for the logs [PAGE 81] 76 li DE NJl Cooper Con rad I don know but what we might be better on this just to go through our individual specialty logs and log where occured at what time because that's the more accurate one of all because this was kind of our running logs of what was going on to warn us when things were coming up ahead As far as going ba ck into this and doing the whole thing that isn as accurate as going into- there are so many specia:.ty areas in here We have those logg ed real accurately ac cording to time I think might be better to go through and get those and build a flight plan out of that ather than go through the fligh plan because the flight plan had to be just com pletely -we didn't sleep when we were supposed to and we didn't eat when we were suppose to and-- Well let's go on through this thing and now as far as the experiments go those guys have a complete log of what they sent up to us and that should jive with the complete log that we have of what we received and from that and what we logged and what [PAGE 82] 77 Coop er Conrad Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Coo per Con rad Cooper we did we can tell you at any point in time whether we got a certain experiment done or not If they want to know if we got something done or not and if there's a reason why we didn do it why we usually had that recorded somewhere Either in here or in the flight plan Why don we go through this one Okay When we get to a point of the experiment or ome thing we can check in here We did the UHF test Why don't you read off those days Okay One day and hours- et see day 10 hours 49 minutes Sequence 03 UHF test Right We did that We had were supposed to do an Apollo a 01 12 36 17 Now I don't think we got that one I think that was sequence 208 Why don't you check that one real quick--yes I think that was the one we couldn get because We had weather over that one Cove red by clouds Okay we had UHF test number at 10 hours 49 in utes [PAGE 83] 78 FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad One day We've al ready mentioned that one We did get that one have that one written up here actually i occurred around down here Flight plan up date Yes we had lots of those Now here was the D-7,421 421 occuring at day 12 hours and minutes I ll tell you whether we got it done or not No We didn do that one I don't know why we didn't do it We were in drifting fl±ght by then I guess Then we have a note right here The number 19 scrubbed for the State side pass They scrubbed that one There was a weather problem on that one Yes Yes Okay now this is an interest i ng thing at 01 days 14 hours completely different th an GT we started getting these RCS he a ter lights Those guys the only time they got an RCS heater light was something like day Ed sai it was in ring A and he turned on the heater a.r he got [PAGE 84] 79 the light or times and he turned the heater off then it ca.me on again You lmow for an hour's pe iod of time and he nBver had the lights again Now this is another reason why I suspect this OAMS system- one of the biggest mistakes ever made whoever recommended it on the ground to power down that OAMS heater to save electrical ene gy foul ed our whole system because we started at this point time having RCS heater lights I checked for days throughout the flight and I could always get an RCS heater light If I turned off that heater switch I d·have an RCS light come on every once in a while and so we left those RCS heaters on all the time Cooper From one day and 14 hours the RCS heater were on the whole flight Conrad You lmow they're au to And the only heat when necessary but every time we turned the heater off we wouldn't run for an hour or two that the light didn come back on again and it would either be on ring A or ring Cooper And the temperature that we'd get on the gage hen those lights would come back on was something in the order of about 60 degrees wasn it I [PAGE 85] 80 Con rad Coo per Con rad Coo per Co nrad Coo per Con rad Co oper 55 degrees Yes They ran when the heater was on it kept them between 60 and 80 One tim ring got up to 80 degrees But it ran between 60 and 80 degrees that those heaters kept the RCS A an But any time if you turn ed th a heater off it wa sn any time at all until the light cl3.me ba ck on again so we just turn ed them on and ft them on th wh ol flight And that RCS couldn't have worked better It was the most beautiful system you ever s~w Boy i sure did Now here of course As you say in contr as to what we ad before Here another thing when we got into these high tumb lin rates th at really kept the spacecraft cold She The windows even froze over Yes i was darn cold We were down to minimum flow We had beth suit flo ws off complet ely off We had the fui coolant completely do wn to the nex to Jast notch and we left i cracked as we were afraic we would comple tely freeze up the wh ole coolant if we sh ut [PAGE 86] frost all over have enough time I 81 it completely off and later they told us that we could go a.head and shut it completely off And we were sitting in the re just shivering and shaking and I was a lot colder than Pete He wa cold and I wa really cold I was really thinking seriously about--if we couldn get that thing warmed up I was going to take my suit off and I did for a while in fact ake my inlet and exhaust hoses off Conrad Yes that was his answer to the problem When he got to cold just disconn ct Conrad Just let it blow i nto the cabin Cooper But it was so cold in there that ndows froze over and we were sitting there spinnin@ Conrad It had a rapid freeze on them I didn't see that except when we were doing the high tumqling and i got really cold in there I Cooper You could see the frost bui ld up on the out side all over the spacecraft Outs ide up the nose section around the thruste rs down there When you tumb sunlight- when the sun think to warm up that part icular section When we damped it immediately thereafter [PAGE 87] 82 Flf)ENTIA the whole thing sta ted to warm up You could se the frost melt outside Ev eryt hing seei ed go up The fuel temperatures would go up and t'.le whole ECS system would warm up the cabin wouli warm up and everything We were sitting there onrad A slow drift or stabilized fl i ght Coo per When we we it ing he eally sp inni ng th:ings just got colde and colder and colder IJ"ow by spinning up I talking about we got up nee to 12 degrees per second It wasn any bother to us ex cept visual You just coul dn st an i to look at i out the window It just gave you 3uch an awful look i ng pi cture Like you were in an inverted upside down wrong side up- So we fin~lly put the ola oid filte up the holes Co nra We got completely i the dark the Coo per I di dn even want to look at what was ing on It was odd because before yo co uld tak a penci and pu it out here and it's the best attitu,ie indicator you had If there any little ate goi on at all the penci would give it to you You ca1 sit and hol it i ght out in front of you and it's just like an art i i cial horizon It the most be mtiful or camera or whatever you ve out there it will do NFIDENTIAL [PAGE 88] Conrad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Con rad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad rqflDENTIA the same thing You put something out in front of you and it would just disappear Whew It wouldn sit in front of you It would move from one side to the other of the sp a cec raft due to the rates you would build up Yes here's where we got into this business of the OAMS Heater Off and ACME-Off and the adapter to Command and the Scanners-Off and they wanted to up date the computer We brought the IGS and the computer on and then we powered down again and this is One day 14 hours where this started Yes right in here That was passing over Carnarvon And then is where we brought up the second fuel cell We brought back on Got the pump back on the line and then we got ready for our first big day over the States Yes that's a great da;y Boy we were busy though We learned a lot I tell you though those passes over the states were really good The third day was our best day as far as being organized They gave us about the proper amount of experiments and we were well organized [PAGE 89] 84 Coop er Conrad Coop er Co nrad Coop er Yes we had a great day Th at th ird da~r was a goody Man we had everyth i ng ri ght on the butt We got good shots of it and everything jus worked ou right on the money Okay let se Thi is 15 hours 40 minutes that's still with everything powered up Then we had this and and we got those Those were photographs We got the photographs of the moon and the IR me asuremen ts of the moo and with the IR film and I think they're probably pretty good Of cours th Air Force as th a film We found th at the I and the retical an the radar and everyt in were retty well right on the mon ey Everything seemed to be boresighted pretty well and Pete could look th ough his questar lense at a ar and be bo resighted right in th i ddl of th darn camera I'd have it ri ght in the idd le of the ret icle Yes I ve got to eat crow on that I Fas the @J.Y that was complaining about did they reE,lly have this stuff boresighted Everyth ing was extremely well bo resighted Ye it su re was Can compl ain ab out i at all [PAGE 90] 85 Conrad No it worked very well Cooper Let see we had an observation of the storm and some pictures there at 17 hours and 12 minutes still on day Oh we brought the radar to stand-by to warm things up there at 17 hours-- 16 hours Conrad Radar temperature went down to 19 degrees Cooper 16 hours and 50 minutes it wa the secondary coolant loop that got so cold They wanted us to bring on some added heat source so we brought the radar on to stand-by for quite a period of time to warm things up and let see Conrad Th ey wanted to warm the radar up too It got too co Cooper Yes that right What did we do in here Conrad That was 13 Cooper That was 13 and that didn't work out very wel That was too early That was the one that was so early in the morning Conrad It seems to me that's the first time we looked at it and we saw the smoke Cooper Oh yes Cooper Now let's see was it the first one or the second that I saw and you didn see Conrad I don't know I never saw it [PAGE 91] 86 fi Et ff1,1'1 FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 13 One day and 18 hours I saw it That right We couldn se it at all unt i we were almost over i and then I found the target We could see the smoke and we were looking at the smoke and looking at the smoke The sun angle a very low and it was very bad but just after we got right on top of i and going on over I located the targets and was trying to point them out to Pete At least I sor- of got a pattern on the ground an I think tha why I could find them I recognized the pa·;tern on the general area of the ground that I could find They were in between two ivers and a bi i mu ill Okay what did we get on that That wa next and I got on that one Let's see that wa three and four and 18 hour and one day 20 hours minutes 43 seconds We got that And then 13 The same one The same one we were discussing there Yes CO ll'Et tf lsA [PAGE 92] 87 Cooper Okay we moved to Med Data to Ha waii at 19 hours and 55 minutes which we did I got there at i the Ca ribbean at 20 hours and did the MSC at 21 hours 52 minutes to 22 hours and 44 minutes Conrad Then we stayed on the flight plan there and at Hawaii had a critical tape dump at day 23 hours I congratulated Gordo for exceeding his original flight time at days hours Cooper Just barely started Conrad Gee Ob Here's that dinged by a micrometeorite I haven told anyone about this because I not really sure that was what happened because it happened twice and it happened right in the same place It might have been metal cooling but right over my head something dinged the hatch Just bigger than heck dinged You know just like someone shot a off of it Cooper Yes I could hear That's just exactly what it sounded like Conrad I was convinced that we had gott en dinged by a micrometeorite So I put it on the voice tape and wrote it down here Then a couple of hours late we got dinged just as loud just about in the same [PAGE 93] 88 Cooper Conrad Coop er Conrad Cooper ac J,A place again so that made me think well you know they aren't going to strike the same place twice so maybe it wasn't a micrometeorite after all I really don know what it was but I think it's worth a look at the hatch It could have just been that metal was cooling down or expandin or some thing you know They were right directly overhead on thE right hatch Yes It really sounded like someone fired a pellet or a or a 22 off of a piece of me·;al We decided we wouldn't put this out ove:c the radio or we would get everybody all shattered Okay ell essentially that day that whole pag from hours to hours went right on flight plan schedule We did the Vision Test there and we called down the scores from both that one and the day before Now we were on this split purge cycle Yes now here is where they started making a mistake Somebody didn realize that I could not purge the fuel cells from my side I can get to those switches and I had to wake Pete up FI Er I A [PAGE 94] every time he was supposed to be asleep when the fuel cells were purged Well I could get to them but I had to crawl right over in his lap to do it so he was awake then After that I learned to wake him up early and let him get awake before he purged them Conrad Scared the heck out of that guy at Carnarvon too I ll bet you We were going to purge the fuel cells for the first time and I was sound asleep Gordo said Wake up wake up we ve got to purge the fuel cells I reached over there and turned on everything and all the Delta Plight came on Cooper He hadn put the crossover Conrad The crossover valve on I said The Delta lights are on The guy at Carnarvon said Stop purging Stop purging He must have thought the cells were going to go right then and there so Cooper And then Pete woke up Conrad Then finally I woke up and got to thinking about what was going on there and found out that I'd fouled up slightly Cooper All right let see We deleted on day hours and 35 minutes we deleted that Philippin3 hours I congratulated Gordo for exceeding his original flight time at days hours Cooper Just barely started Conrad Gee Ob Here's that dinged by a micrometeorite I haven told anyone about this because I not really sure that was what happened because it happened twice and it happened right in the same place It might have been metal cooling but right over my head something dinged the hatch Just bigger than heck dinged You know just like someone shot a off of it Cooper Yes I could hear That's just exactly what it sounded like Conrad I was convinced that we had gott en dinged by a micrometeorite So I put it on the voice tape and wrote it down here Then a couple of hours late we got dinged just as loud just about in the same [PAGE 93] 88 Cooper Conrad Coop er Conrad Cooper ac J,A place again so that made me think well you know they aren't going to strike the same place twice so maybe it wasn't a micrometeorite after all I really don know what it was but I think it's worth a look at the hatch It could have just been that metal was cooling down or expandin or some thing you know They were right directly overhead on thE right hatch Yes It really sounded like someone fired a pellet or a or a 22 off of a piece of me·;al We decided we wouldn't put this out ove:c the radio or we would get everybody all shattered Okay ell essentially that day that whole pag from hours to hours went right on flight plan schedule We did the Vision Test there and we called down the scores from both that one and the day before Now we were on this split purge cycle Yes now here is where they started making a mistake Somebody didn realize that I could not purge the fuel cells from my side I can get to those switches and I had to wake Pete up FI Er I A [PAGE 94] every time he was supposed to be asleep when the fuel cells were purged Well I could get to them but I had to crawl right over in his lap to do it so he was awake then After that I learned to wake him up early and let him get awake before he purged them Conrad Scared the heck out of that guy at Carnarvon too I ll bet you We were going to purge the fuel cells for the first time and I was sound asleep Gordo said Wake up wake up we ve got to purge the fuel cells I reached over there and turned on everything and all the Delta Plight came on Cooper He hadn put the crossover Conrad The crossover valve on I said The Delta lights are on The guy at Carnarvon said Stop purging Stop purging He must have thought the cells were going to go right then and there so Cooper And then Pete woke up Conrad Then finally I woke up and got to thinking about what was going on there and found out that I'd fouled up slightly Cooper All right let see We deleted on day hours and 35 minutes we deleted that Philippines and they [PAGE 95] 90 Cooper Cooper Conrad were I wonder what the reason was for that There was some interference with something I conldn get to that one Oh what the heck was it Th ere wa something else going on they had us doing right then Oh somebody was asking me somet 1ing They were having a big discussion over cryo That right We had a great big days hours we had a big discussion over the net on something on these cryos and it occured right at the time when we were supposed to get this one on this Jass Okay at days hours and 45 minutes we did MSC again and in fact I th ink we did a ll the MSC pretty much on schedu At days hours an 15 minutes we were supposed to do an Apollo Landmark in Af rica and the one they called out for us to do in the Fl ight Plan there just wasn any description of it It was very poorly described and we couldn't find where and what it was they wanted us to get They never did call out a number on this nor did they have it liste here What was the time on that Cooper It was almost 02:09:20 00 [PAGE 96] 91 Conrad Cooper Con ad Cooper Conrad Co oper Conrad Cooper Con ad Cooper Conrad Cooper 02 09 huh Yes osh that doesn't even show here So I guess they never did even cal it up from the ground You just saw it in he Flight Plan It was in the Flight Plan But they riever called it out They ne ver called it out I haven got it written down either Okay on through the second day we did another UHF Test another Medical Data on days 12 hours and 50 minutes That when we first powered the platform back We were still building up wo days and 13 hours we powered the platform back up and we did a UHF No we did a sequence we did a sequence we did a sequence 12 and these are all ateside passes That was a busy time We did a at day 14 hours We did a at 14 35 What this now I have the platform power up a a UHF Right [PAGE 97] 92 Conrad an at 15 45 Cooper You re ahead of where I was onrad Oh I sorry Okay we'll back up at 13 41 We got Tampico instead of Monterey beca-i se it was clouded in Then we did the UHF No and we got this during our African pass dicn we And we got the 4/D-7 over Kano Wait a minute I not sure we got that one Let me look in the log here 20 no clouds over Kano so we didn't get it It was supposed to be cl oudy rer Kano Cooper That right There were supposed to clouds over Kano It was supposed to be clouds we ere getting pi ctures of and there weren't any clouis Conrad Yes it was clear Then we had an which we did not do We did the later That's when we went to platform power up and the computer on and then we started a at 15 16 After at 15 16 was a number 20 which if I'm net mistaken was supposed to be Waco and we got DaJlas instead because Waco was cloudy then Yes it was supposed to be James Connally and we took Dallaf1 instead because Waco was clobbered Cooper What this I have here That your note there [PAGE 98] 93 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper GONftf1 21 feet per second Delta Oh that was our pre burn stuff At days 17 hours 34 minutes and 31 seconds we had a maneuver load Well I have the whole thing here We powered up the latform on day at 15:50 with the plat form caged BEF and at 16 15 we alined BEF with the rate gyros on At 16:45:00 the computer went on and we addressed 25 90201 and apogee adjust maneuver was a 16:50 17 We translated forward to zero the IVI so it was actually a retro burn I mean we were BEF We were using the aft-firing thrusters Yes We had a on the shi and we didn't see it at days 16 hours 56 minutes and 49 seconds We didn't see the ship Then at 17 the second day we alined the platform SEF and we sa the computer up to address 25 00158 We made an SEF burn which was a phase adjust maneuver at 17 34:58 Now that one we did in the Platform Mode and it didn't burn for schmaltz The platform didn hold it It allowed us to get a little bit of left- ri ght and up down [PAGE 99] Conrad I don't be ieve that Platform Mode was holding the ol erances it was supposed to It was drifting a full degree and it was supposed to hold better th an ha Cooper I is supposed to hol plus or minus half a degree onrad By drifting off in yaw a degree it burned the whole ti me degree off in yaw in the same direction You see tha accounted for the sort of arge out of-p ane number it was like 0.8 foot ier second th at we got in to the out of pl ane Okay then we had a D-4/D- at 17 42:00 a 410 Band a 407 over arnarvon and it was not done Cooper Th a right we didn have a retic Conrad ecause the reticle pooped out We thought the retic ad burned out It wasn unt i a ter on after we were going to fix the reticle by putting he auxiliary light in there that Gordo found that here was a short in the cord when the cord was stretched and that he short wasn i the cord when the cord wasn stretched and tha the sight was okay That re inds me of another thing ight af ter we got airborne I went to use the little auxi iary ight down here It was in the [PAGE 100] 95 clip so hard that when I pulled it out I pulled it completely apart I shattered it I broke out my lens Glass floating around and everything Where did we stow that I forgot I gave it to you and you stowed i Cooper I put it in the garbage bag Conrad That rig ht it's in the garbage bag some place Well they have gone through a ll that Cooper Incidentially that one single-point cord that we have in there over on my side if I had had so mething to cut it with I should have cut it righ in two so it ouldn be used again It's no good It works fine as long as you don put any tension on it When you ring it up to put it in the reticle it shorts out Conrad Then we went through another maneuver preparation at 17:50 00 on the second day We alined the platform SEF and we sat up an out-of lane maneuver and address 27 00150 15 feet per second out of plane burn and 90 degrees yaw left At 02 days 18 hours 06 minutes 50 seco nd we made that out-of-plane burn Cooper We did that in Rate Command and right on the money [PAGE 101] Conrad Cooper Cooper Conrad Yes we did that in Rate Command right on the money Then we had an 8/D-13 and we documented those ings Gordo saw part of it and I did.r never did really get a good score ThE at 18 50 again we alined the platform SEF and se it the computer up to 25 00164 and burned thiE1 reverse coelliptic maneuver at 19 04:18 and that was a good burn too MCC had put in their Agena computer an Agena ephemeris and they ran a rendezvous solution on a fake Agen a They had us make the actual burns and then they computed hJw close we would have wound up I was told over the radio that we got within mile of altitude and mile horizontal distance from where we should have actually been That was well within the tolerances so they were apparently fairly pleased with the burns Then we had at days 21 tours 33 minutes 02 seconds and Gordo shot moet of those They always happened on your wa ch Yes Then we did days 21 hours and 50 minutes We had Apollo Landmark south Th.at when I woke up and you had tha Lake I [PAGE 102] [PAGE 103] [PAGE 104] 99 got the again or you got it at days 06 hours and 32 minut es We del ted an at days 05 hours for some reason I just have delete in here Coop er What was that An Conrad Yes Cooper Yes I don know they just told us to delete that one at days 05 hours Let see we deleted a Cabin Lighting Survey because Pete was asleep That was one time when you were asleep and I didn want to disturb you You hadn had any sleep in aw hile Conrad You have the note down here that at days hours and 33 minutes you found the OAMS ontro Propellant circuit reaker open and OAMS Control Regulator No circuit breaker open and you don't know when they were opened and I don know when they opened but we know what did it We had been parking the water gun up there lik you are supposed to be able to do and then pulling i off You tend to pull down th i way which would cock the gun barrel up into the circuit breaker panel and I think I probably knocked them off but when [PAGE 105] 10 Cooper Conrad Cooper onrad Cooper Conrad Cooper I not sure So from that point in time on we never used the hook-up that you can hock it up on the We al so found that littl e-hook up was i eeling gray paint off of those bars and i was floe ting all over the cabin Th at right It kept knocking the gre.y paint of the guards and i kept floating around the cabin So from then on we always put th water gun in the gun holster down there where it belongs As a matter of fact I think it was easier tc get it in and out of the plastic thing that holds it on the circuit breaker guards holds it on tt re so tightly that it is a big swivet everytime you pull it off Okay At day hours 32 minutes 46 seconds we did an xperiment that aircraft urpo on it Thi was over the Philippines We got four pictures Right We did an MSC-1 at 07 40 We had a medical data pass in there at 53 Right [PAGE 106] 101 CONFIDENT Conrad Then I have Pl a form to ORB Rate Prelaunch and horizon scan for some eason uestar 01 90 degrees left Cooper We alined SEF at 13 10 Con rad Oh th at was these platform tests and that they wan ted us to do Cooper That right were getting ready for another stateside pass too We installed the photom eter we did an pass at day 13 hour 32 minutes at Laredo Conrad Oh let me make a comment right now on 13 We were supposed to make a measurement a window survey of the window before day ne and the last day Okay the window scan was done on day 18 hours 26 minutes 00 seconds That was the first window scan A second window scan was neve done because th last days of the flight we were in drifting flight This required a 30- degree sun angle on the window and we never did have a control system back until we were on the RCS sys tem We weren about to do any experiments on RCS fuel Th at was rig ht before retro The second window scan the one at the end of the flight wasn done But [PAGE 107] 102 I will make the comment that I don't th ink the window changed just from my looking at it Cooper No I don think it did either I think it was just as bad at first as it was at ant Conr ad That's right Cooper And it was pretty bad Conr ad So I don I think they lost anything he re on that data We just couldn't ge that on Cooper Okay Let's see We had a med ica pgss at day 13 hours 50 minutes 13 hours 47 minutes actually Alined the platform Conrad We went through a really big day This was day and this was the day we were really organized The experimenters sent us up about the right number of experiments They gave us enough time between experiments and they plann ed them we ll enough so that we didn't have any troub changing the gear around or anything and we had a big day that day ooper Thi was a great day Conr ad We had enough time to do it all and we felt good about it We felt that it was the best day we fle [PAGE 108] 103 Cooper Let see Day 14 hours and 18 minutes we did tha Zodiacal Light Conrad That right Gordo really had it on there I think he got some good dope out of that odiacal Light The pictures should be good Gordo held it right on the money Cooper Let see and then we did Conrad On the 134 we looked for the ship again but didn't see it th at day and that was one th ing we didn get Cooper I have here now a We did it This is El Centro No no Conrad 021 is Dallas I think or some thing like that Cooper That's right And then day 15 hours minutes [PAGE 109] 104 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Co nr ad Cooper Conrad FCSD rep Conrad We had a full day this day Let see at hours- day 15 hours minutes we ha 134 When was this 05:13:51 Yes Th at was a 134 that was the ship and we didn't see it Yes that was the weathe Yes I have no joy for sunlight here OK then we had a at 15 59 Right 409 and 410b and we got them both done We got both of those We had a platform aline at 16::.5 00 And a medical pass right pl a tform aline What as that the computer waE off by 240 miles Yes Their computations were calling for 240 short based on what waE put into it That right that just what happened and we were trying to fly short CQN EJD;l» TI [PAGE 110] @NflDi~TIAL 105 FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD rep Conrad FCSD rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Yes Well do you feel better No At 16 hours and 24 minutes we had a medical pass At 16 hours and 15 minutes we ali ned SEF powered up the radar rate gyros etc At 16 hours and 37 minutes we had a pass 423a That was the first missile And we saw it Saw it come up thru the clouds or right at the edge of the clouds Which one was this out of here No we didn't get any missiles out of here It was out of Vandenburg It was the Minuteman out of Vandenburg You got it as soon as you came out of the clouds Yes Yeah- -just as plain as day ight on it Should have gotten some good readings on that We powered up the computer then at day 16 hours [PAGE 111] 106 a.nd 45 minutes a.nd radar was on a.nd radar off on had that radar test right in there that they wanted to do Conrad Did we get those pictures of Venus and Fomalhaut This platform and business Cooper I thought we did Conrad I didn have a done log on that and I don't think I wrote that down anywhere whether we Cooper I don't remem ber whether we ever got Venus or ot OK let see---the tape recorder was apparently still orking there because you changed the tape there hat day at hours- yeah he r:e we go Conrad Wait a minute here I got it down here latform test magazine picture 23 l/30th of a second no somet::iing uestar Cooper Didn't get Venus Conrad Platform test 02 magazine icture 22 I/30th of a second- oh no fil i er I sorry Fomalhaut--we got Foma haut but CO~FIDENTIAL [PAGE 112] 107 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper we didn get Venus We never found it Th at right That right We never even found Venus on that night side Platform test And I got a remark here to find out that on day at 01 hours 02 minutes and 15 seconds where in the heck were we because there were great fires on the ground Yeah OK so I did write it down all right SA 13 day 18 16 14 and I had some comments about that here some place 16:14 We scored a and a and the was in the upper the was in the upper left hand box and the was in the second box in the second row Right OK about this period of time- let see we had an first before this then we had run some more tests on our primary scanner and found out that it was completely inoperative and [PAGE 113] 108 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Yeah Just kept getting worse worse worse and so Pete has a note here tell Houston about primary scanner which we did shortly thereafter at hours 18 minutes days 18 hours and 16 minutes we did an and then at days 18 hours and 25 minutes we purged powe:('ed down computer off pl a tform off re icle off rate gyros off etc etc Yeah Then you have a you ve got an done at 03:21:20 08 Right You had an Apollo landma rk at 3:21:38 02 a 213 and I think that we got Lake De Poo Poo or whatever it was when we got at done We got that one There was a at 03:22 48 17 a 425a I don know what that was but Well we also got in addition just before th at at day 22 hours and 15 minutes we got an magazine exposure 12 [PAGE 114] 109 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Coop:e Conrad Cooper cyclone off Japan which has been added into there And then you start on that HF test number starting at 22 hours 55 minutes Oh yeah 425a was Hawaii Maui Oh yeah you got that one Maunakea was the volcano it not active but anyhow Wait a minute oh 213 is what Huh hat's Apollo landmark his was the let see the Apollo land marks let me look there and see if we got 213 on it All right then that was at 22 48 the was at days 22 hours 48 min utes and 17 seconds was the 425a and 416 You got the Apollo landmark at 03 21 38 02 21 magazine frame 10 pictures you took Yes Camera 11 Then--day start at day 00 hours [PAGE 115] 110 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 25 minutes cabin lighting 19 minutes was the medical data at 40 let•s see- 40 minutes there was the series sequence Mode 414 I have here What was that 145 was a military Yeah What I this Mode 414- That was if we saw it we were be in Mode 414 on the IR Oh OK Then we had a mode 01 at 44:10 day 44 minutes and 10 seconds On day Yes I don I have anything down hero for that 04:00 Mode Ol that I think that I may have the numbers wrong OK at day two hours 20 minutes vision tests both of us Had that HF test in there someplace Yeah I've already called that out Medical data pass on me over CSQ at 03 11:00 We had an day 03 hours AElEN [PAGE 116] 111 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 20 minutes and 25 seconds we got an sequence 01 and let's see and thru this period was where we both completely ran out of steam-- here on we were trying to get you to sleep so I deleted all of these tests ri ght in thru here to let Pete sleep On day starting at hours and 45 minutes on Deleted the HF tests here Kept adding these tests in her that were just weren going to get him any sleep at al This was this 145 mode this was at and It was the 145 mode for the 01 and 414 That right At day 48 hours Yeah here I have this thing 4th day passes we started at 11 00 lock What this 04 hours 48 minutes a.ri 58 seconds there was a th at we ha no success on No comment on that To do any of those things you have to have the platform on [PAGE 117] 112 FCS ep Co nr ad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Coop er Then the platform wasn on Was not on That right -see you got to he able to have an accurate means of ointing of having yaw and They said pitch up 83 degreeR yaw 45 degrees left out of that window You don I have any idea in the wo dd I mean we didn't even have rat gyros powered up You have no idea in the world where you a.re pointing just You are wasting your time try:Lng to do this kind of job without a pl at form What is this a shot of what i.s this target Well for any pointing equiraments especially ones in the sky Where they are going at different angl es see You have to have a platform Then along at day ho ur and 40 minutes Buzz eX])eriment as pl a ced in there on a swit ch [PAGE 118] Conrad Cooper Coo per Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 113 Yeah That was the straw that broke the camel's back we didn't do Did MSC day hours and something to hours and something Let see then on down to day 11 hours and minutes Powered up Then it powered up platform had a medical data pass 11 hours and 25 minutes aligned SEF 11 hours and 40 powered up the rate gyro and computer on 11 bio med recorder number off number on hat was half way through the flight 11 55:55 we had a the recovery ship and that wa$ he one we saw No we didn get it I got no joy on that one OK We got them the next time around I think 11 55:55 134 sequence zero A Yeah we got them the next rev OK Conrad OK I ve got the at 12 24 02 was done [PAGE 119] 114 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad that was the sequence 091 or W:~atever it was Right The platform aligned SEF for he command pilot we got Purged the fuel cells at day 12 hours and 50 minutes Yeah SA 13 on Laredo at 13 39 what happened Ne ither one of us saw the target on that one I'm not sure I ve got anything written down I don Why don I Huh I don know what happened Then we had a 089-wh at the heck was 085 Day 13:58:50 in F.a.st Af'rica- yeah that was Blantyre Aercdrome and Malawi I don't think we got that one Yes we did Did we Malawi airport remember Maybe we did don't have a done wr itten on it for some reason [PAGE 120] 115 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Co nrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Yeah I remember we had the picture of it you know and it was out there on that little point--or a that the one by Ka.no that we couldn find because of the weather There's one in there where we did 089- let's see what it looked like Look up 089 that the one whe we had all the weather on it by Ka.no wasn it Yeah well we saw these lakes but We saw the lakes but that was in under a big deck of clouds Did we or didn't we get the aerodrome guess we didn get the aerodrome No we didn't get it Because remember we saw the lake and saw the river come out and then there was this whole deck of clouds over there so we couldn get that because of the cloud cover That's right We saw the general area- where it was at but we couldn get on it at all I [PAGE 121] 116 Co nr ad Cooper Conrad Let see at 14:15 day 410c 410c was that•s one of the ones where we were supposed to track a star or something yeah we were supposed to track Nunki and we never could find it because it as It was up in first early It was up earl we had troubln with that That another thing I could have recommended those gu:ys-- we got enough to do in the spacecraft not to worry about setting up the star chart and figuring out from the -somethir..g you can do from the star chart is figure out a pitch and yaw angle and the grormd got that information up the kazoo so on any of these ones where they want you to photograph some stars or anything else-you ve got to platform up again the easiest thing to do is send up a pitch and yaw with it and that just takes all the work out of it [PAGE 122] 117 Coo per Conrad Cooper Conrad Co oper in the sp a cec aft Gosh we re messing ar ound with the star charts still don tell you how much to pitch up or yaw ar ound to find the darn thing They tell you where it would be on yaw pa th You just sort of got to figure it out it over to the left or the right and go over and look for it Well that not the way to do it Heck we never navigated that way in the Navy You go into star chart with local hour angle and it gives you the elevation and azimuth to the star from North and that essentially what you need here You need the elevation and azimuth angle off the orbital plane OK let's see at day 14:56:50 we had a White Sands Sled Run which was successful And then we got the ship An then we got the 424a ight after that At 14 57 31 we got sequence 134 [PAGE 123] 118 Conrad FCSD rep Cooper FCSD rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Co nrad Which we did photograph the Lake Champla in Did you see this thing- how dii you pick this thing up did you us a tele scope or We saw him visually found h~n visu a lly and then From the wake Put the pipper on him and Pete took pictures with the big camera Then we got a 15:04 series 134 What was that That the ship Well what was the 424a That was the White Sands MissiJe Run Oh OK We got a at 15:19:00 that was the 419 The 419 was the ascension calibration We did that darn thing again for them remember that over Australia or something I don't know what the heck we did it for because I told them we got that thing once Anyhow then we did a platform aline [PAGE 124] 119 Cooper Conrad Cooper Co nrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FI DE~TIA All right 15 hours 40 minutes Then was the second Minuteman which we saw but we didn't track 16 hours 28 minutes 423b we did the HF tests at 17 hours Wait a minute I got a we had an at 16:37 and it was the thunderstorms in southern Florida I think we got those We got that one All right We had a at 16 51:25 which was an 065 ight And if I not mistaken that was that Island off Brazil and we photogr aphed the wrong island then we found out our mistake in time and Just as we were going over we shifted over to the other island And we phot ographed the right island it lookeQ like the re was only one island out there and we found out there were two i lands out there so we did get the right pictures There again the maps we had just weren [PAGE 125] 120 Conrad Cooper Conrad big enough in their overall look at things to give you a clue as to wha I ll show you this This is the kind of thing that you just can•t have-that was 065- now what you need to help you find an island is some clue as to Khere it is located in the world well hat what we had Yeah there was the island Now it turns out that right up about here there another island laugh er and man we took all kinds of sE!e fortun a tely it was far enough away you look 15 seconds up there is 15 is 120 miles and 120 miles is a lot of dis ance but you are covering that in 15 snconds ell fortunately this was about 15 or 20 seconds e·were pitched down and we were at least at the 90 and Wt got the second island a little bit pa Jt the nadir because we already had been cack.ing his first island see and thlm here we came drifting along feeling how gr at we were [PAGE 126] 121 fNTtA getting the picture but we really dirui think it quite looked like the right island but because we didn see an air field on it well here came the island with the air field it was a good 200 miles down the pike but you need a little more Cooper A little more help as to where it at Let see 17 hours was HF test we did that Conrad Yeah we powered down Cooper 17 40 Medical data we did that Conrad Yeah now here is a good time for a commen on this thing Every time we wen thru these state side passes now a to operate on a state side passes they start out two orbits before you hit the state side passes you started getting chatter the first time you hit Carnavon and then well no I take that back the first thing that happened is we come by that low sweep up thru Central America liliere we got Canaveral and Antigua and we get Houston [PAGE 127] 122 remote from there and it would be Dave Scott and Elliot a.nd they would start giving us a little poop about what was going to go on that day see and heck they'd tell us a little bit acout the latest hydrogen calculations er something laughter and that was we ci so rt of get an idea of what was going on then the next t~i around is the first time you pick up Carnavon and then he'd sta.xrt to give you an update and he'd get about half way through what you wern going to do in those state side passes and we pick up Dave Scott again at Canton and he I finish it and then we'd come by that fringe pass by the states and that when they changed the watch and we'd say hello to everybody that was going off and coming on and then we'd have all the stuff and the next trip around that ould start the three revs over the states see and then it was just go you had gear all over the spacecraft gee we had everything [PAGE 128] 123 Cooper Conrad Cooper we owned out and we be going through books and writing and flight plan and then we leave the states and it says pilot nap period and Gordo was supposed do something else and that was imposs ible it would take two more revs to clean up the spacecr a ft before we ever got to do anything else so we never got on that part of the flight plan This pilot nap period that was a big joke Now pilot's eat period and nap period and a ll Always cleaning the spacecraft and we had to clean up the whole thing it was a good time to do it we have meal garbage out and we have all the experi ments out so we up to the states on that last one It was handier to eat together too because you had to get the stuff out anyway so it was handier for us just to eat together so we just always ate at the same time [PAGE 129] 124 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad And we would be in the procesH of cleaning up when we'd come by and we have that Guaymas pass where we'd come 1:iy and have California acq and Guaymas acq and we go right down the side of Mexico the west side and then cross the isthmus and go down Brazi and then fI'Om there on you that was your last ontact with the states and you'd stay out there with the CSQ RKV cycle through the rest of the night and that time we got all the way around there and picked up the CSQ the first time and we have Hawaii once more Then we were already through my eep period and that supposed to be Pete sleep period that was the not:'llla sleep period We worked our tail off that wh:>le time That was the normal sleep peri and we just barely have things all sq·.lared away so then we both powered down Go thru this terrible 50 minut with both of us like this we uh uh oh yeah hi [PAGE 130] 125 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper there laughter Yeah ok everything fine snoring 1a,1g~+ er Talk about lonely that when it really got bad You really knew you were out in the no place We just discussed one thing while you were out was this window situation You couldn't even begin to see out of Pete window when we launched It was really terrible and it was in between those outside panes and glass And my window between the outside sealed units and the inside unit of glass there was a bee Oh yeah yeah that stuff is on the inside of the outer pane I don know how that got there And inside these two outside units on my side in between those and the inside pane of glass there was a little bee and a fly and a whole bunch of flecks of dirt and odds and ends in there And my window wasn as frosted over as his [PAGE 131] 126 Conrad FCSD rep Cooper Cooper Conrad Over the period of time they both got a certain amount of little frosty scum on the outside of them and when we fired the scanner covers there were about foUT or five little gray flecks of etuff and debris just flew everywhere righ in that period of time and four or five little gray flecks came on the window Heck that's before launch isn't it Oh I didn know that Did it ever clear up No I think it was just unforg:i veable I think if they can I do bette1 on windows than that they ought to just qt it trying I could see maybe having some El.lllount of debris-and then when you use the thruste the debris would all show up ag ain We were on here we are up here his med data Day 16 hours and tha data did 16 hours 28 minutes 423b Yeah that was the second missi which we didn I get any track on ue saw i [PAGE 132] 127 Cooper Conrad Coop er Conrad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad Cooper ONFl0ENTIA HF test then at 417 4:17:40 med data was done HF test ended on down there OK day 19 hours 44 minutes was which was completed Yeah both the were completed Then there's an 21 hours minutes and 50 seconds storm Doreen we completed Time of closest approach was at 21:09:30 They had us tracking this storm you see Oh yeah We estimated the eye was 250 miles left of course approximately Have you got the orbits yeah here it is his thing is the greatest thing in the whole world It the simplest cheapest thing in the spacecraft and It is it is great We would have been lost without this thing This orbital update map Boy it really well the orbit was really good as far as You really don't know where ou are at [PAGE 133] 128 Conrad ooper Conr ad Co nrad ooper Conrad ooper But this is a good little map oo It really has the right things on it There wasn't anytime we didn Look down and know exactly where we Here This thing is really great Probably the cheapest thing in the spacecraft That one Jerry Jones made up We tried out a long time ago and I said I liked it and I wanted to take one like that rather than this big elaborate one Yeah it really worked great Yeah I just saw all these map star updates we had here Yeah One thing they could do hey could put about or more or bi ts on it and not have upda te it so ften Might be a little handier Just a tr ug ht but it good the way i is t's see we re on day 22 hour en 20 minutes we did a cabin ig ti ng urvey We did the radar test 10 Cabi li ghting MSC-1 And med data tf>fNT=IAL [PAGE 134] 129 ffDffiTIA Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Apollo landmark 207- that was at 07 14:25 must be day No not that far along We did UHF we did at hours day hours and something You said you had an that was again during my sleep cycle and you said missed while discussing Cryos with CSQ Right And then you had an MSC at 05 and you got that done Now you're ahead of me hold up just a minute We re down here now let see here's the 05 40 MSC that was done You got your Apollo landmark Apollo landmark at sequence 207 at hours and 14 minutes What was 207 Lake Titicaca That was the Can ari es Oh yeah all right Then we had SAD 13 vision tests on both of us which we did together instead of separately And then [PAGE 135] 130 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conr ad Cooper Conrad NFl0Etsl:TIA at day 10 hours and 20 mim:.tes we had Apollo No 208 which we g'O We had 502 which we got We had sequence 414 which we got and we had the pl atform tests which Ke did Yeah then we got the radar teet run And Pete has a note here Get serious it really starts gett i ng thick and heavy Well I don't know--they were really getting wild We had a platform aline pla form test radar test this is day 11 hours and 35 minutes We had platform aline radar test That where they were off the ir ro cker But we got them Those were ll in the day 11 to 12 hours Listen there a lot of slop py things in there I mean we got thine done but we missed little subtleties like we ere supposed to run the 16mm came ra a long wi th some part of the I gear and I wouldn I get that on and bunch of 0NF-IDENT.IAL Iii [PAGE 136] G0MF-IDFiNTl 131 little things Again we were always man they had stuff thrown at us as fast as you could say Jack Rob in son Cooper Let see S-B D-13 at Laredo do you have one of those right in that period day 13 hours Conrad Day 13 hours no Cooper I don have it either Conrad I have this all scratched out for some reason Cooper This is where we really began to have trouble with something what was it we were really ha ving trouble with Conrad The O.AMS systems cut out Cooper That right The O.AMS systems pooped out Day at about 11 hours when we were cranking up for this is when we found that our OAMS systems was really getting bad and we a lre a dy had discovered that we had one thruster out and a partial otrer one out but this is the time when we found out we ha about others tha were just about out Conrad Yeah I have a little note here report NFIDENilAl [PAGE 137] 32 Co nr ad Cooper Con rad Cooper Co nr ad Co op er Conrad to fl ight oi ce tape out num oer yaw left thruster out an OAMS hea er light turned ba ck on again And so we were supposed to as eyw est and 13 SAD 13 abo ut 22 OK From the on for a while things just got scrubbed i the flight pl an on that day five the a tte part of the time on entries there Yeah th at when they got us into this minimum power down voice con ol suit an cool an pumps a Jq aid UHF eceiver OS receiver PCM That when they decided the hy rogen asn I going to a st at the pre ent ele ctr i cal rate That what I wrote down Houston hot dope drift for thre days icky tieky aughter Sorry But at day 19 hours and 25 minutes we did get a fi on or een he she wa the Yeah everything happened that day That [PAGE 138] 133 Cooper Conrad IDE1'1TIA was when the PC02 started to read for some reason PC02 came off the scale and was reading way up there for a while We broke out one of the co tapes and it showed that we were still all right We figured the gage was its usual reliability Okay now I think this is good for the recorder right here At that time as of days 21 hours 00 minutes they wanted to know what our experiment status was So on the UHF we had completed tests and I said just so that if they were still trying to keep that number under their lid hat's what it sounded like because they kept mentioning it We done and which had completed we had done nothing because we didn get the REP we'd taken 72 pictures we had completed 405 408 409 410 410a 410b 411 414 420 422 423a 423b 424a 425a We had 16 minutes and seconds of Jeo~~f6i~tW on [PAGE 139] 134 Conrad On D-13 we completed all tests although we didn see the targets several times On we completed it and we'd taken three maga zines for a total of 210+ pictures we had 23 pictures or groups that they had anted plus we had taken cal card picture The broke at days and some odd hours and I don know the exact time didn't make any difference MSC-1 we did on day one three and four Apollo-we got Landmarks 207 12 and 13 We'd done cabin lighting surveys The humidity sensor we read at least once a day and the 16mm film we had one and a quarter magazines shot up which is general stuff That was what we had completed in days Then from there on we went through this big drill of sending up of all kinds of experiments but don't expend any fuel on them An so we were pretty well restricted to and type phJtographs which was about all we got Cooper Catch as catch can Conrad We marked down all this other stuff did catch a D-4/D-7 occasionally if it was the ri sht sort of thing-if we were sort of pointed in the right [PAGE 140] 135 FJD~TIAL direction Like I got a--in drifting flight I got 417 and 418 at days hours 41 minutes I don remember what that is Cooper From here on we just- we drifted through this pe riod of time and the only time we ever powered anything up was when the drift rates got up pretty high We would power up damp the rates and power right back down and hope we and did manage to keep somewhat attitude so we could get occasionally some pictures For instance on we did continue doing MSC-1 experiments hich incidentally- even in times of minimum power when they wanted us powered right down to our eyeballs they still left MSC on I don know how much fuel i takes but it always erks me if we had to have everything off why could they manage to leave that one on Day hours 41 minutes we got D-4/D-7 417 418 and 414 Conrad Yes on that one day Day when they had the HF tests in Houston--0roadcast HF we had Houston on HF till 15 hours 59 minutes 00 seconds and this included the remoting through Ascension,and the remoting through Ascension was beautiful That [PAGE 141] was really good recept i on And then tl ey were playing Never on Sunday and that faded out at 15 hours 08 minutes Cooper That was the best HF test we had Conrad Yes and we started receiving the music again coming around the other side of the wo1·ld at 15 hours 49 minutes This must be 16::9 14 59 14 59 I got the wrong number in here think I'll just make a note to check it No thi is 15:08 15:49 which is about right half way arcund the world and this number may be wrong Cooper Is that day Conrad Yes check it and see if we got a note in the Flight Plan Day at 140 almost 1500 Then we did some of these radar tests and for the 1ikes of me to unders and do you know what was ome of the discussion on why the radar didn't work after that Gee it locked up so beautifully the first day on the REP down there Cooper The one REP pass we had man things Jt worked like a charm Conrad And it just never did work after that We always got a lock on [PAGE 142] 137 Cooper And I read analog My analog read beautiful but he couldn read out digital and that impossible because the analog data comes from the di git al da ta I could even tell where it was It was i tting out on Meritt Island wasn't it I ll bet it a accurate enough--I ll bet you that you could almost ll what building it was in It looked like it was ight out here in the south part of the complex here onr ad Where we we receiving music om Cooper We got a little Chinese HF br oa dcast every now and then Peoples program Conrad We went through these radar tests just dri ting around out there Cooper Oh yes they were trying to jam our adios Everytime we went over the China area Conrad I had the decided impression that they were ying to jam our UHF So it was either that or oh yes where was it where we heard the radar on the adio Cooper China Conrad No we were along the fringes of Russia but we went over China We were over something like Ind i a Cooper We we coming right over the Tibet the hi gh Tibet QWflO [PAGE 143] 138 area there and we were just on the south edge of China Conx ad Have you ever axied close by radar You can he ar i on radio i goes beep beep beep beep and you can even clock the antenna sweep and you can get about three pulses Beep beep bee and then eep beep beep and you can see that old antenna down there on the ground going around and we could hear the UHF as big as heck and we we re way up in the middle of no place and I know darn well it must have been Russ ian radar Coop er We were up on the high of southern China High plains area Conx ad Okay then we ran another eXPeriment summary and this eXPeriment summary was for th sixth day And on the we did not see 135 which was the Laser Laser out of White Sands Never did see that darn Laser And the we caught a 417 418 and on we taken five more pictures On we'd aken 43 more pictures and on we taken one more storm or two pictures On 13 I have no- we didn't get to mark the targets but we may have gotten the 70mm pictures of them that [PAGE 144] EM=FfAL 139 they wanted I had to point I may have al spacecraft in the picture I don know-we were just drifting by this one And then at 11 hours 30 minutes on the sixth day we went through this crank up this number fuel cell again after it had been shut down fo 20 hours They wanted to bring it up by warming up the coolant loop so we went through this drill of shutting off the Primary Cooling Valve Circuit Breaker and opening the Rad Flow to BYPASS so that we could bypass the SECONDARY LOOP and let it warm up a bit Then we went through the purge procedures and brought the fuel cell on the i ne And i came on pretty good Conrad We never got any of the rest of the experiments on that day They wanted general photos of the and so forth and we just were never in position We were always pointed straight up or something like that Then we had another UHF test le aving the States and on the seventh day and we lost HF on the seventh day at 16 hours and 27 minutes and 00 seconds I had the Squelch set on and I brought the Squelch up higher and [PAGE 145] 140 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad NFl0ENTIAL and we got them back again and lost it minutes later at 07 days 16 hours and 30 minufos Then we did a MSC I have a note here days and 20 minut(~S was that large storm where we located the depre 3sion on it Take a lo ok at it and see just where Lt was and weather breaking off from it And then when they came up with their xt ground st wh i ch- Had two eXPeriments which I think we could have done without and that when they had us warm up the solenoids for ten minutes The thing that got to us was that we had turned- They had us shut off the Propellant Valve and what we should have done a dumped the Propellant by rotating through all control pos i tions on the handle but what they had us do was go to the full yaw left position and dumped the whole load of manifold pr opellants out through the the mal functioning left yaw thrusters and man did that couple up into a couple of beautiful rates and we were doing it at night and we didn realize until it a too a te and all of a sudden there were the [PAGE 146] 141 stars going by and we we re just going through the world every which way and we were supposed to hold it that way or ten minutes and we were okay we were well aware Cooper Where were you This day onrad Yes and I just got to this big se of procedures on that test and it didn work Cooper I have a note here at Day hours and 19 minutes only 22 more evolutions to go Same length as MA Conrad Okay now here are the comments of the degregation of the other thruste Now left roll only with the roll logic switch in pitch We had no right yaw Right yaw only with the roll logic switch in yaw position No left roll Then if you had the roll logic in yaw pitch up and down were okay in yaw right gave right rol also Pitch up right roll pitch down you a lso got a right roll You ve got to figure out which thruste were weaker than the other ones Cooper Roll right gave yaw right Conrad Right and th en oll logic and pitch rolled right okay Roll left okay No left yaw So and the [PAGE 147] 142 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad CO NFIDEJ\ITr other thing is is when you hit the thrusters you can very definitely tell from the sound that some were putting out more than others I think that what as giving us the yaw roll of was that in pairs of thruste of one wo uld be strong maybe and one weak and would give you couplings That was exactly what was happening hey were cross coupling It was really messy And then I ve got down here the roll I have nothing else in the book until we star talking about retro here and the chan ges that we decided to go into 121- instead of 122 And here would be 27 minu tes over Carnarvon instead of 36 and all the power up sequence Now I ve got one comment We came up over Carnarvon and when I hi:.d-- when we left the Cape on the Rev going into retrofire a transmitted a va id load up the sJacecraft and I called McDivitt and I said I pu tting the Computer into Reentry and we came up over Carnarvon and the guy says Stand by I goi ng to update you computer with a new load Boom GE>N FH EN ffA [PAGE 148] 143 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper And the computer was in reentry and I said Golly and I sw i tched that thing to pr elaunch and he said the loads in and va lidat ed and I didn't get a DCS light And I gotten a DCS light everytime We never aile to get a DCS light And I was never real co vinced even when we checked the two cores that the ad wa ight th at he put up there but I guess it was Th a been checked out We did have the right lo ad in the computer That procedure is ea ly poor very ve poor I don understand We had agreed and agreed and agreed that nobody would send a DCS load or anything without permission om you first i ll they cleared with you first And he just right out of the clear blue sky with 12 minutes- something like that to go to retro 27 27 was it Well anyway it getting down darn close Here we ere all i ned all set up to go and everything all squared away and what we thought was a real proper load out of the Cape Had gone into reentry and here we we a ll set Then here QNElQ f=.W AL [PAGE 149] 144 this gu.y just says I sending a DCS pdate and WHAM her it comes No wa rni ng No noth i ng Before you could ev en tell him to wait he arn things i reentry Conrad He didn ch ck his ground information bec aus if he looked at his boa he would t.ave seen th at the computer was in ee try He co uld have told us to put it in prelaunch It all hap pened so fast Boy my heart eally sank because we had that thing- we were all set up We we re rea to go and everything and that was a bi blitz Now after 121 orbits and we'd left the Cape after stateside track Why after 121 orbits did they have to update that thi ng between the Cape and Ca rn arvon I mean they should have known where the heck we ere I just don understand it Cooper I don either and if they are going to play around with that boy my feelings ight now on i is that that DCS circuit breake oug~t to be off all the time I felt that way befo:ce and I dec i ded well those guys worked out so well th at maybe it wo uld work but after that one time that just convinced me that you ought to just [PAGE 150] 14 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper turn that darn thing off and leave the DCS circuit breaker off Okay the next thing before retrof ire I had one note here just a second at Day 22 hours and 30 minutes We were on that real black night side way down there somewhere on the South American area Remember we saw those tre mendous series of thunderstorms Just fantas tic you could The brightest lightning I ve ever seen anywhere It lit up the inside of the spacecraft see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles almost as far as you could see in any direction out the windows you could see lightning just lighting up-just blossoming everywhere There were hundreds of miles of thunderstorms of which you could probably see at one time-you could probably see 20 or 25 thunderstorms light up at the same time And I've got somewhere on the 16mm film I opened the stops up and I took pictures of the lightning I don't know whe her it came out They would just light the whole spacecraft up [PAGE 151] Boy I ve never seen such fantastic big areas covered by thunderstorms Just tremenious And they were big each individual CB lookei like it was maybe 50 to 100 miles across and just whole columns of them stacked around They must have really been Conrad Okay about the only other thing that I can think of that we did in the test nature there was wanted to and did fire the oams Squibb on the regu ator and you can hear it And every other Squibb every other thing that we ever fired we could hear But that one we couldn hear Cooper That simulator was really good on that SEP OAMS SEP ELECT and SEP ADAPT Simulator could be a lot louder on the SEP ADAPT That thing really takes off Conrad How do you want to cover the reentry phase Because that's about it I ve got one other comment but this one is written after landing It the HF whip antenna didn't deploy FJDENTIAt [PAGE 152] JI 147 FIDENT Conrad Well why don't we get ourselves down on the water Stowage wise when we left the United Sta es on the last Cal i fornia Gu aymas pass which occurred at it occur ed aroun 18 40 something like that We started our reentry stowage right then and there Very early i the game because we wanted to make su that we had that was almost 20 some hours to reentry Cooper First of all at least once a day we went through the entire cockpit and br ought everythi ng up to completely clean configuration Everything stowed and we had about a day basis We planned what meals we were going to need for the next days and we would get these meals out get them stowed in an easy to get to place--around the footwell areas generally i the footwells back in our feet area and would restack and restow garbage and try and get it completely ca ught up on a day- to-day bas i so that we didn have a lot of garbage sitting around Conrad We always did i right after that California Guaymas as pass over the States starting out into the boondock area and this conflicted with the Pilot naptime Th at was my scheduled napt i me Of\lFIDENTI [PAGE 153] 148 MFt0ENTt We never we always ran late on that I get the nap but I'd get it much later and tha would cut a ittle bit into Gordo sleep pe iod and that would wind up overlapping into my sleep period and then would both catch a nap Go do's napt i me which was just before Carna rv on Coo per I don think we ever came over arnarvon but what we were asleep Co nr ad The ne xt morning we would both be asleeip but Gordo right The meals--if we wc uld like to stop and talk about that We did not ven get into the left food box until the fourth day We ate the meals that were in the footwell There were two stowage footwells to start with and th1:.t gave us the two garbage bags that we always hac out In other wo ds we always had two silver be.gs food bags open that we could put garbage ir --any kind of garbage- and we always kept two of hose out one on Gordo I side and one on mine hen we actually collect more- -we eat more me als but we always ran with two of those out at least and we wind up with maybe two in each foctwell and that's when we would restow at the end of that day What we did was put as much of the garl age as [PAGE 154] 149 possible back in the i ght hand box We completely emptied the right hand box at the beginning of the fl i ght and stowed the articles around the cockpit in those red bags that we had built for the back of the seat and they really worked well On the top of the seat I kept two meals always stowed i the area that led to the right hand stowage box over my left shoulder I kept my two meals there Gordo normally kept his two down on either side of his helmet in the footwell area We kept our garbage bags our silver garbage bags down in there and the reason I say silver garbage bags is because those green ones that McDonnell made just didn work at al We never used them in the whole flight Cooper They are no good at all Conrad They tore up Cooper They are hard to get into They tear The top the way it puckers up there you have a hard time getting anything in and out of it I finally used one over there to fasten that camera- -that 200 millimeter camera that 35 mm camera We put the lens down there so that it would hold--so that the [PAGE 155] 150 Con rad Cooper Co nrad bag would hold it in Keep it from floating and then fasten the velcro upon the back of the maneuver controller No there was one thing that one green bag that I had or iginally had the REP plan stow in it The REP plan was never taken out and I never took the bag off the wall Then the other green bag had the Poleroid light filter in I took that light filter in and out so many times that ihe elasti on the top of the bag broke and the bag ot completely frayed from my right leg rubbing agai:n.st it My pressure suit actually wore that clott all through You can see that on that bag hat came out of there So they didn work at all We kept s.11 our food garbage and all that little sort of tl ings in the silver food bags that we opened and wl'..en we filled one we would wrap it with tape and stew it down there until it was time for our daily housecleaning I might add for stowage two items that we found were extremely important were rubber bands and tape We actually ran out of tape on the eighth day pack ing the last of the garbage We used every bit of tape that we could lay our hands on We took the tape off of the bags ftB EN [PAGE 156] 151 Cooper Conrad Coo pe FCSD Rep Con rad Cooper GNaDENTIAL And I had a whole pocketful of rubber bands And Gordo had a whole pocketful of rubber bands We found that was the only way to handle the food After we ate a rehydratable package or even a few solid packages that we opened We always resealed them again wi th tape and rolled them up as small as we could get them and used the tape to wrap them with for stowage To keep them very small and compact Did you get all this stuff where you originally planned to put it I have a copy of our reentry stowage here which shows hat varied from the way it was Now the big items there was only one big item that didn't go There were only two i terns that didn't get stowed i the place that it was called for that I remember right now The camera went over in the right food box rather than the left food box and the urine device we kept out until the last minute and we restowed it in its original stowage place which was in Gordo's left box And then there were two par tial bags of defecation bags and an empty bag and one bag full of about a half of a meal paper and wrappings from one meal [PAGE 157] 152 that went in behind my ejection seat I managed to work around the side and get clear down around to the back and manage to shove it down in behind the seat Conrad Then I had a little bit of miscellaneous trash like that in the right lower wrap around reel pouch that was over the seat for reentry It connisted of several things which we hadn't planned stow any place The ca rdiovascular cuffs that cut off were ne of them Some loose paper trash Lke the top round paper ring off the defecation bags This was ust a convenient place to put light trash and I saw no reas on to remove it from there And that wa about it I forget --they'll have a list of the other items that were in there but they were all in or paper th ings Cooper Yes I had a few pieces of paper and th ings in the utboard back wing Conrad But we pretty well had everything towed in its proper place before reentry Very i t-;le xception Well let me look right now I marked what we had stowed in th right place Ok ay in the two left they re called left and righ food box extensions The back ones that had thE i rubber coveTs 0NFI [PAGE 158] 153 on them They had originally had the- in my side the blood pressure reprogrammer the hose intercon nect adapters and the pilot's personal preference kit Gordo's side it had just the personal prefer ence kit and the hose interconnect right There wasn't anything else in there was there Cooper I don think there was It calls out here for a blood pressure reprogrammer but we only had one Cooper No we only had the one on board Conrad Okay I removed those three items and Gordo removed his two items just prior to reentry Cooper The hose interconnect had Conrad Yes that's what I sa i the hose interconnect and the pilot's personal preference kit The two kits we stowed in our leg pockets and the two hose things we stowed up in the green pouches during reentry so that they would be handy on the water to connect the hoses up We filled those wing boxes with food trash from the last days worth of meals because we had completely filled the right hand food box with trash and we had completely filled the left food box Let see in the left food box we did stow the 16 mm J:lDEN [PAGE 159] 154 camera and we di stow the 17 mm lens and the 18 nnn lens and the 75 mm Hasselblad We did not stow the urine receiver there We stowed that up where it had started out in the left side food box We did stow the mirror sight there and we did stow the i ng sight and we did stow the 18 voice tapes Now the 18 voice tapes cartridge holder was entirely unsatisfactory We had to take the 18 voice tapes and take them in groups of three and wrap them with tape so that we had something that was a little handi er to work with than stuffing that box Cooper Yes that thing is just too big Conrad We stowed them in groups of three in that box but we got it all in there and the reason we didn't get anymore in was that that box was still half full of food Matter of fact you didn hardly get below the level of the lid Cooper I got just to the bottom level of the lid Conrad Yes there was a good three days worth of food left in that box Everything else went where it was supposed to go Except we only stowed two 16 mm film bags in the center compartment and I left two in the original right hand box because they were not exposed We spent so much time in drifting eawf lQEbl JlAL I [PAGE 160] 155 FCSD Rep Conrad ight and everything that we just di dn ever shoot up the 16 mm film Th re just wasn that much to shoot it up on How long for reentry Starting stowage for reentry Would you estimate We did it in three steps 20 hours before reentry we started really really th inki ng about the big stuff You kn ow th thing that we thought i ght cause us a pr oblem The one place that we were worried about was getting all the stuff in the left hand box So that when we got lookin at the tapes We got all the ear out that we had to stow in the re i ncluding the Has sel blad and sort of got an idea how much room it was going to tak in that box and that was when we decided we had to tape the cartridges Now when I say tape 18 car tridges heck that sho an hour i ght there me an you just don do anything fast up there and so we were ready for reentry or hours before reentry We could have come in anytime because we took care of our major i tems very early Now th is doesn ean that we couldn afford to pull that camera ear and run experiments because all that stuff was still in the same place and we I [PAGE 161] coul have laid our hands on it We didn't actually stow the Hasselblad till the very end Cooper We stowed it about hours Conr ad And so we were prepared by working constantly through the night but not steadily We worked on and off We took little rests Then we went bac and- Cooper To give a time estimate though for purposes of planning I would say you should figure on it taking you at least a min imum of about hours to really tho roughly res tow And this depends 0:1 how messy he cockpit is If its really messy it will take lon ger than that If the cockpit is r,~asonably squared away and reasonably clean you hould figure on it taking about hours to rHally complet ely thoroughly stow everything and get ready for reentry Conrad Now we were really conscious all dayn we would say to one another Boy it's time to stop and stow things right now because the si·;uation is getting out of hand and you'd be surpr:.sed at how fast you can build up trash in tha cockp it and not realize that it is in there cru see [PAGE 162] 157 Realiz that if we had to reenter shortly or even if we pack it ig htly but I think the bottom of the box I thi nk I wasted 11 say I could have put another silver bag or two worth of trash in the re by stuffing the lo wer part i I had known abo ut it in the beginning But it didn't ake us much past day to realize that we had a tr ash problem and we had to keep on top of it every single day if we were going to ever have it cleaned up at he end And we were in good shape We we re as cle an as a whistle whe we came in ONFIBENi lAL [PAGE 163] 158 FCSD REP How about the power up Cooper I think that the power up went just ght straight forward Conrad Yessir I've the checklist right here Just like the insertion checklist we went by the numbers and I actually marked it off as we did it and you can see it right there I went through power off check off list and we went right down the thing we had Our checkoff list is wrong and we had changes in it right h,~re We had Attitude Indicator with FDI Computer ower-ON Computer to PRELADNCH Platform CAGE Scanners IMARY Rate Gyros ON and it should read Attitude Indicator with FDI Rate Gyros-ON Computer in the PRELADNCH MO:)E Computer Power-ON Platform Scanner etc Cooper Th arrangement of it was wrong Conrad Yes the arrangement was wrong But did it just by the numbers right here And it was completely straight forward Interesting note on the Plat.form we went for many days with the platform powered do,.;n to that it got as cold soaked as it was ever goi to get and the platform took the maximum time Heat dxop out took exactly 25 minutes and then it was a ttle slow coming in On the cold starts it took 28 minutes to get the [PAGE 164] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Con ad 159 NftDENTIAL attitude light It took minutes after the fast he at drop out An then I noticed after that was the first time after we did that powered it up two or three times why the platform came in at 25 minute of a a st hea drop out And then gat after th a it would start to cage up and you get the Attitude Light on and you be in business with th Platform but that platform performed beautifully Well I might make just one remark on the platform Some thing that I thought was extremely interesting to me People have talked about the bad platform drift and everything but we had one occasion we had our platform powered for some 18 or 20 hours Let see why did we do that Because they wanted us to Oh it was a fter we tumbled up there with that OAMS ch ck which th ey re a lly didn't think out too well and they thought we might lose our gas volume We were about to lose the gas volume by starting to vent again so they wanted us to power up bring the power up to a pretty high level to keep below the vent pressure on the hydrogen Yes to ke ep the platform warmed up incase we had to [PAGE 165] 60 Cooper So they wanted to keep the platform warmed up also So we went for some approximately 20 hours with the platform warm-running- up Conrad In drifting flight Cooper In drifting flight So what we did we caged the platform brought it up to cage and the we just went to orbit rate Left it in orbit rate and we caged it at a time when were just guessing pretty close to and then went to orbit rate Some 20 l'..ours later drifting all around tumbling all over the sky all over he places Conrad It was amazing how close the pl atform 1,,as Cooper The platform was almost right on what cur attitude was after that many hours of orbital rate errors and drift etc etc added in to there and it still was a good relative attitude indicator I thought it was really good Conrad In all three a.xis it stayed on I was pretty surprised Cooper I really thought that was quite good That platform really behaved well and it really took a ot of abuse Dif ferent times we powered it up- in drift- did all kinds of things You couldn't have mistreated it more if you tried Alining the platform very straightforward We alined it in BEF First of all we went right to [PAGE 166] Conrad Cooper Conr ad FCSD REP our old platform position which was BEF and started right from there in lining in a fine line by BEF position going out just lining from there and we found that we had quite a yaw error in it We noted that That showed up in roll real fast So we noted then that our yaw what we figured was our yaw star one of them that we remember as our yaw star was a little bit over to the right about 10 degrees So we just went to cage Eased it over about 10 de grees uncaged it in BEF and sure enough then we went to platform position in BEF showed the needles weren't very far off Right away they began to aline very closely and we had it alined very shortly Yes I can't say too much for that star chart either boy it was real comforting to have those yaw stars and it turned out that Scorpio went right down the middle of the tube for us We jus always knew that we had the platform in good alinement be for retrofire We knew that we were right on in yaw all the way down that line and we could just name the stars and we knew that they were just going to come right down the middle by watching them go and it worked real well How long did you aline the platform [PAGE 167] 62 Conrad Cooper FCSD REP Cooper FlDE NTIA One and a half orbits We really a line in about one and a half orbits We powered up two and one half and th ei actually we were actua ly alining for a bout an cr bit and a half bef re retrofire And we were on all the aline ment and everything was done on the RCc system How about the preretro checklist Let me say this on this alining We fcund hat we coul dn't even see any decre ase at a ll jn RCS after an orbit and a half The way we were doirg this we were doing it i orizon Scan BEF then us ing the Rllse MJde in the rizon Scan To really keep tl:.ose needles rea ly closely centered Now you can do th same thing in Tu.lse BEF but the Ib rizon Scan if you ne glect it for just a minute the lbrizon Sc an would hold it in there real closely and wouldn't le you wander off anywhere in pitch 00 F-t0E-N:f:t [PAGE 168] Con ad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper I can't sey too much or that star chart either Boy it was real comforting to have those yaw stars and it turned out that Scorpio went right down the middle of the tube or us and we alweys knew that we had the platform i good alinement before retrofire We knew we were right on in yaw al the wey down the line and we could just name the stars and knew that he were just going to come right down the middle of the pipe and watch them go It worked real well How long did you aline the platform for etrof ire el we really alined it about orbits We powered up for and we actually were alining for an orbit and a half before retrofire All the alinement and everything was done on the RCS system Let me sey this on this alining We found that we couldn see any decrease at all in the RCS quantity after an orbit and a half We were doing it in horizon scan BEF and then using the pulse mode in the horizon scan to give you the fine control within the horizon scan to really keep the needles closely centered No you can do the same thing just in pulse but if you neglect it for just a minute the horizon scan would hold it in there real close It wo uldn [PAGE 169] FCSD Rep Con rad Co op er Con rad FCSD Rep Cooper let you an er off anywhere in pi tch and roll You had to watch the yaw very carefully of course but you could concentrate on doing other things for just a few seconds time and you didn get your er ror built up into it You still have the iulse cor rec tion ithin the wider band of he hor izon scan found that little teensy little blips to make your correction and I don think we were u:.:irig any fuel at all Did you get any reading on how much yoi did se I checked this morning and it not i et I don know how much fuel We used Ring A sir.ce we powered it up at orbits over Carnarvon the fir st time What I ecall from the preretro checkl st it commenced at Carnarvon one pass before eentry In other words we went an orbit and a ha:.f on the RCS system Ring A Most of that time wEi were alining used dual ring RCS rate command for etro fire only Then we turned Ring off and the whole reentry on ring A Pulse You operated Ring A all the way The last I saw of Ring A in the eentr;;r down before [PAGE 170] we went to drogue chute out I still couldn't see any decrease in Ring A Conrad Well I'm not sure that Ring A wasn out of fuel somewhere around between 100 000 on down But the other ring wasn I know darn well it wasn't Cooper What do you mean it was It wasn out before we put the other ring in at all Conrad No I know it wasn out before we put the other ring in Cooper Did you take a look at it around 100 000 Conrad Yes I know the thrusters were firing It was firing Cooper Well the gauge indicated it still had all kinds of fuel le ir1 it just before 100 000 Conrad Well thats regulated pressure Cooper Yes it pressure Conrad It's not going to tell you anything in the way of fuel usage You have to see source pressure to find out what we don't have that Cooper Well you would Conrad I'm not sure tha Ring A didn't run out of fuel but if it did it did it somewhere around the time we put the other ring on because we never got any [PAGE 171] os ci lations or anything The rings were iring -all the time Cooper I never was out of ue before we put the other one on 11 guaran ee I know because I was sitting there contro lli ng with it and I know th at we had control Conrad I know that bot thru ste rs ere physically bu rning inside you know the throats were burning when I sh ut the prope ll ant off In other words he pro pellant was shut off and there was no fuel low going to them but both Ring A and Ring thrusters at I could see had throat lames i them Cooper That just from residua fue Conrad Yes that what I mean So I had the imp ression that ey an al the way own and then i Ring A di run out of fuel at all it did it a.t the very end you know I think that you ll fi nd that the re was uel in both RCS rings an there sr.ould have been plenty of RCS fuel left because we didn even turn on RCS until ess than 70 000 We we at 50 because Cooper Yes Conrad Go rdo put the drogue out instead of turning the ring on 0Nft9ENTt'A [PAGE 172] OONffl erqTf AL FCSD Rep Why don't we pick up on page 26 Cooper kay [PAGE 173] 168 Events ooper Conrad CSD Rep Conrad Cooper Con rad RETROF I RE TR 36 TR-36 is not right There no aft i rjng thrusters verification Th at for OAMS And thEre was no TR 22 either because that was for OAMS nor was there a TR 13 or 12 What we had was a TR 27 cloc set over arnarvon Yo started your event imer at TR 27 Th a ts I because we changed from 122- to 121-1 we nt ight down the pre retro checklist before that by th numbers and we had what we call a wh ich was nothing more than pick up the event timer So we had the pre-retro checkl i complete before Carnarvon That when hey glitched us and I goi ng to complain about this one We had a valid load in the compu er and a valid TR when we left the St at es on Rev 120 and I see absolutely no reaso if thos guys don know what the heck our orbit is af er 120 of them up there that they had to go ah ead and send a quick up- dat over Carnarvon Yes I lt that screwed us I still ant to know wh at happened [PAGE 174] t0EN,-IAL Cooper And we tol McDivitt Conrad didn get a DCS light Cooper told McDivitt when we left Houston that everything I was all square and that we re going to Reentry Mode on the computer then did and then at Carnarvon the CAP COM before he even gave us a warning or asked us about anything or even checked to see what mode our computer was in sent an up date Very very poor Conrad He said I'm sending you a new load and a new TR Stand by Boy we were all over the thing trying to get it back to PRELAUNCH I never got a DCS light on either the TR or the load I quizze him and I told him I didn't think the load went in He said 11 No the load was valid We ead out a couple of I cores and checked TR but I don understand why we didn't get a DCS light Now I won understand it because we should have gotten two DCS lights Cooper Yes One for TR and one for Conrad I didn't get one the first time when he sent the TR and I didn get one when he sent the load We were in the process of switching the computer to PRELAUNCH and I think the el ectrpns got lost in the shuffle there I gather that they took the computer [PAGE 175] 170 ONFl[;)ENTIA out yesterday and that the load in it was valid It just that they computed the wrong place to land in Houston and sent the wrong load period Boy that wa a heck of a thing to do and I really that darn I DCS going to do just what I sai I was going to do I I ever fly again I not going to fly with that DCS circuit breaker on That just exactly what I was afraid was going to happen and they couldn have done it at a worse time in the flien They just absolutely couldn't have done it wcrse The one thing that I had forgotten many times was putting that computer from PRELAUNCH to REENTRY I had it underlined 50 times on the check off liflt I was going to make sure that it was in REENTI'.Y When they told me leaving the Cape we had a valid load and a valid TR I called McDi vi tt and I said putting the computer in REENTRY The next thin is at Carnarvon the guy should have seen on h:.s board that the computer was in REENTRY and shoul have told me instead of sending a load like he did We moved as ast as we could when he said he was sending loads to put the darn thing back to PRELAUNCH That really screwed us up and I really mad about hat That the only gripe I have against them but it's a major one [PAGE 176] 171 Cooper Yes It major enought that by gol my recom mendations exactly like Pete From now on my rec omen ation is Conrad That did it Cooper that the DCS circuit breaker is left in the OFF position Conrad Yes The next time I ever go for the reentry and we put a va lid load i the computer I'm going to turn the DCS off so they can screw it up again without me turning it back on Coo er Absolutely Turn that circuit breaker to the OFF position Conrad That's right I rather miss a load and go with the earlier one I still can be li eve that after 120 orbits they didn't know exactly what our param eters were for orbit I don't even know why they needed that track over the United States the last pass They been tracking us all night long They been tracking us for days and they ought to know where the heck we were If they want to do it at the last minute then let's plan on loading the computer at Carnarvon and not load the computer at the Cape This loading it at the Cape and then chang ing it again at Carnarvon has got to go GON.flDENTIAL [PAGE 177] 172 et-ctf tDEt rrt Co oper And hen saying this is your final load Veri fy Con rad Bad new I ea lly mad about tha Co oper Then unscheduled and everything ls Con rad I don blame that guy at Carnarvon because he wasn expecting to send us a load either I hlame Houston Houston sent it down to them at the las minute obviously and he was doi ng the bes he could and he got rushed The whole thing we wanted to do on eent ry and the reason we stowed early md sat there ith noth in to do was to mak sure that we were never rushed weren't until the guy sent that oad And there we were 27 minutes fr:>m retrofire and I eal ly wasn't convinced we had th right load in the computer ev en when we left Carnar von Boy I Im really mad at that Co oper Co nrad I Okay Ive got some recommendations I think we ought to rewrite our TR 256 check off list because there are to many things that happen en it at TR and TR 256 changed the procedure in light I knew I was going to do it that way ar.yhow in hat I brought up the main batteries early I brought them on at minutes I verified th computer in [PAGE 178] Cooper Conrad -=-It Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 173 REENTRY again of course and squib batteries We were already on the RCS system so we didn have to bring -them on but I did bring on the other ring at that point At the 256 we wanted to go platform to ORB RATE as late as possible so we did that after we got TR 256 function light the attitude indicator light and that showed we had all our clocks were in sync just perfectly There wasn I a clock in the spacecraft that wasn in sync The TR was in sync with the event timer and they were in sync with our back up watches There was no doubt in our minds that everything in the TRS system was working right down the line and that we were working right down the line We went to retro attitude punched the Went to retro attitude set up the whole thing for the reentry and at TR TR SEP OAMS SEP ELEC SEP ADAP four squibs on At TR 30 seconds Arm retro We already had that I've al ways made it a procedure to arm auto retro at TR seconds Let's see SEP OAMS SEP ELEC SEP ADAP we did a t0NilQE i [PAGE 179] 174 CO~EIDENTI onrad FCSD Rep Conrad 5.4 Cooper Conrad Cooper onrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Con ad Lets I see retro rock ets squib all fo ur armed at TR arm auto retros at about TR seconds Ye TR And I absolutely positively go on recor that the manual retro fire button was pushed because I pushed it four times at one secon ani the COMP ig ht went green at One second after auto No One second after the retros actual fired At TR spacecraft attitude was right on the money Ther were no rates Control mode was dual RCS I've got a couple of commen about the ret ro There no doubt in my mind that the number retro stopped firing at east a half a second before the number retro started fi re It sure did And there was another one in the re The re was no overlap iI I pretty sure that bet ween the second and the ird there was no overlap Bet ween and but they were much closer together than between and [PAGE 180] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper 175 Number was firing and it was just ta iling off when number to ok in It had the proper sequence on i Number had completely stopped and the re was an interval the of it seemed like several seconds It wasn but it seemed like there was a definite distinct Between and was the one that really seemed ike an eternity There was a definite distinct separate interval there where there was no firing going on Then fir ed Then there was an even lo nge interval in there invo lv ed and then fired Yes That was long enough between and fo to think maybe the fourth one wasn going to ire at all I think we ought to get some comments on the night Oh we weren even aware of it We had the lights up bright in the cockpit We wen with the lights bright We eci ded we play it just lik we did in the simulator just like we were going to be in the simu lator you know ith all the lights up br ight and not even worry about what was going on out the wi ndow However I did sneak a little peaky or wo and you fJBfNIIAL [PAGE 181] G~El0ENTIAL look like you were sitting in the midd l11 of a fire barrel Boy When those retros go of the who spacecraft enveloped in flames jus looks li ke the whole place is burning all over bac:c there This flame comes all the ay back over che spacecr af and all the way up Conrad At SEP OAMS elect ic an adapte though we didn see much of anything Cooper No I saw a flash at SEP ADAP Conrad I I saw a ittle flash but I thought maybe we see a lot more lashing type ame Actu al no big prob em in that night retro but I 11 tell you one hing I you re not ever going to do it ut he wind ow Cooper You re never going to see anything out the wi ndow i a night retro You re just completely enveloped in lames Conrad Those RCS are fir i ng away like mad an there al kind& of light outside and everything so night et is an instrument type thing Cooper It's purely instruments If you don have i nstru ments you re just not going to sh oot i Conrad But othe rw ise I don think ere as any di ff eren Cooper No Conrad We were completely in the ark or a l)ng time [PAGE 182] 177 didn't have a horizon for minutes after retro fire We were in the middle of the United States bef ore we saw the groU.Ll.d Cooper The first place we saw was White Sands Conrad White Sands Cooper Just past the terminator Conrad was the first place I saw when we CaJlle out of the terminator on the ground Of course by that time we had a sort of what you might call a discernable horizon but it was so fuzzy There is no such thing as a horizon at sunrise looking the other way I Looking 180 from the sun you re looking into a gray black fuzzy boy there's no discernable horizon You re looking at the terminator It's not a usable horizon I don't call it usable We were on gauges all the way and not until we got past the Mississippi River did we get what you would really call a horizon That's when the reentry started getting different than the ones in the simulator The reentry was much di ferent in ball attitudes in that we were much steeper on the ball We were looking at more and more white that I ever saw before I was hard pressed if we didn't have the bank angle index on the ball you couldn't tell hat your bank angle was f-lDEWJ~L [PAGE 183] 78 €>MFl0ENflA Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper Yes There was no horizon The black part of the bal was gone It was gone for the rest of reentry We ost it awful ear Do you remember a point say 400 000 fee at what pitch angle you were on the ball 400 000 feet the trim hadn begun to affect you too much and Gordo was at about 30 de rees About 30 degrees Yes Yes But he was still flying the spa~ecraft just holding attitude there Okay how about when you hit the atmosphere 280 At 280 we were It seemed to me that's when ings started to steepen up We started to really trim up We were beginning to get By the time we got to 280 we were at about 50 degrees pitch roughly 50 or 60 degrees on he ball We were quite a way down From there on we were moving right on around on the ball ere you able after retrofire to roll i up and put the horizon on the top of the window and hold that Yes on the ball but we couldn't see he horizon FtOEM [PAGE 184] Conrad GCSD Fep Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Cooper 179 Yes those lines were useless as far as the horizon on it because there wasn't any horizon out there You had to use the 8-ball entirely Yes That was a pure instrument retro I I You're darn right boy 11 guarantee you anytime you fire retros at night you'd better have instru ments because you re not going to have a visual out the window because those RCS thrusters out there will just blind you Yes and this alking about doing this stuff on rate needles and no ball and everything is a bunch of hog wash You'd better have the whole panel You're darn right Or you fire them in the daytime with a good horizon Let me see now You rolled it upside down and what did you hold You held 20 degrees 20 degrees un ti it ar ed trimming out Then I'd switch between rate and attitude I just hold that attitude and when I'd see a little tiny ra creep in I was on single-ring pulse I'd just pulse that rate out Of course that was establishing my trim angle right there You'd see it on the rate You'd [PAGE 185] 180 FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper Con ad C0oper FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad see the pitch rate needle start to mo re just a ittle tiny bit That was showing you that you weren quite on trim Then I'd tweek it and it would sit right there and it would just start trim ming itself out on the ball Wh en it trimmed out you damped the rates You ere in single ring di rect Well at 400 KI went to single ring direct Yes we were in pulse Yes single ring ulse Single i ng pulse to 400 Then I went to RATE COMMAND on the attitude control selector and took the ACME RCS switch to direct one to direct the other one was to off Then I used single ring direct throughout the ree'.ltry until very late when the oscillations got so rapid that had to concentrate too much on them rather than the attitude Then I went into ACME just put the RCS switch to ACME and then flew the attitude with the stick and allowed the RCS to damp the oscillations Still one ring Still one ring di dn't go on dual rings until below 70 000 feet [PAGE 186] 18 Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Col').rad Cooper Conrad Cooper had the drogue out before we went on dual rings as there any problem The thing was steady as a rock all the way Yes it was beautiful I ve been hearing 40-degree oscillations on the drogue and all that sort of stuff The only oscallations we had on the drogue were high requency low- amplitude oscillations where the drogue was stable sitting above us steady as a rock pulsing longitudinally like this It squidded super -soni cally for we were about 112 And then the shrouds Did you hear about the Mercury tests where the drogue was a few times The shrouds on the spacecraft had a high frequency 1·ow amplitude oscillation but the nose was like degrees it seemed to me It just surprising We were as steady as a rock as far as I was concerned ell I think the whole The oscillation was there but I think the I think the whole retrofire and reentry is so much easier than Mercury that I can believe it It is really a piece of cake [PAGE 187] 182 Conrad At 30 000 we shut off the propellant valves to the RCS It was still working away merrily there trying to steady it down on the drogue As ar as I know there was propellant in both Ring A and Ring when we shut them down Retropack Jettison Cooper We jettisoned the retropack right in ret ro attitude FCSD Rep You didn't see the retropack burning up or anything Conrad Yes I saw it reenter behind us but nowhere near lik those guys did It was miles behind us when I saw i Cooper I thought I saw something way back thEire burning I guess that was it Conrad Yes Up and on the left side of where I was lookin I saw it burn up behind us But it was miles behind us by then You see it had been chaf ing us in the dark so we never did see it close up We never saw anything like pump packages blowing when we set the retros [PAGE 188] 183 5.6 Communications Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad ooper Cooper Conr ad t1'EI TTIA7 Co mmun ica tion were good throughout th hol re entry We went into blackout righ on time Right on tim Yes just right on th sec ond when th ey said go into blackout We came out just exac tly when they said we wo uld The on ly thing was when they asked us wha our over hoot or unde r-sh oot was I ll be dam if I could ll them at that point I sure as heck didn't know with this computer ll ing us one thing and yet it not doing the right thing We'd better put the retrofire IVI readings in here 269 af 010 ef 181 down And th at comes out amazingly close to a nominal combination As a matter of fa ct it shows that we should ave had about a 60 degree bank angle and if you compensate the degrees for th off set it wo uld have been 54 or 53- Yes Almost completely nominal I think this chart's a handy gouge It agrees wi th wh at the ground gave us We didn fly it of course We flew the computer but- [PAGE 189] 184 Cooper Well this is the bank angle we flew until we got cross and down-range at 280K Conrad We went from full lift at 400K to 53 degrees hich was the given bank angle by the ground which we agreed to use We went to 53 degrees until guidance came in and it came in at 280K The needle showed that we were high It showed that we were very high that we were going to over sho by a large distance and- Cooper This is the first normal indication The computer is supposed- Conrad do anything which is what you're supposed to do We sat there to watch the trend No hing happened The needle didn't come up off the peg I looked at the high scale and it didn look to me like the high scale was pegged out Coop er It wasn pegged I went to the higl scale and it was about half way down Conrad Less than half way down indicating that we were up around a 75 mil over-shoot which just told me we were humping a little bit to get down into the target Cooper Right Conrad And in fact at that time we were G>NFIIDENTIA [PAGE 190] 185 6NFIDENTIA Cooper to get on down to it because it told me- Conr ad We were just sitting there waiting for the needle to come up like we had seen it do a millio n_.:t ime in the same situation It never came off the peg Then we got in a little discussion you know I fe that we ought to go to full lift because I thought something was wrong with guidance Gordo agreed that something was wrong with guidance but he real hought may be we really had over shot I'm sure the retros were on time and they were nominal almost So we final wound up going back to the nominal if vec or Cooper I went back to the nominal bank angle which we had agreed we go to i anything happened We had agr ed with FOD that if anything happened throughout re entry--something was wrong with guidance- Conrad We flew Cooper would go back to the nominal bank angle that we wouldn't take any great abnormal- type situation We wou go back to he no minal bank angle so that in the event they lost communication with us or something screwed completely up in the reentry they would know tha we used as near as possible to the nominal bank angle [PAGE 191] 186 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Now hat really hurt there though was that he sat there at the nominal bank angle of 53 degrees until we got to say 1/2 g's which is a fair long time through the guidance When he el cted to roll to the 90 degree bank angle tha when we ere getting the most lift Boy we dug in I 111 tell you we shot up there to 1/2 in nothing flat It was at about that time that we rolled back out again you see We lost the main lift that we were going to get out of it but as it is I don't think we did so badly Winding up 83 miles short I understand they were targeting 240 miles short That's apparently what the load they had in the computer turned out to be--erroneously put in at 240 miles short Yes they were off by a factor of 240 miles So if we had followed the computer exactly we'd have been a lot further shorter than we were Fortunately we recognized that something was amiss Did that down-range needle ever do anything No I don think it moved at all I don think it ever really moved I think one time it moved a little but I really don think [PAGE 192] 187 it moved much Conrad I think we were hoping to see it move you know but it was just one of those --that's a fast time situation there and it was just one of those things where we made the right decision in the end to go back to the nominal bank angle Everything in the computer indicated--the time to 400K and roll needle initiate were within a second of one another What the ground gave us Cooper And the time to 290K was exactly right Conrad And 280K time roughly as far as we knew and everything --BANG in comes the guidance initiate down range predict on the needles Everything up to that point the computer had come on green the IVI's read nominal we saw the kind of thing we expected to see We were completely suckered on that because the computer worked just like it was supposed to Cooper And the down-range needle indicated exactly what it always will do and exactly what we'd briefed with FOD They had agreed that what we should see on the computer is just about the maximum deflection on the low scale when it first comes on Conrad And that's just what we got [PAGE 193] 188 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Because that's exactly the way things are all set up in the math flow You'll get that and then very shortly thereafter if you hold the nominal bank angle it will take a little bit of time and it will start easing on up And you'll get an idea by the rate of easing up If you roll to the 90 of course in that position you'll get to it in a big rush but you want to be careful not to overshoot You'll never get back But then when I held the nominal bank angle and it didn't come up and didn't come up then I rolled to the 90 to see if I was going to be able to bring it up Of course by this time I realized that when I didn't see it come up something was really wrong I then went back to the nominal Fortunately that period that we held at the nominal is what carried us down as near as it did The short period that we were at 90 of course is where we were really digging in It cost us 83 miles probably because I think if we had flown the nominal bank angle all the way that we'd have really wound up real close to the darn carrier [PAGE 194] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad We'd probably wound up 45 miles from the carrier That going to the 90 degrees for the time period that we did cost us 80 something miles Otherwise we flew the whole thing is if we hadn't tried following the computer we would never have known Yes and I'll tell you one thing I'm still convinced right now sitting in this room that computer will bring you right in to where you want to go if you have the right load in it because it just worked magnificently It came in just like it was supposed to and it did it on boost too I was really sold on it I think the computations in that computer are accurate enough for the kind of work that a guy can do onboard the spacecraft and it's a darn fine piece of equipment and it was working well We're the first ones to get a good look at and it worked just like it was supposed to If it had the parameters in it we'd have split the Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper ship right up the middle I think so I think it's just a dirty shame What was the cross-range needle doing Cross-range was showing that we needed left bank in there that we needed to move to the left In other [PAGE 195] 190 Cooper Cooper words you're flying opposite You're flying your needle to In other words you're flying back course ILS on lateral and you're flying a standard ILS on the glide slope--front course ILS The cross-range needle was showing off to the right which indicated that we needed to bank left which is exactly right That's just exactly right We hit 10 miles short We never did get the cross range--cross-range was coming in--cross-range did move in on us Down-range I don't believe ever really moved Cross-range did move in on us and that's when I went back to the nominal I thought well we're past the time to reverse bank angle Maybe I ought to roll right So I rolled over to the right side and said no by golly I'm still going to follow the cross-range At least it's giving us the proper indications I believe So I rolled back in to the left bank which was smart because we still hit slightly to the right Were we off to the north or the south Pete [PAGE 196] 191 FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper FCSD Rep Conrad I had it all figured out one time I don't really know Gordo I didn't pay any attention to the cross-range needle Anyway the way I had it figured out here the other day the cross-range needle was indicating properly The down-range needle when it came on stayed in the same place all the time--all the way through Yes Full-scale Full-scale Right Just about full-scale on the low range Okay How about any of the up-dating done during reentry We got all the times We got all the times just fine and I wrote them all down They gave us enter blackout at 16:14 out of blackout at 21:20 reverse bank at 19:25 bank left 54 and bank right 68 The drogue time was 22+05 and the main time was 23+48 They were all good times I had them all written down No problem They got the updates in before blackout and in plenty of time before blackout as a matter of fact We whistled right [PAGE 197] 192 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad in there No sweat on the times I guess maybe we went to the 90 degree bank or something like that but from about the time of to the time of guidance locking out which is roughly 100K and the altimeter coming off the peg man I don't know whether it was just because we did it for real but everything else worked like the simulator timewise but that time period seemed extremely short to me in comparison to simulator reentry Yes it sure did to me Yes Now we can go back and look at the times and see what the actual times were to these Maybe just in real time This might have been the real-time case to make- How about the altimeter It worked very poorly on lift-off It had been very jerky and jumped all around but it was smooth as a bell Boy it came off the peg It locked up at 96 000 What was it It did it in the altitude chamber 96 800 feet or [PAGE 198] 193 something like that It didn't ever run to 100 000 and it never had It didn't do that in the altitude chamber and it quit where it always quit --96 800 It came off the peg smooth and just wound right on down No jumping or jittering It was right with the barostats coming down Yes it was right with the barostats coming down I called the altimeter off the peg to Gordo and he put the landing arm on which was roughly at [PAGE 199] 194 6.1 400K Cooper Conrad Cooper 6.0 REENTRY By the time we hit 400K I was at full lift position from Retro Jett until there Roll command gave a roll right and a roll command the bug just as it always does Time correlation was right on the money 400K occurred right to the second when it was supposed to Guidance initiate occurred just at 280K at exactly the right time and it indicated we had a right the azimuth needle indicated right and the down range needle indicated full scale it was well up into the thing I would say maybe half deflection Yes That was full scale High scale was not The bank angle was 53 degrees left bank which was our nominal bank angle which I went to at guidance initiate and held 53 degrees left The roll needle at this time the roll needle indicated off full right and very shortly thereafter then before I even got suspicious that we weren't getting down on this the roll needle then crossed over the middle position and held there indicating we had the right bank angle there for a minute and then crossed full scale over to the other side [PAGE 200] 195 which gave me one little old tweak of suspicion there that something was wrong right there on the roll bug At that point then I rolled 90 to see if I could get on that too the down range needle The cross range needle moved in some from the right It had been out not completely full scale but quite a ways out It moved in slightly but not much Down range needle let's see I don't believe it ever moved up from there on and then at that point when I saw that the 90 wasn't going to hold it in there I said I was going back to the nominal bank angle I went back to the 53 but then put in 60 67 degrees bank right to see if I can get the roll bug to change It didn't change at that time so cross range was still indicating that I should be banked left so I went back to my bank left to see if I can kill off the cross range I knew at that point that something was really seriously wrong and I was just trying to hold it as nominal as possible I should have probably at that time since I was already [PAGE 201] 196 passed the time of reverse bank angle I probably should have gone ahead and held that but that was a mistake I probably should have gone ahead and held that 67 degrees bank right and held that on in It probably would have corrected us out a little better cross-range-wise but the period of time that we were at 90 degrees trying to get the glide slope to get onto the glide slope there is what cost us that 86 miles Had we held the nominal bank angle all the way and ignored the computer I think we would have hit very very near the carrier But we at least we gave the computer a try I think that if it had had the right values loaded in it I think it would have done very well by us The spacecraft behaved very well Ionization we got into that ionic layer After the 280K point we began to really ionize quite a bit and got into a typical fire ball effect back there although it didn't seem to me like it was as much of [PAGE 202] 197 a fire ball effect in this as it was in Mercury It seemed a lot less 6.2 Acceleration Profile Cooper Acceleration profile I noted the g's very early before we got the 2g's on I noted the g's felt pretty strong in there I could feel them fairly severe now I never felt at all from there on I never even felt like we had any amount of g's on us until I noted we had seven and a half and I could hardly believe it So I didn't have any trouble controlling or I just didn't think about having it on there Pete noticed the g's more than I did because he wasn't as busy I guess as I was 6.3 Spacecraft Control Cooper Spacecraft control was beautiful There was no problem at all I was on single ring DIRECT and then had gone fairly late down in the guidance program there when the oscillations got to be often enough in there that it was taking a little concentration to damp the oscillations as well as to watch the guidance I just went over the single ring ACME or RATE COMMAND ACME and let the RATE COMMAND damp the oscillations and I was doing the steering with the RATE COMMAND also Still single ring 6.4 100K Feet Cooper Let's see at 100K the altimeter came off the peg very shortly thereafter I was going to arm both RCS rings bringing on ring to ACME at 70K and instead I deliberately calmly coolly and deliberately deployed the drogue chutes And it worked beautifully Most stable drogue chute I ever saw It squidded just like a supersonic drogue test that were done in Mercury that I saw In fact 70 was [PAGE 203] 198 6.5 50K Feet Cooper FCSD Rep Cooper Conrad Cooper the point where he put the Mercury drogue out It squidded a couple of times very nicely and stabilized out and was just beautiful We never had any oscillations on it or anything It was just as nice as it could be By 50K we had both RCS rings ON just letting them feed on out and then were blipping away out there and the spacecraft just came right straight down No oscillation or anything What kind of oscillation on drogue deployment what would you estimate the I don't think we had any at all I don't think we had a single oscillation really when we deployed the drogue do you Oh yeah It oscillated but the it was sort of high frequency and low amplitude That's just what I say I mean it was just kind of like It was just kind of like a little quiver on the line Like when you pluck a bow string you know the string the spacecraft would kind of go like this but not any amount of These guys were talking about 40 degree yaw angles Conrad [PAGE 204] Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 199 and stuff like Nothing like that I bet you couldn't make it any more than or or degrees Yes I would say at the most Now I don't have any horizon or anything to reference this to All I'm doing is watching the drogue But I didn't have any physical sensations or There were no physical sensations of any kind of oscillations The frequency was too high to ever get any amplitudes that big We were just sitting there and the drogue looked steady to me see and all I could see was the nose and the shrouds zacking back and forth like that Oh sort of around and you know They were both at pitch and yaw but I felt comfortable all the time I didn't have any idea that we were really going to It was well stabilized Stable as a rock Now I'll tell you that RCS was really working Now we were in RATE COMMAND not REENTRY RATE COMMAND we were in RATE COMMAND So it would I mean it was firing full time Yes it was really working We were outside the rate command bands [PAGE 205] 200 FCSD Rep Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad You don't use the reentry command Heck no No no that's useless We had fuel up the kazoo We had all kinds of fuel We figured to just go into RATE COMMAND That's exactly what to see how smooth a reentry you could make The only thing we deviated from our very carefully calculated preflight plan was that I instead of going to dual ring RCS I put the drogue out at 70K We just had that step backwards between 50 and 70K There must be a hold over from Mercury there somewhere too still getting to me Okay now the next most important thing was that at 50 000 or shortly thereafter we went to repress Gordo turned on the REPRESS and I hit the HIGH RATE and as we planned you know we were not going to vent the cabin or open the inlet snorkel and man going through 27 000 feet that needle hit zero faster than you can say Jack Robinson That cabin came down from psid to nothing and I said Holy Christmas it came down so fast that I was really humping to get the I wanted to get the [PAGE 206] 201 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper vent open and I opened the vent and opened the inlet snorkel and set the recirc at 45 degrees in pretty fast order But all the fancy calculations by the ECS people are dead wrong because there isn't enough in that repress or the HIGH RATE to keep up with that differential drop off We got fumes too but not many Boy I didn't think they were hardly noticeable at all It was noticeable Just a musty smell But it was noticeable I'm sure the HIGH RATE and the REPRESS it helped to have on all the way down But then the one thing that we did do then at 2000 We closed it back up Closed it back up and left the REPRESS and HIGH RATE on so that I expect that we had a little bit of delta pressure in the cabin when we touched Oh we did We had about a pound It was very slowly coming up It was up We had about a pound Now I think this kept a lot of the fumes out [PAGE 207] 202 Conrad Then we sat there in the water very leisurely It was still building up I went and cycled the HIGH RATE handle OFF 6.6 35K Checklist Items Conrad 6.7 Communications Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 6.8 10.6K Barostat Cooper Before you leave that let's just say that at 35 000 feet for the check off list we uncovered our D-rings At 30 000 feet we turned off the RCS propellant A and and they ran out shortly thereafter We communicated with the recovery forces Talked to them at that point twice on the way down and they asked us for a short count We gave this here We gave this a short count reading you loud and clear at 270 degrees at 289 I think it was They said Roger and they had us fixed 289 was it Well some I know you had a degree and a bearing and a range on us at that point We managed to get all the way through our post main check [PAGE 208] 203 off list too Then at the barostat came on deployed the drogue just as the barostat came on It came on right at 10.6 right on the money I punched the main deployed the main just as the barostat came on As we have already said the main deployed Conrad There seemed like an awful long time to me though from the time you punched the main for it to go through the sequence It seemed like an eternity for the and can to blow Cooper Well you could see the sequence going on out there all this thing trundling out and all the long lines going out and all the sequence happening and then the main coming out Conrad It was really pretty though Cooper Well I guess I was anticipating Conrad It was just like in that picture Cooper You see all this stuff coming out you know that drawing where it shows all the cycles of the stuff coming out Just like advertised 6.9 Main Chute Deployment Cooper We reported when we [PAGE 209] 204 Cooper It was a real pretty main and we were very stable on the main We weren't oscillating at all I mean obviously It looked like we were just coming straight down Conrad Yes the whole thing damped out That is another reason the water landing was so smooth Cooper And when we touched in the water as I said we went to the 2000 we went to 6.10 Single Point Release FCSD Rep Okay single point release How about that Cooper Single point release It's there I mean it's really a jolt when you go to single point release but being aware of it we were both braced like this when I hit it it oscillated us a couple of times and then that is all there is to it Conrad You hit the end of the strap and then you see-saw a couple of oscillations That's exactly what it felt like Cooper As long as you know what to expect there is no problem I can see why Gus and John would knock the heck out of themselves Conrad Not expecting it 6.11 Blood Pressure Measurements Cooper Okay we gave a blood pressure at Guaymas after retrofire and I told them I wouldn't put the programer [PAGE 210] 205 ON until we were on the water and I gave them three blood pressures and I don't think any of them worked I don't think the bowl bled down 6.12 Post-Main Checklist Items FCSD REP Okay we got the rescue beacon without lights and the suit fans and ACME BIAS power OFF This is post main check list and landing attitudes [PAGE 211] 206 7.1 Impact Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 7.0 LANDING AND RECOVERY Impact was very very soft We just hit We hit very easy We didn't go under water at all We didn't change attitude one bit from the time we hit the water We went bloop We just pitched down a little bit The nose pitched down or 10 degrees but the water didn't even come over the windows The main hit parachute release the chute drifted off in front just slightly out to the right of us and just sat out there in the water on the right for a long time We did skip this one thing here with this 6.13 post main check off list We got all the way through that and I wanted to say that I had the decided impression that we got to the post main and got back over here on this 2000 foot check list pretty fast I mean that time happened faster than the simulator but it took us a little while to get our heads unlocked and after we went to 2-point and get back on this check-off list and boy we hadn't any more gotten through this when we were [PAGE 212] 207 Cooper Conrad FCSD REP Conrad over there to the 2000 and I was One thing that took a little bit of our time there though Pete was the fact that the AIR BOSS called us twice there and we were actually busy answering that We were talking on the radio and a little talking to Houston on the radio too Why don't you talk a little bit more about the 2000 foot that pressurized in the cabin Yes well then we went the D-ring safety cover We covered our D-rings but I can't put my D-ring pin in so I didn't put the pin in until we were on the water I can't put that pin in in flight strapped in the seat I can't reach down there Gordo can Gordo can reach down and get it I can't do it So I didn't put mine in Then I went to cabin vent UP and inlet snorkel UP and then left the recirc valve at 45 degrees and of course the repress had been on since 50,000 So had the HIGH RATE or some altitude shortly thereafter The cabin seemed to be coming up very slowly It doesn't even with repress on That's a I guess a lot of volume in there or something but it just doesn't come up fast So we were about a pound when [PAGE 213] 208 FCSD REP Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper we landed Never got over a pound Never got over a pound I don't believe Then we came OFF on the repress and we opened our face plates Then we opened our face plates and took a sniff in there It didn't smell to bad I had a little smell of RCS fumes Now mind you we were sealed off at 2000 so I know it didn't come in on the water The RCS fumes that were in there came in there at 27000 when we opened the vent and the inlet snorkel so I'm still if the structure would take it I really think you should come in and leave that inlet snorkel and that vent closed If you did that you would have a clean cold cabin when you hit the water Okay now I didn't really think it was as objectionable No it wasn't objectionable It was cool One thing we might add right here right now that we didn't cover back in the pre retro area was that we went the full cold on everything We had that cabin so cold and we went to cabin fan and so that the cabin was about what 40 degrees 50 degrees [PAGE 214] 209 Conrad No the cabin was about 53 degrees Somewhere in there It was a little over 50 and the suit was running Cooper The suit was running about 50 on reentry so the whole thing was pretty cool Conrad It was never hot at any time Cooper When we opened our face plates the cabin was still cool the suits were still cool and the snorkel and vent when we did open them and both fans came on after we went OFF of HIGH RATE Repress and both fans came on We were getting nice cool air through Yes we have been hearing everybody say you know boy you've got to get those suits off you really get hot in there You see and Gordo said Well come on we are going to be here for awhile we'll get the suits off and it was perfectly obvious that we were getting a good flow and I said Well why don't we put our neck dams on and we'll leave the inlet snorkel open here and get this fans running and see just see just sit here for a second because you get awful hot getting out of the suit period And by golly we were in good shape We could have stayed in that [PAGE 215] 210 Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad 7.2 Checklists Cooper spacecraft hours As a matter of fact the longer we stayed the cooler we were getting because we were just sitting back letting We really debated seriously about waiting if the carrier had been an hour or so nearer we would have waited for a carrier pick up rather than go with the choppers Because we were in good shape in there and we didn't feel bad and the smells weren't bad and what little RCS fumes where in there from picking them up at 27000 went right out Of course we had let's face it though we had an ideal day on the water It was like a mill pond out on the water It was nice and smooth and sunny and everything was in good shape with the spacecraft It was early in the morning and the air was about 80 degrees air that it was pulling in the aircraft pumping in our suits see But we were in good shape Check list I thought our check lists were very good with a few minor things we have mentioned [PAGE 216] 211 7.3 Communications Cooper Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper here that we might we would suggest maybe reshuffling a little there The communications were excellent all the way all the way down until impact and from there on we were hearing everybody in the whole darn world but nobody apparently was hearing us Now Houston read us twice on the water but Houston read us twice We transmitted both on UHF and we transmitted on HF Our HF antenna never did extend on the water They don't know whats wrong with it at this point but we went through the right procedures several times of extending it Point of impact we found out fairly shortly what our point of impact was by hearing the discussion in the air on where it was Status of recovery We were kept well informed of that because our radio receivers were working fine 7.4 Systems Configuration Cooper Systems configuration ECS was excellent No problem at all Electrical was good control was good aeromedical what does aeromedical have to [PAGE 217] 212 do with it here FCSD REP Biomed records and all that stuff Cooper The gear worked The one thing was the blood pressure bulb wouldn't bleed down and Pete never could get a proper blood pressure there when on the water Conrad I took the bulb up to the helicopter and gave it to the doctor and told him to check it right away and find out what happened because it worked fine all flight 7.5 Spacecraft Status Cooper Spacecraft status There was a faint odor of fumes in there but I didn't personally consider them objectionable at all Conrad It cleared out once we got the fans running Cooper Main chute was excellent The windows visibility was doggone good out the windows we were fogged over just a little bit Conrad They steamed up a little bit I could see out of them all right and could see the airplanes flying overhead Cooper They steamed up a little bit After we sat there they steamed up more than they were when we first landed and they but we could see outside very [PAGE 218] 213 well and I guess the guy outside probably couldn't see in as well as we could see out They were fogged a little There were no leaks that we could tell Electrical Power everything was nominal was fine Conrad Electrical power we we we did not power down the squib betteries after we got on the water and we went through the landing check list and powered down all electrical equipment except the radios and the beacons and a biomed recorders and the blood pressure Cooper We took a complete power down check list We followed check list right on the money Sea condition was to foot easy swells 7.6 Post Landing Activity Cooper Post landing activities Let's see we proceeded to continue to try and contact and answer somebody We heard all the activity around and over and around us The first thing we finally heard in the way of communications was when one of the swimmers plugged in this outside phone jack and talked to us He wasn't real clear but he was coming through pretty well He wanted to know if we [PAGE 219] 214 wanted to wait on the carrier or if we wanted a chopper pick up I asked him how far the carrier was away and he went ahead and told us about 75 miles at that time We told him we relieved we wanted to take the choppers 7.7 Comfort Cooper Comfort was fine in the spacecraft FCSD REP How long were you in the spacecraft in your suit Conrad 35 40 minutes Cooper About 35 or 40 minutes I Maybe a little bit more 7.8 Recovery Force Personnel Cooper Recovery force personnel and communications As I say they did communicate with us with the telephone First of all one of the swimmers came up and looked in the window and held up his thumb and we held up our thumbs okay so that took the sweat off them Flotation collar they had slightly more trouble than usually getting it around but not a great deal It probably took them maybe 10 or 15 minutes to get it around there and inflated 7.9 Egress Cooper Right after they got it inflated we told them we were coming out for the chopper I opened the left [PAGE 220] 215 7.10 Survival Gear Cooper 7.11 Crew Pick Up Cooper FCSD REP side hatch We did have our we saw that they had the flotation collar around there and the sea was calm and there was no problem getting any water in the spacecraft and we decided we weren't going to go in the water ourselves We did have our neck dams on but we did not have our gloves on We left our helmet and gloves in the cockpit and decided well if we did go in the water for unforecast reason we had our water wings and our wrists are tight enough to hold your arms above water and not get much in So we didn't fiddle with any survival gear or anything We just stood out on the nose of the spacecraft In fact then I moved from the nose over into one of the liftrafts Pete came up out of the hatch and stood on the nose and he took the first horse collar came around He got the horse collar and went up to the chopper first and they lowered it again and I went in behind him Oh one thing we didn't mention here How about cutting the chute the main chute [PAGE 221] 216 Conrad Cooper Conrad Cooper FCSD REP Oh you mean jettison Gordo jettisoned about second after we touched down About second after we landed I hit Hand away it went It sat right there beside us and floated around for quite a while It sat there about 30 yards off to the front and slightly to one side of us Okay [PAGE 222] handwritten annotation diagram not reliably OCR-transcribable [PAGE 223]