NASA Gemini Program Files

[REDACTED] PRELIMINARY GT-4 FLIGHT CREW DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPT PART I Prepared By Spacecraft Operations Branch Flight Crew Support Division June 16, 1965 This material contains information affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espion…

PREFACE This preliminary transcript was made from voice tape recordings of the GT-4 flight crew debriefing conducted aboard the recovery ship, the USS Wasp, on June 9, 1965. Although all the material contained in this transcript has been edited, the urgent need for the prelimin…

TABLE OF CONTENTS Paragraph 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion...................................1 1.2 Communications...................................2 1.3 Crew Participation and Countdown.................6 1.4 Comfort..........................................7…

4.3 Other Orbital Operations........................186 4.4 Preretro Preparations...........................250 5.0 RETROFIRE 5.1 TR-36 Events....................................259 5.2 TR-22 Events....................................260 5.3 TR-13 Events.........................…

1.0 COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion White McDivitt White The only problem during insertion was that I fogged up again in my suit before we got the fans on. I think I'm just going to always fog up in that suit of mine. We turned the fans on quick, but with the visors CLOSED it d…

2 McDivitt White McDivitt White 1.2 Communications White McDivitt White McDivitt But everything worked out okay on this one. Yes. The timing was excellent, I thought. I didn't think we had any problem at all. No. I don't believe they missed a stroke on the insertion.…

3 were going to open the prevalves and stuff. I wasn't getting it from him. We were getting a lot of other information that made a lot of sense to the Booster Test Conductor, but not an awful lot to us. There were call-outs like, Sequence 0500 complete." Well, this just didn't m…

4 information about the boosters) they put this in- formation on the test conductor's loop too. We had too many guys talking. I think if just CAP COM talked from three minutes on down we would be all right. White McDivitt This is the way I thought it was going to happen, and…

5 swung from the GT-3 flight where nobody got in- formed of anything over to our flight where we got informed by three different people about the same event. White McDivitt White McDivitt On our flight, too, we were really more aware of the problem than those people were. W…

6 think CAP COM, alone, would have been sufficient. One further comment, I had to turn my UHF volume all the way up to hear anybody. I was at max. There we were sitting right on the pad, talking to a guy two miles away, and there I was with the volume full up. It didn't give me…

7 did. McDivitt 1.4 Comfort White That's an excellent point. The flight crew's participation should be the final count, not the midcount and precount. It doesn't tire the prime crew out doing a lot of chores that they don't really have to do. I think this is a good pro- cedu…

8 naps. I noticed Jim was napping too. McDivitt White McDivitt White Yes. I concur with Ed, although I don't want to get carried overboard. We shouldn't scrub due to crew fatigue. I think it is up to the crew. If the crew is un- comfortable they should come down. But I don…

9 McDivitt White 1.5 Environmental Control System McDivitt White McDivitt That's right, I just don't think we should scrub the flight because of fatigue. I don't think we should do that. We weren't approaching this point. We had a long way to go. I think we ought to get…

10 they didn't know where to put those valves and it's only got three valves on it. It ought to be made much simplier than it is. I think they should get that squared away before the next flight. Ed and I knew where we wanted it. We wanted it off and the other two switches in NO…

11 White McDivitt McDivitt 1.6 Sounds McDivitt I was convinced of that, too, after the mix-up in putting all the water in the lithium hydroxide tanks. There would have been about a 30 minute four-day mission. The people that built the thing don't know how it is supposed t…

12 White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt I got that feeling when I read Gus and John's debriefing. Did you? I didn't. I got the impression that it was going to be a much quieter noise. Well, the whole noise level of the engine GIMBAL- ing was louder than I thought…

13 1.7 Vibrations White McDivitt White 1.8 Visual White McDivitt White McDivitt Those are closely associated with the sounds. Yes. I think that the engine gimbaling makes a tremendous vibration in the spacecraft and pre- valves on opening and make a tremendous vibratio…

14 bridge of my nose on down. I had a tremendous amount of reflection inside the helmet, and I had a great amount of difficulty seeing the instru- ment panel. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I could have seen the instrument panel at all. Those first few seconds there are extre…

15 White McDivitt White 1.9 Crew Station Controls and Display White McDivitt Well, if the g's are so low that-- When sun gets in your face you can't see the in- strument panels because they are just too dark. The sun gets in your eyes. The point that Jim was making is to…

16 it in the place where everybody was arguing about whether or not it should be. White I certainly appreciated the work the backup crew did getting the cockpit all set up for us. Every- thing was ready to go when we stepped in. That's the way it should be.

17 2.0 POWER FLIGHT 2.1 Lift-Off Cues McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt CAP COM gave lift-off, about as good a cue as you can get. Wasn't any question either. Boy, you could feel the first little motions of the booster as it went up…

18 if you were bolted down all day long. I don't think the noise changed a bit at lift-off. White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt You could see the visual cues out the window. You were watching your gages, Jim. We…

19 things go. White 2.2 Roll Program McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White 2.3 Pitch Program McDivitt White I agree with you. I knew we weren't going to hold it when that lift-off went. Roll program came in at ten seconds just like it was supposed to. It was…

20 2.4 Aerodynamics McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt White 2.5 Environmental Control System White We were getting aerodynamic noise, which built up to max q. We got some pretty good vibrations at max q. That's where I had the mos…

21 and continued so until about 40 seconds and sta- bilized out at 5.5 and I made my call in. I think I might have called in on RECORD. McDivitt White McDivitt White McDivitt 2.6 Maximum q McDivitt White McDivitt White 2.7 Windshear McDivitt You did. I switched and…

22 pick out windshear on them. How about you, Ed? White McDivitt White McDivitt 2.8 DCS Updates White McDivitt White McDivitt White 2.9 Engine 1 Operation McDivitt No. Did you see any attitudes? No. No big divergences from windshear. We got both of our DCS updat…

23 White Just where they were supposed to be. McDivitt Yes. I followed them a couple of times and said they were staying up fine. They were way up. There wasn't any problem there. 2.10 Engine 2 Status McDivitt Second stage pressure stayed right on up there very high. Just the…

24 White No. McDivitt I could feel it. It wasn't uncomfortable enough where I had to lift my head or anything. I wasn't thinking about a pogo at all. It wasn't like I was trying to sit there and think about it. But as we were going along I could feel this vibration. And then it…

25 light OFF, Stage 1 lights OFF. White At that time I realized that we were going to feel the pyros and stuff--feel the separation. It was a very distinct feeling when we separated. Of course, we immediately dropped in the thrust. There wasn't any question, we had a good separ…

26 McDivitt I didn't really get much of a cue out of it at all, except the lights went out and I could feel a little bit of acceleration. White The acceleration decreased. Another thing I didn't get--I got absolutely no pitch-up associated with the--the way the centrifuge does…

27 needles just barely changed. We must not have had any errors at all. White Yes, I got a full error. McDivitt Did you have a full error? White Yes, my pitch error went all the way down, and then it just steered slowly right back up. Remember you-- McDivitt You did call and…

28 initiate. White It was beautiful steering. McDivitt Nominal, nominal, nominal, except like that saturation on the error needle, but we have been briefed on that. White That's right. That's something to be expected. McDivitt When did it saturate? White Right at staging. N…

29 and main bus were all reading all right. I felt it was just a misbalance of loading. I talked to somebody previous to this time and it was explained to me that this could happen this way. I felt perhaps it was in the adapter batteries-- would feed through on one of the stacks…

30 that it was adapter batteries. That was the only abnormal type of indication we had in the systems. They were all real good. Well, we had good communications with the ground during powered flight. McDivitt We had pretty good communications. I called the "Roll Program", and n…

31 2.18 Acceleration McDivitt Well we got up to 7 1/2 g's. The acceleration wasn't bad at all. I guess when you are really interested in what you are doing like on the boost or reentry, those g's don't mean anything. I don't like to ride the centrifuge. 7 1/2 g's is 7 1/2 g's o…

32 straight as an arrow when that thing shut off. White There weren't any oscillations or roll. 2.20 Steering McDivitt I was getting a sinusoidal oscillation on my rate needles, and I don't know now whether it was pitch and yaw. I called it out at the time, to you anyway, Ed.…

33 back in, and also right at the end we had, in pitch, a little bit of a pitch-down needle indication which increased to no more than about a degree at booster shutdown. McDivitt You got about a degree, then, on shut down? White Just about a degree. McDivitt Yes. I kept glan…

34 3.0 INSERTION 3.1 Post-SECO McDivitt Yes. There was a Post-SECO. In the period between SECO and SECO + 20 seconds, I unstowed the maneuver controller. I don't know where our attitudes were. They were the same as they were at SECO, and it was about 20 degrees pitch-down, was…

35 cocked off the second stage. 3.2 SECO + 20 Seconds McDivitt We were going to stay on the booster until SECO + 30 instead of SECO + 20. At 20 seconds the IVI's started displaying and I read them off as 20 forward, 11 right, and 5 down. White Right. McDivitt This was when w…

36 heard the thrusters go off he wouldn't push the SPACECRAFT SEP. Then we did separate the spacecraft with the exact routine we practiced in the simulator. I said, "Thrusting, separate", and you punched the SEPARATE button and I guess you went to Rate Command. I thrusted straig…

37 had a 153 by 57 orbit. So, they were talking to us. I don't think I ought to read off this stuff now, but they gave us the 2-1 data and all the nominal data we were supposed to get. It came out fine. McDivitt Say again what the IVI's were while we rolled right-side-up. Whit…

38 3.3 Insertion Activities McDivitt I thrusted and got off the booster. Then I went ahead for just a short time, and then I started to turn around right away. During the turn-around, I jettisoned the fairings. They went off with a bang. I could see the fairing over the horizon…

39 the booster. Either the camera, or better yet a 16 mm camera with a normal lens on it. Just tuck it to the side of your leg. If I had thought about it I think this is what I would have done-- just connected the camera, tucked it by my leg, and taken pictures of the booster at…

40 somewhere. White I think you could. You could stow it beside you in the seat. I think we over-emphasize the necessity, particularly for ejection, of having to have everything stowed when you are only ejecting up to 12 000 feet and at very slow speeds. We certainly have a hec…

41 pletely intact. There was nothing wrong. McDivitt Okay. Let's try to follow this insertion activities list here. I jettisoned the fairings, as I said, as soon as I started turning around. Then Ed went through the checklist for us. After I fired the fairings I turned off the…

42 probably the fiftieth checklist we've got there, and I don't think it could have been arranged any better for the two of us. White I knew Jim wasn't going to undo his seat belt harness and I knew I was going to have to because I had to do certain things that he didn't have t…

43 White I know, you never have been particularly too hot on that. McDivitt No. White Then I went ahead and disconnected myself. I had a lot of things I had to squirm around and do. I left my life vest on as we had planned to do, then take them off leisurely at a different tim…

44 you can use to stabilize the pin when you insert it. And when I say the holes through which you insert the pins are unsatisfactory, I'm referring to holes through a cylindrical shaft that is hollow inside so that you not only have to find the hole to put it in on one side, bu…

45 White That's correct. I could put yours in fairly easy. McDivitt That's right. I think that when you turn towards the center of the spacecraft, you end up with more room than if you turned to the outside. You can't see a thing if you are turning toward the outside. White Th…

46 I had suspected they were doing when we launched-- why we had unbalanced stack readings. 1-A read 6 amps, 1-B read 10, 1-C read 11. This accounts for your high reading on Stack 1. 2-A was 6, 2-B was 6,, and 2-C was 6.. This was the way they were reading. I ran through a check…

47 was two minutes past one hour 30 minutes, and I guess they weren't sure exactly what we wanted. So they gave it to us in GMT and elapsed time also. But that is the information we received, as far as our 2-1 area was concerned. McDivitt I think Ed had better cover unstowage.…

48 of the foot well, where I planned to keep them, so that we could keep a good tape cartridge available.

49 4.0 ORBITAL FLIGHT McDivitt I think that the orbital flight should be broken down into some very distinct sequences. I think there are really three of these. The first one is about the first three or four orbits where we were trying to stay with the booster, where we did the…

50 start in the orbital flight with the station-keeping on the booster. I think that we should just pluck that thing out and follow it through in its entirety, and then come back and pick up these things like the thrusters, Control Mode Checks, Com Checks, and those things. 4.1…

51 White I would estimate it at between 200 and 250 feet. McDivitt Okay. We were in pretty good shape right then and I applied about five or six seconds of thrusting that should have come out around 5. feet/second. I was in a hurry trying to get our separation velocity stopped,…

52 then. Our relative velocity looked like it went to zero. Here, I thought, we were out around 500 or 600 feet. Ed thought we were probably in closer than that. White Yes. I thought we were in a little closer. McDivitt I put in a total of around 9 feet/second in the first min…

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you're separating away from something, whichever way you're going, if you point at the thing and if you thrust in that direction you are to take out your relative velocity in all planes. So, it looked like the thing was off to the left or to the south of our orbital track by a co…

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window and I could see it. Well, I started alining the platform and left it there for a couple of minutes. The booster started falling again, descending below us. It actually went out of my view in the window. At the time though our relative velocities were quite SMALL, so I felt…

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stayed there for about another ten or fifteen seconds and went to Orbit Rate. I knew I didn't have a good alinement on the platform but I knew I couldn't stay there any longer and have the booster anywhere near us. So, I flipped around and pitched right straight down and here's w…

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feet/second there. Here's where the numbers get a little vague. I thrusted down at it and I watched it go for awhile. I thought sure we'd start closing on it again. We weren't closing, so I thrusted down on it again. I must have done this probably three or four times. I can't say…

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fashion. It was all over. It looked to me like it was rotating in three axes in a completely unprogrammed manner. It might have been that the roll nozzle was flopping around and the fuel was turning it around in different directions. And as a matter of fact, at this time we shoul…

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sparkles everywhere. And it looked like almost a starlit sky, but it just didn't quite look right to me; it looked like an artificial starlit sky. It looked like some of these star displays they have created for us. And I looked over at Jim and asked him if he was seeing this and…

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little particles, and this was at sunset. As the flight progressed, each time we had a particle or a group of particles such as a urine dump right at sunset or sunrise, the sun would pick these particles up and they would act just like little magnifying glasses and make very brig…

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rates that we already had. We were into darkness by the time that we got turned around, and I had thrusted just two or three times at the booster. We were still quite far above it--I would guess now on the order of 2000 feet or more and it was still dropping away from us rapidly;…

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opposed on the center of the booster. And when the booster was in such a manner that I could see both of the lights, I could tell relative rates and I had an idea of how far away I was. Did you find this to be true too, Ed, or not? White Well, I can't honestly say I was looking…

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to get close to it and not even maneuver--not to pick specific positions. All I wanted to do was just get close enough so I wouldn't lose it. When I could see these two lights, I had a pretty good impression of whether I was closing or opening; for a long part of the early part o…

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McDivitt It looked to me like we could have gotten as close as 200 feet. It was extremely difficult to tell how close we were. What's your guess, Ed? Just pick a number. White I wouldn't say that close. I'd say you're more in the ball park in the neighborhood of 700 to 10-00 fee…

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saw two lights again. I don't know if you did or not. I kept looking and there was a single light and a single light and a single light, and I didn't know where I was with respect to the booster. And then I started getting the impression without really seeing the double lights, I…

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double blink of the lights for a long, long, long time. And finally I thought I could see them blinking again, and they were almost a single light this time since they were so far away. And this occurred over a very short period of time. Tan minutes? Five minutes? White Yes. Mc…

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and I thought at least we were going to get to see where the thing was. And all of a sudden the booster came out just like that, and you could see it. The lights disappeared and there was the booster. It was 2 or 3 miles away, I'll bet. White You asked me there and I estimated 1…

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McDivitt When it came out of the night and we saw it out there in the daylight-- White Right. I'd estimate 30 degrees down. McDivitt It was above the horizon, just barely. Or was it above the horizon? White No, it was below the horizon. I'd say it wasn't more than ten or twelv…

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would bring us up to it at the same time; but most of the thrusting I did was down. Then we just didn't gain on it. I started thrusting retrograde with my top thruster, but I was thrusting more back and downward. I just absolutely could not get down to the booster. It kept pullin…

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90 feet/second. I had numbers in all three of the windows, and of course since I was changing attitudes and thrusting in different directions those numbers were going all over the place. So I made up my mind then that it looked like a hopeless task and that we had better stop thi…

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booster orbit had changed so much with respect to our orbit that if we really went down after it, it might jeopardize our lifetime. McDivitt Honestly, I was concerned about that too, because, remember, I called and asked what the heck our orbit was right then. The booster looked…

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narvon. Apogee should have been farthest apart. Our perigee should have been closest together. It was almost opposite. We were with it at Carnarvon, but we were way far away from it and getting farther away from it as we crossed the United States, or Mexico, or wherever we came.…

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daylight for ten minutes or so, that it was hopeless, and I told that to Ed. I told him I thought we had lost the booster for good. I don't mean I didn't see it but that we weren't going to get back down to it. He agreed with me. White Yes. McDivitt I think I could have gotten…

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up later on was not the thing to do. We had to be all done at a certain time. We had to be with the booster when we came back into daylight. That was it; that was the thing. We had to be with the booster, because we had to take those pictures. Then we had to be with the booster a…

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booster, the way we separated. Well, anyway, we told Guaymas that we had to get resolution immediately if they wanted us to continue to chase the booster because we had used a lot of fuel and we weren't getting any closer and it was still pulling away from us. If they wanted to g…

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line of sight with. On the other hand I found that if the sun was on the window you couldn't see beyond the nose of the spacecraft. This satellite that I saw over around Hawaii--I saw the thing and we were closing on it. We might have had a better rendezvous with it than with our…

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outside, which made it very difficult to see out when the sun's rays reflected on these particles that were on the outside of the windshield. McDivitt To just summarize this thing, I think that we came off the booster with a fully unknown relative velocity which was much greater…

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because looking at a single light at night doesn't give you any depth perception at all. You just don't know where the booster is. I think that summarizes it. Ed, you want to add anything? You weren't watching it as much as I was, but you saw enough of it to know exactly what was…

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page six, I have already covered the things on platform alinement. I did not have time to aline the platform. I tried to get it to somewhere near the local horizontal so that in CASE we had to do a retrofire I'd be able to do the etrofire. I brought the spacecraft up to a pitch a…

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McDivitt I was in a horizontal position and I thrusted down using my top thrusters, so that I would try to keep the booster in my view. Thrusting, chasing the booster, and alining the platform all at the same time--those are the kinds of things you have to do. So, I never did get…

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from then on? Now this wasn't representative that we lost UHF No. 1 because we used both of the sets at different times throughout the mission later on. But at this particular time, UHF 1 didn't give us good reception and we switched. McDivitt I thought communications through th…

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to come back in, because we were really losing communications. We were trying HF and all kinds of things. Information just wasn't getting up to us. White That was after EVA. McDivitt Right. Communications just weren't getting up to us. White I figured we didn't have any commun…

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The Control Mode Check was a catch-as-catch-can. You did unstow, the equipment that we were supposed to unstow. The blood pressure bulb, the Hasselblad camera and its packs, and a 16 mm camera. During this time when I was chasing the booster, I did manage to get to reach back beh…

83 30 in another, and 30 in another. I never really came to a position to try to null all these things out to see what the total AV was. I was putting in the thrust with mostly the aft thrusters and the down-firing top thruster. I don't think I used the left and right thruster, a…

84 pressure, Ed? White Yes. McDivitt You did take the blood pressure. White I think I did. I had it out. I don't know whether they asked for it or not. McDivitt Okay. White I don't remember on that. McDivitt Okay. We got the Quantity Read off. I guess we got a time hack som…

85 We thought that if the booster was stationary we could get in close to it. We could essentially fly a formation by it with more attitude control than translation control, which left me then free to help Ed assemble all this stuff for the EVA. Well, it turned out that I didn't…

86 sweat time-wise on making our EVA. So, I was trying to be of what assistance I could to Jim on watching the booster during these first critical periods. McDivitt Yes. It wasn't unappreciated because this booster was becoming a speck on the horizon, and if you blinked your eye…

87 fooling with the booster. I think this was an extremely wise decision. McDivitt I got to Guaymas and I said the booster was pulling away from us. We'd already used about 100 AV to stay with it, and I recommended that we just give up on it. We had to get a decision immediately…

88 White Yes. The Zeiss came out with the Hasselblad, from that same package as the movie camera. And the storage certainly was a lot easier. What do you think? McDivitt That's right. White Particularly getting it out that center thing. You can just zip them out of there with n…

89 we went through it. He unstowed everything. Why don't you tell them what you did there, Ed? I just read the checklist off to you, and you went ahead and did it. White Okay. I had to get back into the right-hand box, and I unstowed the items there. The first time I went back i…

90 those things floating around. It was bad enough as it was. White Yes, eight or ten of those little bags, and I was glad they were all tied on to one string. I could control them in that manner. They were quite simple to unsnap. I thought the snap attachment made it pretty eas…

91 came out a lot easier. I thought you got it out in a big hurry. I didn't notice that it took you three trys. I saw you start, and then just a short time later, it was out. White Well, it did come out pretty easy, and I think the storage was satisfactory, but I'd certainly rec…

92 everything out without much problem at all. I think it took us longer actually to put it all together. McDivitt That's right. It did. We started going through the checklist here and putting the things on and we started getting more and more rushed. We were supposed to start t…

93 the thing to do would be to stop. White Right. McDivitt Go ahead with the assembly of the stuff. Why don't you comment on that? White I've commented in my Self Debriefing about the equipment and the assembly of it. I thought there was no difficulty at all in connecting the…

94 we had another rev on which we could do it. It looked to me like we had all the stuff hooked up, but we hadn't really had a chance to check it. I also noticed, Ed, that you were getting awfully hot. You were starting to perspire a lot. I didn't like the way you looked to start…

95 before we go out. McDivitt I think we were in a situation where it would probably have gone all right. We had completed about 80 percent of what we really should have had done as far as the checking went, and I just didn't feel that we were in the right shape. Ed didn't think…

96 fan operation at the time. We just sat there and we were cooled off. We went around for about twenty minutes then. White Okay. Then as we went back around, I asked you to go through the checklist again, and we went through item by item this time. McDivitt That's right. I mig…

97 Integrity Check. McDivitt Well, I don't know where it is, but we did it when we were supposed to do it. McDivitt We did the Suit Integrity heck before we started the Egress Preparation Checklist. That's when we did it, over the States. White I think we did that just about t…

98 say we hadn't done to my satisfaction the first time was to check the inlet and outlet positions of the locks, and I didn't have my THERMAL gloves on. It turned out I didn't need them. McDivitt Also, during this period of time I alined the platform, which was completely misal…

99 this manner, but it wouldn't have been the way we would have wanted it. McDivitt Yes, that's right. I don't think that's the way it should be done. It was just too bad that we had a time limit on it, but when we did get rid of the booster, or the booster no longer became a pa…

100 that from our past experience and our knowledge of the suit that even if we did spring a leak in the blood pressure cuff the size hole that we had in the suit would not be catastrophic, and we decided to go ahead with the EVA. White It was within the capability of the system…

101 We fooled with it a few times and it finally engaged in the UNLOCK position, and Ed was able to go ahead and start. White The first indication of trouble was when I unstowed the handle to open the hatch. The handle freely moved up and down with no tension on it at all. I kne…

102 McDivitt Your fingers sort of take the place of the spring and drive this little pawl home. White This is the first time we actually tried this in a suit. It requires you to press up with your left arm to get at the gain pawl, and at the same time hold yourself down. And I t…

103 and that puts a pretty good size force on it. I had a real tight hold on the hatch closing device, and when it popped open I was able to snub it. White It didn't really open with much force, did it? McDivitt Well, it did. It opened with a fair amount. It popped and I couldn…

104 flight. Something that we'd gone out to the spacecraft to feel. We knew just about what the force was, but it was pretty high. White Okay. At this time I had certain things that I had to accomplish. I had to mount the camera on the back of the adapter, and mount the umbilica…

105 with my gloved hand. So, I took the THERMAL gloves off at this time and I handed them to Jim. When I got back out I didn't notice any temperature extremes. I felt quite confident that there wouldn't be any heat since we just came out of the dark side, so I decided to do the a…

106 up from the repress valve. I elected to go ahead and leave the bag there. I then reported to Jim that I had everything all mounted and was ready to go. I had planned to take a short series of pictures. Since we had gotten out early, I had a little extra time at this time, so…

107 White By golly, I did. So I must of mounted it four times. That's right, I knocked it off one time during this time when I was out there. I got the picture of the egress, and then I asked you to hand me the gun. At this time the camera wasn't running. I had the glove on my le…

108 with EVA. White And that's when I went. I bet we went out at Hawaii. McDivitt I think we went out at Hawaii. White I delayed from the time you gave just a minute, long enough to actuate the camera on the outside. This was kind of interesting. When I actuated that camera, I…

109 of the spacecraft. I knew right away as soon as I got up--I felt even before -- that the technique of holding on to the bar in the spacecraft and sticking a finger in the RCS thruster wasn't going to work. I mentioned that to Jim before -- that I didn't think I would be able…

110 spacecraft. I think you called me and said I was out of the spacecraft. McDivitt I called and told you that you were clear. That's right. White And that's when I started firing the gun and actually propelled myself under the influence of the gun. I don't believe I gave any…

111 stopped that yaw, and I started translating back toward the spacecraft. It was either on this translation or the one following this that I got into a bit of a combination of a pitch roll and the yaw together. I felt that I could have corrected it, but I knew that it would hav…

112 there. I knew Jim was doing his job holding attitude for me. McDivitt Let me comment on the attitude-holding right now. Initially we started out in blunt-endforward, banked to the left about 30 degrees or so. This happened to be the attitude we were in. We wanted to be blunt…

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CONFIDENTIAL 113 whatever you want to call it, I wouldn't fire the thrusters. White You asked that already when I was out. McDivitt Yes. I asked you if you needed it and you said no. So, then I felt it would be better not to fire the thrusters, because you were driftin…

114

114 CONFIDENTIAL couple of the axes at the same time. Here again before the flight we discussed the axis system. Ed selected the spacecraft as his axis system. It didn't appear that he was having a bit of trouble with it. He was maneuvering with respect to it, regardless of wha…

115

CONFIDENTIAL 115 fortunate, because I must have fired it right through my CG. I stopped out there and, if my memory serves me right, this is where I tried a couple of yaw maneuvers. I tried a couple of yaw and a couple of pitch maneuvers, and then I started firing the gun to co…

116

116 CONFIDENTIAL all the way back. So, I ran out of air with the gun and I reported this to Jim. I didn't attempt to take any pictures while I was actually maneuvering with the gun. The technique that I used with the gun was the technique that we developed on the air-bearing pl…

117

CONFIDENTIAL 117 White I bet we used a little more than four, because I think we came out earlier than we thought. McDivitt No, I started the event timer to time it. White Well, this is where my control difficulty began. As soon as my gun ran out I wasn't able to…

118

118 CONFIDENTIAL in the opposite direction. Each time this arc carried me right back to the top of the adapter, to the top of the spacecraft, in fact toward the adapter section. One time I was so close to the thrusters back there that I called Jim. I said, "Don't fire anymore."…

119

CONFIDENTIAL 119 White We were discussing the EVA and I was saying that I spent approximately 70 percent of my time, it seemed, trying to get out of the area back above the spacecraft in the adapter area. McDivitt Yes, you intended to go toward the position that was dir…

120

120 CONFIDENTIAL was an automatic mode and it fired whenever it felt like firing. It didn't give us any flexibility, and this is why I felt that the best mode to be in was Pulse, in CASE you did get back there. White That's exactly what happened. McDivitt I didn't have…

121

CONFIDENTIAL 121 worthwhile. White On one of my passes back to the adapter area I got so far back that I was about 3 or 4 feet from the adapter separation plane, perpendicular to it. It was rather jagged. There did appear to be some sharp edges but it really didn't look v…

122

122 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt That must have been just about the time I told you to come back in. White No, I would estimate this was about two-thirds of the way and about this time I was after pictures. I knew this was a part of the flight plan that I had, in my mind, fulf…

123

CONFIDENTIAL 123 get it later on anytime I had to pull my helmet down. Occasionally when I got in close to the spacecraft, the bag and strings associated with the bag were tangling up around the vicinity of the gun and the camera. And it seemed like the umbilical was right in f…

124

124 CONFIDENTIAL a little into the tether dynamics, and I actually kicked off from the spacecraft pretty hard. I remember Jim saying, "Hey, you're imparting 2 degrees/second rotational velocity to the spacecraft when you depart." I was pushing the spacecraft quite vigorously. I…

125

CONFIDENTIAL 125 I was right up close to the spacecraft and that's when I came over. Do you remember me coming over and actually looking about a foot from your window, Jim? McDivitt Yes. White Looking right at you. McDivitt Yes, I think that was the time the movie c…

126

126 CONFIDENTIAL going. I'm not positive. I hope I got the picture but I'm not sure about it. White That was the time that I came right in, and I couldn't have been more than a foot from your window, looking in. I could actually see you sitting there. McDivitt That's p…

127

CONFIDENTIAL 127 it looked like it was a black paint smear, such as if you'd take a piece of white linoleum and a black rubber soled shoe and made a mark on the linoleum. It had that kind of consistency. It was absolutely opaque. Just as black as it could be. White Yes, I…

128

128 CONFIDENTIAL you did was remove a layer off the window, rather than put something on it. You took something off it. Except I can't possibly imagine why it was so black and opaque with the sun shining on it at certain angles. White I'd like to comment on the ease of op…

129

CONFIDENTIAL 129 outside there. There just wasn't anything for me to hold onto. One thing though that I'll say very emphatically-- there wasn't any tendency to recontact the spacecraft in anything but very gentle contacts. I made some quite interesting contacts. I made one that…

130

130 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt What did you do? Contact and pushoff? White I contacted and pushed with my foot. McDivitt I heard a big thump and I think I called you at this time to take it easy. White I believe that was on the front end of the R & R Section on my s…

131

CONFIDENTIAL 131 McDivitt Yes, it's white. White I felt that this wasn't quite the thing to grab onto, this was at the time when I wanted to get out at about 10 or 12 feet directly in front of the spacecraft. I certainly had the urge to hang onto the antenna and push my…

132

132 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt I know it. White It had smooth corners and the only thing I could have grabbed was the antenna, and I didn't want to grasp that. We thought one time of holding on out there and thrusting, but--. McDivitt There isn't anything to hold onto. I…

133

CONFIDENTIAL 133 open. It was pretty obvious that the flow was from the spacecraft to the outside because partway through his maneuvers his glove floated out and floated away from the spacecraft with a reasonably good relative velocity. The entire time he was out, even after we…

134

134 CONFIDENTIAL around 4 minutes and 6 minutes and 8 minutes. And then you got involved in floating around as we were trying to get that last picture. White The time really flew! McDivitt You kept getting behind me all the time and I became distracted from the time we…

135

CONFIDENTIAL 135 trying to get that last picture. And this was one of a couple of times that I kicked off the spacecraft really hard, to get out to the end of the tether. And I wasn't successful in getting the position so that I could get a picture. I felt this was the one part…

136

136 CONFIDENTIAL and said, "Get in here!" White When I was walking on the top and was laughing, Jim probably didn't think I thought he was serious. But it was a very funny sensation. Now as far as delaying, there were certain things that I had to do before I came in. And…

137

CONFIDENTIAL 137 to get this thing in its proper perspective. White Yes. McDivitt We were 3 minutes 40 seconds late getting started back in because we just lost track of the time. I couldn't see Ed any longer. I was trying to keep track of what he was doing without bei…

138

138 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt That was the last thing Ed put into orbit. White Right. I put that in orbit. Earlier, it was really quite a sensation to see the glove floating off. I asked Jim a few minutes before about the glove, or Jim had asked me, "Hey, do you want this o…

139

CONFIDENTIAL 139 whichever direction that is. White Back to getting back in the spacecraft--I had the one THERMAL glove on the one hand, my left hand. I always wanted my right hand to be free to operate that gun and the camera. The way the camera was mounted on there, I h…

140

140 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt That would have just taken longer. It would have taken precious seconds out of the very few that we had anyway. I think you should have just unhooked it and thrown the gun away. White This was probably the thing that I was most irritated with n…

141

CONFIDENTIAL 141 McDivitt You mean you were hitting the hatch on one side and the hatch opening on the other side. White Coming back in, I was contacting the side of the spacecraft on both sides. McDivitt Yes, that's right. McDivitt You weren't really hitting the…

142

142 CONFIDENTIAL I came in. McDivitt Yes. I think what happened was he was stiffer, and he wasn't bending his legs and his arms any. White You mean with the harder suit I was stiffer? McDivitt Harder. And your arms were stiffer and you weren't bending them around as…

know whether he felt it or not in that suit. 143 White No, I couldn't. McDivitt I reached over and I steered his legs down in, and I sort of got him settled in the seat a little better than what he was getting himself. White Yes. Right. I was kind of free wheeling my feet up…

144 I really didn't have the strength to pull him in. McDivitt It was 90 degrees to the way that he really wanted to be pulling. I could steer. I did do a litle bit of pushing, but not a heck of a lot. I wasn't really contributing much to the effort there except--. White You w…

145 McDivitt Oh? Did you get it in your thighs or calves? White Both of the muscles in the back of my thighs balled up in a ball and I thought, "Well, I have to go back out and let them straighten up." So, I straightened my legs out. McDivitt We had that problem before in the…

146 again, and said, "Hey, I can't see them. I'm going to have to take the visor off." McDivitt No, it was a little bit later than that. You had all ready started to try to close it and you were having difficulty closing it. White Okay. Let's get the sequence out. We came down…

got the handle, but I don't know what I said to you. 147 McDivitt You didn't say anything. I don't know whether you said anything to me or not, but you didn't have to say anything to me. I saw you move that handle and I saw how easy it was going and I saw that the dogs weren't…

148 mal straight-forward techniques, and that we were going to have to start going to other things. While we say that we came down and moved the handle once or twice, it was over about a three or four minute period, at least. White The normal method of closing the hatch is for…

was CLOSED fine. It really wasn't CLOSED far enough because you never did get those dogs out until we--. 149 White No, the dogs came out, Jim, the first time I got torque on it. Those dogs started out, then it CLOSED. McDivitt Did they? Okay. White Yes. I think we had it down…

150 fully stroke the handle each time. White We went back up so that I could actually see and observe the levers. This was the time Jim said to throw the visor out because we probably would- n't open the hatch again, once we get it CLOSED. And this seemed like very good sound a…

151 opened it. We both had an inkling that this was going to happen when we opened it the first time. But this posed the problem of when I reached up with my left arm to work the gain lever. It takes a great deal of force. This isn't the direct- ion that the suit is designed to…

152 McDivitt You could see them though? White Yes, I could see them. At least I could see what positions they were in. I could see the little lever operating under the spring where I was actually operating the spring on the gain lever. This is where I think we got some very goo…

153 White Yes. It was the most interesting moment of the flight, but I think it was probably the most, if you want to say, dramatic. I don't know the right word. But it was probably the most dramatic moment of my life. About those 30 seconds we spent right there. The dogs starte…

154 right in that the bar and the attachment on that bar and lanyard were not strong enough. I re- membered that and I knew how hard you were pul- ling on that thing. I think, if nothing else, they ought to be sure. How many times did we break that attachment at the bar? McDivi…

down that way. But I had about all the pull I had in me on that last-- 155 White I know you did. McDivitt --on that last thing and I had a lot of mechanical advantage over it. When we went to that canvas strap we would have had to go with no mechanical advantage. As a matter o…

156 there because of the lack of confidence in the strength of it. White Everything I had was in it over there. I was pulling down with my legs as hard as I could and operating. I was pulling on the handle. I remember one time you said, "Hey don't pull on that handle so hard! Y…

157 have with that hatch. If it failed we'd know exactly what it was. McDivitt That's right. I personally had disassembled this cylinder and piston and spring combination up at McDonald prior to the altitude chamber, so I knew exactly what it was made of. I am sure the problem…

158 McDivitt There were a lot of things we could do. White We could have gone around several orbits working on closing the hatch. That wasn't the last time we were going to get a chance to close it. So, there were things left if we understood, and other procedures we could have…

159 When we get the thing repressurized, we'll start doing something." That was exactly what we did. I did finally extend the HF antenna and try to call somebody on HF and let them know that we were back in safely and that the thing was re- pressurizing. I didn't get any respons…

160 as it was advertised. It performed just exactly as it had been designed. There wasn't one thing on them as far as the VCM, the umbilical, the gloves, the gun, and the visor that didn't perform just exactly as it had been designed. 'll take them all one piece at a time, and d…

161 the view that I received at this time was what I would expect on a normal sunny day. I was cer- tainly glad to have the visor and I left it down throughout EVA. I think on a later flight we might recommend going ahead and lifting the visor and observing any changes we might…

162 sunglasses. They both could have adapted. I didn't look into the bright sun straight ahead. White Well, the first time I looked into the bright sun, the first thought I had was, "Boy! Am I glad I've got this visor on!" McDivitt I know you mentioned it on the radio. White…

163 helmet. Also, my visor was quite difficult for me to raise and lower. Once it was down it fit quite snugly, for which I was happy. But it was difficult for me to raise and lower. It was actually a two-handed operation, which is one of the reasons why I didn't raise it outsid…

164 without qualification, worked exactly as it was planned to work. There was not one complaint that I had with it. It provided me with the proper flow. The flow was less than with the normal ECS suit system, but it was adequate to keep me cool and ventilated, except for two ti…

165 side, were not noticeable to the touch at all. I didn't use a right hand THERMAL glove at any time during the flight. I took it off when I was opening the hatch and, as I pointed out earlier, it floated off during the EVA operation. I didn't have opportunity to use it again…

166 White One mistake that we made on our EVA equipment was the mounting of the Contarex camera. This camera should have been attached by velcro to me, so that I could use it independently of the gun. It would have been easier for me to use and I would have had a much higher pro…

167 a type of tether. I think you might even be able to do something along the line of just having some female velcro on the gloves and pieces of the male velcro at points along the adapter. This might provide us at least some attachments so that we could maneuver ourselves back…

168 self by holding onto the hatch. It was also surprising to me how much force it took to open the hatch the first time against the preload and the actuaters, due to the seals. One other very good decision was to have me wear the heavy suit and Jim the light suit. I think this…

169 inlet temperature, but the suit itself stayed reasonably warm. I had sun in the cockpit and I had the cockpit open without the sun in it for a relatively long period of time, four or five minutes at a time. This didn't seem to affect my temperature inside the suit. White I…

170 Some conclusions that I had were: 1. I didn't notice any extremely hot temperatures on the outside of the spacecraft. I also didn't contact surfaces for any period of time to transfer much in the way of a heat load to any part of my suit including the gloves. 2. There's a de…

171 McDivitt You could have multiple attachment points around the spacecraft. White Of course, now, if you have a gun with a good air source, I wouldn't particularly care where it was attached. I think you could go ahead and, maneuver to any point you want if you have a gun. Ag…

172 I think, initially, where I was holding the attitude, you didn't have that much trouble. Of course, you weren't pushing as hard either, be- cause you had the gun. White No, I wasn't. McDivitt Later on, when we started free drifting, you were back behind me where I couldn't…

CONFIDENTIAL from the thrusting. The color of the thrusting is just like the RCS thrusting--nice and clear plume. It looked like from outside, though, that I could see a lot more of the plume than I could when I was sitting inside the spacecraft looking out at the RCS thrusters f…

CONFIDENTIAL have particular use for in the early part of the flight. If we can lick the problems in opening and closing of the hatch, we can store equipment in the back of the adapter section as a routine operation. McDivitt That's right. I think the extravehicular activities ha…

CONFIDENTIAL assembly of items you want to have--you ought to look into the glove area a little more thoroughly and try to get a piece of a glove with some type of a surface that will give us some heat protection and gives us a high sensitivity of feel through it. The big conclus…

CONFIDENTIAL guilty and it has to be fixed. 2. I recommend that at least the egress kit on the right of the crew compartment be removed to provide more room in the spacecraft. I see no reason for it being in there. I think it would be worth the effort and the additional money to…

CONFIDENTIAL we needed to close the hatch, just as we sat there and said we might need during the SAR of the spacecraft in St. Louis. I think the attachments of the bar and the cable to the spacecraft should probably be at least doubled in strength, so there just isn't any questi…

CONFIDENTIAL any harder. White No. I think that should be the third recommendation and it should be corrected. McDivitt I think we could spare a couple of extra pounds of weight there, just for the pilots' peace of mind. White That's right. Take the time it takes to put a new att…

CONFIDENTIAL man-stabilized maneuvering unit-- White Yes. McDivitt --rather than one that is gyro-stabilized with automatic stability features. I think that although you didn't burn up a lot of fuel, you certainly proved the feasibility of this type of maneuvering unit. White We…

CONFIDENTIAL type of a unit. White If I had some more AV in a unit like that I think that I would be willing to detach myself on the next flight, right now, from the spacecraft and go. That's combined with two things, you see. You have two things working for you. You have the cap…

CONFIDENTIAL adapter without being attached to the spacecraft, I'd only need two or three time the amount. I'd be happy to go with that. McDivitt There are some problems in the capability to aline one's self onto an object. I think chasing the booster around points this out. You…

CONFIDENTIAL thing at the present time to go maneuvering off 200 to 300 feet away from the spacecraft with this type of device. I think this device is designed and has its greatest usefulness in close operation around the spacecraft. McDivitt That's right. There is no need to man…

CONFIDENTIAL full regalia, with all the pressure suits in a pressurized condition. I think we can go up there and learn a lot about the gun without pressure suits on, in a plain flying suit type operation. Perhaps polish the training off with a little work in pressurized suits. I…

CONFIDENTIAL translate and correct pitch and yaw very successfully and effectively forget about roll, just as we do in our reentries or our retros. White The question is: Was there any problem with the gun of maintaining a fairly well stabilized attitude and still get my translat…

CONFIDENTIAL that first phase of mission sequences that I first mentioned. I think the next thing we should do is go through the interim orbits, about 50 or 55, or however many there were, where we set about to save up enough fuel to do something constructive, to check on our orb…

CONFIDENTIAL were doing the extravehicular activity. 4.3 Other Orbital Operations McDivitt Let's see. One thing that we did was to turn off the ES Sensor at 6:35. You have notes along here? White I got all the Sensor stuff down, I think, pretty well. McDivitt Okay. I have the ES…

CONFIDENTIAL we extended it. The way it operates is, it has three positions: EXTEND, OFF, and RETRACT. It was in the OFF position and I put it to the EXTEND position. Then I put it back to the OFF position. Periodically, throughout the flight we put it to the EXTEND position and…

CONFIDENTIAL EVA we went into free drifting flight. We powered down the platform and the computer, shut off the attitude indicator lights--we went through a complete power-down procedure. We were really trying to save bettery power, OAMS fuel, and everything else we had. We went…

CONFIDENTIAL sundown we'd call out the booster a couple of more times before we finally figured out that this was not the booster, but a planet. White One or two times I'm fairly confident I saw the booster. McDivitt You're pretty sure you saw it? White Yes. That was the booster.…

CONFIDENTIAL where we thought we were seeing the booster, right where it was low on the horizon, as you would expect to see a booster. That old thing was flickering away like mad. White I think that was Venus, too. McDivitt It was the planet that was trailing the sun by just a ve…

CONFIDENTIAL White That's right. McDivitt Initially you saw the sun out there and you saw this thing looking like it was flashing. Once it got above the air glow, the planet did not flicker anymore. It was perfectly bright. White Very bright. McDivitt When we saw that thing that…

CONFIDENTIAL It should have been in the opposite direction. White I'm not convinced which way we were looking. McDivitt We had to be looking to the rear. The sun sets to the rear. We had to be BEF to see the sun when it set. You see, you're BEF to watch it set. White Were we BEF…

CONFIDENTIAL ection. The next pass around I called out and said, "I see the booster on top at 9 o'clock, perpendicular to our flight path." I don't think that was the booster either. White It's kind of academic. McDivitt Yes. White The reason that I brought the thing back up agai…

CONFIDENTIAL point the spacecraft at Typhoon Babe so that was that. If I had drifted around so I could see it, I was going to take a picture of it but I never drifted around so I could see it. I just passed on by. A little bit later on, I was called up and told that at 23:55 GMT…

CONFIDENTIAL sleeping. We had less requests for aero-med passes of guys that were sleeping. We, in general, refused to wake the other person up to do an aero-med pass. We were told by the doctors and the flight planners on the ground, that at 02 30 59 we were supposed to turn on…

CONFIDENTIAL didn't get to sleep at 2:30 and Ed didn't wake me up at 6:15. So I guess we were down from anywhere from 3:30 and 4:30. White Right. You slept approximately four hours. I let you go about 30 or 45 minutes after that time of 6:15, as far as getting you up. While you w…

CONFIDENTIAL why I didn't think about it. I got instructions from the ground to maintain the oxygen pressure at between 930 and 960 with the O2 High Rate. This is the time I told them that the Command Pilot was asleep and I'd prefer to do it at a later time. I think they called m…

CONFIDENTIAL I didn't want to wake him up. I was hoping it would go through without waking him, but it sure didn't. McDivitt Man! It liked to have scared me so bad I don't think I went back to sleep. White No, you went back. You slept better at the end of your sleep cycle than at…

CONFIDENTIAL mission, exclusively. It was very accurate. You could check the times in the plotboard as against what you saw on the ground and you could locate yourself quite adequately. How about you? McDivitt While I'm thinking about it, I thought the plotboard information early…

CONFIDENTIAL little disappointed with the map information at the end of the flight. I don't know exactly what was happening. But I'm convinced that it wasn't right. As a matter of fact, a couple of times I was even on the wrong orbit. They'd give me a time and a longitude and I'd…

CONFIDENTIAL Sidney. McDivitt You only missed it by half the world. White That's right. It was exactly on the other side. But not exactly. It was about 120 degrees off. McDivitt Mine was something like this. One that I remember specifically--they gave me a map update and they wan…

CONFIDENTIAL you had to make your Medical Pass I woke you up. So I'd estimate that Jim got up around 6:55, just enough time to transfer the equipment to him and let him make his Medical Pass. McDivitt At 7:15 Greenwich Time I was supposed to eat. White Right. At 11:15 Greenwich T…

CONFIDENTIAL 203 McDivitt I have a list of notes here that say: Rev 12 was over the RKV where we were supposed to get the CLA's and PLA's. We did. Rev 13 was over Canary where we were supposed to have a C-Band track. I think that meant C-Band went to CONTINUOUS, but I'm not rea…

204 CONFIDENTIAL said all of the tape dumps to this time had been excellent. McDivitt At a GMT of 12 16 00 I got a comment: "No fuel, but do a Flight Track Orientation." This is like saying, drive from here to the drug store, but don't use any gasoline--and don't take the car.…

CONFIDENTIAL 205 dumps, medical data passes and that was about it. The next M-3 Experiments were all part of medical data passes. I don't even know why they're in the flight plan. White I couldn't figure that out either. McDivitt We did an HF Check. Check began at 16 58 30 G…

206 CONFIDENTIAL 20:15, up at 22:15, back at 23:15. These are Zebra times, I'm sure. So I don't know exactly what happened in there. White Well, you're clear over on 24 now. Okay, you've skipped the time when you were asleep. McDivitt That's right. I don't have anything on t…

CONFIDENTIAL 207 McDivitt It was no trouble. White It really worked. That was the one that I was probably most familiar with. It's such an obvious one. It's out in the middle of the desert and it's the intersection of the big Nile, where it junctions into two other sections,…

208 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt That's right. Okay, I think we've already covered our HF Checks, which were part of the regular flight plan. White Yes, we did that. McDivitt I said they were between 16 58 30 GMT and 19 07 00 GMT. White Right. McDivitt We scrubbed the Apollo L…

CONFIDENTIAL 209 McDivitt Yes. This is where we did D-9 in drifting flight only. White Yes, and again that was like taking the car out of the garage without gasoline. McDivitt All it amounted to was looking through the window and picking out two stars that you can see and t…

210 CONFIDENTIAL back to bed at 23:15." That's all Zulu time, but I don't see when he finally got up for the last time. White Maybe I've got it in here. McDivitt We had another map update in there but it's really not important. We scratched the Apollo Landmark Investigation-…

CONFIDENTIAL 211 for a period of about eight or ten hours. Then when I went to sleep the second time, we turned No. 1 on and No. 2 off, which is the way it should have been. But as soon as I woke up, we turned No. 2 on again and No. 1 off, because you were going to go to bed. No…

212 CONFIDENTIAL hours elapsed time says, "Prepare for S-6 Experiment, update D-8, MSC 2 and 3 on." Now I turned MSC 2 and 3 on again, about then. We did not do an Orbit Nav Check, Run 3, because we didn't want to use any fuel. We scrubbed Experiment D-8 and we were going to tur…

CONFIDENTIAL 213 McDivitt MSC 2 and 3 were supposed to go on at a GMT of 00:30, and you were supposed to control the spacecraft to BEF for that pass. White That's right, and we went with BEF for that pass, for MSC-2 and 3 Experiments. At 02:15 I was supposed to do D-8. McDiv…

214 CONFIDENTIAL were eating along in here and I can't tell you where we ate because we ate whenever we felt like it. White We always ate when we woke up and usually before we went to sleep. McDivitt That's right. That's when we were eating and that's when we had originally…

CONFIDENTIAL 215 gloves on. Remember? I kept turning on the double fans. McDivitt Even when you didn't sleep in that configuration, you got hotter when you slept than when you were awake, which is the reverse of what I figured it would be. I figured that when you slept, we'd w…

216 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt We didn't do any of the Orbit Nav Checks with fuel so it was just a matter if you could see the ground you did one. They called up some more S-6 information for me, but I wasn't to use any fuel on it. They said I was to pass Typhoon Babe at 06:06, poin…

CONFIDENTIAL 217 McDivitt Well, you weren't awake then. White What time was it, Jim? McDivitt It says 07 18 37. You should have been asleep then. I have in my notes that you slept to 08:15. White Well, I was like you were. I wasn't sleeping very good the last--quite often…

218 CONFIDENTIAL when we'll discuss the experiments, we'll comment on that. It looks like I was asleep here for awhile because I don't have any notes. White Okay. I have a set here. I was given the first time to take a look at some of the D-6 targets. I had No. 1, No. 12, and…

CONFIDENTIAL 219 actually looking at the camera when I was firing it, so I-- McDivitt Did you see anything in the ground glass? White Not very much. McDivitt Were you trying to track that way or were you just looking out the window. White No. Just looking out the window.…

220 CONFIDENTIAL and I didn't feel like zapping the spacecraft all around. We had some more updates, tape, and a medical data pass for myself at 45:45. We got the word to delete Translations 2-A. At that time they put in D-9--the first D-9 with fuel. McDivitt We also scrubbed…

CONFIDENTIAL 221 quite short. We were not able to see any stars so we weren't able to do much on that run at all. This is the time we knocked off any more day star sightings. McDivitt We were supposed to turn on MSC 1 and acq aid off for five minutes between Tananarive and Car…

222 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt We did the S-5 Experiment together and that was the best series of pictures we got on the whole flight. It was really fabulous. We got good pictures both for the S-5 and S-6 on this one. White They should really come out good. McDivitt I did the Ap…

CONFIDENTIAL 223 over it. I said, "I think there goes El Paso. I think we missed it." White The next thing we said was, "Yes, it is. There's Texas." We could see Corpus Christi coming up on us. That's where you took it. McDivitt That's right. So then I went to a tracking tas…

224 CONFIDENTIAL I had an airfield and I had a town so I-- McDivitt You took some fixed-mounted 200 mm pictures. White Yes. I took about two pictures of it. I couldn't take a series. I-- McDivitt That's right. You didn't have the gunsight to track with either. White No.…

CONFIDENTIAL 225 probably one of the weakest points in our flight planning--trying to get times correlated. McDivitt This correlation between one time and the other time is hard to handle. We were getting start times in GMT. We said that we wanted these start times in GMT beca…

226 CONFIDENTIAL you go back and start all over again. White Well, I'm not convinced that we couldn't have even handled this one on elapsed time. McDivitt We did. White Well, I mean let everything go elapsed time. Forget about your Greenwich Mean Time. McDivitt No. Whit…

CONFIDENTIAL 227 White At what time? McDivitt At 55:30 elapsed. White I've got them in Greenwich Mean Time here again. McDivitt That's around 22 or 23:00. Something like that. White Yes. I've got one. I did it at 23:58 GMT. McDivitt How did you do that? You were suppo…

228 CONFIDENTIAL the RCS heater troubles and we had them coming on for the next three to four hours. We had them cycled on and I called the times down. I don't believe we want to go over them all right now. I had them cycled on and off at intervals of about 15 minutes, for a tot…

CONFIDENTIAL 229 I had an HF Check at Ascension at 05:09, which didn't work out-- McDivitt How could I have a successful BM if I was asleep? White You had already had it. I reported it at that time. I wasn't able to read Ascension on this HF Check. I got the okay for an Apol…

230 CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt I got myself up around 65:40 something elapsed time. I just drew a mark there. White That's exactly where I've got you up--at about 65:40. McDivitt I got a comment here. This is something that went on throughout the flight. I went to sleep and I lo…

CONFIDENTIAL 231 in the system and this 2 per cent was, in general, about 7 pounds. That was really quite a bit of fuel. 4 percent was between 12 and 15 pounds, depending where you were on the scale. This was and awful lot of fuel to have suddenly disappear. I just wanted to com…

232 CONFIDENTIAL certainly could tell on the gage when it was going to vent. It vented right down there at about 960. McDivitt Yes. I thought we'd really hack that apart when we got to the systems. White Yes. All right. I wanted to be sure that we didn't forget it. McDivitt…

CONFIDENTIAL as a sequence of pictures every five minutes. The sequence is three pictures every five minutes, for as many passes as you can get. So you have to start this thing at sunup, or as soon as the hor- izon becomes light. We took our first three pic- tures. We went on th…

CONFIDENTIAL couldn't be run simultaneously! It looked like somebody with a little foresight on the ground could have seen this. White That was really the only bad screwup, I think, in our flight planning. It was right there. McDivitt I think so, too. So we terminated MSC-10,…

CONFIDENTIAL we eliminated the last two steps in it. We did the zero bank angle and the pitch up and down. We did the zero pitch angle and the roll left and right. We did the bank to one side and the pitch up and down, and we did the pitch up and the bank on both sides. We didn'…

CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt I hadn't gone to sleep on that one. White Before I went to sleep. McDivitt Before you went to sleep, yes. Okay D-9 -- White We were really busy at this period of time. McDivitt Yes, a D-9 at 20:51 Zulu. White I have a feeling I was asleep here, Jim. M…

CONFIDENTIAL nose down attitude, with a pitch up rate of about two degrees/second, in the Horizon Scanner Mode. The thing caught and held the spacecraft within the deadband and finally damped it down, and we stayed in the Horizon Scanner Mode. I think that this is about the time…

CONFIDENTIAL White What time do you have me waking up? I know about what time I woke up. McDivitt You woke up around 75:30 or so. I was going to do an Orbit Nav Check No. 10, and we were over the States. They wanted us to turn on the computer to send us a load, so I did. That's…

CONFIDENTIAL plan, 30 minutes to go from Guaymas back to Guaymas. That's a high speed orbit. White That's right. It does have that, doesn't it? Looks like a goof, doesn't it? McDivitt It only takes 40 minutes to go from Hawaii to Hawaii. We were really traveling! I don't know…

CONFIDENTIAL ran through this test and pitched up and ran through--. McDivitt The Contarex. White You used the Contarex. That's right. McDivitt We did this at about 78:30, and I went to sleep at 79-- White No, we didn't. We did this at 76:30, Jim. McDivitt 76:30? I have 78:…

CONFIDENTIAL I elected to make a similar pass through on the following orbit, watching the stars and making sure that I had a good small-end-forward. I found out that the first pass through was pretty good until the tail end, where I thought the stars were in the wrong position.…

CONFIDENTIAL White No, I was called and they said, "Say we got a critical tape dump. We want you in a level attitude for it." And I said, "Well, you just gave me instructions to watch Pegasus." And they said, "No, we want the critical tape dump." So I went right down to that att…

CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt Let me step back a little bit to this computer problem. The computer stuck over the States at around 75 1/2 hours or so. The computer was stuck on. If you've got to have something stick, you're better off to have it stick on, I guess, than off. Especially i…

CONFIDENTIAL it and it comes down and then just for the hell of it you pull it up again to see if it's going to come up. I don't think we should have ever turned off the computer. Unfortunate- ly, I didn't have all the information at my fingertips that I needed to really make a…

CONFIDENTIAL thing turned off and ruined, we went ahead and turned the IGS Power Supply on, the computer on, and left it on the rest of the flight anyway. So, whoever sent those instructions accomplished it. I guess what he wanted to do was turn off the computer. He sure accompl…

CONFIDENTIAL It's my best and last. You must have let me sleep till when? McDivitt I don't even have when I got you up, but it was about five or six hours. I think it was around six hours. White No, it wasn't that long, was it? Because that would have run us a little short. Yo…

CONFIDENTIAL I know I went to sleep at 93. I went to sleep in pm GMT and 15 after the hour, whatever the hour was, and I woke up again. During the time that Ed was asleep, I did two Apollo Landmark runs using Area No. 16 for the first one. This was on Basrah. It was a good run.…

CONFIDENTIAL McDivitt You were still asleep, and I think you got up around 92:30, I would guess. Sometime around in there. I know that I got up three hours before retrofire and I slept about an hour and a half. You can go back and say that you got up about 92:30 or 93 elapsed. E…

CONFIDENTIAL believe, and that's when I went to sleep. I woke Ed up and I went to sleep at this time. White Actually we got our update while you were asleep the time before. We got the update for how to perform the retro. We figured that with the procedure they gave us, if we f…

CONFIDENTIAL anything else. Nothing else was scheduled. We were down through what we felt was all the fuel we wanted to use, so about all I did was a couple of tracking tasks. McDivitt Going back for a moment-at 17:19 I did an Apollo D-6 on Yuma. Okay, I think that brings us to…

CONFIDENTIAL dent in the pile of junk that we had in the spacecraft. It was apparent to me at that time that we were going to have to go a lot faster than we were going or we'd still be up there stowing stuff away at retrofire time. So, Ed and I then went into high gear and we r…

CONFIDENTIAL wouldn't have. White That's right. We had to accelerate our pace a little bit and perhaps get a little faster and not quite as thorough in our stowage as we would liked to have been. I think everything was put away. Everything was put away except for the umbilical.…

CONFIDENTIAL We had that on the launch also. McDivitt The trash bag was full. White Did yours stick on the side? McDivitt It stuck. White So did mine. I put mine further up -- McDivitt It didn't have anything heavy in it. It was light weight. White It was all trash. McDiv…

CONFIDENTIAL ready strapped myself into the spacecraft. I had my survival gear hooked up, my shoulder harness hooked up and my lap belt on loosely. White We did the things that I could do by myself, such as stowing the ventilation module and stowing the cable. You were doing ot…

CONFIDENTIAL doing. McDivitt As we came up on Carnarvon, I thought that we were in excellent shape. We had a lot of spare time. We could get ready for retrofire. We came up to the United States and ran a pass across the United States. We got the update times and we got all the…

CONFIDENTIAL time, I copied it as 15:55, and the second time I copied it as 17:10. This was prior to firing anything, so I think they corrected one time only. I thought the rest of it was very well handled. We had the times called up and verified several times. McDivitt As we s…

CONFIDENTIAL plan at about 96:40 with the retrofire at about 97:45. I think we did the Retro Check- list right after we completed our pass across the States. We did it right at about 1+30. Then I did it at one hour. At T-1 hour we went through the checklist again, and got all th…

CONFIDENTIAL us on it. We could switch over to it quite quickly. This wasn't on the checklist, but we put my switch on RECORD and recorded the whole sequence of events. McDivitt That's right. I think that was sort of a needless position. You could listen on HF without having th…

CONFIDENTIAL checked the aft-firing thrusters No. 9 and 10 as we had in the TR-36 Checklist, except we did it between TR-45 and 40. Got them all checked out, so that by the time we came over Carnarvon we just went ahead and started up our event timer on their mark. We confirmed…

CONFIDENTIAL and they were operating properly. 5.2 TR-22 Events McDivitt At TR-22 I was alining the platform. I started alining the platform over the States, and I put it in Orbit Rate for a while. Finally we got over to the dark side and there wasn't anything else to do, so I…

CONFIDENTIAL checked it. I was exactly right. They were obviously flying it off the same card that we were, because I checked it and it was exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds. 5.4 TR-12 Events McDivitt Hawaii said they would give me a countdown to TR-12, and they gave me the 3,…

CONFIDENTIAL absence of noise from the aft-firing thrusters. I could hear the RCS firing, but I could not hear the aft-firing thrusters. White I could hear them. McDivitt You know how the "x" is like this? My ears were plugged up throughout the flight, so maybe you could hear…

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drift off just a slight amount, around a degree. It wasn't deviating a lot so I was making SMALL corrections. It would deviate in yaw so I would control it back. It tended to deviate slightly to the left all the time. I controlled it over to the right and I would bring the ball b…

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McDivitt Neither did I. I didn't hear a thing. I agree 100 per cent with Gus that you absolutely can't hear those aft-firing thrusters. White My ear muffs are loose. They are always loose on my ears. So if you could hear it outside, I would have heard it. I didn't hear it. I hea…

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McDivitt Well, not knowing exactly what I was doing with the hand controller, you--I was making SMALL corrections. White That's the first time I'd heard that kind of a sound. McDivitt We were getting it when we were chasing that thing around, too--when we were chasing the boost…

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first clue that the TRS was ahead of the ground time. White This is an area where I particularly watch the time. This is an area where I'm making a time check to start the elapsed timer going in order to get our time after retrofire. I was watching it pretty close. The indicatio…

267

bit early and that's where Ed got his first clue that the TRS was ahead of the other thing. I didn't notice it because I wasn't watching my event timer that closely. Ed got his GMT stop - watch started. Why don't you go ahead with the electrical, Ed? White I turned the main batt…

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other hand, it didn't seem to make the spacecraft roll either. Then I turned that ring off and went over and did it on the other ring. Identically the same thing happened. I thought I might have trouble with the roll gyro. I turned the roll gyro to SECONDARY. That didn't seem to…

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and looking out and actually seeing the nose of the spacecraft moving around out there. There's no comparison with the simulator. You just can't simulate this. When I looked down at the ball and did the retrofire, it was just like the simulator. When I was looking outside and act…

270

5.6 TR-1 Events McDivitt Yes. At TR-1 there wasn't really much that we could do in advance, but whatever we could do, we did. There weren't many steps. White We just waited for minus 1 minute. McDivitt All you have to do is really just prepare yourself mentally, but at TR-1 I…

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was gone. McDivitt That's when Ed hollered, "There go the pump packages! I see two pump packages out there. Just exactly what John Young said!" White They separate right off to the left side. Jim couldn't see them because of the position of his head. I could see them. McDivitt…

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want to punch it off ahead and have the retrorockets go off early, but I figured that it wasn't in a hurry that much. But if it came on much earlier than that, it was really going to make us short. So, I finally decided that we'd go ahead and arm the Auto-retro Button at about th…

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auto-retrofire. White Right. I did too. We went through the little discussion there from minus 30 down, and I knew what Jim's point was. I think I distrusted the system a tad more than Jim did, but I thought his logic was good. We had two systems working to fire the rockets. I w…

274

White I had also pushed the manual button on time. So, it was about a second after they actually fired. McDivitt Excellent. The spacecraft was in the proper retro-attitude and we got a real good push from the retrorockets. There are four distinct pushes, and I never felt a pause…

275

Your view of the ground is considerable at minus 30 degrees, and it did seem like I could see the spacecraft actually slow down. McDivitt I don't know what the magnitude of the g's was during retrofire. We were super-sensitive, I'll tell you that. We'll get to that later. As a m…

276

in CASE it looked like I was loosing control in yaw. He could turn off the roll rate gyro and get all the authority that I needed in yaw. As far as I could see, it never deviated more than a degree from where I was supposed to be. I don't think it ever got off that center bar in…

277

McDivitt I'll tell you. I was really happy after that OAMS retrofire and the retrorocket retrofire. I figured that we had exactly what we were supposed to, and I was positive we were going to come down on that cotton-picking carrier. I was really quite happy after that, because I…

278

McDivitt It was, and I was real sorry we didn't have a computer because after those two things, which I thought were done certainly as good as I could possibly do them. I felt sure that we could have landed right on the cotton-picking carrier's deck if we just had a computer to t…

279

McDivitt 1-100 psi? White Yes. McDivitt I'll tell you one thing about the out-the-window view at 30 degrees pitch-down attitude. You're really pitched down at 30 degrees. White That's another thing that I noticed. I was looking out the window, and I surely wasn't observing muc…

280

White I think you'd find a spot on the ground, and hold it. McDivitt Because the spot on the ground is going to move. White Yes, it's going to move during the fire. That's exactly what you do on an attitude ball, you know. You have a horizon and you have a spot and then you fly…

281

retrojett squib on, and I punched off the retro-- White The light came on and you punched it. McDivitt That's right. The light came on at 45 seconds and I punched it. There was a real solid bang, and I knew we separated from the retropack. No doubt there either. As we went on d…

282

McDivitt The update was awful, I think. As I mentioned earlier, they updated our TRS but the TRS was obviously not running with the ground. 6.0 REENTRY 6.1 Reentry Parameters Update McDivitt We really didn't have a reentry parameters update post-retro. We went into black-out p…

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over, because if we were going to be anyplace, we were going to be short. I just wanted to get over and get in a good attitude. So, I rolled the thing upside down, got the-- White One thing--on the Post-retro Checklist, we decided this time to use Reentry Rate Command rather tha…

284

6.3 .04 g White We didn't even have a time for .04 g's did we? McDivitt No. We didn't have anything like that. We started rolling reentry at 400 000 feet, except that I didn't start it until about 45 seconds after that to make sure that I had good attitude. I started the thing…

285

I didn't think there would be any aerodynamics at 400 000 feet. But it was turned around 180 degrees and was perfectly stable with the whip antenna sticking out, which at that time was up to the right. White Yes. McDivitt We were upside down. It sure was a funny looking sight.…

286

White Whichever way we saw it, it's on the tapes, because we discussed it pretty thoroughly. McDivitt That's right, as we were doing it. But I sort of vaguely recall that watching the retros after us as we spun around, it started glowing a little bit and then you could see this…

287

lower altitudes. McDivitt ... started glowing and burning and it was as stable as a rock as long as I could see it. Did you ever see it tumble? White No, never did. McDivitt Okay. It was behind us and it looked like it just ate the front tight off, and I guess when we first sa…

288

orange or pinkish flames coming out. It looked like the flame was coming up around my side of the spacecraft like this. Was it doing that on your side, too? White Yes. It looked like it was almost coming from three points. McDivitt Okay. Probably what it was doing was coming ar…

289

White It looked to me like we were getting a lot of lift out of it. McDivitt It looked to me we were getting an awful lot of lift out of it. White It was really whipping around there. McDivitt And we were going around at a pretty good rate. The needle was off to the left. That…

290

arc was that this thing cut out. That thing was a real lifting body. You're really getting a lot of lift initially, and if you roll around there, you'd kill it all off; and your aerodynamics is such that you really can't tell, because the stability is so loose right there. White…

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White I said, "Yes. There are two of them, aren't there?" McDivitt Yes, and then we waited a while longer and-- White I said, "Gee, there's nothing on the g-meter." McDivitt I said, "The g-meter must be broken ",so that's why I reached up and reset it. It actually went down a…

292

McDivitt So, we had 1/10 g and we thought we had 3. And we both felt this way. The g's went up to about 7 1/2. They told us we would probably get 8 g's coming down. When we got the instrument positions back from the spacecraft, the post landing switch positions, they had the g-me…

293 everything on the instrument panel, and I could see things very clearly outside. McDivitt Things were going so smoothly on the inside that I looked out too. I enjoyed the scenery on the way down. White Once you get in that position and you get the high g's you're no…

294 maybe this might associate itself in some way with something in the system prior. McDivitt I think it was prior, because we were in Reentry Rate Command and we started the roll. Then the yaw needle drifted on out and it looked to me like it never got over about 3 degrees/…

295 around like we did, if the thing were out at 3 degrees and started banging back and forth at all, the yaw thrusters would be on constantly; and also that's the side that they'd be on. It would have been on the right-hand side. Are you sure that it was red that high up, or di…

296 White It really had a good workout. 6.5 Spacecraft control McDivitt Spacecraft control was like a dream. A good engineering description. There weren't any oscillations. It was as stable as a rock. I don't think we need to say much more about that. It wasn't like any…

297 It went all the way back to about 96 000 feet again, and then it started down again. The second time it started down, it really started down in a hurry, and I was sure that we were still at 100 000 feet. McDivitt So, I waited until the g level got about 3, which is around…

298 White That's right by several orders of magnitude. McDivitt When we put the drogue chute out, we were concerned about the thing destabilizing rather than stabilizing. So I intended to put the drogue out and leave the control at Reentry Rate Command. This I did, and w…

299 magnitude. (McDivitt is making a noise to describe it.) McDivitt About like that. White I was really surprised the thing held on there, to tell you the truth. McDivitt So was I. I was expecting the drogue chute to fall off any minute. White I was, too. Whi…

300 and see if the thing was going to become unstable. This is what I did. I turned off the RCS electronics. The thing was that they didn't get any worse. It didn't get any worse. I watched it. I could see enough of it to tell that we weren't becoming unstable. White It wa…

301 drogue. McDivitt No, I don't think I did. White Okay. McDivitt I don't think I did. I think I left it in Reentry Rate Command until I turned it off and then turned off the power. I went from ACME to OFF on both rings. It didn't get any worse. I think what I might…

302 to let those things fire for a long time and maybe eat up the drogue chute, and find ourselves without propellant and without drogue chute, too. So, once we got the drogue chute out, I let the things fire for a while and turned the electronics off. Maybe I turned it back on…

303 could see that too well, could you? White No, I couldn't see the chute out. I saw it finally when it deployed. McDivitt I saw the thing hanging up there just the way it was supposed to, and then the thing dereefed, came billowing out just the way it should, and I sa…

304 They tried to communicate with us a couple of times after we came out of the blackout and before we put the drogue out. I didn't hear exactly what he was saying. He wasn't hearing anything I was saying either as far as I could tell. He wasn't acting like he heard what I was…

305 McDivitt I didn't want to trust that altimeter. Ed kept fooling around with that blood pressure without getting any air out of it, and finally I said, "Okay, Ed, we're going to go to two-point." I guess by then he had the blood pressure completed, White I think we go…

306 White I agree with you. I think we've got a good operational procedure of bracing your head on your arm up against the window--a satisfactory procedure for this. 6.11 Postmain Checklist Items White We took the blood pressure on the main chute, too. I went through…

307 right arm lift up and I saw him pull his left one up. McDivitt No, I didn't get my left one up. I made three passes and I said to heck with it. White I thought you got it. I struggled with mine and finally got it up. I had both of mine up, and you went on and comple…

308 turned off the IMU, the rate gyros, the horizon scanner, and those switches on the center pedestal. I didn't turn off any over on the left hand side except the Landing Attitude Circuit Breaker. White May I ask you a question? Did you think it was a shorter time from 75…

309 switches off and started turning off nonessential ones when you called out a thousand feet. McDivitt At a thousand feet I said to get ready to pull out the water seal. White That's right. McDivitt You got the water seal out at about 700 feet? White I pulled…

310 7.0 LANDING AND RECOVERY 7.1 Impact McDivitt We got down to about 300 feet, and I said, "I guess we ought to get ready for landing." But as John Young says, "How will you get ready for landing this thing?" So as he did, we just sat there, and we went through zero feet, I…

311 four days. I hadn't thought about this. McDivitt The last time that altimeter does me any good is when I go through 10 600. Well, I guess I use it down to about five or six thousand when I'm trying to get the two-point suspension. It's useful there, too. White It wa…

312 and tilted the thing up over the top. He said we were going blunt-end-forward, but we were actually tilted over the top. We then did a pitch_down maneuver about 180 degrees in the water. I was surprised that we were being dragged backwards, but I got the sensation that I was…

313 we would, but it really wasn't too hard. White To put everything in a comparison, the ride on the retro was more than I expected, the drop to a two-point suspension was less than I expected, and the impact was not as much as I had experienced on the drogue, but more th…

314 thing that I didn't do was to take my helmet off and stow it. I did get my arm restraints down. I didn't put my drogue mortar pins in until I was getting out, and I never did put my seat pin in. It doesn't say on the checklist to put it in. White I put your seat pin in…

315 I went through one call, and then I went through a short count on the HF. I heard nothing and received nothing from anybody else. This was about 5 minutes or so after we had been on the water that we actually made the HF check. Maybe it wasn't even that long. As soon as I go…

316 were 48 miles from the ship. Well, anyway, I was pretty sure we were 48 miles from the ship. Then I heard them calling back and forth saying the helicopters were only 15 or 20 miles away, and they were there in just about nothing flat. We had a good status report on where ev…

317 noticed the acrid smell that we were to have for the rest of the time we were out in the water. On the ECS system I could actually feel the relief that the pumps and the snorkel-open position were giving us. It did provide some flow. I really didn't think that the heat was o…

318 uncontrollable! Why don't you discuss the electrical. It was over on your side there, Ed. White Well, there wasn't really much to discuss about it. I turned off the No. 1 and 2 squib batteries and left No. 3 on and the main batteries on, and everything performed as des…

319 Anyhow, we had an extra one on, and it was stowed very neatly under a great deal of trash on the: right-hand outside stowage box; and I felt that we could more readily use the time of switching back and forth. So we switched the aeromedical adapter back and forth, and with t…

320 McDivitt We did a lot of work when we first landed. We were fiddling all over and getting things out of boxes and stuff like that. We probably did more concentrated manual labor in those first 5 minutes after we got on the water than we had done at any other time during th…

321 then, we never would have gotten it out. White But we turned the RCS thrusters off at about three or four thousand feet. So they definitely weren't on. McDivitt That's right. And we turned all the circuit breakers off on the RCS thrusters, so they shouldn't have bee…

322 McDivitt I had a couple of little holes right down at the bottom where I could see swimmers down there, and I could see the nose, but I couldn't see up at all. We were talking about the main chute there. I saw the drogue chute floating down right next to it-- drogue chute…

323

McDivitt We turned off all our electrical equipment and couldn't read the gages. We left the hatches CLOSED. We were in moderate seas, but I wasn't about to open those hatches up and take the chance of any water getting in that spacecraft. So we elected to stay in the spacec…

324

McDivitt We both took our gloves off to get the things out of the spacecraft that we wanted. I left my helmet on and Ed left his helmet off. When we got ready to leave, we decided that we would put our gloves back on, take our helmets off, put our neck dams on, inflate our M…

325

McDivitt Yes. 7.6 Post-Landing Activities McDivitt As I mentioned, we stirred around the cockpit and got out a bunch of little bitty things that we needed. We did a lot of work but we were doing all right. We got awfully hot. I guess we really can't say much about the post…

326

and 40 minutes. To me it was very clear. McDivitt It took Ed a long time to decide-- about two or three milliseconds. White That's right. I felt that I knew my buddy well enough and made the decision that we'd take the heliocopter pickup. I saw that he was actually…

327

White Very good sight. The best sight, boy, was seeing that yellow thing around the spacecraft. I guess I knew we were going to be able to file out pretty quick. 7.9 Egress McDivitt As I mentioned earlier, we had decided to go out with our gloves back on and our ne…

328

over the side. 7.10 Survival Gear McDivitt We didn't use any of our survival gear. We didn't pull it out. We just left it exactly where it was. I disconnected the lanyard so we wouldn't inadvertly pull it out. 7.11 Crew Pickup McDivitt As soon as Ed got into the lif…

329

I never knew they were so stable. McDivitt Yes. He must have had a good stabilization system. They got us picked up safe and sound.