Apollo 17 1.1 Launch part 1

Apollo 17 1.1 Launch part 1
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Corrected transcript and commentary by Eric Hartwell licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

  • April 6: second pass, AS17_CM tape 17-3409

[edit] Preparation for Launch

[ The last Apollo mission was the first Saturn V launched after dark. As dusk approached, thousands of cars poured across the causeways leading onto Merritt Island. In front of the headquarters building, children threw footballs while the parents talked and listened for the progress of the countdown. The December weather did justice to Chamber of Commerce claims; in the mid-80s during the day, the temperature was 72 degrees at launch. Moonport ]


Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) [For] a night launch we had to adjust our sleep cycle and basically turn it by twelve hours. We did that over a period of about two weeks. We'd just go to bed an hour earlier, and get up an hour earlier every day for two weeks until we were on the flight plan schedule. Everybody had to do it. It wasn't just us, it was the simulators, everybody was operating on a different schedule to be prepared for what the flight plan was going to require, and that was a night launch. So we had breakfast, I guess, mid-afternoon of launch day.

Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) I had gone out the night before to see the rocket illuminated by the searchlights. That is sort of a tradition that I inherited from Bill Anders. He took me out for Apollo 8 the night before launch, and it's really an amazing sight, that Saturn V illuminated. Of course, at that point we could get ourselves in very close just because of who we were, and so you had a view that very, very few people, other than the pad technicians, ever got of the Saturn V.

Ron Evans shakes hands with Deke Slayton during suit-up for launch.
Ron Evans shakes hands with Deke Slayton during suit-up for launch.
Gene Cernan suiting up before launch
Gene Cernan suiting up before launch
Alan Shepard jokes with Jack Schmitt during suit-up.
Alan Shepard jokes with Jack Schmitt during suit-up.
Gene Cernan (foreground), Ron Evans (middle distance), and Jack Schmitt (back) during suit-up for launch. Alan Shepard is standing at the left.
Gene Cernan (foreground), Ron Evans (middle distance), and Jack Schmitt (back) during suit-up for launch. Alan Shepard is standing at the left.
Jack Schmitt undergoes final spacesuit pressure checks. 72-HC-880 ...
Jack Schmitt undergoes final spacesuit pressure checks. 72-HC-880 ...
Ron Evans relaxes during pre-launch spacesuit pressure checks. 72-HC-879 ...
Ron Evans relaxes during pre-launch spacesuit pressure checks. 72-HC-879 ...


Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) When we were suiting up and getting ready to go out to the launch pad, Ron Evans had his last cigarette just before he put on his helmet. We kept after him all during the flight that he had to take advantage of this now, he's going to have two weeks' cold turkey and he shouldn't pick it up again. He resisted for about two more weeks after we got back, but, unfortunately, he started to smoke again after that time.

Gene Cernan waves to well-wishers on the walk to the elevator that will take the crew down to the transfer van. (more ...)
Gene Cernan waves to well-wishers on the walk to the elevator that will take the crew down to the transfer van. (more ...)
Gene Cernan stops a moment with his wife and daughter during the walkout to the van that will take the crew from the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building to the pad for launch. KSC Security Chief Charlie Buckley is on the right. 72-H-1517 ...
Gene Cernan stops a moment with his wife and daughter during the walkout to the van that will take the crew from the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building to the pad for launch. KSC Security Chief Charlie Buckley is on the right. 72-H-1517 ...
Gene Cernan waits at the transfer van while Ron Evans says goodbye to his wife Jack Schmitt and Alan Shepard are behind Evans. 72-HC-881 ...
Gene Cernan waits at the transfer van while Ron Evans says goodbye to his wife Jack Schmitt and Alan Shepard are behind Evans. 72-HC-881 ...


Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) Once we got out of the suit room, all the technicians and all the support people were in the hall wishing us well as we got on the elevator. When you see the movies of it, it looks like we were having a good time and that's what I remember that we were having. Of course, we couldn't talk to anybody. We had the helmets on, we were pre-breathing pure oxygen, and so that went all the way down in the elevator, out into the van.

Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) Al Shepard was waiting for us to escort us out to the van. Charlie Buckley was there, too, the former head of security at Kennedy Space Center. I pretended that I was trying to get back off the bus, I remember, and you'll see that in the film. Suddenly my head will appear back in the doorway and Charlie sort of pushes me back in. So it was a little joke that he and I had on each other.

Schmitt: (Oral History 2000) But after that, it was pretty uneventful. You don't have a good view of the launch pad going out there. Everything went really just as one would have planned it, as we went out the elevator and out on the catwalk and met the white room crew. Guenter Wendt was waiting for us, as he waited for everybody. They strapped us in and closed it off.


Close-out team members wish Gene Cernan well in the White Room. KSC-72PC-627 ...)
Close-out team members wish Gene Cernan well in the White Room. KSC-72PC-627 ...)
Ron Evans in the White Room with close-out team members, preparing to enter the Command Module for launch. 72-HC-892 ...
Ron Evans in the White Room with close-out team members, preparing to enter the Command Module for launch. 72-HC-892 ...
References:

    This is NOT the official Apollo 17 Flight Journal (yet)

    This site documents my research on the flight of Apollo 17. Once I'm satisfied the material here is documented and reasonably complete, I'll submit it to NASA for review, and, I hope, as my contribution for when they create the real Apollo 17 Flight Journal. The NASA History Division publishes the only official Apollo Flight Journal; I owe a huge debt to Eric Jones and his superb Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, and David Woods and Frank O'Brien for the Apollo Flight Journal. Additional Apollo Journal content, by Jones, Woods, O'Brien, Ken Glover, Joseph O'Dea, Kipp Teague, Lennie Waugh and Robin Wheeler, is reproduced by permission. The NASA material used here is not protected by copyright unless noted. New material by Eric Hartwell is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
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