MSC-07631 22. Flight equipment
[edit] 22.1 CSM
- Cernan
The event timers and controls worked excellently. There were no anomalies, no problems.
- Shepard
Did you have an LEB timer?
- Cernan
The LEB timer worked fine the whole flight. During launch, somehow the mission event timer on the main display panel got off. We reset it and it was fine throughout the mission. I don't know what happened during launch to cause that. We never received an explanation.
- Schmitt
That's good recollection. You're right.
- Cernan
Crew compartment configuration - As far as I'm concerned that is stowage and it was exactly as advertised. We had a few bags that blew up. Once we opened the compartments we couldn't get them back in. I had to stab holes in them, They happened to be the OPKs. I had to take my scissors and punch a hole in seven or eight or the OPKs in order to restall them. When Ron opened the compartment they just went, "plonk." Every one of them blew up. I took the scissors and went klonk, klonk, klonk, to let the air out. The only problem we had on stowage was the OPKs. The mirrors worked fine. The IV clothing and related equipment worked fine. If Jack and I had one request, it would be to carry one more CWG for cleanliness. Particularly when you come back from the LM as dirty as you are, we could have used one more CWG throughout the entire flight. We had no problems with the IV pressure garments and connecting equipment. Ron may want to mention the g-suit.
- Evans
The g-suit was a looser fit than it was when I took off which surprised me. I thought my legs would be fatter.
- Cernan
The couches - We got the center couch out and in with no problems. We got the YY struts connected and disconnected many times with no problems. The restraints worked fine. The inflight tool set was really never used except for tool B for the hatch work and tool E for all the continued panel work.
- Evans
The ones we used were good.
- Cernan
There are a lot of data collection systems. Every one of them that we used, whether it be pen and pencil in the Flight Plan or the DSE, appeared to be working nominal.
Thermal control of the spacecraft - Because of the lack of the PTC control on the way home due to the UV and the IR requirements, the spacecraft was in attitudes where I think it got very cold at times.
- Evans
It got cold and damp on the inside.
- Cernan
We transferred water from the overhead hatch to the forward hatch and the forward hatch started perspiring. We warmed the spacecraft up by manual setting of the temperature control inlet valve and putting the number 3 inverter on the line. It became very comfortable and we were that way for about 36 hours. Then went back to normal for the entry.
- Evans
Camera equipment was nominal. Everything worked real fine. I haven't seen any pictures yet.
SIM bay equipment - The only problem we had was extension and retraction of HF antennas. In all cases, we ended up eventually getting them fully extended and fully retracted. We never did get the retract barber pole on HF 1 throughout the flight. The ground was watching the motor currents and were able to tell when it was retracted. The ground never did get the barber pole indication either on the full retract of HF 1.
- Schmitt
I heard Gene say it took 2 or 3 days to get squared away on how to take care of yourself and your personal items. I didn't think it took that long, I think about a day is what you require. I think you should not completely program the first 2 or 3 days.
You ought to build up to a full flight schedule, for example on Skylab, over the first few days because of the variability in adaptation to the new environment. I think that organizing your an personal items does not take more than a day to really get into the swing of things. I tended not to wear the coveralls the first few days of flight. The first couple days or so I just wore the constant wear garment, but I gradually got in to where I wore the trousers and that was partly to have available the the pockets for odds and ends like PRDs. I felt no thermal discomfort just wearing the GWG until transearth coast when it got much cooler because of the variable PTC attitudes.
The lightweight headsets, I did not use very much until the last couple days of the flight, but when I used them they seem to be perfectly adequate. Ron has probably talked about the problem he had with the headset which I subsequently ended up using only as a cover for my head and used the lightweight comm carrier attached to it. Medical data seem to go fairly well; it was just a matter of keeping up to date. I did most of it on the translunar leg and Ron did most of it on the transearth leg. It varies whether we use negative reporting on food or positive reporting. It depends on what we've eaten and how much we've eaten.
Camera equipment, to our knowledge, in flight functioned very well. We understand that we may have had one jammed magazine EE, but at least it transported film for at least half a mag. At the window where most photography is being done, it's useful to have a camera configured for the anticipated type of photography that you would want. Lens configuration, f-stop, and shutter speeds - For the most part we kept the dark slide out of the camera for rapid access to pictures. That was in both transearth and translunar orbit operations.
The kitchen timer, the interval timer I guess it's called, was a very useful item. I had the feeling that it needed a little better time calibration on it. But in using it for the SIM bay operation, sometime you would like to have a little more accurate timing. There's also, I think, usefulness in certain places in the spacecraft to have hook Velcro as well as pile, because hook is useful for hanging up washcloths and other items that in themselves represent a pile configuration. We made considerable use of of the spring bungees stretched across the switch panels in order to not only control the data books that we're using but also to aid in biomed donning by putting all the gear in one spot with the bungee. Also, it was used during eating and to hold the various food packs. We tended to put the food Velcro next to the flight Velcro because it was of a superior quality.
The gray tape in the CSM is really useful only when you stick it to itself. It does not stick to spacecraft or anything else very well. We tended to save the food pack tape which is much better gray tape than the stowed tape.
We had an adequate amount of tissue, but I think had we had any more problem than we did with the loose bowel movements that we would have run out of tissue. I think you ought to consider that if there's any concern that we may not solve our problems of loose bowel movements that, in Skylab, there should be some way to stow a considerable amount of extra tissue.
I think we had just the right amount of towels. It gave us the option of cleaning up at times and not being concerned about using dirty towels several times.
[edit] 22.2 LM
- Cernan
Crew compartment configuration on the LM was as the mockup configuration and as advertised. There were no problems, throughout storage or unstorage. Restraint systems were used for descent and ascent. They worked fine. We used no tools in the LM that I can recall. Our camera equipment had only one anomaly that I know of. A 16-millimeter camera failed to start during ascent. The LMP tried to start the camera in 12 frames per second. He couldn't start it. He had to hold it and it would run in 24 frames per second. He'll have to describe the details. It did run by itself 12 frames per second later. So we might have to go back and make a check and pick up with Jack on that camera.
- Schmitt
The LM crew compartments was fine. We had no trouble except in one incidental case in finding the gear. The restraint system I used during descent and ascent worked fine. We had all the tools that we needed; of course, we didn't need any to speak of. We got by with one pair of scissors both for the cabin and surface operation for the obvious reasons that one had disappeared in the command module.
Again the same comment is that in the LM the gray tape was not adequate.
Camera equipment in the LM was more than adequate. We brought back the CDR surface camera and that was used during the rendezvous for air-to-air pictures and also for air-to-ground pictures and it was used for LM magazines in the command module until we had used up all the LM film that had not been used on the surface for lunar orbit operations. Only half a mag of black and white film was available for use during the post-rendezvous period. I think we used just about every frame of film that was reasonably available to us in the flight. We used all the LM film but maybe half a mag of black and white and half a mag of color prior to lift-off. By the end of the rendezvous sequence, we had used up all the color; and then by the end of our TEI, we used up the rest of the black and white for target-of-opportunity pictures. I think it's a serious mistake not to do everything possible to stow more film than you need. We had just the right amount of film. We were conservative about, film usage but not generally conservative. We took all the pictures we wanted. The crew just shouldn't be reluctant to take pictures because that's the prime mode of documentation.
Edits and errors by Eric Hartwell are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. The original NASA material is copyright-free.