MSC-07631 26. Mission control

Cernan

I think the GO/NO GOs and the performance of the CAPCOMs was outstanding. They gave us each GO, both CM and LM. There were no NO GOs, so we received all GOs. Everything was nominal. We received our updates on time. I don't think there was any concern or problem there. Consumables in both vehicles were nominal or better than nominal.

Oxygen - We had plenty of oxygen in both vehicles.

Electrical power - We had plenty of electrical power in both vehicles.

The RCS fuel in the service module was well above the red line for the entire first part of the mission and at or above the red line the last half of the mission. We went in on double ring in the command module and we couldn't have used very much.

Evans

I used more fuel than I would have in the simulator because there were always some rates; cross coupling in pitch and yaw in the command module RCS.

Cernan

LM RCS - We landed with more RCS than I'd ever seen in simulator, well over 80 percent, which made me feel good.

DPS propellent - We landed with between 7 and 9 percent, which is far more than I'd ever seen in the simulator.

SPS fuel - I think came out just about right on the money. We did not make any SPS midcourses on the way home and we had about 3 percent in each side.

The key to the Flight Plan and the key to a smooth operation of the SIM bay in lunar orbit with all three individuals in the spacecraft was the fact that real-time changes were held to a minimum. The Flight Plan was so well thought out and was working so well that real-time changes were very simple, explicit, and not time consuming.

Evans

It was an outstanding way to run a flight. Communications were always good.

Cernan

The only communications problem we had in the LM was right after ascent when we lost the high gain where the ground could hear everything we said. We had a lot of noise and static in the background and we could not hear anything that the ground said until about 3 minutes into the flight.

Schmitt

Typically outstanding support. The number of extracurriculum hours the LM people and the EECOMs for the CSM in particular put in with me on Saturdays and other times just talking over systems, techniques, and mission rules were a major factor in helping me understand and keep up to speed. The help that they gave me in designing the emergency cue cards for the LM was a major contribution although we did not use them. Had we required them I think it would have gone very well. I want to point out that Dick Thorson was instrumental in organizing the LM and joint CSM/LM sessions. He was a major organizer for the creation and the updating of the emergency cue cards.

It was my understanding that some of the things I had hoped could be done during the flight were not possible because of real-time discussions in the Mission Control. Specifically, one of those things was to have a summary of the thinking of the science personnel in the back room given to me while in flight. The thinking was to be based on the data that we had transmitted to them verbally and visually through the television camera. I had hoped that I would have the benefit of their thinking, but apparently this was not possible.

I would like to think that in the future we can look at ways of using the team approach to science investigations in space rather than depending solely on the observational capability and the interpretative capability of the men who are performing the job. There is no reason that I can see not to use all the brain power that is available at any given task, and part of that brain power is on the ground.

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.