Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing Part1 1965

DECLASSIFIED Authority: 82 NW 91526 CLASSIF!CAT:ON CHANGE I o_ _ __ 38 By authority of--~4,...L.11.1-...___.~~L--L-....t.-e=---1 hanged by U~1:i:.~1 LDate 1973 42, /0 0 / /4- PRELIMINARY GT- 4 FLIGHT CREW DEBRIEFING TRANSCRIPI' PART I Prepared By Spacecraft Operat ions 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 Espionage Laws , Title 18 . U. S . C Section 793 and 794 , the transmission or revel a ­ tion of which in any manner to an unaut horized person is prohi bi ted by law . f I Group 4: Downgr ade at 3 year intervals Declassified after 12 years NOTICE: This document may be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of lnfor• rnation Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for Its ra• lec1~e to persons outside the U. S. Government should be handled under the provisions of NASA Polley Cir-ecti11e 1382.2, COI\JFIDENTIAt 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 preliminary transcript by mission analysis personnel precluded a thorough editorial review prior to its publication. Errors in this transcript will be corrected as soon as possible and an official transcript will be published at a later date. This document contains a transcript of the first part of the debriefing, during which the crew described the mission generally from an operational viewpoint . A preliminary transcript of the re­ mainder of the debriefing will be published by June 23, 1965. It will cover systems operations, operational checks, visual sightings, experiments , pre-mission planning, mission control, and training. TABLE OF CONTENTS Paragraph 1. 0 Page Number COUNTDOWN 1 . 1 Crew Insertion . ... ................... . . . 1. 2 1. 3 Cornmlll1ications . . . . . ............... .. ... . 1.4 Comfor t . ....................... . .. . 1 .. .. 2 .............. -..6 .7 1. 5 Environmental Control System .................... ' ..... . ,9 Crew Participation and Countdown .... 1. 6 Sounds ...... . 1 . 7 Vibrations .. . 1. 8 1.9 2. 0 .... 11 . ... 13 . ... 13 Visual .. . ....... .. . Crew Station Controls and Displays .1 5 POWERED FLIGHT Lift- Off Cues 2. 2 Roll Program 2. 3 Pitch Program ... . 2. 4 Aerodynamics .... . 2. 5 Environmental Control System 2. 6 Maximum g ....... . 2. 7 Windshear ...... . . 2. 8 DCS Update 2. 9 Engine 1 Operation ..... 2. 10 Engine 2 Status .. . 2.11 Accel eration g's .. . 2. 12 BECO ........ . ...... . 2. 13 Staging . . . ...... . 2. 14 Engine 2 Ignition 2. 15 RGS Initiate .... . 2. 16 GO/NO GO . ............. . 2.17 Systems Status ........ . 2. 1 ....................... 17 ..... 19 20 . .... "" ............... 20 • • M • • ....... 21 . ...... 21 ........................ • • • • • • • M. • 22 . 22 .23 . ........ 2 3 . ........ 24 .. .................... 25 . .. 25 ... .... ...... .... ' .... 2 . 18 Acceleration ................... . 2.19 SECO. ....... . ...................... ... 26 . .. 28 . ..... 28 . .. .. 31 . .... 31 2. 20 Steering ....................................... . . . .... 32 3.0 INSERTION 3.1 Post- S.EDO •... 34 3.2 SECO + 20 Seconds .. 35 3.3 Insertion Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 ................ ORBITAL FLIGHT 4. 1 Sta ti on- Keeping ....... .... .. ......... . 4.2 Extravehicular Activities ............ . .......... ... 50 . ......... - .. 87 Ot her Orbital Opera tions Preretro Preparations ... 5 .0 6. 0 REI'ROFIRE 5.1 T - 36 Events ... . 5. 2 ~ - 22 Events .. . 5. 3 :5:i- 13 Events 5.4 :5:i- 12 Event s ... . 5. 5 !R- 5 Events .. . ........ . 5. 6 ~R: 1 ~eennttss • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 5. 7 iir.: 0 .c, v •••••••••••••••••••• 5 . 8 Ret r opack Jettison ........... . 5. 9 Communicat i ons ... . ........... . ..... 250 .... 273 . ... 280 .••• 281 .•••• 282 400 K .................. . . .... 282 0. 4 g ................ . Accelera tion Profile Spacec raft Contr ol ........ . . . .. 284 ..... 290 100 000 Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... . .... 296 ...... 296 50 000 Feet ............. . Main Chute Deployment . . .. •.. 299 . ...... 302 CommUJ1ications . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Singl e- Point Rel ease .... 6. 11 Pos t main Checkli st Items LANDI NG AND REDOVERY Impact ...... . 7.1 7. 2 Checklists 7. 3 Communi ca tions ... 7.4 Systems Configuration 7. 5 Spacecraft Sta tus ...... . .... . 7.6 Post- Landing Activiti es ..... . 7. 7 C·omfort ............... . 7. 8 Recovery For ce Personnel 7.9 ..... ~86 . . ............ 259 . ... 260 ... 260 .. 26 1 . ... 265 .... 270 REENTRY 6. 1 Reentr y Parameter Update 6. 2 6. 3 6.4 6. 5 6. 6 6. 7 6. 8 6. 9 6.1 0 1.0 ......... Egress ......... . .. . 7. 10 Survival Gea r ..... . 7. 11 Crew Pi ckup ......... . . .... 303 . ........... . .... 305 ......... ·• ....... 306 ... 310 .. 313 ... 314 ..................... 316 . ............ 320 . ............... 325 . .. . .. .... ... 325 .. 326 . . 327 ...• 328 . ....... 328 CO ►~FIDE►~TIAb. 1.0 COUNTDOWN 1.1 Crew Insertion 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 doesn't go out. McDivitt We did have a problem with crew insertion on the Wet Mock and I think we had that probably pretty well taken care of. They put us on the suit loops and didn't turn the fans on. Normally you wait for a clearance from the 1:t>acecraft Test Conductor before you throw any switches. Well, after we almost "died" of carbon dioxide poison­ ing during this +,est~ we got this clarified. matter As soon as we got in the spacecraft and one of us was on the suit loop, we would go ahead and cut the switches on to put us on two White fans. We did this during insertion in the Wet Mock. It really went well. We really went for a long time in Wet Mock. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to open my visor. I was really uncomfortable. COt74 FIDEt~TIAsb- 2 McDivitt But everything worked out okay on this one . White Yes. McDivitt The timing was excellent , I thought . I didn't think we had any prob l em at all . White No. I don ' t believe they missed a stroke on the insertion. 1 . 2 Communications White I think the communications were pretty well worked out, Jim? McDivitt Right . One thing, the last three minutes or four minutes, we got a little confused about who was talking to who . I was getting the Spacecraft Test CJnductor , the Booster Test CJnductor and the CAP COM at the same time . White We got a split count , too, on lif't--off. McDivitt The f irst three or four minutes I was hearing the B)os ter Tast C?nductor . I heard what was going on on his loop , and I was listening to him get checks in f r om all of the guys . I really wasn ' t getting a clue a s to what was going on . I was supposed to be getting the booster clues from the test conductor . I was supposed to find out when the engines were going to gimbal and when they -€9·NFl9E~TIA;t COl>J~IDENIIA~ 3 were going to open the prevalves and stuff. wasn't getting it from him . I We were getting a lot of other information that made a lot of sense to the Booster Test C :>nductor, but not an awful lot to us . There were cal l - outs l ikeVSequence 05003 complete." Well, thi s just didn' t mean any­ thing to us . On top of this we had the Spacecraft ~es t Conductor calling out the times , and super­ imposed on all of this was Al Shephard , the Cape CAP COM , calling out events that he was reading off that went on at certain specified times . He called out','Stage 1 prevalves Vand we could hear the fue l gushing downstairs and the whole booster rumbling. He called out ','Stage 2 prevalves','and you could hear the same thing all over again. I thought t hat was a lot more meaningful than the test conductor comments. White I think that was wrong, the way they were doing it . I think we weren't supposed to be on any loop except CAP COM at that time . McDivitt Well, I think what happened was that we got this thing over-coordinated. Al was going to give us all this information, but then as a result of GT-3, (Gus and Jolm said they didn ' t get enough -t:ON FI0 Er\JTl~L r<3 e I<i Flt Et>I TI Rt 4 information about the boosters) they put this in­ formation on the test conductor ' s loop too . ha.d too many guys talking . We I think if just CAP COM talked from thr ee minutes on down we would be all right . White This is the way I thought it was going to happen, and then from three minutes on down it really got busy with the yak , yak, yak of everybody talking . McDivitt I don't lmow whether we got off the Booster ~st C)nductor's loop or not, but at final countdown , 2 minutes , 1 1/2, 1, 30 , 20 , 10 , 9 , Al gave me 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 , 1 . I got a similar count from the Spacecraft Test C~nductor but it turned 01 ·. t that they were a second out of sequence on the countdown and Al was giving me 10 and our Spacecraft Test Conductor was giving me 9. went ten- nine , nine - eight, eight - seven . were at the same t ime . So it They All I knew was that we were getting close to engine ignition and then it started . So , we got a little over-communicated there . I think t hey kept us adequately informed on the hold . As a matter of fact , I ' d say we got over- informed there at the end . We had too many guys keeping us informed and I t hink the pendulum <Ol<:JFIDel'4TIAl 5 swung from the GT-3 flight where nobody got in­ formed of anything over to our flight where we got i nformed by three different people about the same event . White On our flight, too, we were really more aware of t he problem than those people were. We could sit right here and see the gantry come down and stop, that was r eally the only problem they had in the whole count . McDivitt I don't think radio discipline is a problem, Each guy was disciplined on his own channel . They were conducting their tests on their own channel . But we were lis tening to three different communica­ tors at the same time. one . We should have had only I think probably what we will need to do is to get to about T-3, and then just cut in the CAP COM. White That was the way it wa.s planned to be, I thought . That's the way Al planned it. McDivitt That's correct. I think, because there had been some lack of information on GT-3, that it some­ how had been written into the SEDR so that we were also on the Booster Test Conductor 's MOPS, so that we were also getting his countdown. COrq--pf0f:Nfl1tt I 6 think CAP COM, 'alone, would have been sufficient . One further comment , I had to turn my ·11HF volume all the way up to hear anybody . I was at max . There we were sitting right on the pad , talking to a gu:y two miles away, and there I was with the volume full up . It didn ' t give me much confi ­ dence as to reception I was going to get when I was 200 miles away , or three or four or five hundred miles away . I thought that the volume control on the radio was inadequate. White We were wondering what we were going to have when we got up a hundred miles . McDi vitt That's right. At max volume we didn't have enough and at minimum volume it didn't shut it off. We will cover this later. 1.3 Crew Participation and Countdown McDivitt I think it was just about right . I don' t think we were over worked and I think we had enough to do to keep us busy. White Actually, all we really made was a check of switches . There wasn ' t really too much else . Having the back-up crew run that midcount was the the right solution. I wouldn't have wanted to participate in anymore of t he countdown than I -COt<JFtDEt'4flJ<l €O ► 4FIDE ► ~TI/>,~ 7 did. McDivitt 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 cedure. 1.4 Comfor t White Initially, the first 20 or 30 minutes, I was squirming around and I felt a little uncomfor­ table. But after I had been in for 30 or 40 minutes I didn't feel there was a real restric­ tion on staying for several more hours. I would have been very disappointed if they had said, "Well you have been in there long enough and we will work on this gantry and try it again tomor­ row." I would have been happy to stay there several more hours while they fixed the gantry instead of pulling me out. After an hour and 40 minutes,which is the end of the normal countdown,I didn't feel uncomfortable. We sat in the simulator and were a lot more un­ comfortable than this. table. I didn't feel uncomfor­ I had a chance to take a couple of little CO ► 4FIDE~~TIA~ COl'IFIDE~4TIAt 8 McDivitt naps . I noticed Jim was napping too . Yes . I concur with F.d, although I don't want to get carried overboard. We shouldn't scrub due to crew fatigue . White I think it is up to the crew. If the crew is un­ comfortable they should come down. But I don't think he should say, "Okay, two hours and 30 minutes . You cut this off. ", because it is an operational procedure. McDivitt When I first got assigned to the crew I always fe l t one of the toughest things to do would be laying back for an hour and 40 minutes or so prior to launch . The time we spent in the simu­ lator laying on our back, I thought to be a very uncomfortable position. As we went through all the training and testing at McDonald , and again at the Cape , ;ny back got more callouses on it. I got used to laying with my feet over my head . At launch time I wasn't a bit tired from laying on my back . White This is brought out in one of our last simulations , where we ran the whole four hour simulation and we forgot to have them tilt us up to 30 degrees. We just got used to running that way, COl"I P"te E~~Tl,\l €Otr4FIDEttftAl McDivi tt 9 That ' s right, I just don't think we should scrub the flight because of fatigue.I don ' t think we should do that. White We weren ' t approaching this point. We had a long way to go. 1 . 5 Environmental Control System McDivitt I think we ought to get this water management panel squared away and everybody figure out what we are supposed to do with those switches. I don ' t think we should be arguing about where the switches are supposed to be on the launch pad. If I hadn't asked somebody where the waste manage­ ment switches should be we would have probably launched with it in · EVAPORATOR. I knew that i t wasn't supposed to be in the evaporator . At one of the ten thousand briefings we got on it, we were told it shouldn't be there . We ought to get· this kind of stuff squared away before launch day. Thirty minutes before lift-off we were arguing about where that switch was supposed to be. White I wasn't confident that they knew where they wanted that switch to be. McDivitt Well, I didn ' t think we should have it in the eva­ porator. So, I think that water panel could have cost as much as a wee~s slip on our launch because coNFIDENTIAt- 10 €01'1FIE>Et<ITtAt they didn't know where to put those valves and it's only got three valves on it . made much simpli er than it is . It ought to be I think they should get that squared away before the next flight. F,d and I knew where we wanted it. We wanted it off and the other two switches in NORMAL and leave it alone . with . White That's what we flew That's the way it ough t to be fixed . We can get canned , though, for not flying with it in the right position by the checklist . didn't say that on the checklist It Every check list we got was different . McDivitt That ' s right! Fach one was different . Fi nally we decided we were going to do it as w.e did and left it thr ough out the whol e flight . thing worked fine . We had ECS briefings by a mul titude of peoples from MAC guys who designed it. agreed , Evel;'y­ including the Everyone of them dis­ It probably started out to be one of the simplest things in the whole spacecraft . By the time they got t hrough confus ing us with it, I got the feeling nobody knew what was s_i,,.pposed to happen to it . I consider this the most danger­ ous of all. '€ 0 l<I F' IE> Et-q ftAt 11 White I was convinced of that, too, after the mix-up in putting all the water in the lithium hydroxide tan.ks. McDivitt There would have been about a 30 minute four-day mission. McDivitt The people that built the thing don't know how it is supposed to go . They had better decide this and let us know. I felt that George Roe at the Cape knew what was going on except the Cape personnel got the valves in the wrong position and almost lost the lithium hydroxide canister full of water with no water in the tanks. I ' m not pointing a finger at George Roe • I think he' ·s pret.ty knowledgeable about the system.. Maybe somebody just wasn't following directions. But somebody ought to find out about the water management system and make it clear to everybody how it is supposed to be operated. 1.6 Sounds McDivitt You can hear the prevalve~ both first and second s tages. The prevalves and the fluid gushing are very loud noises comparable to the engine gim-baling. I wasn't really aware that they were going to be that loud. C-0t~FIDf~qflAb ~ 'COI\IFIDE~◄ llAl 12 White I got that feeling when I read Gus and John ' s debriefing . McDivitt Did you? I didn't . I got the impression that it was going to be a much quieter noise . White McDivitt Well, the whole noise level of the engine girnbal­ ing was louder than I thought it was going to be. It surprised me . Yes . Engine gimbaling was much louder than I heard before . We heard this during Wet Mock and during precount and at midcount. You can hear those engines gimbal around; they really shake t he spacecraft . But, I really wasn't prepared for the big noise that the prevalves make, and such a long noise as that fuel gushed down to the bottom. I guess that was what it was. I didn't like t he sounds and vibrations we got when they raised and lowered the gantry. White It shook the whole spacecraft . McDivitt It shook the whole spacecraft--did you notice how it never came up straight? The spacecraft was supposed to line up kind of like this and then wham! I had visions of them knocking us off and laying us flat on the ground before we were launched , co~,Fl0Et'4TIAI: 13 cor:,-~FIDEl'~TIA I 1 , 7 Vibrations White Those are closely associated with the sounds. McDivitt Yes . I think that the engine gimbaling makes a tremendous vibration in the spacecraft and pre­ valves on opening and make a tremendous vibration. The gantry going back and forth vibrated the spacecraft. I don ' t think there is anything else , do you? White No. 1,8 Visual White Well, you can sure see the gantry lower and the whi te room disappear. That is about all you can see besides the sky. McDivitt That's pretty impressive. That's when I sort of got excited,when the gantry went down. That ' s a new realm. White I thought they were going to launch me. McDivitt You're sitting there by yourself then, instead of all those people milling around. I do want to make one other comment on this visual thing . We did Wet Mock about one or two o'clock in the afternoon. The sun was shining right in the window, almost straight down, such that the sun came across my visor from about just at the GOt~FIDEMTIM t:Ol-<IFIDEt'4T IAt 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 . ~ose first few seconds there are extremely cri­ tical on launch. You have to be able to see those tank pressure We ought to keep this in sages . mind for those late afternoon launches . White That is a problem , but the g loads are so small at this time you could a l most forget ab1ut look­ ing up . McDivitt Did I fly like this for awhile during l aunch? White I don't think so but you could have, The g load is so small. McDivitt I'm not sure whether I did or not. White "'his is what we had to do during Wet Mock. We had to put our hand up and cover the window to look down at our instruments to see them , McDivitt I 'm not sure I didn ' t launch that way . White I wouldn't be surprised if you did . McDivitt I don't think I launched that way, but as we tilted over and we got in the sun, I think I put my hand up for awhile . COMftDEl'1 I IAI. 15 White Well, if the g's are so low that-- McDivitt When sun gets in your face you can't see the in­ strument panels because they are just too dark . White The sun gets in your eyes. The point that Jim was making is towards a late-in-the-day launch, which we might have later in the program , there might be a bit of a problem of seeing the instru­ ments during launch. Unless they put something up, which I really don't think you want to d~ You are just going to have to put your arms up and shield the sun out and concent~ate on your in­ struments or you won't see them . They are just gone. There is probably a point even in an early morn­ ing trajectory as you start to pitch over where the sun will come right in your window and you won't be able to see your instruments unless you shield your eyes. 1,9 Crew Station Controls and Display White I found the switches all where they were supposed to be and the cockpit all set up. McDivitt So did I, except the comment I made on the water management system. They didn't have the control where it was supposed to be. At least, they had 16 ~CNFIOEt~TIAt 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 fo r us . Every­ thing was ready to go when we stepped in. That ' s the way it should be. COl<:tll10E~4TIA L €Ot◄ Fl9ENllAl 17 2.0 POWER FLIGHT 2.1 Lift- Off Cues McDivitt CAP COM gave lift-off, about as good a cue as you can get . White Wasn 't any question either. Boy, you could feel the first little motions of the booster as it went up . McDivitt It was really great! I think you could feel the acceleration at re­ lease. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that we were loose. White That 's right. I don't know if I could feel the bolts or hear them . McDivitt As a matter of fact, it seemed to steady out a little bit. The vibrations seemed to decrease a little. Pretty impressive! Not much vibration at lift-off. White Very low. Very low. I got vibrations later on , though, didn't you? McDivitt Yes . Noise. There wasn't much noise, was there? White No. There was less than I had expected. McDivitt Noise wasn't a cue to lift-off. Noise was there 18 if you were bolted down all day long. I don't think the noise changed a bi t at lift- off. White You could see the visual cues out the window . You were watching your gages, Jim . McDivitt Were t here clouds out there? White No, but I could see it in the clear blue sky. McDivitt Could you? White Yes . I could see the motion. McDivitt Okay . Wel l, I couldn't. White I was looking out , McDivitt I saw a little cloud go by and then I didn ' t see any more clouds at all, White It was beautiful! McDivitt The event timer s t a rted just like it should, Of course , that 's the best display inside the space­ craft for lift-off. The event timer starts , and it did, White We got both clocks started with the t ime hack. had a watch hack on lift-off and the ... going. I handle I knew when the engine ignited , within half a second accuracy. Three seconds later I was waiting for the lift-off and it came right at three seconds , McDivitt We could tell ignition , too . '€0 ► ~FIDEJ>1TJAL We could hear the 19 things go. White I agree with you. I knew we weren ' t going to hold it when that lift-off went. 2·. 2 Ro ll Program McDivitt Roll program came in at ten seconds just like it was supposed to. I t was smooth, and it was just the way it was planned, on at ten seconds and went out at twenty seconds. Could you see it roll out the window? White You can see everything out the window, I think. McDivitt You can probably tell by the way the sun rays are moving, can't you? White Yes, by change in lighting. a better view. The right seat has You have to wa tch the guages so closely. 2. 3 McDivitt I didn ' t even look out the window. White I know you didn't. Pitch Program McDivitt Pitch program started just like it was supposed to, at twenty three seconds. Pitched over the proper amount, the pitch needles looked like they were hanging in there all the way. White You could see the booster pitch definitely, and that was mainly due to a change in the lighting. co~~FIDE~~TIAt: 20 2 ,4 Aerodynamics McDivitt We were getting aerodynamic noise, which built up to max q . We got some pretty good vibrations at max q . White That's where I had the most vibrations . It was just shaking like this . McDivitt It was vibrating and noisy. White That was the loudest noise we received the whole flight. McDivitt Right after max q it got very qui et . White This is where I had the most vibrations . There were more than I expected. McDivitt Yes, me too. You can ' t simulate this in a simula­ tor . You get more vibrations than you do noise . The only thing they have in the simulator is noise, they don't have vibrations . It was pretty loud and the spacecraft was actually shaking around a lot. It was really vibrating. White Yes, it was . McDivitt The whole thing was really going at it . More than I expected . like a F-80 or a T-33 at a.bout Whi te Almost 0.8 Mach. Very good analogy . 2. 5 Environmental Control System White The cabin started venting shortly after lift-off ~O~◄ FltJEf<tftAL 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 i n on RECORD . McDivitt You did. White I switched and made the final call at about 1: 10, I realized I called on REDORD and switched over, McDivitt How high did it go? Did it go to 5.5? White 5. 5 and it stayed right there . And then I noticed later on it progressively leaked off until it got to 4.9 where it st ayed. The suit? There really isn ' t anything to say about the suit. McDivitt No, I don' t have anything to say about the suit . It oi:erated like it was supposed to . 2.6 Maximum....q McDivitt The noise built up gradually until we got to max q , then it just dropped off. White The deterioration of the noise was almost instantaneous. McDivitt Very quick, It wasn ' t instantaneous , but it was very quick. White In fact, it startled me when we separated . 2 . 7 Windehea.r McDivitt I didn't notice anything on the rate needles that had anything to do with the windshea.r I couldn't eot~FIDE~~"f1At 22 pick out windshear • on them. 2. 8 How about you , Ed? White No . McDivitt Did you see any attitudes? White No . McDivitt No big divergences from windshea r . DC~ Updates White We got both of our ros updates right on time-­ H'45 a.nd 2 : 25 , Ed is in charge of ros updates . McDivitt No comment . White I ' m the button pusher. I do everything about pushing the buttons . McDivitt I can do this with this little stick. White You can do it unless I have my knee over it . 2. 9 Engin,®. 1 Operation McDivitt They operated the way they were supposed to as far as I could tell . up fi~ on both The tank pressures stayed Engine 1 and Engine 2. There was never any doubt in my mind that they were going to stay up there . There weren't any of those things like we saw in those simulations where they came on down pretty low on the gages when they were supposed to be at 18 or 15. There wasn't anything like that . up there . €0t'1Flf7ENf 1Al They just stayed on 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 way they were supposed to. There wasn't any problem there, They didn't decay all during the first stage. 2.11 Acceleration g's McDivitt They weren't bad and I don't know where they went to on the g meter. White Just like riding in an old saddle. McDivitt That's right. It's very comfortable . Steady on- set . White Not very long. Gee, we were below-- McDivitt Wait a second. This might be a good place to cover the pogo. I felt the pogo just prior to staging, from about 2:15 on to 2:30 . I could feel pogo. White How much were you getting? McDivitt Very little, I could just feel it pull like this. Did you feel it at all? - COt~FIDEt ◄ TIM 24 White No . McDivitt I could feel it . It wasn't uncomfortable enough where I had to l ift my head or anything. wasn't thinking about a pogo at all . I It wasn't like I was trying to sit there and think about it. But as we were going along I could feel this vi­ bration. And then it just crossed my mind, well t here is pogo, and then we went on to staging. But it wasn ' t bad at all . The amplitude must have been-White You were paying more attention to your clocks while I was watching the system ,gages and I wasn't really aware of the times that were going on. McDivitt I had my eyes- - It came around 2: 15 or so and lasted to about 2:30. Maybe it was 2: 10 or 2:05 , but it wasn't bad . White We had one area that I will get into later that I haven't told you about and that I didn't like. McDivitt Oh . So , I think we hit the pogo and the g ,.s . 2.12 BEX;O McDivitt Engine shut down properly. The lights came on. Engine~- 2 light went out and the Engine 1 lights went out. Just the way it was supposed to at B~O and staging. Two Stage 1 lights ON , Stage 2 EOt<I flf)Et ◄ Tl1'c b COt ◄FIB~1'1llAl 25 light OFF, Stage 1 lights OFF. White At that time I realized that we were going to feel the pyros and stuf'f--feel the separation. It was a very distinct feeling when we sepa r a ted . Of course, we immediately dropped in the thrust . There wasn't any question,we had a good separation, in my mind . This is just the way it was for all of our separations. Ev-erytime we separated, it was very clear that was what had happened. McDivitt Oh, yes, there wasn't a:ny doubt about it when that first stage shut off--Voom! 2. 13 Staging McDivitt Staging was just as it should have been. 2. 14 Engine 2 I gnition McDivitt Engine 2 started right on up. Like I mentioned earlier~the light went out and the tank pressure went down just a tad, but it stayed way up there, about two or three times as high as was necessary for staging. It never really did decrease. It stayed up around 45 or 50 psi, and we need 20 for staging, so-White I couldn ' t hear anything. McDivitt Didn't you hear the engine? White No. I was listening but it still was quiet. €Ot~FIDENllAL -- 'COl'4FIDEl'ff IA-t 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 li t tle bit of acceleration. Whit e The acceleration decreased. Another thing I didn't get--I got absolutely no pitch-up associ-· ated with the--the way the centrifuge does you at the end of an acceleration. I think that is associated with the cab on-McDivitt Yes . I think that's the way they rotate t hose gimbals when you come on down. If they rotate them a certain way you can get that pitching-up-­ White A very safe forward-type deceleration. McDivi tt I think that pitching up on the centrifuge is not a malfunction. It ' s just the programing that's hooked into the gimbals during the stop program. You've got to get them all going the same way so that you keep the vectors through you . During l aunch the vector is right t hrough you. It 's not varying around , but in the shut-down on the cen­ trifuge those darn gimbals aren't a lways syn­ chronized together . They get shifted back there and it gives you that peculiar sensation. 2 . 15 RGS Initiate McDivitt Well, I was really watching closely but my rate needles just barely changed . We mus t not have had any errors at a l l . White Yes , I got a full error. McDivit t Did you have a full error? White Yes, my pitch err or went al l the way down , and then it just steered slowly right back up . Re­ member you-McDivitt You did call and tell me you had a saturated-­ Di d you call saturated , or did you say we had a bi g one? White I called it saturated, I believe . McDivitt That ' s right . White I called a saturated error and then I called you that it was steering back to zer o . McDivitt Yes . I remember that you did ca ll that . White That ' s the way they showed this on the plot , t ha t i t would saturate there , am very quickly it s eemed to gradually steer right back up . McDivitt The steering rates that went in were on the order of less than half a degree/second . White They were very low. McDivitt Very , very low because I was on high scale . The needle just barely devia ted at all at RGS GO~JFIDEN"flAl 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 expecterui McDivitt When did it saturate? White Right at staging. No, right at guidance initiate . McDivi tt Oh , okay. White Right there at guidance initiate, which is what It saturated right there . you ' d except. 2. 16 GO/ NO GO McDivitt They said they were GO and I said we were GO . There wasn't much problem. Ed and I had been checking ba ck and forth on the systems . I knew they were all right . 2, 17 Systems Sta tus White The systems were all pretty good . There was only one I didn ' t like and that was the stack readings on the main ammeters . One was reading about 28 and the other was reading about 14 , But I felt that this was a ssociated with bringing the batter­ ies on. I went through and checked everything. Everything was readi ng properly. The control bus and main bus were all reading all right. it was just a misbalance of loading. I felt 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 causing one of them to take more than the other. McDivitt Yes. You could have gotten into the knee of an adapter-White This is what I had figured- - that a couple of my adapter aatteries were unbalanced, causing this to occur. I also had seen this on the simulator quite a few times. McDivitt When did the unbalance start? When we got in they were-• As soon as we were on internal power? White Right. And I didn't feel this was the time to talk about it. It was still under 30 amps, which was my point. So I didn't bring it up. McDivitt You didn't want to worry me? White I didn't want to worry you and I didn't want any­ body on the ground to start hollering about it . McDivitt You should have written me a note. White I did feel that this was exactly what it was-- ~Q~~ftE)EN:rJAL- 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 nobody answered me . I said, "Well , to heck with it, maybe they just aren't ge t;ti.ng through." Then I was just starting to call Roll Program complete when Gus called and said,"Did you get the Roll Program?" Now that was the only transmission I made that wasn't acknow­ ledged. White Yes, I heard you calling, too. McDivitt So , if they lost communications it must have been right at the 10-seconds t i me , and it should have been for l ess than 10 seconds. It couldn't have been for more than 20 seconds. I heard the count­ down to lift-off and I heard Gus call and ask me if I had the Roll Program started . This was a little bit less t han 20 seconds-- around 18 or 19 seconds. That is the only period of time I didn' t hear anybody I should have hea rd . So , if we lost communications, that was where it was. 31 2.18 Acceleration McDivitt Well we got up to 7 1/2 g 's. wasn ' t bad at all. The acc eleration 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. don't like to ride the centrifuge . I 7 1/2 g 's is 7 1/2 g 's on the centrifuge, but on the booster-­ White My vision was crystal clear . McDivitt Me, too . I wasn't even breathing hard . huffing or :pui'fing or anything . I wasn ' t I was just laying <there relaxed . White Particularly on this one, The acceleration burn during powered flight and insertion was very light . 2 . 19 SECO McDivitt SECO occurred as it should have on my clock. Ed thought it ~s about--what did you say it was? White I thought it was a second or so early and it concerned me because that meant we were going to have to burn. So I was quite expecting to hear a big 6V come up from the ground. question on that SECO either. There is no It shuts off and you get that linear straight deceleration. McDivitt The thing that surprised me was that we weren ' t talking about it at all. , CONFID·EN"TtAt We were just going as 32 straight as an arrow when that thing shut off . White 2 . 20 There weren't any oscillations or roll . Steering McDivitt I was ge tting a sinusoidal oscill ation on my rate needles , and I don ' t know now whether it was pitch and yaw . I cal l ed it out a t the time , to you a:nyway, Eli . White Right . And my attitude arrows were- - McDivitt Your a ttitude arrows were right on? Okay. But I was getting an oscillation, very small, about plus or minus a quarter degree in rates . Not so that the needle was ac tuall y moving back and for th across the dots. was . It was pretty obvious that it Now, I sort of felt that I coul d feel that movement a li tt l e bi t, like this , but not annoy­ ingly and certainly the stabilization was holding i t close enough. But it wasn ' t that the rate needles were just constantly oscillating back and forth. It seems to me it was in pitch but I'm not really sure . Whi te A booster pitch, The attitude error needles were the only deviation we had at any time . Yaw was just about nominal all the time. We had the pitch deviation at guidance initiate. It went to full scale and steered right • COt~Ft0ENflAL 33 back in, and also right at the end we had, in pitch, a little bit of a pitch-down needle indi­ cation 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. doing, I kept glancing over to see how you were They were always right near the center for me. White Yeah. Right near the end they trailed do,.m just a little bit. I 'd be interested to see what the ground thought on t his. McDivitt Yes. You'll have to go over and look. they have them. €6Nft[:)ENTI.AL I'm sure 34 3.0 INSERTION 3,1 Post- SECO McDivitt Yes . There was a Post-SECO. In the period be­ tween SEX:!O and SECO + 20 seconds, I unstowed the maneuver controller. attitudes were . I don ' t know where our They were the same as they were a t SEX::O , and it was about 20 degrees pitch-down, wasn ' t it? The rates during this period were on the order of less than a half a degree/s econd. We really had a period of from SECO to SECO + 30 . So, duri ng this time I actually fired the trans­ lations thrusters at least two times in one axis to kill off the rate in t hat axis, and I think it was probably the booster yaw or spacecraft pitch where I act ually fired the U,rusters once or twice to bring the rates back . been the other way around. son the fairings then . It might have But, we didn't jetti­ I did unstow the maneuver controller and the att itude was the booster burn­ out attitude and the rates were very low, less than a half a degr ee/second . White I think we mentioned prior to this time the feeling that we came off a little half- (Q~~IQFNTIAL 35 cocked off the 3. 2 second stage. SECO + 20 Seconds McDivitt We were going to $ay 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 for­ ward, 11 right, and 5 down. White Right , McDi vitt This was when we were still in the 90 degree bank position. Is that correct? Or was it after I had rolled right-side-up? White It was after you had rolled right-side- up. McDivitt Okay. Well, then the IVI's displayed when we were still on our side. It seems to me they were about 25 feet/second forward , and some other numbers, but anyway they were low enough where I felt we were certainly in orbit. At least the IGS was telling us we were in orbit. During this time, as I said earlier, I tried to damp the spacecraft rates, the spacecraft booster rates which were quite low. I checked to see that the OAMS Power Switch was in ATTITUDE and MANEUVER , and to see that Eli had switched over to DIRECT. I told him I was going to do some thrusting but I wasn't going to separate yet, so that when he € 0 ~~ FfDENT.I.Al ~EIDENJl»,t heard the thrusters go off he wouldn't push the SPACECRAFT SEP. Then we did separate the space­ craft 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 straight ahead for about five seconds . This is where I think we came off crooked. This is the part Ed was men­ tioning before. We didn't seem to come off straight ahead. We seemed to be getting some sort of an oscillation that got us going in a dif­ ferent direction than what we had going on the booster. White It seemed,, like one side of the separation plane came off with more force than the other. That's what it seemed like to me. McDivitt Yes. White It separated at a bit of an angle. McDivitt That's right. We didn't separate fore and aft; we separated with a lot of rotation to this side. White Yes. McDivitt Air-ground communications were all right. We were talking to them and they were talking to us . I never had any problem there . White Shortly thereafter they called up and told us we i C&MFfEiEM IIAL CO~ ◄ FIDEt><tTIAL had a 153 by 57 orbit. us . 37 So, they were talking to 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. White Right . At the position we decided on taking our IVI readings, which was heads up in a zero-zero attitude, you read off the IVI's to me as 20 for­ ward, 11 right, and 5 down. McDivitt Okay. Then I didn't bother nulling the pitch -· needle because we were reall y pressed for time to get around. White No velocity correction was called up to us and since we had no velocity correction , and we were fairly busy at this time, I didn't even read out the 52 or 70. in them. I wasn't particularly interested It ' s a funny thing though--52 was punched in and had: been read out and it showed 30. It had been punched in so it read out, you see, as soon as something came in the quantity. did have a readout. looking at that. I read out 30. So, I I remember ~O ► ~flDENTI~ 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 j ettisoned the fairings. They went off with a bang. I could see the fairing over the horizon scanner go, but I never did see the fairing off the nose go . I just assumed that it went. We were already in just a mass of debris up there, because when we se:p3,rated from the booster there was stuff all over. White All over. It really flew by to the side of the spacecraft. McDivitt Yes. It was all over the place. As we . were turning around it looked like we were going through a snow storm. There was stuff all over. Finally we got turned around, in about a minute and a half, and we could see the booster there. I I White There ' s one thing I would certainly like to see somebody do--I'd have give my right arm to have had a camera when I turned around and saw tbe booster. I ' d like to see somebody carry a camera in a semi-•stowed position so he could immediately get it out and come around and take pictures of •CO ►~FIDE~~TIAL 39 the booster. Either the camera, or better yet a 16 mm camera with a normal lens on it . it to the side of your leg. Just tuck 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 this time . McDivitt I think, Ed, this is probably one of those philo­ sophical things. On the first orbit you've got to save to prepare to come back in case you have a bad spacecraft. You 've got to be ready to reen­ ter during the first orbit . Tuis is the kind of bind we found ourselves in up there. During the first orbit we really had a lot to get ready for halfway through the second orbit, but on the other hand we had to be in good enough shape so we could reenter it at 2-1. Now, we didn't have anything to go wrong so there wasn't any problem, but I think when you first get into orbit you're in a problem. This kind of a thing, I think, is a problem you may have later on. You've got to be ready to eject at lift-off plus one second, and you don't want to be sitting there holding a camera or something like that. are busy. Both your hands But like you said we could stow it ~ONFtDf1'tliAt 40 3omewhere. White I think you could . in the seat . You could stow it beside you I think we over- emphasize the neces­ sity , 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 heck of a lot more working against us in our airplanes we ' re flying around . McDivitt That's right . I agree with you . I ' m just saying this philosophy of being completely prepared to reenter during that first orbit is in conflict with doing this kind of stuff in the first orbit, too. White We ought to get some of this, though. are missing things . McDivitt Yes, I think so. I think we I would have really-- We could have really had some beautiful pictures of that booster when we were close to it. White I also want to comment a little bit on the booster itsel f . I looked as closely as I could at the nozzle skirt and the aft end of the booster , and I saw no damage whatsoever. McDivitt No, neither did I from our vantage point . White As far as I could see the nozzle skirt was com- ,C O I>~ 11;) El>fftAL 41 pletely intact. McDivitt Okay. There was nothing wrong . Let ' s try to follow this insertion activi­ ties list here . I jettisoned the fairings , as I said , as soon as I started turning around . Ed went through the checklist for us . Then After I fired the fairings I turned off the BIA Switch and the retro rockets when he called. I was probably doing this before Ed called, wasn ' t I? White We did things just like we had been doing them on the simulator . We don't just take a checklist and run down it item for item because there ' re things you have to be doing , and it just doesn ' t go in a sequence like that . I realized this was the way it was going to go, and I actually took a pencil and checked items off. If you did an item I checked it off, and if you didn't I left it un­ checked and we got it later. You just can ' t ex- pect to run down the checklist item for item because you ' re not ready to unstow your life vest or to get up out of your seat belt. for some time . You don 't do that I think the logic on the check- list we have here is a very good sequence--. McDivitt We reviewed that checklist 50 times. 00 tq ftf)ENftA-t- That's cor<tFIDENTIAt 42 probably the fiftieth checklist we ' ve got there , and I don ' t think i t could have been arranged any better for the two of us . White I knew Jim wasn't going to undo his seat belt har­ ness and I knew I was going to have to because I had to do certain things that he didn ' t have to . The point that I ' m making is that the checklist doesn ' t have to be accomplished item for item , completely done in numerical sequence . McDivitt Okay . I thi nk we ' ll revert back to the exact subject of 3,3 now . Safetying the switches . I saftied the swi t ches-- the BIA Squib Switch and the four Retro Rocket Squibs Switches. I tested the sequential l i ghts, but at a later time because I was involved in turning the spacecraft around. But X did test them . As far as stowage , I stowed my left arm restraint and my D- ring , but I did not put my saf ety pin in. White I went through and put my arm rest down , put my safety pin in . That was one of the first things I did . McDivitt I might comment that I never did put my safety pin in . I never put the safety pin in the D- ring . felt the D- ring cover was adequate , and it was . co ► ~fiilQ lil)l:rlsA<JL I 43 White I know , you never have been particularl y too hot on that . McDi vitt Noo 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 time. I did not find any reason to put the drogue pins in. I don't think they are satisfactory in any way . I don ' t think the pin itself i s sati sfactory , and I don ' t think the location or type of holes are satisfactory . I will elaborate on them a little further. We have had aircraft around for a long time and we have learned a lot about saf ety pins . We have come up with some pretty good designs on safety pins. We have a design on our drogue pin right now which is no more than the very first type of safety pin that I saw on an aircraft. I think that we are past the point where we should be starting right out at the beginning. We ought to put a properly designed safety pin in there that you can insert a little easier into the holes . I ' m not going to try to design the pin but I think that it should have some type of shaft on it that r€0NFll}ENftl(L - -E OI'~FI DE~ITIAL 44 you can use to stabilize the pin when you insert it. And when I s ay the holes through which you insert t he pins are unsatisfactory, I ' m referring to holes through a cylindr i cal shaft that is hollow inside so t hat you not only have t o find the hole to put it in on one side , but you have to work it around and find the hole that it goes t hrough on the other side. satisfactory . I don ' t believe that's I don't think the opening into the hole is supposed to be beveled and they weren ' t beveled on my seat and they weren't beveled on Jim ' s seat , either. I t hink a beveled hole is a hole that is bigger on the outside than it is on the inside. I don' t believe there is much dif­ ference between the outside and the inside of the holes for the drogue pins. time putting my own in. I had a difficult I put Jim's pins in . took me awhile, but I put them in. It I never did get one of mine in satisfactorily at this time , so I think we should do something better with the drogue pins. In addition I couldn ' t even see the hole. McDivitt You had an easier time putting my pin in t han you had putt ing your own pin in. GO~~FIDEl>ITIAL .-CQ~qfl9tNTIAL White That' s correct . McDivitt That's right . 45 I could put yours in fairly easy. 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 This is probably covered later, but my hose lengths were not long enough to permit me to turn all the way around , I knew this when we went through We ight and Balance . I knew my hoses were not long enough but it was too late , as far as I was concerned, t o change them at that ti~ . But, I couldn't see the holes on my side to insert the drogue pin. I couldn ' t see the holes for your drogue pin either, but I could get a better view of them over there so I knew approximately where t o put the pin , I think in all respects the drogue pins are not satisfactory. You just can't see them ; the pins are incorrect, the holes are in­ correct, and I think we can certainly do better with them . McDivitt I think what Ed is saying is that it 's lousy. White That's right. In two letter words, it stinks ! This is the way the batteries were reading out when I checked them at insertion. CO ► 4FIDE~~rft"AI: And this is what €O ►~FIDEt4Tl~L I had suspected they were doing when we launched-­ why we had unbal anced stack readings . 1-A read 6 This accounts amps, 1-B read 10 , 1-C read 11. for your high reading on Stack 1. 2-B was 6, , and 2-C was 6 . . they were reading. 2-A was 6, Ttis was the way I ran through a check on them when we were actually in the booster phase. So that is why I felt the reading wasn ' t bad. They were both reading about 23 1/2 or 24 volts . They looked pretty good. I got my 2-1 update. I got the t:N of 167, 6T of 3+35, and GMT to retro command of 14 48 34. I have the other times too. The time to 400 000 was 2+18, as read up to me and the time to reverse bank angle was 8+47. This is what we wrote down . This is one time I remember now when I was a little irritated, because they gave times to us in a manner in which I hadn ' t wanted them to e They were supposed to give elapsed time but they gave it to us in GMT time for our retro. We had asked them to give it to us in elapsed, They came right back up and gave it to us both ways. I remember writing it down twice, on the elapsed time of 01 32 35. I can see why they did it because it CONFtf>E~ftAi. was two minutes past 47 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. unstow anything. I didn't I was just trying to stick with the booster at that time. White The first thing I got into was my right-hand stowage compartment and I unstowed the blood pressure bulb. Then I started into the center section to get at the camera . The first thing I wanted to get out was the Hasselblad and the 16 mm. I was dying to get a picture of that booster. So , I unstowed the Hasselblad and got a good back on it and the 16 mm camera. I didn't unstow the urine nozzle as the flight plan had called. We both had decided we were going to use our launch­ day urine bags as long as we could, and we had hoped to use them right through the ENA. turned out, we did. at this time. As it That was about all I unstowed I unstowed the cameras, the blood pressure bulb and also got out the film cartridges and the tape cartridges. CONFIDENTIAb I put them on the side 48 COt'4FI0EN-l+M. of the foot well , where I planned to keep them, so that we could keep a good tape cartridge available. ---G0N F-40 ENTIA L_, 49 4. 0 ORBITAL FLIGHT McDivitt I think that the orbital flight should be broken down into some very distinct sequences . there are really three of these . I think The first one is about the first three or four orbi ts where we were trying to stay with the booster, where we di d the FNA and where we finally got back in. The time that we finally got the spacecraft depressur­ ized ends one phase of the mission. The next phase or sequence of the things that come is really the second phase . along This is the middle 50 orbits or so , where we did the experiments and where we did the flight plan in a highly modified manner . do . We did the flight plan we started out to And the last phase or series of sequences wa s the ~et ro- prepa ration , r etrofire and the reentry . The retro- preparation was actually another distinct phase of the mission . I think that we ought to divide it up into those three phases-- the station-keeping and FNA as Stage 1 , general orbit as Stage 2, and retro- preparation and reentry as Stage 3. So I think we should CONFID ~~:rt Al ~-IE>ENTIA L- 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 :fode Checks , Com Checks , and those things . 4 . 1 Station-Keeping McDivitt The station-keeping with the booster--Well, as I said earlier on the insertion phase , I started turning around as soon as I completed the forward thrusting. I jettisoned the nose fairings after about 30 or 40 degrees of yaw. I rolled right­ side-up and then I started yawing around to the left. We saw all kinds of debris floating around and we finally saw the booster back behind us. It was already in a peculiar attitude. As Ed men­ tioned , when we separated from the booster, it didn·• t really feel like we came off straight ahead . It seemed like we got knocked off to the side of the thing. The spacecraft-booster combination sort of bent in half at the separation plane . We yawed on around and saw the booster , and I thought it was around 400 feet back. a little closer. -€0·N FIDE~L Eli thought it was £.ONfll)ENTIAf 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 5~ thrusting that should have come out around feet/second . I was in a hurry trying to get our separation velocity stopped, so I was thrusting. I had it in Rate Command . I pointed the space­ craft at the booster and started thrusting, and by the time I got the computer in the Catch- Up Mode and the Start Comp button on, I had already thrusted ' 2 or 3 -~ feet/second out and I counted up another · 3 feet/second on the IVI's . It looked like we were probably stopped, although I couldn't tell tlBt quickly. much f::.V I knew I had as in there as I had at separation, and possibly a little more, because I tried to hold the separation f::.V feet/second. down to no more than •5 We watched it for just a short time and then it was obvious that we hadn't stopped our separation velocity--our relative velocity--so we were still separating. ther •• 3 So , I applied about ano- or • 4 feet/second, which should have more than overcome the : 4 I put in initially . or · 5 feet/second It looked like we had stopped .CO NFlD-E-~ IlAL 52 then . Our relative velocity looked like it went to zero . Here, I thought, we were out around 500 or 600 feet. F.d thought we were: probably in closer than that. White Yes . I thought we were in a little clos er. McDivi tt I put in a tota l of around· 9 feet/second in the first minute and a half after we turned around . White I think we commented together on the speed with which the booster was going away ~om us . Right off the bat it looked like it wa.s- -it surprised me that it actually looked like it separated ·rrom us as fast as it really-McDivitt It looked like it had a lot more velocity than the 4 or separation. 5 J feet/second I added at t he It looked to me , as an off- the- top- of:. my- head-guess , that something in the spacecra ft separation thing had really built up a lot of relative velocity between the booster and the spacecraft . I don't know why or how. looked like we weren ' t Al so , it inplane anymore . It was actual l y out-of- plane so that we had an out - of­ plane rela tive velocity that I took out . I pointed at the booster because , obviously , if --EONffOfNTt~t. 53 €0NftDEM11:At~ you're separating away from something, whichever way you ' re going, if you point at the thing and if you t hrust 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 couple hundred feet and it was going down rapidly . altitude. Losing After I thrusted this second time, I knew I had more than enough velocity, much more than I needed to kill off the we'd added . 5 feet/second I watched it and it looked like it wasn ' t going away from us anymore. It looked like our relative velocities had stopped. --- I wanted to ·· get the platform alined somewhat in case we did have to come down in the 2~1. We really hadn't had much chance to check over the spacecraft yet. So I quickly went to as close to zero-zero- zero as I could get . I used the zero yaw and the zero roll off the ball and I went to a pitch at t i tude that looked like it was about zero and tried to get the ball to aline to zero-zero- zero . At that time the booster was mostly behind us--mostly back toward the Cape from us--back behind us with respect to our velocity back there . It iwas in the <coN FU)1:l'tllA.b- 54 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 I could let it go for another 30 seconds or a minute and not have it g e ~ ~ r away__!rom ...= me . ------- It looked like it was coming toward me again , but going below. So , I allowed myself about another minute and I pi tched down and looked for it. It appeared that during that minute it had gone a lot farther down than I had expected it to go . White Yes , I was surprised . Remember that it looked like the orbit was sure something different than we predicted . McDivitt Yes. It looked to me like the booster and the spacecraft weren't in anything that even resem­ bled the same orbit , at the rate it was descending. I don ' t know what the range rate was at that time. It looked like it was a lot more than a foot/ second , though . I don ' t know what it was . I quickly pitched back up to zero-zero-zero and C.ONF~DE~:r.lAL 55 s t ayed 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 nea r us . So , I flipped around and pitched right straight down and here 's where the problems s t arted, To get down to the booster in a long rendezvous type maneuver, what I should have done was to jus t stay horizontal and fir e retrograde and t ake some total velocity out of the spacecraft . But , when you do this the booster continues to pull away from you for a whi l e , and then eventually you are going to drop down below it . Then you are going to be in a l ower-al titude orbit and you are going to pick up and catchup with the boos ter . Well, with the sta tion- keeping we had to do and the fact that the darkness was only a matter of another few minutes-White Boy it was fas t ! McDivi tt It wasn ' t any time a t all . play a rendezvous I didn ' t have time to game with it , I had to over­ come this relative velocity we had with sort of brute force , s o I thrus ted right a t the booster again. I got going down and I used about "CO t'-' FIO~NT+Al. 5 56 feet/second there . a little vague . Here ' s where the numbers ge t 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 exact l y. White I don ' t remember, precisely, how many times you thri1sted . McDivi tt I was keeping my eyes on the booster . And i t was a lot t ougher to see when it was down with the ground as a background, I t hought, than with the sky as a background . During this period of t i me its rotational velocity picked up con­ siderably, and during this time Fd checked it and got eight seconds for a complete revolution. White A complete revolution . Yes. This was an estimate . \ McDivi tt This meant that in the first three minutes after I we were in orbit the thing had gone up to a rota­ tional rate of 40 to 50 degrees/second . I t seemed to stabilize at that rate . Its rotational rates stabilized but I don ' t believe its rotational mode ever stabilized. It didn't rotate in a plane as I thought a loµg body like that would rotate . It seemed to oscillate in just a random -CE7~1DENTIAL tumbling 57 fashion . It was all over. It looked to me like i t was rotating in three axes in a completely unpro­ grarnmed manner . It might have been that the roll nozzle was flopping around and the fuel was turn­ ing it around in different directions. And as a matter of fact, at this time we should go back and draw a picture of what the fuel looked like and what was coming out of the no zzle. The booster was tumbling and you could see the fuel squirting out of the roll nozzle in a big fan like this. I had the impression that if the booster were per­ fectly stationary, the fuel would have been comi ng out of the nozzle in a great big cone the way you would expect it to, but because the booster was tumbling so rapidly it was coming out in a long , twisted- - l ike a horn of plenty. It was very ob­ vious ; you could see it, and ther e wssn ' t any doubt about the fact that there was a lot of fuel coming out . Whether this was contributing some thrust to it or not I don't know . White I want to comment on something that was quite an experience for me. When I called out to you, I was looking down at what I thought , since it was pitch black, was the sky. cet-4PIDfNT~AL I could see little ~Ptt>fNT-l;4h 58 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 dis­ plays they have created for us . And I looked over at Jim and asked him if he was seeing this and about the same time I noticed that he had nothing but dayl ight out his window. This was the first time that I had the daylight- dark experience of one guy looking into pitch black night and the other guy looking into a complete daylight window over there . Jim remarked rather disgustedly to me, "We are pointed straight at the ground!" About the same time I realized I was looking out at the fire flies everybody had s een, but probably in a much more profuse quantity than had ever been seen before , because we were getting a ll this fuel that was vaporizing into many , many particles from the booster and a little bit of a contribution from the spacecraft also . McDivitt And we were thrusting, too . I ' m sure we had all that junk on it from our launch. White That ' s right . And the whole area out in front of my view was just entirely taken up with these CONFIOENft-AL little pa r t icles , 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 r ight at sunset or sunrise, the sun would pick these particles up and they would act just like litt l e magnifying glasses and make very bright spots. This is exactly what happened . that then? Did you ever s ee I think you were more in the daylight side . McDivitt No . I was on the daylight side . I didn't see what you were talking about. White It was really something. The whole sky within my view was covered with these little particles- ­ thousands of them . There was obviously a great deal of that stuff in the air all around . McDivitt As soon as we got turned around I could see trat t he lights were flashing on the booster, and Ed saw them , too. It was pretty apparent . I cal l ed out r i ght away to the gruund that the lights were working . I don't know if they understood what I was talking about or not. I also called out shortly after we came off the booster and we saw it,that it didn't look like we were going to be able to touch it .. because of the high rotational CO·N·F~DENTIM 60 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; I had already used about 25 or 30 feet/second to get toward the booster. I knew I had to catch it during the night time because when we came out of the dark­ ness on the next pass, we had to be next to it , because we were supposed to take some photos of it around that time . So I thrusted some more right at the booster trying to just overcome orbital mechanics with brute force . It was too l ate to start playing fancy games with the orbital mechan­ ics . Finally, I got us down to what I considered a good position , and this was prior to Carnarvon, I believe . Remember when we finally got it on the horizon? White It looked like it had finally stopped . McDivitt The relative velocity had finally stopped. And let me now make a general comment about what I thought of the lights on it . We had two lights on the booster that flashed and they were diametrically CO~Fl0E~TtAL 61 €01~FtDcNfJA~ 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 at it with that feeling . McDivitt Okay . Well , what I am saying is that it was difficult-White I want to hear what you are going to say. I 'm not sure what you ' re saying yet , McDivitt It was difficult to tell how far I was away from it , at best , but when I had the booster in such a position that I could see both lights at the same time , I could tell by the distance between the lights whether I was close or far . White Okay . I agree with that . McDivitt And when I could see these lights flashing over a period of time , I could tell whether the distance between them was getting larger or smaller so that I knew i f I was closing or not . Unfortunately , becaus e the booster was tumbling in this scre,ry manner, I couldn't maneuver around ~he booster because it was tumbling so fast ; I was just trying CONFtDENftt\L 62 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 of the mission in the night time it looked like we were holding our own, and then we finally started closing with it . I finally worked it down where we were at the same level , the booster. All this time I had been above I worked dovm until I was at the same altitude with it ; at least it was on the horizon . I felt that by then I had gotten the thing under control and we stood a pretty good chance of still coming out on the daylight side with the booster. I can't tell you what the range was . It looked to me like I had worked the range back dovm (it had been opening up as · we went into darkness)-to 2000 or 3000 feet again--probably around 2000 feet . It might even have been as low as 1000 feet . It could have been lower than that . At one time I got the impression that we were quite close to it . White Yes . You were wondering whether you should retro­ grade away from it . 6ONFt01:M"flAL 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 guees , 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 1000 feet. McDivitt Okay. White You could be magnitudes off. McDivi tt Before we got to Carnarvon, I remember , we were in reasonably good shape , because I had finally gotten down to the booster. I felt if I could just keep it down near the booster we would be all right . Then it looked to me l ike we were closing rather rapidly. So I thought we were going to get next to it and then we were going to be all right. 'I'he reason I felt this was because I could see the two lights . It must have been rotating in such a manner that I could see the two lights . Almost every fifth or tenth time they blinked I could see them . I could see two of them . So I knew by the distance that we were in quite close and everything looked pretty good then . And then for a long , long, long period of time after that I never saw two lights again . not . I don ' t lmow if you did or I kept looking and there was a single light and a single light and a single light, and I didn't lmow where I was with respect to the boos ­ ter . And then I started getting the impression without really seeing the double lights , I guess, that it was going away very rapidly . Maybe I did see two lights and I just don ' t remember it now. My impression was that the light was getting White fainter . I think that must have been it . McDivitt must have been it. I think that But all of a sudden I got the impression that it was leaving me at a rapid rate . I I It wasn't that easy to see . During the few times that the booster was up against the sky background it was easy to see , but when it was down against a ground background, it was very difficult to see . I think it was just before we got to Car­ narvon that I felt we were in good shape . And then as we passed Carna rvon , I remember calling I could see the lights of the city. Well, during this period of time all of a sudden I thought it was starting to pull away again. So I started thrusting at it again . And I never really got the ~itAL EONftE>ENllAL.. 65 double blink of the lights for a l ong , long, long time. And finally I thought I could see them blinking again, and they were a lmost a single light this time since they were so far away. And this occurred over a very short period of time . TRn minutes? Five minutes? White Yes . McEivitt Is that right? White Yes . McDivitt So then I said to Ed, "I ~hink we are losing it ." Whatever you think, Ed . I fully agree wit} you. So I started thrusting a t it again. All of a sudden it was apparent that the thing wasn't as close as it had been. So we started thrusting at it . White In fact, that was one time you said we had lost it, didn't you? McDivitt I said I think we have lost it . sight. I had it in I didn't saj that I had lost sight of it. White I thought you meant you had lost sight of it. McDivitt No. White But it wasn't getting any bigger. McDivitt I didn't have e:n:y idea in the world where we were . I still had it all the time. And I still couldn't really tell. Finally , we could see the sky starting to get a little gray ~NflDENTb\L GOt\fPID Etft+A L 66 and I thought at least we were going to get to see where t he t hing 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 1/2 miles . McDivitt So , it had gotten that far away in such a short I think what really gave time, and it was down . me the clue that we were losing it again was that I had it on the horizon and it had sta~ted going down below us . White Right . It looked like it was about 30 degrees below -McDivitt It started going down again . And I could see it was coming down below the horizon , so I knew that I wasn't right with it . But I wasn't really sure how far away I was so I did thrust a couple of times--a foot/second or so--to make sure I always had a closing velocity with it . got the thing down . And finally I It was down so that when it came out it wasn't directly below me ; it was out in front of me and down again . And like Eli said, I guess it was down about 30 degrees . White That's what I ' d estimate . 67 C-Ol<fFJ0ENT1Ai. 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 barel y . Or was it above the horizon? White No, it was below the horizon . I ' d say it wasn't more than ten or twelve degrees below the earth horizon , but below our local hori ­ zon . It was in the neighborhood of 30 degrees . If you looked out level to what you would call level--but you lmow the horizon tilts away from you , so - - . McDivitt So here again we were faced wi tr. the same kind of problem- -to cater. up with the booster. _What I should have done was to retrofire right then to drop down , get a lower orbit, and come back up . But we had to get to the booster right then or we weren ' t going to get to it, becauae we had the mission to take p~otographs of it across the States . So I thought if I could close with it at 10 or 15 feet/second we could at least overcome our problem. So I aimed behind it , so to speak, and down , and I thrusted that way trying to get enough closing velocity down and another one that -E9NFJDE~llA~ 68 eo~~FtOENllAL would bring us up to it at the same time; but most of the thrusting I did was down . didn't gain on it . Then we just I s tarted thrusting retro­ grade with my top thruster, but I was thrusting more back and downward. I just absolutely could not get down to the booster. It kept pulling away and pulling away until by the time we got to Hawaii . White You were putting a lot of 6V i n there and we just weren't doing anything . We just weren't making any headway. McDivitt It continued to pull away from us and it was falling farther and farther below us until finally-- White You put in about 40 feet/second to do something with it and it hadn ' t changed a speck . McDivitt By the time we got to Hawaii I told them I thought we were having difficulty doing it . k:J.yway, I had decided by that time that if we were going to do the mission at all, the only thing we could do would be to leave the booster. The fuel was down to around 75 per cent on my 'gage and the gage kept going up and down, so it wasn't a heck of a lot of help . I had burned around 85 or eor<IFIDE~~Tl:t\L 90 feet/second . I had numbers in all three of the windows, and of course since I was changing atti­ tudes and thrusting in different directions those numbers were going all over the place . So I made up my mind then that i t looked like a hopeless task and that we had better stop this stuff or we were going to lose all the fue l for the whole mission. We probably wouldn't be able to catch it, and we wouldn't be able to do what we were going to do . I think the only thing we could have done to save the whole thing would nave been for us just to go forward on t he local horizontal and retrograde a large amount on the order of 20 to 30 feet/second, fall down below the thing and catch it .an orbit or so later and actually perform rendezvous with it . But because the flight plan was such that we had to get all the EVA done in the first three orbits , and because Chris and I had talked this over and decided the EVA was the more important of the two things , I felt t hat the best thing to do woul d be to abandon trying to catch up with the booster. White Let me interject something else , too . had the same feeling . See if you I had the feeling that the ~QNFIDENT.IAL 70 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 like it was going down at such a rapid rate . By the time we got to the States I would guess it was 5 miles below us at least. White My impression was even more . I thought maybe it wasn't more a t the time but it was going more . I felt that if we really got back with tbe booster we might have a pretty good orbit , but we would be down in the neighborhood of 130 and this wasn ' t the altitude we wanted to lifetime McDivitt be, . ,for. the six- day that we wanted. The other thing tha t bothered me was that we were going toward perigee where we should have been coming back together . And we weren't. We were pulling away so fast that it wasn't even funny . Frankly , I just couldn't figure out what kind of orbit the booster was in. It looked to me like , if we were having trouble , the place where we should have been the farthest from it was at Car- C.O f)J FID E~tt IA L eo,~FtDENTIA'l narvon . 71 Apogee should have been far t hest apart . Our perigee should have been closest together . It was almos t opposite . We were with it at Carnarvon , but we wer e way far away from it and getting f arther away from it as we crossed the United States , or Mexico, or wherever we came. I wasn' t looking out at the scenery; I was looking a t the booster . It.was extremely difficul t to t rack across the water and as we got to t he land it was almost an impossibility to track it , Here the distance i s extremely difficult to judge . It It could have been anywhere from 5 to 15 miles directly below us a t this time . If I had a range rate I could have told where I was all the time and with range rate I would have been able to rendezvous with it from a mile . I could have done the things I lmew had to be done , rather than try to do it .forcefully . I sort of feel the big prob lem was that we were so optimistic for those first three orbits that it is almost unbelievable . It became apparent when we tried to do the EVA that we couldn ' t do it in the t ime allotted. But anyway,I had dec ided by the time we had gone by Hawaii, or wherever it was a fter we had been in the C-eNFIDE-NTIAl 72 daylight for ten minutes or so, that i t was hope­ less, and I told that t o F.d . I told him I thought we had lost the booster for good . I don ' t mean I didn ' t s ee i t but t hat we weren ' t goi ng to get back down to it . He a greed with me . White Yes. McDivitt I think I could have gotten to the booster i n a dignified , normal , slow , easy manner if we di dn ' t have the constraint on us of being next to the booster in the first daylight pass over the States, and taking pictures , prepare for the EVA , and be r eady to emerge from the spacecr aft an hour after we came out of t he daylight on our first pass , which was about two hours i nto the flight . I just fe lt that if I had had more time, I could have gone ahead and done some of this without using brute force to overcome the difference between the booster and myself. I could have gone into a l ower orbit and chased it t hat way . I could have just gone horizontal and r etrofired and f a llen away from the thing initially and caught back up with it l a ter on , but it was getting so far a way from us to start with that to purpose ly put yourself fart her a way from it so that you could catch eor'4FIDEMT+AL JeG~-1DENT-IA~ 13 up l a ter on was not the thing to do. all done at a certain time. We had to be We had to be with the booster when we came back into daylight. it ; that was the thing . That was We had to be with the boos t er , because we had to take those pictures . Then we had to be with the booster again an hour and a half after that so that we could do the EVA right next to it . And with those kinds of time constraints you don ' t have time to perform a ren­ dezvous . You've got to get with it right then, but we just couldn't get with it right then . \ White You know another thing too ; I'm darned glad we didn ' t use any 10 feet/second initially to sepa­ rate with. I think we could have used something in the terms of 1 or ·2, feet/second and that would have been fine. McDivitt I cut it short . Don"-' t you? I only burned about 5 seconds, and I stopped. White You have been doing that in all your simulations so I knew you were going to do that . cut it less . You can even It was amazing to me the sepa r a tion you get i mmediatel y. McDivitt I t almost seemed like we had a posigrade rocket on the spa cecraft and a retrograde rocket on the GQ;NFt0ENllA~ \ 74 C.Qt~FIDEtfflAt' booster, the way we separa ted . Well, anyway , we told Guaymas that we had to ge t resolution i mme­ diately 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 go for i t they had to make up their minds and we would really go after it . wise . But I didn ' t think it was They confimed this and said,'Knock it off!' For cloeing rates at rendezvous, I t hink you could handle 20 , 30 , 40 feet/second if you are coming at it , not if you are gomg away from it . You see we never got a chance to do a rendezvous . never rendezvoused with it . We The best thing we ever did was to get close enough to it where I could at least say I was at the same a l titude with· it for a change . It was the fi r st t ime I had gotten back to tee same altitude since we left it at insertion . Yoo just can't equate it. You don't do an optical rendezvous with the booster below you . You try to put it above you so you have the stars and the sky background. below us . It was You couldn't do any line· of· sight nulling because there wasn't anything to null the H)EN=ttAL line of -sight w:ith . 75 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 Ha¼~ii--I saw the thing and we were closing on it. We might have had a better rendezvous with it than with our own booster . We were closing on it and I was concerned enough that I checked to see where the a . c. Fower Switch was to see if I had maneuver capability at the time : The •• sun came across the window and I lost it just like that . miles out. It might have been 5· I don't knov•. It might have been then. It might have been 50 miles out, but I had the im­ pression in the 30 or 40 s econds I saw it that it was quite close because I could make out the shape of it. Shoot! The sun came across the window and that was the last thing I saw out the window. I never saw another thing out the window until we were gone and until the sun finally came off the window. So, if you are doing an optical r endez­ vous and you've got the sun on the window, I don't know what you'd do. White And if you have as dirty windows as we had-- our windows had a white film of material on the GeNFIDENTIAt.... CO t#iDEN Tl,c\ I,,.. 76 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 than what we anticipated, and it didn't seem to be an inplane relative velocity. It didn ' t seem to be an inplane local horizontal relative velocity. It was out-of­ plane and it looked like the booster headed down , with respect to us because i t started separating from us so rapidly , city. prise . I t a l so had less total velo- I think that this was the first surIt started tumbling and immediately the rates built up in just a· very few minutes to something very high-- 40 to 50 degrees/second-but it never got any higher , at least the best we could tell . When we last saw it over Mexico or over southern United Sta tes it was still tumbling at about the same rate , I guess around 40 or 50 degrees/second. I felt tret I got down to it all right and I was in reasonably good shape prior to Carnarvon, and from that time on until we came out of the darkness I lost it , And I think I lost it £0N·~ll;)ENTIAl- 77 because looking at a single light at night doesn't give you any depth perception at all. don't know where the booster is . summarizes it . You just I think that 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 going on. White Well, you see I wasn't able to put the pieces quite together because I was either looking out, and I couldn't see when you were thrusting, or I was looking in and watching you when you were thrusting and listening and not looking out . I tried to interJect my thoughts as we went along and I agree with what you said. I don't believe I want to add anything else. McDivitt Now that we've covered the tracking and the los ing of the booster, I think we ought to go back to the very beginning a t insertion and we will go through the checks that we went through as we proceeded along and the things t hat F,d and I were both doing aside from tracking the booster, the things that we were either doing to prepare to come back in at area 2-1 or t o stay in orbit and proceed with the FNA as we had planned, In looking over the fl i ght plan that we had and the briefing guide on 1tONf'IDENTIAt 78 page six,I have already covered the things on platform alinement. the platform. I did not have time to aline 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 attitude that I hoped was zero,but I never got the spacecraft alined to see that it was zero. So we really went into this thing without my ever having seen a zero pitch a ttitude on the spacecraft . Obviously I didn ' t get a chance to see the 30 degree pitch down on the retrofire attitude. I didn't really have time to look out the window and do a single thing that would have prepared us to reenter at 2- 1 because we were so busy keeping track of-\ White I You know another thing I ' d say also is that we were eternally optimistic. ~ We felt we were going to aline the platform and watch the booster at the same time . r:IcDivitt As a matter of fact, while I was trying to get the alinement it became apparent to me that I could not aline it. I even thrusted vertically-- 79 McDivitt I was in a horizontal position and I thrusted down using my top thrusters , so that I would try to keep the boost