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Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Volume 1 (scan)

NASA via ibiblio · 1969-07-31 · 251 pages · text by OCR

This is Volume 1 of NASA's Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, dated July 31, 1969. The Mission Operations Branch of the Flight Crew Support Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston prepared it, and it was originally classified Confidential. In it Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins go phase by phase through suiting, launch, powered flight, Earth orbit and lunar surface activities. They comment on suit fit, vibration, checklists, lunar dust, footing and poor sleeping conditions in the lunar module. A section titled Visual Sightings appears in the table of contents.

Open the PDF at page 76 Original source ↗

“Collins”60+ pages

  • p. 4 …The timeline on suiting was good. ## 1.3 LIFE SUPPORT EQUIPMENT COLLINS No problem with life…
  • p. 6 …might come disengaged in this time period. ## COLLINS The crew should know about the strut softeners…
  • p. 7 …reported on some of the previous flights. ## COLLINS The reason was that we were flowing glycol…
  • p. 8 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS but it made the system very comfortable, and I recommend (CONT'D) that they…
  • p. 11 …How about the rest of you? COLLINS No. It was very quiet. You could feel the…
  • p. 12 …It was a little surprising to me, and this started rather suddenly. ## COLLINS About the time…
  • p. 13 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS (CONT'D) tell. All of a sudden, this thing changed character from a static…
  • p. 14 …would have been over just like that. COLLINS It was a long, long time before anybody…
  • p. 15 …which vibrations occur in all three axes. COLLINS That was a rougher ride than I expected…
  • p. 16 # CONFIDENTIAL 3.11 CABIN PRESSURE (DECREASE) COLLINS The valves worked as advertised and started decreasing as…
  • p. 17 …Now, that stuff that went oozing forward. COLLINS That staging - well, it was just like staging…
  • p. 18 …BOOST ARMSTRONG I didn't note any. COLLINS Smooth - smooth as glass. ARMSTRONG S-II ride…
  • p. 19 …3.37 S-II/S-IVB SEPARATION COLLINS The staging sequence is a long slow one…
  • p. 20 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS Well, you can confirm them with the fuel cell flows, and that's not…
  • p. 21 ## CONFIDENTIAL ARMSTRONG No doubt about it. COLLINS I wouldn't call it POGO, but it just…
  • p. 22 …t notice any interference with our activities. COLLINS The only interference I noted was that Neil…
  • p. 23 …here: apogee 103.9, perigee 102.1. COLLINS They tell me that they have better sources…
  • p. 24 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS (CONT'D) 4 percent differential. All this was a little confusing to me. It…
  • p. 25 …when you get down to the LEB. COLLINS The one who goes down to the LEB…
  • p. 26 …t fit into a real good timeline. ## COLLINS An example here on page L2-8, item…
  • p. 27 …doesn't fit into a good timeline. ## COLLINS This is a small example here: Page L2…
  • p. 28 …for us, I think. COLLINS Worked fine. ALDRIN Optics Cover Check. COLLINS The only thing I…
  • p. 29 …4.5 OPTICS COVER JETTISON (DEBRIS) COLLINS I heard a little noise, but I saw no…
  • p. 30 …ARMSTRONG We didn't take them off? COLLINS We took them off and we put them…
  • p. 31 …ALDRIN Well, on 2-13 in detail, but do you want it sooner? COLLINS Well, this…
  • p. 32 …4.14 COMMENTS ON EARTH-ORBITAL OPERATIONS ARMSTRONG Any comments on the earth-orbit operations? COLLINS…
  • p. 33 …4.19 SCALE CHANGE ARMSTRONG Scale change, systems, engine alignments, GO for TLI, and then -- COLLINS…
  • p. 34 …was as marked as I had remembered. COLLINS It's so slight, that if you have…
  • p. 36 …PROCEDURE ARMSTRONG The procedure went very well. COLLINS Except yaw. ARMSTRONG No, the yaw was perfectly…
  • p. 39 …13 PYRO OPERATION ARMSTRONG No problem. ## 5.14 SEPARATION FROM SLA ## COLLINS The only comment on…
  • p. 40 …ARMSTRONG That took us quite a while. COLLINS You did that later. ALDRIN Yes, we didn…
  • p. 43 # CONFIDENTIAL ## 5.19 DOCKING ## COLLINS Docking, as in the simulator, was very easy. I did have…
  • p. 44 …24 CABIN PURGE AND LM/CSM PRESSURE EQUALIZATION ## COLLINS I believe all that went just about…
  • p. 45 # CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS I think that this is just normal. Fabric will retain an odor where metal…
  • p. 48 …we did get that gimbal motor off. ## COLLINS ## 5.34 S-IVB SLINGSHOT MANEUVER Now, we…
  • p. 49 …the other, so it was definitely observable. COLLINS But something appeared to be wrong with the…
  • p. 50 …EDS DEACTIVATION COLLINS Nothing to say about that. ## 5.39 S-IVB CLOSEOUT COLLINS I don…
  • p. 51 # CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS (CONT'D) graph somewhere for posterity. Other than that, I don't have anything…
  • p. 52 ## CONFIDENTIAL ## COLLINS ## 6.0 TRANSLUNAR COAST ## 6.1 IMU REALIGNMENT We realigned the IMU in Earth…
  • p. 53 …6.2 DOFF PGA'S COLLINS There were, as far as I can recall, no surprises…
  • p. 55 …3 OPTICS CALIBRATION COLLINS Optics calibration worked all right. 6. 4 PHOTOGRAPHY; EARTH AND MOON COLLINS…
  • p. 58 …didn't occur to us until afterward. COLLINS I certainly don't think it's worth…
  • p. 60 ## CONFIDENTIAL ## COLLINS ## 6.10 EASE OF OPERATIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS They were all right. There were also…
  • p. 63 …It could obviate many kinds of minor difficulties that we didn't mention until now. ## COLLINS…
  • p. 65 # CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS to the horizon. They kept telling me that it was all (CONT'D) right…
  • p. 67 …the simulator probably falls a little short. COLLINS In my mind, it's a question of…
  • p. 70 …you'd use for an SPS burn. ## COLLINS In general, I thought all the P30's…
  • p. 71 …because, of course, the LM was there. COLLINS It was our desire that insofar as possible…
  • p. 72 …I understand we didn't have that and we cancelled that. ## COLLINS ## 6.18 TELEVISION PREPARATION…
  • p. 74 …Now what are you going to be showing? COLLINS We're trying to paint the picture…
  • p. 76 …I guess it's not a problem. COLLINS I think that's a function of distance…
  • p. 77 …control and who was running the show. ## COLLINS That's right and it was a great…
  • p. 79 # CONFIDENTIAL ## 6.24 RADIATORS COLLINS We never flowed through the secondary radiators because the primary worked…
  • p. 80 …6.27 HIGH GAIN ANTENNA PTC REACQ CHECK COLLINS We did it coming back. ALDRIN When…
  • p. 81 # CONFIDENTIAL ## 6.33 REMOVAL OF PROBE AND DROGUE ## COLLINS Probe and drogue removal was absolutely normal…
  • p. 83 …6.38 EATING PERIODS COLLINS They were well spaced and I thought adequate time was given…
  • p. 84 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS I think particularly when you get into the later flights of extended EVA's…
  • p. 85 # CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window and…
  • p. 86 …Yes. ARMSTRONG Two rings. Two connected rings. COLLINS No, it looked like a hollow cylinder to…
  • p. 87 ## CONFIDENTIAL COLLINS It was during the period when we thought it was a cylinder that we…
## CONFIDENTIAL

ARMSTRONG	There was one observation here that seemed to me to be different from the simulator. In the spacecraft, I could seldom if ever detect a difference in signal strength between MEDIUM and NARROW. In the simulator, it's always decidedly different. The conclusion to be reached is that either the simulator is not an accurate representation of signal strength or that we really weren't getting any difference between MEDIUM and NARROW beam. We were, in fact, stuck in one or the other irrespective of switching.
ALDRIN	I would expect there wasn't as much difference between WIDE and MEDIUM, but when you went to the NARROW, you could see it. It wasn't consistent. In any case, it was unlike what we were used to and as long as the signal was received, I guess it's not a problem.
COLLINS	I think that's a function of distance, too. Now in lunar orbit, there was a noticeable difference between MEDIUM and NARROW. But there were some funnies in that high gain antenna. We were playing with it some time and we didn't have control over it and the ground had one of the OMNI's selected. We thought we were controlling it and we

## CONFIDENTIAL

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 251 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.