Apollo 12 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (November 1969) excerpted to capture LMP Alan Bean's report of small particles seen through the AOT (Alignment Optical Telescope) and CDR Pete Conrad's tracking of debris. Routine air-to-ground PAO mission tape, no anomalous incident.
Long-public via NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS doc 19740023510 covers Apollo 8–17 technical air-to-ground voice transcriptions).
Tape 90/3
Page 742
05 19 14 58 cc That's affirmative. We're ready for the E-MOD.
05 19 16 31 CC Intrepid, Houston.
05 19 16 35 CDR-I.M Go.
05 19 16 37 CC If you will give us PO0 and ACCEPI', we'll give
you a CSM state vector and RLS update.
05 19 16 45 CDR-I.M You have POO and ACCEPT.
05 19 20 05 CMP Hello, Houston; Yankee Clipper.
05 19 20 09 cc Yankee Clipper, Houston. Loud and clear.
05 19 20 14 CMP Well, hello there, stranger. How are you?
05 19 20 22 cc Morning, Dick. We are fine. How are you?
05 19 20 27 CMP Well, pretty good. I hope you would like to have
some company for a change.
05 19 21.J 31 cc Roger. Go~ the house clean?
05 19 20 36 CMP As a matter of fact, I Just finished that. I
sure do; got everything in order; ready to go
towards the IM and bring back . . . That's quite
a chore; keeping this thing clean.
05 19 20 53 cc Roger. You got a couple of coal miners coming
up to see you.
05 19 20 59 CMP That's okay. I'll be glad to see them.
05 19 21 10 CC Intrepid, Houston. The computer is yours.
Break. Yankee Clipper, if you will go P00 and
ACCEPI', we have an uplink.
05 19 21 20 CMP All yours .
05 19 23 14 CDR-I.M Houston, you got the lift-off time for me?
05 19 23 20 CC Stand by.
05 19 23 39 cc Intrepid, Houston. Your lift-off time is
142:03:47,
05 19 23 52 CDR-LM I copy 142:03:47.00.
05 19 23 57 C~ Affirmative.
05 19 24 05 cc Clipper, Houston. Computer's yours.
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Tape 90/4
Page 743
05 19 24 11 CMP Okay. And Jerry, will you find out what they
want to do about this battery charge, be~~use
. I'm using the bus tics during the rendezvous?
05 19 24 23 cc Roger.
05 19 24 43 cc Yankee Clipper, Houston. Why don't you figure
on terminating the battery charge at LOS?
05 19 24 52 CMP All right; I could let it go until I just
before lift-off. That way it might take it
all the way up.
05 19 25 33 cc Clipper, Houston. We prefer that you terminate
at LOS on this pass.
05 19 25 40 CMP Roger.
05 19 25 41 cc Roger. That would be one less thing for us to
keep track of prior to lift-off.
05 19 25 48 CMP Okey.
05 19 27 17 CDR-IM Say, Houston, Intrepid.
05 19 27 20 cc Intrepid, Houston. Go.
05 19 27 25 IMP-LM Roger. When you look out the AOT in the dark
quadrant? You can see these lights - particles
of light. flash~s of light just seem to come
from - in this case, I'm looking in quadrant 1
which is the left one. It's coming :from behind
me, the left, and they're just sailing off in
space. I was thinking they're dropping from my
water boiler. but it looks like some of those
things are escaping the Moon. They really haul
out of here and just press off at the stars.
05 19 27 56 cc Roger.
05 19 28 25 cc Yankee Clipper~ Houston with a P22 tracking PAD.
05 19 28 42 CMP Go ahead.
05 19 28 44 cc Roger. Your target is LM; T1 is 139: 57:39;
T is 140:02:38; ~outh 05; latitude is
2
minus 3
05 19 29 10 CMP Hoger. T 112 -
Tape 90/9
Page 748
_)
05 20 08 23 cc Clipper, Houston. We'll give that data a good
evaluation before we do anything with it.
05 20 09 25 LMP-IM Houston, Intrepid.
05 20 09 30 cc Intrepid, Houston. GO.
05 20 09 34 IMP-1..M Got sort of an interesting thing going on AGS
right now. I didn't notice earlier, but it may
just be because the lights i:,.re brighter now.
I'm getting an all 8 1 s flash on both the address
and the information registers at about one-
fifth the brilliance of the normal numbers. And
a - It's pulsing every second.
05 20 10 00 CC Roger, Al.
05 20 10 06 LMP-IM If I turn dmm the illumination level just a
little bit, it's not noticeable.
05 20 10 52 LMP-LM Hello, Houston ; Intrepid. You ready for my RCS
hot fire?
05 20 10 59 CC Intrepid, Houston. Roger. Fire aw~.
)
05 20 11 03 CDR-LM Okay.
05 20 11 32 CC Intrepid, Houston.
05 20 11 37 LMP-LM Go.
05 20 11 39 cc Roger, Al. Fredo is here. He and I have both
seen that phenomena on your DEDA during t estin :',
of most a.11 the spacecrafts up at Bethpage, and
it's probably an EMI.
05 20 11 56 CDR-LM That's what ve' ve been talking about, but we
thought we'd just tcucb in on it.
05 20 11 59 IMP-IM When you go to your roll rate, roll lef't, pitch
up - -
05 20 12 01 cc Roger. I think TRW's got a v0rkup on this
problem.
05 20 12 08 CDR-IM Okay?
05 20 12 11 CDR-IM Here yo~ go, Houston, with roll, pit ch, and
yav.
05 20 12 14 cc Roger, Pete.
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Tape 93/8
. Page 778
06 00 21 42 CMP But I don't have you in the sextant, That's
okay. Your blinking light's Just not blinking,
that's all.
06 co 21 51 CDR-IM Hey, Houston. It looks like our tracking
llght's burned out. Dick hasn't been able to
find us in this sextant. And on the first
nightside pass we had little bits and pieces
floating along vith us and we could tell that
the tracking light va.; flashing on them. And
we still have, I've presumed to think, bits
and pieces floating along and nothing' s flashing
on them, so I'm pretty sure it burned out.
06 00 22 11 CC Roger, Pete.
06 00 22 22 LMP-LM Yes, sir. Okay.
06 00 22 26 CC Hi, Intrepid.
06 00 22 27 LMP-LM Okay.
06 00 22 28 cc This is Houston. How'd your sweepdown fore
( and aft go?
06 00 22 33 CDR-LM It's getting much cleaner in here running this
way; and, also, Yankee Clipper informs me he
bas the television all set up. When we come
around the hor~1, ·we' 11 come around with the
television on in VOX.
06 00 22 47 CC Roger .
.06 00 22 53 CDR-IM Who knows, you may get to see the first
wbiffer<l.ill.
06 00 22 59 CC Roger, Pete. Our electrical watchers say that
the current indicates that your tracking light
is on.
06 00 23 11 CDR-IM Okay. Now ve just turned it off. How does the
current show that?
06 00 23 19 cc It - It sure does, Pete.
06 00 23 26 CMP You're - they're - You're flying thr0ugh the
air b~ckward3, then, Pete, because I don't see
it.
06 00 23 33 CDR-LM Well, my ball tells me I'm pointed at you, Dick,
) • and so does my radar.