NASA-UAP-D016, Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part I, 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 poisoning 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 anything to us .

On top of this we had the Spacecraft

~es t Conductor calling out the times , and superimposed 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 information 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 informed 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 communicators 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 somehow 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 uncomfortable.

But after I had been in for 30 or 40

minutes I didn't feel there was a real restriction 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 tomorrow."

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 uncomfortable 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 management 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 evaporator.

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 girnbaling

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 prevalves 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 critical 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 looking 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 instrument 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 instruments 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 instruments or you won't see them .

They are just

gone.
There is probably a point even in an early morning 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 release.

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 spacecraft 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 simulator .

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 stabilized 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 vibration.

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 centrifuge those darn gimbals aren't a lways synchronized 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 batteries 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 anybody 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 acknowledged.
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 annoyingly 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 indication 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 translations 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 burnout 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 forward, 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 different 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 forward, 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 philosophical 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 unchecked 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 harness 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 incorrect, 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 launchday 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 depressurized 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 stationkeeping 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 - ofplane 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 resembled 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 considerably, 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 rotational 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 unprograrnmed manner .

It might have been that the roll

nozzle was flopping around and the fuel was turning 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 perfectly 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 darkness 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 mechanics .

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 Carnarvon 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 attitudes 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 hopeless, 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 rendezvous .

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 separate 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 mmediately 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 impression 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 booster in my view.

Thrusting,

chasing the booster , and alining the platform
all at the same time-- those are the kinds of
things you have to do .
platform alined .

So, I never did get the

I did not have time .

it somewhere near local horizontal .

I got

If I was

within pl us or minus 5 degrees in the axis , I
think I did a reasonably gooi job ,

The

Thruster Control Mode Checks that took place at
15 minutes I didn't do as such .

I would just

thr ow it into a different mode and thrust .
just did it with a catch~as~atch-can .

I

I did

check out the different modes .
White

Everything seemed to be working .

You weren ' t

getting My thrusters that weren ' t f iring, and
your modes all seemed to me to be working
pr operly .
McDivitt

It looked pretty good.

White

I had one comment on the Co~munic a tions System
Check .

Remember we lost good communications

with No . 1 UHF and we switched to No . 2 and
seemed to have good communications with it

80

from th~~1 on?

Now this wasn ' t representative

that we lost UHF No . 1 beca1lse w0 used bo:h of
the sets at different tiJWS throughout
mj_ssion later 0:1 .

the

But at this particula:-:- time ,

UHP 1 didn ' t give us good reception 13:1d we
swi t<~hed .
McDivltt

I thought comm t"li :-:at.i::ms through the fi1•-it :liv
of the flight wi;re atrocious .
terrible .

They were

Finally we switcht~d to th•) .-~~en~ry

St ub Antenna and that seemed to fix L!w p:>oblern.
I

Didn t you thL1k so?

But you know we went back

to reentry a n tenna, over Carna:::-vo:i one tine .
WH got just as good r~cept i ::>:1 o.ff of i t that
ti.me as we di.d any other ti-:ne .
White

I remember when you were rnak i.ne- yo·.1r
Cornmuni catio:J.s Check.
ai:;leep.

That wa.1 ·.-.r1hm I was

You were ,;h ecki :,1g the two and you

end<id up with the r eentry antenna .
McDivitt

Yes , later on in the flight , as I said, at the
end o.f the fi r. st d9-Y or :30.

Wh ite

We seemed t o get better communications .

McDtvitt
fact , I

W'.:iS

a little concerned that the

comm..m icati.ons w1;re so lousy th~t W'; might h1we

ce~~FIDEl~T~L

81

to come back in, because we were really losing
communic ~tions .
of things .

We were trying HF and all kinds

Information just wasn't getting

up to us .
White

That was after EVA.

McDivitt

Right .

Communications just weren ' t getting 11p

to us .
White

I figured we didn't have any communications
with the ground during EVA.

McDivitt

No, we didn ' t . Our VOX blocked t hem out .

Wh ite

I know i t .

McDivitt

But the Communications Systems Check that was
supposed to be performed at 15 minutes-we sort of already acc omplished the thing,
because we 'd used UHF No . 1 and No . 2.

White

I made the check with them.

McDivitt

Did you make the check? -- that ' s right you made
the check but we didn ' t use the HF because we
weren't going to put the antenna out until after
EVA.

We didn ' t do anything with the urine

bags except keep them right where they were .
White

At this time we didn't pressure check both
suits , because we did this later .

McDivitt

We didn ' t aline the platform , as I mentioned.

C:0NFt0ENlt~ L

GQ ~<IFIDEl>JT IA.L

82

The Control Mode Check was a catch- as- catchcan .

You did unstow, the equip~ent that we

were supposed to unstow .

The bl ood pres sure

bulb, the Hasselblad camera and its packs , a11d
a 16 mm camera.

During this time when I was

chasing the booster , I did manage to get to
reach back behind my seat and pull out the
bracket for the 16 mm c amera.

You tracked the

booster while I smoothed the thi.ng ou t .
White

That I s right .

McDivitt

We didn ' t get out the urine nozz l e .
the utility cord?

How about

Did you get out that fancy

utility 0ord , the three- axis utility cord?
White

Yes, I knew where i t was.

I didn't give it to

you beca~se you didn ' t need it .
McDivitt

No , I didn ' t need it .

That ' s right .

As Ed

said, we did not pressure check our suits a t 30
minutes like we were supposed to .
McDivitt

There ' s this little thing here that says meas11re
all LV~ .

All I did was put the co~puter in

Catch- Up, hit the Start Comp button, and just
l et the numbers fall where t hey would .

At the

time that we stopped chasing the booster around ,
I had about 60 f eet/ second in

C-O~ ◄ Ftf}EMTIAL

one window,

03

-€0Nf-U)ENT1Al
30 in another , and 30 in another.

I never really

ea..11e to a posi tio:1. to try to ni1ll all these
things out to see what the total 6V was .

I

was putting in the thrust with mostly the aft
thrusters and the down-firing top thruster.
I don't think I used the left and right thruster,
at all.

I don 1 t think I used the bottom

thurster at all .

There was no difficulty

controlling a~y of them .

I used the forward­

firing thrusters once or twice to try to slow
dow:i, to take out total velocity.
McDivitt

Then there was the Accelero~eter Bias Check
which was another one of those things.

I don't

know hon I let it get into the flight plan .
White

We both joked about that one , huh , Mac?

We

were really going to get an Accelerometer
Check when we were trying to track the booster.
McDivitt

I was putting 1 6V ' s on the IVI 1 s at a rate of a
foot per minute at least.

We ended up with over

a foot per minute, I think , over that period
of time .

I

1

We couldn t have checked anybody s

accelerometer bias, so I just didn't even fool
around with it .

We were supposed- to take a

blood pressure.

Did you take that blood

~ F.10ENTIAL

l

OONFIDEN I I.A:L

84

pressure , Ed?
White

Yes .

McDivitt

You did ta!<e the blood pressure .

White

I think I did.

I had it out .

I don ' t know

whether they asked for it or not .
McDivitt

Okay.

White

I don 1 t remember on that .

McDivitt

Okey .

We got the ~antity Read off .

I guess

we got a t.ime hack so:newhere in there .
White

They called up I believe. I remember them calling
the Quantity Read- Off, and I t urned it 0?~'.

McD.ivitt

That's right.

McDivitt

Then it says at one hour we were supposed to
W1stow and assemble the maneuvering unit in its
16 m:n mount.

I don ' t think we had that stuff

out by then , did we?
White

No .

McDivitt

You see , this whole flight plan was based on me
being able to track the booster witho~t using
any thrust , a~d essentially having the spacecraft stationary near the booster, without
any maneuvering at all , where the stationkeeping was a matter of just looking out at the
thing and co:1.trolling your attitude with pulse .

85

We thought that if the booster was stationar~
we could get in close to it .

We could

essentially fly a formation by it with mo~e
a:titude co:1trol than translation control ,
which l eft me then free to help F.d assemble al l
this stuff for the EV~.

Well , it turned out that

I didn ' t dare take my eyes off the booster for
half a second .

So all tne things that we were

supposed to do together up until the t ime we
f inally said goodby to the booster , Ed had to
accomplish himB11lf .
help him.

I was completely unable to

The only thing I ma.~aged to do was

to unstow the 16 lllDl camera bracket and put the
16 mm camera on.
White

I ~ouldn ' t quite get at that one .

McDivitt

No .

I could nardly get to it .

So we w~re

probably behind at t he hour mark.

Right?

White

Yes .

McDivitt

Not by an awful lo ~.

White

I knew we had a probl em with the booster , and I
was more concerned with our problem with the
booster t han getting the gun and stuff o:it
then .

I f elt that they w~re both tied together

and onc e w~ l ost t he booster we didn ' t have a

EONFIDEN:f.lAt"

86

sweat time-wise on making o:1r EVA.

So , I was

trying to be of what assistance I could to Jim
on watching the booster during these first
critical periods.
McDivHt

Yes.

It wasn ' t unappreciated because this

booster was becoming a speck on the horizon , and
if you blinked your eyes you co:1ld very well lose
thn dar.r1 thi "lg .
W"nite

When wa were out that seconi day, I think you
said one tiine you did. lose it for a minute.

McDivi t t

Tha~' s right .

W!1ite

I was lucky enough to still be seeing it , un~il
yo .i started picking it up again .
0

McDivitt

That ' s r.·I.ght .

So, I'm saying it really took

t ~o pairs of eyes constantly looking at that
booster to keep it in sight.

It's juAt one of

those thingH that just took so much time thkt
we hadn ' t planned on.
McDivitt

It was almost unbelievable .

In o:.ir flight plan from an ho:.ir to at1 hour and
twenty minutes we don't really show a'.1.ything.
Although, here again , we were busy with the
booster.

So, when we got l:l.1'.'0und to closing with

the boost~r , there wasn't any closing.

We

finally got clearance over the United States to stop

L

..

~Ot~R0ENrtAf~
fooling with the booster .

s1
I think this was ·.t.n

extremely wise dP.cisioo .
McDivltt

I got to Guaymas and I said the booster was
pull ing aw,zy from us .

We ' d already used abo~t

6.V to stay with it , and I r ecommended

100

that w~ just give up on it .

We had to get a

dee ision imm, idiatel y because I couldn ' t stay
0

with it and 11ot use f\1el at the same t Lme .
came back from Texas.

They

I talked to Guaymas and

got their confirmation from Texas , which was
only a "Tlatter o.f a couple of m'i.nutes , saying
leave the booster .

Th9.t was about the only

thing tney could 3ay .

Wnite

And this was the time I went aft er the gun .

McDivitt

Okay .

At th9.t time we reve.rted fror:i station­

keeping , which we were both attempting to do
to EVA preparation, which we both had to do .
I

Thats when Ed went after the gun, and we
st8J'.'ted our ...,c,.;pa::at.i.0.11.

We wc-::-do ' t .rea1 ly

far bt-~h..:.nd llt this time .

All WH had to do was

get the gun out and get the m!'l.neuvering unit .
The cameras we·c(: already out .
Zeiss too , didn ' t yo~?

-E0NFIDENTJAL

You had the

88

White

Yes .

The Zeiss came out with the Hasselblq,d ,

from that S3Jlle package as the movie ca:nera.
And the storagf~ certainly wan :i l ::>t easier .

What do you think?
McDiv"a t t

Tbat ' s right .

White

Particularly getti~g it out that center thing.
You can just zip :hem o:.it of there with no
probl 1Jra ;lt all.

McD:ivi tt

So, a~ about 1 : 30 we started to assHmble the
gun .

If you look at the checklist, yo:.i see

that we probably gcit the gun assembled :Ln
nothbg na.t .
White

It 1 s no problt:im to assemble the gun .

McDivitt

We started our eg:-ess preparations essentially
on time .

As a mattHr df fact , I think we evtm

got star ted a little earlier.
White

Then, we weren ' t worrying abo-;.1t anythi11g else .

McDivltt

Then , we w:ren I t worrying abo·J."!; staying with
the booster.
or 1: 40 .

Over the States we started our ~gress

preparat io~.
White

We probably started it abo~t 1:35

We went to our .Jther checklist .

You were o,•er Ascension , calling off the checklist.

McDivitt

I sta::ted reading the checklist off to Ed and

COl>IFJBEN+iN.

EO·MFIDENTIA't:we w1:nt through it .

89

He unntowed evet'ything.

Why don ' t you tell them what you did there, Ed?
I just read the checklist off to you , and you
went a.head and riid i.t.
White

Okey .

I had to get bar.k .i.11":o the r"ight -h.md

box, and I un:=i tow0d the item:, there .

The

first time I went back in there , I took the

firs t items out, and I did :1 ot unstow the full
box .

I rem,~mher I told you,

out , Jim.

II

It I s all comi.r1g

I ' m gol11g to bring them all out on

the 19.11yard. "

Remember?

McDivitt

Right .

White

We'd tak~ them o~f piece by piece if we n eed it .
At that tim,1 I pill lfld the wh0l,'! lanyard out and
the cockpit was full of little bags . I was qu.ite
happy that they had prevailed upon me to put
a lanyard on all th is equipment .

I had thought

at one time that it woulri be mvt'd des iri-:l,bl ~ not
to p,1t a lanya.rcl on .

We 'd been wo:::-k.ing a lot

in our sim11lations without the lanyard and it
seemed pretty easy .

But looking at it now, I

highly recom..n~nd that eve r-ybody k,-lep that stuff
on a l anyard .
McDiv.i.tt

We would have r eally had a mess if we ' d had all

-€0NFl0ENflAt· --

90
those thitJ.gs floating ar.ound .

It was bad

eno~gh as it was .
Wnito

Yes , eight or ten of those little bags , and I
was glad they were all tied Jn to Jne string.
I could con trol them in t hat manner .
quite simple to U'lsn3.p .

They were

I thought the snap

attachmP-nt made it p:::-etty easy to UtJ.stow , and
selectively pick o~t the items that I wa~ ted .
I unstowed the pouches that I needed, and then
we g,)t ready to tak~ the long um'J il ical out .
h'ld a little difficulty .

It toJk m~ about

three trys to get it out .

It ' s f airly big

package to come through a small hole .

I

It was a

good thing th~t we had tak~n the Velcro off of
the batch , beoause t here was no tendency for
any th i. ng to hang up as w,~ remewed it .

On

the

third try I got it out .
McDivltt

I thought yo~ did an extremely good jJb getting
the bag ou~.

You got it out a l ot quicker than

TC'ai.nec in Houston or in the simlll ator at the
Cape .
Whi t e

You didn ' t know it .

It took m.1 th:::-ee tr.rs .

McDivitt

Wall , maybe it did , but it sure l:,okH i like it
1

CQtqffDfNTtAtl

C~Ptl)E~TIAL
camP. out a lot eaf-Jier.

91

I thought you got it out

in a big hurry .

I didn ' t notice that it took

yo:J. three trys .

I saw you stat't, and then jllst

a f-Jhort t.i.m,1 la7-er, it was out .

White

Well , it d:id come out pretty easy , and I think
the storage was .satisfactory , bllt I ' d
certainly reco1nm,1ricl thA.t noth.i "lg b ~) on ';ht1
outside to k~ep it from coming vllt.

It's a

real tough-McDivltt

Yes , we need the velcro off of there .

We ' re

pretty wd 1 sure of tha-~ .
White

The reGt of the ::iquipm•:111';- the " y" con:1ectors ,
the bag thA.t contained the "y" connectors , and
the attachments for the chest pack , I handed
to yot1 .

I thi'lk you wi;c~ k:➔ep.L ,1g tra,)k of most

of those things 1mtil the time I needed them .
McDivitt

Yes , I was .

Waite

The storage of the ventilation module froc:i the
fioor came off pr~tty easily.

That ' s when 1

started goi!'lg ahead ;md putting it all on .
read the checklist off to me.

I had gone

ahead. and done a few things anyhow .
read them off

As you

I checkP.d them off to be sllre

that I had done them all .

4€0NflDENTIAb

I think we h-':l.d

You

92

cor ◄ FIE>f~IAL
everything out without m~ch problem at all .

I

think it took •ls longer actually to p1lt it
all together. .
McDivitt

That ' s right .

It d id .

We started going

through the checklist here and putting the
things on and W'3 started getting more and more
rushed .

We were supposed to s tar. t the E[,rress

Preparation Checklist at abo:it 1:44 .

We

probsbly sta::-ted it at about 1: 35 or so .

We

started it about 10 minutes early, roughly ,
maybe five to 10 min1tes early.

We were

supposed to be ready to start the depressu r.a7,ation at 2: 30 over Carnarvvn .
White

I think I could h.3,ve gone through ari:i l1ook2d

ev8.rything all up , but I felt that we should
go -:hc:-ough fairly close to the p~ocedure w1; had
set up on the checklist.
McDivitt

That I s r igh t .

White

I think this slowed us down .

McDivitt

Well , we set tht, procedure up so tha~ when we
finished wlth it, it would be right .

I think

this helter- sk8lter thing that we were being
forced into was for the birds.

So an Ne g0t

farther al:mg , it beca;n,~ .:i.ppar,mt to nt, that

eot~Ftl:>ENll-AL

~ I DEN f ~kl111

93

the thing to do wo~ld be to stop .
White

Right .

McDivltt

Go aht-,acl with the assembly of the stuff .

Why

d-:m 1 t you cor.1:nP.n~ on that?
White

I I ve co;::rnt'.!nted in my Self Debr: ~efing aboc1t th,?
equipment and the assembly of it .

I thought

thec-e was no d-i.fficul ty at all in conrn-,cti 1g
the "y" connectord, the hoses,
pack .

anj

the chest

I thought the connection of th•e chest

pack to 11\Y harness was a good o~e .

With the

velcro I could m•, we it in and -:)Ut wheneve.c I

waa~ed to s:) th at I could mak~ '!\}' connec tiorrn
on the i,il,?t side of the ECS hoses .

It w.mt

along pretty smoothl y , as a matter of fact .

I

think as we progressed along in it though , we
felt tha~; we hA.Cl r3ve.cythi'.'.lg d,me .

I

I didn t

rea.11.y feel that; w: hail 13verything done 1,n a
thorough manner .

And I think yo'J. had that sarnr~

feel i.ng.
McDivlH

That ' s right .

Wnen W8 got to Kan:) or Tana1.,;1.r·Lve

- ~I th::nk it was TananR:-'l. ve --I cal'led whoe ver

I was talking to and sai<l that we were :rLl.Ilfl.i.ng
late and I thought that we would probably not
do the EVA on thi.s particular .cev .

• CONFIDENl~At

I krtew thn,t

94

l:,okl~d to 1:1,? l i.kc~ we had ,il 1. the stuff hookr.d
I

up , but Wf; hl3.dn t really had a chance to check
it .

I also noticed , Ed , that you W':re gr~tting

this whol ~ thing off .

So I tol d them over

Tananar.ive- -I believe it was Tan~n~rive- -that

dP.pressurize at the ne xt station .

We went on

ahead and it looked to me like yo~ were all
hooked up and 9.bo11 t ready to g';) except for. <me
thing.
Wh::.t':l

W,~ for.got

tht1

thi~rm.-.11 glOV':~ .

I d i.i not have

my ther.,n.-tl. gloves on .

McDivitt

You did not have the the::-m.,l gloves oa , which
is aor t of insigaif icant , but we hadn ' t really

sure that l t wa.~ l.n t"le ri.gh":; sp-:,t .
Wh ite

w,~ l l , we talked a~d yo:.1 said , "~9.t d,:, you
think? "

We talked it over:- and I had the same

feeling . I though":: it sur.e wo~lld oe sm,1.r t if we
had abo11t W rni'lntes to just; sit her~ r,➔ al still

€eNft0EN=J:l-AL

CONFIDE~il~l-

95

befoce we go out .

McDivitt

I think w~ w·are in a situation w~ere it would
probably hava gone all right .

We hr-ui cor:ipl,3ted

hai rlo:w as far as the check.i.'lg w~nt , and I

juat di:in 1 t feel th'3.t we were i11 the right
shape .

Ed didn't think we were , and besides , I

could see Bd.

I

He coul,ln t see himself .

~d

look'.-!d a.wf.1lly hot , s.rvl h;? l:iokt~d like he wa:1
0

getting a little pooped out from playl ng c1..-:-01md

I tho~ght that the best

with that big suit .

thing for his sake , e.nd I kn~w h~~ ·t1oul<'l.n ' t
ad.mi-'.; i. t , wa~, to l13t him r~st up for anot'1er

o.cb i. t .

White

I

McDivitt

So , when w~ go-t to ~arnarvon--I g,1ess i t was

agree

that

was

the best judgment .

Carnarvon--I cal led them A. 'ld sa.:i.n r,m wc-Jra not
goi:1g !;o co □c out on tha:': or':>:. t .

Whit9

It wa,, Carr1arv0n .

It was just before we

McDivitt

So , we postponed it until the next orbit .

As a

matter of fact , after that w~ j1rnt sat ther::! .
We d idri I t dn a thi-ig for abor.1: 10 mi.nutes .

let Ed cool off a li.ttle bit .

EON~l(;)ENTIAL

I

We were on two-

96

fa'1 o;>eration ,q,-: the time.
and we were cooled o.! 'f .

White

Okey .

We j·.1st sat there

We went ~o,x1.d for

The.n as w~ wr:n '; back around , I asked yo,J.

to go thro:;.gh the checklist ag-'3.in , a "'.ln. ·,m wen';
through item by item this time .
McDivltt

bi.11-:k to the beg-Lrming checkl i.st , the EgL·ess
Prepa':.'ati:>n Checklist .

We started at the

top 0111; , and we dU. every step on it again .
We verified e ve ry s tep to make s1u·e ,rn hr-tdn ' t
left an;rthi--ig out .
WhL te

We actually went in ~d check8d t hi s time .
Another thi ng ,m ha<ii'i' t r eally positively
check9d was the posi tio11 of all the locks on all
of the hose i.n~e ts and o•J. t.l ,~ ts .

This time ·,,e

ac t ually chi,ck~d .<J.11 those lock~d .
W<:'t'e

Al 1 of them

locked in , but it was a good t hing to do,

I believe .
McDivitt

You want to rnakA sure .

We di:i d o ou:r Suit

h-tegi.'ity Check hefor,~ we started a ll this stuff .

Wo.ite

That ' s rigbt .

We started before we actually went

to the unstowing of the stuff from the righthand a f t fo od bo:x.

We went

GOr~Fl0EN-ltAL

to the S:1i t

eo~+F-10-EN.TJAL

97

It1 ~2gt'-i. ty Check .
McD:ivitt

Well , I don ' t know 'tihere it is , but we did it
when we were s 111)posed to d·::> it .

McDivitt

We did the .&lit I ntegrity

heck befo:ce we

started the .Egt•e ss Pr~paration 0he.-;klist .
That ' s when ·,.e did it , over the States .
White

I think we d-Ld thA.t just about the t .ime you
decided to give up on the booster .
Suit

In~egTi.t;y Check .

We di1 the

Both suits checkHd ::>ut

all right . I t we nt up to 8.5 and it leaked
do~ to about 8 . 3 Qr som,,thing l i.kH that .
McDivitt

Same thing with mine .

It went up to 8. 5 and

laak1--?d down ju:1t a little bit .

Not enough

to ~e concerned about .
White

No .

Oh , one thing that we d id do on that extra

orbit that w~ went around -- I discon_~ected the
.0epress 0ystem 1ind we Wf.: mt back nn the-McDi vitt

Oh , yes .

We never e ·.ren got on the .;·_e press

system, di.d we?
White

Yes , I be lieve w•~ were , but then we turned it
off .

We w~re already to depressurize and then

wcj wimt back on the spacecraft ECS system, full,

and ~ent through and reverified the whole
checklist again .

The onl y thi 1gs that I would

(;6)N.f-lDENTIM

•

98
I

say we h~dn t done to ffi3" sati.sfacti.,_.,n t"le fi.r;;t
time ,1as t:J check the inlet an<l 011tlet positions
o f the locks , and I didn ' t have my tho?rmal

gloves on .
McDivitt

It turnAd out I didn ' t need them .

Also , d 1r.i11g this pe.clod of timr-i 1 R..l i.ned. tht,
pL1tfor1n, ;.rh.i.ch war. ~onpl ~ tely in .i. s:i1 i.nP.d .

It

w:.:1s probably alined within a c-:iuple d,=1g1.-ees ,
but as we went a-r.ou:'1d in Orbit Rate it g0t
farthP.C' anrt farther 0;1-'; of tol?r-:in.~e .

m:uvv~d ·to a 1 .i.1e the pl-:i.tfo.rra.

So , I

Here agllin , I

m.i..ght com,1.mt on the fan t that ou:::- in i ti,9.l

flight plan was so optimistic that it was

almoat unbelievable .

The both o~ ua wurk~d full

time :>n doing r 10 tn; 'lg ex•)ept pc,~par.ine for EVA,

aJ1.11 we dldn ' t quite gHt thA job done .

I ca11 ' t

believe that we could ·'lA.ve poss ibly flown
f o:-mation w:i. th the booster and taken pictures
of it and all the other thi 'lgs t:i.at we had

and even comH close to compl-? ting it .
White

Well , the way we wo11ld h'3.ve had to do it, would
have been witho11t a checklist .

I would h~va had

to just go ahead :.md ~1:>ok c~verything .•..p .

I

think tl'J could 111-w-3 do,w it satisfact)rily l-i

C~~ftDEN-l+AL

EONfl0ENTIAL

99

this manner , but it wouldn ' t have been the way
we would have wanted it .
McDivitt

Yes, that ' s right .

I don't think that ' s the

way it should be done .

It was just too bad

that we had a time limit on it , but when we did
get rid of the booster, or the booster no
longer became a part of the flight plan , then the
time limit vanished.

We found out that we

really needed that extra orbit, or probably could
have used another 20 minutes.
White

Yes.

We went back.

And I remember as we came

over Carnarvon, we had about a 15 minute chat
back and forth- kind of a rest period .

We

were all hooked up at that time , and that ' s the
time we went on the ~epress flow, ready for the
depressurization .

I think they gave us a GO

then for our EVA.
McDivitt

That ' s right .

We depressurized the cabin and

got down to 2 psi to check our blood pressure .
We tried to put our blood pressure plugs in
the blood pressure plug port and found out that
we didn't have any blood pressure plugs on
e ither- suits .

This was quite a surpri se .

unpleasant one , I might add .

An

Well , we dec i ded

100

that from our past experience and our
knowledge of the suit that even if we did
spring a leak in the blood pressure cuff the
size hole that we had in the suit would not be
catastrophic , and we decided to go ahead with
the EVA.
White

It was within the·capability of the syst em we
were using.

McDivitt

At Carnarvon we not onl y got the go- ahead to
start t he depressurazation , we also got the goahead to open up the hatch , the go- ahead that
we weren ' t supposed to get until Hawaii .

So ,

we went ahead and did that .
- .______
White

Yes .

I ' m kind of curious of the whole time .

were out nearly an orbit , I think .

We

We didn ' t

get it closed back again till we got back around
to Carnarvon .
McDivitt

We were in a whole orbit depressurized .

White

Yes , I don ' t think people quite realize that .

McDivitt

We ' ll remind them .

As we got to the hatch

opening t hi ng , we had our first difficulties
with the hatch .

The gain gear , I guess you want

to call it--actually I call it the ratchetdidn ' t want to engage into the UNLOCK position .

101

We fooled with it a f ew times a~d it f inally
engaged in t he UID.iOCK position , and Ed was
able to go ahead and start .
White

The first indication of trouble was when I
unstowed the handle to open the hatch .

The

handle free ly moved up and dovm with no tension
on it at all .

I knew righ t away where the

trouble was .

It was up in that little spring

on the gain pawl .

So , I went up and manipulated

it back and forth in hopes that I could break
the lubrication loose in the spring to get it
to work.

We must have spent several minutes

with t he hatch.

I thought perhaps it might

have been stuck in the manner that the hatch got
stuck

in t he Wet MOc k , where it just was stuck.

You could ratchet it open , but the hatch itself
wouldn ' t open.

It was pretty apparent the trouble

was in the gain pawl .

I jimmied it back and

for t h, and then I decided to go ahead and try
the technique of actuating it in sequence
with the hatch handle .

If you actually replaced

the operation of the spring with mechanically
moving the gain pawl up and down, you can do
the same work that the spring does .

EONFtDENTIA~

102

McDivitt

Your fingers sort of take the place of the
spring and drive this l ittle pawl home .

White

This is the first time we actually tried this
in a suit .

It requires you to press up with

your left arm to get at the gain pawl, and at
the same time hold yourself down .

And I think

l ater on t his was a source of some of our
problems whi ch I brought out now so that we can
find out later on.

I f e l t it start to engage ,

and start to ratche t the lugs out .

Jim also

verified that they were coming open.

I backed

them off , and I remember Jim saying "Ooop ! Not
so fast !", and at t hat time it popped .

The

hatch actually popped open , jumped open about

3 or 4 inches .
McDivitt

I was expecting the hatch t o come open with a
bang.

Although we had the cabin to vent and it

had bled on down to where there was nothing
indicated on the Cabin Pressure Gage , we still
really had the repress valve on.

He was

bleeding right into the spacecraft .

We never

got down to a vacuum and even though we had a
cabin pressure of only a tenth of a psi , we
spread it over t he entire area of that hatch,

OONFl0E~TV\L

103

and that puts a pretty good size forc e on it .
I had a real tight hold on the hatch closing
device , and when it popped open I was able to
snub it .
White

It didn ' t really open with much force , did it?

McDivitt

Well, it did.

It opened with a fai r amount .

It

popped and I couldn ' t stop it the first inch

or so .

Then , of course , as soon as it opened

that much pressure bled off .

I just sort of

snubbed the thing to keep it from fly ing all
the way open.

Now if I hadn ' t been holding onto

it, I don ' t think it would have gone open more
than two or three feet .
White

This is another point too .

There ' s more force

on the hatch actuator than I thought .

I didn ' t

just flip the door open with my hand .

I had to

actually forcibly push it open , similar to the
forc e with which I opened the hatch laying on
my back under one ti g II .

That ' s about the force

that I had to put on the hatch to open it .
McDivitt

This extra force that we are talking about is
due to the 0-rings they put in the pyres that
are used for jettisoning the hatch .

This is

something that they put in just before the

Ee-NFt0ENTIM.

OO~~FK:>fN--TIAL

104

flight .

Something that we 'd gone out to the

spacecraft t o feel .

We knew just about wh at t he

force was , but it was pretty high .
White

Okay.

At thi s time I had certain things that I

had to accomplish .

I had to mount the camera

on the back of the adapter , and mount t he
umbilical guar d on the edge of t he door . I
elected, as I had pl anned , to go ahead and mount
the camera f irst and then the umbilical guard .
I mounted the camera and it went on without too
much difficulty.

The t hree little lugs on the

bottom are a good mounting scheme .

I think I

would make a littl e eas ier engaging device for
working out in a hard suit .

I had familiarity

with it , and it did lock up there all right .
The umbilical guard for the umbi lic al on the
side of the door took me a little longer to
mount .

Back to opening the hatch--I had the

thermal gloves on when we were opening t he
hatch , and because of the fine work I had to do
with the little gain and the drive lugs up
there , I had to remove the thermal gloves so
thtt I could actually actuate those small
l evers.

I couldn ' t do them with any precision

EOl'JFIDEN+JAL

G()NFIE>ENTIAt
with my gloved hand .

105

So, I took the thermal

gloves off at this time and I handed them to
Jim.

When I got back out I didn't notice

any temperature extremes .

I felt quite confident

that there wouldn I t be any heat since we just
came out of the dark side , so I decided to do
the actual work in putting this equipment on
with my plain pressure suit gloves .
more feel with them .

Let me get back now to the

umbilical guard on the door .
well .

I had much

I t went on pretty

It took me a little longer and it took

me four or five trys to get the little pin into
the hole that actually snubbed the guard down
on the door .

I did something then that I

hadn ' t planned to do .

The bag had floated up

and out of the spacecraft and now it was above
the point where the hose was going through the
umbilical guard .
inside .

I had planned to keep it down

I left it there for two reasons :

(1)

I figured it was there already and I would have
had to take the umbilical cord off again and
scooted it back down , and (2) I also felt that
Jim might have had a better view if it wasn't
sitting right in front of him on the hose coming

CONflDENTIA~

106

up from th1~r ~press v ,1.lve .
and leave the bag there .

I elect ed to go ahead
I t hen reported to

Jim that I had everything all mounted and was
ready to go .

I had planned to take a short

series of pictures.

Since we had gotten out

early, I had a little extra time at this time ,
so I went ahead and turned the outside EVA
camera on .

I took a short sequence of pictures

that actually gives the egress up out of the

seat .

I kind of went back down and came out

again so they would get an actual picture
of it , and then I turned the camera off again .
I mounted the camera and I turned it on while it
was on the mount .

I took a short sequence when

I asked Jim to hand me my l eft thermal glove ,
which he did .

I put the thermal glove on while

the camera was running.

I t urned back around .

I wanted to be sure the camera was off , so I
took it off the mount and I turned the camera
off and actually visually took a look to see if
the switch was off.
McDivitt

Did you lmock it off one time?
said the camera f ell off .

GO MF tf}ENftA L

I thought you

107

€0tt<tFIDENTIA-6 White

By golly , I did .
times .

So I must of mounted it four

That ' s right , I knocked it off one time

during this time when I was out there .

I got

the picture of the egress , and then I asked you
t o hand me the gun .
wasn ' t running.

At th is t i me the camera

I had the glove on my l eft

hand , and I went ahead and t ook t he gun and made
sure that it was ready to go.

I had the

camer a on at that time and the val ve was on .

I

checked the valve to be sure it was on and I
was essent iall y ready to go .

I don ' t know how

l ong this took , but it took me longer than I
thought .

We had had early egress and it wasn ' t

too much bef ore I got the GO t hat I was ready to
leave the spacecraft .
McDivitt

I ' m not sur e whether we got that GO from
Hawaii or Guaymas .

I sort of suspect that we

got that GO f r om Hawaii , not Guaymas as we had
originally planned .
White

Well , it sure seemed short from the time I was
mounting all t hat stuff out there to the time
you told me go.

McDivitt

That ' s right .

I ' m sure we were talking to

Hawaii , and they said you ' re clear to proceed

-ee·NFI0EN1=·1Ab.

108

with EVA.
White

And that ' s when I went .

I bet we went out at

Hawaii .
McDivitt

I think we went out at Hawaii.

White

I delayed from the time you gave just a minute ,
long enough to actuate the camera on the
outside .

This was kind of interesting.

When I

actuated that camera, I had D\Y gun tied to my
arm with the tether .
right .

It floated freely to my

I turned back around and turned the switch

ON on the camera, and listened and made sure
the thing was running.
and put it down.
the film.

I knew it was running,

I think you 'll see t his on

I wanted to be sure it was running

when I mounted it back there .

I actually took

it off and turned it on, and I remember it
jiggling up and down when I was trying to stick
it on there .
film .

It ought to be a funny looking

And it might even show the gun floating

beside me as I was mounting it .
you said, "Slow down.
hot . "
on.

That ' s when

You ' re getting awfully

I was working pretty hard to get that
I mounted the camera again and this is

where I tried to actually maneuver right out

109

of the spacecraft .

I knew right away as soon as

I got u~I felt even before - - that the technique
of holding on to the bar in the spacecraft and
sticking a finger in the RCS thruster wasn ' t
going to wor k .

I mentioned that to Jim before -­

that I didn ' t think I would be able to do it .
McDivitt

I think that you and I both knew how you were
going to do, and ever-sbody else was planning for
us how we were going to do it , but without any
real experience in it. People. who didn I t know
a lot about it were planning this sequence a~d
it wasn ' t the way it should have been .

White

I couldn ' t have done that .
hands .

I didn ' t have three

I couldn ' t hold the gun and put a

finger in the RCS nozzle , and hold the handle
at the same t.ime .

I thought it would be more

d~sira.bl:'; anyhow to actually depart the spacecraft with no ·.re locity, other than that imparted
by the gun.

This is exactly what I did .

I

thought t hat I was free of the spacecraft , and
I fired the gun.

I real'i.zed that my legs were

still dragging a little bit on the side of the
seat , so I pulled myself out until I could
see that my feet 1vere actual l'•' on!; 0f the

CSl>,lflQEDlllA I

110

spacecraft .

I think you called me and said I

was out of the spacecraft .
McDivitt

I called and told you that you wer e cl,3n.r .
That ' s right .

White

And that ' s when I started firing the gw:i a"ld
act~ally pr~pelled myself under the influence
of the gun .

I don ' t believe I ga ve any input

into the spacecraf"t whm1 t 1,3ft that t Lne ,
did I?
McDivit t

No , you left as clea,1 as a whistle .

White

Later on , I gave you some pre tty big ones .

McDivitt

You were re~lly boun0ing arou~d then .

White

Now at the tjme, J l ef t entire ly under the
influence of the gun avid it 0arried me right
straight oat, a little higher tha"l I wanted
to go .

I wanted to ma:.~euver over to your side ,

but I maneuv•;r~d out of the spacecraft and
forward ru1d pBrhaps a little higher· than I
wanted to be.

When I got out; to whst I estimate

as p~obablyone- half or two-thirds the way out on the
tether, I was out past the nose of ·t'ne
spacec:::-clf t .

I started a yaw to the left with

the gun and that ' s when I reported th~t the
gun r 8al1J worked quite well.

I believe that I

•

I

111

~ONFl01:~TtAT
stopped that yaw, and I started t .1.·a.nsla:b.•
back toward the spacecraft .

1-"'

It was either on

this translation or t~'1P. one following this that
I got into a bit of a combination of a pi·tcl-i

roll and the yaw together .

I felt that I could

have corrected it , but I knew tha. t i.t ww.~d h av0
ta.-<e.'1 mor,-: f...i.el than I had wanted to expend with

the gun , so I gave a little tug Jn the tether
and came back in.

This is the first experience

I had with tether dynamics and it brought me
right back to where I did not want to be .

It

brought me right ba~k on the top of the sp~cecraft , by the adapter section.

Jim was

calling me and said that I was out of his sight .
I told him that I was all right , that I was up
above the spacecraft , I looked down and I could
see attitude thrusters firing , littl-~ white
puffs out o~ each o~e .

I wasn I t very close .

They looked j ust like what Chamberlain ' s report
told us .

It looked just like about a foot and

a half or maybe 2 feet of plume from the spacecraft and certainly didn I t look omin-.11H.~ to me
at all .

In fact it looked kind of like the

spacecraft was r eally alive and working down

<;.eN·FtDENTfA-t,.

CDr ◄ FIDiNI IAJ..

112

there .

I knew Jim was doing his job holding

attitude for me .
McDivitt

Let me comment on the attitude- holding right
now.

Initially we started out in blunt-end­

forward. banked to the left about 30 degrees or
so .

This happened to be the attitude we were

in .

We wanted to be bl u:~t- end- forward for the

sun . and they told me it didn ' t make any
difference what attitude that we were in when
we opened up the hatch .

We had originally

planned on opening the hatch toward the ground .
I was CRlled by some station that said it didn't
make any difference what attitude I was in when
I opened the hatch .

We opened

the hatch .

We

opened it in that particular attitude, and I
held the attLtude for the f irst portion of the
time that Ed was out .

When you had th" gun you

managed to stay reasonably well out in front .
I held the sp~cecraft essentially stationary
with respect to the local horizontal .

After

yvJ. ran out of f uel in the gun yo'J. were on top
of the spacecraft all of the tim~ .

I felt that

unless you really had to have the thing
stablized , to maintain your S•?nse of balance or

EO~~FIBf~TiAL

CO~◄ FH:>·EN'fl7'L

113

whatever you want to 8all it, I wouldn't fire
the thrusters .
White

You asked that already wnen I was out .

McDivitt

Yes .

I asked you if you needed it and you said

no .

So , then I felt it would be better not

to fire the thrusters , because you were drifting
back up over the co~kpit .
were going up over us .

I could see that you

I couldn ' t see back

behind me , but I could see by the motions that
you had when you went by me that yuu were going
to continue on .

I felt th~t it would be a lot

safer if we just let the spacecraft drift
unless it got into very high rates .

I fired the

jets a couple of times just to bo~k ,:,.ft the
rates .

I let it start drifting when y0u got

on the tether so tha~ you wouldn 1 t get back
there on top of one of those thrusters when I
fired them .

From abou-: the time? you ran out of

fuel until you got back in I didn 1 t do mu-:::h
attitude controlling.

I did some .

Everytime

the rates got up pretty high, I 1 d knock them
off .

You were able to ma...~euver around the

spacecraft when the spacecraft itself had rates
of say plus or minus • 2 degrees/second in a

<;9·M'FID ENTIAl

114

couple of the axes at the same time .

Here again

before the flight we discussed the axis system.
Ed selected the spacecraft as his axis system.
It didn ' t a:;:>pear that he was having a bit of

trouble with i t .

He was maneuvaring with

respect to it , regar,lless of what the earth ,
sun , moon , a~d stars were doing .

It was

pretty ob\·i,..,us to me th:l.t was exactly what he
was doing .
White

Well , when I came back the firs t tims to ·~he
spacecraft with the gu-:r-- I had used the tether
to bring me back-- I did go back up on the
adapter area.
happened .

This is the first time it had

I said , "All right .

back out again."

I ' m ~omL'1g

This is one of the most

impressive uses of the gun that I had .

I

started back out with that gun, and I decided
that I would fire a pretty good burst too .

I

started back out with that g.m , a.~d I literally
f lew with the gun right down along the edge of
the spacecraft , right out to the front o~ the
nose , a..'1d out past the end of the nose .

I then

actually stopped myself with the gun .

Tha t was

easier than I thought .

I must have been fairly

tD~L

•

115

fortunate , because I must have f ired it right
thro..igh my CG.

I stopped out there and , if my

memory serves me right , this is where I tried
a couple of yaw maneuvers .

I tried a couple

of yaw and a co:..1.ple of pitch maneuvers , and then
I started firing the gun to come back in .

I

think this was the time that the gun r an out .
And I waa actually able to stop myself with it
out there that second -';:irne too .

The longest

fi r ing time that I put on the gun was the one
that I used to start over the door s up by the
adi=tpter section .

I started back out then .

I

probably fired it for a one second burst or
something like that .
time .

I used small burst all the

You could put a little burst in and the

response was t r emendous .

You could start a

slow yaw or a slow pitch .

It seemed to be a

rather efficient way to operate .

I would have

liked to have had a thre~ f oot bottle out there-the bigger the better.
control .

It w~s quite easy to

I f eel that with the gun there would

be no dif ficul ty in maneuvering back to t he a.ft
end of the spacecr:eif+ , and r.h;.s was exac tly
what I did later oi-1 , j u st on the tether .

CO~ff)EN"FIA~

I got

116

CONEJDtNI-l~
all the way back.

So , I ran ou~ of air with

the g~n ani I reported this to Jim .

I didn ' t

attempt to take al}Y p-Lotures while I was
aotually maneuvering with the gun .

The

techniq·.1e th;,.t I used with the gun W 3.S tne
te:.!h.aiq 1e ~hat we developed on the air- bearing

I kept my left hand out to the side,

platform.

and the gun as close to my cente::- of grcrri ty
as I could .

I think l;hat the training I had ,)n

the air- bearing tables was very representative ,
especially in yaw and pitch .

I felt quite

confident with the g.m in yaw a:u pitch , but I
f elt a little l ess confident in roll .

I f elt

that I would have to use too mich of my fuel .

I f elt that it wo~ld be a little more difficult
to control and. I didn ' t ,,,ant to use my fuel
to take out my roll combination with the yaw .
We divided our plan so tha.t I would havd a part
of it on the ma.YJ.euver and a part of it on the
tether .

I don't know how far along we were

whP.n the gun ran out .
McDivitt

Right on schedule when the gun ran out .

We

planned f ollr minutes for the gun port ion of it .
We were just abQut on schedule .

GeN FID ENTIA-l

..CE>-NFIDENTl~ l:White

117

I bet we used a little more than four , because
I think we came out earlier th'll1 we thought .

Mc Divitt

No , I sta~ted the event timer to time it .

White

Well, this is where m:r control difficulty
began .

I

As soon as my gun ran out I wasn t

able to control myself the way I co-..1ld with
the gun .

With that gun , I coi.lld decide to go

to a part of a spacecraft and very confidently
go .

I think right no·,. that .1. wish that I ha:i

given Jim t he gun ,u1d taken t he camera off ,
Nov, I was working on taking some pict.1res

and "lorking on the tethe:r dynamics .
realized what was wrong.

I immediately

I realized that our

tether was mounted on a pl ane ohlique .to the
angle in which I wanted to translate .

I

remem·i:cL' i'.c-•.1::n our air-bea:::-ing work that every·time you got at an angle from the perpendicula-:7
where yom.· tether wafl r:iounted , it gave yo.1 a
nice a::-cing trajectory back in t he opposite
direction.

You I re actuall y like a weight on

the end of a str ing.

If you push out in one

direc;tion , and you ' re at 911 angle fron ~he
perpendicular , when you reach the end of a
tether , it neatly sends you in a long ar.c ba:k

e6NFIDENrlAc--

118

in ~he opposite dir ection.

Each time this arc

carried me right back to the top of the
ad.9,ptec- , to th~ i;np ,.:;(' 1,;he s_pa~e(;raft , in fact
toward the adapter section.

One time I w11s so

close to the t hrusters back there that I called
J •:i.;n .

I s,:u.•d , "Don I t f .ire a.nymor:; . ti , b eca.use

I was right on the thrusters .

I was even

closer than that f oot and a hal f wh.ich I had
noted to be tne leng!;1:1 of the thz-uster plumes ,
and I didn ' t want to sit on a firing thruster .

°CONFIDENT'IAL

119

White

We were discussing the EVA and I was si:1.ying that
I spent approximately 70 percent of my time , it
seemed , trying to get out of the area back a:1ove
the spacecr aft in the adapter area .

McDivitt

Yes , you intended to go toward the position that
was directly over the cockpit .
passed it beca.11,•11~ y ::n

White

W1'l ce

You always arced

coming from the front .

This was exa~ t ly rig'•rl. because that ' s exac Uy
wher e my tether was connected .

Chris had been

very emphatic that he wanted me to stay out of
this area , and I had agreed to stay out of there .
I tell you , I was doing my level best to keep
out but the tether dynamics just put me back
there all the time .
McDivi tt

Let me inter ject something here.

When we were

talking about the control modes and how we were
going to control the spacecraft , we decided on
the Pulse Mode rather than the Horizon Scan
Mode , or anything like th..,t .
Mode

would

leave

The Horizon Scan

me free to use both hands to

take pictures of you and that way I wouldn ' t
have had to control the spacecraft .

CONFl0EN-'flAL~

But since it

120

was an automatic mode and it fired whenever it
felt like firing. It didn't give us any flexibil ity, and . this is why I felt that the best mode
to be in was Pulse , in case you did get back
there .
White

That ' s exactly what happened .

McDivitt

I didn't have to worry about the thruster going
off in your face .

I didn't want the thrust ers

to fire and they didn't fire because I didn't
touch t hem . It was a wise choice .
White

I think this was good .

When you look at it

f r om a picture-taking viewpoint , it gave a
wider spectrum of pictures.

You got different

views of the earth and the horizon .

I ' m glad

we weren 't held to a specific mode .

McDivitt

I think that the picture we did take or the
attitude that we started out , which is shown i n
the newspaper , is just about right .

McDivitt

I guess we banked over to the right, I don ' t know.

White

That must have been just as I came out .

McDivitt

I don't remember, but it had enough of the
ground in the background so that it was certainly

CO~FTDENT~L

ce,~F~f>ENsrlAL

121

worthwhile.
White

On one of my passes back to the adapter area I
got so far back that I was about 3 or 4 feet from
the adapter separation plane, perpendicular to
it .

It was rather jagged .

There did appear

to be some sharp edges but it really didn't
look very imposing to me . I took a picture of it .
That's one picture that I believe was good and
should come out.
McDivitt

The trouble is it was probably set on infinity
and you were up about 5 feet .

White

No , I set the camera to about 15 feet or so .

It

might be a little fuzzy because it was too close.
White

No, I didn ' t see the far side of the adapter .
didn't go all the way around .

It

I think I could

have pushed off and gotten back that far.
McDivitt

No .

Better to s t ay away from it.

White

Well, I felt that if I got going I could h~ve
swung all the way around and had my umbilical
right on the edge, without anything to hold on to
or any gun to control myself.

This didn't seem

like it was at all safe and I had told Chris that
I wouldn ' t go behind the craft.
back there .

-e(:)'Nf

ro ENrttrt

So I didn ' t go

122

McDivitt

That must have bee~ just about the time I told
you to come back in .

White

No, I would estimate this was about two-thirds of
the way and about this time I was after pictures.

I knew this was a part of the flight plan that I
had, in my mind , fulfilled satisfactorilly.

So

I tried to get some pictures and this is where I
really impar ted some velocities, trying to get
away from the spacecraft into a position so I

could take a picture.

I went out to the end of

my tether cord quite a few times doing this .
I seemed like every time I would be completely
180 degrees to the spacecraft .

I'd have

beautiful views of the ground but I couldn ' t
see the spacecraft.

It was a definite mistake

to mount the camera on the gun .

That made it

very difficult to use the camera .

I had to

point not only the camera but the gun with the
long thrusters mounted out on the little arms.
I 'd want to take a picture of an object like t he
spacecraft, • and there were too many loos~ items
to get tangled up

in and block the camera .

know my tie-down strap was floating loose .

I
I

had left that out intentionally so that I could

-CONFIBENf-1-M

123

get it later on anytime I had to pull my helmet
down .

Occasionally when I got in close to the

spacecraft, the bag and strings associated ..,,-; th
the bag were tangling up around the vicinity of
the gun and the camera .

And it seemed like

the umbilical was right in front of the camera
all the time .

So , I think the pictures will

verify that I was flicking my right arm quite
a bit in the l atter part of the flight , trying
to clear things out from in front of it to get
a picture .

Whenever I was in a position to get a

picture it seemed like I was facing away from the
spacecraft .

I took a couple of shots in desper­

ation and I think I might have gotten a piece of
the spacecr aft .
I was after .

But I never got the picture that

I wanted to get a picture of Jim

sitting in that spacecr aft, through the open
hatch , with the whole spacecraft .
didn ' t get that .

I know that I

In fact, as time went on I

realized that I wasn ' t going to get much of a
picture .

I was trying everything I knew to get

out there and get stabilized so that I could turn
around and get a good picture .
do this .

I just couldn't

This was at the time when I was looking

~F-tDEN+IAL

124
a little into the tether dy,1amics , and I actually
kicked off from the spacecraft pretty hard .
remember Jim saying,

I

"Hey, you're imparting 2

degrees/second rotational velocity to the spacecraft when you depart . "

I was pushing the space­

craft quite vigorously .

I wanted to push off at

an angle of about 30 to 40 degrees to the surface
of the spacecraft ,

And anytime I pushed off from

the surface of the spacecraft , my main ve locity
was perpendicular to the surface .

It shot me

straight out perpendicular to where the tether
was attached .

Again , this wasn' t in the position

that Jim could take a picture of me, and it wasn't
too good a position for myself .

I usually ended

up facing away from the spacecraft .
McDivitt

Let me interject something here .

In desperation

I took the Hasselblad camera and stuck

it over

out through :Ed's open hatch , and asked him if he
could see the camera and if he could tell me
which way to point it.

He couldn ' t see the

camera so he never really did tell me which way
to point it .
White

No .

This was the time that ~rou said ,

in front of my windo;,.· ."

"Hey, get

It just so happened that

co~~FtDENTl:AL

125

I was right up close to the spacecraft and that's
when I came over.
over

Do you remember me coming

and actually looking about a foot from your

window, Jim?
McDivitt

Yes .

White

Looking right at you.

McDivitt

Yes, I think that was the time the movie camera
wasn't going and I was fooling around with it ,
trying to make sure that it was running .

White

Oh, that woul d have been a very interesting
picture.

McDivitt

I'm not sure it was going, Ed ,

~ecause, as you

know, we had so much trouble making the left
hand one run .

We had that t rouble throughout

the remainder of the flight.

You pushed a

switch over and it seemed to run so:netimes, but
sometimes it wouldn't.

I kept worrying about

whether or not it was running so, I would grab
a hold of it to see if I could feel it clicking
over.

I switched the ON-OFF switch on a couple

of times to make sure I could tell the change in
the feel of it.

I'm afraid this time is one of

the times that I didn't have the camera going,
because I was trying to make sure that it was

!eeNFl0ENTIAb--

c»Ot\JFID l:t'4TIAL

126

going .

I ' m not positive .

I hope I got :,he

picture but I ' m not sure about it.
White

That was the time that I came right in , and I
couldn ' t have been more than a foo t from your
window , looking in .

I could actual ly see you

sitting there .
McDivitt

That 's pr;.,bab ly :,..-hen you put a mark on my window .

White

I think the way I did that--I could actually see
you in there and I pushed away with :ny hands a
litt le bit .

I think this was t he time t hat eHher

my arm or my shoulder contacted the upper part of
your window and you called me a "dirty dog"
because I had messed your window up .

You know ,

as you look back in retrospect , I wish you ' d
handed me a kleenex and I wish I'd cleaned up
the outside of those two windows . I think we
could have done it .
McDivitt

Yes.

We'd have never gotten to the kleenex at

t hat time , but I think we might have done something about it .
Whi te

I think I might have but we might have smeared
them so irrepairably that it might have -- .

McDivitt

That ' s r ieht .

When you looked a t that wi ndow

of mine from the inside while the sun was shining

CO~~f1f}fI~TrAL

C-O ►~FIDENll. A b.

127

it looked like it was a black paint smear, such
as if you I d take a piece of v:hi te linoleum
and a black rubber soled shoe and made a mark
on the linoleum .

It had that kind of consistency.

It was absolutely opaque .

Just as black as it

could be .
White

Yes, I could tell .

When i hit it I could see

from the outside that it turned white .
McDivitt

It tu~ned black from the inside.

White

From the outside it was white.

McDivitt

From the inside it was black.

When I got the

thing turned aro--.md a different way with the
sun on it , it was perfectly clear as if you
had taken the coating off , and

what I ;.•as

seeing was through a perfectly clear surface.

So ,

I don ' t know really whether the thing was black,
that you placed something on the window that
would make it blac~ or whether you ' d taken
something off that was very white , very thin .
White

I smeared the film that was on your window.

I 'm

quite confident that is what happened.
McDivitt

I looked at our spacecraft windows after they
got it onboard, and I could still see that
little hunk of window.

It looks to me like wh•1t

128

COt'4FIDE~l·l1ttyou did was remove a layer off the window, rat her
than put something on it.
it .

You took something off

Except I can't possibly imagine why it was

so black and opaque with the sun shining on it
at certain angles .
White

I'd like to comment on the ease of operation
outside on a tether .

If you've ever tried to

hang on the outside of a water tower , or about
an 8- foot diameter tree , you can visualize the
problem I had out there .

The decision to leave

the hatch open was probably one of the very best
~:1at we made .

I had nothing outside the space­

craft to stabilize myself on.
anything to hold

There just isn ' t

onto . I think Jim will

remember one time when I t r ied to hook my
fingers in the RCS thrusters .

I think Jim could

see because- - .
McDivitt

I could see .

Whi te

I was right out in front of Jim I s windo•,.r .

This

gave me really not hing particularly to hold ,):nto.
I t didn't stabilize me at all .

I had nothing

really to hold onto, and so if you have ever
tried to grasp an 8- foot diameter tree and shinny
up it , you know the kind of feeling that I had

-'ZO~<J FtDEf'<lflAt

-

~ONFIDEN+IAl.-

129

outside there.

There just ,rasn' t anything for me

to hold onto.

One thing though that I ' ll say

very emphatically- - there wasn't any tendency
to recontact the spacecraft in anything but very
gentle contacts .
conta~ts.

I made some q·,.ite interesting

I made one that I recall on the

bottomside of the right door in which

of rolled around.

I had kind

I actually c8ntacted the bottom

of the spacecraft with my back and the back of my
head .

I wa.1 f aced away fror., the r..ipacecraft and I

just drifted right up against it and just very
lightly contacted it.

I rebounded off.

As long

as the pushoffs are slow there just isn ' t any
tendency to get in an uncontrol lable attitude .
McDivitt

It seemed Fd did hit it pretty hard at one time.
I think that was after he pushed off violently;
he went out and it seemed he came back and bashed
it pretty hard .

I remember a pretty solid thump .

It seemed it was over the right hand hatch or just
right behind--.
White

I know a couple

of times I kicked off with my

feet , and I think I k~ow the time you are talking
about.

I came in with my foot .

the contact with myself--.

CONFIDENTIAl-

It wasn ' t so much

130

McDivitt

What did you do?

Whi te

I conta cted and pushed with my foot .

McDivitt

I heard a big thump and I think I cal l ed you at

Contact and pushoff?

this time t o take it easy.
White

I believe that was on the fro~t end of the R & R
Section on my side where yo'.l couldn't see me .

McDivitt

It was a position that I couldn't see.

White

One of the pictures that I saw last night in the
movies , I think , was made at t hat time .

I was

coming in fair ly rapidly and I wanted to get back
out, so I kicked off again with my foot fairly
hard .

It was a vary good kick .

I felt th:3,,t

I.

certainly could have controlled myself without
the gun out there if I had just some type of
very insignificant hand-holds or someth.i.ng
that I could have held on to .

I believe that I

could have gone on back to the adapters with a
minimum of several hand-holds to go back ➔;he re,
going from one to the other.

I was actua,.1:r

looki ng for some type of himd-holdi: out th0re .
I remember that the only one that I saw was the
stub antenna on the nose of the spacecraft .

I

could see the ceramic covering ()Ver it, I believe
it was ceramic , or some kind of covering o,ar it .

,,CQ.N-FIE>fNll'M .

131

McDivitt

Yes, it ' s white.

White

I felt that this wasn ' t quite the thing to grab
onto , this was at the ti~e when I want ed to get
out at about 10 or 12 feet directly in front of
the spacecraft.

I certainly had the urge to hang

onto the antenna and push myself out.

But I

didn't and ther e really wasn't anything to hold
onto .

You really need somethine to stabilize

yourself.
McDivitt

I worked around the open hatch .

Let me ask you a question?

How about putting

the hand-hold inside of the nose cone?

A fairing

is up there for launch , just the fairing.We could
mount a hand-hold right inside.
White

I

think we could have rea'lly made som,~ money if

we had had an attachment for the tether out there
right on the nose o.f the spacecraft.
McDivitt

Strong the tether out there and then attached
there?

White

Right .

Rave a seoond attach point and put it

right out there.

It would give you something

to hold onto out there.
McDivitt

Yes .

White

There wasn't anything to hold onto o~ the R & R
Section.

..-::eeNFIDENTIAI:-

CO t>~ ~IDE NTt,AcL,

132

McDivitt

I know it .

White

It had smooth corners and the only thing I could
have grabbed was the a 1ten1a , a:id I didn ' t want
to grasp that .

we tho·.1ght one ti:..e of holding

oa out there and th:usting , but-- .

McDivit t

There isn ' t anything to hold onto .

I think you

pt'obc>.bly co'.lld have gotten a hold on the antenn'3.

and held onto it witho~t hQrting it .

I examined

it pretty closely before the 1-3.'mch , and i t looked pce~ty sturdy .
White

I thought this was somet hing we needed and I
didn 't want to fool wi th it .

McDivitt

As it turned out we really needed that antenna
be~ause that was the antenna thu.t we used the
whJle flight - -that stub antenna in the nose .

W'n ite

Yes .

McDivitt

When we opened up the spa~ecraft the hatch came
open with a bang.

The air that wa had inside

was obviously of great er pressure tha':1 that o:1t sitle , and we had a great outflow of t hings including a piece of foam that we had used to pack our
tnA.neuvering gun in it ' s box .

It was the first

thing t hat we put in o=bit .

But then throughout

the time thit Ed was out, he wanted the doJr wide

CO ► ~FIE>ENTIAL

133
open.

It was pretty obvious that the flow was

from the spacecraft to the outside because partway through his maneuvers his glove floated out
and floated away from the spacecraft wi th areasonably good relative velocity .

The entire time

he was out , even after we h.'.l.d the hatch open fo~
20 to 25 minutes, we were still getting particles
floating out thxough the hatch .

It was the flow.

The streamlines were very obvious.

It was from

inside the spacecraft to the outside.

I guess

the spacecraft was out-gassing at a sufficient
rate to cause a reasonably large pressu.re differential from inside to outside , and it was certainly relieving itself.

I noticed this even as

we were trying to get the hatch ~losed .

There

was still a flow from inside to outside.
White

Okay.

I think that pretty well covers most of

the things that we actually did while I was
out there.
McDivitt

Now , as for getting back in--.

White

Yes, let's go all the way back thxough and come
back in .

The time r eally did go faet!

I had

watches with :ne, but I dii:a ' t look at them .
McDivitt

I was watching the time.

1'f)N·FIDENTIA~

I noticed my watch

134
around 4 minutes and 6 mi.nutes and 8 minutes .
And t' .en you got involved in floating 1:3,ro'.l.Yld
as we were t rying to get that last pict,\u'e .
White

The tim,a really flew!

McDivitt

You kept getting behi.nd me all the t ime and I
became distracted from ;he t ime we were on VOX,
co'llpletely blocking out the g rou.'ld .

Our VOX must

have been triggered constantly , be::::ause whenever
we were on it they coul::l:o ' t tra.'lsmi t to us.

Whi te

That ' s where the time got away from me .

McDivitt

That ' s right , and it was 15 minutes and 40 seconds when I looked at my clock.

So , I th::>'.lght

that I had better g::> to the ground.
the ground ,

I said to

"Do you ha-.re any ,rn,ssage for us? 11

because I knew it was time to get back in.
th-9y just sai:i , "Yes .
White

Right .

And

Get back in ! "

I remember hea ring Gus say," Yes, get

him back in ! "
McDivitt

This is what all the fuss was about .

They

might have been transmitting to us to get back
in hut we ware on VOX a.-id couldn' t hear a t hing .
White

I did a few things after this time that I wasn ' t
d·::>ing to deliberately stay out .

Bc1t I was

deliberately t r ying to do one last thing .

I was

135

C-oNflD fz.NllAL
t r yi ng to get that last pi cture .

And this was

one of a couple of times that I kicked off the
spacecraft really har.d, to get out to the cmd ·':l'!:
the tether.

And [ wasn 1 t successful in g~tting

t he positi on so t hat I couli get a picture.

I

fe l t this was the one part of the mission that I
had:1 1 t completed.

Everything else was successful

and I wanted very badly to get that picture from
outside .

I spent a moment or so doing this.

This was also the period of ti~e in which I
called down to Jim a~d said, "I ' m actually walking o~ top of the spacecra.ft. 11

I took the tether

heU onto it, and ui:ied it as a device to pull me
down to the spacecraft.

I walked from about

where the angle starts to break be+
section and the ca~in secti':ln.

·"l the nose

I walked from there

~robably about two-thirds of the way up the cabin,
avid it was really quite strenuo'.ls,

Could you see

me walking along , Jim?
McDivitt

No , I couldn't see but I could feel the thumping
on the O'.ltside .

White

That ' s when 1 got to la11ghing so hard.

This was

when Jim \•tas sa,ying to com,, in.
McDivitt

Yes , I think this is when T got a little ster n

136

and said, "Get in here! "
White

When I w,3,s •t1':il king on the •:,op and w,3,3 .l:3.1.,5·!1ing ,
Jim pr:.>bably did·:1 1 t think I th:mgh t he wa.s
s erious .

But i t was a very funny sensation .

Now

as far as delayi:ig , there were ce::::-tain things
that I ha1 to do befo~e I came in .

And there

wasn ' t anything in the world that was going to
hurPy me up in do:l.ng the;n .

We had just agr eed

that we'd do things in a slow manner and this is
the way we ' d do it .
McDivitt

Let me talk about the tine here.

It is implied

in the ~apers that Ed didn ' t really wa"lt to come
ba.ck in , and didn ' t .

I think one of the things

is that we didn't hear .

We didn ' t have any

t ransmis s ions fr om the ground after he step~ed
outside until I went off VOX at 15 : 4) .

They

said , "Come back in . ", an:l I told him to come
back in .

I think that he pt•obably del q,yed .~'::>out

a minute or t w? minutes .
W':lite

I thi nk so , trying to get the pictures .

McDivitt

And at that t imn I got a little i t-ritated a.."ld

hollered at Ed , too .

Th,~n he started back in.

White

But whe~ I came baJk 1 had things to do .

McDivitt

Yes .

I k-1ow it .

That 's what I ' m t rying to say

COt<tFIDE~+~Al

137

to get tfuis t hing in its proper perspective.
White

Yes.

McDivitt

We were 3 minutes 40 seconds late getting started
back in because we just lost track of the tine.
I couldn't see Ed any longer.

I was trying to

keep t rack of what he was doing without being
able to see, and I lost track of time .

Then I

think he del ayed p·: obably a _ni:mte o.!' a :nbnte
and a half before he started back in .
White

That ' s right.

McDivitt

So , those are the two delays.
We 'd agreed on that he'd start back in after 12
min:1tes .

Fro!ll then on all the time was spent

J.ist trying to g,~t back in.
White

I had certain things to d-., .

I hail to disassemble

the camera that was on the spacecraft .
this very slowly.

I did

I had to dis,::011J1eot the elect­

rical connection to it and hand the camera back
in to Jim.

Then 1 had to go out and disconnect

the umbilical, and this really went pretty well.
The little tether that I had them put on the ring ,
a pull ring, to disco:n:.~ect the pii worked pretty
well.

I disconnected the umbilical and discarded

the umbilical cord.

EO~~FIDENl~l>.L ..

138

McDivitt

That was the last th.ing Ed put into orbit .

White

Right .

I put that L:1 o~bit.

Earlier , it was

r eal ly quite a sensation to see the glove floating off .

I asked Jim a few 1.nin.ltes before about

thf~ glova , ".>r Jim had asked me,
this other glove? "

"ne:v , do you want

About a minute 1-9.t e r, I saw

it gQ floating o'.lt of the hatch .
McD.ivi tt

All I can say, Fil , war,, about a half hou.'..' 13.ter I
was sure t hankful that we had g')tte!1 r id of so:ne thing .

We had s·:i much other junk that we didn ' t

want .
I saw t he glove come fioating r)at of the righ >
hand hatch , and it was a perfect ly c lear picture
of t~ glo·,e as it floated out .

It floated ::mt

over my right shouLler arnl t1ut - -it l:ioked 1 ike
i t waG on a defL'li te trajecto:r-y going somewhere .
I don't know where it was going .

It floated very

smartly out of -i:he :Jpa:~ecraft and ,:mt i. n-~o
s pace .
McD:ivitt

White

I thi n~-< this ha:l. a lot to do ·11ith t hat C'lt- gassing .

There was a definite stream- -.

Yes .

It was following the s tream:..ine ri~ht :m~

of i:he sp~1i::ecraft .
McD:ivi t t

It went oat perpendicular to thP spacecraft ,

'~01\tffl,·l:NTt;~r

139
whichever direction that is .
White

Back to getti'lg bade L°l the 3pacecraft- -I hc:l,d the
one thermal glove o~ the on~:aand , my left hand .

I always wanted my right hand to be free to operate that g,m a--id the camera .

The way the cam-

era was mow1ted on there, I had to use both h9.nds -one hand to actually stabilize it with the glll1
and the other ha.;1d to cea.ch over.

Again, I think

dynamics pl~yed a little bit of a role there .
Everytime I brought my hand in from a position
ou~ on my left, it tended to tur.n me a. little
bit, which is exactly what we found happened on
the air-bearing tables.

I think that the camera

should have been velcroed to my body somewhere
and used independently of the gun.
McDivitt

Yes .

I g 1)t that same impression .

I got the

impression that what you reall y should have d•:me
was--.
White

Dropped the gun.

McDivitt

Unhooked the camera out there floating around
and j.1st throW!'l the g,m away.

I don't think you

ever should have tried to bring it back.
White

Well , what I should have done was fold the g~n
and handed it to y◊u,

C~l'JFlDENTI.AL

CO i'<I FIf)EMlt:itt

140

McD:ivitt

That would ·:iave ·j '.l St taken longer .

It wo'.l.ld

have taken precious seco::ids out of the very
few thA.t we had anyway .

I th i.nk y0u sho'..lld ha•re

j 1st unhook.~d it and throW!'t the g'1fl ::;,w:~y .

White

This was probably the thing that I was most
irritated with not completing.

I dii.1 ' t .feel the

pictu.ces were satisfactory with the can,~ra out side.

But I think the reason was that my camera

was not in a position so 1 could use it adeqciat ely .

But coming back in was the last thing .

As

a matter-of-fact , before I dismounted the movie
camera A-nd dismounted the urnb ~lic:,,1, I folded th,,
gi.ln .

White

I took the l::;,nyard off with the camera on it, and
handed Jim the gun and the camera .

McDj_vitt

A.11d I stuck it d:,wn between my legs .

White

Tha t was thfi first thing that I handed in .

Then

I handed in the 16 mm -~am•=ra , and then I threvt
away the umbilical .
s l;,,u· ~..::.1.

Thls wa8 where the fun

I f1)11nd it wa.r:i ::;, 1 ) t mo:-::-e difficult

coming b.3.ck in tha.::i I had :remembered in the zerog training .

It seemed like I was contacting both

sides of the hatch at the same time , much firmer
than I had in the zero--g ai cplane .

co~~FIOENflAl

141
McD.ivi tt

You mean you were hitting the hatch o~ one side
and the hatch opening on the other side.

White

Coming back in, I was conta~ting the side of the
spacecraft o~ both sides .

McDivitt

Yes, that 's right.

McDivitt

Yo•.l weren't really hitting the hatch on both
sid,=.is, you were ht t ting the hatch opening on both
sides.

White

Yes.

I felt a

I was coming down through there.

much fit'mer attachment wedging in there than
I 'd remembered from the zero-g training.

I think

this might be associated with the extr a 7/10 or
8/10 pound of pressurization on thf.l suit.

just mi 6 ht have been a little fatter.

I

I did

notice that the suit was a little harder.

I felt

this type of suit before during my pre-work, so
this wasn't a su£p=ise to me at all .

But I did

feel like I was a little fatter getting in and
wedged a little tighter.
McDivitt

I really don't think Ed was ari:y fatter.

I think

that link in the suit holds the suit to whatever
volume it's going to go to.

And I don ' t th'ink

a couple psi are going--.

White

Well, I felt like I was hitting a little more as

-

tOfqfl0Et ◄ TIAL

142

I came in .
McDivitt

Yes.

I think what happe:.e::1 ·,ms he was stiffer ,

and he wa.sn' t bending his legs and his arms ai:1y .
White

You mean with the harder suit I was stiffer?

McDivitt

Harder .

And your. arms were stiffe:::- a nd yo'J.weren't

bending

them

around as much .

It looked a lot

more rigid.
White

This mig~ ~ hav,3 been .

Mc:Divitt

Not semi-rigi.:i--Ei w:3.s rigid .

White

All r ight .

McDivitt

And that looked to me like i t might have been tht,

This might have been .

prob l3m .
Wnite

ThL, might have been part of the recontact 0::1 the
side of t;'.,e spacecraft that I noticed .

But

as I came back in, I noti-:::ed that I had to work
a little harder , and I hoped the tape was running·
because I think we had a very good commentary .
We were both talk ing very clearly bal)k a'ld forth
to ea-:::h ot~~er during this time and I w~s telling
Jim that I was go:'..ng''to com-3 in slow because it
waf-1 a little tought;r than t ha.:i tho 1ght .

We ·-'•=re

talking back and forth ab.::mt being slow and tak-·
ing it easy .
McDivitt

I actually helped pu:,h ~ down in there .

€01'4FIDE~~TIM

I d,,n ' t

143
know whether he felt it or not in that suit .
Whi t e

No , I couldn't.

McDivltt

I reached over and I steered his leg::i do,m in ,
and I sort o f got hi.n settled b the seat a
l ittle better than what he was getting himself .

White

Yes.

Right.

I was kind of free wheeli~g my feet

up there.

McDivi tt

Yes .

It looked to me like Ed was holding o~ to

the top of the open part of the hatch and j~st
swiveling around that pa-rt.

It looked like he

didn ' t have enough mobility and strength in his
arms to actually t wist his body down against the
f orce of the suit into the seat.
White

After awh.Lle, I reached my left arm u.nderaeath,
the same techniq~e we had used in the zero-g
training, and actually I had my hands all over the •
ci rc1xi t breakers.

McDivitt

Yes.

White

Yes, and I pulled myself do·..m in and that ' s when

Ed was a real hazard to the switches.

I really started coming .Ln--when 1 gut hold. of the
underneath stde of that circuit breaker pane l
and p~lled myself in.

That's when my first real

progress was made toward actually getting d:>wn in .
McD:i.vitt

Because, while I co1.1ld steer Ekl from where I was

--CONFIDE~

144

(:O~FlDENTl~L
I really didn ' t have the strength to pull him in .
McDivitt

It was ';)0 degreea to the ·,my that he t:'ea.l. ly
wanted to be pulling .

I co'.lld steer .

I did do

a lj .,tle bit of pushing , but n::>t a heck of a lot .

I w:as>1 1 t really contributing rn,wh to the effort
t her.e e x-~ept- - .
were guiding me down into t he fcotwells .

White

You

McDivitt

Yes . That was aoout it .

White

B'J.t once I got my hand,, 11p 11:1dernP-ath the irrntcu­

ment panel , I was back pre tty well in familiar
groun:is--the work that we ' d done five dnen times
in the zero-g air.pla,He , and I kJ1ew the tecMi.que
pretty well.
McDivit t

10 0::)0 tim,~s !

White does check pretty ...,ell .

White

I really did it a lot;.

Maybe the suit wa,3

stiffer , or maybe I was .fatter , b:.it I wasn ' t
going in quite as easy as I had b efore--getting
into the initial positio:1 to pull myself dow~1
in~o the seat .

So it took ma a 1ittle longe.t:' .

I f you recall , I had to go back o'.lt again one
t ime .

I got back do•,1a and started to wedge my­

self d::>wn anrl I got t wo fat cr-:1inps at the bottoms of my thi.gha in both legs , whe re the
muscles star ted to bal l up a little .

cer<lFrDENT11'L

145
McDivltt

Oh?

Did you. get it in your. thighs o:':.' calves?

Whi.te

Bo-th of thP. muscles in the back of my thighs
balled up in a ball and I thought , "Well, I have
to go back out and l et them straighten up ."

So, I straightened my legs out .
McD:i.vitt

We had that problem before in the zero•-g airplane.

White

This is the time Jim said, "Hey while you' re
up, why don't you throw the vlsor out?"

I

hesitated a minute because I thought, "Well,
you son-of-a-buck, you might have problems here.
You might have to be spending an orbit or so
trylng to get in."
McDivitt

No , as a matter of fa~t , I don ' t think th~t is
when you did th.row it out .

I think you threw

it out when you ca.me back dow~ and you started
to close the hatch.

You were having trouble,

It wouldn't close, and you said , "I'm going to
have to take this visor off so that I can see
these things."

And I said, "Listen, if we get

this thing closed we're not going to open it
again .
White

Throw the visor away."

That ' s right.

That was when I got the cramps ,

went back up again and then I came back down

CQ N fff)ENTtA L

146
again , and said , "Hey, I can ' t see them .

I 'm

going t.o have to take the v•; .~or off."
McD:ivitt

No ,

J

t was a little bit 19.ter than that .

¥0'.l

ha:l all ready started to try to close it and you

were having difficulty 0losing .it .
White

Let I s get

Okay .

in .

thP. sequr-mce out .

We came dowi1

I got up to st ~aighten my legs a little

bi. t , went back up , then I came back riown- - .
McD:i.vltt

- -with all yot1r. equipment on-- .

Whi t e

I hadn 't hel d the handle yet, had I?

McDivitt

No .

White

So I got back d '.)wn into posi ti'.)n- -.

McDivitt

~-wi th all yo~~ eq'.lipment o~ 9.rld pulled the

You ha:ln ' t done a thing with it.

hatch down.
White

The hatch was dO\v.'1 far enough to close at th i.s
time .

M0Divitt

I thought i.t was.

White

I did. , too .

I felt it was d::r,m far e:1:>'.lgh .

I

can tell by looking right straight d:>1,m at the
edge--.
McD:ivi tt

Yes .

I can tell by looki'lg ,111 llndernP.ath the

r ight - ha.':1d side to see where the dogs are.
Whi.te

Okay.

So I tho'.lgh t the hatch Has doW!l far

enough to close at that time .

CQ~lfif)·l:NflAL

I reached up and

147

got the handle , but I don'-c k11ow what I said
to you .
McDivltt

You didn't say anything .

I do~ ' t know whether

you said anything to me or not , bu"':. you didn ' t
have to sa~ anything to me .

I saw you move

that ha.."'ldle and I saw how easy it was going and
I saw that the dogs were~ ' t moving.
White

I thLnk I said somethL'lg.
I said .

I don ' t re1nember w:hat

But I said something anrl you knew

right away what had happened .
McDivltt

You didn't say a word.

I waB watchi.'.l.g the dogs

and that lever a"'ld I krle•,1 what the trouble was .
White

Right .

So I guess that ' s when I sai d , "I ' m

going to ha·,re to take the visor off because I
can't see."

And then we went back up and J i m

said, "Well, we're not going to open the hatch
again .

Why don ' t

you thro·,1 the visor out ."

I

hesitated for a mir'l.ute to throw it out because
I thought that we might have a pt'obl em.
McDivltt

Actually , we had a little more difficulty than
we had explained .

We fooled around for a min­

u~e or two or m~wbe even th:=ee or four with the
handle.

It was pretty apparent to us that we

weren ' t going to get the hatch closed with nor-

eQtqFtDfNTIAb

COl<IFIE)Et ◄ TIAl

148

mal st-rai.gh~ - for ward techniques , and tha~ 1ve were
g0ing to have to s t art going to ot'·er t hings .
Whi.le we say that we came d::>wn and mo·,ed the
handle once or t wice , it was oYer about a three
or four rnin11te period , at l east .
White

The ~orinal meth::>d of closing the hatch is for me
to co~e d::>wi.1 and

wedg➔

~yself down , hold onto

the llttle canvas handle up t~ere , a."1d ,c1.ctL1ally
aJply a <iownward fo::-ce on t he hatch to he lp close

it .

Then with my right hand I use the hatch

handl e to retche t the hatch down . This is no:"..'mal ly .:>ur techniq·.1e we wollld alway::; use , and
!:ever i n t he past , has Jim had to help mo: with
t he hatch closing device .
this tl!lle .

Thi.;, ·11as'.l.' t the c>:3.se

As so-::>n as I ha:i go-l;ten np ~here to

operate the ga in lever, I co~ldn ' t ope~ate the
canvas handle anymore .

I co~li n 't apply any

torque O'."..' pull there beca,1se-- .
McD:iv.itt

N-::>t only that, b:.it you were actually pushi.ng
yourself u p off the seat .

And I 'm not sure

that even the firs t ti .ne that WE; had the hatch
closed far enough .
far eno•..igh .

It looked li.ke it was closed

As a ms.tter of fac t , later on when

we got it down to that posit:ion it looked li.ke it

.

149
was closed fine.

It really wasn ' t closed far

enough because you never did get those dogs out
until we - - .
Whi t e

No, the dogs came out, Jim, the first time 1 got
torque o~ it.

Those dogs started out, then it

closed.
McDivitt

Did they?

Okay.

White

Yes.

McDi vitt

It looked t :J me like we did, and I couldn't

I think we had it down f~r enough.

unde~stand why they weren't coming out .

I knew

that the :oo.tchet wasn't engaged, but I got the
impressiJn tha t i t was from watching your hand
when you came down one time.

You had the ·ratchet

engaged and the littletit pin that sticks in the
doer that doesn't allow things to come closed
wasn ' t there.
White

No, the. ratchet wasn't engaged. There was nothing
on the handle at all.
free.

It was free, completely

The s:ituation hadn't changed at all.

Another thing I'd like to point o·.lt now, too , was
the chest pack was in the way of bringing the
handle down to a full-crank position.
wanted definit ely

And I

to do this because you can

interrupt the sequence of the dogs if you don ' t

150

fully stroke the ha"'l.dle each ti.maL
White

\Je went back up so that I could "ictually see a"ld
observe the levers .

This was the time Jim sa..id

to th.row the visor o·.1t because w,~ pr:)ba.bly would n ' t o_pe'!1 th1, hatch aga.i.n , onca w,3 g8t it closed .
And this see~ed like very goo1 so:md advice to
me .

The o:':1.ly thing I was a little q·.1esti::m1ible

abou ~ 1,1a::; that

'it

this ti.mt, I ha.ii the inkling

in my mind that we ~ight spend quite a bit of
time g':tt i ng this hatch closed , and I mi.gh·~
want t he visor when 1 was back out ~ i1 j·1. .

B'..lt

I thoilght the judgmfmt to t hro·11 the v ls'.:>r out
was best and I threw it 0'.1t --opaned the door

abo'..lt a foot and a half and thr.ew the vlsor out .
The next t ime we canlf? back dow:1, I was s t ill
having the l i ttle bit of p:oblem with the cramps,
but not ~-9arly the pr~obl:=:m 1 wa'9 having with the
gain lever .
McDivi tt

One superseded the o LheT.

White

That ' s right .

0~1e p.::-oblem became of much higher

m:agnitude tha!l the other .

So this was the t ime

that we started ·Norki ng .

I k."lew what I hai. to d-J .

I k new I had to work the gai n lever in sequP.nce
with the han1le again , juAt like ~e had w~en we

~ONFTDENf1AL

151
opened it .

We both had a.."l inklirig that this was

going to happen when we opened it the first time .
But this posed the problem of when I reached up
with my left arm to work the gain lever.
takes a great deal :>f force .

It

This isn ' tthe direct­

io:2 that the suit is designed to reach in .

And

it tak~s a great deal of force to lift your arms
up in the vicinity of your helmet to operate
something there.

In so doing it pulled me back

up :)Ut of the seat .

An1 I think this is the time

that Jim noticed that I was up higher than I had
ever been before, and he actual ly felt that my
helmet was up against the hatch.

I tend to agree

that I was up in that posi t ·i on.
McDivitt

Yes .

I actually pulled Ed 1own in the seat by

pulling on the--.
White

I think so.

McDivitt

I did it in steps.
cooe down.

I'd pull down and 3d woul-i

Then I'd pull some more , he'd ~ome

down some more.
White

I was actually pushing up with my left hand and
IJl.Y helmet was wedged right up against the hA.tch.
I had a little bit of area in which they actually
see t he dogs that I was working with up there .

-co~~FID[i'~rt,\L

152

McDivitt

You could see them though?

White

Yes, I could see them .

At least I coul:1 3ee what

positions they were in .

I could see the little

lever operating unde-r the spring:..._where I was
actually operating the spring on the g~in leve-r.
This is where I think we grJt some very good teamw~rk, because it was neces sary that Jim pull
do·tJn in conjunctio-:-i with the time that I pulled
down on the c,1osing handle and Jperated the
ga:i.n l ~ver .

I just hope that the tape worked

because I can rem~mber I was in there .

Jim was

talking to me , and. then when it came to ~he point
when we really had to make the big pull I felt a
little torque on the handle .

I knew that we had

it at that time if we co:.ild only get the hatch
down ,;lose enough so that the dogs W')uld engage .
And I ca..~ remember giving the old--I think I was
yelling HEAVE! HE.LIVE!

Is th13.t what I was yelling.'

McDivltt

I think so .

White

.And tt was in perfect ti~1d.,1ig, because I could see
Jim or I could see the hatch come do~n each time
that I was yelling IE.AVE !

I think i t was

probably the mast-- .
McD.ivitt

The most int eresting mome!'lt of the flight.

0 '~~'F--{;)ENA-ittb

.,.

153

White

Yes . It was the most interesting moment of the
flight , but I think i. t was probably the m::.H,t , if
you wan~ to say, draimitic.
right word .
dramatjc

I don 1 t know the

But it was probably the most

moment of my life.

seco:i.ds we spent t'ight there .
l~tching.

About those 30
The dogs started

I co~ld feel them going in, and then

I could feel them co~e over dead-center .

Jim

called out that the dogs were in .
McDivitt

I knew that once we got them moving we'd be all
right .

White

Yes , once they started coming in .

As long as

we got those dogs to engage , with the little
lever that permitted them to come out and l~ck,
I knew that we hn.d it hacked .
McDivitt

Yes .

So did I.

Even i f

e "ould 'tave had to

reenter with the hatch in that position, we 1 d
have been all right.

I don 1 t thi.nk that the

heat leaks were that tremendous.
Whi i;P

I knew we could continue and dog it on in all the
way.

It seems like whenever you know you're

right on something, you want to be darn sure
that they fix it.
mind then.

This was going through my

And I remembered that I felt I was

154

right in that the bar and the attachment on that
bar and lanyard were not strong enough .

I re­

membered that and I knew how hard you were pulling on that thing.

I t hink , if nothing else,

they ought to :Je sure .

How many times did we

break that attachment at the bar?
McDivitt

We br oke the attachm~:mt ab od; three or four t imes
on the zero-g airplane.

Everytime they kept

telling us it wasn't made out of the right kind
of stuff and the st~ff we were going to have in
the spacecraft would be the right material.
it didn't break in the spacecraft .

~•'ell ,

Just co in­

cidently, or maybe because we both had doubts
about the strength of that particular piece .
The same thing crossed through my mind .

I was

thinking t hat the success or failure of this
hatch closure depends on whether this hatch
closing device s t ays hooked onto t hat spacecraft and doesn ' t break offo
White

We would have been flat out of luck!

McDivitt

We would have been in deep trouble !

I 'm not sure

we woul dn ' t have been able to get the hatch
closed, because we had put that canvas strap
on t here and I might have been able to pull you

~rbENIIAt

155

down that way.

But I had about all the pull I

had in me on that last-White

I know you did .

McDivitt

--on that last thing and I had a lot of mechanical
advantage over it.

When we went to that canvas

strap we would have had to go with no mechanical
advantage.

As a matter of fact, a mechanical

disadvantage.
White

This is one thing that didn't fail, but I
recommend that it be made stronger.

McDivitt

Stronger anywny!

Whi te

I think so .

McDivitt

For nothing else than a psychological purpose .

Whi te

Right.

I'd like to take the spacecraft now and

see if I could break it, because I had the
feeling that I never had been confident that that •
attachment nor the bar nor the lanyard were
strong enough.
McDivitt

When I say I was really pulling as strong as I
could, I really had some pull left in me, but
I guess what I should have said is that I was
pulling about as hard as I dared pull at the time.
I guess I could have pulled another few pounds,
but I hated to apply more than was needed on

~CYEFTTTAT
there because of the lack of confidence in the
strength of it.
White

Everything I had was in it over there .

I was

pulling down with my legs as hard as I could and
operating .

I was pulling on the handle .

I

remember one< time you said , "Hey don ' t pull on
that handle so hard !
McDivitt

You're going to break it! "

I was cautioning you to take it easy, which you
don't usually have to do.

White

This was when we were yelling HEAVE!

I was

heaving on the handle as I was pulling it down
each time .

It felt like to me that the handle

was giving .

But I didn't give a darn!

broke, it was going to break.

If it

So o:".e of the

points we learned out of this was we'd like to
see the bar and lanyard strengthened.
White

Let me say one thing about the decision to go
ahead and open up the latch .

I f we hadn ' t done so

much work together with this hatch and run t hrough
just about every problem that we could possib l y
have had , I would have decided to leave the hatch
closed and skip the EVA when we first started
having trouble with it .

We had encountered j , .st

every conceivable pr oblem that we could possibly

CONffDENl~

157
have with that hatch.

If it failed we'd know

exactly what it was.
McDivitt

That ' s right.

I personally had disassembled

this cylinder and piston and spring combination
up at McDonald prior to the altitude chamber, so
I knew exactly what it was made of.

I am sure

the problem was t hat the dry lubrication coagulated, or whatever a dry lube does, and was
causing the piston to stick.
do this thing .

I knew how we could

Carl Stone and I

had dismantled

it and put it back together, cleaned it out, put
it back together, relubricated it , put it back
toget her, and i t operated fine.

I figured out

how to make the t hing work with it not working
properly by using your finger as the spring.
White

That ' s the exact technique we had used.

McDivitt

I f we hadn't had the training together that we
had , and had not encountered all these problems
before, I know darn well I would have decided
not to open the hat ch.

Whi t e

Maybe we wound overdramatic about the effort we
made getting me back i n, and I 'll honest ly say
it ' s one of the biggest efforts I ever made in
my life, but I don't think we were all done then .

CONFIE>ENTIAL

158

McDivitt

There were a lot of things we could do.

Whi t e

We could have gone around several orbits working
on cl osing the hatch .

That wasn ' t the last time

we were going to get a chance to close it .

So ,

there were things left if we understood , and
ot her procedures we could have used to go ahead
and close it .

When we got it cl osed back in , I

was completely soaked wasn ' t I?
McDivitt

Yes .

You were really bushed .

White

Swea t was j us t pouri ng down .
hardl y see .

McDivitt

In fact , I could

It was in my eyes .

So I told you , "Just sit ther e and I ' ll ge t a
r epr ess .

Don ' t even move for 30 minutes ."

I just left the r epress valve wher e it was .

I

closed the vent valve and we had a lot of in••
structions from the ground to close the water
seal and e. A1ole bunch of other things that didn 't
make any sense to me .
was repres surizing.

I knew that the spacecraft
I watched .

There wasn ' t

anyt hing else ttat we had to do right then , and
we were both bushed , especia lly Fd .

He was

perspir '.ng so that I could har dly see him inside
the fact plate .

So , I just said ,"You sit there

and I ' ll sit here and we'll just coast around .

COl<IFIDEt•cFFi:A"l.

~Ot~ftf)·ENT* L

159

When we get the thing repr essurized , we'll start
doing something."
did.

That was exactly what we

I did finally extend the HF antenna and t ry

to call somebody on HF and let them lmow that we
were back in safely and that the t hing was repressurizing .

I didn ' t get any response until we

got to CE:.r ".arvo·1 , which was about three minutes
l ater .

I called and told them that we were re­

pressurizi ng and had the hatch closed.
White

You lmow , that was some pretty good gage reading
that we saw when we got the first 1/2 psi.

McDivitt

The first 1/2 psi.

Ha! Ha !

White

That was really a big one.

Since we ' ve described

the whole operation we 'd like to go back now
and specifically point out the pieces of equipment that we used and our opinions of them, a few ·
features that came out loud and clear to us i n
operation, general conclusions on EVA as an
operation, and what we have to 10 to make it an
operational procedure.

So the first thing I ' ll

do is go down through the equipment.

As an

overall comment on the equipment, I would say I
fel t very confident the equipment i,:ould do the
job.

And without question the equipment performed

160

ieeJI\JFID~NitAt
11.s it was <dvertised .

It performed just exactly

as it hsd been designed .

There wasn ' t one thing

on t hem as f ar as the VCM , the umbi l ical, t he
gloves , the gun , and the visor that didn ' t
perform just exactly as it had been designed .
·1. 1 11

take them all one piece at a time , and dis­

cuss them a little .
visor .

I ' ll start right with the

The visor was a rather controver sial

piece of equipment from the begi nning .

And I,

for one , doubted a little bit t he necessity for
quite the pr otection t hat we were providi ng ,
although I had helped right from the beginning
in the design wi th some of our ideas on the viso~
It turned out though , and I commented on this
during the t i me that I was out , that I was very
happy to have the visor, I was able to look
directly into the suniight .

1 did so in instal••

ling the camer a on t he back of the adapter .

I

felt that the vision out of the visor , was about
as it would be on a normal sunn;,r day .

This is

because it is so br ight up there in space .

I

fe l t 2:>.s if my vision was what I would consider
normal .

I was looking at the different parts

of the spacecraft and down at the ground , and

ctJtffibEM I IAt

6€01>-JFIO.ENTl.4 L

161

the view that I received at this time vas what I
would expect on a normal sunny day.

I was cer­

tainly glad to have the visor and I left it down
throughout EVA .

I think on a later flight we

might recommend going ahead and lifting the
visor and observing any changes we might see in
visual acuity when looking down at the ground .
the ground vision through the visor really
didn't seem to me to be degraded at all.

Eviden­

tly just the intensity, and not what I was seeing,
was cut down.
McDivitt

Let me comment a little bit on that visor .

I

didn ' t have a visor and the bright sunlight that
was in the cockpit didn't seem to bother me.

I

imagine that the visor turned out just like a
pair of sunglasses.

You go outside on a normal

d~y and wear a pair of sunglasses .

If you

don ' t have them , you ' re squinting.

But if

you start out without them you tend to get
accustomed to it.

I think I was accustomed to

what light there was coming through the spacecraft , admittedly much less than that outside.
F,d was

accustomed to the sun visor and it turned

out just like two people with and without

,O~fi&EN+IAl-

C~l'IFIOeNllAL

162

sunglasses.

They both could have adapted.

I

didn't look into the bright sun straight ahead.
White

Well, the first time I looked into the bright sun,
the first thought I had was, "Boy!

Am I glad

I 've got this vis::>r on!"
McDivitt

I know you mentioned it on the radio.

White

--because I was looking right atraig-ht into
sun.

the

I had to look into it t o attach the camera

onto the a:iapter section.
wear sunglasses.

I d-:m' t normally

As you know, Jim, I have never

worn sunglasses very much , and I didn't n::>tice
it from then on, through·~ the t Lme I was out.
I hail n::> impulse whatever to lift my visor .

My

vision was a.s clear as I co·..i.ld have expected it
to be without the visor.

There are a few design

points in the visor that we could make better and·
I'll briefly go into them

right now.

When you

are seated in the spacecraft one visor slips up
underneath the other a~d back along the back of
your helmet, so th~t instead of resting on your
helmet on the headrest you're resting the visor
o~ the headrest.
that.

You certainly aon't want to do

The visor should be restrained in some

manner from slipping up along the back of the

163

helmet.

Also, my visor was quite difficult for

me to raise and lower.

Once it was dowr

it fit

quite snugly, for which I was happy.

But it was

difficult for me to raise and lower.

It was

actually a two-handed operation, which is one of
the reasons why I didn't raise it outside;
although, I had no impulse to raise it when I was
outside.

I think that we might be able to design

them to be raised up and down more easily.
McDivitt

Let me make a comment on that visor .

I never

did see any need for the little lexion visor .
White

That's exactly the point I was going to get to
next.

I think that one single visor made as

close to the helmet liner as possible, p~oviding
the maximum amount of headroom and a minimum
amount of interference, is what we actually need.
I don ' t believe we need that lexion outer visor.
As they pointed out to us, it doesn't really
protect, because it bows in a.~d it doesn't
really give you the protection th~t it should
be affording.

I would recommend one visor, one

sun visor only.

It'll be simpler to operate .

McDivitt

I think so, too.

White

Okay.

The ·v;ntillation Control Module, I can say

CO ►~f JE>EN+IA..L

CQtqflOr:NTl"L

164

without qualification, worked exactly as it was
planned to work.

There was not one complaint

that I had with it. It provided me with the
proper flow.

The flow was lass than with the

no.:-mal ECS suit system, but it was adequate to
keep me cool and ventilated, except for two times
during the flight.

Those times were when I

atta~hed the camera right before departing the
spacecraft and reen t erdngthe spacecraft.

But

I think it performed without fault.
White

The umbilical was another item that I thought
performed its part of the flight quite well.
had no complaints about it.

I

I did tend to get it

tangled up with the bag and the strings that were
attached to the bag during EVA.
White

I am very thankful that we decided to design the
gloves in the manner in which we did, the twopiece glove that was easily donned or doffed
under pressurized conditions.

As it turned out,

I took them on and off twice while pressuri zed.
I was quite happy that we had them designed in
this manner.

As it turned out, the heat on t he

side of the spacecraft, or the cold on the side
of the spacecraft when we ca.:ne out of the dark

COl<tFtOf:M'f lA'i.

1

65

side , were no t noticeable to the touch at all .

I

didn't use a right hru1d thermal glove at any time
during the flight .

I took it off w~en I was

opening the l'.e.tch and, as I pointed out earlier ,
it floated off during the EVA operation .

I didn ' t

have opportunity to use it again if I had wanted
to.

Coming back i n we had difficulty closing the

h~tch, and I , at this time , removed my left hand
glove and used the plain pressure s-.1it gloves
for this operation .

The press'.lre suit gloves

were comfortable .

In fact , there were no sen­

sations of either hot or cold through my gloves .
White

Th: gcU1 , I think , was an outstanding point in
the flight, a highlight of the flight .

It

worked just as we had felt it would work and it
was , I felt , simple to operate .

The training

t hat I had. on the air-bearing platform provided
me adequate orientation in the use of the
space gun .

I think that now that we have a little

more t ime to prepare ourselves for the next time
we use this gun , t raining with it on zero-g
flights would be appropriate .

I don ' t believe

we wil l have any t rouble using it in the zero-g
aircraft .

• COt«lf tf)[NTIAl

¥

, CONflDE~ff~At-

166

White

One mistake lhat we made o~ our E'fA equip~ent
was the rno·.mting of the Co, tarex camercl. .

This

camera s):-iould h,•,ve been attached by velcro to Ill:) ,
s o that I could use it independently of the gun .
It W'.)Uld have been easier for m,3 to us9 and I
would have had a nnlch higher probability of
getting satisfactory pictures with it .

It was a

case of lumping too mu~h together--vJtting tha
g-~n and the camera together .
White

The attachinAnt of the VCM to the h~rness was
a good type of at tachment .
co~ne c'

It was easy to dis­

Lhe two velcro attachments anti move

the che~t pack in and out .

I hai to do this

both when I opened the sp:1.cecraft hatch, so it
would clear the hatch handle , a,d I had to ~)ve
it out of the way when I c l osed the spacecraft
and p~mp~d the hatch handle .
White

Now we can get into some concl usions .

While I

was out , I decided to put a piece of velcro strip
on the side of the adapter to see if later on we
might use this as a method for attaching i tern:, on
tha outside of the spacecraft , if the velcro was
still there and if it was in good shape .

I think

the velcro could be madeintoc.. very useful item for

co~~Fi0£N-l1Al-

167

a type of tether.

I think you m.i ght even be able

to do something alo~g the line of just having
some fenale velcro on the gloves and pieces of
the male velcro at points along th~ adapter .
This might provide us at least some attach:nents
so th~t we could maneuver o'.lrselves back to the
adapter sect.i.oP..

This wo'.lli be about the sim•­

plest kind of handle that we could use .

I do

believe that we need some type of handles on the
outside of the spacecraft .

Jim suggested one o~

the nose and in the cover on the R & R section
up there .

I thi nk this is an area that we cer­

tainly have a possibility of using .
would have found it useful.

I certainly

I woul d still be a

little h~sitant, though , o.f breaking the antenna .

You wo'..lld want to be sure that this

wouldn't be hroken during EVA .

I think the

feeling I had o'..lt there, again, was like
holding onto an 8-foot tree .

There wasn't any­

thing to hold onto.

You definitely need some

kind of hand- holds .

The decision to leave the

hatch open was one of the best decisions that
we made .

It provided me with a center of oper­

ations for my work.

I was able to stabilize my-

€Ot ◄ FIDEN--lJAI

168

self by holding onto the hat ch.

It was also

surprising to me how much force it took to open
the h.:i,tch the first time against the p·!'eload and
the actuaters , due to the seals.

One other very

good decision was to have me wear the heavy suit
and Jim the light suit.

I think thi~ was one

of the thine-s that made our opera.tio;1. easier.

It

certainly m~de my getting back in the spacecraft
a::1d Jim 's assista.1ce in closing the h;~tch much
easier for him ,
in a"'.ld out .

Hlso , I was handing him things

He was performing quite a bit

of coordination in the operation with pieces
of equ.ipt1ent thA-t were going in 'ind o·.1t of the
spacecraft , and I l:>elieve t hat by being in
that 1 ight s:.ii t he ·11as able to do this tni.1,::h
easier than if he had been in a heavy suit .
McDivitt

I might make a comment on that suit, too.

When

we opened up t he hatch we were in~ vacuum .

I

n::iticed that the temperature of thA suit dropped
slightly so thci.t the suit was a little bit
cooler inside .

I was w)ndering if I was going

to get too cold through the suit , but the rest of
the time we were out the the temperature never
changed .

I don ' t remember looking ~t the s uit

169

inlet temperature, but the suit itself stayed
reasonably warm.

I had sun in the cockpit and I

had the cockpit open w:i.thout the s1.m ii i it for a
rel.:1.tively long period of time, four or five
minutes at a time.

This didn't seem to affect

my temperature inside the suit.
White

I think you felt the temperature more than I did .

McDivitt

I felt the temperature go down , rather than up .

White

I felt that also while outside.

I would say

H was lery co::nfortable figu.re.

I figure that I

was probably at 68 degrees temperature out
there inside the suit , which was cooler than I
had been anytime during the flight .

It wasn't

a cold feeling, just a very natural comfortable
temperatnre .
McDivitt

~uit inlet temperature was running about 55
degrees during most of the flight .

It got d•:>wn

around 52, s0 it probably might have even been
cooler than yo'ir 68 .
White

Wel l, it was cooler insi1e the suit when I was
outsi:ie the spacecraft thn.n at any other time
during the flight .

It wasn't uncomfortably cool

there at all.
White

I t hink that we can go on with some co::1clusions .

170

Some conclusions that I had were:
1.

I didn ' t notice any extremely hot temperatures
on the outside of the spacecraft .

I a l so

didn ' t co~tact surfaces for any period of
time to tra~sfer much in the way of a hea~
load to any part of my suit including the
gloYes .
2.

There I s a de.fi·-iite req-.ii rement for som(3 type

of hand holds outside the spacecraft .

3. We should think a little more o~ where we want
to operate during EVA and where to attach
the tether .

The tether was not attached at

a po.int that wo·.1ld provide me the capability
to operate in the area that I wanted to .
McDivi tt

You coul dn't get to the nose.

It p.i:-ovided great

operatio~ for directly above.
White

Straight above.

McDivitt

I just don ' t know how you would get the thing
out there .

You would have to run it along the

spacecraft , then attach it somewhere at thfi

"

front .
It would preclude operations in other areas.

You

would either have to accept ,,,here we a.re going
to operate or-- .

€0~4FIOENT+A L
M.oDiv:itt

171

·::·ou conld have n::..lt iple attachment points around
the spacecraft .

White

Of course , now , if you have a g-..m with a good air
sour0e, I wouldn't particularl y care where it
was attached .

I thi.nk you could go ahead a..'ld,

maneuver to a:ny point you want if you have a gun .
Again, when you're p~shing off of surfaces , you
tend to go perpendicular to the surface from
which you push off .

I found when I p·.lshed as

hard as I wanted to I'd still tend to go straight
up above that hatch instead of ou t toward the
fron ·~.

I think this is a fairly obvious con­

clusion, but it proved out .

Everytime I pushed

off I went straight up instead of at an angle
to the surface
McDivitt

where I wanted to go .

So!lle thi.ag that you should bear in mind is that
yo•.1 were pushing off fro!ll the front wh i.ch
tended to make the front go down as you went
out .

White

Yes.

Everything was working against getting

where I wanted to go.

Everything I did tended

to put me up.
McDivitt

When you started you went in a straight li.ne
forward and tended to p~sh the spacecraft down.

CO ►J Flf)fNf1M

172

I think , initially , where I was holding the
attitude, yo'J. didn't have that much trouble .

Of

course, you weren ' t pushing 13.S hard ei·~her, because you had the gun .
White

No , I wasn't .

McDivitt

Later on , when we started free drifting, you
w,~re ba~k behind m~J where I couldn ' t see.

White

Did you feel me stomping around back on the
adapter and hitting the adapter .

McDivi tt

We il, I felt you hitting things back behind me
and once you went behind the line thEit was dire ctly over'.,.ead the spacecraft.

l cottldn ' t see

you t hrough your open hatch.
White

I never reaEy had a good co.!ltact with the
adapter back there .

McDivitt

Just as -:,.r,21 l .

We W':r:.ildn ' t want to disturb those •

radiator tubes too much .
White

No,

Well, now that we 're back, we'll have some

conclusions on the adapter area .

I made it a

point right from the beginning -~o take
a look at the thermal lines , the thermal p~int
on the adapter.
shape .

It looked like it was in good

It was all there.

There was discolor­

ation arou.~d the attitude thrusters , particularly,

GONFIDEt>ilTIA!

173

from the thrusting.

The color of the thrusting

is just like the RCS thruating--nice and clear
plume.

It looked lik~ from o~tside, thu".lgh, that

I could see a lot more of the plume than I could
when I w~s sitting inside the spacecraft looking
out at the RCS thrusters firing.

Again, the

cam,era was not attached in a.n opportune ma.n'ler
to operate.
McDivitt

Which camera?

White

I'm really after that camera on the gun.

The camera on the spacecraft?
That

one wasn't attached gooa.
The cam-era on the spacecraft was okay.

It was a

little difficult to attach because of the
attach'Dent on the bottom of it .

You can't have

it at any angle to make it engage.

It has to

be perfectly flat with the mounting plate on the
bottom.

A big co:!1.clusion that I came to-- and

I' 11 see how you feel ab.:mt this one, Jim --I
feel that storage in the back of the adapter
section wa:s certainly a very high priority for
l ater missio:!1.s .

I feel that we can adequately

store eq·.1ipment in the adapter area , particularly
larger pieces of equipment that we don't have
room for in the crew station or pieces we don't

co~~FIDENllAb-..

174

have particular use for in the early part of the
flight .

If we ca~ lick the p~oblems in opening

and closing of the hatch, we can store equipment
in the back of the adapter section as a routine
operation .
McDivitt

That ' s right .

I think the extravehicul ar activ­

ities have proved to other people what we all
ready knew a long time ago--that 'FNA is quite
simple .

I think the thing we ' ve got to iron out

is the hatch opening and closing.
really our. problem.

This is

I don ' t think you or I will

ever have any doubt about the extravehicular
activity .

That was , I thought , going to be

pretty stra ightforward .

It looked like to me it

was pretty straightforward.
White

I felt that I could operate equipment 01.1t there .
I co,1ld assemble equipment .

I could put pins

in, pull pins o~t, and screw thLngs in.
all these things during the flight.

I did

I tu.rn~d th.a

gun ::m , a::i.d I put i n the pin to operate the um­

bilical guide .

I attachad the camera .

I don ' t

think yo~ could do these operations very effectively with big heavy gloves on .

Alth:>Ugh my

gloves oper ated satisfactorily, I think that for

CONFl0-Et+T-tAl-

175
assembly of i terns you wa.---it to have ....--you ought to
look into the glove area a little more thoro'.lg'hly
anii try to get a piece of a glo-re ·,1ith so:ne
type of a surface that will give us some heat
protection and gives us a high sensitivlty of
feel through it .

The big conclusions , the final

co~~lusions , that I ' d like to draw are that EVA
can be made a normal routine operation if the
following modificatio~s are made to the spacecraft :
1.

The highest priority is that the spring back
there on the gain lug has convicted itself
and I don't believe that that's a good design.
There should be s:>me way ths.t either the l ub ricatio:?1 is :nA.de foolproof or the spring mH.de
stronger .

McDivitt

I think what we really want to say here is that
the locking mechanism is inadequate as it is ,
compl etely inadequate .

Until i t is fixed , I

think we should take it easy.
White

Th11.t 1 s right .
m:,e

I think we almost had a bad experi­

with ths.t gain thing .

of ti.me .
not fixed .

We knew about it ahead

We thought we had it fixed, but it ' s
I think it convicted itself and it's

,oMftOf:NllAL

176

guilty and it has -Lo be fixed.
2.

I recommend that at least the egress kit on
the right of the crew compartment be remo·red
to provide more room in the spacecraft .
see no reason for it being in t here.

I

I think

it wo•.1ld be worth the effort a~d the ajdi tion-al money to p.rovlde the extra room .in the
spacecraft.

So , my second recommendation ,::m

EVA is to remove the egress k.Lt, at least

from the right -hand side, to provide more
head room .
McDivitt

Yes, that ' s good .

I might add that it ' s a good

thi.ng that we had that egress kit modified- to
the m:i.nimu.11 height , because without that we would
have been in deep trouble.
White

That's right.

White

Yes .

You and I had been telling each other t hat

that was the biggest thing we did on our whole
nine months prior to the f l ight- -to get that
thing cut rlown .

I ·t 1.1ink it sure paid for itself

on ou:r. flight .

3. My third item is to make the bar and lanyard
completely foolproof in strength.

That was a

device that provided us with the added force

Get:Jf:IDENJ]A-1:-

07

COt~ft0ENftAL

177

we !leeded to close the hatch , just as we sat
there and said we might need during the SAR
of thfl spacecraft in St . Louis.

I think the

attachrnl'9nts of the bat' and the cable to the
spacecraft sho~ld probably be at least doubled
in strength , so there just isn 't any question
in the pilots' minds or the engineers' minds .
I guess the eng:ineers were co::winced that
you didn ' t have Jim and I co!'lvinced that those
tw~ attachme!lt points-- .
McDivitt

We've seen it break too many times, I think .

White

We've broken the bar and we've broken that
atta::)hn:ent point.

I ha::!. actually physically

twisted the attachmen t right off the spacecraft
up in the zero-g airplane.

I certainly wouldn't

have put my full strength into it if I knew
my life depended on that attachment.

It should

be ma.de absolutely foolproof.
McDivitt

Well , that was t l,'.e point I was trying to make
ea rlier when I said I was pulling as hard as
I could .

Then I said that I really wasn 't

pulling as hard as I was capable of.
White

You did:1 1 t have confidence in that attachment.

McDivitt

I didn't really think that I shouln p~ll O!l it

€0NflDENitM

178

any harder .
White

No .

I think that shouli be t he third recommen­

dation and it should be corrected .
McDivitt

I think we could spare a couple of extra po1.1.-.ida

of weight there , just for the pilots ' peace of
mind .
White

That 's right .

Take the time it takes to put a

new attachment on there .

They told us they

d.idn ' t want to do it beca~lse they ' d have to rerig it .

I ·~hink t hey ' d better re-rig it and take

the tim~ to put a good attachment o~ there.

4. The final thing really doesn ' t fit in with
the first three recommendations , but I would
sure like to have the opportllnity to use that
gun 9gain with about a 10-times supply of
oxy~n in a great big canister.

I think

that maybe this is one of the items wa could
carry in the back of the aiapter.

We could

use a small supply to provide t ~e means to
go back there to get a great big canister.
Then we ' d have a :mit that we co'.lld actually
do s ome maneuveri ng with .
McDivitt

That ' s r ight .

I think that , in essence , we

proved the usef ulness of a self-stabilized or a

~OENflAl

eQN=F19-ENTIAL

179

man-stabilized maneuvering unit-White

Yes .

McDivitt

- -rather than o.na that is gyro- stabilized with
automatic stability features.

I think that al­

tho'.lgh you did·'.1 1 t burn up a lot of fuel , you
certainly p~oved the feasibility of this type
of ma.neuveri ng unit .
Whi. te

We had a1 awfully small amcr.1i.'1t .

We j..lst had the

6 feet/second-White

We p~oved , in my mind , that I had the capability
to go .fr om Point A t::> Poi nt B with that mr1.neuvering U."lit .

McDivitt

Let me ask you thi8 question , a.."ld be ho::1est about
it .

Would yo'.l detach yo'..lr tether and _go without

i.t? Don ' t be too optimistic , because other
people ' s lives may depe::1d on it.
White

I think that we probably have not done enough
investigati on to do that at this time , but I
fee l we are p:.:-ogr essing toward the point .

We

made the f irst , say 50 percent , of th~ step
toward being able to detach the tether and go.
I don ' t believe that I wouli deta:::h the tether
aJld 5 o ·,.ii.th that 6 feet/seco::1d-- .
McDivitt

Oh , no .

I didn' t mea."l t hat .

-,Qt\lFtDENflAb

I mean with that

180

type of a unit .
White

If T had some more !:::,,V

in a U:'lit like that I

think that I would be ,.:illi ng t o detach myself
on the next fli.gh t , right n::>w , fr,Jm the spacecraft and go .

That ' s com'bined with tw-) things,

you see . You h<1:ve two th.ings working f or you .
You have the capability to maneuver yourself ,
and if you should get out of control the spacecraft still has the capability to come over a~d
get close en::>'.lgh so that you could get yo".1.c-self
baGk .Ln control and get in the spacecraft .
White

I think that 40 or 50 feet/second would be a
minim'.l.,n.

I hnd 6 and I ' d like to see , pcobably,

a capability of about 10 times that .

_That may

be a li ttle-- .
McDi vitt

It ' s diffi~ult.

I wo~ld think it would be

difficult to fix a number on it until you fi xed
the jo'b .
White

Yes .

McDivi tt

If you want;ed to go to som.-1thing that was 1::> feet
g;way

and come back, you ' d probably get by with

20 feet/second .
White

If I wa-:1ted to get out of the spacecr aft and g •>
a long to the back of the a:lapter and get in the

~ONftD ENTIAt

cor~FIDENTI QJ.,.

181

adapter without being attached to the spacecraft, I ' d only need two or thr-ee time the
a'.'llount .
McDivitt

I'd be happy co go with that .

There are some problems in th,~ capability to
alin9 on,3 1 s self onto an object .

I think chasing

the booster around points this o~t.

You say you'd

be willing to go away becaur-Je the spacecraft
can oome and g~t you .

Admittedly it can, but

kseping in mind the difficulty wa had with th9
booster .

I don ' t really an~i~Lpate us ever get­

ting into the si tuat Lon like that beca~1se ;rou I d
never get so far away that you're in different
orbits, like we were with the booster--.
Whi.te

What I vis·,.1al i.ze is a 25 to 50 foot operation
where you ' re goL'lg ou.t to investigate ei-l:her
a.."lot~1er spacecraft or another satellite up there,
or making a trans.fer similar to the type of transfer that we visualize as a backup mode for Apollo.
I think with the gun I had , if tbc LEM and the Command Module were there , I'd be satisfi ed, .i,0 d9part
the Command Module aJ.l.d maneuver
LEM situated 10 t0 20 feet

Module.
time.

over

to

the

away from the Comma·'ld

I feel I coul::l io that at the present
I d:m ' t think it would be a very smart

-=cot~FH)ENT+Ab-

182

thing at the pcesent time to go m~neuvering off
200 to 300 feet away from the spacecraft with

this type of device.

I , think this device is

designed and has its greatest usefulness in close
operation around the spacecraft .
McDivitt

That ' s right.

There is no need to maneuver off

about 4-00 or 50-0 feet away because if you want
to go that far, use the spacecraft.

This gun

is for a close working job .

White

I think it's a valuable tool in this manner.

McDivitt

Okay .

That's the same conclusion I came to .

We'd be willing to do it at close range .
White

I ' d be willing to do it right now .

I might not

go tell somebody else to god~ it , but I 'd
be willing , with the training that I had with
it , to transfer 15 or 20 feet without a te'Lher .
But , I think we sho~ld spend mome more time ·..nth
the gu..-i .
McDivitt

I think so , too .

White

I also think it would be of value to go in the
zero-g airplane with it .

McDivitt

Yes , I think so, too .

White

I think the work that we might do in the z.aro- g
airplane doesn't necessarily have to be done in

CONFI0El'<JTl~t

183

full regalia, with all the pressut'e s·.li ts i n a.
press uri zed ~onditio:n.

I think we can go up

there and learn a lot abo"..lt the gun wi t ],.ou t
pr essure suits on, in a plain flying suit type
operation.

Perhaps polish the training off with

a 1 i t tle ·,1or k in press'.l:rized S .lits.
0

If yo"..l work

in the zero--g airplane with ':I. p:.-essurized su.Lt
it ' s pretty awkward .
White

In pitch and yaw I felt I could maintain effectiv~ly zero rates.

I don ' t k:no·.., how it looked to

you Jim, but it looked like I could establ ish
a rate and take the rate out without too much
trou'ol~. The yaw is the lowest moment o.f them all,
Pitch was very easy, j''.l st to pitch the . th.ing ,1p
and down .

I ' m still a little suspicious of roll.

That's the area that I wo"..lld like to look into a
little more .

I think that yo"..l could get yo"..lrself

into a kind of balled up situation with pitch,
roll, and yaw all coupled up.

It might take a

little bit of fuel to get yourself straightened
back out again.

But just in translating from

Point A to Point B, you could care less if you
rol l ed , as long as you kept pitch and yaw
straight .

And that ' s why I say I think you can

184

translate and correct pitch a.'1d yaw -,rery succes.sfully and effectively forget about roll, just as
we do .in our reentries or our retros.
White

The questio~ is:

Was there any problem with the

g-..m of maintaining a fairly well stabilized at­

titude and sti11 get my tra~sla.tion inP'.it?

I

did this actually three different times and this
was what I had done when I was coming back to
the spacecraft the last time .

I had to put in

both pitch and yaw and had ta..~en them out and
I was coming back .

I was going to fire my last

thrust to·,mrd the spacecraft.
burst.

I could feel a little bt'..rat and than

it petered out .
in.

I got a little

B-:it you can put a tra.-isl.~tion

I was also s~rp~ised that I was able to stop

at the time I tried to stop it out there about one
half or two-thirds of the way out on the end of the
lanyard .

It seemed to stop pretty well.

It was

either the gun or the lanyard dampening me .

It

didn ' t dampen me in roll, so I think it was the
gun that actually did it.
McDivitt

I think that this previous bunch of words just
spoken covers a lot of de tail, of the firs t
three or four orbits of our f l ight, and it covers

'5~FIDEN-l~L

185

that first phase of mission sequen~es that I
first mentioned .
should do :;s

I think the

next thing we

go through the interim o~bits, about

50 or 55 , or ho~ever many there were, where we set
abo~.1t to save up enough fuel to do soJ1ething constructive, to check on our orbit to see what it
was, to see how we were d,3caying, what our lifetime expecta':lcy would be , and perform the experiments that we'd initial ly set out to do on ~ur
flight plan.

Although, it's not going to be of

much use to go through it in a chronological
ord.er , I suppose that is probably the bes t way.
As I just finished saying, we're not going to
get a.'1 awful lot 0 .1t of going thro·.1gh the flight
1

plan sequentially, but we'll do it quickly and
then we ' ll co:ne back and discuss each experiment
o~ operation, check as entity in itself, a"ld
we'll dis8uss the systems as an entity, too .
We ' ll do this, generally, in elapsed time .
McDivitt

Going back to the EJVA for J.1s t one moment .

I'd

like to say that the use of the ma'111al heaters on
ECS o bottle was abo'.lt two f ive-min1te periods
2
separated by about 10 min:.ites. We really
did~1.' t need an awful lot of ma.ni.lal heater when wa

186

eONF·roeNfl'At.'
were doing the extravehicular activity .

4.3 Other Orbital Operations
McDivitt

Let's see . One thing that we did was to turn off
the ES Sensor at 6:35.

White

You have notes along here?

I got all the Rensor stuff down, I think , pretty
well.

McDivitt

Okay ,

I have the ES Sensor and the Bio- Med

Recorder No. 1 going off at 6:35,
McDivitt

At about 7 hours elapsed time, I checked the OAMS
fuel remaining.

We had about 62 percent indicat­

ed, 2100 psi, and 88 degrees t emperature .

We

kept getting our GO and NO GO checks as per
flight plan.
McDivitt

At about 7 : 30 Ed went to sleep.

We didn't do any lifetime adjust maneuvers.
turned the spectrometer-magnetometer on .
was while Ed was asleep .

I

This

Extended the boom,

got the ES Sensor on, and we left the spectrometer-magnetometer on for three passes through the
~outh Atlantic Anamoly.

I couldn ' t really see any

increase in the ammeter when we extended the
thing.

We went through a number of extension

cycles throughout the flight to make sure that
we got the thing out.

At no time during the

flight did we ever see a rise in the ammeter when

187

we extended it .

The way it operates is, it has

three positions:

EXTEND, OFF, and REI'RACT.

It

was in the OFF position and I put it to the EXThen I put it back to the OFF

TEND position .
position.

Periodically, throughout 7-he flight

we put it to the EXTEND position and back to OFF
to make sure that if it got screwed up the first
time that it would go on out.

The first extension

was supposed to be with the spectrometer-magnetometer on .

So , I checked to see the circuit

breakers were on , and they were on .

I turned

the spectrometer- magnetometer on and then I ext ended the boom.

And in this way the experiment­

ers hope to get some indication from the lines
of force that they were picking up if the thing
actually extended at that time .

I hope t hey got

it .
White

Incidentally, you got a pretty good operat ion on
the swizzle stick ,

I was asleep and Jim was

doing that on my side .
McDivitt

That's right .

I did it with the swizzle stick

way over on Ed ' s side.

I didn't aline the

platform or anything.

We were in free drifting

flight at this time .

As soon as we finished the

€01\IFIDENfl~ l-

188

EVA we went into free drifting flight .

We

powered down the platf orm and the computer, shut
off the attitude indicator lights--we went through
a complete power- down procedure .

We were really

trying to save bettery power , 0AMS fuel , and
everything else we had .

We went on a complete

power-down, down the checklist, and we just
didn ' t have anything on .
McDivitt

And we stayed in this free drifting mode for about
two days .

That right , Ed?

Wnite

Closer to 2 1/2 days .

McDivitt

Mostly for the first 2 1/2 days we were in a free
dri fting mode .

We didn ' t do the platform aline­

ment and the translation at around 8 : 10--8 : 20 in
the flight plan .

We did not obtain any booster­

star measurements .

As a matter of fact, I'd

like to comment on the booster-star sightings , or
just the booster sightings .

We saw the l ights of

the booster definitely on the first pass as we
were tracking it .

The second pas~ RS Ed sai~

he saw them , and he said he was sure he saw
them because they were flashing .

I was pretty

sure i: saw what he was talking about .
occurred just at sundown .

COtfftOE~TI~

However , this

Every other time at

189

sundown we'd call out the booster a couple of
more times before we finally figured out that
this was not the booster, but a planet .
White

One or two times I'm fairly confident I saw the
booster .

McDivitt

You 're pretty sure you saw it?

White

Yes.

McDivitt

Well, I was pretty confident that I saw it

That was the booster .

flashing , too .

But later on I watched th2,t star ,

that particular planet, come up.

I sat right

there and watched i t, and it flickered as it came
up t hrough the atmosphere .
White

Yes, I agree with you .

McDivitt

So, it could have been that we were just really
looking for the booster and at that particular
time we looked out and saw this thing and it
flickered.

I spent one whole sunset doing

nothing but keeping my eye out for that planet.
Sure enough it popped up and I saw it.
White

But, you know never flickered .

McDivitt

It flickered .

I watched it as it flickered.

It flickered all the way up

I watched the t hing

as it set , and it flickered all the way down-the last at 10 degrees or so.

~Fif)ENTIAt

This is exactly

eorqFIDENf~L

190

wher e we thought we were seeing the booster ,
right where it was low on the horizon , as you
would expect to see a booster .

That old thing

was flickering away like mad .
White

I think that was Venus , too .

McDivitt

It was t he planet that was tra i ling the sun by
just a very slight amount .

I made it a point

to check during the remainder of the flight ,
two or three times to see if that thing flickered
as it came up .

It r eall y did .

So , the more I

saw it flicker the more I began to doubt that
we had really seen the booster on that second
pass . Maybe we did , and maybe we didn ' t .
White

Well, it's not r eall y too impor tant .

McDi vitt

No , it ' s not .

But the fact is , that little plan­

et was flickering away like mad .
White

Let me ask you one more question about the flicker .

Did you see it coming up through the air

glow? Was that where you felt it flickered?
McDi vitt

Yes .

White

Everytime it was above the air glow it was loud
and clear to me .

McDivitt

Yes , except that you couldn ' t see t he air glow
as the sun was setting.

-COMFID'ENT~

191

White

That's right .

McDivitt

I nitially you saw the sun out there and you saw
this t hing looking like it was flashing .

Once

it got above the air glow , the planet did not
flicker anymore.

It was perfectly bright .

White

Very hright .

McDivitt

When we saw that thing that looked like the
booster , it was very low on the horizon.
always popped out .

It

Remember how that bright

light used to pop out?

You'd have t he light

sky and all of a sudden t here 'd be a bright
light there .
White

\Te saw that planet come up so many t imes during
the flight, I feel quite convinced that the
first sighting or two weren't of the planet.

McDivitt

Wel l, maybe it wasn 't.

White

Actually , I continued to see the blinking on it
after the stars were out .

McDivitt

Wait , let ' s take a look and see which way the
booster would be .

The booster was bel ow us so

it should be going out in front of us l ike mad .
You're looking into the sunset which was behind
us .

The booster shouldn ' t have been there .

The

booster should have been out to the f r ont of us .

CO~ftl}ENTIAb

€9-NF~DENTIAt.-

192

It should have been in the opposite direction.
White

I ' m : ot convinced which way we were looking .

McDivitt

We had to be looking to the rear .

The sun

sets to the rear .

We had to be BEF to see the

sun when it set .

You see , ;,,·ou ' re BEF to watch it

set .
White

Were we BEF for the full time or were we in free
drift?

McDivitt

We were in free drift but this was near the sun
when this thing came out .

White

No , they always come out loud and clear when
you ' re away f r om the sun , when you ' re looking
away from the sun .

McDivitt

Yes .

I lmow it , but at that one time when you

sai d, "There ' s the booster." , you were looking
at the sun .

Remember , I had turned around?

They told us that they wanted us to be BEF and
heads down when we opened up the hatch .
where we were .

That ' s

I turned around to be BEF .

We

were BEF when we saw that thing .
White

We'd better l ook at the tapes .

I think we can

probably get better information on this when we
check .
McDivitt

I think we were even looking in the wrong dir-

eeNFIBENflAf

~ ONFl(:)ENl~Alection .

193

The next pass around I called out and

said , 11 1 see the booster on top at 9 o ' clock ,
perpendicular to our flight path."

I don ' t

think that ,.ias the booster either .
White

It's

kind of academic .

McDivitt

Yes .

White

The reason that I broughtthe thing back up
again is I wanted to be sure it ' s brought out
that the planets are so clear and so bright,
even far more brighter than they are looking at
them from the ground .

Looking at them up there,

it really is striking the first time you see
them .

If we took a l ot of pictures of anything,

i t was a pictl:re of that planet .
McDivitt

Sunrise and sunset .

The sunsets all had the

planet in it .
White

That ' s right .

That planet has always been there .

McDivitt

Very pretty .

Whi t e

It certainly was .

McDivitt

Okay, I got a call after Ed went t o sleep that
we were going to pass by

myr.hnl"r.

:.:. u.:-o which

would be north of track , at 7:56 .
Whi t e

I wasn't sleeping.

McDivitt

Did you? Okay .

I heard it .

Well , I didn't have any fuel to

e-0NFl0ENf lAL--

GOt'4FIDENll:A:l

194

point the spacecraft at Typhoon Babe so that was
that .

I f I had drifted around so I could see it,

I was going to take a picture of it but I never
drifted around so I could see it .
passed on by .

I just

A little bit later on , I was

call ed up and told that at 23 : 55 GMT my
ascending node would be at 83 degrees East an
my 6th Rev .

This was just a map update .

I

was tol d I should eat at some particular time .
I t hink it was 00 : 15 t o 01:00 .

It was

already past that time, so, I ate \-1hen I felt
like it.

The pilot was supposed to do a No .

1 Aero-Med Pass at 02 17 43.

This was the first

instance of us running into a case where a ma n
was supposed to do an aero- med pass when he
was asleep .

This continued on intermittently

throughout the flight .
White

It seems like I was always asleep when I was
supposed to be doing an aero- med pass.

McDivitt

This continued on intermi ttently during the
flight .

As the flight progressed, the doctors

got more coordiarted on the ground and we got
more coordinated with them to tell them who
was sleeping and how long we were going to be

' Ctm:&¥«1'41'L

..Ee~FlD'ENTIAl:.sleeping.

195

We had less requests for aero-med

passes of guys that were sleeping.

We, in

general, refused to wake the other person up to
do an aero- med pass .

We were told by the

doctors and the flight planners on the ground,
that at 02 30 59 we were supposed to turn on
D- 8 .

Now, I don ' t know why we had to have this

to the nearest second.

I was also supposed to

go to sleep at this time, to t he nearest
second .

It seemed a little academic to me.

So I w., !<e Ed up at 02:30

Greenwich Time.

He

turned on the D-8 Experim~rut and I didn 't
go to sleep until I did something else.

I

think I had something to eat but I'm not real
sure .

But I didn ' t get off to sleep right

away .

Then I told Ed he was supposed to turn

that MSC 2 and 3 off at 03 :00.
06:15 .

I awoke at

But what happened in between that

elapsed tim~ Fil.?

Shoot, that's not right

White

06 : 15?

McDivitt

I must have awaken --

White

About four hours is what you rad.

McDivitt

Right.

Looking through my notes here I see

that I wrote down "Awake at 06 : 15," and I

196

didn ' t get to sleep at 2: 30 and Ed didn't
wake me up at 6 :1 5 .

So I guess we were down

from anywhere from 3: 30 and 4 :30 .
White

Right .

You slept approximately four hours .

I

let you go about 30 or 45 minutes after that
time of 6:15 , as far as getting you up .

While

y~1 were asleep, the things that I did :

I

believe that I had a meal which you had gotten
out.

I believe we had one before this, though .

Di dn ' t we have one after EVA before I went to
sleep?

Or, did I just drink a lot of water and

go to sleep?
McDivitt

No , I think we had a meal before you went to
s l eep .

White

That was my second meal that I had shortly
after I got up .

I believe ihey called and

asked me to give them an aero- med pass, which
I don ' t have the time logged on .

I imagine

the medics will have that.

I ran through a

D-8 Experiment at 02 30 59.

The MSC 2 and 3

recorders were supposed to come off at 3
o'clock, but I didn ' t turn them off til 04 19 40 .
It didn ' t seem like that was particularly
important a:.-..yhow to get them off.

I guess that's

C6~+Fl,0EN:r+A-b
why I didn. ' t t:iL:k about it.

191

I got

instruc t ions from the ground to maintain the
oxygen pressure at between 930 and 960 with the

o2 High Rate .

This is the time I told them

that the Command Pilot was asleep and I ' d
prefer to do it at a later time .

I think they

called me back a few times on it ; finallJ, when
it got up to about 960 I went ahead and dumped
it .
McDivitt

It scared me to death !

White

The o2 High Rate started filling the cabin up ,
pressurizing it up around 5.4.

At 5,4 on the

button the vent val ve relieved and Jim about
came through the top of the hatch .
McDivitt

I was there half asleep with my gl oves off , my
visor down , and a cover over .

Trie cabin vented

and the cabin pressur e dropped about 3/10
of a pound .

I knew that I didn ' t have my gloves

on and I figure ,

"Boy, I am going to have

to get those gloves on in the next half a
second or I'm going to be--"
White

He didn ' t get his gloves on but he sure was
thrashing around for a littl e while til I got
him the word .

I didn ' t want to wake him up .

COt'-f FIDEl>Jl.lAL

198

I didn't want to wake him up .

I was hoping it

would go through without waking him, but it sure
didn't .
McDivi tt

Man!

It liked to have scared me so bad I don't

think I went back to sleep.
White

No, you went back.

You slept better at the end of

your sleep cycle than at the beginning.
McDivitt

So you were trying to get to my end earlier.

White

I think I did the other.

I always slept best at

the beginning of my sleep.
McDivi tt

No, I al..ra.ys

slept best at the beginning.

White

You did too?

McDivitt

There was a period where I had to get to sleep,
then there was a period of solid sleep, sometimes
15 minutes, sometimes an hour .

But after I went

by that first bunch, then I was in a state of semiwakeness .
White

Kind of like dopey, fitfull sleep .

That's the same

type of sleep I had , at least until the last time .
Okay.

There really wasn ' t anything else that went

on except a few tape dumps and an update for the
orbital plotboard.
ful.

I found this to be very use­

I used the plotboard to keep track of my

orbits , where I was during the first part of the

~Otv4FIDEt'~TJAL

CUNFIDl:~L
mission , exclusively.

199

It was very accurate .

You

could check the times in the plotboard as against
what you saw on the ground and you could locate
yourself quite adequately .
McDivitt

How about you?

While I ' m thinking about it, I thought the plotboard information early in the flight was excellent .
But I thought t hat the plotboard i nformation at t he
end of the flight was not correct .

As a matter of

fact , I started ~o ca ll them a couple of times , but
I never did .

By the time I would get the stuff

plotted , and get the map put where I wanted it , we
would be someplace else .

I ' m sure that that in­

format i on they were sending up to me wasn't right ;
I ' d be off an orbit or two .
White

After about the last day and a half, I used the
nominal orbit plot maps exclusively . I could see
the time and the location .
right with the ground .

I

could spot it

And I think I figured it

was seven minutes behind near the l a tter part of
the mission .

This didn't bother me .

I could tell

how far it was behind, and then update my position
on the map quite easi l y . I thought those pre- plots
were real good .
McDivitt

So did I .

I t hought they were , too .

OONFIBENTIAL,

But I was a

200

little disappointed with the map information at the
end of the flight .
hap~ening.

I don ' t know exactly what was

But I ' m convinced that it wasn ' t right .

As a matter of fact , a couple of times I was even
on the wrong orbit .

They ' d give me a time and a

l ongi tude and I'd plot it.
part of the world .

I wasn ' t even over that

I'd be over a whole orbit from

that .
White

Jim , I made this mistake once , too .
plotboard.

I was using my

I ' d plot evecything out a.nd I came

down in a place in Mexico at night , Tampico , Mexico .
So I told them something about seeing t his spot in
Mexico . T:!ey didn't pick up my mistake .

I was back

checking over and I got to looking at my map and
sa id , "What the heck are we doing here at nigh t?"
I was actually on the other side.

I was clear

around in Australia.
McDivitt

Had you plotted east instead of west?

White

No, I don't think I did.
correctly .

I think I plotted it

I went back and checked it and I never

did get the plot .

I went on to do something else

and I didn ' t get the plotboard squared away on that .
But I rea lized that instead of passing over Tampico,
Mexico , what I was really seeing on the ground was

201

Sidney.
McDivitt

You only missed it by half the world .

White

Tha t 's right .

It was exactly on the other side .

But not exactly.
McDivitt

It was about 120 degrees off.
One that I remember

Mine was something like this .

specifically--they gave me a map update and they
wanted me to do a check over El Paso and El Centro .
Looking at this I could see that if I was at the
right time, I would have come up from the south;
whereas, my pass was down l ike this , and I
was an orbit or two off.
Whi te

Well then , we're not talking about the same thing .

I think I had probably slipped it somehow on here .
McDivitt

You might have plotted 60 Fast instead of 60 West,
or something like that .

White

Yes .

McDivitt

But I was off by a time fac t or.

White

It w~sn ' t too hard to realize that Mexico wasn ' t at
night.

McDivitt

I have a ne t! here that says , "RKV tape dump and a
No . 1 Medical Pass on the Command Pilot at 07:02
GMT ."

White

That 's right .

And I got you up a few minutes

before 07:00, if you recall .

In fact , just before

~QNElDENll~

202

you had to make your Medical Pa s s I woke you up ,
So I'd es t imate t hat Jim got up around 6: 55, just
enough time t o transfe r the equipment to him and
let him make his Medical Pass .
McDivitt

At 7: 15 Greenwich Time I was supposed to eat .

White

Right .

At 11:15 Greenwi ch Time I was supposed to

go back to s leep .
McDivitt

I s that when you did?

I don't even s ee that on

here .

Whit e

Where it says "Pilot s l eep".

McDivitt

Is that a penci led- in note ?

Whi te

Ther e was just a s eri es of instructions that we
got from them .

McDivitt

Okay.

Good, becaus e I don ' t have that .

White

It doesn ' t really mean that ' s when we went to sleep
becaus e you know we did t hings somewhat out of
sequence .

McDivi tt

At 8: 55 over the RKV we got a list of PLA's and
CLA ' s .

White

Was this one of' our first big batches of them?
You know, initially, we di dn ' t ge t too many of them,
and then we started getting them on a very regular
bas is throughout the flight .

I thought that com­

munications of those was quite good , once we started .

203

McDivitt

I have a list of notes here that say:

Rev 12

was over the RKV where we were supposed to get
the CLA 's and PLA 1 s.

We did.

Rev 13 was over

Canary where we were supposed to have a C-Band
track.

I think that meant C-Band went to

CONTINUOUS , but I'm not really sure . •
White

This is the time at about 17 or 18 hours that
I called down and asked them how the tape dumps
were coming out, because we weren't holding
any attitude for them.

We were holding nothing

more than a drifting attitude and I know that
over some stations we were blunt-end-down and
rolled upside down .

We were t alking , I know,

upside do~m to the stations and getting good
transmissions through.

They came back and

204

said all of the tape dumps to this time had
been exce11en t .
McDivitt

At a GMT of 12 16 00 I got a comment : "No fuel ,
but do a Flight Track Orientation . "

This is

like saying, drive from here t o ~he drug store,
but don ' t use any gasoline--a.~d don't take the
car .
So as I flopped over near around 12: 16 , I
looked down to the ground .

We could do a Flight

Track Orientation pretty well, considering that
we had this movable orbita l map and we had a
pretty good idea of where we were going to be
to start with so we could pick out where we
were.

Got a map update at 10 17 49, · 73 degrees

West .

A tape dump at Canaries on Rev 13 and at

Carnarvon at Rev 14,

Around 19 hours , I checked

on our orbit and it was 155 . 7 by 88.
At 11 52 43, turned the C- Band Adapter Switch
to CONTINUOUS .
to COMMAND .

At 11 59 23 we turned it back

This is Greenwich time .

All the

stuff in the flight plan such as the Orbit
Navigational Checks and the Apollo Landmark
Inves t igation were not done . We were doing tape

-EQNFIDENTtAL

EOt~FIDENf~L

205

dumps , medical data passes and that was a bout it .
The next M- 3 Experiment s wer e a ll par t of medical
data passes.

I don't even lrnow why they ' re in the

flight plan .
White

I couldn ' t figur e that o:1t either.

McDivitt

We did an HF Check.

Check began at 16 58 30 GMT ,

and ran on t hrough 19 07 00 GMT ; this inc luded
the sunrise , sunset , day , night--all the HF checks
and we' ll cover those in the experiment part of
our d ebrief ing.
McDivitt

During this period of 16 58 30 GMT to 19 07 00
GMT , we did the HF Checks .

White

Oh, here it is!

McD:i vi t t

Where?

White

At 11 : 45 Zulu . Pilot awake at 11 : 30 ,

Command Pilot asleep .

I do~'t

know when I went to sleep here .
McDivitt

Okay .

Whi t e

Okay .

McDivitt

I t'll take a long t i me to sort that out and I

Let's check that some other time .

don ' t think he needs that right away .
Whi te

All right .

McDivi tt

Okay.

I got Command Pilot asleep at 11 : 45 ,

I don't have me up or asl eep or anything.

What I ' ve got here in my notes is , Ed to bed at

206

20 :15, up at 22 : 15 , back at 23:15 ,
Zebra times , I ' m sure .

These are

So I don ' t know exactly

what happened in there .
White

Well , you ' re clear over on 24 now .

Okay , you ' ve

skipped the time when you were asleep .
McDivitt

That ' s r i ght .

White

Okay , I have you going to sleep.

I don ' t have anythi ng on that .

awake at 11 : 30 ,

I logged myself

Command Pilot asleep at 11 : 45 ,

These are Greenwich times .

If you add 8:45 onto

that , it comes out 20 hours and 30 minutes ,
elapsed time .

You gave me the instructions for

the C- Band adapter times .

I did tur n those on

at 11 52 43 to continuous C- Band ori the adapter ,
and at 11 59 23 to COMMAND .

Also during that

peri od of time , I had been told

to go ahead and

run Apollo L~ndrnark Investigation without any
fuel .

But luckily, the spacecraft rotated right

around as we came up to it and I was looking right
down at the junction of , I believe , the ... and
the White Nile .
McDi.vitt

That ' s right .

That was the first task we had of

finding something on the ground .
White

Yes , it r eally worked .

207

McDivitt

I t was no trouble .

White

It -really worked .

That was the one that I was
It's such an obvious

probably most famil i ar with.
one .

It's out in t he middle of t he des ert and

it ' s t he intersection of the big Nile , where it
junctions into two other sec tions, a little island
and a northern tip of the island .

I was able t o

pick the island up from the t i p quite clearly.
I did take a couple pictures , I believe , of it ,

but we were just passing and I wasn ' t tracking.
I did r eport that it was a good landmark and
qui te easy to see .
We did get an instruction at this time to go to
the normal flight plan at 22 hours.

This was

something that was kind of hard to do .

I don't

t hink we really ever got back on much of a normal
flight plan for the whol e flight , but we did ge t
instructions at 22 hours elapsed time to r eturn
t o our normal flight plan .
still asleep.

At this time Jim was

We got the update th9.t the Hawks

won 3 to 2 .
McDivitt

Ha ha ha ha h9. .

White

I r elayed t hat information to Jim when he woke up .

"€76MflDEMTtAi:--

208

McDivitt

That ' s right.

Okay , I think we've already

covered our HF Checks , which were part of the
regular flight plan .
White

Yes , we did that .

McDivitt

I said they were between 16 58 30 GMT and
19 07 00 GMT .

Whit e

Right .

McDivitt

We scrubbed the Apollo Landmark Investigation at
28 :40 and again at 29 : 10 .

We were allowed to do

the D-9 at about 29 :30 in irifting flight o~ly.
Doing the D-9 in drifting flight means that you
look outside w:i th the sextant and you pick out
whatever two s~aTs are there and you measure an
angle betw8en them .

It was a qU1:1.litative rather

than a quantitative type investigation for the
experiment .

I ' m telling you , with D- 9 it was

mostly qualitative throughout the whole mis s i on.
We did a few quantitative things , but the number
of quantitative things that w~ · quld do were very
limited .
White

The HF Test took us one and a half orbits .

McDivitt

Yes .

White

I t hink around 28 : 30 , we had a call up for D-9 .

It took t wo hours and 15 minutes at least .

209

McDivitt

Yes .

This is where we did D-9 i n drifting flight

only .
White

Yes , and again t ha t was like taki ng the car out
of the garage without gasoline .

McDi vitt

All it amou:~ted to was looking t hrough the window
and picking out two stars that you can see and
t aking a sighting between them.

Jus t a qualitative

check t o see what the sextant woul d do .
t hat .

We di d

D- 9 turned out to be a qualitative , rather

than a quanti tative experiment , except in a very
isolated instance .
White

We weran ' t even stabilized .

You were t rying to talk me through some of the
thines , but I had the helmet off and on--

McDivit t

This was when we firs t discoverad that. the light
bulb in t he readout P'Jrtion :,f the sextant was
burned out or something was wrong.

White

Right .

McDivitt

We couldn ' t read out t he angle .

White

We called down, but we nevar got a call up on
t hat or any instructions.

McDivi tt

Well, there weren't any .

Ha ha ha .

Okay , then I

have in my notes here , as I mentioned earlier:
" 'Ed went

t o bed at 20 :15 , got up at 22 : 15 and went

GONA0ENllA I..

210

back to bed at 23 : 15 , " That ' s all Zulu time , but
I don ' t see when he finally got up for the last
time .
White

Maybe I 've got it in here .

McDivitt

We had another map update in there but it's really
not important .

We scratchsd the Apollo Lanirnark

Investigation-White

What time did yo~ have me asleep?

23 : 15 , Jim?

Okay, well I obviously was up shortly t her eafter

because I got on the horn and you were asleep
when t hey called us up and told us we ' d. passed
the U.S . space record-McDivitt

That's rig},t .

White

At a little past 32 hours,which is 23 :15 .

That ' s

32 hours . The s pace r ecord was 32 h~ur s .
McDivitt

We cancelled the Apollo La1dma:rk Investiga tion ,
Run 3 , a t 30 hours and 10 minutes .

Got t hat , Ed?

White

Yes .

McDi v.itt

We didn ' t switch to bio-med r ecorders .

I made a

note here early i n the flight plan on the biomed r ecorders, "Ed slept f irst and turned No . 1
off." When I slept , we forgot to turn it back Ofl ,
so we had No . l off , and No . 2 on for a long t ime ,

CO~lf.ll:lE~TlAL-.
for a peri od of about eight or Len hours.

211

Then

when 1 went to sl eep t he second Lime , we tur ned
N) . 1 on and No . 2 of f , whi ch is the way i t s hould

Bu'.; as soon as I wok8 up, we t uraed

ha ve bPen .

No . ? on agai n and No . 1 off, becaus e you wer e
g 0i r,g t o go

to bed .

Now you •i idn' t go right

back to sleep again so I have a note here, "We
h'l ve t o t ur r. or. No . 1 as soon as he .,_,akes up . fl
We did .

Ran No. 1 r o' awhile with No . 2 off .

We t u.med them bot h back on, and 1 eft t hem r ur1-

ning f or the r emainder of the flight . Wha t we
di d i s t h9,t we pi ck'=d up a cushi on of about eight
hour s on each -recorder and .let them r.un th,? r es t
of the flight .

The D- 8 Experiment a t 2300 ho'..lrs-­

Ed w1.s a s l eep then .

I t ol d t hem t hat Ed was

s l eeping and coul dn' t make it .
Whi t e

Ri ght .

McDi vi tt

Tha t ' s right .

I t hink I probably di d t hat later on .
Remember we discuss ed t h~ t you

would turn o~ thP- experiment later on when you
went through the Sout h Atlant ic Anomaly?
White

Right .

McDivit t

You plotted it out on the map a nd turned it on
your self .

The port ion of the fli ght plan at 31

212

bout's elapsed time says , "Prepare for S-6
Experiment , update D-8 , MSC 2 and 3 on . "

Now- I

turned MSC 2 and 3 on again , about then .

We di d

not do an Orbit Nav Check, Run 3, b,:.cause we dldn ' t
want to use any fuel .

We scrubbed Experiment D-8

and w2 ware going to turn i t on at 23 : 00 or do
it at 2300 .

But, I guess Ed ·v1as s till asleep , so

we didn ' t do it then .

At this t .i.me we were both

in pretty bad shape as far as rest went , s•:> I
felt it much better to get some sleep th~n to
fool with the experiments .
White

Then go i ng through-­

Okay , this is the period of time whea you were
asleep .

McDivitt

Yes , because I don ' t have any notes there .

Go

ahead .
White

Mc"Divitt

Right .

I had a very busy time shortly after I

got up .

I had a requirement to , ~t 00: 15 ,

Oh , yes .

They called the update to me and I

passed it on to you and then I went to sleep .
White

That ' s right .

I turned on the MSC 2 and 3, and

then I went D-8 at 02 : 15 .
McDivitt

00 :15 Greenwich time , you were supposed to take

some pictures of cellular clouds .
White

No fuel all otted .

I think I took s ome pictures of clouds .

CQbJ.-f.lDEN·l+Al

~ot;R-E>ENT-IA.J.
McDivitt

213

MSC 2 and 3 wera supposed t o go on at a GMT of
00: 30 , and yo~ were supposed to control the
spacecraft to BEF for that pass .

White

That ' s right, and we went with BEF for that pass ,
for MSC - 2 and 3 Experiments .

At 02:15 I was

supposed to do D- 8 .
McDivitt

That's right.

White

I did D- 8 at 02 : 18, as a matter of fact, and it ' s
logged in the D-8 card.

McDivitt

Then at 22: 35 GMT, w,~ were supposed to do S- 6- I see that I ' ve got a scratch through it.
that you weren't up.

I think

I was up and I tried to do

it, but there weren ' t any clouds around.

I wasn't

pointed in the right direction , so I just scratched
it out .
White

Yes , this is where I went back to sleep and you
got up .

We had a very important tape dump at

03:03 .

I think I relayed that to you before I

went to sleep.
McDivitt

Yes.

White

1 must have really snoozed here .

I was gone for

four hours.
McDivitt

I'm on 36 right now.

We had a tape playback.

We
11..

'- C0Mft0fNTiM

~OHFtDENTIAC

214

were eating along in here and I can ' t tell you
where we ate becaus e we ate whenever we fel t
like it.
White

We always ate when we woke up and usually before
we went to sleep.

McDivitt

That 's right .

That I s when we were eating and

that's when we had originally planned on it .
That' s the way it went in the original flight
plan .

At this time of the mission

I guess we

weren' t doing much except staying alive .

My

impression of what we were doing was eating,
sleeping, and dumping tapes.
White
McDivitt

and looking at the ground as it went by.
As a matter of fact, w1~ were still pretty well
pooped out from that long per iod right there--

White

Your eyes were just getting

better .

Your

eye looked l ousy at that time, the first
24-hour point.

Your

left eye was as red as

can be.
McDivitt

At about 36 hours it was still pretty bad, but from
there on

White

it improved continuously.

I noticed that whenever I slept, I got much
hotter when I had my faceplate closed and my

EONF+E>ENf-lM

€0t4FIDEN'.flAL
gloves on.

Remember?

2 15

I kept turning on the

double fans.
McDivitt

Even when you didn't sleep in that configuration ,
you got hotter when you slept than when you were
awake, which is the reverse of what I figured it
would be .

I figured that when you slept , we ' d

want to go to one fan all the time .
White

Well , I slept good when I had my visor open .

McDivitt

Did you?

The last day or so, though, we had t wo

fans on every time you slept.
White

The last day we did.

Of course, I slept the best

then too as a matter of fact.

After the first

day, I had my faceplate open more often than I
had my faceplate closed.
McD:ivitt

I wasn't .

I had a problem that whe.v1 Pd put my

visor up, I was really crunched down in the seat,
because I'm quite a bit taller than you .
,Jomfortable

It was more

for me to keep my visor down than

it wau t,c, keep it up.

We had an RKV tape dump ,

around 36 hours , and I have an Orbit Nav Check ,
Run 4, here.

I don't believe we did thA.t , did

we, F.d , at 36 hours and 50 minutes?
White

I was asleep and I can't tell you .

GO t◄f-tB ENTIltt-

216

McDivitt

We didn't do any of the Orbit Nav Checks with fuel
so it was just a matter if you could see the
ground you did one.

They called up some more

S-6 information for me, but I wasn ' t to use any
fuel on it .

They said I was to pass Typhoon

Babe at 06 : 06, point of closest approach , and
there was a new storm brewing.

I ' d have rny

closest approach to it at 06 : 13 .

Oh, yes .

I also

have a period that Ed slept here .
White

Which time was that?

McDivitt

Well, you got up at 08 : 15, Zebra time .

That 's

about 40 hours and 30 minutes elapsed time .

I

drifted around to where I could see Typhoon Babe,
but there wasn ' t anything to take a picture of ,
There was just a mass of clouds down below; smooth
tops and nothing worth even a frame .

I got another

update that said : "Over Cairo on the 26th Rev I ' d
have rny closest approach at 07 13 37 .

It would

be 90 miles slant range on the closest approach .
Don ' t use any fuel .
at it.

We were just supposed to look

We did pick up Cairo and Alexandria both .

I think you were awake at that time, weren't you?
White

It was the tail end of my sleep cycle .

~ ENttAt-

217

McDivitt

Well , you weren't awake then.

White

What time wa.s it, Jim?

McDivitt

It says 07 18 37.
then .

White

You should have been asleep

I have in my notes that you slept to 08 : 15,

Well, I was like you were.

I wasn ' t sleeping

very good the last--quite often, I had my cover
up watching out the window.

You could a l ways

hear everything that was going on the radio, so
you knew pretty well what was going on.
McDivitt

Well, anyway, Cairo and Alexandria were both
clear , but this was the first time we'd seen
them and it took a long time to find the targets- the particular target that we were looking for.
We could find the Red Sea and we could . find the
Mediterranean, obviously.
Suez Canal .

You could see the

You could see the river.

difficulty finding the town of Cairo .
you, Fil., with Alexandria?

I had
How about

You were looking for

Alexandria .
White

I found that one .

McDivitt

You found the town all right, but finding the
airfield that we were supposed to take a picture
of was pretty difficult the first time.

eet<mDENTl,t(l.

Later on

218

when we'll discuss the experiments, we'll comment
on tha t .

It looks like I was asleep here for

awhile because I don't have any notes .
White

I have a set here.

Okay.

I was given the first

time to take a look at some of the D-6 targets .
I had No. 1, No . 12, and No. 13, and I had all the
times for them.

I think No . 1 is Tripoli .

We ' ll

go over these in a little more detail when we go
to the experiments .

Tripoli was covered by clouds .

Alexandria was pretty good , and I was able to
follow it pretty well.
McDivitt

Did you take any pictures of it?

White

Yes .

I took s ome pictures.

Actually, I think

we should go back and look at these.

I got several

passes.

No. 12 was

This was the D-6 Experiment.

Tripoli and it was covered with clouds .

No . 13

was Alexandria , and I took manual pictures with
the 20 mm Contarex.

I didn't actually see--

McDivitt

The 50 mm Contarex?

White

No, the 200 mm Contarex.

McDivitt

The 200 mm . Hand-held?

White

No, I had it mounted.
airport

I didn't actually see the

but I had seen it before.

I was

219

actually looking at the camera when I was firing
it, so I - McDivitt

Did you see anything in the ground glass?

White

Not very much .

McDivitt

Were you trying to t rack that way or were you
just looking out the window.

White

No .

Just looking out the window.

The point that

I brought out is that they gave me four targets .
The t a rgets should be far enough apart so that
you can actually get set for each one.

I had

four targets here but I could only use- McDi vitt

Oh, that was when you zapped from Tripoli to
Alexandria to Tel-Aviv to --

White

Tel- Aviv and a whole bunch of them a ll in a row.

McDivitt

You could have a thousand miles between targets
to evaluate.

You finish one and you're starting

to take pictures of the other ones .
White

I had them at 10 61 51, 10 21 50 , 10 25 30 and
10 30 15 .

Well, that was a beautiful row of

t a rgets in there but-McDivitt

A pair though or every other one would have been
enough.

Whi te

And we were still being very parsimonious on fuel

if 10-ENTI-Al

220

and I didn't feel like zapping the spacecraft all
around.

We had some more updates , tape, and a

medical data pass for myself at 45 : 45 .
word to delete Translations 2-A.

We got the

At that time

they put in D- 9--the first D-9 with fuel .
McDivitt

We also scrubbed the Horizon Scan Moonset Check
at 46 : 33 , or whenever that is .

White

Right .

It was schedul ed with the platform up

and we didn ' t have it up .
McDivitt

Also I ' ve got the Scanner Thruster Plum Checks
scrubbed at 47 :40 ,

White

Also a deletion of the ES Sensor - ON because
we weren ' t going to translate .

So at 14:14 we

had our first D- 9 Experiment with OAMS .
McDivitt

We were both up .

White

Right .

McDivitt

This was the first one with fuel and the first
big disappointment of the experiments .

White

Right .

It was certainly very difficult to use .

McDivitt

This is where we tried to do the dayside pass
when we had stars , and we couldn ' t see past the
nose of the spacecraft .

White

We didn ' t get any stars so actually the run was

CO Nf-ID EN TtA-L
quite short .

221

We were not able t o see any stars so

we weren ' t able to do much on that run at all .
This is the t ime we !mocked off any more day star
sightings.
McDivi tt

We were supposed t o turn on MSC 1 and acq a id off
for five minutes between Tananarive and Carnarvon,
I guess .

White

Oh !

This is where I missed a sleep period .

i s where we missed a sleep period.

This

We got busy and

ran the D- 9 right through the sleep period .

Then

I got back to sleep at 54 : 55 to 60 :65 elaps ed time .
McDivitt

Oh , yes.

You got about one hour's worth of sleep

between 49:40 elapsed and 50 : 20 elapsed , or something like that.
White

Right before D-9, I got a little sleep.

McDivitt

Tha t 's right.

I 've got a little note in here t hat

says, "Ed got about one hour of sleep ."
White

That I s right .

McDivitt

We were supposed to do S-5 over t he States on Rev
32 .

Start at 17 :40 .

We were supposed t o do Apollo

Landmark No . 4 starting at 15:00 Zebra on Rev 33 .
That was El Paso.
White

That's right .

We were both up for that .

t::OMFIDENTtM

222

McDivitt

We did the S-5 Experiment together and that was
the best series of pictures we got on the whole
flight.

It was really fabulous .

We got good

pictures both for the S-5 and S-6 on this one .
White

They should really come out good .

McDivitt

I did the Apollo Landmark Area No . 4.

I did the

tracking task with it at 19 16 42 on El Paso,
and it turned out pretty well.

We tried to make

a tracking pass on El Paso International Airport,
and we never even saw El Paso.
White

This was a very big surprise to both of us because
we though we ' d nail that one cold.

McDivitt

That's right .

We've been in and out of there so

often , you lmow , it's just like another home base.
White

Which leads to one of your conclusions, which is-­

McDivitt

You can ' t have targets out in the middle of a
land mass .

They've got to be near a body of water .

White

You need something to identify the landmark.

McDivitt

There are some beautiful topographical features
near El Paso .

There ' s a range of mountains just

to the west that show up and the white sands are
out there to the west--Shoot! We never saw anything.

I think I saw El Paso when we were right

COt'4·Fl0EN1°1AL

FtDENflAL
over it .

223

I said, " I think there goes El Paso.

I think we missed it ."
White

The next thing we said was, "Yes, it is .
Texas ."
us .

McDivitt

There ' s

We could see Corpus Christi coming up on

That 's where you took it .

That ' s right .

So then I went to a tracking task

on a pair of sand pits, with a channel between
them , right on the coast--around Corpus somewhere.
So, we did a tracking pass on it because we were
all set up and we ' d already used the fuel to get
stabilized .

We were all set to do something so

we went ahead and did something.

We took some

200 mm pictures of this .
White

I took about 10 pictures,

McDivitt

We'll just see how the target stayed in sight.
This was our first real tracking pass , wasn't it?

White

I had one good one on Tel- Aviv .

McDivitt

Did you use the fuel required to do it and all that
s tuff or did you try to chintz on it?

White

I tried to chintz on it , but I think it was good
tra cking.

I actually tracked the airport a t Haifa

instead of Tel- Aviv .

I realized it at the last

minute that I didn ' t have Tel- Aviv, I had Haifa, but

CO'Mfl0ENTIM

CO f~ftf)'EMTt,tt-

224

I had an airfield and I had a town so I-McDivitt

You took some fixed-molll'lted 200 mm pictures .

White

Yes .

McDivitt

I took about two pictures of it .

I couldn't

take a series .

I--

That ' s right .

You didn ' t have the gunsight to

t r ack with either.
White

No .

I just put it in the middle of the window.

McDivitt

At this time our orbit was 88. 1 by 148. 7 , so we
had come down about 7 or 8 miles .
4 , were around 51 hours .

D-9 and Apollo

I don't know exactly

how that fit into this schedule that we were doing.
We were switching back and forth from elapsed time
to Greenwich Mean Time so we got a little confused
on these .

We got updates of the PLA ' s and CLA ' s.

This plan says , "Prepare for D-6 ." Well, we didn't
have a D- 6 Experiment anymore .

Ed went to sleep

again at 54 hours .
White

Yes .

McDivitt

Ed as l eep at 54, and I have him waking up at 59 :15.

At 54 : 30 I' ve got myself asleep.

That was when we started trying to nake you sleep
a little longer , Ed.
White

Half our notes here are elapsed time and half of
them are in Greenwich Mean Time .

COl'fF1D1:Ml+AL

I think this is

225

probably one of the weakest points in our flight
pl anning-- trying to get times correlated .
McDivitt

This correlation between one time and the other
time is hard to handle .
times in GMT.

We were getting start

We sai d that we wanted these start

times in GMT because this i s the only officia l
time that we had.
planning.

The elapsed times were just for

We only kept them to the nearest two

or three minutes .

I started my Omega watch on

elapsed time a t take- off, and I just let it run
through the whole flight.

I never set it .

never checked elapsed time or anything .

I

It could

have been off two or three minutes , but I was
doing the flight plan to the nearest iO minutes
off the book here.

When we got retrofire times

and when we got start t imes for things, we got
them in GMT .

It made it awfully confusing in the

flight plan by switching back and forth,
Fortunately, we got off at 15 : 15 which is better
than getting off at 12:36 or some thing like that .

On the Apollo mission we ' ve got a better set of
clocks .

We're going to have Mission Time and

Phase Time , so whenever you start a new phase

CONFtDENlJ.M

226

you go back and start all over again.
White

Wel l, I ' m not convinced that we couldn ' t have
even handled this one on elapsed time .

McDivi t t

We did .

White

Well, I mean let everything go elapsed time.
Forget about your Greenwich Mean Time.

McDivitt

No .

White

I don't know what we would have lost .

McDivitt

The retrofire times .

White

Put the retrofire time on elapsed time .

Like

you say , it was much clearer to you using that
one watch on 12- ho11r increments , and it was to
me too .

That 's the one I used .

I used this one

watch right here on ela psed time ,
McDivitt

Well , let ' s get into that as a separate thing
at the end .

We had the MSC Experiment 2 and 3

off at 02 : 25 ,

We turned it on at 22 : 14,

are Zebra times now.

These

I have a note here ,

"Perform D-8 Experiment, Radiation Exper iment,
at 55:30 elapsed time , " and I 've got , "No . Pilot
asleep . "

Did you do that experiment later on , Ed?

White

Which one was that, Jim?

McDivitt

D-8 Experiment .

CONFIDENTl~ L

227

White

At what time?

McDivitt

At 55 : 30 elapsed.

White

I ' ve got them in Greenwich Mean Time here again .

McDivitt

That's around 22 or 23: 00 .

White

Yes .

McDivitt

How did you do that?

I ' ve got one .

asleep then .

Something like that .

I did it at 23 : 58 GMT .
You were supposed to be

Maybe you woke up and did it and

went back to sleep.
White

You know , this was the time when you went to

sleep,

I ' ve got you asleep on the fourth day

at 03:30 Greenwich Mean Time .
McDivitt

We ' re not on the fourth day.

We're still on the

third day .

I ' m between 54 and 59 elapsed .

White

All right .

That's the period of time I'm asleep.

McDivitt

I've got the D- 9 Experiment was run between
22 : 43 and 23:22 .

I must have done that .

Okay.

We got Ed up at about 59 hours elapsed time, and
did a Medical Data No. 2 Pass on m~ except by then
I think they were Medical Data No. 1 Passes .

I

went to sleep at about 60 : 15 e lapsed , and I got
up about 65 : 30 elapsed .

I had about five hours

there when I was supposed to sleep .
White

Shortly after you went to sleep we started having

228

the RCS heater troubles and we had them coming on
for the next three to four hours.

We had them

cycled on and I called the times down.

I don ' t

believe we want to go over them all right now .

I

had them cycled on and off at intervals of about
15 minutes, for a total of eight different times .
They started coming on exactly at 06 :47 and the
last one I had was on at 08:23.

That was the

last time we had any RCS heaters.

It was rather

peculiar because they alternated.

First the

A-Ring would come on and the B- Ring would come on
and the A-Ring would come on, and so on.
McDivitt

Is that right?

White

They came on at approximately 15-minute intervals
and it took approximately five minutes to bring
the temperature down to within limits.

I reported

those down and they seemed to be interested in
getting exact on/off times of our heaters to plot
our electrical profile curve.

I ran an Apollo

Landmark Run Noo 6 with yaw 15 and pitch 30 .

I

think the results of that are in the other logbook.

I reported down at this time that ~im had

a successful bowel movement .

to'&flDENTIA-t!t

I a lready had one .

COt~F·IOENllAl

229

I had an HF Check at Ascension at 05 :09 , which
didn't work out-McDivitt

How could I have a successful BM if I was asleep?

White

You had already had it .
time .

I reported it at that

I wasn ' t able to read Ascension on this

HF Check.

I got the okay for an Apollo D-9 Run

No . 2 for 06 01 44 .

I called down to get

clarification on it and they said I could use
stars of opportunity.

This is what I did .

ran the D-9 with the stars of opportunity.

I
Why

we did this wil l be brought out in the D- 9 debriefing.
McDivitt

This was a no-fuel D-9?

White

No.

This was with fuel .

But, remember , the stars

were placed so it was hard to get much.
McDivitt

Yes.

White

We scrubbed the Apollo Landmark Investigation No . l .
We didn't do that .

We gave a Medical Data Pass .

Ran the D-9 Experiment , I believe, and got fairly
good information back on that .

As a matter of

f act, I did do the Apollo Landmark Run No . 6 and
that information is in the flight log.
up, it says, at 08:31 .
to me .

I got Jim

This doesn't sound right

CGNFIDENTIAt

230

McDivitt

I got myself up around 65 :40 something elapsed time .
I just drew a mark there.

White

That's exactly where I've got you up--at about

McDivitt

I got a comment here .

This is something that

went on throughout the flight .

I went to sleep

and I looked at the OAMS Quantity Gage and it was
reading 60 percent .
percent .

When I woke up it read 56

This meant a 4 percent drop and it

was somewhat alarming since we were saving fuel
so much.
White

He accused me of having to use all the fuel up
while he was asleep.

McDivitt

No .

Ha, ha .

I'd noticed that the gage went up and down

before, but it never had gone up and down so much
in such a short time .

It would move up and down

by 2 percent quite frequently over a period of
15 minutes to an hour .
percent.

It would change by 2

It did this between 60 and 70 percent

for a long , long, long t ime .

We were going pretty

easy on the fuel .

It did move up and down like

this quite a bit .

This is just a comment that

throughout the flight the OAMS Quantity Gage did
fluctuate quite a bit .

We had the uncertainty

~fl01:Nt lA!

.eOMrtf>·eNTtA L

231

in the system and this 2 per cent was, in general,
about 7 pounds .
fuel.

That was really quite a bit of

4 percent was between 12 and 15 pounds,

depending where you were on the scale.

This was

and awful lot of fue l to have suddenly disappear .

I just wanted to comment on that .

It was an

interes ting thing. . We'd been dumping our ECS o
2
pressure. We'd gone to High Rate or cabin repress
and dumping the stuff overboard--overpressurizing the
cabin and having the cabin vent to keep the pressure down .

Finally around this 66 hours, we'd dumped

the thing down to 880 psi on the gage.
we didn't have to dump it so often.

This was why

We'd been

dumping it before around 960 psi--dump it there
and bring it back to around 930 psi and let it build
up, and then repeat the cycle again.
White

That was about every 4 hours.

McDivitt

Yes .

We had to dump at least every 4 hours .

We brought it dovm to 880 psi and this gave us a
period of around 12 hours.
White

You know, I thought this was a very clever method
of holding the cabin at a higher pressure than
normal by McDonnell--putting the vent down so low
that

it vented

in a

normal

~itw:rb\ l

mode.

You

232

certainly could tell on the gage when it was
going to vent .

It vented right down there at

about 960 .
McDivitt

Yes .

I thought we ' d really hack that apart when

we got to the systems .
White

Yes .

All r ight .

I wanted to be sure that we

didn ' t forget it .
McDivitt

I guess we were both awake at this time . We did
MSC-10 some place .

Here 's where we got into a

bunch of bad flight planning.

Someone on the

ground screwed up .
White

They ran our Horizon Scanner and MSC- 10 Checks
right together .

McDivitt

We started out our MSC-10 Check and at the same
time we were supposed to start powering up the
platform and alining it .

White

What time did you have MSC-10 Experiment?

McDivitt

We were supposed to power up the platform at 10 :15 ,
Let ' s see if I got the start times here for MSC-10 .

White

We'd have it in the book.

McDivitt

Well, we didn't get a start time because MSC-10
starts when the horizon comes into view, when we
could see the first light .

EONflDENTIAJ.

We started the MSC-10

233

as a sequence of pictures every five minutes.
The sequence is three pictures every five minutes,
for as many passes as you can get .

So you have to

start this thing at sunup, or as soon as the horizon becomes light.
tures .

We took our first three pic­

We went on through and we were supposed

to start our Horizon $canner Check--.
White

Jim , the time we started you ' ve logged in here as
11:04 .

McDivitt

Okay, at 11 :04 we started our MSC- 10 Experiment .
We were given instructions to start the Horizon
Scanner Sunset Check at 11:54.

It just so turned

out that we were going along and we weren ' t out
of frames of film yet for MSC- 10 .
White

It was still daylight.

McDivitt

Yes, it was st.i ll daylight, that's right, and we
could still get some more good pictures, I thought.
Here we had instructions to start our Horizon
Scanner Sunset Check, and in looking through this
thing, it looked to me like that was the only
place we were going to get it; so I don't understand exactly why we had to run MSC-10 and the
Horizon Scanner Check simultaneously.

<iONfJ{)ENl~AL

They

C01'4Flf>ENTIAl

234

couldn ' t be run simultaneously!

It looked like

somebody with a little foresight on the ground
could have seen this .
White

That was really the only bad screwup , I think,
in our flight planning.

McDivitt

I think so , too .

It was right there .

So we terminated MSC- 10, al­

though we had enough pictures , I'm sure , to have
completed the experiment .

It would have been

nice to use up all the film .

There ' s no sense

in carrying it and not using it .

At 11 : 54 we

did the Horizon Scanner Sunset Check--the platform up and alined .

At 12 : 15 we did the Horizon

Scanner Moonset Check .

At 12: 22 we did the

Apollo Yaw Orientation.

At 12 : 58 we did the

Horizon Scanner Thruster Check.

At 12 : 59 we

did the Horizon Scanner Track Check.
did the Attitude Thruster Check.

At 13 : 14 we

At 13 : 20 we

were supposed to power down and at 13 : 20 were
supposed to turn off the MSC No . 1 Experiment .
What happened as we went through here--we got
a little behind because it took a little longer
to do some of these things , especially this
Horizon Scanner Track Check.
taktng so long that

~hlFIDENTl~l

It

was

we eliminated the last two steps in it .

We did

the zero bank angle and the pitch up and down.
We did the zero pitch angle and the roll left and
right .

We did the bank to one side and the pitch

up and down ,and we did the pitch up and the bank
on both sides .

We didn ' t do the pitch down and

the bank on both sides ,and we didn't do the roll
left and the pitch up and down.

We were running

late and at that time I didn ' t know how we were
doing on electrical' power and everything, so I
elected not to do t he last two portions of the
check.
White

We had it pretty well ironed out , anyhow .

McDivitt

Yes .

White

Surprisingly broad bands , too.

McDivitt

The scanners seemed to be working perfectly .

The

attitude thruster check was just as it should have
been .

We powered down the platform and turned off

the MSC Experiment No . 1 about two minutes late .
White

We powered down at 13:27.

McDivitt

Okay , seven minutes late .

We never did take any

16 mm pho tos of the plumes .
White

Before you went to sleep on t his one .

<iONFIDENTIA~

C6~4flDENl~AL

236

McDivitt

I hadn ' t gone to sleep on that one .

White

Before I went to sleep .

McDivitt

Before you went t o sleep , yes .

White

Wr-: were really busy at

McDivitt

Yes , a D- 9 at 20: 51 Zulu .·

White

I have a feel i ng I was asleep here , Jim .

McDivitt

I think you were , Ed.

Wh ite

71 : 15?

McDivitt

Right.

White

At what time, Jim?

McDivi t t

At 20 : 15 ,

White

So you di d the D- 9 while I was asleep.

McDivitt

I have a note here that we ' re going to be over

Okay D- 9 -­

this period of time .

You went to sleep at 71 : 15 .

I did the D- 9 Experiment at 20: 15 .

Guaymas at 15 44 55 .
Pass f r om me .

They wanted a No . 1 Medical

They wanted me to turn the TM switch

to REAL TIME and ACQUISITION for three minutes
over Guaymas .

Guaymas must have lost it ' s

command function or something -- not for the
whole time though .
White

Yes , t his is where I was asleep, Jim .

I remember

t hat now.
McDivitt

Okay, now I have a comment here .

I turned on our

horizon scanner at 16: 03 with about a 25 degree

237

nose down attitude, with a pitch up rate of about
t wo degrees/second , in the Horizon Scanner Mode .
The thing caught and held the spacecraft within
the deadhand

and finally damped it down , and

we stayed in the Horizon Scanner Mode.

I think

that this is about the time that we went to
Horizon Scanner , isn ' t it?
White

You were in Horizon Scanner while I was asleep .

McDivitt

Yes .

I don ' t have that in my notes, but we went

in the Horizon Scan Mode around 72 hours , I think.
I think it was at 16 : 03 GMT that I mentioned it .
I didn ' t do an O.rbi t Nav Check at the 72 hours
and 50 minutes as shown in the flight plan .
here ' s where you were up again , Ed .

Oh ,

Because you

were up when the computer screwed up , wer en ' t you?
White

Yes.

I saw the light .

McDivitt

Okay.

During the course of our passes over the

Sta tes , here , around 75 hours , I was told to do
Orbital Nav Check N:l.9 at about 75 : 30 , and I was
to do Or bital Nav Check NolO at about 75 : 50 , Okay.
I completed the Orbi t al Nav Check , Run No . 9, and
then you must have waked up , I think .
you wer e asleep when I did that .

I think

White

What time do you have me waking up?

I know about

what time I woke up.
McDivitt

You woke up around 75 :30 or so .

I was going to

do an Orbit Nav Check No . 10 , and we were over
the States .

They wanted us to turn on the

computer to send us a load, so I did .

That 's

probably what woke you up , when I was trying to
turn on the computer with the swizzle stick.
White

Yes .

McDivitt

But this time the computer stuck in the on
position.

White

When you tried to turn it off.

McDivitt

And it wouldn ' t go off .

White

I remember watching.

McDivitt

So it stayed on, and that ' s when we had all of our

I saw the mal light go on.

computer trouble , which you 'll check and cover in
systems.

Oh , the time the malfunction light

came on was right when we were about to turn it
off.
White

I 'd say around 75 :15 or something.

McDivitt

75 : 50 CS~- Hawaii .

In that area?

I think it was about 75 : 50 or

thereabouts .

They sure do have some peculiar

times here.

It only takes , according to flight

FlOENf lA b

~K)ENTIM.

239

plan , 30 minutes to go from Guaymas back to
Guaymas.
White

That's a high speed orbit .

That ' s right.

It does have that, doesn't it?

Looks

like a goof , doesn ' t it?
McDivitt

It only takes 40 minutes to go from Hawaii to
Hawaii.

We were really traveling!

I don't know

what time the computer stopped .
White

I think they've got it on the ground .

They can

read the ma.l light.
McDivitt

We were talking to them on the ground .
be on the air to ground tape .

It should

Then we were

cleared to do Apollo D-9 in the orbit that
covered the night time around 77 1/2 hours or
so .
White

That was my D-9 at night, wasn't it?

McDivitt

That's right. Ed did this.

White

Before you went to sleep, though, we had one other
thing.

We had the zodiacal light photographs

that we took, and we had a special procedure
called up where we pointed straight down.
McDivitt

Oh, yes .

White

Pulsed it , with the shutter speed of the Hasselblad open .

That's right.

You operated the Hasselblad and I

operated the spacecraft .

EO~F1D·EN11AL

We pitched down and

C@t ◄ Fi0EN-llAk=

240

ran through this test and pitched up and ran
through --.
McDivitt

The Contarex.

White

You used the Contar ex. T hat ' s right.

McDivitt

We did this at a bout 78 : 30 , and I went to sleep
at 79--

White

No , we didn ' t .

McDivitt

76 : 30?

White

I just took on Rev 51. You ' re correct .

We did this at 76 : 30 , Jim .

I have 78 : 30 .

51 they called up wasn ' t right .

That Rev

Okay , we did it

at 21 :40 , which I have as equivalent to 78 : 25 .
McDi vitt

Then at 80 hour s I went to sleep.

White

You went to sleep about 80 hours elapsed time.
That ' s r ight .
ran a D- 8 .

Okay , while you were asleep , I

In fact , I had quite a bit to do

while you were asleep this time .
at 23 : 57 ,

I ran a D- 8

These are all Zulu times .

on the MSC- 2 and 3 at 23: 57 ,

I turned

This is where I had

the requirement to attitude hold , small-endforwa r d , thr ough the anomaly .

On the first pass

through at 23 : 57 to 01 : 30 , I didn ' t feel that I
had a good atti tude .

From 23 : 57 to 01 : 15 I di dn ' t

feel my attitude s mal l-end-f or ward was satisfactory.

G20t<iFIDENTIAt

-cet"'4FIE>Ei'JTIAL

241

I elected'to make a similar pass through on the
following orbit, watching the stars and making
sure that I had a good small-end-forward.

I

found out that the first pass through was pretty
good until the tail end, where I thought the
stars were in the wrong position .

It turned out

that this is just the way they came up, and I was
good for both of them except for the tail end of
the first run through, I logged in two small
end passes through the South Atlantic Anomaly.
I also ran the D-9 Experiment and I found that
by using the fuel and having the H0rizon Scan to
hold when you wanted it to hold, the use of the
sextant and horizon in making measurements was
considerably easier. I made what I feel was a
good Apollo D-9 run.

I ran the D-8 Experiment.

I had two times to run the D-8 Experiment.
ran it at the Greenwich Mean Time of 01:30,

I
I

was to look for Pegasus at O2:28,straight up at
268 nautical miles, and I was all hot to watch
Pegasus go over and was just approaching my
straight up attitude when-McDivitt

The sun shined on the window.

242

White

No , I was called and t hey said, "Say we got a
critical tape dump.

We want you in a level

attitude for it ."

And I said , "Well, you just

gave me instructions to watch Pegasus. "

And

they said, "No, we want the critical tape dump . "
So I went right down to that attitude , and we
got the dump off in time for me to go back up to
the attitude prior to 02:28.
about . 5

I got up there

minutes prior to that time, but the

sun , as Jim said , was up and was reflecting off
the particles on the windshield, and I really
couldn't see very much.

I tried to see Pegasus ,

but I couldn 't see it .

I turned MSC- 2 and ~ off

at the appropriate times .

We got instructions

from Houston CAP COM to t ry a few things with the
computer.

We were to turn the computer off , the

IGS on , the computer on at 20 minute intervals
to try to r ecycle the mal l ight off.
that it might have been cold .

€0Nft0·cNll~

They thought

243

-CONfteiENTl~L

McDivitt

Let me step back a little bit to this
computer problem .

The computer stuck c.wer

the States at around 75 1/2 hours or so .
computer was stuck on .

The

If you've got to have

something stick, you're better off to have it
stick on , I guess, than off.

Especially if

you ever want it to work again .

As we went

out of earshot of the ground UHF radio range in
the States , I asked them if that they had any
instructions .

They said, "Stand by. "

I sort

of felt that the thing that we ought to do was
just leave it on for a while.

We got a call

from Tananarive and they said to place the
computer switch to the ON position and a . a .
Power Switch to the ACME .

I said that ' s

certainly a peculiar place to put the switch
and they said these are the instructtons from
Houston .
White

I think we had a good computer at that time .

McDivitt

I know darn well we had a good computer at
that time .

I think this is like getting your

landing gear stuck up and you fool around with

C-ONFIDENTD\t- ~

244

it and it comes down and then just for the
hell of it you pull it up again to see if it's
going to come up .

I don't think we should

have ever turned off the computer.

Unfortunate­

ly , I didn ' t have all the infonnation at my
fingertips that I needed to really make a decision on it.

When we got to the next station,

which was Hawaii , I asked them how we were
doing on electrical power .

They sai d that we

were 160 amp- hours ahead of the curve .

We had

a 200 amp- hour cushion, so that meant that we
had a 360 amp-hour pad on our flight pl an.

In

the meantime , I had checked to see what the
computer- ON , IGS Power Supply-ON took .

It

took 5. 6 amp-hours to power this thing.

We

were at 76 hours on a 96- hour mission and we
had about 20 hours to go .
a little over 100 .

Twenty times 5. 6 is

So, if we had used up these

100 amp-hours , we'd still finish up with a
better electrical pad than we started out with ,
or than we expected when we started out .

So,

I sort of feel that we needlessly threw the
computer down the drain .

After we got the

GNFIDENTIAt

245

thing turned off and ruined , we went ahead and
turned the IGS Power Supply on , the computer on ,
and left it on the rest of the flight anyway .
So , whoever sent those instructions accomplished
it .

I guess what he wanted to do was turn off

the computer.

He sure accomplished that .

It

seemed to me like it would have been more
worthwhile to leave the thing on till we got a
little more data out of the thing, instead of
rushing to get it tur ned of f t he way they d.L<.l,
I don't understand it .

I don't feel that it

was a wise decision .

Unfortunately , I didn ' t

have the electrical power consumption at my
fingertips right then, or I never would have
turned the thing off.
McDivitt

Okay, I guess we're over about 86 hours .
up at 86 hours .

I got

That ' s one of the longest rest

periods that I ' ve had .

At 05 48 45 Zulu we were

supposed to perform a D-9 Experiment , and I guess
we did .

Then I have in my notes that Ed went

to sleep at 87 hours elapsed time .
White

And this was my five hours of very good sleep .

~ONFIDENT~A4,

co,~Fl0EN·l+AL
It's my best and last .

You must have let me

sleep till when?
McDivitt

I don't even have when I got you up, but it
was about five or six hours.

I think it was

around six hours .
White

No , it wasn't that long, was i t ?

Because that

would have run us a little short .

You had

about an hour 45 minutes or two -McDivitt

I had an hour and a half nap .

I got up at

three hours before retrofire .

Retrofired at

97 : 45 ,

I went to sleep at 93 hours .

White

Okay.

So, I got up --

McDivitt

Ed got about six hours nap .

White

I got up about 95 :05 that time.

You went to

sleep about -McDivitt

No , you went to sleep at 87 hours and got up
at about 92 -- a little past 92 .

Whit e

This is what I 1 d estimate , Jim .

McDivitt

A little past 92 .

5 hours .

So , you had about a good

I lmow that you were still sleeping

at 92, because that ' s when the urine system
stopped up, and you were asleep then .

So, I

think you got up -- I ' d guess , around 92:30 ,

OO~~FIE>ENTIAL...

I lmow I went to sleep at 93.

I went to sleep in

pm GMT and 15 after the hour , whatever the hour
was , and I woke up again .

During the time that

Ed was asleep , I did two Apollo

Landmark runs

using Area No. 16 for the first one .
on Basrah.

It was a good run.

We'll go into

this a lot more in detail later on.
the second one on Cairo .

This was

I did

This was a good run .

I went through some more computer mode checks .
Every ten seconds, I changed the computer
modes and turned the switches on and off,
pushed the malfunction lights , hi t the Start
C-omp button, turned the switches on and off,
ran the IVI's and a whole bunch of other
things.

The computer was dead and ±twas

pretty obvious that it was.

At 92 hours, the

urine flush system stopped up .

Just prior

to that Ed had urinated and we had a big
bellows full.

As it started going overboard,

it always went overboard in squirts.
White

Did you have it at 92 or 95?

McDivitt

92.

White

Okay, that was when I was asleep.

CON·FIBENTIA~

248

'CONFtDt:t+l~Al:-McDivitt

You were still asleep, and I think you got up
around 92 : 3(), I would guess .
in there.

Sometime around

I know that I got up three hours

before retrofire and I slept about an hour and
a half .

You can go back and say that you got

up about 92: 30 or 93 elapsed.

Ed had urinated

in the bladder and the bel l ows was full .

As it

got towards the end , i t started going out very
slowly, but it did all go out .
the thing off normally.

So , I turned

I l eft preheat on for

a short time, two or three minutes , and then

turned it off .

After my urine dump, I had

about half air and half urine in the bladder,
and the bellows filled out.

It just.stopped.

It was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to
go any farther .

I turned off the OVERBOARD

position and went to PREHEA:T on the other
switch.

I then went over to the evaporat or

and dumped through the evaporator and it
dumped right overboard .

We used the evaporator

dump system one other time during the flight .
We played back the tapes and the things we
were supposed to do unt il about 93 hours, I

CONF-10EN"FIAl...

-----ceNFl0EN·;pJAL

249

believe , and that ' s when I went to sleep .

I

woke Ed up and I went to sleep at this time .
White

Actually we got our update while you were
asleep the time before .

We got the update for

how to perform the retro .

We figured that with

the procedure they gave ue, if we followed it ,
we would get a three- sigma miss distance of
70 nautical miles.

We were to use an 0AMS

r etor with a manual retro .

At this time , we

were going to push the manuel button .

They

didn ' t know at this time that the TRS was
working all right .

They later came in and

told us to use the automatic mode of time .
were to use zero- lift rolling.

We

We were to

start the terminal maneuver at the 400 000 foot
marker.

They told us to expect to encounter

about 8 g's during the reentry .

We were told

the recovery area had three to four foo t waves ,
18 knot winds , and good weather.

I 1 ll cover

this more later .
White

There wasn ' t much more .

We got an update .

I

took a few more pictures , and I di d a medi cal
pass.

During that hour and 40 minutes there,·wasn ' t

CONFl0ENTIAL

250

.u1.ything else .

Nothing else was scheduled.

We wer e down through what we felt was all the
fuel we wanted to use , so about all I did was
a couple of tracking tasks .
McDivi tt

Going back for a moment, - at 17 :19 I did an
Apollo D- 6 on Yuma.

Okay, I t hink that bri ngs

us t o t he preretro portion of the mission.
Right , Ed?
White

Yes, sir.

I think you ' ll find t here are ~uite

a few errors and omissions in what we've put
on the tape right now .

I t hink you have to com­

pare them both--the two tapes together--to get
anyt hing.
White

That's like air to ground tape , also .·

McDivitt

That ' s right .

It has to all be put together .

This is jus t a piece right here.

White

We really started our preretro preparation
about three hours prior to preretro .

At this

time we started stowing equipment and preparing the spacecraft and ourselves for the
retrofire.

I think we worked for probably

30 ±o 45 minutes without making a very bi g

CQ~~F-IDENTI--Ab

251

-eOl'<tflDENTl~L
dent in the pile of junk that we had in the
spacecraft .

IL.was apparent to1,me at ·I.hat

time that we were going to have to go a lot
faster than we were going or we'd still be up
there stowing stuff away at retrofire time .
So , Ed and I then went into high gear and we
really started stuffing stuff away.

We put

the film in the middle food box, and we put
the caJDeras and some of the refuse, including
three defecation bags, exerciser, and some
other things, in the left-hand aft food b·ox.
I took a lot 1,nger to stow the equipment than
we had planned.

Do you have any comments on

that?
White

Yes , I thought this also .

We had just every­

thing out prior to this time .

We hadn ' t

really been able to stow anything .

We used

every piece of our equipment right up to the
time we started our stowage .

In fact , I think

you were getting a little uneasy there for a
little while that we weren ' t going to get it
all in,

McDivitt

That's right.

At the rate we were going, we

c,;J ~~FI f:}E·N T·IAL-..

COl<IFIDEt\fltAL

252

wouldn ' t have.
White

That ' s right .

We had to accelerate our pace a

l ittle bit and perhaps get a little faster and
not quite as thorough in o~r stowage as we
would liked to have been .
was put away.

I think everything

Everything was put away except

for the umbilical .

We knew we weren't going

to stow the urine hose, so we put that in the
umbilical bag.

The two meals that we had left

we put in the umbilical bag aleo .
McDivitt

We had some other things .

We had the extra­

vehicular sleeves off your sujt, the blanket
that went over my leg , the launch- day urine
bags , and a couple of other things were down
underneath my legs .

They were between my l egs

and the seat .
White

Right .

I put my launch-day urine bng in the

bag also , so that things wouldn ' t ric.oohet·.
around.
McDivitt

I think we had all your stuff in the bag and
I had all my stuff wedged between my legs and
the seat .

White

We both also had a trash bag on either side .

€0~<1FIDENTIAL

253
We had that on the l aunch also .
McDivitt

The trash bag was f ull .

White

Did yours stick on the side?

McDivitt

It stuck.

Wh ite

So di d mine .

McDivitt

It didn ' t have anything heavy in it .

I put mi ne further up -It was

light weight .
White

It was all trash .

McDivitt

Dry trash .

White

It all stayed there pretty well .
the stowage done in time .

We di d get

I think we had about

10 or 15 minutes in which to collect our wits
f or the -McDivitt

That' s right .

I was trying to make an -eff ort

such that at the time we arrived over Carnarvon
the greatest part of the stowage would be
down.

However, we didn ' t quite make this .

I

had a time powering up the spacecraft , and I
had the IGS power on .
the IMlJ on.

I had already turned

I was beginning to warm it up ,

and had it in the Cage Mode .
When we got to Carnarvon we were still stowing
things away .

I t hink by that time I had al-

t0NF1Dc1'ff~L

GOt\J FIDE~I-A=l

254

ready strapped myself into the spacecraft .

I

had my survival gear hooked up, my shoulder
harness hooked up and my lap belt on loosely.
White

We did the things that I could do by myself,
such as

McDivi tt

stow·ing the ventilation module and

stowing the cabl e .

You were doing other things .

That's what I said .

We were coming up to

Carnarvon .

I was shooting to have all this

stuff put away by then .

We didn't have it all

put away but we had most of it done, where I
could actual ly get around to flying the spacecraft again .

We checked in with Carnarvon , and

confirmed our retrofire time .

We weren't

really supposed to pick up our retrofire dat a
until we passed over the States .

From Car­

narvon on up to the States, we ~ontinued to
stow away little bits of pieces that we had .
I think you were still eating.

We finally de­

cided that you ' d better stop eating or we
weren't going to be ready for reentry .
Whi t e

With a little prethought I had taken one meal ,
prepared it and set it aside so I coul d eat
it just before reentry .

This is what I was

255

doing .
McDivitt

As we came up on Carnarvon , I thought that we
were in excellent shape .
time .

We had a lo t of spare

We could get ready for retrofire .

We

came up to the United States and ran a pass
across the United States .

We got the updat e

times and we got all the reentry quantities
~hat we needed, both with and without OAMS .
They told us that they had a valid load in the
TRS .

At this time , I assumed that they

checked the TRS, but when we got our early
retrofire , I wondered if anyone really had
checked the time .
White

I know it was off at least a second. · I'd
estimate it was off a little more than a
second.

McDivitt

A second and a half, probably.

No more than

two seconds because we didn't arm it until
three seconds• But it sure fired shor tly after
that .
White

Yes.

One thing that we got was different .

All

our quantities checked out except for one.
They called up a landing time which, the first

256

C.QNFIDENT~AI.
time , I copied it as 15: 55 , and t he sec.;ond
time I copied it as 17:10 .

This was prior to

firing anything , so I think they corrected one
time only.

I thought the rest of it was very

well h8J1dled .

We had the times called up and

verified several times .
McDivitt

As we started our pass across t he States , I
started alining the :EDJ.atform..

We had the best

alined platform although we didn ' t really need
an alined platform since we didn't have a
closed loop guidance system.

But we sure had

the best alined platform at retrofire that the
space business will probably ever see .

I

alined the platform across the United States ,
and then I went to Orbit Rate .

I had about

a 20-minute al inement on it and went to Orbit
Rate .

We left it in Orbit Rate .

I did this

alinement small-end-forward because I wanted
to see where I was going for a change .

We

went into the dark side , and we really got
into our checklist then.

We performed the P~e­

r etro Checklist well in advance of when it was
supposed to be done .

It shows it in the flight

,.CO~ FID"EMltAt

257

plan at about 96:40 with the retrofire at
about 97 :45.

I think we did the Re,tro Check­

list right after we completed our pass across
the States .

We did it right at about 1+30 .

Then I did it at one hour.

At TA-1 hour we

went through the checklist again , and got· all
those things that we skipped.

Some of them we

didn't want to do as early as an hour and a
half.

We went through it again in an hour,

and we did the Preretro Checklist step by
step.

I think at that time we had everything

stowed away.

We took a couple last drinks of

water, and put the water gun away , and then
proceeded on down .
White

I had one comment on that checklist.

I still

think our HF procedures are not too well defined--when we do and when we don ' t put the !::IF
out.

Not out, but when we put No . 2 on HF.

It popped up in the checklist again and we
questioned this prior to the flight .

Why put

No . 2 audio on HF during this time?

I do not

feel we want to be on HF.

We had the HF on.

We could hear them calling us , if they did call

us on it .

We could switch over t o it quite

quickly .

Thi s wasn't on the checklist , but

we put my switch on RECORD and recorded the
whole sequence of events.
McDivi tt

That ' s right .

I t hink that was sort of a

needless position .

You could l isten on HF

without having the transmitter on .
White

That was the only discrepancy t hat I fow1d in
our checklist .
One other t hing .

Everything else we went through .
They had , "Insert a new

voice tape , " and we both felt we wanted the
full reentry on one tape .

If we put a new

voice tape at this time we wouldn ' t have
gotten it .

So , I inserted a new voice tape at

the Minus 36 Checklist and I think this is a
good time to do it on future fligh ts .
McDivitt

Yes, the TR-36 Checklist was to be done over
Carnarvon.

We dec ided that we would check the

maneuver thrusters prior to Carnarvon since
we had a lot of time .

There was no sense in

waiting until t he checklist time ca.me around .
Since we had a lot of time , which was t he
thing I was striving for , I went ahead and

COl\lftD·EN--T ~L

CONFteENTlAL

259

checked the aft- firing thrusters No . 9 and 10
as we had in the TR- 36 Checklist , except we
did it between TR-45 and 40 .

Got them all

checked out, so that by the time we came over
Carnarvon we just went ahead and started up our
event timer on their mark .

We confirmed with

Carnarvon that we had indeed checked on maneuver
thrusters and that they were all right .

We got

this checklist completed well in advance too .
We went through it a coupl e of t imes , a lthough
there really wasn ' t much to it after the Maneuver Thruster Check ,

I guess we could proba­

bly follow the retrofire itself here .
5,0 Retrofire
5, 1 Zt-36 Events
McDivitt

I juet covered most of this .

I set the event

timer up well in advance of Carnarvon .
Carnarvon, I got the TR-36 hack.

At

I got the

event timer started right on the money .

We

got a hack on it later and it was indeed with
the ground times .

I checked th e aft-firing

thrusters prior to reaching Carnarvon, and I
told Carnarvon that I had indeed checked them

-CONFt0ENflAL-

COt~FIOf:m1"AL

260

and they were operating properly .
5. 2 TR- 22 Events
McDivitt

At TR-22 I was alining the platform.

I

started alining the platform over the States ,
and I put it in Orbit Rate for a while .

Final ly

we got over to the dark side and there wasn ' t
anything else to do , so I alined it some more .

I alined that platform for an hour and a
half .

We had the best alined platform at

retrofire in the world .

We were in pret ty good

shape by the t ime we got to the T - 22 checklist,
R
which is really nothing at all. It 's just
another platform alinement .

We checked our

ground updates, and again Carnarvon told us
that we had a good load in the TRS .

5.3 Tlt-13 Events
McDivitt

At TR-13 minutes we started the computer.

We

started our TR- 13 minute checklist at about
TR-1 4 to make sure we didn ' t run into any
problems .

We got into Orbit Rate, and I got

all the things out just like the T - 12 checklist
R

says .

We had an OAMS burn of 2 minutes and 40

seconds.

They called it up and I

.CONFIDENTlAt'
checked it .

I was exactly right .

261

They were

obviously flying it off the same card that we
were , because I checked it and it was exactly
2 minutes and 40 seconds .

5.4 !R-12 Events
McDivitt

Hawaii said they would give me a countdown to
TR-12 , and they gaye me the 3, 2, 1 Mark .
started thrusting at that time .

I

Ed had planned

to give me a check at one minute elapsed time ,
two minutes elapsed t i me, and at 30 seconds to
g o , 20 seconds to go , 10 seconds to go , 5, 4,

3, 2, 1, and off . That 's exactly what we did.
He called me at one minute , and again at two
minutes .

We went right on down, and he gave me

the mark .

I was checking t he t i me as he gave

me the counts .

It was agreeing exactly with

my event timer .

At Ed ' s mark , I released the

attitude controller :end we were within tenths
of seconds of exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds
of burn time .

During this period of time , I

think I held the attitudP-s probably within plus
or minus a degree.

It was very easy to control .

The t hing that I noticed most about it was the

262

absence of noise from the aft-firing thrusters .
I could hear the RCS firing , but I could not
hear the aft- firing thrusters .
White

I could hear them .

McDivitt

You know how the "x" is like this?

My ears were

plugged up throughout the flight , so maybe you
could hear t hem.
White

I could hear them .

McDivitt

That was in Rate Command .

Whi te

And stopping?

McDivitt

Yes , I heard Rate Command.
doing with the stick .

I knew what I was

Maybe what you were

hearing was Rate Command.
White

I was going to comment that the way that I was
l istening to t hem':!: thought they were just
cutting out .

McDivitt

You were hearing the attitude thrusters , Ed .
Here ' s what would happen .

I would be thrus ting

along and the thing would s t art deviating .

It

has a tendency to deviate more in yaw .
White

I s i t continual? Did you hear it all the t ime ?

McDivitt

Yes, almos t all the time except for pauses
t hat were frightening, as the attitude would

~Nlf~

~

IDENTIAt

263

drift off just a slight amount, around a degree .
It wasn't deviating a lot so I was making smal l
corrections.

It would deviate in yaw so I would

control it back.

It tended to deviate slightly

to the left all the time.

I control l ed it over

to the right and I would bring the ball back
underneath the dot .
to zero .

Then I would even go back

Then I would release it .

I would

bring the stick ·back to neutral , and for a shor t
time , the rates would bui ld up and the silence
would be deafening .
whatsoever .

There would be no noise

I would think , "God bless it .

Have the aft- firing thrusters stopped firing?"
Then the thrusters tended to yaw the spacecraft
some more .

As it came around , it got past

2/10 1 s of a degree/second deadband and the
Rate Command started firing Main.
White

Okay, that ' s what I heard .

McDivitt

That was Rate Command .
it was really going.

That ' s right .

When I yawed back around,
I'd come back to neutral

and it would stop .
White

All right .

Then I couldn't hear them.

I didn't

hear them when we took the check on them .

ceNFIE>ENTIAL

264

McDivitt

Neither did I .

I didn ' t hear a thing.

I agree

100 per cent with Gus that you absolutely

can ' t hear those aft-firing t hrusters .
White

My ear muffs are loose .
on my ears .

They are always loose

So if you could hear it outside ,

I would have heard it.

I didn ' t hear it.

I

heard Rate Command.
McDivitt

Those attitude thrusters really make a noise.

White

They make a big noise .

It sounded to me like

I could hear the thrusters firing and I was also
detecting these pauses evecy so often .

Several

times I thought, "Oh , heck, it's stopped! "
McDivitt

That ' s right ,

Especially , when we started

getting down towards the bottom.

The old fuel

gages were going down toward zero and the ti me
was running around.

It looked like it was

going to be a dead heat between which went .out
firs t.

There was one··particularly J.ong pause

at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds ,

I thought ,

"There it goes ," a.nd we made a quick correction.
.And when I stopped , I couldn ' t hear a thing.
Nothing changed.
White

Okay.

That ' s all it was .

I retract my statement.

COMF fDEN-slUa. L

,.

265

McDivitt

Well , not knowing exactly what I was doi ng with
the hand controller, you--I was making small
corrections .

White

That ' s the first time I'd heard that kind of a
sound.

McDivitt

We were getting it when we wer e chasing that
thing around , too--when we were chasing the
booster around .

White

You were thrusting again .

I thought this was

the other one .
McDivitt

Yes , that ' s right .

So we got through the TR-13

and TR-12 Checklis t s.
~e TR-13 and the TR- 12 Checklists really should
be grouped together--the preparat ion and the
OAMS retrofire .

5. 5 TR- 5 Events
McDivitt

Once more we started doing our checklist a little
early.

Since we had the t i me there was no since

in wasting it and then rushing at the end.

So

we went through what we could in advance of
T -5.
R

The things we couldn't do or that didn't

need to be done in advance we waited for until
exactly TR-5 .

I guess this is where Ed got the

266

first clue that the TRS was ahead of the ground
time .
White

This is an area where I particularly watch the
time .

This is an a.:-ea where I 'm making a time

check to start the elapsed timer going in order
to get our time after retrofire .
ing it pretty close .

I was watch­

The indication on my

watch was that the TRS vi.as about a second or so
early.

I felt we had a good Green·..n.ch Mean

Time hack .

We checked it several times and I

thought we had a good one.

With my time refer­

ence it was approximately a second to a little
better early.

At this time I had about half

of the checklist completed before we got to
the time for it .

I verified it several times .

It's not a hurried time at all, from 36 down ,
I don't believe .

There ' s no time in there when

you're really rushed unless it-McDivitt

Yes .

It is not hurried, provided you have

everything else completed and you ' re not doing
anything else but preparing for the retrofire-you have nothing going wrong during this period.
At TR-5 the sequence lights came on a little

CONFIO-EN:f~AL

267

bit early and that's where Ed got his first
clue tr·at the TRS was ahead of the other thing.
I didn ' t notice it because I wasn ' t watching my
event timer that closely.
watch started .

Ed got his GMT sto¥ ­

Why don I t you go ahead with the

electrical , Ed?
White

I turned the main batteries on, verified them
on , and verified t hey were taking the load .
They were in good shape .

McDivitt

This is where we turned the OAMS off and the
RCS on.

Let me talk about the checkout

on the

RCS now .

We had armed the RCS prior to the

TR- 36 Checklist, and checked out each ring.
When I was checking the rings out , I felt that
I might have a thruster out .

That was because

when I pitched up or down, my top left yaw
thruster was firing in one ring.

I felt that

I might be generating a rolling moment by
having one of my pitch jets out and the yaw
jets were having to take out this rolling moment .
I checked it in one ripg.
whi ch ring it was .
it again .

I don't remember

I went to Direct 8lld did

It didn ' t seem to do it , but on the

268

other hand , it didn't seem to make the spacecraft roll either.

Then I turned that ring off

and went over and ddd it on the other ring.
Identically the same thing happened .

I thought

I might have trouble wi th the roll -gyro .
turmid the roll gyro to SECONDARY .
seem to make any difference .
PRIMARY .

I

That didn 't

We went back to

I remember commenting at that time

that the RCS was a lot looser in control than
the OAMS.

It seemed to me that the OAMS held

the spacecraft attitude better.

It seemed like

it controlled to a rate deadband that was
smaller than the RCS deadband .

I don't know

why you're using the same gyros and the same
electronics .

The only thing that could be

different would be the attitude drivers on the
RCS might be activiating slower than they are
in the OAMS.

It seemed like the rates were

such a--seems like there must be a lag in the
whole system.

It seemed like the deadband in

the RCS was twice what it was in the OAMS .
operated properly.

It

There's so much difference

between looking at that ball on firing retros

~N-FIE>ENl~L

269

and looking out and actually seeing the nose
of t he spacecraft moving around out there .
There's no comparison with t he simulator.
just can't simul ate t his .

You

When I looked down

at the ball and did t he retrofire, i t was just
l ike the simulator.

When I was l ooking outside

and actually seeing what the spacecraft was doing as I cont rol led i t , it seemed like it was
a lot sloppier with the RCS than it was wi th
the OAMS .
White

We must have fired over New Mexico or Texas .

McDivitt

Our retrofire?

White

Yes .

I could see the old brown sandy earth

down right under us .
McDivitt

Yes , Guaymas gave us our countdown , so we were
over northern Mexico .

White

That ' s the area that I thought we were over .
Actually , it may even look almost a littl e like
west Texas.

McDivitt

It could have been.

Then I did TR-5 .

to our retro attitude.
Checklist complete .

I went

We reported our TR- 5

I don ' t know exactly when

Guaymas came on the radio .

-€0-NFf'DEN·f ~l

COt\JFtE>l:N!TtAI'

270

5, 6 TR- 1 Events
McDivit t

Yes.

At TR-1 there wasn't really much that we

could do in advance , but whatever we could do ,
There weren I t many steps .

we di d .
White

We just waited for minus 1 minute .

McDivit t

All you have to do is really just prepare yourself mentally, but at T - 1 I told Ed , "We ' re
R

at a minute . " , and I guess F,d already knew we
were at a minute.
White

Yes.

McDivitt

F,d

did it just exactly as we'd briefed it many

times .

You punched the SEP OAMS.

We heard the

bang.

He followed wit h a SEP ELECTRIC , rather

quickly afterward as we had planned.
the bang.

We heard

Then we waited a short t ime as we

had planned , and fired the SEP ADAPrER .
t here was a great big bang.

Then

The tendancy is

to punch those buttons 1, 2 , 3.

We decided

that we didn ' t want to go 1 , 2 , 3.

We wanted

t o go 1, 2, (pause) 3.

That was exactly what

we did , and there wasn I t any doubt whether
the equipment adapter separated .
White

I had no incl ination to look around .

Ee·N-FiDENTIAb

I knew it

271

was gone .
McDivitt

That ' s when Ed hollered , "'l'here go the pump
packages !

I see two pump packages out there .

Just exactly what John Young said! "
White

They separate right off to the left side .

Jim

couldn ' t see them because of the posi tion of
his head .

I could see them .

McDivitt

That 's right .

I never saw them at all .

White

I could clearly see the t wo pumps together on
the mounting and mounted together .
right together .
on tha t one.

McDivitt

They were

And I'll back John up to hilt

I saw t hem too .

We got the ad~pter separated with all the attendent flying pump packages .

Whi t e

Quite a flourish , isn ' t it?

McDivi tt

Right .

I t sure is .

It was a big bang.

no doubt about it .

At TR- 30 , the TR- 30

There ' s

Sequence Light s ceme on , and at that t:Lme Ed
said , "The s aquenc e 1 ights came on about a
second or a second and a half in advance. "
So , I armed retro squibs , and we discussed
whether or not to punch off the Auto- re t r o
Button or not .

If the TRS was fast, I didn't

272

want to p,mch it off ahead and have t he retrorockets go off early, but I figured t hat it·
wasn't in a hurry that much.

But if it c8Jlle

on much earlier than that , i t was really going
to make us short.

So, I finally decided that

we'd go ahead and ann the Auto-retro Button at
about three seconds so that we weren' t going
to be any more than 15 or 20 miles short as a
result of the retrorockets going off early.
We'd still get the auto- retrofire, signal
through, so that if something went ·,:rong with
the manual retrofire signal we'd still get the
retrorockets fired .

I felt t hat three seconds

early would be better than a possible 15 or 20
second one in case we had to go through some
non-nominal method of firing the retros in case
the manual button didn't make it work .

I told

Ed to arm the auto-retrofire , a.nd he did this
at about three seconds and i t fired automatically at between two and one seconds, I think,
in the count.
White

Yes .

McDivitt

I felt that we got a one-plus second early

eo·~Ft0E~TIA1

273

auto-retrofire.
\ohite

Ri ght .

I did too .

We went through the little

discussion there from minus 30 down, and I knew
what Jim's point was.

I think I distrusted the

system a tad more than Jim did, but I thought
his logic was good.

We had two systems work­

ing to fire the rockets.

i was in full agree­

ment.
McDivitt

We went through and saved fuel for four days
so we could do an OAMS retrofire .

I felt if

we're going to adopt that sort of philosophy
and go through

that long of a lean fuel period,

then we could afford another few miles of inaccuracy thrown in by an early retrofire if we
got the redundancy that you would get from a
double-firing .

So , I elected to go ahead and

have Ed push it .

Al though it probably con­

tributed on the order of 8 to 10 miles to our
miss distance, I don ' t think it really hurt us
that bad.

5.7 TR- 0 Events
McDivitt

I had the spacecraft in the retrofire attitude,
and when t he retrorockets f ired, I--

'Ee·N Fl0 ENTtft:t:-'

274

White

I had also pushed the man1lal b'uttG::·. on time .
So , it was about a second after they actually
fired .

McDivitt

Excellent .

The spacecraft was in the proper

retro-attitude and we got a real good push from
the retrorockets .

There are four distinct

pushes, and I never felt a pause between any
one of them .
Whi t e

Did you?

Yes, a little pause between each one.

I

think my cues wei:e tuned llp in a different
manner than yours .
controls .

Yours were working on the

Did you feel that you could actual­

ly see the acceleration? You weren ' t looking
out the window.
McDivitt

I was a little bit .

It looked like we were

actually turned around and started back the
other way .
White

ila, ha!

I really could feel the g ' s .

Nothing that was

uncomfortable, but I felt each one of them and
I a l so felt looking out that I could see the
spacecraft sl owing down .

I know i t was such a

pityingly amount compared to our velocity, but
I was looking down on the ground when they fired .

•

-

roNE,IQENTIA::~

275

Your view of the ground is considerable at
minus 30 degrees, a~i it did seem like I could
see the spacecraft actually slow down .
McDivitt

I don't know what the magnitude of the g's was
during retrofire.
tell you that .

We were super- sensitive , I'll

We'll get to that later.

As

a matter of fact, later on when I was debating
about whether or not the g meter worked , I
stopped and hit the reset button, and it did
·:1 come down .

It came down f:r, ~ic. something less

than oL-s· to zero .
White

I 'd say bet;.reen 2/10 of a g and 1/2 g dtiring"
retrofire .

McDivi";~

'I 'd guess something about that order too .

It

sure seems a lot .
White

Your cues a=e really up,,fo r the g's.

McDivitt

You've been at zero e for so long, anything
fe els like it ' s a lot .

Mcnivi";•

I was at zero rates ani in the proper attitud~.
I was in Rate Command when the retrorocket s
fired .

I maintained the attitude very well.

It was very ea$y.
all .

There ·were no deviations at

Ed was standing by on the roll rate gyro

--COl>al~IDENl lAL

CO ► lFIDEN·f~At

276

•

in case it looked like I was loosing control
in yaw .

He could turn off the roll rate gyro

and get all the authority that I needed in yaw .
As far as I could see, it never deviated more
than a degree from where I was supposed to be .

I don ' t think it ever got off that center bar
in yaw , :ind it never got a dot- that little
dot- -away from the 30 degree mark as far as I
could tell .
White

Could you see any, Ed?

I was sitting there watching it and enjoying
it at that t~me tecause the attitude was staying right on.

McDi vitt

Yes .

It was right on .

right direction.

We got the 6V in the

N,:-w, the IVI' s didn't read

out , because we didn ' t have the computer on ,
so we really couldn't tell .
White

It was as steady as a rock.

You could see the

decelerations and looking out the window , I couldn ' t
detect

any

movement

in attitude .

I was

looking right down on the ground several times
during several of the retros, and I think you
could detect motion fairly well .
any .

C.Q t> j J; I9-EN lLA.L.

I didn't see

cer~ftDENT~Ai.
McDivitt

I'll tell you .

277

I was really happy after that

OAMS retrofire and the retrorocket re trofire .
I figured that we had exactly what we were
supposed to , and I was positive we were going
to come down on that cotton-picking carrier.
I was really quite happy after that , because
I don't think 3ven i :c.. t:'1"" simulator we ever had
on0 t~.d-~· easy.
White

Shall we make 01lr a dmission on OAMS retro at this
time , Jim?

McDivitt

Yes.

As a matter of fact it might be appro­

priate.

I'm probably one of the biggest an­

tagonists to the OAMS retrofire that there
possibly is at the Manned Spacecraft ·center,
because I think it's a fuel wasting ma~euver
and a lot .-:,f other things .

I still think it is.

I ' ll still say one thing--after I fired the
OAMS retrofire and I knew I was going to come
down , I was a l •::>t more relaxed than I had been
before I got there.

I ' m going to have to tell

Dr. Gilruth that , but I still think we can get
by without it .
White

It was nice to see tt work.

CONRDENTJAL

It was nice .

278

McDivitt

It was , and I was real sorry we d:idn '·t havG
a computer because after those two thingn , which
I thought were done certainly as good as I
could possibly do them .

I felt sure that ~e

could have landed right on the cotton-pickin~
car rier ' s deck if we just had a computer to tell
us wher e t o go . I would have liked to have tried
the guidance .

I worked hard eno,.1g'.l on that

reentry guidance and I didn't get to use it .
Whi te

Jim , I think there is one thing that we left
out - -the reading of the percentage of 0AMS fuel
left.

I think we called out --3

or 4

per cent .
McDivitt

That ' s right .

I had

3

rema ining on the gage .

or . 4

pe·rcen t

We called it out and

it will be on the tape .
White

3 percent
McDivitt

3

I wrote it down ~t
of

Here it is .

the fuel left after 0AMS.

Yes , an1 it wa~ a little hard to rea1 down
there and parallax was
ted that it was

White

percent .

3

pretty bad .

I estima­

per cent.

I read off the g_uanti ty on the gage and it was
a little over 1100 .

279

fl

McDivitt

1100 psi?

Wh1te

Yes .

McDivitt

I'll tell you one thing about the out-thewindow view at 30 degrees pitch-down attitude .
You're really pitched down at 30 degrees .

White

That's another thing that I noticed.

I was

looking out the window, and I s~rely wasn ' t
obse~ving much in the way of a horizon .

I was

looking at the ground .
McDivitt

The top · 2 inches of the window has the horizon in it .

So , if you really had a bad r etro

and you get scr ewed up a l i ttle bi t , you coul d
lose your horizon.
White

You could lose your horizon , but I think you've
got a good enough view of the motion of the
ground az1d an object on the ground.

I thl.nk

you could do a ver y effective job .
McDivitt

If I really hai to do a..~ out-the-window retro
I ' m 11.)t even sure that I ' d look out and use the
hori zon.

White

I think I ' d pick a spot on the ground .

That ' s the point I was maki ng.
grease pencil on your window.

McDivitt

You'd have to use both .

@9NFll:)ENtL~L

You ' d put a

280

Whi.te

I LM.nk you'd find a spot on the ground , and.
hold it.

McDivitt

Because the spot on the ground is going to move .

Whi.te

Yes, it's going to move during the fir~ .

That 's

exactly what you do on an attitude ball. you
know .

You have a horizm1 and you have a spot

and then you fly tha":; :~pot .

So, it sounds kind

of l ike the thing I think you can do.
McDivitt

The retrorockets fired, as I said, in the order
1, 2, 3, 4.

We got t he manual fit'e out--

button punched.

Ed got that .

We had said that

because we're getting a countdown we were going
to fire the Manual. Retrofire Button ex1L-,tly
when we got to zero .

We weren' t going to wait

aro,md a second a f ter that so that we got t he
computer and all that jazz on the line .

We

didn ' t have .any ,;01:iputer to get on the line .
We weren't going to read out anyth:i.ng on the IVI' s
or anything else.

All we were concerned with

was firing the retrorockets .
5, 8 Retropack Jettison
McDivitt

I waited 45 seconds.
this time.

I started rolling over at

When 45 seconds crune , I had t~e

CONf~DfENTIAb.

/4ONFl0-ENflA t-

281

retro-;;ett squib on , and I punched off tho retro- -White

The light came on And you punched it .

McDivitt

That 's right .

The light came on at 45 seconds

and I punched it .

There was a real solid bang,

and I knew we separated from the retropack .
doubt there either.

No

As we went on down , we

finally sa•,r the retropack com,::- on around behind
us .
McDi vitt

Do you have anything else on the retropack
jettison?

I guess not .

That ' s pretty simple .

5.9 Communications
McDivitt

We got the com from t:~e ground .

White

I thought we had good communicat.tons wi t h the
ground.

McDivitt

No problems with the communications .

I was a

little concerned with the communications
earlier in the flight , because we wer en ' t get-•
ting anything .

We weren't getting retrofire

times or any other i nformation .

But to ~ards

the end of the f light coouwmica.tio:is wer,1 8iCcellent.
5. 10 Update

-E O NFIDENTI-Al!-

282

McDi vitt

The update was awful , I think .

As I mentioned

earlier, they updated our TRS but the TRS was
obviously not running with the ground .

6.0 REENTRY

6. 1 Reent:cy Par ameters Update
Mc:Divitt

We really didn't have a reentrs parameters updl:l.te post-retro .
quick .

We went intn black-out pretty

There wasn ' t anything to update.

We

were going to s t art rolling at 400 000 .

Re­

gardless of anything else , we had a pre•program_~ed reentry .

6.2 400K
White

We were at 400K before you got your

3 -

Minute Update .
McDivitt

That's right .

At two minutes a~d 38 secondA

we were through 400 000 feet.
a hurry .

We got there in

I rol l ed upside down, and I flew do,m

to 400 000 feet , which was to be at 2:38 ,

How­

ever, I thought that we ' d retrofired a little
early, so I wasn ' t in any great rush to start
my rolling reentry .

I dela¥ed about :another

30 or 40 secondA .

The only reason I delayed

was because I knew there wasn't any rush to get

eeMfteENl-lAJ_

C6 ► ~Fl0ENTIA "

283

over , because if we were going to be nnypl a ~e ,
we were going to be short.

I j".1st wanted to

get over a.nd get in a good attitude .

So , I

r ol led the thing upside down, got the-White

One thing---on the Post- retro Checklist , we
dedded this time to use Reentry Rate Command
rather than Direct.

McDivitt

That ' s r ight .

White

That ' s a deviation on our checklist .

McDivitt

When I got the thi ng upside dow:n, I was still
in Rate Co!llllla.nd.

I held the lift vec t or up,

heads down , until I got down
minutes and 15 seconds .

to· about

3

I got my 3 minute

time hack from the ground.

I got my clock

counting up a 3 minutes .

At about 3 minutes

and 15 seconds I started th0 roll .

What I did

was , I put in aoout 15 degrees/second , and then
we turned off the roll gyro .
thing rolling.

I just left the ·

I controlled the pitch and yaw

inside the rate deadba.nd , which was plus or
minus 4 degrees , just a 3 you would i n Direct. I
still had the rate deadba.nd

t o take care of

any wild pertubations t hat we got into .

-€0NFl0ENllAL

6. 3

.04 g
White

We didn ' t even have a time for . 04 g's did we?

McDivitt

No .

We d.id:a ' t h:we ::1.ny-thing like that .

We

started rolling reentcy at 400 000 feet, except
that I didn ' t start it until ah-.ut 45 seconds
after that to make sure that I had good at ti bd9 .
I started the thing around the way I wanted it .
Just .<.i,lxmt this tim,~ , we saw the retro adapter
start floating back past us .

I figured the

other day that thing was small-end- forward
rather than blunt-end-fo rward .
White

I'd sa:y it was front-end- forward too .

McDivitt

We saw the spherical end of the retrorockets .
Remember?

White

Yes .

All four of them .

McDivitt

All fo·..1r of them .

We didn ' t see the nozzle .

It had done a 180-degree turn small-endforward and it was as stable a8 a rock.

We

could see the whip antennas sticking out to the
side .
White

Exactly the position it should go to .

That's

the heaviest end, I would presume.
McDivitt

It would tend to trim that way too .

EONi;,IDENTIAL

Except that

CONFtDENTl;ttt-

285

I didn ' t think there would be any aerodynamics
at 400 000 feet .
degrees

But it was turned around 180

and was perfectly stable with the whip

antenna sticking out , which at that iime was up
to the right .
White

Yes .

McDivitt

We were upside down.

It sure was a funny look~

ing sight.
White

It sure was .

It was really pretty.

McDivitt

And it was as stable as a rock and very slowly
d:t'ifting behind us .

As a matter of fact , for

a while I thought that our opening velocities
were too slow, and I thought it would just
come back and hit us .

But , it just stayed out

there, a nd we started our rolling reentry there .
We were coming on down and we were rolling
around and before I got any noticeable g ' s at
all--Isn' t that right--before we got any noticeable g ' s it s t arted burning?
White

Okay.

We saw the reddish pink layer come a­

round the spacecraft-McDivitt

Well, didn ' t we see the retropack start burning
before the- - ?

-CONFtDENllM

~ 0 t>J FI l;)f NT IAi.

286

White

Whichever way we saw it , it's on the tapes ,
because we discussed it pretty thoroughly .

McDivitt

That ' s right , as we were doing it .

But I sort

of vaguely recall that watching the retros
after us as we s]!lllrl around , it started glowing
a little bit and then you could see t his big
spray come off the front --shock or someth ing.
I t looked like it was just melting and corning
away .

It just looked like a great big orange

mushroom back there, and that's when it really
started falling behind us.
McDivitt

We hadn ' t felt any g ' s at all .

Had you felt any

I
gs?

White

Not that time .

McDivitt

I ' m sure that I hadn ' t felt any g ' s .

White

I was wondering why we were so light .
looking down at Florida.

We were

We had watched Florida

go by and commented on it .
McDivitt

Shoot , we real ly made a low altitude pass across
the States .

We should have probably filed a DD-

175 to get clearance .
White

We had to come through the control zone , you
know, at Eglin.

They're kind of sensitive about

CONf-H~ENl-lAL-

287

lower altitudes .
McDivitt

... started glowing and burning and it was as
stable as a rock as long as I could see it .
Did you ever see it tumbl e?

White

No , never did .

McDivitt

Okay.

It was behind us and it looked like it

just ate the front tight off, and I guess when
we first saw it , it was on the order of 200
feet , maybe?
White

Yes .

McDivitt

And the last time I saw it , it looked like it
was about 3/4 .. ..

White

That was about the position that I saw the
booster for the first time .

McDivitt

I think you ' re right .

I guess we could see the

dome on it and all that stuff .

As a matter of

fact , it was a pretty good reentry shape .

It

looked stable as a rock .
White

I t stabilized right out .

McDivitt

So , we finally saw it drop behind us and burn
up .

As it finally started drawing behind us .

White

We started to get

McDivitt

The first thing I saw was the orange flame- - the

- CONFl0ENTl~t-

288

orange or pinkish flames coming out .

It looked

like the flame was coming up around my side of
the spacecraft like this .

Was it doing that on

your side , too?
White

Yes .

It looked like it was almost coming from

three points .
McDivitt

Okay.

Probably what it was doing was corning

around both sides because of the angle of attack
and going out this way.

But I definitely could

see the orange fire come up around the l efthand side of the spacecraft and out in front of
the window, and pretty soon I saw some green
fire-White

Coming out of the top --

McDivitt

Oh, is that where you saw it? I didn't.

I saw

the green fire down close to the left- hand side
coming up over the nose inside of the red fire ,
and then it was all swirling around there .

Then

while we were coming down, we were coming down
in a r oll , but with our relatively high L/D, we
were in a great big roll with a big wallow.

I

guess this is really indicative of how much lift
we had .

~FfDl:NrtA~

289

White

It looked to me l ike we were getting a lot of
lift out of it .

McDivitt

It looked to me we were getting an awful lot of
lift out of it.

White

It was really whipping around there .

McDivitt

And we were going around at a pretty good rate .
The needle was off to the left .

That ' s right .

It moved out sl owly , slowly and got out t o
about 2 degrees and it just held there .
spacecraft was as stable as a rock.

The

I damped

the thing a couple of times in pitch and yaw and
it just stablized right on down there .

I

don ' t think I even t ouched the pitch again .

I

think I maybe touched the pitch four times all
the way down and the yaw maybe six or seven
times .

What I was looking at was just a huge

portion of the sky.

I could see the ground,

then I could see the sky, and I really saw a
lot of the country as we came rolling by.
White

What surprised me is how much it was .

I knew

why it was doing it but I thought it was

eeNFtofNllAL ..

290

arc was that this thing cut out.
was a real lifting body.

That thing

You ' re really getting

a lot of lift initiall y, and if you roll around
there, you ' d kill it all off; and your aerodynamics is such that you really can't tell,
because the stability is so loose right there .
White

You know you're going to get some lift if you
have an offset CG, but you couldn't tell
where it was going ,

McDivitt

You ' re in the area where you're getting a lot of
lift so i f you do a roll , you've lost that
range right off the bat .

We came down on this

great big spiral, and here I think we ought to
get into

6.4 Acceleration Profile
McDivitt

- - the acceleration at retrofire.

I called

down on the ground and told them that we had
four retros .
retro .

We got automatic.

We got auto­

We got all four in sequence .

auto- retro .

We got

Auto- retrofire appeared to be about

a second and a half early .

In the acceleration

profile I said, "Well, here come the g ' s, Ed . "
and I felt the g ' s going up.

He said yes.

291

White

I said , "Yes .

There are two of them , aren't

there?"
McDivitt

Yes, and then we waited a while longer and--

White

I said, "Gee, there ' s nothing on the g- meter. "

McDivitt

I said, "The g-meter must be broken " ,so that ' s

why I reached up and reset it .
went down a little bit.

It actually

So we went a little

while longer , and I said, "Ed, I feel a lot of
g ' s ", and he said , "So do I ."

Then he said 1:We

must be up between three and four. "
White

If felt like that.

McDivitt

And I said, "Yes, I think we're up about that
high too ."

And the g-meter was still reading

zero for all pratical purposes .
started building up slowly .

Pretty soon it

It went up to

2 , 3, 4, and I called out at 2 , and I called
out at 4, and I called out at 6, and I think I
called out at 7.
White

About the time you called out the 2, I knew we
had been had.

McDivitt

Yes.

It's just that we were super-sensitive to

g's and the load pulling us into the seat was
on .the order of a tenth of a g .
White

It ' s true .

CONFIDENTIAt-'

cor~FtOENr~~

292
McDivitt

So , we had 1/10 g and we thought· we had 3 . .And
we both felt this way .
bout 7 1/2 .

The g 's went up to a­

They told us we would probably get

8 g ' s coming down .

When we got the instrument

positions back from the spacecraft , the post
landing switch positions, they had the g- meter
marked at 7 1/2 g ' s , and I suspect that ' s
probably about as high as it went .

Now , I ' m

telling you this was really a piece of cake .
I thought that maybe 7 1/2 g ' s aft~r being out
there for so long would be tough , but I di.dn ' t
even have to breathe hard to get any air ,

I

just lay there and relaxed and enjoyed the whole
thing , and I really got a big kick out of that
reentry .
White

We chatted back and forth .

We talked through

the whole g- load, and I was watching outside
and inside .

I was looking out quite a bit of

the time when things were going so smoothly,
particularly the g- load .

When you get to the

high g's , you might as well look out, because
you ' re not going to do anything about it , and
I noticed no dimming in vision .
as clear as a bell .

Not a speck.

-CONfJDENTIJXt

Everything was
I could see

_c:GNFIDENJIAL

293

everything on the instrument panel , and I could
see things very clearly outside .
McDivitt

Things were going so smoothly on the inside that

I looked out too .

I enjoyed the scenery on the

way down .
White

Once you get in that position and you get the
high g ' s you ' re not going to do anything inside .

McDivitt

In the amplitude of the oscillations, --all the

simulations show that they tend to decrease as
you get to high g ' s and the f r equency picks up .
So the only thing you could do is hurt things if
you start screwing around with it , except we
didn ' t have any oscillations anyway .

It was just

as stable as a rock .
White

I think at this point I ' d like to put something
in .

I ' d like to find out when they analyze the

data whether the upper right-firing thrusters
on my side were firing a whole magnitude more
than the right - hand upward-fir ing thrusters .

In

fact, they very early in the pr ofile became a
cherry red and just stayed red hot , even a little
bit white hot all the way down .
White

There was no frequency to it at all .

It appeared

to me they were firing continually and I think

L'ONFIDEN:J:IAl

294
maybe this might associate itself in some wa;y
with something in the system prior .
McDivitt

I think it was prior , because we were in Reentry
Rate Command and we started the roll.

Then the

yaw needle drifted on out and it looked to me
like it never got over about 3 degrees/second .
I was trying to read the 0.1 degree/second seal~
It might have gone on to 4 degrees/second with
the roll rate we had in there , and the jets just

kept right on firing constantly .
What I had done when we started was to leave the
roll gyro on , and I rolled the thing over till
I got almost full deflection on the needle .

Then

I put the roll gyro off so I'd have 15 degrees
and we wouldn 't tend to overrate the thing so
t hat the Reentry Rate Command was firing all
the time .

What I think happened was that as

we went on down, the yaw rate needle tended to
drift on out .

I don't know if you noticed it or

not , but it tended to drift out .

It started at

around 2 degrees/second, and it drifted on out
slowly until it got to about 4 degrees.

I

thought it never got out to more than 3 degrees/
second .

Later on , when we started oscillating

CO~ ◄ ftOENf~AL

CONFt-DENTiA-1.

295

around like we did, if the thing were out at 3
degrees and started banging back and forth at
all , the yaw thrusters would be on constantly;
and also that ' s the side that they'd be on .
would have been on the right-hand side.

It

Are you

sure that it was red that high up, or did it get
red when we started getting down where we got
all those oscillations?

Because there I ' m sure

it was firing all the time.
White

It was red for a long time , Jim,

McDivitt

Was it?

I was actually watching it, waiting for one of
them to bust loose, because it was really firing
a lot more than I thought it was out there. Jim
asked me about the frequency of it, and I couldn't tell whether it was on or off .
all the time.

It was r ed

The other one was hardly heated

up at all.
McDivitt

Shoot .

There wasn't any need for any kind of

firing then.
White

It would be interesting to see if the other yaw
thrusters were.

McDivitt

Wel l, it ' ll be interesting when they cut these
things apart to see what kind of life cycle --

(!IQl'IFIDENJIAL.

296

White

I t really had a good workout.

6.5 Spacecraft control
McDivitt

Spacecraft control was like a dream.
engineering description.
oscillations.

A good

There weren't any

It was as stable as a rock .

I

don't think we need to say much more about that .
It wasn' t like any failure simulation we've
seen .

It was the easiest thing to control, easier

than any simulation I 've seen.

Shoot! A baby

could have done it.
McDivitt

We started getting oscillations around then and
the Reentry Rate Command fired a few times and I
d~mped it in pitch and yaw.

There really wasn't

any control problem to it at all, I didn ' t feel.
Did you think there was?
White

No .

I would have been watching closer if I had

thought there was .
6.6 100 000 feet
McDivitt

The altimeter was at 96 700 feet throughout
the entire flight.

It started on down,and we

were still at about 5 or 6 g 's when that thing
started on down.

It went on down to about

92 000 feet, and then the g's started off, and
the altimeter started back up again.

297
It went all the way back to about 96 000 feet
again, and then it started down again.

The

second time it started down, it really started
down in a hurry, and I was sure that we were
still at 100 000 feet.
McDivitt

So , I waited until the g level got about 3, which
is around 80 or 90 thousand feet.
ing the roll rate there.

I started slow­

I wanted to get the

thing to a zero roll rate by the time we got to
40 or 50 thousand feet, certainly by the time we
got to 40.

We started gyrating around some more,

but I didn't think it was exceptional.
Reentry Rate Command started firing .

The
As a matter

of fact, I said!'H?re comes the Reentry Rate
Command, " and then I was firing on top of .it so
that we really weren't oscillating too much.
Then we got to 40 000 feet and I put the drogue
chute out, and that's where things really got
exciting.

6.7 50 000 feet
McDivitt

I put the drogue out at 40 000 feet.
and stable as we went down.

We were nice

We were a heck of a

lot more stable than we were when we put the
drogue chute out.

298

White

That ' s right by several orders of magnitude.

McDivitt

When we put t he drogue chute out, we were
concerned about the thing destabilizing rather
than stabilizing.

So I intended to put the

drogue out and leave the con trol at Reentry Rate
Command .

This I did,

and we oscillated all over

the sky .

We estimat ed pl us or minus 40 degrees ,

and I t hink we were at leas t every bit of that .
White

We were, and when the drogue chute came out , I
was right in the sun so I couldn ' t see i t , and
I didn't know whether we had one or not,

You

called it out , and about t he t ime you cal led
it out , I coul d see it up there gyrating
wildly around .
McDivitt

I never could tell whether the thing dereefed or
not.

I had a lot of goop on my window and the sun

was out , and all I could see was the shape of the
dr ogue up there , and it really was fluttering
around .

We wer e plus or minus 40 degrees to it

without any doubt , and I wouldn ' t be a bit surprised if we wer en ' t plus or minus 60 degrees to
it . We wer e r eal ly getting tossed around .
It was just jer king a l l around .
White

It was fast , but I don ' t t hink it was that big a

GOMftB·Et'4TIAt

'EON·F l0ENTIM
magnitude.

299

(McDivitt is making a noise to des­

cribe it.)
McDivitt

About like that.

White

I was really surprised the thing held on there,
to tell you the truth.

McDivitt

So was I.

I was expecting the drogue chute to

fall off any minute.

White

I was, too.

White

It worked all right.

McDivitt

It held us together.

White

If I went through it again, I'd be perfectly
happy sitting there riding through it, to tell
you the truth.

White

The way I looked at it, it was rather interesting.
I hadn't quite expected that.

McDivitt

Neither did I.

I know that Gus said that he had

a pretty wild ride and he thought the thing was
destabilizing him.

He had a scheme where he just

turned off the propellent valves to stop the
propellent flow.

That meant that he had to wait

about 10 or 15 seconds to get the propellent
valves back open again to get the jets firing.
Well, I wasn't going to do that.

I thought

the thing to do was to turn off the electronics

COMF10cNTIAt-

OOt◄ FIDE~rtAL

300

and see if the thing was going to become unstabl~
This is what I did .
tronics .

I turned off the RCS elec­

The thing was that they didn't get

any worse . It didn ' t ge t any worse .

I watched it.

I could see enough of it to tell that we weren't

becomi ng wistable.
White

It was unstable to a point and then it stabilized
out in this oscillation .

McDivitt

That ' s right .

It was really gyrating around .

By that time we were down to 20 000 feet and I
called , " 20 thousand feet . Pull down the handles" ,
or something to that effect .
White

You called out 28 .

McDivitt

Is that what I s aid? And then, I pulled the
propellant valves, as I had planned to do, and
turned the oontrol node to Rate Command rather
that. Reentry , because I wanted to burn up
all the fuel that I could out of those manif olds .

As a matter of fact, I was interested in burning
up all the fuel I could bef ore I got to the
ground .
White

I have a question .

I thought you put it in

Rate Command before you turned off the valves ,
and it pretty well damped itself out on the

€QtqftDENffM

301

drogue.
McDivitt

No, I don't think I did.

White

Okay.

McDivitt

I don' t think I did.

I think I left it i n

Reentry Rate Command until I turned it off
and then turned

off the power .

ACME to OFF on both rings .
any worse.

I went from

It didn ' t get

I think what I might have done is

I might have gone fr om OFF to ACME to Rate
Command , to turn the propellant valves off rather
than going from
White

We ll, I know it damped out there
considerably.

in the end

I think it was when the Rate

Command, or whatever it was, was firing,
McDivitt

Well , Reentry Rate command was going all the
time.

We were going at a heck of a lot

faster rate than 4 degrees/second.
Whi te

Well, we cut down our oscillations considerably
after you did something over there .

I thought

you had put it in Rate Command .
McDivitt

I did put it in Rate Command , but I didn 't
leave the propellant on.

This was why I

wanted to get r id of all the propellant onboard
t he spacecraft if I could.

But I didn't want

€0NFJDEN+1Al-

302

to let those things fire for a long time and
maybe eat up t he drogue chute, and find ourse l ves
wi thout propellant and without drogue chute , too .
So , once we got the drogue chute out, I let
the things fire for a while and turned the
electronics off.

Maybe I turned it back on and

went to Rate Command , and off with the prop­

ellant valves .
White

I ' m not really sure .

I think you had it in Rate Command for a little
while - --i)robably while you were firing out the
fuel.

McDivitt

Yes, that ' s what I did .

I went to Rate Command

and let all the fuel fire out,
planned .

just as we had

So that I was sure that the rates were

high enough t hat we were going to fire out the
fuel without disturbing the thing on the drogue.
So we fell on down .

Ed got the snorkel on the

vent valve about 28 to 27 thousand feet .
came on down .

We

I watched the altimeter go through

11 ooo. .
6. 8 Main Chute Deployment
At 10 600 I punched out the main chute .
McDivitt

I saw

it go out with a lot of crap and corruption flying
off the nose . It went out and came out in a
reefed conditi on, and I saw and I said we had a
good reefed chute . I don ' t guess you

-@!ONftiJEN 1IAL

303

could see that too well, could you?
White

No, I couldn't see the chute out.

I saw it

finally when it deployed.
McDivitt

I saw the thing hanging up there just the way it
was supposed to, and then the thing de reefed,
came billowing out just the way it should, and I
:'said, "We ' ve got a good chute".

One edge of it

collapsed and came back in and collapsed about
a third of the chute.

We've seen a lot of movies

of these chutes corning out, so I wasn't really
worried about the thing collapsing .

It went

in and came back out.

6.9 Conununications
McDivitt

There weren't any communications that I could
tell were there? Maybe we received some transmissions on the drogue, but I'm not really sure.
As soon as we •deployed the main chute the antenna
came off.

So we couldn't talk to anybody after

that .
White

I don't think we got anythi ng on t he drogue.

McDivitt

I ' m not really sure that we did.

White

I don't think we did.

McDivitt

Shoot!

We were getting thrown around so that

we couldn't have heard anything anyway.

C8t--.J·F ID-ENTIA I:

-cot ◄ FIE>Et~TIAl
They tried to communicate with us a couple of
times after we came out of the blackout and before
we put the drogue out .
what he was saying.

I didn't hear exactly

He wasn't hearing anything

I was saying either as far as I could tell .

He

wasn ' t a cting like he heard what I was saying .
White

He gave us our blackout times of 5+23 and 9+21,
and there really wasn't too much we could do to
check these out .

McDivi tt

After we got the main chute deployed , I told Ed ,
"Quick!

Take your blood pressure ." The chute

came out around 7500 fee t or so , and when we
finally got the thing dereefed we were floating
down nice and gently .

F.d s tarted taking t he

blood pressure, and it seemed like it took an
eternally long time .

By the time we got down

around 5300 feet or so , I said, " F.d , get the
blood pressure done because at 5000 feet we're
going to go to a two-point attitude."

He

fooled around and fooled around and fooled
around .

Finally we got down to 5000 feet and

I said , "Ed, you ' ve got about three or four more
seconds , and we ' re going to two- point attitude . "
White

It was a l ittle s l ow.

I don ' t know why.

305
McDivitt

I didn't want to trust that altimeter .

Ed

kept fooling around with that blood pressure
without getting any air out of it, and finally
I said , "Okay, Ed , we're going to go to twopoint."

I guess by then he had the blood

pressure completed,
Whi t e

I think we got a good blood pressure .

McDivitt

So , just like we ' d always practiced, I said,

"3, 2, 1 , MARK ",and punched the single-point re lease .
6 . 10 Single -Point R~lease
White

We both had our heads braced up on our arms.

McDivit t

We had our arms up on the windshield and my head
wasn't exactly on my arm.

White

Was yours?

My head was on the arm and pressed over to the
side of the spacecraft.

I was well wedged in ,

I felt.
McDivitt

So was I.

My head went forward a little bi t,

back a little bit, then back up forward again ,
and it didn ' t hit anypl ace.
White

No.
time.

Did yours?

I had my head pressed on my arm the whole
I don't believe it left the arm very much ,

because I actually had it wedged from behind , too.
McDivitt

So , I thought going to two-point was a lot
less violent than the ~ide oniihe d:t'ogue.

•CO 1\1 FI i;> E~~TIAt:

306

Whi te

I agree with you .

I think we ' ve got a good

operational procedure of bracing your head on
your arm up against the window--a satisfactory
procedure for this .
6.11 Postmain Checklist Items
White

We took the blood pressure on the main chute , too.
I went through what I call the reinforcement

items on the checklist t hat I wanted to get off
right away , and t hen I sat back and pumped off
another blood pr essure .

About this time you were

making your calls to the recovery force.
McDivitt

Right .

I started calling the recovery forces

as F,d was taking his blood pressure.

We got

some response from Omnibus right away .·
White

Good old Omnibus .

McDivitt

Yes.

And we went right on down.

the D-ring covers .

We stowed

We stowed the D-ring

cover s between deploying the main chute and
going to two-point, just as we had planned .

We

didn ' t want the D- ring to flop around there, and
once you go to two- point

it's too late to

eject anyway .
White

I call ed Jim to unstow his D-ring at 35 000 feet
and he took his out at that time.

€Ot<IFIBEt<ITIAt

I pulled his

.CO~~FID[tqffAL

307

right arm lift up and I saw him pull his left one
up.
McDivitt

No, I didn't get my left one up.

I made three

passes and I said to heck with it.
White

I thought you got it.
finally got it up.

I struggled with mine end

I had both of mine up, and

you went on and completed the checklist .
McDivi tt

I knew Ed wanted me to get my D-ring out because
I was the guy that was going to have to bail us
out.

White

Again I'd come down with this big bag of stuff
resting on my legs up against the bottom of
the seat, and as we approached 35 000 feet, I
pulled this up in my lap, and just held it.

We

had agreed that Jim would do the ejection if we
had to, and I would just take the ride.
didn't W1stow my D-ring.

I

I just sat there.

That 's why I made pretty sure that Jim got his
out.
McDivitt

After we got on the main, we went through and
turned off all the switches, just as we were
planning on doing it.

I turned off all the

switches on the middle circuit breaker panel
except the ones on the last couple of rows.

I

€0141 IDEP:~TIAL

308

turned off the IMU, the rate gyros, the horizon
scanner, and those switches on the cent er pedas-·
tal.

I di dn't turn off any over on the left

hand side except the Landing Attitude Circuit
Breaker .
White

May I ask you a question?

Did you think it was

a shorter time from 7500 feet down to the
ground than i t was in the simulat or?
McDivitt

Yes, as a matter of fact I did.

White

I thought it was a considerably shorter period
of time .

McDivitt

Yes , we went from 5000 feet to the ground in
nothing flat.

White

You're not kidding--nothing like we go down in
that simulator .

I would be curious if we

have any data that tells us what our descent
indicator was telling us on our descent?
McDivitt

It was jumping around .

It was between 30 and

40 feet/second like it does in the simula tor.

White

It seemed like we went down awfully fast .

I

would already finished turnfog off everything
in the simulator with quite a bit of margin ,
but , of course , I did take the two blood
pressures in here.

I got all the essential

--CO~~FiDE~4TIA-L

309

switches off and started turning off nonessential
ones when you called out a thousand feet.
McDivitt

At a thousand feet I said to get ready to pull
out the water seal.

White

That ' s right.

McDivitt

You got the water seal out at about 700 feet?

White

I pulled it about 500 feet .

McDivitt

We pulled it lower than we usually do because
usually we're sitting there waiting to go through
a thousand feet .

White

Right.

McDivitt

We got down to about 300 feet, and I said
let's prepare for landing.

White

Right.

·€0-t~FIDft~fl.U

CO t'4 Fie, Et~Tl,1 l

310

7, 0 LANDING AND RECOVERY

7. 1 Impact
McDivitt

We got down to about 300 feet, and I said, "I
guess we ought to get ready for landing." But as
John Young says , "How will you get ready for landing
this thing? "

So as he did, we just sat there,

and we went through zero feet, I believe, on the
altimeter .
White

We hit very close to the water with zero on the
altimeter .

McDivitt

I think we hit at about minus 100 feet or so .

Any­

way, we really plunked down in the water.

We hit

ten times harder than I expected to hit .

The

altimeter was set at the lift-off setting.

I

didn ' t fool around with setting it .
vfuite

That 's an interes ting point .

They ought to give

you an altimeter setting for the landing area .
McDivitt

I don ' t think that would do any good .

I wouldn ' t

trust that altimeter within a thousand feet .
Whi t e

No, but I ' d rather have my reading on it that much
more accurate .

You've got a ship sitting out there

that could give you the exact a ltime+.er setting.
Here we had an altimeter that we hadn't set for

GO~~ FJOPiT I7't

, CONFID-E-WllAL
four days .
McDivitt

311

I hadn't thought about this .

The l a st time that altimeter does me any good is
when I go through 10 600 .

Well , I guess I use it

down to about five or six thousand when I ' m t r ying
to get the two- point suspension.

It ' s useful there ,

too .
Whit e

It was a good indication that we were coming up to
1000 feet and to get ready for landing, Jim .

McDivitt

Yes.

Like I said earlier, how do you get ready for

l anding?

All we did was sit there .

White

We 've got to stop throwing switches .

McDivitt

Yes , I guess so.

Whi te

I think it would be a good procedure to go ahead
and get an altimeter setting.

McDivitt

I suppose it would.

It only takes you a second to

crank the thing in.
White

Yes .

It ' s there .

We ought to use it ,

McDivitt

Well, we hit the water with a real wallop.

Then I

sort of felt that we went into about a 150-degree
roll to the left and were dragged backward .

We

were almost upside-down going through the water
backwards ,

Now, the CAG here saw us hit .

us from about 100 feet on down,

He saw

He said it looked

like to him that we came down and hit the water

COt<lflC,Et'<ITIAL

.COl>JFJE>ENflAL

312

and tilted the thing up over the top .

He said we

were going blunt-end- forward, but we were actually
tilted over the top .

We then did a p~tch_down

maneuver about 180 degrees in the water.

I was

surprised that we were being dragged backwards ,
but I got the sensation that I was going backwards
and almost upside-down .
White

I had t he kind of feeling that we went in and touched
over a little bit, and that's about all the feeling
that I got.

I don't believe we got dragged very

much.
Mc Divitt

No, but I just felt that was the way that I was
going.

I was being pressed back in my seat like I

would be if I were being dragged, and I was thrown
over to the left like I would have if we had rolled
over this way .
White

I got the left roll and I also think that I had
less water in my window than you did.
of spray and stuff.

I had a lot

Did you have solid water in

your window?
McDivitt

I really didn't look that closely .

I didn't look

at the window to see what I saw there.

I saw

nothing but water sloshing all over the thing.

We

really seemed to hit hard, harder than I thought

EO~◄ Flt,Et~TI.A"L

313

we would, but it really wasn't too hard.
White

To put everything in a comparison, the ride on the
retro was more than I expected , the drop to a twopoint suspension was less than I expected, and the
impact was not as much as I had experienced on the
drogue, but more than I had expected. In other
words, the biggest surprises I had in order of

~agnitude were the ride on the drogue, the impact,
and I didn't think that I had much surprise at all
in the two-point.

I was expecting a big jolt and

got not as much as I had expected .
7.2 Checklists
McDivitt

We'd gone over the normal Water Egress Checklist
in flight before we came down.

We did this in

that three-hour period while we were preparing
for retrofire.

I read it over to E:l while he was

stowing things, and we went over it in detail
again as to what we would do.

Also we went over

the emergency egress in case we had to do that.
So we had it fresh in our minds.
White

We turned everything off that wasn 1 t needed after
landing.

McDivitt

Ed had the Post-Landing Checklist and he read it
out to me--the things that I had to do.

The only

314

thing

that I didn ' t do was to take my helmet off

and stow it .

I did get my arm restraints down.

I

didn ' t put my drogue mortar pins in until I was
getting out , and I never did put my seat pin in .
It doesn ' t say on the checklist to put it in .
White

I put your seat pin in.

McDivitt

:lli put my seat pin in for me .

Now , we'd got all

the switches in the right positions, I think ,
except one .

I forgot to put my FDI to the OFF

position.
White

I think all other switches were all right .

All

our pyrotechnics were safed .

7. 3 Communications
McDi vitt

I talked on UHF. I talked with Omnibus; and I
finally was talking to Inkspot 64 , the helicopter.
I talked to him and I heard him, and we established
excellent UHF communications .

I heard Gus coming

through the auto cap two times, I think--very weak ,
almost unintelligible .

I think he was asking how

we were , or if they had us yet .

I kept making

transmissions in the blind to him .

I don ' t think

he was ever getting any of them .

Ed operated the

HF , and what do you have to say about that?
White

Okay.

I put the antenna out and turned the HF on ,

315
I went through one call, a.nd then I went through a
short count on the HF.

I heard nothing and received

nothing from anybody else .

5

This was about

minutes or so after we had been on the water that
we ac tually made the HF check.
even that long.

Maybe it wasn't

As soon as I got all the switches

where I wanted them, I went ahead andMcDivitt

I saw you put the antennas up, and you went ahead
and put in a transmission pretty quick.

White

Right,

I didn't make another check on the HF.

I hadn't been too impressed with the operation of
the HF up to this time, and things were getting
pretty busy.

Five or

recovery people on•
to that.

10 minutes later we had the
I guess we're going to get

I heard them say we had a helicopter

almost overhead,
McDivitt

They called just after we retrofired, I think, and
before we got to blackout--called and said that
they should have a helicopter over us in

5

minutes.

The

We didn't get any onboard data .

ground information that I got was, as I said, from
Gus.

Then right after we hit, Omnibus said, "I

got them in sight.

I'm 48 miles out on TACAN

radial..: ",something or otl-1.er.

So,

I figured we

-COt ◄ FIDE ► ffl A,b

316

were 48 miles from the ship. Well, anyway, I was
pretty sure we were 48 miles from the ship.

Then

I heard them calling back and forth saying the
helicopters were only 15 or 20 miles away, and they
were there in just a.bout nothing flat .

We had a

good status report on where everybody was.

They

were on our frequency, and I could hear them
dumping their swimmers into the water and standing
by and t hrowing smoke bombs out and seeing the

dye markers ; and we ha.d more activity than the
fourth of July.
7. 4

Systems Configuration
McDivitt

Okay , as we hit the water, Ed closed the inlet
snorket to make sure we didn ' t get any £umes in as
I punched the farachute .Jetti son.

Shortly after

that when we decided for sure that we wouldn't see
any fumes-~ve sort of talked about it a little bit
and I peeked out and I guess you peeked out .

Didn't

see anything but steam coming out of the thrusters
and then saw the dye marker out there-- I reached
up and re-opened the inlet snorkel.
White

That's right .

McDivitt

I put the recirc

White

Actual ly, shortly after we got on the water, I

valve at 45 degrees.

GO~~FID9-~llA~L-

317

noticed the acrid smell that we were to have for
the rest of the time we were out in the water.

On the ECS system I could actually feel the relief
that the pumps and the snorke1-open position were
giving us .

It did provide some flow.

I really

didn ' t think tmt the heat was oppressively hot,
to tell the truth .
McDivitt

No, neither did I.

Whi te

It vJS.S uncomfortably warm--I'll put it that way-and very stuffy, but I wouldn't say it was overbearingly hot.

It wasn't as hot as I thought it

was going to be in the spacecraft.
McDivitt

I thought the worst thing about the whole thing was
the smell.

Whatever was burning later was the

heat shield, I guess, because I went out and
smelled the spacecraft later on when I was onboard·
the carrier, and it smelled the same way.

This

terribly nauseating acrid smell was still all over
the spacecraft, and it seemed to be worse at the
heat shield.

So I assume that's what we were

smelling inside,
White

How was the control, Jim?

McDivitt

Spacecraft control in the water is lousy!
take out the motions.

I couldn't

The rates were terribl e

•co1qflf)fN·l~A-L-

•COl<IFI0Et ◄ TIAt

318

uncontrollable!
cal .
White

Why don ' t you discuss the electri­

It was over on your side there, Fd .

Well , there wasn ' t really much to discuss about
it .

I turned off the No . 1 and 2 squib batteries

and left No . 3 on and the main batteries on , and
everything performed as designed ,

We also had

carried along two adapters and about the time
Jim said , "Hey, where ' s my adapter?", I realized
where it was .

It was stowed underneath a whole

pile of trash on the right-hand side.

So we went

to Plan Bravo , which was our original plan before
Chuck Berry sneaked on the extra adapter on the
last day before the flight, which is a rather
sneaky thing because we'd agreed at breakf~et trat
morning that if the adapter were on the spacecraft,
we wouldn ' t kick about it .

But Chuck conversely

agreed that if the adapter wasn ' t on, he wouldn't
kick about it either .

We later found OUL that

he ran to Chuck Mat thews and-McDivitt

No , as a matter of fact , he didn ' t run to him ,

Chuck

Matthews said tra.t he decided that on his own .
Chuck Berry neverWhite

All right .

I 1 11 have to apologize to him because

I have been falsely accusing him ever since .

-EOt\lFI0~l'1tl>tl

319

Anyhow, we had an extra one on, and it was stowed
very neatly under a great deal of trash on the:
right- hand outside stowage box; and I felt that
we could more readily use the time of switching
back and forth .

So we switched the a eromedical

adapter back and forth, and with the microdot connector it was a pretty easy operational procedure.
I don't think we missed any radio calls, and I
think we got probably more blood pressures there

than one every 15 minutes.
McDivitt

Yes, we would probably get one every

5

or

6

minutes.
White

We were back on the carrier in 45 minutes, and I'm
sure we had two or three blood pressures there on
the water .

McDivitt

You even got the lightweight head-set on.

White

That 's right.

I very dutifully put the lightweight

headset on with my helmet off.

I felt better with

my helmet off, and I think you felt better with
your helmet off.
McDivitt

I felt a lot better with my helmet on and my visor
closed, because I didn't like the smell of that
stench there.

White

I was so hot over there .

I felt better with it off.

J3OMf10ENllAL

(O~~FIDEt ◄ TIAL

320

McDivitt

We did a lot of work when we first landed.

We

were fiddling all over and getting things out of
boxes and stuff like that. We probably did more
concentrated manual labor in those first

5

minutes after we got on the water than we had done
at any other time during the flight except trying
to get the hatch closed .
White

I think at this time I was completely drenched with
s weat .

I said it wasn't hot earlier, but with t he

combination of the suits and the fairly warm
climate that we were in, I was sweating pretty
heavy .

I looked over at Jim , and he was pr~tty

sweaty · too , I think .

7, 5 Spacecraft Status
McDivitt

We didn't have any RCS fumes .

We didn't see any

RCS colored smoke , which is supposed to be red and
purple or yellow or something like that .
see any fumes at all.

We didn't

I saw a little steam.

White

I saw steam.

McDivitt

I saw a little steam coming out of the RCS thrusters ,
and I was sure that there wasn't any RCS propellant
in those manifolds, because at the rate we were
gyrating around with that tight deadband on Rate
Command , if we hadn't burned all that fuel up by

COt'4FIDEt~TIAL

<IFIOEmr~r

321

then, we never would have gotcen it out.
White

But we turned the RCS thrusters off at about three
or four thousand feet.

So they definitely weren't

on.
McDivitt

That ' s right .

And we turned all the circuit

breakers off on the RCS thrusters , so they shouldn ' t
have been firing from shorts.

The prop valves had

been off at about 25 000 feet.

So we had everything

the way it was supposed to be, and we didn ' t see
anything leaking.
White

I'll comment on this window.

I saw the main chute floating right to the left of
us .

I think my window might have been a little

clearer than yours.
McDivitt

I jus t was going to comment on the windows.
window was terrible!

:rt,­

I couldn ' t see at all.

Remember the helicopter was hovering around in
front of us about 200 feet away and I never even
saw it.
White

You said, "Look at the helicopter!"

He was a lot closer than 200 feet.

He was right

smack-dab in front of us.
McDivitt

I never saw the helicopter.

I couldn't see

through the window.
White

I'd estimate he was not farther out than 50 feet
from us .

322

McDivitt

I had a couple of little holes right down at the
bottom where I could see swimmers down there , and

I could s e e the nose , but I couldn ' t see up at all .
We were talking about the main chute there .

I saw

the drogue chute floating down right next to it-drogue chute and the pilot chute with the R & R
can floating down right next to it .

coming down through about- -1et 1 s see .
our backs then , weren't we?

They were
We were on

We still hadn't gone

to two- point?
White

I don't remember .

McDivitt

I don ' t remember either .

White

I was so busy taking blood pressures .

McDivitt

W~ had the drogue chute and the pilot chute floating
down with us for a long time just off to one side
going do'Wl'l about the same rate .

I thought that

they were supposed to go down slower , but I guess
it doesn ' t .

I guess what probably happened was

we saw them at single- point , but when we went to
two-point , we lost sight of them .

Okay .

have any leaks that I could tell .

We had electrical

power.

I didn ' t check to see what the secondary

o2 pressure was .
White

No .

We didn't

I didn ' t .

Did you , F,d?

323
McDivitt

We turned off all our electrical equipment and
couldn ' t read the gages .
closed.

We left the hatches

We were in moderate seas, but I wasn't

about to open those hatches up and take the
chance of any water getting in that spacecraft.
So we elected to stay in the spacecraft until they
got the collar on, and kept all the hatches battened

down ,
White

Okay, we both discussed this together and decided
that the way we ' d like to leave the spacecraft
was in our suits, and we felt that rescue was
coming pretty quick.

We decided to go ahead and

stay in our suits.

I think this was a reasonable

decision.

et>r<4FIDEN I (Al

324

.•

McDivi tt

We both t ook our gloves off to get the t hings
out of the spacecraft that we wanted .

I left

my he lme t on and Ed left hi s helmet off .

When

we got ready to leave , we dec ided that we would
put our gloves back on , take our helmets off,
put our neck dams on , inflate our May We s ts , and
t hen get out .

That ' s what we did .

The sea

condi t ion was just like they sa id it was- - t hree
to four feet .

Three t o four feet in that thing

is like 2000 foo t waves to an aircra f t car rier .
We were bobbi ng around but we had a lot of
experience bobbing around before, so it wasn ' t
t hat bad .

I might add that the egress training

in the Gulf of Mexico really made me fe el real
confident when I was out there in that water
all by myself .
White

When we get to that training , I ' m really going
to give some gold stars out .

-COt\JFIDE~ilAL

eeNFIDEt~'fl·AtMcDivitt

325

Yes .

7.6 Post-La nding Act ivities
•

McDivitt

As I mentioned, we stirred around the cockpit
and got out a bunch of l.i ttle bi tty things that
we needed.

We did a lot of work but we were

doing all right.

We got awfully hot .

I guess

we really can't say much about the post-landing
activities .

It went long as we expected it to ,

just the way we want it to.

Ed , do you have

anything?
White

I think we've covered it.

7,7 Comfort
McDivitt

I was hot .

I think Ed was hot.

perspiring a lot.

We were both

I think we could have lived

in it for a lot longer than we did.
White

Yes.

Don ' t you?

Did we cover the point where they called

and asked what kind of rescue we wanted?
McDivitt

No, I didn't.

Why don't you?

I was just

plugging in the b,io-med connector and I heard
them call you.
White

We could either have a heliocopter pickup in
about 20 minutes or we could have a pickup by
the carrier in the spacecraft in about an hour

EO~FIDENfht\b.

~O 1\1 FIDEl~TIM

326

and 40 minutes .
McDivitt

To me it was very clear .

It took Ed a long time to decide -- about two or
three milliseconds .

White

That ' s right .

I felt that I knew my buddy well

enough and made the decision that we ' d take the
heliocopter pickup .

I saw that he was actually

on the radio at the time and he rogered the
decision .

So we waited for the heliocopter

pickup .
7 , 8 Recovery Force Personnel
McDivitt

We had good communications with the recovery
forces .

They were on our frequency .

We heard

all the transmissions that were going back and
forth .

Shoot , we probabl y knew more about the

recovery than anybody else around .

They got the

flotation collar in the water in a hurry and
came over and put it right on .

I saw this thing

around the spacecraft and I saw it start
,-

inflating.

I was really elated when I saw that

t hing pumping up .
White

I had the f i rst contact with the real live man.

McDivitt

That ' s right .

He looked in Ed ' s window to see

if we were alive , I guess .

C0~4FIDEt\JTIAt

327

White

Very good sight .

The best sight , boy , was

seeing that yellow thing around the spacecraft .

•

I guess I knew we were going to be able to file
out pretty quick .

7.9 Egress
McDivitt

As I menti oned ear lier, we had decided to go
out with our gloves back on and our neck dams on.
I stood up in rny seat , disconnected our survival
landing gear (rny other hoses were disconnected
so that I could stand up), inflated both of the
May Wests, snapped them together in the front ,
and I just jumped right over into the life raft.
I landed right on my can, just like I had planned
it.

It was so good to get out of there .

got out .
White

F,d

He jumped in too.

When I got out I actually leaped in before I
inflated rny May West and I think either you or--

McDivitt

I told you.

As a matter of fact, when we

talked it over in the spacecraft about getting
out , F,d said, "Aren't you going to inflate your
May West?"

And I sa~d, "Okay', and then he got

out without inflating his.
White

I was so happy to see that raft I jumped right

-CONFID.W IJAL.

€0t4PIDcl~T1Al

328

over the side .
7 , 10 Survival Gear
McDivitt

We didn' t use any of our survival gear .
di dn ' t pull it out .
where it was .

We

We just left i t exactly

I disconnected the l anyard so

we wouldn' t inadvertly pull it out .
7 ,11 Crew Pickup
McDivitt

As soon a s F.d got into the life raft a heliocop t er
come over toward us and I mo t ioned for Ed to
get i nto t he sling and go on up .
to .

He didn ' t want

He wanted to be the last man up and I

wasn' t going to leave my sinking ship .
Whi t e

He wasn ' t getting up with t he captain going
first so he went up last .

McDivitt

No .

Ed got int o the sling and got a nice pickup .

I got a Gulf of Mexico pickup .

He dragged me

out of t he water , bumped me up agains t t he
heat shie l d and t he spacecraft, but it was a
good pickup t hough .

Shoot , I was so happy to

be out there in that nice cold salt water
blowing in my face ,

I was dipping my hands in

it and slinging it over my head .
Whi te

Di d you notice the stability of that heliocopter?

COt~FIBEP.~+JAL

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I never knew they were so stable .
McDivitt

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Yes .

He must have had a good stabilization

system .

They got us picked up safe and sound,

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