Apollo 17

[llanitedave]

I could never get my head around how they could fold that lunar rover so tightly into an LM bay.  And then get it out  and unfold it again!

[Ronpur50]

If I remember right, it was during Apollo 17 that we looked up at the sky when leaving my grandparents farm to see a sight very similar the picture below.  We assumed that somehow, we were seeing Apollo on the way to the moon.  ( I was 6!) However, in the morning paper, we discovered we were not the only ones who thought that.  But they said it was Venus.  Oh well.  At least it got everyone looking at the moon and thinking of Apollo again.

As the photo a few posts above yours shows the Earth was a small crescent when Apollo 17 was at the Moon. Thus the Moon as seen from the Earth at the same time would have been the exact opposite that is nearly full.

Apollo 17 arrived at the Moon while the Earth was still rather full (gibbous waning) and the Moon, from Earth, was a waxing crescent.  But, from LOI to TEI, that crew was on or around the Moon for nearly a week.  By the time they left, the phases had reversed, the Earth was a slim crescent to the crew and us Earth-people saw a waxing gibbous, nearly full Moon.

Ron's picture, in terms of the Moon's phase, would be correct for sometime around LOI day.  Very much not correct for TEI day, though.

It was early in the flight, so it would have looked like that.  I am sure there must be an astronomy site somewhere that would show when Venus and the moon appeared like that in December 1972. 

[the_other_Doug]

Here's something you rarely see in these spacecraft images -- a close-up of the approaching LM ascent stage, where you can see the guy behind the window.

[Blackstar]

I could never get my head around how they could fold that lunar rover so tightly into an LM bay.  And then get it out  and unfold it again!

Have you seen the episode of Moon Machines? Go buy the DVD. It's very good.

They show the unfolding and upfolding several times, and it never looks like it will work to me. Some clever engineering there.

[Lobo]

The Challenger LEM looks like it has a lot more "tan" and some other colors on it than other LEM's, which seemed to be primarily grey/silver/black (orther than the gold film)  Did it haver different materials on it than other LEM's?  Or was that just due to lighting/photography conditions?

[the_other_Doug]

All of the LMs had some "tan" surfaces on their ascent stges, but the J-mission LMs had a little more.  Their paints were a little different, since they were designed to operate on the surface at higher sun angles.

The extra paint was a "nice to have" thing, anyway, as a bad paint batch resulted in a lot of that tan-colored paint shredding off of Apollo 16's LM, Orion.  And Apollo 16, due to its late landing, did get a higher sun angle on the surface by the end of its stay than any of the other LMs.

[the_other_Doug]

Back to some memories...

On the long coast back to Earth, Ron Evans took the final cislunar EVA in the Apollo program.

"Talk about being a spaceman!"

[Lobo]

Wow, I bet that really seemed "lonely" out there, with the Earth and Moon being so far away, and the Apollo CSM being your whole world there.  Unlike the feeling in LEO or on the lunar surface.

Was that the only EVA done in cislunar space?  Or did other Apollo missions do it as well?  And what was the purpose for it?

[Ronpur50]

Retrieving film from the SM science pallet.  And 15, 16 and 17 had the walk.  If I remember right, the Command Module pilot used the EVA helmet cover of one of the moonwalkers, because they only carried two on the flight.  Which is why the red stripe is there on Ron's helmet.  Also, on his back is one of the emergency packs from a PLSS.

[the_other_Doug]

Yep -- the CDR stayed in the left seat, at the controls to damp out any rates the CMP put into the CSM banging around outside.  The CMP went all the way outside and back to the middle of the SM where the Scientific Instrument Module (SIM) bay was located, and removed film and data cassettes for return to Earth.  (The SM was abandoned and burned up when it got back to Earth, recall, so any hard data like film had to be retrieved and brought into the CM.)

The LMP stood up in the hatch while the CMP went back to the SM.  It was a "buddy system" deal, where the LMP kept watch for tangling of umbilicals, etc., and to hand the film cassettes in to the CDR as the CMP brought them back to the hatch area.  It was a team effort.

The LMP wore his own visor assembly, brought back from the lunar surface operations, and the CMP used the CDR's (since the CDR didn't need it, sitting inside the CM).  The LMP wore his own OPS (Oxygen Purge System, the emergency oxygen bottle that at atop the PLSSes durng the moonwalks) and the CMP wore the CDR's.  The rest of the PLSSes were left on the Moon.

While the LMP's umbilicals were far shorter than the CMPs for the cislunar EVA, he had a longer tether available and if the CMP got into trouble, the LMP could crank up the oxygen coming from the OPS and go out to help the CMP get back to the CM, if need be.

Each of the three CMPs who performed this EVA (Al Worden, Ken Mattingly and Ron Evans, in chronological order) were struck by it.  The spacecraft seems to be hanging motionless in an eternal velvet blackness, the stars invisible unless you look away from the side of the Apollo and raise the sun visor.  The crescent Earth ahead and the gibbous Moon behind also seem to hang motionless in the void, and the unfiltered sunlight made it feel like they were stepping out onto a stage lit by arc lights.  Some of the guys, especially Al Worden on Apollo 15, found this awe-inspiring.  The late Ron Evans exulted in it, giggling and chortling and saying 'hi!' to his friends and family.  It was Evans who chortled, shortly after exiting the spacecraft, "Talk about being a spaceman!"

And these pictures were from the third and last time such an EVA was performed.  We've performed a lot of EVAs since then, but no more quite like this, surrounded by the great, empty vastness of space.

[Davp99]

2015..... I'll be turning 60 years old, and I'm just Grateful for All the Sights I have witnessed. Thank You for everything.  Our US Government tax Dollars & All who worked for and at NASA.

Dave

[DMeader]

The LMP wore his own visor assembly, brought back from the lunar surface operations, and the CMP used the CDR's (since the CDR didn't need it, sitting inside the CM).  The LMP wore his own OPS (Oxygen Purge System, the emergency oxygen bottle that at atop the PLSSes durng the moonwalks) and the CMP wore the CDR's.

I appreciate the details on the visors and OPS. I did not know any of that, and I love little facts like that. I wonder what happened to those items after the walk? Did they bring them home or jettison them?

[the_other_Doug]

The LMP wore his own visor assembly, brought back from the lunar surface operations, and the CMP used the CDR's (since the CDR didn't need it, sitting inside the CM).  The LMP wore his own OPS (Oxygen Purge System, the emergency oxygen bottle that at atop the PLSSes durng the moonwalks) and the CMP wore the CDR's.

I appreciate the details on the visors and OPS. I did not know any of that, and I love little facts like that. I wonder what happened to those items after the walk? Did they bring them home or jettison them?

There was a jettison bag tossed out at the end of the EVA, but I don't believe it included the visor assemblies or OPS units.  They would have had to keep the cabin depressurized, doffed the LEVVAs and the OPSs, packed them into the bag, toss the bag, and finally repress the cabin.  I don't think they went through all of that, they just tossed old junk they wouldn't need (like old empty meal packs, etc.).  They *might* have disconnected and packed up the EVA umbilical and tossed it, but I'm not certain.

I am pretty certain I've seen pictures of the LEVVAs from the later landing missions in museums, so I'm pretty sure they were brought back.

On the earlier landing flights (Apollos 11, 12 and 14) they launched from the Moon with the LEVVAs and OPSs, to support a possible EVA to transfer from the LM to the CM in case the vehicles couldn't dock (or couldn't clear the tunnel after docking).  On those flights, though, they left the LEVVAs and OPSs inside the LM to die with the LM as it crashed into the Moon.  They only started bringing them back, to support the cislunar EVA, on the final three flights.

One interesting sidelight -- the SIM bay was actually in development to fly on Apollo 15 even when that flight was still on the books as an H mission (45-hour spacecraft, 38-hour stay time, two EVAs and a rickshaw hand tool/sample carrier).  With the delay in flying Apollo 14, after the Apollo 13 debacle, the engineers told NASA management that the SIM bay was ready to fly on Apollo 14, and wanted to add it.  Al Shepard personally nixed the idea, not wanting to add one single untested thing onto his mission that could possibly have added complications.  Thus, Stu Roosa was forever cut off from the possibility of performing the cislunar EVA he longed to do.

[wbianco]

Hey Doug, just had a look at the Apollo flight journal - appears they only brought one OPS back with them from lunar orbit, which the CMP (Worden, Mattingly, Evans) wore during the EVA.  The LMP was on umbilical, but didn't have a backup source of O2 - so no ability to do get the CMP if necessary.  There's one pic of the LMP during the A16 EVA (taken over his shoulder) and it doesn't look like he has an OPS. 

As for the "why not," I think there was a healthy respect for the pressure (~5000 psi) in the OPS bottles.  Standard procedure to dump the OPS bottles to help repress the CSM after the EVA - then finish emptying them at the ed-of-day repress.  Which I would do too, if the alternative was to sit next to a lightweight high pressure bottle all the way home.....

[KEdward5]

Before the days of iPhones. A personal view of Apollo 17's launch!

[the_other_Doug]

Hey Doug, just had a look at the Apollo flight journal - appears they only brought one OPS back with them from lunar orbit, which the CMP (Worden, Mattingly, Evans) wore during the EVA.  The LMP was on umbilical, but didn't have a backup source of O2 - so no ability to do get the CMP if necessary.  There's one pic of the LMP during the A16 EVA (taken over his shoulder) and it doesn't look like he has an OPS. 

As for the "why not," I think there was a healthy respect for the pressure (~5000 psi) in the OPS bottles.  Standard procedure to dump the OPS bottles to help repress the CSM after the EVA - then finish emptying them at the ed-of-day repress.  Which I would do too, if the alternative was to sit next to a lightweight high pressure bottle all the way home.....

Thanks!  There are no pictures of the LMPs standing in the hatch taken by the CMPs, since the CMPs never brought a camera out with them to take pictures during the EVAs,  I had seen some paintings of the EVAs depicting both the CMP and LMP wearing OPSs, but I totally believe you in re the pressurization on the OPS bottles (and I was aware of the OPS dump to help repress the CM cabin).  Those suckers were pressurized to around 6,000 psia!

[the_other_Doug]

Here is Jack Schmitt on the way home, obviously still reacting to the message from Nixon which included the line "this may be the last time men walk on the Moon in this century..."

[the_other_Doug]

Before the days of iPhones. A personal view of Apollo 17's launch!

Exceptional launch film!  Especially the effect of the shock front from the engine blast reaching the viewing stands more than 5 seconds after engine ignition.

Was that super-8mm sound film, or 16mm sound film?  Or was the sound captured "wild" (i.e., on a separate tape recorder) and synced with the film later?

[Ronpur50]

It sounds like it is ripping the sky.......WOW!

[wbianco]

Here's one picture of the A16 EVA, from http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo16/lores/s72-37001.jpg, taken over Duke's shoulder (maybe a frame from the TV camera - probably).  But yes, none of the CMPs carried a camera, so no reverse angles. 

Schmidt talked in the A17 ALSJ about taking one of the EVA cameras back on the LM (supposed to be jettisoned) so they could take pics during Evan's EVA.  Appears they did but maybe only of Evans?