[X] My Assistant

[dvandorn]

I discovered a while back that Eric Jones' excellent NASA website. the Apollo Lunar Surface Journals, has been incorporating links to MP3 files of the air-to-ground audio. So far, it's complete for Apollos 15 and 16, and I believe is complete through EVA-1 for Apollo 17.

Now, I grew up with Apollo -- I was born 10/17/55, so I was 13 in the summer of 1969. And, just the way the dates lined up, I was 15 years old when Apollo 15 flew, 16 y.o. during Apollo 16, and 17 y.o. during Apollo 17.

I took pictures off the TV screen of the moonwalks, and I set up a microphone from my little tape recorder in front of the TV set's speaker and recorded audio of the (progressively more scarce) TV coverage of the moonwalks. For several years I fell asleep at night listening to the moonwalks, memorizing details and allowing my subconscious to fly me to the moon in my dreams...

So, when I discovered the MP3s, it occurred to me that I could download them from their source and burn CDs from them... hehehehe...

I finished Apollo 16 -- every bit of air-to-ground from the beginning of Rev 16 (PDI Rev) until ascent and injection into lunar orbit three days later. A total of 32 CDs. And I can listen to them in my car as I drive to work... *big grin*...

I guess this is just a heads-up for any other Apollo junkies out there who might want to do something similar.

-the other Doug

[GregM]

So, the capsule lands in the deep blue south pacific sea. The air is fragrant. You are the frogman. You and your frogman buddies get the float collar on, and dingy inflated. You climb on the collar, knock on the hatch. The door opens, you stick your head in, and take a deep breath.....

Sometimes spaceflight isn't so glamourous!

I once read that it was real bad on the long duration Gemini flights. Lots of sweating, no cleaning up, no getting out of your seat, living in your suit for half of the time, don't even imagine going to the bathroom (it's that horrible) - all in the free space of a phone booth.


Major Matt Mason - Space Ranger, never talked about this

[lyford]

So, the capsule lands in the deep blue south pacific sea. The air is fragrant. You are the frogman. You and your frogman buddies get the float collar on, and dingy inflated. You climb on the collar, knock on the hatch. The door opens, you stick your head in, and take a deep breath.....

Sometimes spaceflight isn't so glamourous!

I once read that it was real bad on the long duration Gemini flights.  Lots of sweating, no cleaning up, no getting out of your seat, living in your suit for half of the time, don't even imagine going to the bathroom (it's that horrible) - all in the free space of a phone booth.


Major Matt Mason - Space Ranger, never talked about this

Yes, and I understand at times Mir could be worse than a gym locker room filled with old sweaty socks.... Imagine slipping the surly bonds of Earth and docking in orbit - the hatch opens - PHEW - and thinking "I got 3 more months of this air?????"

Though, according to Shannon Lucid, this reputation is undeserved. On MIR 17, NASA ran its own tests on air quality, and did find some formaldehyde and ethanol levels high... not sure how this relates to "human contributions" to air quality.

And don't get me started on the fungus!

Somehow, you never hear about this stuff when pundits discuss the manned mission to Mars...

[dvandorn]

So, the capsule lands in the deep blue south pacific sea. The air is fragrant. You are the frogman. You and your frogman buddies get the float collar on, and dingy inflated. You climb on the collar, knock on the hatch. The door opens, you stick your head in, and take a deep breath.....

Sometimes spaceflight isn't so glamourous!

I once read that it was real bad on the long duration Gemini flights.  Lots of sweating, no cleaning up, no getting out of your seat, living in your suit for half of the time, don't even imagine going to the bathroom (it's that horrible) - all in the free space of a phone booth.


Major Matt Mason - Space Ranger, never talked about this

Yes, and I understand at times Mir could be worse than a gym locker room filled with old sweaty socks.... Imagine slipping the surly bonds of Earth and docking in orbit - the hatch opens - PHEW - and thinking "I got 3 more months of this air?????"

Though, according to Shannon Lucid, this reputation is undeserved. On MIR 17, NASA ran its own tests on air quality, and did find some formaldehyde and ethanol levels high... not sure how this relates to "human contributions" to air quality.

And don't get me started on the fungus!

Somehow, you never hear about this stuff when pundits discuss the manned mission to Mars...

Yeah -- when they speak of the glories of exploring the Moon, they never talk about things like space adaptation syndrome, which made at least one guy on most every flight queasy enough to vomit. They never talk about the indignities of bowel movements in a capsule no larger than the inside of a Volkswagen Beetle, for which, according to Wally Schirra, the only way to proceed was to get entirely naked and leave yourself a good hour for preparation and clean-up. They never talk about less-than-palatable food, total lack of warm water and food while on the Moon, or struggling into pressure suits that are designed to fit so snugly that, until you actually pressurized them, the neck ring would bite into your shoulders.

Even on the ISS, they never talk about how the only drinking water temperature choices are lukewarm and sort-of-hot, or how the noise level in some parts of the station is such that it could cause permanent hearing degradation if endured for as long as six months at a time.

I always thought SkyLab was on the right track. Hot showers, a refrigerator and freezer for food, an oven and table-top heaters with which to cook their food (making available such meals as lobster thermidor and prime rib), and a nice, big open space to just plain have fun floating around in. Now that was flying in style!

-the other Doug

[garybeau]

What a great thread, you guys have an extraordinary memory for detail. I too was 13 in 1969 and watched and read everything I could get my hands on about the Apollo program. At one time or another I had read about most of these incidences, but completely forgot about them until now. I also had set up a camera and took pictures directly from the TV. I remember thinking at the time that this was a once in a lifetime event and that I had to somehow preserve this for the future. Who would have guessed that 36 years later you could get access to so much information with just the click of a button. There is far more material available with easy access today about the Apollo program than there was back then when it was happening.
But I still treasure those grainy photos I took off the TV because they bring me back to a very specific point in time.
Greg, I also have a couple of DVD sets from Spacecraft Films ("The Mighty Saturns" and "Apollo 15") and I agree with you they are well worth the money. There is a lot of footage there that I never saw before and the quality is superb.
But I do miss some of the commentary. I would like to find some footage of the
Apollo 11 landing exactly as it played out on TV with Walter Cronkite’s commentary.
If someone knows of a source where I could find that it would be greatly appreciated.


Gary

[GregM]

What a great thread, you guys have an extraordinary memory for detail. I too was 13 in 1969 and watched and read everything I could get my hands on about the Apollo program. At one time or another I had read about most of these incidences, but completely forgot about them until now. I also had set up a camera and took pictures directly from the TV. I remember thinking at the time that this was a once in a lifetime event and that I had to somehow preserve this for the future. Who would have guessed that 36 years later you could get access to so much information with just the click of a button. There is far more material available with easy access today about the Apollo program than there was back then when it was happening.
But I still treasure those grainy photos I took off the TV because they bring me back to a very specific point in time.
Greg, I also have a couple of DVD sets from Spacecraft Films ("The Mighty Saturns" and "Apollo 15") and I agree with you they are well worth the money. There is a lot of footage there that I never saw before and the quality is superb.
But I do miss some of the commentary. I would like to find some footage of the
Apollo 11 landing exactly as it played out on TV with Walter Cronkite’s commentary.
If someone knows of a source where I could find that it would be greatly appreciated.


Gary

I understand where you are coming from here. The Spacecraft Films products are without a doubt the best existing visual records of the Gemini and Apollo flights - but they are of course from an Astronaut's/Mission Control point of view. The great advantage of this is of course that you get to see and hear the mission as it happened uninterrupted and unfiltered.

Of course it however cannot reproduce the flavor of the moment that each person experienced viewing the events through the looking glass of the media and popular culture - which of course was all most folks had access to at the time. That is something quite different. It is this experience, however filtered and presented by the television networks, that we have the memories of. I would think that if you are looking to rekindle that personal experience, you might try contacting the television networks about their video records of their presentations of the Apollo missions. Although the actual television downlink of the missions are of course public domain, the television network's presentation of them, and the accompanying commentary, would I think be network property. Walter Cronkite = CBS.