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SKYLAB 3

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFINGS

-- PRESS BRIEFINGS

June 29-August 8, 1973

VOLUME l

, J
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

SL-III Outlook - Mission Summary


Johnson Space Center
June 29, 1973
4:30 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Kenneth Klelnknetht, JSC - Skylab Program Manager


Lee Belew, MSFC - Manager - Skylab Program Office
Tom Hanes - NASA Headquarters

PC-4
SL-III PC-4A/I
Time: 4:30 p.m. CDT
6/29/73

PAO Okay, ladies and gentlemen. We have with


us this afternoon - as to - start on the extreme right. My
right. Mr. Leland Belew, Manager of the Skylab Office of the
Marshall Space Flight Center. Of course, Mr. Kleinknecht,
Manger of Skylab Program Office here at the Johnson Space
Center, and Mr. Tom Hanes of NASA headquarters. We'll start
with Mr. Belew and then Mr. Kleinknecht, and Mr. Hanes.
PAO Mr. Belew?
BELEW A short overview of the systems, as far
as status is - some of this may be a repeat, but as you know,
we had thermal problems, electrical problems, attitude con-
trol problems. As we stand to date, our thermal situation
on the overall Skylab, is essentially nominal as far as the
food freezers. We're down the in the range of zero or below
on all of those. As you know, that was a problem the day
that we had the crew coming back. Temperatures did get as
high as plus 19, and those are nominal at this time. Electrical
power system, - We're running at about 8.5 KW. Of course
we're coming down from the high beta as far as the sunline
to the spacecraft, and we will go lower. The power situation
projecting into Skylab-lll looks good. And the worst case,
which is over only a few days when we're down at the zero
beta angle, will still give us reserves in the range of from
around go0 watts to 1.5 - 1.2 kw, which is very ample for the
- plan. Of course, we were - we, that is the total of NASA,
JSC, Marshall and Industry, we're working on a module that
might have been required back before we got our solar array
deployed on the workshop to supplement the power, and as of
yesterday that - there was a decision to not carry that work
forward. That may have been reported to you earlier, but in
case it has not, I'm bringing that up. So we have cut that
backup work out of the program and l'm very happy to say that
we could do that because we assess that we do not need that
at this time. And, Just for instance, if the kind of reserve
on power going into Skylab-lll is equatable to - we could
lose as many as three charger battery regulator modules on
the ATM before we got even down to the nominal power loads.
We could go to four, at which would put us into a little bit
of a bind, but we do not assess that we'll ever get into the
situation - at most we would assess we might lose one CBRM between
now and the end of the mission. That's Just using the statistic
on numbers that one might put together. So in power, we would
say we're in good shaF&. As far as the Thermal situation,
the workshop, which has been running at the highest temperatures,
is running around 95 made 94 today. They're coming down -
the temperature is coming down as we are going down in the
Sun - in the beta angle. That's the Sun line to the spacecraft
SL-III PC-4A/2
Time: 4:30 p.m. CDT
6/29/73

angle. However, the crew would have been somewhat uncomfortable


had they been aboard over the last several days. However,
we could have lowered those temperatures a bit by putting
in operation our coolant loops into the - into our environ-
mental control system. It is I believe this has been stated
in prior meetings. It is planned to deploy another thermal
shield earlier in the mission. Hopefully, we will cover
a larger area - that is, cover a larger area of the exposed
workshop that was giving us a thermal problem, and that will
then get us in a more nominal range of temperatures, even
at high beta angle. In our control - in the control system
of the workshop we, of course, did have some difflculies at
the beginning of the mission in ma_ntainlng control due to
the off-polnting, in order to maintain the thermal situation.
And at this time, we have a rather nominal operation. We
have one - only one of the rate gyros out. There's three
in each axis and in the - the Z - and it's - X,YpZ, - Z-axis,
we have number 1 rate gyro ont. That was the case for the
last, almost three weeks, three and a half - four weeks. And
no additional anomalies have occurred in the control systems.
We have been able, as of the last days of the mission, to
put in some corrections into the biases on that system and
they are working nominally. We have not used TACS, that's
the gas that runs the thruster attitude control system, that
we were going fairly heavy into early in this mission. Early
in Skylab-l, too. And that usage has been essentially zero
throughout the unmanned portion. We'd expect it to remain as
such. We have been !ooking at an auxiliary system to take
up, and as we move forward in the unmanned mode, our confidence
is rising that - I'm hopeful that that will not be a require-
ment. If we did take it up it would be only on Skylab-IV and
we have quite some time to further analyze our systems. Now,
going into some of the data from the returned film on the
ATM, Bill Keathley did give a report this morning on that, but
further data has come in from some of the Pls. The one from
the NRL experiments, that's $082 B. We have word from Dr.
Tousey that he has developed some of his film and he's ex-
tremely elated over the results that he's set - sees today.
Now, that's Just preliminary, and with that, one would he hope-
full of seeing much more - along with positive lines. We
feel that the data returned on the corollary experiments and
the primary experiments, the ATM, will at least be equal to
if not exceeding what was expected of the mission. With that
I would declare from the spacecraft and orbital workshop, the
overall hardware point of view - from my point of view, on
that hardware that we're in a very positive GO situation all
the way from here through the end of Skylah-IV. Systems
SL-III PC-4A/3
Time: 4:30 p.m. CDT
6_29_73

have been extremely stable since the - since about two days
after the crew returned. And it was at that time that we
corrected the thermal problem in our refrigeration cooling
system. That wraps up the status and our projection as to
where we think the systems will go through SL-IV. Thank you.
PAO Mr. Kleinkneeht?
KLEINKNECHT Okay, as Lee pointed out, if we can identify
no contraints against launching Skylab-III on the 28th of
July, now, at about 6:07, I believe the time is today, central
daylight time. That may vary a few minutes, but before we
get there. KSC is in the process today of performing a flight
readiness test on CSM 117. It should be completed early
tomorrow morning, which is on schedule - to have the vehicle
ready well ahead of the 28th of July. However, we have no
plans to launch earlier than that. The 28th of July is a
good date from the launch site recovery lighting - from the
end of mission recovery lighting - from a standpoint of crew
work-rest cycles and so forth. We have no problems of any
significance that we've identified with CSM 116 after return,
from looking at the hardware and of course, we're continuing
to look at that spacecraft. We've also - you have heard
reports from the crew this morning. We have Just completed
an all day project debriefing, participating in that with
the crew. They have not told us anything of any significance
_ I don't think that you didn't hear this morning. And I guess
the most significant things that have come out of both of
these briefings is that the Skylab-I crew believes sub_ectively
that we are GO for 56 days. NOw , they don't say that based
on looking at data and analysis of medical data. They believe
and they feel - believe that their progress and readapting
and returning to l-g physiological baseline is progressing
well - -

END OF TAPE

6"
SL-III PC-4B/I
Time: 4:30pm CDT
6/29/73

KLEINKNECHT - to readapting and returning to i g.


Physiological baseline is progressing well. They're not
quite there, but they're almost there. I guess one of the
most significant comments they've made is they did this morning
is that, we'd probably ought to get more exercise during the
mission. We have deleted some items from the Skylab III stow-
age. About 180 pounds, we've added about 500 pounds of stowage.
So that's a net - or a shuffling about 700 pounds of equipment.
Replacement items I think we talked a little bit about them
yesterday, or failed items on board like tape recorders, water
heater elements, electronics module for the body mass measuring
device for such as that. Overheated items such as sensitive
film, magnetic tapes, personal hygiene items, and medications.
We've added equipment to be launched for experiments that we
did not do on - did not carry up on SL-II. And those that
we could not use because we had the solar scientific airlock
obstructed for S149. We're carrying up an adapter for SO63
so that by use of the articulating mirror of S019 we can look
to the heavens out of the anti-solar side of the workshop.
We're carrying an extra battery fo_ M509. Those batteries
were overheated, we've also added an multimeter, voltmeter,
olmeter combination device so that we can test batteries. We
believe that the batteries that are up there are all right.
We do know that we can test them, and if they test satisfactorily
there is no safetly hazards with using those batteries even
_ though they've been overheated. They're carrying extra film
for experiments and some revised restraints for the various
devices that the crew had to be restrained in. More in order
of lap belts. The crew readiness for Skylah III. They're -
medically, they're health is good. The prelimanary data that's
been reviewed by the PIs and the doctors does not preclude
at this time a 56 mission. And we're very optimistic, and
at this time, as I say again, they see no reason that we cannot
go for 56 days. Our health s_abilization program will start,
I guess by July 9th. It's a little soft as to exactly what day
that's going to occur on. Basic approach to flight planning is
going to be just like Skylab I-II was. Again, we'll have
a full flight plan. We may not do everything precisely as
originally published. We soon - we don't see any reason why
we cannot perform the overall intent of all the experiments
that are planned. And indeed, some that weren't planned
prior to now. We do intend to carry some simple science
demonstrations, and I can't define those in detail right now,
but we'll probably see some of these on TV as a part of educa-
tional programs. I guess, another thing that may be differeilt
in Skylab, quite probably be different than Skylab II as i
suspect that the crew will get some days off. This time we're
SL-III PC-4B/2
Time: 4:30pm CDT
6/29/73

not going to work them as hard. We had yesterday our pre-


liminary flight readiness review. Where all the JSC hardware,
we identified no problems with either the CSM or the hardware
that we're carrying up for launch date of delivery to the Cape to
support a launch dated July 28th. And that's leading up to a
headquarters flight readiness review at KFC on July 12th. On
summary, I guess, all indications are favorable for launching
on July 28th.
HANES Okay, the 56 day mission, we in the experi-
ments business hope will be much more dull than the SL-II mission
from a PAO point of view. From an experimenters point of view,
it proves to be a very exciting thing. It's a little hard for
those of us who are just engineers to understand why a solar-
physisist can get excited about getting twice as much data
as he got last time. But the fact is that they are excited,
as Lee Belew said, they seem to be extremely pleased with
the data that they're getting. And they have discovered with
the ATM some phenomena that appears to be new. Although,
everybody's being a little bit careful not to say that they've
made a grand discoveries. It's enough new to them that they're
very, very, anxious to get an extreme amount of data on these
phenomena and on the rest of those parts of the observing
programs that they haven't covered thoroughly and so we
had - we shot something like 17,000 frames of film on SL-II,
with the primary intruments we're going to have 45,000 frames
_ with us and I'm sure that the Pls are going to do their
very best to make a very carefnll use of that lot of film.
How you be careful with 45,000 frames of film I don't know.
But they're plotting and planning that now. For the medical
experiments, they should go approximately the same way they
did on SL-II. They have specific intervals that are laid
down which are part of the medical protocol. And those ex-
periments will be run at those intervals. The Earth Resources
System, we have planned 26 passes in the Earth Resources, we
had planned 15 for SL-II and we got ii data passes and I calibra-
tion path. We have some 18,000 frames of film available on SL-III
for Earth Resources. We expect to get very, very good coverage
to the United States with this particular mission. We have
taken we have also many foreign investigations, and unfor-
tunately we have a little problem with trying to get some of
the foreign investigations because as we now stand, the sleep
cycle of the astronauts with the noon at Houston makes it
necessary that in order to get some of the foreign investigations
you have to get them up at a different time. And we haven't
worked out exactly how to do this and we have to have them either
work late or get up early to do those particulars. We have
taken data, not to satisfy, but for 77 of the investigations.
If you remember some of our blurps, we had something like 260
Time: 4:30pm CDT
6/29/73

investigators for Earth Resources, so we have a long way to


go in the Earth Resources business. Some of the films are
turning PC-4B/3
SL-III out beautiful and this set of investigators are also __
beginning to be quite excited about the results that are coming
back. In the corollary area we have 8 new experime___ts, we have
S150 an X-ray mapping experiment by Dr. Kraushaar, and this ex-
crement is mounted in the instrument unit and operates after
the command module separates from the launch stage. He expects
to map half of the sky in X-ray frequencies that are lower
energy than any one has been able to do from space than
anyone has been able to do from space before. Our main reason
for this is that the instrument, in order to map at very low
X-ray energies has to be quite bulky. And the R large boosters
are the only ones that can get this size of an instrument up. So
this is an experiment that is exciting to X-ray astronomers. We
have aboard S160 the air glow photography experiment and we will
be operating that. I was interested to hear Paul Weitz say today
that he saw some thing that were strange to him in the air
glow phenomenon. So we'll be planning to get him together with
the doctor's packer to try to have them describe to him what
have him describe to them what they - he saw. And we would ex-
pect - there's a possibility that they - that he actually has
observed something that hasn't been observed. Although this
experiment has been conducted in one form on Gemini and - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC4C/I
Time: 4:30 CDT
6/29/73

HANES That he actually has observed something


that hasn't been observed although this experiment has been
conducted in one form or another on Gemini and Apollo. The
particle collection instrument of Dr. Hemmingways is
presently out of the airlock collecting particles and it's
to be returned when the astronauts from SL-III get up there
and then during that particular - that particular experiment
has two facets to it. He originally was attempting to collect
the very very submicron particles that there seemed to be an
awful lot of in the universe and recently has developed a
theory that some part of these particles are eminating from
the Sun. Now this is a little bit revolutionary thinking
and there are a lot of solar physicists that don't believe
what he's saying, however_ as Ken said we've made an arrange-
ment to take his instrument and point it towards the Sun even
though the solar airlock is not available to us. This will
have to be done on EVA and we have the equipment with us and
if all goes well we will be able to let him try to prove his
theory of whether some of the subaubtonic particles or sub-
micron size particles are actually coming from the Sun. We
have two biological experiments on this flight; the S015 human
cells, the effect of zero g on human cells which was taken
off of the SL-II will be flown on this flight, and the S071-
$072 circadian rhythym experiments will be flown on this ....
f-_ght. They were originally planned to be flown and these
are the mice and the vinegar gnat experiments. Let's see we're
flying the - we will be flying the two maneuvering unit
experiments. M_509 Dr. Witsctt or Major Witsctt. And _ the
foot controlled maneuvering unit of Mr. Hughes. And we will
also do some formal measurements on the effect of the crew and
their movement on the spacecraft and its stability. As you
probably know by now there was some discussion of the astro-
nauts running around the water ring disturbing the ATM - just
how much it disturbed it is a little bit in question right now.
But we have always had this experiment aboard the spacecraft that
is to measure how much man moves and then measure how much that does
to the spacecraft stability because there has been a question
in our minds - not in our minds - but in a lot of peoples
minds. Can you run large telescopes that take very very long
term fine pointing with a man aboard? Will the man's move-
ments disturb the telescope so that you can't operate that.
This particular experiment is supposed to get data to prove
one time or another whether a man disturbes the telescope or
not. And then we have the M555 Gallium Arsenide crystal
growth experiment which w'as "taTk'_n off of the SL-II because
it was heavy and we will be growing a Gallium Arsenide crystal
and attempting for this time to grow a crystal from a melt
SL-III PC4C/2
Time: 4:30 CDT
6/29/73

and through a vapor phase. And I guess the last thing I should
say is that this is the flight that gets the._._r_and that's
our most exciting of the student experiments. WeVre looking
forward to the spider experiment. Perhaps we should go ahead
and go to questions.
QUERY As far as the spider is concerned. Is the
health of the prime spider okay or (inaudible)
HANES Well, I'm sure at this point in the game
the health of the prime spider is fine. We haven't gone so
far as to select the exact two spiders?
KLEINKNECHT We have a lot of those - they only cost
35 cents (laughter).
QUERY Mr. Belew, one of the things I was curious
about and this goes back to the high beta angles and the
consequent rise in temperature because you're seeing sunlight
all the time. Why not say, keep the fans running during this short
unmanned period, or keep things circulating. Is it because
you're afraid that something might go wrong and it's just
better to cut everything off. You've got the power why -
BELEW (garble) high temperature unmanned we
went as high as i00 in the workshop. It gives us no prob-
lem - no problem. The fans are crew operated. If we
turned them on they would have to stay on. We don't have
ground turn-on, turn-off capability on fans. But we didn't
expect to go any higher than 97 degrees, which that's about
_-_ right and that doesn't give us a problem. So we went - we
took the right route. Don't run anything any longer than
you have to. Save them for when you need them. Then if it's
i00 degrees it doesn't bother you.
SPEAKER No.
QUERY De you have any comment on new phenomena
in connection with the ATM that you will continue to pursue?
Can you elaborate on that a little?
HANES Well, it's been reported to us that they
have observed two things that they had not expected to see.
One is a continuation and spreading of the granular structure
of the chromosphere on out into the corona. And they - I believ:
that this is the first time that they've noticed that. And the
other one is an appearance of bright dots or spicules[?] that
are associated with this granular structure that appear to
extend also out into the corona and appear to be high energy
or hot, small hot spicules[?] that extend farther than they had
expected before. That may not be - sound like a really fan-
tastic discovery. Of course, they axe being a little bit caref I
they don't want to run around saying I discovered something
until they really know it. These things are things that appear
to be different from what they expected.
SL-III PC4C/3
Time: 4:30 CDT
6/29/73

QUERY Mr. Cassetti, I guess from MPAD got my


interest today when he went through a kind of schedule on a
launch to launch kind of thing where it was 64 days from
launch of SL-II to launch of SL-III worked that out to SL-IV
and that would leave you with an unmanned period of about
8 days between SL-III and SL-IV. Just how serious a possibility
is that?
BELEW Well there's been some proposals that
say why not send the SL-IV crew up before the SL-III returns.
I think our flight control, our network, and the frequencies
we have won't allow us to do that. We canlt tell which vehicle
we're talking to. We certainly could fly it with a very short
interval. I see no reason why we couldn't make something
like 64 days again. As I mentioned yesterday there is some
interest in - some science interest in a comet that would
say widen that interval too. We haven't selected the (garble)
for SL-IV yet.
QUERY Well would you say that the short inter- al
is a strong possibility or fairly remote at this time or
how would you
KLEINKNECHT Well I say it's a strong possibility that
we'll get the program completed at the same time that or
by the same time that we said we would when we were going t_
launch on the first of May.
SPEAKER Ken, if I may, the help of the systems
would have driven us to short intervals and today that doesn't
look llke a driver.
BELEW But there's more than that. We get more
out of it when it's manned and when it's unmanned. Now you
might get some objections out of some of the solar scientists
that are getting more data because there is unattended time
and if shorten the program they actually lose some data.
QUERY How much if you do decide that you would
llke to have it end about the same time as you would have if
you had May I - about how long a gap would that give you
between the second and third mission?

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-4D/I
Time: 4:30 p.m. CDT
6/29/73

QUERY that you would like to have it in at


about the same time as you would have if you had May ist.
Then about how long a gap would that give you between the
second and third missions?
HANES You can add that as well as I can. I don't
have it on the top of my head.
QUERY How long would they hope to end the - -
KLEINKNECHT Well, we were going to finish on the 23rd,
of, I think originally on the 23rd of December. It's almost
irrevelant and it doesn't make - very open on that end.
QUERY If I recall the dates on the
comment. It was in the later part of December in the early
part of January. Is that correct? Is there someone who
wants to move it back so that you would be up past New Years?
BELEW That community of scientists would, yes.
KLEINKNECHT Some of us would be very happy to get their
Christmas off for a change for the first time in about 12 years.
(laughter)
BELEW Perihelion of the comet is the 28th of
December.
QUERY I'm sorry, what?
BELEW The perihelion of the comet, when it comes
the closeest to the Sun is the 28th of December. It's a
very exciting comet to the community.
QUERY But, it costs money and there isn't a lot of
that around.
BELEW We haven't tried to add that one up.
PAO Well, if you have no more questions,
gentlemen, thank you very much. 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning
people, Skylab III crew.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

SL-III Prime Crew Premlssion Press Conference


Johnson Space Center
June 30, 1973
9:00 a.m. CDT

Participants:

Captain Alan Bean, Commander


Dr. Owen Garrlot, Science Pilot
Major Jack Lousma, Pilot

PC-5
SL-III PC-5A/I
Time: 9:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

PAO Good morning, we'll get started now.


This is the final premission news conference for the second
Skylab crew. l'm sure most of them are familiar to you,
but we'll go through the introductions. From your left,
the Commander, Captain Alan Bean, the Science Pilot Dr.
Owen Garriot, and the Pilot Major Jack Lousma. Then we'll
go directly to questions. Arthur Hill.
QUERY There has been a lot of talk about exer-
cise and what kind of recommendations tell us what your
viewpoint is on the exercise and how you plan to get more
of it if you do indeed plan to do more of it based on the
findings of the first Apollo crew. First Skylab crew.
GARRIOT I think the general impression that we
have at this point is that exercise is a very good thing. _¢_
Fortunately we've all felt - the three of us have felt that
way

view
all
program

flight.
that
along.
for
is what
Now we
And
a good
we've
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we want
can actually
pursued
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it only
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point
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be
when
even
exercise
reinforces
we're
our
in
a little
\
more quantitative about the amount of exercise that we might
want to pursue. Pete produced on the order of 3000 watt-
minutes of work a day during the time that he was there. And
on the bicycle ergometer that's for, as an example, 150 watts
for 20 minutes. And that sort of exercise is something that
is fairly comfortable, a comfortable level. It's an amount
I think all three of us are in the habit of exceeding on
our average daily workloads at this time. And I would expect
that when we're in flight we will continue to produce on an
average of at least that amount.
BEAN Yeah, I think Jack Lousma is more in the
habit of exceeding this than the rest of us. He exceeds it
by about 3 times maybe, so I don't know.
QUERY I understand that you've only met informally
with the dlscussion-wise with the first crew, and you're
going to meet with them, I think it is Monday. Will that
give you enough time to retrain in any areas that you have
to, or have you already been getting feedback, and if so
in what areas?
BEAN Okay, we've sort of worked this several
ways. One was on a day to day basis, we read the transcripts
when we could. And that was pretty at the first of the mission,
towards the middle of the mission we got behind and we then
read it rather sporadically, and tried to keep up with what
you all wrote in the papers hoping that you'd pick out the
points that were good for us too. So we worked that problem.
Day to day we would receive some comments from the Capcom
saying "Say I noted the alignment of the EREP", for example,
SL-III PC-5A/2
Time: 9:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

"is over in the lower right hand corner." And so we'd go to


our simulator folks and say, "How about changing the alignment
of the EREP now to the lower right-hand corner, so that we
can practice that way." When an experiment like S054 door
decided to get pinned open, well we would go to our simulator
and have it pinned open and operate that way. Now sometimes
we went back and forth, because we learned to operate without
solar panels on the side of the vehicle. And then when the
guys pulled them out, did a beautiful job, then we had to
change back the other way. But essentially in a way we
kept up day to day. Okay, when they came back then we got
together with them sort of informally and shot the breeze and
I talked to Pete for quite a little bit. On mostly things
like - what do you think we ought to do different? Because he
knows how we were trained before he left because we were
all training the same way. So we sat down and talked and
he said I think you ought to quit doing this, you ought to
start exercising more. We'd talk about for example, letts
take the exercise thing for a moment. I said, "Well how
long do think we ought to do it?" And he said, well, he
about the 3000 watt-minutes, and we talked a little bit more.
And he said "I think you ought to have about an hour and a
half a day." And then we talked some more. Finally he said
"you know I think it would even be better if we tried to
break it up if possible into two 45-minute periods." He even
brought up the point, he said "you remember back in Apollo 12,
we always sort of had a full feeling in the head most of the
time. And we thought we had a cold and probably did, but
we weren't really sure." And then he said, "You know," he
said, "l'd get that feeling during the day, maybe on the
ATM panel." He said, "I'd go down and get on that bicycle
and I'd ride it for about 25 minutes or so and it would go
away." He said, "I don't really understand it, but I do know
I felt a whale of a lot better when I exercised." So discussing
it we finally decided that the best thing we can do is try
to exercise about two 45-minute periods a day, and we're
trying to write that into the flight plan. That plays havoc
with a lot of other things that are worthwhile too. So some
days we get two 45-minute periods. [;ome days when we're doin
M092, 171, we might not get that. We might just do that
protocol, which takes 25 minutes, an_ then at the end of that
maybe pump the bike for another i0 or 15 minutes, and then
maybe later in the day do it. And we might find out up there
too, for example Jack, he may need it twice a day at 45, and
Owen may need it once a day for an hour. But what we're
going to try to do is keep our mind on that sort of thing.
Now that not only included discussion of that nature on the
SL-III PC-SA/3
Time: 9:00 a.m. CDT
6/30173

--" exerciser, but we talked about EREP. Let's take that for _ \
a minute. We have, the way we trained for EREP is this way_ _-_\
We have a simulator over there that operates much the same "
as the sighting system used in space in that the pictures of
the targets move beneath you. On a certain time schedule _
\\
you try to track them, try to zoom in on them, and you try
to point just at the right place at the right time, and _"
\
operate the controls at the right time. And it turns out
when you begin to do that, you don't do it so grand. But \
after a while, at the level of training that we're at, we
think we can do it pretty doggone good. Okay,that's what
we've been doing. We know before flight, there was a lot
of discussion about whether or not we ought to take an airplane
T38, and go fly over the actual sites themselves. In fact /
we've got a T38 out there rigged with a similar site to the /
one we use in space in the back seat. Not quite as good /
because we didn't have the money to do it, but it is pretty /
good. So the question is should we do that, too. Now Pete, /
and Paul went out and did it before the flight. We decided
not to do it. We said that takes 2 training days to do it. /
We'll just keep training like we are, we'll find out what
happens up there. The first thing we did was call them up an_
ask them what they thought. Paul Weitz said it's ten times
better from the airplane than anything we've ever seen, we
recommend that you do it. Okay, we said well it still take_
2 training days. Let's wait until they get back and talk
with them some more. They get back, we talk, and finally
they say, after all the discussion, they convince us that
we really ought to go do it. Jack and I are setting aside the
4th and 5th of July to go out and fly our EREP sites in those
airplanes. So essentially what we've done, and that applies
across the board, is just one right after another, take the
things that we think are could be difficult or could be
important to change our training and train them as soon as -
and change them as soon as we can. We're briefing over at
Pete's house tomorrow night. And we're going to sit around
there and probably spend 7 to ii or 12 talking about some
other things that could affect us. Monday, the approach we're
going to use, which I think is an excellent one, and it
was thought of by Pete, Joe, and Paul, is I'ii get with
Pete, and Paul will get with Jack, Joe will get with Owen.
We'll split off and we'll just go around to different simulators.
We'll go over to the, let's say the OWS trainer, and we'll
walk around that thing, and Pete will say, "Hey you notice
over there, that's where you got the vacuum stowed. We found
that was a poor place. We kept it over there." We'll take
SL-III PC-5A/4
Time: 9:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

- that vacuum cleaner then and move it. Then he'll go over
and - in other words we'll use the environment of those trainers
over there to walk through the training situation and try
to get up to speed to the level that we can to where they
were at the end. Let's say for example, he says move the
vacuum cleaner over there. And we say to ourselves, mentally,
we still like it here. We're going to move it over there
and start in space that way until we hope to pick up as
much as we possibly can where Pete left off, where Joe left
off, where Paul left off, and start from that place. And with
that we hope we can get in tune to doing these experiments
and doing life on orbit a heck of a lot faster. So to answer
the question, we're trying all we possibly can to bring
everything into focus on a day by day basis so that when we
launch we start from where they left off as best we can.
QUERY AI, what barriers human or mechanical do
yOU Owen and Jack see to your flying a 56-day mission or
longer if you wanted to? And on May 15, did you three think
you'd be sitting here now?
BEAN First one. I don't think there is any
barriers at all at the moment. And it looks even better,
of course, than it did before Pete flew for us going 56 days
or longer, depending on how that works out. I think, personally,
I think the great - the main challenge in Skylab is a sort
of a self-dis_pline one. Not physical from going that long
6r _-d_anical from going that long. I think you're in a
closed environment. I think you've got a lot of work to do.
A let of it is repetitive. A lot of it is rather not - boring
is not the word but not as exciting as some other things /
to do. And in order to operate properly up there, you're /
going to have to keep the scientific attitude. You're not ,
only going to have to do the job, but you're going to have /
to be thinking at the moment how to do it better. How
should you build a space station, 5 years from now, better? //
What can you do about the shuttle when you come back in - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PCSB/I
Time: 09:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

BEAN mission five years from now better. What


can you de about the shuttle when you come back and say this
ought to be a change that's worthwhile so I think the biggest
challenge is to keep that attitude on a day to day basis for
a long period of time. I think we can do it. I know that's
my attitude. That's what I'm going to be thinking about
every day when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed
at night - I know from talking to Owen he's done that all
his life. And Jack's a Marine. He doesn't quit doing any-
thing he starts. So that's my thinking and of course our
chances right now of doing this are fantastic compared to
any other time in the whole evolution of the Skylab program
and it'll be better tomorrow but let me let Owen and Jack
say something too about it. Because they've got a personal
thing.
LOUSMA What was the second part of your question,
Jules, oh, May 15, obviously yes we're going to be sitting here.
In fact it wouldn't hurt our feelings at all to think we might
be sitting here a little later than that. I don't think there
are any human or mechanical barriers at this time for us
going 56 days and as AI said I think the fact that Pete came
out as well as he did is a plus for us. I think there were
those who thought that perhaps that he wouldn't be in as good
shape as he is now. So I think that we're even more confident
now as a result of Pete's flight that we can make it and
that we'll be here May 15th.
GARRIOT I don't think that we appreciated all
the problems that were in front of us, at least I didn't on
May 15, the first day after the workshop launch and had you
told me also that the temperatures were going to rise 20, 30
40, or 50 degrees that 2 out of 18 CBRMs were going to quit
and 4 others were going to become very sick and that the
full magnitude had been presented to us. I think we would have
been less optimistic than we are today by some considerable
amount but it seemed as the story unfolded that every new
difficulty that was encountered almost at the same time several
potential fixes were also conceived and as it developed each
problem had it's own fix or fixes available and surely enough
they all developed right on schedule and all the problems
were over come. Now on the 15th I wasn't pessimistic but it
may have been that I didn't feel the magnitude of the problems.
LOUSMA Jules, I misunderstood your question to begin with
there obviously but I've expressed this thought to someone else
before is that Skylab is a new way of operating as far as
launching manned spacecraft is - are concerned. We previously
of course had always launched a couple of unmanned ones and
we worked the bugs out and we sent the men up and well we
SL-III PC5B/2
Time: 09:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

didn't have that luxury with Skylab and so there were a lot
of things that had to work right for Skylab to get up there
and get going and get to it so that we could operate in it.
And I guess I was always a little conservative in my thoughts
about whether or not I was really going to get up there and
everything was going to work right and so when it got up
there and there were a few problems well I was still at least
as confident after it was up there as I was to begin with
that at least it was in a good orbit and most everything was
working right and if history repeated itself which I was
hoping it would why good Yankee ingenuity was going to come
through and the great space team was going to work together
and pull this one out. So my feelings weren't any different
I guess May 1 to May 15 but there some new facts run in the
ball game some pluses and some minuses but obviously every-
bodys confidence grew about the first of the following month.
And right now it's riding higher than it ever has before.
QUERY I wonder gentlemen if you could talk a
little about how you plan to handle the after effects after
56 days at splashdown?
LOUSMA Vertically.
GARRIOT Do you mean in the first few days?
QUERY Well, I mean the first few hours. I'm
thinking now what all of us saw as that last crew came out
after 28 days and I'm trying to see what your anticipation _ _ .
is once you double that time. _ _ _ '_
GARRIOT Well, I think starting down through re-_I-__,_
entry even through the deorbit burns we will be carefully _ k
monitoring our own reactions to the presence of acceleration "\_C
for the first time in 2 months and we will be carefully oh- " "_
serving ourselves to make sure _hat we are responding more
or less normal to these effects and once we're on the water
I think we'll take things a little slow and easy. We will
be checking our own heart rates and if necessary we'll have
the apparatus all ready out to check our blood pressure.
We'll probably sit up very carefully at first to make sure
that our orthostatic tolerance is where we think that it !
should be, we're not about to faint. And my guess is we'll !
be fairly conservative about this and if we do have any !i

doubts about our abilities to withstand normal erect stature /


and be able to walk about normally we'll discuss it with /
the doctors and decide what our action should be. But we /
fully expect to be able to walk out normally and feel in good /
health and conduct our medical experiments as we would do /
prior to launch. But I think we will go at it slowly and /

carefully and conservatively. ///

/
/
SL-III PCSB/3
Time: 09:00 a.m. CDT
L
6/30/73

QUERY Could you tell me how much training you've


done now on the deployment of the new sunshield and where
that's going to shake out in the Flight Plan as things look
now?
LOUSMA Yes, Art. We've deployed the twin boom
sunshield several times in the water tank over at Marshall _
Space Flight Center and we feel we're thoroughly familiar _ _
9
with deployment of that mechanism and we feel that we can do ,
it with no problem at all. We also are carrying a parasol ',
similar to the one that's up there now, and we are throughly _ _f
familiar with those procedures. We feel we can do either \
Job equally well, and that we can be successful by either
means. We are going to continue to do some training within
the next few weeks here in Houston_ in the one g trainers,
and polish up the procedures a little bit primarily in the
area of stowage, and that sort of thing. However, the actual
deploymeny went very well. The times that we did it we didn't
have a failure on doing it and encountered no problems in
doing it. So we're confident that we can do either the twin
full sail or the parasol with very little extra training.
BEAN You might say something else on that.
Thinking about it as an EVA task, the actual doing of the
deployment looks like a fairly, not simple, but not a particularly
complex task. It looks like the tough part of it is going
to he this, we've got a lot of parts. Some of them are in
duplicate. For example the poles on the twin boom sun sail,
we've got a couple of extra poles. So while you're assembling
a total of 22 poles, if one of them dropped, you got it made.
Now we got a couple of other parts that we only have one of.
If you lost them, you couldn't put up the sun shade. So we
said, we've got two choices. One is you take up two of those
parts, so if you drop one, you get the other one out and use
it. The other approach to the problem is let's make sure
we don't drop two of them, and in doing so let's just say
to ourselves we're going to hold them in our hands and not
drop them. You do like we've done everything else in space
flight, that we wanted to be positive of and we eliminated
single point failure. So the things that we've done in
stowage for example is every one of those parts, we've got
a tether on. We've got a tether on ourselves. And so that
part is never untethered, and held by hand until it actually
is tethered to ourselves. And we hold it undo the tethered
and so you've got let's say 2 points of contact. One if
you accidently let it go, which you don't plan to do, it is
still tethered to you. And then you put it some where and
tie it down, and then you remove the tether. So essentially
we think we've got the problem licked in that we're going to
SL-III PC-hB/4
Time: 9:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

keep all the parts with us through this non single point _,\
failure technique. And then we're going to operate the _
deployment in a non hurry mode because we know we got plenty _
of time. Our total EVA time to do this and to put out the |\
ATM film and to deploy the F149 experiment, we're guessing \
now, is about 3-1/2 hours. If i= took 4-i/2 hours that
would be okay. We did lunar surface operations with limited /
quantities and back packs for 7 hours or so. We've got almost
unlimited quantity, so we don't have to hurry. We can do /
it right and that's the plan.
LOUSMA May I also point out we're all equally
trained at doing the Job. A1 participated in the initial
developement procedures at Marshall before Pete left, And
Owen and I have been working on it also. So we've got plenty
of back up capability as far as personnel onboard to do
the job is concerned,
BEAN Right now the thinking is at but it
isn't firmed up yet, and it will probably await some thoughts
by management and by Pete's reccomendation° And also it
will await some thought when we do our flyaround as we get
there, do some TV of the present parasol, You know that
even though the thinking is that we will deploy this boom -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC5C/I _=_
Time: 09:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

BEAN present parasol - you know that even


though the thinking is we'll deploy this balloon it's still
an alternate to deploying another parasol or leaving the
present parasol if it looks good enough there. Our present
thinking at the moment is we'd do it with the EVA where we
replace the film on day 4. Now whether that actually occurs
in flight, I mean before we launch, we don't know. We will !
know after the flyaround. We're prepared to do it then. We're!
prepared to do it any other time that turns out to be the best
time.
QUERY AI, I take from that that you and Jack
are going to do the first EVA and also what about - I think
you have two others scheduled for the flight and who's plan-
ning on going? Will all three of you get a chance to get
outside like the first crew?
BEAN Yes. The answer is yes, to the last part.
The first part, the first EVA, Jack goes out and operates
around the ATM and Owen is in the area nearest the lock or _ _,f_
the pass area as we call it and so on the first EVA, Jack and _I
Owen would deploy the twin pole sunshade through the ATM and
then put out the S149. Second EVA Owen goes out to around ,
the ATM area. I work with him in the FAS and Jack is inside _.
The third EVA l'm out doing the ATM work and Jack is in the J
FAS. So we all get two times out. Twin boom would be deployed
on the first, under present thinking, and that's all I can
think of.
LOUSMA Well, that's the way it was originally
set up. Owen and I were going to be out on the first EVA
anyway and the twin pole just came along recently and AI being
the good guy that he is decided to let Owen and I just go
ahead and do that as part of our EVA. So nothing has really
much changed EVA-wise, except that we're looking at putting
out the twin pole on the first one.
QUERY If you had to replace the parasol with a
new one. How long does it take from jettison of the old parasol
to complete installation of the new one?
BEAN I don't know the answer to that. We have -
I have gone over and looked at the parasol and partially
deployed one of the old ones. I've not practiced jettisoning
the old one. Or going through a time line to deploy the
new one. We've got that put towards the end of our training
cycle. Once again to see what decision is going to be reached
on what we do and then if it turns out that decisLon is made
to do that is the primary one, I'ii probably do it 5 or
6 times and I'll know then. But right now I don't know. My
guess is from listening to some other more knowledgeable
people, also I could probably ask Pete and he'd have a good
SL-III PC5C/2
Time: 09:00 a.m. CDT
6/30/73

idea, Paul, Joe. My guess is it's conceivable it could be


Jettisoned Just before sunset and then you would be around
on the dark side of the Earth, you could put the new one in
and put it out near sunrise. Now whether that's true or not
I do not know, but that's what some that are more familiar
with it than I am are saying.
PAO If there are no more questions let the
photographers have a couple of minutes. They want to get
some shots of the crew with the model. So everybody please
do not rush up here and let them have a chance. And then
we'll start the individual interviews. Thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
o.- -

SKYLAB NEWS CENTER / / ///_//

Skylab III Premlssion Science Briefing - ATM


Johnson Space Center
July 26, 1973
7 :39 am CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Thomas E. Hanes, Director of Experiments,


Skylab Program Office, NASA Headquarters
William C. Keathley, Chief, ATM Experiments
Branch, MSFC
Dr. Robert M. MacQueen, High Altitude Observatory,
PI SO52
Dr. Richard Tousey, Naval Research Laboratory,
PI S082
Dr. Guiseppe Vaiana, American Science and
Engineering Inc., PI SO54
Dr. Edward M. Reeves, Harvard College Observatory,
PI SO55
Dr. James Underwood, Aerospace Corporation,
Co-lnvestigator S056
Bill Pomeroy, PAO

PC-6
SL III PC 6-A/1
Time 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

PAO Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. At


this time we will start our briefing on the preliminary
results we've getting from Skylab program. And, before
I make the introductions, I want to remind you that we will
have transcripts of this available by sometime tomorrow -
at least portions of the press conference should be tran-
scribed and available for those who want it - And can be
picked up here. Beginning at my right, we have Tom Hanes;
Director of Experiments, Skylab Program Office at NASA
Headquarters. Next we have Bill Keathley - ATM experiments
Branch at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Then,
I hope I've got things in the right order - Doctor Robert
MacQueen of the High Altitude Observatory, Principal Investi-
gator, and Guiseppe Vaiana of American Science and Engineering -
Doctor Tousey of the Naval Research Laboratory - and
Ed Reeves of Harvard College Observatory. Doctor Underwood
has not arrived yet, but we do expect him this morning.
And at this timep to set the stage for what we'll be listening
to this morning, I'd like to introduce Tom Hanes.
TOM HANES Good morning. As you probably all
realize, the reduction of the data and the analysis for
scientific purposes is going to take many years. What we have
today is not a technical report but a report on the first look at
the data that the gentlemen have gotten back,and I hope
some amount of feeling toward the scientific impact of what
they are seeing, at this time. It is a preliminary report. We
have, are going to have with us today, some very distinguished
scientists and they all have something to say to us. They
don't have very much time, hut we'll go through this and I
have got - myself picked up a sense of excitement among many
of our investigators. And I'm looking forward very much to
this - this meeting today. I hope you all get something out
of it - that we feel that we're going to get out of it. With
that I think I'ii get out of the way and allow them to talk
BILL KEATHLEY Well, I'd Just like to make a few intro-
ductory remarks. During - during SL II we had several press
conferences at Houston, during the course of SL II. You
might have detected a certain amount of caution expressed by
some of the comments you heard from me and the other people,
the Pl's. The point was that - that caution was the result
of - of - of the fact that we didn't have our photographic
data back yet. We had indications that the instruments were
performing well, producing the data. How we have that data.
And we - we have tangible evidence therefore of the instruments'
performance. And as a result we can throw away that caution,
now, and say positively that those instruments worked extremely
well - met all of our expectations and, in some instances,
exceeded those expectations. Now that the data is there, is
pos - proof-posltlve that the instruments did perform extremely
well.
f
SL III PC 6-A/2
_ Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

KEATHLY Another few introductory remarks. As a


result of the fact that we do have that data now, we can now
claim certain firsts, if you will. There's a whole series
of them. Some of the more important ones I'ii Just enumerate
quickly here. This is the first time solar instruments of
this quality have ever been flown in an orbiting spacecraft.
The first time a large complement of solar instruments with a
wide range of spectral coverage has ever been flown on a
single platform and pointed at a specific target simultaneously.
The first time instruments of this quality have ever corrected
data that - this quality data over this period of time -
over an extended period of time. The first time man has
ever operated instruments - solar instruments - in orbit.
And the one that really impressed me was the first time man
has ever repaired an optical surface in orbit. I'm
referring there to the fact that Pete went out and removed
a string from the SO52 coronograph occulting disc. This is
a very delicate operation. It's a delicate operation on a
bench in a laboratory. And it was successfully done. And
I think it was most impressive. And particularly from the
standpoint that it prevented a significant degradation of
the subsequent data from that instrument. The - it is the
All of these things sort of add up . It's the first time
-- that high quality instruments have ever been mounted on
one spar concentrated at one solar target -

END OF TAPE
A

SL IIl PC 6-B/I
Time 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

KEATHLEY -that high quality instruments have ever


been mounted on one spar, concentrated at one solar target,
accumulating data scientifically over long periods of tame.
And that in itself is a big step forward. The third point
that I wanted to make was that somewhat similar to the one
Tom Just made that the data you are going to see is this
data that came off of SLII. Many, many secrets hidden within
that data have to be extracted, interpreted. The data has to
be correlated from one instrument to the next - coordinated,
correlated. Iteratious have to be made and then certain
conclusions can be drawn. That takes time and I expect, during
the course of the next few weeks, months, even years_ that these
concluslons will be generated. And when they are_ they will
be appropriately announced. But the analysis of the data,
the interpretation of the data, is a very time consuming thing.
I guess what I'm really saying is the day your re going to see
the data there may be some speculated points made. But,
primarily, the data is the thing that we concentrated on
today, not the interpretation of that data. _._
MACQUEEN I would llke to tell you a little about
the experiment SO52, which is a white light coronagraph. This
instrument observes the solar corona from 1.5 to 6 solar radii _v A_
from sun center. That is it begins observing a half radius
above solar llmb. The spatial resolution of the instrument
is 8 arc seconds approximately. That resolution is comparable to
_that that can be achieved from the ground during solar eclipse
\depending upon the aEmospherlc conditions. We hope that -
rior mission - that by examining the solar corona on a

egular the
deduce basis,
three that is day by day,
- diRenslonal hour
structure byof hour, we could
the corona and
from that information understand the geometry of the coronal -
forms, the relationship of coronal structures to features
on the solar disk, understand the evolution corona with
time and begin to understand the nature of outflow of
material in the corona which comprises the so - called
solar wind. From our first look at the data I think we
will be successful to a large degree in all of these
objectives. On SLII the instrument obtained 4,315 photographs
of the corona. In addition we obtained TV images followlng
a Jamming of our camera. At the end of SLII a new camera
was installed and it's been operating during the unmanned
phase of the mission tests. Our first impression of the
S052 data is that it's outstanding. In fact, our feeling is
that the quality of the data is - fulfills our every expectation.
In fact it exceeds it. For this we are of course indebted
to many people, not the least of which are the various
engineering teams that have participated in the construction
of our instruments initially beginning almost i0 years ago.
Ball Brothers Research Center in Boulder and to the
Marshall Space Flight Center for the integration and putting
SL III PC 6-B/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

together of all the ATM's. Further, it goes without saying we


are all aware of the stories during SLII that the success in
obtaining the observation is due to the ingenuity and the
expertise of the astronaut crew and also, and no small part
of the dedication of the flight control team at JSC. I think
the best solution we can give on the kind of data that we have
on SO52 in which I wish to illustrate for you is that our
conclusion is, not surprisingly, that the corona is a n_.n._c
d
be_._t. That is the corona changes much more than we would have
expected, pre-mlssion, based on various models of corona
structures. We see changes - dramatic, large - scale changes -
in the corona on a day by day basis_ even an orbit by orbit
basis. The explanation of how these changes come about remains
a detailed interpretation.

END OF TAPE
SLIII PC6-C/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

- even by orbit by orbit basis. The explanation


of how these changes come about remains in detaied interpretation
which will confront us in the next several years. Like to
illustrate the data that we have obtained, with four slides
which show the corona roughly four days apart during SLII.
If we could have the - the first slide which was made on the
29th of May. Hey, could you try to focus that Just a little
bit please? This is the corona on the 29th of May. The -
the picture that you see is a result of scattered light by
free electrons in the solar atmosphere. These are a series
of occulting disks. The black area which provides the artificial
eclipti of the sun acts like a moon and a brown solar eclipse.
This is a calibration wedge in the center of the picture
and if you could focus on those lines in the wedge, I think
you would have the best success. Thank you. Now the next
picture, if we could go to that, is from the corona four days
later. You see, obviously, the dramatic changes that occur even
over that time scale. The next photograph is still yet
four days later, is numerous fine scale phenomena in these
pictures. This pictur e obtained on the 5th of June. And
then the next picture, which is four days later yet, you see
again the dramatic change in the character of the structure
of the corona indicating the changes in the overall structure
of the magnatic field of the outer solar atmosphere. If we
could go back to the preceding slide, please. Backup one.
Thank you. The one - several points of interest on this and the
last slide, one is here a very wel ! defined dark region,
which we have coined the phrase corona void. This is a new
phenomena which we have seen on the SLII data. It indicates
that there are regions in the corona where there is a relatively
total absence of free electrons, and the only coronal material
that remains is that of the F-corona or the Zodiacal light.
And this will have the interpretation of these coronal voids -
will have a great deal of impllaations of our understanding
of what is meant by the so-called background corona. If we go
to the last slide again now - might point out to you this
thing, which is the scattered light due to the small white
thread which Pete Conrad removed, as as Bill Keathley alluded, and
you can see that its manifest itself with scattered light
out into the solar atmosphere and would have caused a substantial
degradation of the data when the coronal forms appeared over that
region. Can we have lights, please?
SL III MC 6-C/2
Time: 7:39 CDT
7126173

Now in conclusion, we are impressed with the bewildering array of


corona structures that are present on the mission, We feel
that the data are is of sufficiently good quality that we will
be able to deduce the three dimensional of the corona during
the period we are in operation and answer the questions
that are allouted too. And in sum I think that our basic
conclusion is that in appearance the corona is now less dynamic
a subject than other solar phenomenon. And this I believe is
our most important preliminary results from the S052 experiments.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 6-_/2
Time: 07:39 CDT _.

VAIANA I'm Dr. Vaiana. I'm reporting on the


results of the S054 experiments on board the Skylab. From
what I've seen so far of the data, from our own experiments
and from what I've heard from the data of my colleagues the
_- scientific
7-26-73 results from the ATM promise to be the source of __.)
many exciting new discoveries. Our film that has been
based on a spatial telescope is capable of emitting X-rays
and by rejecting all of the visible light and all of the
other radiation. This way we're able to get essentially
what am ougts__i___pf the Sun in X-rays, which is repre-
sentative of a picture of the Sun of the hot "portion of the
solar atmosphere. This outer hot ray of the Sun is called
the corona. It has a temperature of - in excess of a
million degrees. And it is characteristic of these X-rays
Just as the yellow light is characteristic of the familiar
6 thousand degree layer that is in the troposphere. And
although it can be observed at several wave lengths,X-rays
is one of the other fundamental waves of the solar corona -
The same solar corona (garble) visible light chat is observed
by the S052. Except that we are more prone to see the portion
of the corona on the disc, because there is no interference
from other light of the photosphere. Now, from the time of
the first observation May 27, our instruments has worked
flawlessly. And SLII has given us only Just a taste of the
results we can expect from the coming two missions. In order to
- grasp the significance of some of the individual things
that one is trying to find - from which to find an answer one
must keep in mind somehow the overall picture of what we are
trying to do. And one could phrase it as saying that we
ultimately want to understand the use of play between the magnetic
field and the solar plasma on the Sun, as Dr. MacQueen has
outlined. The magnetic field, which is a result of internal
current on the sun - We know that a (garble) on our - actually,
which is the actual mechanics for the development of that
magnetic field. But we concede the fact that on the overall
solar atmosphere, and the problem of which constitutes - partlcu-
larily how the portion which constitutes the corona is somehow
peeling the two before it - and the interplay between the
magnetic field and the plasma results in shorts and in f_are
events and what is called active - region formation and evolutlon.
It also results in the rough changes in the solar atmosphere
which is associated with the ii year cycle. As I go to the -
outline some of the results I would llke to show you one slide of
the previous things that you would have to compare with the end
results. The result of that activity is somehow connected with
the first variety is the result of 10 years of development in space
and several generation of instruments. You can see some of the
early rockets from 1963 out to 65 - 68 - to 1973. And the 1973's
are our latest rocket flight. I would like to show you next
slide, the ATM results. That's the very first sequence of the

_ very first part obtained from the ATM. Twenty-seventh - the


late hours of the 27th of May and it shows you in the full glory -
the range of activities that we can find (Garble).
". J

SL Ill PC 6-D/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

I
VAIANA It is difficult for me not to embark on
some personal recollectlon of when we were with my colleagues_
out waiting for the fllm that would come out from the and be
developers v hands at that time. And somehow_ we were all a
little bit scared, Though_ we certainly didn't know what to
expect in detail. And this kind of tension was broken when the
image started to come out and we suddenly realized the full
impact of what we flnally see. What we had seen_ as you can see
from the previous pictures of the corona (garble) before. But,
as you can see_ the plasma filllng the magnetic field group to
eome extent_ but is a dlfferent sort of thing. It is a thing
that somehow with this high revolution sensitivity seems to be
a whole panorama. Now_ Itm not going to go into the details
of the various things that you are observing and that you -

END OF TAPE
st _A

SL III PC 6-E/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

VAIANA -Now l'm not going to go into the details


of the various things that you are observing on that (garble)
derives some active regions to filament (garble) on the south
and the associated structures to the very important on the
- what will turnout to be a very important observation I
think from Skylab. Those little bright points that you see
present throughout the disk of the sun, particularly the
presence at the pole is a totally new thing on ATM. The
presence at high (garble). Together with the fact that they
can be identified as being a little by polar regions. If
you put together those two things one can see - that one could
say, at least, the study of those regions is going to be quite
important for the (garble) for the solar cycle. The point is
that the edging on the solar cycle - the fine intense of the
activity of the sun to the activity is the fine sense of those
active regions which have the bright portions so that you can
see of this and the present solar cycle (garble) the fact that
those active regions are kind of (garble) and there are other
regions that are forbidden to them during certain portions.
Well, those little bright points which are piece of corona of
the sun are certainly highlighted therefore they are quite
anomalous in their positionLand somehow this is a fact which
will have to be explained b_ solar cycle theories. There is
.-- one other very crucial and _efinite impression one can gather
from looking at photos of t_is kind. That what I call - What
I would define as the fact that the quiet homogeneous corona does
not excess any more. We can't see any phase of it. All of it
is very highly structured. If there is any quiet corona is that
there is going to be no corona hole - those black regions that
you see out there but even there you see quite a bit of structure
both at t-he lens and inside it by covering the surface there also.
So that concept of the quiet homogeneous corona which of course
anybody new to that could be abandoned but not to that extent.
I think that what is going to replace it is the loop-form structure
of everything that you can see in the corona regions as well as
the fact that all of (garble) activity which we call corona has
to be associated with - directly or indlrectly with activity on
the sun. Now another very important thing quite unique for ATM
that is totally and completely open (garble) Can I show the next
slide please2 Is the fact that ATM has the capability of looking
sequentially at things and £herefore looking (garble) has been
pointed out several times. Here is a dramatic change on one active
region i0 hours apart, roughly three seen times. You see the region
rotating because of solar rotation. But you also see
quite dramatically the change not only in intensity but
also the change in structure which is more important of
the region. Change of structure means that the plasma somehow
changes - the plasma (garble) changes position (garble) and is
sensitive to associate it that with change in the magnetic field
and seems that visual information which can be gathered the magnetic
field of the solar corona other than through direct means llke that,
with a few scattered observations which can be done at other
wavelengths.
SL III PC 6-E/2
Time: 07:39
7/26/73

Then here is a visual way of displaying those changes. Now


you understand that in order to do the physics of regions such as
this one does not see them in a real sense. There is very
little way that one can do real physics of the (garble). And
that is what I think is going to come out from high resolution
results. Now let me go to the brief but very direct point. You
will recall on the 15th of June that word over the loop at the
mission control center. I would like you to know - to be
the first ones to know that the pilot is the father of a genuine
flare. And this all good - surrounded by the flare (garble) how-
ever X-ray photomultlplier on board of the Skylab. Next slide
please. (garble) of that photomultiplier on top and underneath
it is (garble) total intensity from the display model that the
astronauts were using. I apologise for the smallness of the slide
and you can see it is quite confusing but you can certainly see
the increase - the various (garble) increase (garble) flare and
another one showing that before that first big Jump in the (garble)
was stating some of the observations so we made observations prior
to the flare and then from the big Jump, a little bit after the
big Jump (garble) the flare was still going up and the astronauts
started the ATM on the flare program and we have very good obser-
vation of that (garble) and the decay phase and the localization
of the bright point which might in fact turn out to point out the
(garble) for the flare. Let me show you in the next slide. Okay,
._ this is the H-Alfa flare. Again I apologize for the quality. It
was hastily put together from (garble) Island Observatory - It
shows the H-Alfa, the brightening on the flare and you can forget
about the - all of four features. Just look at one of them. Now
with the same orientation and roughly with the same scale the next
slide shows the loops which are overlooking, which are seen in X-ray
if you want those brightening again outline the plasma and this shows
the flare before - I sorry - it shows the active region before and
the active region after. You can see that there is - despite every-
thing one might have expected a visual change in the overall con-
centration of the active region before and after. That is not a
general rule but that is certain to investigate. And the exposure
time of the - those photos out there is about 16 seconds. In the
next photo I'm going to show the sequence of Just four very, very
short exposures which cannot be shown on a 16 second exposure I'm
using will be moving out. Very, very fast exposure. The first
one is 1 second is the brief flare of localisation. And the other
three show the bright spots of the flare in 1/16 of a second exposure.
There is a dynamic range of Just in time of the exposure that is
taken between the (garble) light and this one is the effect of
(garble). Then down on the left side is a peak of the flare and
the decayed portion is the - exemplified in the right one. On the
other roll the surface brightness changes by something in excess
of a couple of thousand during that phenomonan. I think that in
conclusion one can say that we can - we now know what we before -
and forget regarding the performance of the ATM experiments (garble)
_ experiments in particular and I think we can look forward to SLIII
and SLIV with great confidence for scientific (garble) results.

END OF TAPE
SL lit PC6-Z/1
7-26-73

Time: PAO07:39 CDT Could we have the llghts? __--_'_ --


PAO Dr. Tousey
TOUS EY Dr. Reeves
PAO Oh, Dr. Reeves
REEVES I want to spend a couple of minutes on
two experiments, the first is an experiment which was carried
aboard the Skylab, the 22-H-Alpha telescope. These two telescopes
were put on - onboard SkylaD co gulde _ instruments with
very narrow fields of view, namely the - particulary the Harvard
and the NRL instrument. Two very pr,ecise targets on the solar
disk because the field of view of those instruments are rather
small. The telescope_ hydrogen-alpha telescopes, are not a new
development, they are very common from the ground, provides
monitors of the sun in the light of hydrogen. They show
most of the features in the lower part of the solar atmosphere -
the chromosphere which is formed around i0 or 20 thousand degrees.
They do not show pictures of the outer part of the solar
atmosphere, the transition region and the corona, were the
temperatures are much higher. Could I have the first slide
please7 Thank you. The H-alpha telescopes, there are two
onboard, now that you Just got the lights on. There are two
H-alpha telescopes onboard for redundancy. These are - both
Vgive video images of the sun to the astronaut and one of the
telescopes, which is referred to as H-alpha number i, is provided
with a photographic camera which records an image of the
sun with varying kind of revolutions and is used for post-data
analysis for all of the experimenters on ATM. This picture
here shows a photograph taken near the time of the solar flare.
That Dr. Vaiana was Just mentioning. It shows the full solar
disk and down in the lower righthand corner you will see
what is left over of the flare about one hour later. We
are extremely pleased with the quality of these photographes
in that they provide a time consistent set of data, which
is much better than what we can get from the ground. They
provide over the period of operation, the fraction limited
perfect operation for the size of the telescope, one odd second
pictures usually every minute or four times that, for a long
, duration periods of time and could be used for the studies
in their own right. May I have the next sllde please?
_-_oth of these telescopes are provided with video zoom. So
that the astronaut can get a magnified image of a small portion
of the sun. The erosshalrs are aligned to the Harvard and NRL
instruments precisely using the sharp llmb of the sun, and
then those crosshairs are used to point the whole cluster of
ATM experiments at selective features. And here you see proof
positive that the astronaut did in fact precisely locate the
Harvard and NRL insturements at the solar flare. This is a
picture that was taken precisely at the time

F
C_
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73 I
REEVES of the ATM data secquence on the solar fla
.- SL
that Dr.
PCVaiana
6F/2 mentioned earlier. And you can see the
the structure thatTs there; one arc second, the chromospheric
network, the quiet regions surrounding the solar flare and
down in the lefthand corner_ an old decaying active region
which had been followed previously ifor studies by the - by the
ATM. This telescope was - both of these telescopes were
build under Harvard connectlon_ but they were built by the
Perkin-Elmer Corporation, for Marshall Spacefllght Center
and I think it certainly exceeded our expectations for the
quality of H-alpha records which_ are hope about this week
due to be distributed and released. Thetis all I wanted to
say there_ could I have the lights again please? Now the
other experiment the main one I wanted speak about today was
the - is the Harvard experiment S055, which differs from the
other experiments on the ATM that it is not photographic
experiment. We do not rely on film. Our instrument is photo-
electric. The data is recorded in dlg_mS_tape _orders
aT_dum_to the ground every revolutlon of the spacecraft_ so
that we were not quite so Jittery and nervous at the time of
film development, some of our colleagues we had the - although
we had some of our own difficultles, different than film
development. We did have assurance throughout the mission
-_ that our instrument was operating beyond our best expectation
what we could reasonably of expected to get from instruments
performance. .The resolution of the instruments, the ultraviolant
instruments looks that those wavelengths is below the ultravlolant
part of the sound do not come through earth atmosphere, has
these observations can only be conducted from above the earths
atmosphere. It observes from 300 to 1350 amgstroms. The wave-
length range in which most of the atoms and ions in the outer part
of the solar atmosphere_ the chromosphere, the transistion
region and inner corona have there strongest lines. Lines
that are formed between i0,000 degrees and 1 or 2 million
degrees. The instrument can either stop at a given feature
and scan its complete spectrum for an annalist of pravatures
such as temperature and tenancy_ or it can sit on a number
of lines, seven lines which are distributive in height over the
solar atmosphere and build up a picture of the sun -a so called
picture of the sun, every5 minutes. Could I have the next
slide. What we have done here is to take digital data and
convert it into a quasi - photographic form because this is
much easier to talk about and reams of numbers. Here you
see an active region, one rather unspectacular_ I thought,
active region that was observed - this is a reproduction or a
photographic construction of the intensity as seen in the light of
magnesium i0_ that's magnesium with nine of it electrons stopped
off. And that particular ion is only formed at temperatures

f
SLIII PC6-F/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
_- 7/26/73
REEVES of about two million degrees. So where
we see white or light in this picture we know that intensity
is coming from a region that only exsist at temperatures of I

two million degrees. You see these magnificent loop structures


which some of loop structures have been seen before by
the AF (garble) instruments in rocket flight, but we have
never seen anything llke this in the ultraviolet because
the resolution was Just too large. Here we have a - you can
see the resoluation element by the oeassional missing spot
in the data, 5 arc seconds about 3000 kilometers. And the
resolution elements of previous instruments was just too
big to allow this fine scale structure to be seen. See these
beautiful loops were the corona material is constrained by
the magnatlc field to be in bundling rather than a uniformally
distributive. The movement of these displays with kind -
are immensch interesting for these to show the changing magnatlc
field patterns on the sun and these can be seen down to
time scale as low as - 5 arc minutes. Five arc minutes of time.
The repetition rate when we are taking these kind of photographs.
Now the next slide. Here we see a projection against the sharp
solar limb of an active loop prominence which is formed from
iron 15. Fourteen times ironized again only present
at temperatures around three million degrees and the picture
here is a hit bloteher because the account rate is extremely
f_ low. One or two counts in the - from the disk itself on the
lower lefthand corner. The quiet sun up in the top righthand
corner of the quiet corona, again a very little contribution
from iron 15. But these magnificant constrained magnetic loops
where the hundredeths of times enhancement in the local density
of a plasm of 15 times ironize iron. The structure here
of course, will be closely compaired with that available
from the other ATM insturments because there in lles the power
of ATM. Not just an observation in a single llne by a single
experiment, but the capability of all these experiments then
to go back and put together the best elements of there particular
types of observation into a consistant pattern and really
try to understand some of the physics of what is going on.
Could I have the lights please.

END OF TAPE

f
SL III PC 6-G/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

REEVES I Just wanted to mention a couple of


other things, briefly. What we've seen here is going
from previous resolution at Harvard of around 20 - around
30 arc seconds to 5 - we've seen all kinds of new structure -
features we didn't expect to see, with a crispness we did
not expect to see either. Sensitivities are - of scattered
light are both better than we predicted them from laboratory
testing. We see time changes with - with every kind of
name we look at. We have one scan which goes across the
flare with 5 seconds of time resolution. And again we see
large changes in the structure of the active region with
time. One type of observation we even have which we never
even designed the instruments for. We've been able to look
at the two limbs of the Sun and various parts of the Sun to
see rotation. We've looked at the (garble) once every
27 days at a low rate of 2 kilometers per second. And you
can look at the Sun - the east limb and the west limb by
looking Just on the edge - the hairy edge of some of these
lines. You can see the difference in velocity from one
side of the limb to the other. This gave us great faith that
the instrument could be used to make some velocity observations.
So we turned it on active regions and have in fact, for the
first time, seen velo - what we think are velocity changes
shifts in whole large areas of the Sun in lines of the
transition region and the corona which have never before
been seen in this part of the spectrum. Well, I won't bother
giving credit to - because I think Bob tried to cover that
in his part of the talk. Again, merely ending with the fact
that the - both the astronauts and the experiments them-
selves all worked out extremely well on the SL II mission.
We did get a very much, once-over lightly view of a large
number of solar phenomena. And - but we're very far form
having completed the objectives of the mission. Because
now, having had a quick peek-a-boo at a number of things, we
have to go back and do a lot of hard work, a lot of detailed
structures of a few detailed studies of a few number of
subjects. And we've got to pin down some of these things
in much more detail. And we look forward to doing this on
SL III and SL IV,
PAO Dr. Tousey?
TOUSEY The results that I shall show you mark
the culmination with me, personally, of more than 25 years of
work which can be divided into three phases more or less, starting
with V2 rockets and small rockets. We developed simple
instruments for observing the Sun's extreme ultraviolet
spectrum from 1946 until the late 50's. The second phase
started in the late 50's and continued into the late 60's and
is still going on. And this is the development of more
- sophisticated instruments that do much more detailed obser-
vational work on the Sun than those early ones. And it was
SL III PC 6-G/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

these experiments that were developed in that period that led


to the ATM experiment. They iare, so to speak, develop -
developmental models of the ATM experiments, we have flown,
which was started in the third phase in about 1966.
So, these - we really have three experiments on
hoard - represent a real culmination of a very long period of
development. And I think it's perfectly obvious that
they have recorded by far the best results we've ever
seen, both in quality and in quantity. And I hate _o sa[
so? but, I sometimes think that with these experiments we
have reeord_d---_mBr6-_-T_atlon a,,d _=_ o ar or-

mation..than everything We did before, rolled fbg_her._"_ffut


that isn" t -q ulte'--true. _'_d_i_{_'ece r__' t_ h"_e been
done if we hadn't been engaged in a long developmental program.
The first experiment I'm not going to show you because I covered
it in the first press conference that we had at the - at the
Johnson Spacecraft Center. But I should mention it. This is
the TV system that shows the at- science astronauts and image of
the Sun in the extreme ultraviolet. A rather crude image,
something llke the one that Dr. Vaiana showed you in
X-rays, but one which cannot possibly be seen from the
ground except by relaying it from the spacecraft. And this was,
indeed, done in SL II. We had nice TV pictures to look at
of the Sun's image - showing where the interesting extreme
ultraviolet and X-ray emitting regions were. The two instruments
I do want to talk about are our e_treme u_pee_z_he_io-
ra____h._h_h photo graph__an_ _ifferent
_t;um lines, images of great detail from other instruments
and I simply want to point out that we are not duplicating
them - we're covering different spectral ranges and our
images, when compared with each other, produce a much better
picture of what goes on the the Sun as a function of altitude
up through its outer atmosphere. And could be governed with
a single instrument. The other is a spectrograph which is
not so easy to explain. I think what I'll do now - I happen
to have gotten - this one on the (garble). In - in most of
the NASA presentations that we made we've used vlewgraphs. So
I automatically made vlewgraphs. But apparently - I don't
know whether NASA has graduated or whether (laughter) you
people are not up to speed yet. Perhaps I'll walk over a
little closer so I can see what I'm going to talk about.

END OF TAPE
6-11
Time: 07:39 CDT

7_26/73

TOUSEY Probably look better ig we extinguish !


the lights but I see a man with a camera there and perhaps
he has infrared film. This is simply one image of several
hundred obtained with one exposure of our S082B instrument.
From here it looks as though the revolution was not very
good and I attribute that to the man that made the viewgraph
not the one who is projecting it. In any case this is the
sun seen in the light of singly ionized helium. The same
as 304 angstrum line that is sometimes called the Lynan
Alpha-line of helium. The sun shows many different aspects
and characters characteristics in this line. In the first
place we see all this spottiness, and this has been known for
along time because it has been cleaned in calcium K emission, but
it looks different in helium and there are different areas
that are characterized by this spottiness or chromospheric
network, hHaving a rather different appearance. In places
it's brighter and more diffuse in character. As has been
remarked before today, the poles are different. This is the
north pole - the north pole is dark. It turns out on this
- at this time the south pole is even darker and here is
great dark region surrounding the south pole, which has
been called a coronal hole. But we see that it is not
simply a coronal hole. Is a hole that extends down well
into the lower outer atmosphere and the temperature is say
only 50,000 degrees. So it's really a fundamental hole in
the sun's outer atmosphere that goes right down to the
bottom of the outer atmosphere and perhaps to the temperature
minimum. And again, as you heard before, it's filled with these
_i.bright points that seem to be the remains of the network
that is present all over the sun. Then there are the
active regions and this is a great active region that I
think only by chance resembles a cyclone with a great dark
filament this side, on spiraling this way and you can sort
of dee a dark filament up here. This region did flare later
on, and the region over here, Just coming over the limb, which
did produce the flare that is photographed, afterwards got
down to about here as the sun rotated. Then there are prominences,
and on this particular day there were not very many prominences
around the edge of the sun as seen in helium. This is Just
one of many images. In here you see images - pieces of
images of the image of iron 15, but I'ii show you some more later.
I thought I would Just leave this on Just for comparison
with the other viewgraphs. The next viewgraph covers the
other instruments. The one over there is the A instrument
and that one - and this is the B instrument or spectrograph s
which is an extremly complicated instrument. The results
are not spectacular in a sense that the sun image is. But
they contain a tremendous amount of detailed information
that has to be extracted by careful measurements with various
kinds of instruments. I've selected here Just a short section,
SL III PC 6-H/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

perhaps a 10th or 15th of the - or less than that of the


entire section to show what can be done with the instrument.
And the person who made the slide up for me was in Washington
and I was in Houston and the numbers giving wavelengths
should be multiplied by 2; but that's only a small error.
I have attempted to - I should have had a red marker rather
than a blue marker. Here we compare two spectra, one taken
with the sllp on the disk and the other off the limb/ In
other words the sllp was about llke this on the disk for
• the upper spectrum and for the lower spectrum it was about
llke so Just off the disk. So the lower spectrum is the
flash spectrum that one sees and is visible during a total
solar eclipse. As the moon comes along and - my hand may be
thought of as the moon, - obscures the sun's disk. At the
moment when it obscures the sun's disk totally, the flash
spectrum shines forth from the bottom of the sun's hot outer
atmosphere and that's what you see below. And I think in
most cases you will see that these lines from above the lens
correspond to dark lines on the surface of the sun. But
among these lines we expect to find a lot of new forbidden
lines from the corona and many other new results. This is
Just one sample of what one can do with this. The instrument
can be pointed and was pointed at all sorts of features on
the sun, the active regions, the filaments and so forth. And
scan across - By scanning across the llmb and studying
the images, one can tell a great deal about the atmosphere.
As I say it is a really technical instrument and all I am
showing you is a sample. Let's drop the B insturment, although
it is the most sophisticated one, and go back to the A instrument.
The next slide. I mentioned that the A instrument samples the
sun's atmosphere at different levels, much as a meterologist
tries to look at the earth at different - at the earth's
atmosphere at different levels up through - into the
stratosphere and above. Here we have an image made in the
radiations from neon with 6 electrons stripped off at
465 angstroms, not on the same day quite as the other one.
But it shows how different the sun appears in this curious
llne. In fact this llne is typical - it typifies the kind
of image that is;produced about ha_fway_ from the coldest
part of the sun up to the corona; _hat is, sy about a half
a million degrees. We still see the network structure in
its full detail and here is a rather faint coronal - if we
still wish to call it coronal hole. We see - -

END OF TAPE

/
SL III PC 6-I/i

Time: 07:39 CDT


-_ 7-26-73

ToUSEY We see the active regions but instead of


being great, broad, Intense structures; they ate Just little
bright points. Oftenj however, having streamers attached
to them that are obviously following magnetic fields. Remember
that the sun in a sphere and we are looking at this one in
perspective and seeing it - and seelng it as ones finger
scanning it this way. Whereas, in Ithls case, it's near the
center and the - most of the loops are probably coming straight
out so that one doesn't see them in perspective and Just off
here. When they come to the very edge you see them sort of
spraying off into the region above the llmb. And the limb
itself is a bright narrow ring; which is characteristic of
all the lines in the transition region of which there are
some more here which are still different in character.
Now let's have a look at the next one which is higher up
still. This combines two things. First I want to - to contrast
a - the image made low down in the eun's outer atmosphereat
the bottom of the chromosphere helium llne at 5 - at 50,000
degrees With this image, that actually goes off the screen-
I'm outlining it because you may not be able to see it very
well. This is from iron with 14 electrons tipped off. At
nearly 2 million degrees in the corona , so the very hottest
or not quite - very hot way out on the corona - earth is way
down at the bottom of the rising part of the - of the - the
part of the sun's atmosphere where the temperature is rising.
Here we see active regions only. The disk itself is almost
completely black and we see, also, this general diffused
coronal ommission above the llmb. But_ in many places, strong
ehronal omission above active regions - active regions such
as you're looklng at here direct on. Now_ this is the flare -
a piece of the flare spectrum you saw before - images of the
flare in H-Alpha and in X-rays. Here we see the flare
and some more lines and, in fact, We have hundreds of images
of the flare on - on a slngle exposure made in different lines.
Here is the flare in the helium llne. Oddly enough, the flare
looks black. And this is a photographic phenomenon
that is not recognized by most people, fortunately, because
amateur and professional photographic emulsions don't
ordinarily do this. But if you ishine too much light on the
film - in other works - if you over expose too much instead
of Just getting blacker and blacker, the image starts to
disappear and, in fact_ disappears completely. In other
workd, the light burns the image out. The light from the
flare center - of the hottest - of the most intense types of
the flare was indeed so bright that it was this material itj
so to speak, burned a hole in the in the emulsion, figuratively.
And produced a - automatically reversed image. So this
is the flare solarlzed. However, in iron 15, the flare is
shown in its normal, bright sense. And this is the image
of the flare in iron 15 and this in iron 14 and various other
images.
SL III PC 6-I/2
_ Time: 07:39
7-26-73

TOUSEY So we are very pleased indeed to have


images of the flare in so many different lines. And there
are active regions scattered here and there. I have one
more picture which is, to me, the most spectacular of all.
A flare is supposed to be the most spectacular and dramatic
thing in solar physics, but, - - This eruptive prominence, as
far as I'm concerned, is far more dramatic. This is, of
course, helium, the image itself is overexposed. This
eruptive prominance goes way up i00,000 or more miles above
the sun. And it shows a great deal of structure following
magnetic loops. This, as you will recall, is from the
50,000 degree level. Iron 14 times ionized happens to be
on the other side the way the slide is made up. Here is the
same thing in iron 14 times ionized. And you can see
it's completely different in structure. It's sort of
painted with a broad brush. It still has loops and curves
and that's showing that the magnetic fields are present in
the corona. But for some reason which I don't understand, there
is little - there is no trace of the erruptive prominanee
itself in the iron image. But it does show how nicely how
black the disk is as seen in the coronal line. But it's
spotted with fantastic active region images which
are different from - between almost every line that we see
in this region. We have_ it seems_ thousands of these
images to look at and, as someone else saidp it's going to
take years to extract all the information there is from
these images.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC6-J/I
Time: 7:39 CST
6/26/73
(-- PAO I am happy to say we are joined by
Dr. James Underwood of Aerospace Corporation who will have
some remarks for us. Dr. Underwood?
UNDERWOOD Good morning. I'm sorry to be late, but
unfortunately I went to the wrong place, I finally found
out were I was suppose to be and got here. I will also
apolloglze if I'm a little repetitive because I haven't
heard what the other experimenters had to say, so if I - if
I have to - if I repeat some of what has already been said
I thinklyou'll yall understand that I haven't been hear to
hear the previous discussion. Especially in regards of
in the regards of what - what Dr. Valana and what S054 says
as thetr experiment is being quiet slmular to ours. To give
you an ideal of what our experiment is, could we look at the
first slide? I would say that our experiment - oh I better go
to the - screen now our experiment in contrast to some of the
other that has been mention S082, S055 is a very simple experiment
in fact it's Just a camera for the x-ray region with the
spectrum - the solar sectrum from about 5 angstrum, it covers
to around about 50 to 60 angstrums. And it consist of simply
glancing incidence, could you give me a little bit of focus
please, it's Just a little off. That's fine. It consist
of glancing incidence x-ray mirror which projects an image
of the sun onto a film over here containing which is in a
roll form which 60212 film - film strictly develop for it
by Eastman Kodak for operate in the X-ray retlons this a
thousand feet of film in there and we can take approximately
6000 or 7000 x-ray photographs of the sun during one load
and from one magazine. And infront of the film there are
six different filters of metal. They are rather thick filters
and by using thick filters of metal such as tltlum, beryllium
and aluminum we make sure that we are infaet observing the X-ray
region of the spectrum and it is no ultraviolet leakage.
_here is no leakage of radlation_ for instance that Dr. Tousey
sees with his experiments. So we are actually looking at true X-rays
pictures of the sun and in addition - shbwlng this photograph
you see - this picture yon see two stops these are just
to prevent direct radiation from going straight through
the center apeture appllcate of the telescope and reaching the
film and dropping it. Not show in this photograph - not show in
this drawing is an aneillaly instrument which we call
the X-ray eventanayymer, this is a very simple instrument.
It consist of counter, a proportional counters which is llke
some of you may be familiar with it, it is like a gelgercounter.
It counts pluses it counts individual photons from solar
events and as if turns out this instrument is extremely
useful, it sees the whole sun at one time and it has a good
time resolution of the order of a second or two and so can
SL III PC6-J/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
j_ 7/26/73

UNDERWOOD be taking rapidly changing events occurring


on the sun. And this is one of the first things I would like
to point out that one of the most interesting features of
the results that we have got, is how rapidly things change.
It has been thought previously that- it was known that rapid
changes occured. For interest during flares_ but an examination
of the X - RCA- the X-ray event analyizer data and the
X-ray photograph which some of which I'ii show you shortlyD
show that - for most of the time there are events occurring which
are rapidly changing which are of interest to us. A great
deal of the time there are small things going on which may or
may not be classed as flares which have an interest to us
in the rapidity of their changes. Now l think on the next
photo - next slide. This is - that needs some focus. The
focus on the grain, the images themself appear fuzzy. Now
Dr. Tousey as pointed out, the coronal lines - we are looking
very high in the sun's atmosphere, we are looking at the
corona, where temperatures are to the degree of the order
of i or 2 million degrees. And these active regions that you
see are all at this kind of temperature. At that temperature
they're not very sharply defined features - in normally the
active - the x-ray omitting centers above active regions have
a defused nature. But, however_ on occasion you can see some
very sharp and small points of omission which when you
measure them turn up to exceedingly small and of the order
of 1 arc second or so. And these points are the ones which
frequently change very rapidly in there character and appearance.
Now this picture shows you one dlffieulty of making the measurement
in the x-ray region onfilm. Lot of these active region
appear very black, very dark overexposed and in fact in
normal photographic sence they are because it is very difficult
on one piece of film to record everything from the very
faintest thing features in the very quiet corona_ which you
can barely see in this picture_ but you will see better in some
of the later ones, to the very strong active regions especially
in flares it's very difficult to avoid overexposure. This
is taken care of in most instruments by having a range of
exposures. Of course this means you can't show all your
results from one film. But we are working with a method
were by you can see more clearly on one display exactually
what the range of brightness is in the solar corona - the
x-ray region. I think the next slide will show this. This
is a display from the - we have digitized the x-ray photograph
and we have got each intensity level displayed as a color
which corresponse with some number of ares per square centimeter
of a second or energy deposited in the film. And although you
can still see these active regions, they look like plateau because
we havent t adjusted the range of contrast you can adjust the range
SL III PC6-J/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

UNDERWOOD of contrast on this instrument yet it


shows more clearly exactly the range of intensity we are
looking at. For instance here is a typical corona hole it's a
kind of a pale green patch over here is a typical coronal hole.
You notice the very large extensive coronal hole around the
south pole of the sun, that's the south pole of the sun, this
is the north pole of the sun and you will notice the very small
features scattered all over the disk plus the structure in the
active region and so on. And excuse me for showing this slide
for it is somewhat - it seems to be sllt in the film seems to
have sllt in the mask seems to be the problem. But I think it
will show the kind of results we hope to obtain with this method
of display. The next slide please. This is this is another
example of a active region which appeared after M-3 class, which is
x-ray class of flare, occurred before the flare this loop
structure was not evident. During the period we are not
observing the flare occurred and after the flare oecured
we found that this loop appeared and apparently filled up
with white hot coronal matter. Let me say between looking at
the intensity between the various filters in our instrument
we can get an estimate of the temperature of active regions, in
fact almost by looking at the -Just looking a set of photographs
taken in three filters we can point which are the hotter
regions and the colder ones_ the cooler ones I should say.
If you can call a million degree cool. And this feature
here is quiet hot feature. Ignore these dots these are
dta blocks, this is a data block which tells us of what
kind of exposure, what kind of mode we are running in. And
this is towards the end of the mission and occasionally
these data blocks actually cover some of the images off -
inpinge on some of the images, but that doesn't affect the
interpretation of the data. Next slide please. Now I had a
large number of slides to show here, and in interest of keeping
the discussion short, I have kind of weeded out a lot of
them and left a few of the more interesting ones. This one
looks kind of uninteresting to start off with -

END OF TAPE
SLIII PC 6-K/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
"_ 7t26/73

UNDERWOOD - kind of untnterestlng to start off


with. it's Just a fairly normal exposure of the sun with
a number of active regions showing. But to give you an
example of the rapid changes in the - what happens in X-rays,
if you look carefully at this slide you will see the loops
that I referred to in the previous slide. There is another
diffused spot over here and generally some other diffuse
active regions around the - sun's disk. If you look at the
next slide, we see exactly the same photograph, the same
exposure, same filter, except that a very bright spot has
appeared between these two regions. And this bright spot
if closely examined is found to have some structure. Now
this was a very small class of flare. It was classified
in H-Alpha by the visible observers - the ground-based
observes in Boulder, Colorado. It was classified as a sub-
faint which is a very small class of flare. But it is quite
prominent and shows a great deal of contrast in the X-ray
region. And in fact one of the most interesting things
about this flare is the rapidity that which it developed.
Because on the previous slide which was taken - which ended
4 seconds before - the exposure ended 4 seconds before this
photograph was taken this feature is completely absent.
This means that X-ray flares can grow in a very short time,
z- of the order of few seconds. And this is something that to
my knowledge has not been observed before, and it tells us
quite a great deal about what is happening in flares. Now
we have a - some other observations of smaller flares which
are also very interesting. You heard Dr. Tousey and the
others speak about the large flares. The M4/M5 flare that
was observed on the 16th of June. That is a large flare and
a lot of study will be devoted to that. And I'm sure that
the study of that particular flare will lead to a great
advance in the study of flares. However, during the Skylab
mission a rather large number of very small flares occurred.
And it is not known whether these flares are of the same -
produced by the same mechanism or different mechanism from ,_
the larger one. And from a study of some of the smaller
flares
sticking

can begin
smaller
any more
I think
my neck
characteristics
that we can say
out here,
of these
to understand
flares
slides
are produced.
or is that
already,
but by study
smaller
the mechanism
flares,
and I might
of some
we think
by which
Let me point
the last one?
of the

some
be

that we
_
_

of these \"
out - Are there
I guess that is
._

\_

\
% r

the last slide. Well in lieu of showing a lot more slides,


I would llke to point out that what is really going to
be the real advance from Skylab is not going to occur from
the study of - the results from one particular instrument,
the S082, the S055, or will - although great advances will
come from each instrument. What we really hope is going to
,_ happen is that we are going to get together and study these
observations Jointly, made in different spectral regions,

/
SL III PC 6-K/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

different time resolutions, different spatial resolutions,


and also look at it Jointly with the large number of ground-
based observers who are collaborating with us on the ATM
project. There are observatories all over the world that
have been generating programs on a day-by-day basis, which
they feel will be a help in analyzing the Skylab data. And
the Skylab data, in turn, will be of help in analyzing their
own programs. We have scientists abroad in Europe, Germany,
and England. And the rocket experimenters and satellite
experimenters looking at solar X-rays and solar particles,
solar gamma rays, solar ultraviolet. And I think very great
advances - maybe the greatest advance will come from the joint
analysis and study of all these set of data jointly by all
these various astronomers throughout the world. I think
that's all.
REEVES Bill, before we get into the question
answer session I would like to make just one statement I
didn't make earlier. Samples of these photographs are not
the ones you've seen, necessarily; but samples of the photo-
graphs from each instrument will be available at the photo-
graphic fat - I guess that's what you call it, Bill - down-
stairs after this presentation. There is one exception to
that. Some of our H-Alpha photographs did not arrive on the
plane and probably will b e available this afternoon or to-
- morrow morning for your p_ckup there.
PAO At this time we will take questions ex-
cept if you wait Just a moment until we get the mike handlers
here and I would ask you, first time, to identify yourself
and your affiliation.
QUERY John Wilton, New York Times. l'm not
quite sure I understand why you are so surprised at the dy-
namic nature of the sun. I always assumed that anything
that produces as much energy as the sun does would by its
very nature be dynamic. Could you be more specific of why
you are surprised. Just the rapidity of change or are there
more aspects to it than that?
MacQUEEN The first to respect to the outer
corona. The outer corona is just that. It is far removed
from the sun. Clearly, the streamers - the structures in
the corona that I illustrated have their foot points in the
sun. But for there to be motion on the time scale of minutes
or hours in the corona requires rather rapid propagation of
energy along magnetic field lines well out from the sun.
For example if I put the earth for a scale, it would be a
dot on that picture. I think the thing that surprises us
is that pictures that have been made during solar eclipses -
picutes that have been made along the eclipse path in
previous experiments in past years have failed to see any
clear motion or movements in coronal structures. And the
sun has been very nice to us, at least during SLII, in the
f sense that the corona is clearly moving. The energy is
SLIII PC 6-K/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
,-_" _/26/73
propagating out either in the form of waves or in other
forms and this is the rapidity and the amount of motion
the dynamic character is what is surprising, at least in
the outer corona,
SPEAKER Would you like to add something?
VAIANA Speaking for a little bit in size from
the regions Bob MacQueen was talking about - speaking of the
lower corona where the X-ray observation referred to. You
see the point is that the sun is a very stable source of
energy. The nuclear reactions inside the sun the solar
photosphere, so far as we know it_ is a very stable -
radiation. And the point is then that when we see changes
in the corona we have to attribute it not to the source but
rather to the interplay that takes place. I was emphasizing
the fact that obviously what we want to understand is the
interplay between magnetic fields and the plasma that con-
stitutes the outer solar atmosphere. Therefore, seeing
changes yesterday is to be attributed to that particular
interplay and that is what allows us to understand the
phenomenon.
QUERY What you are seeing is not changes on
the sun itself, but changes in the atmosphere of the sun?
VAIANA Yes.
QUERY And these changes are caused by varia-
tions in the magnetic fields. Now -
VAIANA Or by changes in the interaction of that
magnetic field with the plasma.
QUERY Yes. How much do we know about the
magnetic field before - the magnetic field of the sun before?
Is this something - Are you learning something new about the
nagnetic field? Could you tell us Just a llttle about the
sun's magnetic field?
VAIANA Yes. Observation of the magnetic field
of the sun almost totally done on the photosphere. Itts on
the visible surface that we see by looking at the ... You
can try to extrapolate what you are seeing in the photosphere
by using particular models. What the sun's magnetic field
lloks at the outside of that atmosphere - in the outer atmo-
sphere say in the corona, for instance. Now those inter-
pretations are based on theoretical models.

END 0F TAPE
SL III PC 6-L/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73

VAIANA some of the magnetic fields looks


at the outside of that atmosphere - the outer atmosphere,
say in the corona, for instance. Now due to separations of
these (Garble) one is to try to ascertain where (garble) are
important in the region or whether they are not. But, ultimately,
as anything in science, things have to be subjected to experimental
verification. Now by looking at those structures, which do not see
the magnetic field but do see the plasma, which is shaped by the
magnetic field. By looking at those structures and their are
changes then we are able to infer what the magnetic field has
done although not actually measuring it. So it's a quite unique way
to be able to extrapolate the magnetic field on the surface of the
Sun to the outside and to do it there (Garble) from the basis
of (Garble) but do it on a basis of experience.
SPEAKER The basic difference being is that we
are looking, now, at the evolution and change in the magnetic
field as now affects itself in structure in the outer solar
atmosphere as opposed to the foot points of the magnetic
field on low regions of the magnetic field that have been
observed from the ground.
SPEAKER The fact that you have such rapid change,
which is produced by the magnetic field, and the interplay - -
Does that tell you something about the magnetic field that
you didn't know before or the - even your models didn't tell
you? How the magnetic field is generated or anything llke
that?
SPEAKER The reduction of the data to that extent
takes a lot more time. What we're seeing here in the ultra-
violet and the X-ray range are the verification that the
magnetic field does, in faqt, play an extremely important
part in the dynamics of the sun at these levels. Until we
had these kinds of resolutional - these kinds of wavelengths
we had never really seen the importance of the magnetic fields
at these levels in the sun's atmosphere. Either the Coroma-
sphere - the transition region and as Bob MacQueen mentioned,
in the other solar corona. The motion of these magnetic
fields highly change with time. Again, it's nothing we've
never seen before. And from these motions, we'll be able to
get a much better handle on exactly what is the significance
the magnetic field towards such things as the heating of the
solar atmosphere and the dissipation of energy from lower
down on the surface up into the hotter parts of the solar
corona.
QUERY John Vandigrlp, (garble) the press. I
don't know whom - who among you will want to field this
rather naive question , but I'd like to ask - What will be
the practical application's resulting from the accumulation
of all these data that lie ahead? Can you give us any concrete
or specific examples?
TOUSEYOne would hope to be able to predict
f the climatic - long term - climatic change produced by the
Sun in connection with the changes that occur on the Earth as
SL III PC 6-L/2
p_ Time: 07:39 CDT • _

72073 TOUSEY - - a result of the interactions of \_


solar radiation. Over geologic time, in connection with \ __
changes in the solar cycle, no two solar cycles are alik_ \
We have records for only a few - I don't know - very few_
hundred years which is nothing from the point of view of_
geologic time. Perhaps, also, we may be able to predlct_
shorter term - or explain shorter term whether climatic changes/
and even weather changes by seeing what goes on at the
surface of the sun. That is a fond hope which many of us
have and lots of people scoff at those of us who think that
maybe it's possible to do this. That's one thing.
SPEAKER By also, what - what has to be defined by what
you mean by practical? What kind of significance or practical
importance to certain branches of physics might not be
immediate application in the every day life of the way things
are done? Or immediate engineering applications? The
primary application of the data will result from the
benefit of better understanding of the physics of the sun.
and how particles and how radiation will interact with
magnetic fields at lower density. This is something that's
extremely valuable laboratories try to use because we
cannot make those kinds of conditions for study anywhere
on the Earth. The densities are low, the path-links are long
and so the benefits that we will get out of it are not so much
benefits in everyday technology as they are in the longer term
benefits that result from these kinds of programs.
SPEAKER Let me Just add one other thing to
that, please. You just heard from the scientist, I'm
an engineer so let me see if I can take a plug at it. There
are really five or six steps in the process of applying any kind
of knowledge. First of all, you define your problem, then
you propose the theories, then you collect the data, then
you verify the theories, and then you apply the theories
and then the ATM is in the process of collecting the data. The
verification of the areas will hopefully come out of it
and then we engineers can then proceed with applying those theories.
Its a rather foregone conclusion though, that if the
theories aren't verified , the engineers are handstrung in
the process of applying and making the applications. And
consequently, we wouldn't be able to do it. I guess what
I'm really saying is that an engineer really needs some
ammunition to go bear hunting and these gentlemen are
providing the ammunition and when we have it, we'll start
shooting.
QUERY Mike Most, NBC. Doctor Underwood, you
alluded to something that might be very interesting. You
said that from the X-rays - determination or evaluation of
you X-rays photographs, you might be able to determine some
of the mechanisms that cause the solar flares. Can you
explain that? Please?
SL III PC 6-L/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73
_ _ UNDERWOOD Right. I think chat it's been thought
for a long time that all flares are not the same.
UNDERWOOD - - that a flare observed in - observed
in H-Alpha, for instances which is a practical way of
observing flares, could be produced by a number of different
mechanisms. And I think it's also becoming - become evident
over the last few years_ that what you see in H-Alpha is
a mere kind of ripple or side effects from what is really
going on. It's not - what happens in H-Alpha is not really
the flare, if such a thing can exist, but it's kind of a
side effect hut it happens to be one thing we can conveniently
observe. Now, looking in the X-ray regions, one sees_ I
think, more of what the true - the true - if you llke-
You see, closer to - to the real center of what's got on
the flare then you do in looking at H-alpha. Now_ -
which means that by looking in the X-ray regions - the
Now we have a couple of observations near the - near the
end of the flare - near the end of the mlsslon_ which - which
less ambiguous than anything we've ever seen before. For
instance, in one case, we see - it's been known that there's
such a thing as sympathetic flares_ in other words_ where flare
occurs in one place and sometime later a flare will occur in a widely
separated spot on the Sun's surface. How we see examples in the
X-ray regions of flares which are not sympathetic - they'ze
simultaneous. In other words, simultaneously in two widely
separated points on the Sun am. X-ray flare will occur. And there
are very few ways in which this can be interpreted, because there
are very few waves or there are very few methods which can
propagate the fact across the solar surface. So I think we've
an observation which is very unambigously shows us the way
to interpret where some of the smaller flares are. I don't want to go
any further than that, because we Just found these phenomenon
and it's going to be some while before we can really get
ourselves sorted out as to what it means. But it really gives
us a clear and unambigous statement about the kind of inter-
action that can occur during these small flares.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 6-M/I
Time: 07:39 CDT
.... 7/26/73

QUERY I'm interested in the idea of the


man/machlne interface here. We know that the astronauts
repair equipment. But did the astronauts themselves con-
tribute a significant scientific role in adding to the
data that you might not otherwise have gotten?
KEATHLEY I would be perfectly glad to answer
that question, but I think that it would mean more if one
of the scientists did it. Ed, would you like to take care
of that one?
REEVES Well, I guess there are a number of ways
in which the astronaut has been a benefit, a valuable asset
to this data-taklng sequence on the ATM. As you mentioned,
one was the repair capability. The fact that he could
recover film fairly straight forwardly which can be done
under rather extreme circumstances from unmanned satellites.
But ATM was a very complicated collection of experiments.
Each of these - there were five major experiments, two X-rays,
two H-alpha telescopes, each one of which had a large number
of observing sequence of possibilities, different modes of
operation. What we had devised for ATM was a set of obser-
vations in which the astronauts could choose the observing
mode of each instrument which best suited the kind of observa-
tion that he was going after. And he could then take and
choose each of those instrument modes and play them together
at the same time on the same type of observation. So he
could take data from this collection of five experiments
far more efficiently than could ever be done unmanned unless
one went to the extreme case of essentially using an operator
llke the astronaut at remote-control distances to relay
satellites and Y-bands transmitting and receiving equipment.
One could accomplish the same thing by having the astronaut
on the ground, operating in the same way. But that would
be rather a long time before we will have spacecrafts with
that kind of capability. The astronaut in fact could in-
terrupt, he could interrupt the observing load he was going
after. Say we had a prominence that we were studying on
the east limb of the sun, or something like that and this
flare that started to occur on the disk. The astronaut was
right there, simultaneously dropped what he was doing, changed
gears, got into the instrument operating mode for solar flares
and went right after it. That cannot be done from the ground
to unmanned satellites because we don't have the continual
access to what is going on in real time that the astronaut has
by sitting there at the actual console.
SPEAKER Ed, I would like to extend one point
on that. I don't think that question has been put to a fair
test because, as you recall, the science pilot had a medical
background on this last mission, and did not have an astronomy
or physics background, I think. We haven't really
• .

SL III PC 6-M/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
J_ 7/26/73

had a fair test of that yet.


REEVES We are of course also pushing that
comment a little further. The next flight has Dr. Garrlott,
the one after that, Dr. Gibson, who is primarily trained in
solar physics. And we have talkedwlth them extensively
and are devising new modes of operation which we didn't have
in SL-II. So that these astronauts will be given time with
some of the instruments to go looking at phenomena of
their choosing and ways they would klke to observe new kinds
of observations that haven't been preplanned.
QUERY Mark Kramer, CBS. Bill Keathley. This
question does not deal with SL-II or III, but possibly IV.
The question of if the astronauts are still up there when
a comet is near the sun, there's been some talk about
looking at the comet with the ATM. Which experiments would
do that and what might they see?
KEATHLEY Right now the plans are for the S052,
the S055 - the coronagraph, Dr. MacQueen's instrumentsp
Dr. Tousey's instruments, the S082A and B, Dr. Reeves
instrument, S055, are definitely - pardon - the ultraviolet
scanning, polychromatlc spectrohellometer. That's the Harvard
instrument, the spectrometer. The - That's right now what
p is being planned. There are possibilities of the X-ray
instruments being - also being used for that observation.
So right now four of the ATM instruments plus two other
potential users.
SPEAKER Well, let me say a little more about
that. We Just happen to have aboard Skylah a great array of
instruments that are fairly ideally suited for observing this
comet. A number of what we call corollary experiments or the
instruments that are used out of the airloek are also very
well suited to observation and there would be an observing
program extending considerably before (garble) at the time
that the comet passes the Sun and possibly afterwards if we
in the program finally decide that we will be able to say
long enough to observe the entire project. We haven't made
that decision yet; we are considering it seriously.
QUERY How much more raw data and information
photographs from the Sun do you expect to receive from this
mission compared to the last mission; i0 percent more, 50
percent more?
SPEAKER Generally, the distribution in terms of
photographs, if we can use that as a reference, we completed
about one-fourth of our total photographic usage on Skylab If.
We'll use 50 percent on Skylab Ill, and another 25 percent
on Skylah IV. It's a one-two-one type of arrangement.
QUERY Berry Keith, (garble Times, News House
Papers. Two questions. Has any of you noticed contamination
_ of your telescopes_ and furthermore do any of you plan
to change the methods in which you gathered information
from your experiments of the Skylab II or Skylab II mission?
AL III PC6-M/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
- 7/26/73

SPEAKER I guess each experimenters will have to


answer that. Let me start off. We've Our (garble) ex-
periments from Harvard in extreme ultraviolet of a few hundred
angstroms to a few thousand angstroms have been plagued by
contamination and changes in calibration in space on previous
missions. I am very glad to be able to say that on ATM we've
seen no appreciable change in instrument sensitivity which
we can attribute to contamination. And our instrument I
suppose is one of the most sensitive in its reflecting
characteristics to contamination. It's been very, very low;
I say if not there, but there might be a little. It's cer-
tainly very, very small, if any, contamination that we've
seen. There are the occasional particles, I think that we're
not so concerned with those as we are about oils and noxious
gases, so one of the other experimenters could see more
carefully to those.
SPEAKER Bob MacQueen has an instrument that
detects them.
MacQHEEN The coronagraph by its very nature is
extremely sensitive to scattering some particles around the
Skylab. We have seen such scattering during SL-II. I'm
very pleased at the lack - the small quantity of particles
that we have seen. Aside from one spectacular event that
occurred during a nitrogen dump of the spacecraft which we
call the "4th of July" event. We have seen only small
amounts of contamination from the spacecraft_ particles
floating across our field of view, and only something like,
if I had to guess, I'd say I percent of the photographs that
we have. And even in those cases the amount of degradation
of data is extremely small.
SPEAKER The other half of the question I believe
was have we changed the method of observation or the emphasis
of the observation for SL-III. Dr. - -
UNDERWOOD Yes, I would like to say something about
that. First about the contamination. I think from observa-
tion of our X-ray photographs, it may be that we had a kind
of inverse contamination in that our telescope was actually
getting better toward the end of the mission, as it may
have been cleaning up. We knew before we launched that
we were very sensitive to very thin layers of oil or hydro-
carbons on the surface, but toward the end of the mission
the picture seemed to get better or sharper or something.
Maybe it was just because the Sun got more interesting. At
least it seemed that there may have been an improvement in
efficiency or something toward the end of the mission. As
far as changing the modes of operation are concerned, apart
from making some minor adjustments in exposure timej we - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 6-N/1
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73
UNDERWOOD -change in the modes of operation are concern
apart from making some minor adjustments in the exposure time.
We intend to probably concentrate it on the one, as I have
mentloned before, one of the interesting thing from the first
mission was rapidity of which things change, and we would
tend to concentrate more on the second mission on modes which
allows to observe these rapid changes what we call our active
modes, whereby we take secquence of short exposures very rapidly
rather than - S052 experiment might feel that we are abandlng the
cause of synoptic observation we are not infact doing that
what we call synoptic observation we take with a patrol mode
where we take a long exposure and we tend to take a long
exposure to expose the detail structures in the quite
corona and we have been taking a large number of these per
day, and we hope on the next mission to go to modes where
we observe the rapid changes in active regions using flares
and common things and so on. These turn out to be very
interesting.
KEATHLEY Add to that Just a bit yes we are we for
SLIII have been two or three new types of observing programs
one of which is velocity fields. These have been devise
in the inerlm between SLII and SLII they've written in (garble)
new astronaut observing sequences. They have been things towards
there will be different matters and with the scientist astronaunt
we have on SLIII, it is certainly conceivable that two observation
modes could be devised during the course of SLIII itself.
UNDERWOOD I do think that one new observation
mode that is being considered for SLIII is a - I don't know what
you would call it - catch all mode, or a astronaut operation mode
where by we give the astronuat the hunting license to go after
whatever he thinks is interesting phenomenon on the Sun, whether it
be an erruptlng prominence or a partlcularily interesting piece of
network cell or whatever. And knowing Garriott being well trained
and expert in fact in solar physic - will be - will carry out this
program very well, l'm sure
KEATHLEY I would Just llke to add something about Owen.
Owen has been involved right from the conceptional deesign, pre-
llmarily design of these instruments, has artlclpated in all the
design reviews and had a great deal to do with the influencing the
design instruments and this has been going for about 7 or 8 years.
So Owens knows - Owen not only knows the solar physic and stuff
but , he knows thoselnstruments very well.
QUERY Richard Lewis of Science and Public
Affairs. I would like to switch just a little bit. toward a
omparlson. My basic question is what can
SL III PC6-N/2
f-
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73
- do with ATM that you can't do with a OSO?
What is the advantage of Skylab in this respect? I think
this is a - I wonder if some of you would comment on the
advantages of one over the other - over presumably over ATM.
Because it appears from this conference that ATM has revealed things
that have been revealed by any other program.
VAIANA Well, the first thing that to be said is the (garble)
the size of the ATM in itself allows as well as the pointing
of the ability. The act of which you can point things. It allows the
total difference, (garble) and resolution in the instruments
which on board affectany other thing (garble) The second
point is the data possibility is being allowed by the presence
of astronaut onboard. Which has been spoken before. Finally is
the unmanned satellite of the (garble) somehow has to be to a
very large extent almost canned in the observation which means that
once you are dealing with the Sun, each of the times (garble) of
change are going from seconds during the flare to the solar cycle,
I mean, 11 years or 22 years if you want to then somehow you are
somewhat forced to choose one of those modes that being the
characteristic one for this particular satellite as you have in the
unmanned portion. There the flexibility allows you to change those
things, with the appropriate time resolution and to take advantage of -
of immediate direct evidence (garble) flare occurance. Finally the
other thing which is also a different scale is, of course, the
prominance that one perceives of that is - automatically sort of
caused without referring b_ck to the individual stations as well as
of course, to the exent of iwhich the coordinated observing program
from the ground has been tdned up. (garble) simultaneously observing
without and again that has not been acheived with the (garble) satellite.
These are a few of the new things that can be done with the ATM
(garble)
QUERY Would a continuation of this program obviate any
further OSO experimentation or launchinga?
QUERY I'd -first of all I'd llke to ask Dr. Tousey
who was involved the OSO program and ATM program to add to
Dr. Vaiana's comment and then maybe he can take a shot at your
latter question.
TOUSEY Well, I feel as though the ATM has produced
anywhere between i0 and i00 times as much information about
the Sun as a single OSO. That's rather a broad statement and
has to be qualified because OSO - some OSO experiments have been
designed and are being design to do a very special thing. That are
not being done in ATM. On the other hand, ATM carries photographic
experiments and photographic materialr still have the possibility of
gathering far more information per unit time than photoelectric
experiments. Photographic film could be recovered from
OSO, but it seems to be out of the question for one reason
or the other. I think the use of photographic film is one of
SL III PC 6N/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
7/26/73

the prime advantages of ATM. The - then the other is the size
that Dr, Valana has Just said, the size of the instrument that are
carried they are, what would you day, at least ten times larger.
REEVES Well_ I believe the size of the OSO pointed
tail is from 30 inches long and maybe 12 to 15 inches square and,
of course_ the size of the ATM platform is some 130 inches long
and 86 inches in diameter, so you can obviously put more,
bigger instruments in the ATM than you could in the OSO.
MACQUEEN But there is another point which should
be made_ the current ATM instruments were actually designed -
their basic specifications were set about 6 to 8 years ago and
if the advances in instrumentation is advances in the kinds
of thing we would abserve if we were deslnging experiments
today are far more precise for certain problems than we are
capable of ahservlng with ATM. Now it is possible to put new
experiments of smaller types on OSO to great advantage for a
much reduced cost compare to the cost of ATM and a Skylab
Program. So while OSO was not attempting to -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC6-0/1
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73
SPEAKER - - compared to the cost of the ATM and Skylab
program. So while OSO was not attempt to comply with ATM today,
the OSO program can still be a most effective program in conjunction
with a program of a mammoth observatory of the size of the ATM.
After all, they're not going to lauch one of these things every
2 years.
TOUSEY I should like to continue that, however, to go to
evan smaller and less expensive vehicles, namely sounding rockets.
The sounding rockets can produce results that - Just as good as
those from ATM, but - but gather only a very small fraction of the
amount of information that you can get from ATM. Both from the
point of view of the time involved and the number of different
experiments. But you can design for accounting rockets and do
experiments that will compete very well with any other vehicle
including OSO and ATM, as far as doing speciallized Jobs. And
the sounding rocket is the sine qua non of space research, in my
oplonlon. The - It's the work horse that leads to the development
of instruments that can be put in OSO's to make observations over long
periods of time and in man's vehicles to increase even further the
information gathering ability from above the Earth's atmosphere.
SPEAKER Plymouth.
SPEAKER The Rolls Royce may be a beutlful car but it's
nice to have a few Volkswagons around.
SPEAKER Yes. I think that is the point. I Think that
whatever vehicle you offer a space experiment whether they be solar
physicists or outerspace physicists however - whatever kind they have
available devises instruments to go in it. I think experiment is a
(garble) they'll go with whatever is available at the time. A few
things, I don't wish to disagree with any of the comments made by my
collegues, because they're all true about ATM, hut I expect that
insofar as carrying film is concerned, film is one of the greatest
information storage devices ever invented by man. Ri ht now we
don't, for instance, have TV systems which work in X-rays which
both give the high resolution and the time resolution that you can
get with film. Because, for instance, on OSO the types of pictures
that they get are built up by scanning in the very slow way. It takes
many minutes to build up a whole picture of the sun from an OSO by
rapid scanning and yon can miss any timed information that way. But
I'ii say one thing in favor of the OSOs and the unsatelltes is that
they don't eat - they don't have to eat, they don't have to sleep,
to to the toilet, then you can run them until they fall apart.
(laughter) So - -
SPEAKER Okay. At this point we're going to have to
cut the discussion off somewhere. We are now running a little
bit over schedule. However, Tom Hanes would llke to have one
little last word on this, and we have questions - I understand
that Houston - they'd llke to get in. I also have a couple of
reporters who cannot attend and so we'll let Tom say a little
more about this and then I'll have one more from the floor
here, then we'll try Houston - to Houston.
HANES I'd like to Say something a little more
general a question wueh as the one you Just gave us. It
tends to try to polarize - polarizes the question into our
SL III PC6-0/2
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73
_HANES manned satellites and unmanned
satellites center. Itls fairly obvious that each has
it's place. And the whole idea behind the shuttle is
to try to make that question academic. The shuttle_
when it is in real operational condltion, should make
it possible to pick the kinds of instruments that are
best for the task at the time. And alsoj it should
make it possible for a faster turnaround to keep up a
little better with the technology of instrumentation.
And it should make it possible to make alterations -
more rapid alterations in the viewing program. I -
Z can't talk as well to the ATM type of the - the
astronomy program but it's fairly obvious_ for ex-
ample, in Earth survey work_ that there is a place
for both at this time, and there will be for some
time. And then, eventually, when you want us to do
operational Earth survey work_ there isn't any doubt
that an unmanned automatic satellite does that best.
But when you're trying to get to the point of knowing
wharfs best to do with that unmanned satellite the
manned program has some advantages. As Z say_ _ think
we're trying to make that an answer to the question.
QUERY Tom Beldon_ UPI. How much major
flare activity are you expecting or predicting for this
next mission? SPEAKER
for flare activities, of course. As you know, we are
going towards the solar minimum and, there fore stressing
in general will be the dues on the activities in general
on the Sun will be the dues. Now, on the other handj the
picture that you showed there was in X-rays. (garble) in
general, asserting it to activity, they look quite active.
You could see quite a bit more than you would expect. Some
of the beginning, for instance, over the past mission would
(Garble) during the - a preference cycle. Now what we saw
on this 28 day mission was a welt of small flares. At least
one that we were able to follow of the reasonable large size.
And you can separate them to the next mission. I don't think
the next two missions is going to be any less than it has been
for the past 28 days. Now, for instance, Just in not shows
so we were able to collect these on 12 (Garble) C-flares,
they are called. Very, very small but quite important small
X-ray flares from 28 day mission. We collected data on this
(Garble) flare which is larger flare of the June 15. l
think you can expect an equivalent sort of thing. The basic
difference is going to be that now we know what to expect.
We know, for instance, if our alarm system works. The
astronauts have seen the data. They now know what to ex-
pect from the instruments on board. Remember, the meaning
of those things has never really been (Garble) tested in
the operation. So in addition to the fact that you are
going to have an equlvalent sort of (Garble) you can also
=-SL III PC6-0/3
Time: 07:39 CDT
7-26-73
SPEAKER expect that you are going to be able
to take advantage of quite a bit more. Now, I guess that
in your question there was included a very specific thing.
Are you expecting one of those larger flares of the solar
cycle? And I don't have an answer to that. It will be
perhaps something very small.
VAIANA However, large flares are known to
curve also during a period of solar minimum. And there is
some claim that perhaps in an (Garble) of time there could
be some - somewhat (Garble) in the kind of cycle we're in.
I don't feel necessarily that view but certainly we are
hopeful.
SPEAKER At this time, we'll entertain ques-
tions a couple of questions from Houston.
SPEAKER Oh. No questions. Okay, we have no
questions from Houston. I thought - apparently they have
been answered. I do have a couple i would like to sub-
mit. This is one from Mary Bubb, writers agency, - who
asks this question. It says, Doctor Garriott said in
an interview that certain patterns of corona appear to
be related to the high pressure areas on Earth, have
you seen anything in the corona of this type that would
relate to weather forecasting on earth?
SPEAKER The answer to the question is - we
haven't had an opportunity to look. There is a theory
which relates the long term changes in climate and short
term changes in weather to fluctuations in pressure
ridge and high latitude on the Earth, and this is cor-
related with the flow of material from the Sun out
through the corona and, of course, in the Earth since
the Earth is in the solar corona. This corelation
will have to await rather detailed studies both of the
meteorlogical data on Earth and our own interpretation
of the actual three dimensional structure of the corona.
The - there are several scientists at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research who are - Will he pur-
suing this study.
SPEAKER Our final question is from David Sals _
bury of the Christian Science Monitor who asks, To what ex-
tent is solar investigators so far profited by comparing
data gained in the synoptic modes?
VAIANA Well, Maybe I can answer a portion
of that question. Is is (Garble) that we have been too
busy at times to develop our film. And in fact, some of
us have not seen the others (Garble) data so far. It is
very easy to conclusively separate at what we are going
to gain by puttlng those things together at this point.
I think that by looking at one set of data you can see
that there's got to be a tremendous advantage for it.
So far we have not been able to reason that together -
it's Just a little too early for that. Of course - -

END OF TAPE
Z
SL Ill PC 6-P/1
_ime: 07:39 CDT i
7-26-73

VAIANA - but so far we've not been able to really


get together. It's Just a little bit too early for that.
of course in the SL III mission it will provide very good op-
portunity for doing so, because then we are all together on the same
table.
SPEAKER Okay. We're going to take a 5-mlnute
break before we get the next team together. I
might add that the astronauts are due to arrive at i:00 P.M.
at Patrick and that is open to the press. And I think some
people had the impression that it was not open to thepress.
Their arrival is open and I think they're ready now downstairs
with a status report on the countdown. We'll resume again
here in 5 minutes.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CEN'f_:H
Houston, Texas

Skylab III Pre-M_ssion Science Briefing - Medical


Kennedy Space Center
July 26, 1973
9:45 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Dr. W. R. Hawkins, JSC, Dep. Dir., Life Sciences


Dr. Michael D. Whittle, JSC (RAF), Principal Coordinating
Scientist MO71, M073, MO74, M078, M172
Dr. Stephen L. Kimzey, JSC, Principal Investigator MIlS
Dr. imaillip C. Johnson, JSC, Principal Investigator MO92

Bill Pomeroy,PA0

1'C7

r
SL II[ I'C 7-A/1 '_-,._
Time: 09:45 CDT
7/26/73 "_ --F_

SPEAKER At this time we will start our medical


portion of the briefing. We've had some changes in the
llne-up as it was printed and distributed. In place of
Dr. Detlein we have Dr. W. R. Hawkins, the Deputy Director
for Operations and Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center
who will make the opening remarks. And we - next to him
on my right we have Dr. Mike Whittle, Principal Coordinating
Scientis for several of the medical experiments. He is
also a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force on assignment
to Johnson under a cooperative program. Then, Dr. Steve Kimzey,
Principal Investigator for MII5, also Johnson Space Center.
And finally in place of Dr. Robert Johnson, we have
Dr. Phillip C. Johnson, Principal Investigator for the
MII3 experiment, and Dr Johnson is from Baylor University.
That's the change in the llne-up. We will start with some
introductory remarks by Dr. Hawkins.
HAWKINS Okay, fine. I believe the last time we
had an opportunity to talk to you was about R plus 7
about a week after recovery. And what I would llke to do
first is maybe go back and recap the pre-flight, in-flight
and post-flight in a general way. Let me say that the
beginning - prior to the mission we saw three different individuals
in their pre-flight base-line measurements and that three
distinct individuals continued throughout the in-flight
phase as well as the post-flight phase. And l mean by this
the response that we saw was very different in each man.
We had a dynamic situation in the pre-flight baseline
measurements. The crews were exercising quite a bit and
this was constantly changing, in fact the M171 experiment
was - had to reajust the work load in a final phase of that
pre-flight period in order to have something closer to what
levels they were really working at. Now we started off with
a crew that was had been on a balanced diet for really
longer than the programed 21 days. It really was 29 to 30 days.
They were in good nutritional balance and I think that this
was reflected and we'll have a little more to say about
that from Dr. Whittle, in a moment. In fligh,t after we got
over the initial problem with the heat load and the crew settled
down into performance of the medical experiments. We began
to see the changes that most of you have heard and followed
through the mission. You will recall that the most
significant changes occured in the MO92 program where we
did see a continuing change throughout the mission. Where
the heart rates were running higher, not only in the
resting stage but during the stress phase of the test, than
they did in the pre-flight baseline period. Blood pressures
were essentially about the same as they were in the pre-flight
baseline measurements. Until we saw the first significant
change in the science pilot at his third - beg your pardon,
I'm on the 171 - no that's right - on the third run with
r-
SLII PC 7-A/2
Time: 09:45 CDT
7/26/73

the science pilot at the minus 50 negative pressure, we had to


terminate that experiment and from that point on, he was
ran at minus 40 as his maximum stress level. This was followed
then until his last run which was, I think, on the 25th day, at
which time In the second exposure to a minus 40 millimeter neg-
ative pressure, he again exhibited the same type of response that
he had earlier with an increased heart rate and a dropping if
blood pressure, which forced us to terminate the run. Now the
same thing was seen in the pilot, but not that early. His change
occured on the seventh run, I believe, that we made with him. It
was more toward the end of the mission and from that point on he
was maintained as his maximum stress level at minus 40. Now with
regards to the 171 you may remember that there was really very
little change seen in the crew. All three crewmen comparing it
with their pre-fllght measurements. They were right there working
within the same work levels and their response was very slmular.
The only significant change was in the pilot who did run slightly
higher heartrates than he did in pre-fllght at the maximum work
level. A_ right, Conrad was right down the llne right in the
pre-fllght envelope all the way. Now another significant thing
occured in flight is the amount of personal exercise. And here
again we saw individual differences where the commander was working
and performed the greatest amount of work during his personal
exercise period. The pilot was second and the science pilot
was third. Now these points are all interesting because
you can tend to try to correlate that with the results in all that
you have seen in the three individuals in flight. And again in
post-fllght period we saw the same type of response. In
other words, on the immediate R-O examination, the commander
was very close to what he was in the pre-flight baseline
values. Now the pilot was not near his baseline at all, hut
he was kind of a middle of the road comparing him with the
science pilot and the commander. And of course the, as all
of you know, Dr. Kerwln did show the greatest amount of
change in the immediate post-fllght period. Now this
change though then on the next day where the commander really
showed not as well a response to the test in the LBMP or
the 171. His performance was less, showing there was some
degradation in the cardiovascular response. And also the
rather significant thing that we saw in the post-fllght
period was the amount of vestibular change that resulted in
some vertigo and that it was a exhlblting experience by all
three crewmen. Where as in-flight they had really shown no
response to the stresses of the vestibular stimulation.
Allrlght the other significant thing that we've seen has
been in the amount of time that it has taken the Skylab
crew to return to their pre-flight baseline measurements.
The amount of change that we have seen is very much the
same as we have seen in Apollo -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC7-B/I
Time: i0:00 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER The amount of change that we have seen is very


much the same as we have seen in Apollo, the only real significant
difference is that they have taken longer to return. Apollo 15
crew took the longest of any of the Apollo crews, and that was
about up to 13 days before they were completely all three back to
their - within their preflight baseeline envelope. This Skylab
crew are really - at about- R plus 21, 22, 24; these are the last
times which we have measured them. And I would say that they have
definitely stabilized and are within the confidence limits (garble)
placed on the preflight values. .And fnr _ll! intents and purposes
I definitely consider taht they are back to normal with re_d to
t_elr cardiovascular Ke_p..qnse and--aiso--_e_tlhula_ ' _epd_e. _ I
t_[nk-_hat woul_-{airly well" summarize t_"asp-ect of the medical
experiments. There were changes in the blood chemistries from the
endocrine systems, and I would llke to let Dr. Whittle go ahead next.
And try to give you a summary report then on the nutrituional
statas and the MOT0 series of experiments.
WHITTLE I'm going to talk about six different experiment
all of which are in one way or another concerned with what the
body is made of and how weightlessness changes this overall
composition of the body. Could we have the first view graph _ .

on the - No,
please? (garble)
that'showever
not the - If you one.
first haven't The got it, one
first thatis - printed _
that will be all, okay. The mineral balance experiment, we
measure everything that goes into the astronaut, either measure
or account for. Food and drink we have complete control over
all the food is Skylab food and the drlnkd streither
Skylab drinks or Skylab water. Medicines we obviously don't
control; they're prescrlped by the flight surgeon, but we keep
a record of all medicines in case they contain substances
that would deflect our results. And toothpaste - at least
get the astronauts to use a consistant method of usage
of toothpaste during the pre-, in, and postflight periods so
they won't he, for instance, swallowing toothpaste in flight that
might contain something of interest but spitting it out before
and afterwards. This sounds slightly a joke, but this is a
real problem. It is difficult to spit out into a wash basin
in Skylab, because there isn't one. But anyway we've - -
we've managed to control that situation. The output, we get
samples of all urine and feces during the whole of the pre-
in and postflight periods and those are analyzed. We only
had one vomltus from Skylab 2, which was due to regular old
sea sicknesses. That was also analyzed. The scaling of the skin
and the losses of substances (garble) sweat we obviously can't
measure but at least we - with this uee of a pre-and postflight
SL III PC7-B/2
Time : i0:00 CDT
7/26/73

(CONT'D) control period, we have to make certain


assumptions about the sort of regularity of these things
throughout the entire period. And make - take accounts of
losses in that way. There's a llst of the substances that
are of particular interest to this experiment down below,
Bfore projecting those, I would llke to say a word or two about
weight, as you probably heard, all three crewman lost weight
during the period they were in the workshop. Conrad lost about
4 pounds, Kerwin lost about 6pounds, and Weitz lost about 8
pounds. Now the first and natural assumption was that they
were not eating enough, but having had a look at the prelim- _
inary data we got back from the analysis of these specimens
and so on, we now think that in fact all three crewmen were _ ___
eating enough
and that the weight loss is a pure and simple ) ,
adaptation to weightlessness. What we think is happening / _[

is that in orbit they are using their legs very little. In _/


fact, they only really do any work at all with their legs \
when they are riding the bicycle, and they don't spend very \
much of their time riding the bicycle. And - we will have \
the measurements which I will come to later, which suggest
that the amount of muscle in the legs dropped off quiet con- /
siderahly, and that pretty well all the weight loss that they.!
showed can be a accounted for Just by the fact that they don'_
need as much muscle up there in weightless conditions and so
they are Just getting rid of unwanted muscle. Nitrogen, the
first substance on the llst there, is a very major important
constituent to muscle, and we saw so an increase in the amount
of nitrogen that was excreted by the astronauts in the urine
and assuming all this nitrogen did come from muscle, these
figures tally very nicely and suggest that that's where the
weight went. Calcium and phosphorus, the next two nutrients
on the list, those also appeared in the urine in increased
amounts. 0enee again in weightless conditions the stresses
on the bones, particularly the bones of the lower spine and
the lower legs, aren't anything like as much as there are on
the ground, and there is a lot of evidence that the amount of
calcium that is in the skeleton and the phosphorus that is
chemically combined with it depends Just on the amount of
work or the amount of force the hone is expected to withstand.
And so in weightless conditions the bones weren't being stressed
nearly as much and just as a simple bodily adaptlon to this,
the body started getting rid of calcium, and this built up over
the mission. But even by the end of the mission, they had
probably lost far less than 1 percent of the total amount of
calcium in the body. One interesting side light on this is
that for several years now, NASA has been sponsoring experiments
on the effects of prolonged bed rest on the composition of the
body. This is because bed rest is about the best simulation of
weightlessness you-
%
SL IIl PC7-B/3 ___
Time: i0:00 CDT _ _ •
7/26/73 _

(CONt'D) can get. And it looks as though the amounts


of loss of nitrogen and of calcium and phosphorus in Skylab is
Just about the same as we saw during the same period of bed
rest. So we now feel we've got a much better handle on what
is happening to the composition of the body in these people, because
we've got these bed rest results, which up to now we weren't
quiet sure how relevant there were to the weightlessconditlon
but it now looks as though bed rest is a very good simulation
to weightlessness, we feel rather more confident about our
predictions for what's going to happen during the 56 -or
59- day mission. Sodium and potassium were also lost from
the body; that amounts again simulate simalar to what
has been seen in bed rest. The amounts of sodium and potassium
were in no ways alarming. And probably the - loss of sodium
is able to explain some of the results of the cardiovascular
study, if not all. Magnesium was also lost in small amountss
but this is very much on the sort of - beginning to get
a little bit way out in sort of esoteric substances to measure.
But Just for the record a little bit of magnesium was lost. Can
we have the next view graph, please? The bioassay of body
fluids experiment, M073, studies the different bodyily hormones
both in the blood and in the urine. The results of the
hormones in the blood are not yet available, but we have
got some preliminary results on how much of the different
hormones and their byproducts were eliminated in the urine,
and you can see a ;ost tjere pf just some of the many hormones
that have been measured. It's too early really to give any
definite results on this except that there sl - it looks as
though space flight was in a minor way stressing the system,
and that the various hormonal systems of the body were responding
to this stress. None of the levels of hormones which have been
measured so far were in any way alarming. They were all just showing
that the body had been exposed to an abnormal situation and
was obviously able to respond to it in an appropriate
fashion. Can we have the next one, please?

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 7-C/I
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WHITTLE We have next something - - The firm


mineral measurements this is a pre- and postflight measure-
ment and what we do is to pass the beam of gamma rays, which
is simular to X-rays, through the bones of the heel and to
Just measure how much of those gamma rays get stopped by the
bone in the heel. And it's also done on the wrist. I've a
sort of control. Could we have the first of the mounted
view graph? Those of you who are on this shift may have
seen this apparatus in use. You can see the heel immersed
in a tank of water that has a beam of rays passed through
it and the wrist is immersed in some silly putty stuff
and that again has the rays passed through it. What this
experiment has shown is that no detectable loss of calcium
oceured from the heel during the 28 day mission. This is
exactly in accord with the findings of the bedrest studies. And
the sort of calcium loos that we've seen this mission which
as I said, far less than i percent of the total body
calcium it's just within the experimemtal error of this
measurements and the fact that we didn't see them - a lot
of calcium from the heel doesn't mean it wasn't there it
Just means that we are unable to detect it. But what we do
expect is that the amounts of loss of mineral from the heel
on the 56 day mission will be measurable and we expect to
get some positive results through this experiment on the
next flight. Incidently, the sort of loss of calcium we're
talking about is of no possible threat to the man. This
sort of rate would have to continue for something llke a
year before we'd even begin to get worried about the man /
breaking bones if he Jumped down the step or something lik_
this so this isn't a problem for Skylab, but it may be a )
problem for - when we get to Mars. Can we have the next /
slide, please? On experiment 172 is the body mass measurement.
You've probably seen pictures of the Skylab body mass
measurement device, which is the equlvilent of the bathroom
scale but adapted to weightlessness. This experiment we
had a little bit of trouble with the calibration. But as
far as it's task of weighing the astronauts daily is con-
cerned, it seems to perform extremely well. And we've got
through out the whole of hose the mission what we think is a
pretty good extimate of the body weights of all three
astronauts. The first objective that's shown up there is
to determine the performance of the device. That hasn't
been entirely satisfied yet, because of the calibration
difficulties. But so far as the clinical use of the device k_
is concerned it's been extremely good. Next one, please? _ _
We've had that one. Should be MO74. That's right. The spectru_ iu
in mass measuring devices is a small diversion of the body k

mass measuring device. And, once again, this has the objective \
basically - first of all, finding out how it works and it looks '\
as though it works extremely well. The calibrations of that
were very satisfactory and it looks as though it is capable
I of giving extremely accurate measurements of the mass in
weightless condition. And it's also used for weighing any
• . o.

SL III PC 7-C/2
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food residues; any partially eaten food that the astronaut decides
he Just can't finish, and thls Is in support of the mineral balance
experiment or to see to see [f we know exactly what goes into the
astronaut in the way of nutrients. We have to know how much he's left
behind if he gets half way through a dinner and decides he really
can't finish it. In fact, it was only used for that purpose
once in the flight. The astronauts were very good at Judging
Just what they wanted to eat., and if they felt they couldn't
eat something they didn't open the can and start on it. And
only once did one of the crew get half way through a meal
and decide that he'd really got more than he could cope with.
The feces are also weighed, - tThere are ywo separate devices
that I might add; one for weighing food and one for weighing
feces for obvious hygenic reasons. We had one hardware
problem in the waste management compartment - the device was
accidentally -
left on overnight and the electronics
got overheated and backed up. But what the crew did was
to swap over the electronics module from the other device
which was the food weighing one which you practically didn't
need to use. And so we got the weights of the feces for
most of the mission. This is of interest in the water
balance part of the experiment where we measure how much water
goes in and out - A little bit of water comes out in the
feces. It doesn't perturbe the experiment greatly if we're
unable to get that measurement but it does give us a little
bit of extra data, if it's available. Okay, can I have the
next slide, please? This is the experiment that was i/
got on so late that he didn't get a number for itself. It's
called by the fearsone name of stereo-photogrammetry. What it
is again is a pre - and postflig_r measurement.
_ What we do
is to take therlseopic pictures of the astronauts from both /
L*"
infront and behind simultaneously so that we get four plates.
And then in the photo lab we can reconstruct approximately
the exact form of the astronaut in great detail at the
moment that picture was taken and comparing the pictures
preflight and postfllght we can then find out any changes
taken - taken out of the volume of the body or the contour
/ of the body. And the preliminary analysis of these results
show that the locked in weight of the astronauts is Just
about exactly mirrored by locked in volume and, but most
of this volume came from below the waist which is very
useful supporting evidence to the theory that the astronauts
weight loss was due to loss of the muscles they weren't using.
These muscles were principally they were below the waist.
That experiment has given some useful data. Could we have
the next mounted one if you will? This just shows the set up
for taking the telescopic pictures. You can see two-wide
angle Hasselblad has cameras with their flash cubes between
them pointing at the back - Actually that's a dummy, tell
me that's not a human being and there's another pair pointing
r. at the sun at the same time and the cameras have triggered off
all together. And that completes my presentation.
SPEAKER Okay. Mike, Thank you very much. And
I'd like to go on then with Dr. Kimzey -
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SPEAKER llave the, lights, please?


SPEAKER - to discuss some of the MII0 series.
KIMZEY The Mll0 series is actually five series of
experiments looking at the blood and constituents of the blood.
Dr. Johnson will discuss what he experiments in particular and
I'ii try to summarize the results of the other four quickly.
Preflight, we collect blood from the astronauts over a 21 day
period about 4 times to establish normal base line values for all
their blood constituents. Then on Skylab II, as many of you
know, we drew blood twice for the first time in manned
spaceflight history of this country. This in-flight collection
of blood samples is extremely successful. With one exception
all samples were collected and preserved and returned for
analysis in very good shape. Then in postflight we began
our blood collection within 1 hour after they hit the water,
literally. And we do a collection of blood for four times over a
21 day period postflight. Then by comparing pre- and postfllght
valves we try to establish any changes which may have occurred
during the mission. And this time, having inflight data
valves available data parts for some of the measurements, we
can then establish during the mission itself. These types of pre-
and postflight analysis have been complicated in the past and are
still complicated by the fact that recovery itself is a unique
-- stress which may have nothing to do with the zero g environment
which may cause changes in itself, which could be attributed to
spaceflight which, in fact, was due strictly to a large g-force
on recovery. Again, the inflight samples help us in this inter-
pretation. The - one of these experiments delt with looking at
the inner elogical aspects of the body. Looking at the hemoral
aspects the (Garble) in the body which respond when the body is
challenged by foreign objects or infections. Prior to Skylab II,
we were somewhat apprehensive about the immune system's capacity to
meet a foreign challenges on return. Skylab does represent
- somewhat of a closed ecology system and has been shown in some
tests that in the lack of a sufficient number of challenges some-
times the body resistence drops. We found no such indications,
postflight, of any abnormalities in the immune system. All the
plasma and protein values were almost identical to the preflight
measurements that were made. So there is no indication of
a reaction to a - reaction of immune systems or any compromise
of immune systems. With one minor exception that the
cellular part of the immune system involvind the white blood
cells, in this case, one is called lymphocyte in particular.
These cells are stressed in vetro in a test tube end their
ability to respond to a anagenic challenge is measured by
measuring the rate of synthesis of a particular compound.
At recovery, the cells were not able to respond as well as
they had previously.

_ END OF TAPE
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KIMZEY At reeow, ry the cel]_ were riot able to respond


as well a_ they had previously. Thia (garble) response was returned
to normal by the next sampling period 7 days later. There
was no alarm expressed at this response. And since this is
the first time we have made this measurement so early, we
can't really compare it back to the Apollo flight, because
we didn't have the capability aboard the recovery ship
to de this analysis on Apollo. So the actual significance
of the this white blood cell loss of response at R+0
really awaits further examination on the next flight. We use
the red blood cell as a model system and do a quite extensive
mesurement on the metabolic processes in the cell. All the
metabolic processes in the body are similar from system to
system. The red cells have a somewhat simplified version
of metabolism but the enzymes that are present are identical
to other tissues in the body. And since we can remove the
red cells without significant trauma we can do a lot
of in test tube analyses of both the red blood cell
metabolic processes. We can establish the efficiency of
the metabolism as well as measure some functional aspects of
red cell performance to see if the metabolism is functioning
normally. To sum up very quickly, theere were no abnormal
changes in red cell metabolism either from the standpoint
_ of the amount of energy stored in the red cell - This is
a chemical energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate,
ATP, as l_m sure you've heard. No indication of a change in
the integrity of the cell membrane which is one of the
primary functions of the red cell system metabolism. No
indication of change in the red cells' ability to transport
oxygen from the lungs to the tissue, which is its primary \
function. So if we use the red cell as a model of biochemic
functions in the body, we can Say that there was not any
drastic changes in its performance that could be attributed f
to the Skylab environment. One experiment, which we
unfortunately do not have any data on yet, it looks that
possible radiation damage by examining chromosome breakage
in the white blood cells. These samples are collected
pre and postflight again and the extent of chromosome
abbreations are measured and the data is not yet available
for that experiment. Some of the routine measurements on the
enoeological parameters - these are the things - the infrared
blood cells when you have an annual physical at the doctor's
office. They always take blood and make these measurements.
We saw some changes, in which I'll sort of leave for Dr. Johnson to
discuss, because they sort of support his findings of his
particular experiment. These changes are not of pathological
significance. I think that it's an important point in that the
measures we' re making, we' re trying to detect trends in the values
of these in which trends mean small changes on the order of
"- 5, 6 percent. When you have blood work done up in the hospital;
they are looking for gross changes on the order of 20, 30, 40
percent. And so we ' re trying to predict trends from very small
SI. I11 PC 7-D/2
--- Time: 10:00 CD'I'
7/26/73

changes which makes it very difficult. I think the medical


science that we're pushing in this particular aspect of laboratory
analysis was not originally designed to do this sort of thing.
And so sometimes when we say changes, we really practicing
physician, sees these and doesn't get very excited at all. In
fact he doesn't see any changes at all. I think now I'll transfer
this to Dr. Johnson, let him discuss his particular experiment dealing
with the blood volume measurements.
JOHNSON Okay. My job as part of the NASA team
is to do the nuclear medical, the radio isotope base, and volume
studies for the crews. These studies originated in Gemini and
have been continued intermittently up and through Skylab. Our
Job is twofold, both to measure the blood constituaents just
discussed by Dr. Kimzey. And secondly, to measure various
phases in volume in the body as part of the endocrine
studies under Dr. Leach. We measure such things as the
total amount of potassium in the body, total amount of water
in the body, total amount of water in cells, and out of
cells, and from this we get an estimate of total amount of
fat in the individual. I want to say that it's now 5 to i
that our astronauts contain less fat than the medical
controls that we use including myself. Showing that I think
astronauts are in better shape than physicians in general.
Second we measure the amount of blood circulating. Blood
consists of two compartments, the red cells that Steve has
been talking about and the liquid portion which we call plasma
or plasma volume which is the portion the red blood cells
are suspended in and pushed around the body. We found
in this first Skylab mission that the total amount of red
cells circulating in the crew - each crew member decreased during
the mission. The mean decrease was 14 percent. This would
be approximately equivalent to drawing maybe a pint of
blood, the amount red blood cells in a pint of blood from
the individual. Again like in the fat measurements our
crew started out with more red blood cells than did our
medical control. Then again the total amount of red blood
cells in the body is related to your physical conditioning.
Thus, if you're an athlete, or if I see you jogging on the
beach here in Cocoa tonight, the chances are your red cell
mass or total number of red cells will be greater than mine
who will be sitting there watching you go by. In all our
missions we have seen a drop in red cell mass as the crews
returned from their flight. These changes compared to the
14 percent in Skylab, had been smaller in some missions,
foe instance, the early Apollo mission. They've been a little
smaller in the later Apollo missions where they landed on
the Moon. And were somewhat greater or at least as great
in the early Gemini series. We believe that the drop in
/ -
SL 111 PC7-D/3
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red cells, the total amount of red cells which in a sense


is a form of physical decondltloning, is related to the
muscle mass loss that was mentioned by Dr. Whittle. It
may also be related to the fact that the astronauts are
breathing an air or an atmosphere quite foreign to the
human body. But in general, they're breathing lower pressure
air and higher pressure oxygen. It's been our odd idea that
the slightly higher oxygen pressures cause a loss of
red cells during the early part of the mission. And this
is an adaptation to an increased oxygen intake. We believe
in Skylab that the - in the latter part of Skylab the oxygen
pressures were not - much higher that they are in this room
and yet the red cells did not come back. So that we have
our first new finding in Skylab as far as red cell mass
goes, and that is that we got the drop we're expecting. But
surprisingly enough, while they were up there, their red
cell mass did not return to normal. And this may again
relate to the physical deconditioning or loss of muscle mass
as reported by Dr. Whittle, hut it is unknown at this time.
NASA has done a study of this phenomena, and we - studies
in which atmosphere similar to the early Apollo mission
has shown similar drops in red cell mass. So we feel
fairly confident that the oxygen concentration relates to
the early drop. The second portion of the blood volume is the
plasma volume or the circulating fluid that drives the red
cells around the veins and arteries. We found very
little change in the plasma volume in our crew, the mean
difference being about minus 4 percent. Dr. Whittle mentioned
that we use bed rests to try to study the affects of
weightlessness -

END OF TAPE

I
• , °.

SL III PCT-E/I
Time: i0:00 CDT
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SPEAKER Dr. Whittle has mentioned that we use
bed rest to try to study the affects of weightlessness. It
is interesting that in bed rest during a time equivalent
to Skylab, the drop in the plasma volume of the fluid
portion of the blood would have approached 20 percent. So we
find then, in Skylab the fluid portion of the blood did not
decrease as much as we would have predicted. This was found
also in the longer Apollo mission and in the longest Gemini
mission but not in the shorter. And this leads us to believe
that there are changes in the spaceflight or in the weightless
environment not related or which do not occur in bed rest. And at
the present time the theory is that the hormone aldosterone
produced by the adrenil - This hormone for reasons not to sure
at the present time increases during the flight and brings
plasma volume which tends to want to go down, to the man - The
men are being deconditioned through the muscle mass and
so forth, - brings the plasma volume back to a fairly normal
level, and this is totally different from spaceflight -
from a bed rest. So we find then as far as the blood constituents
are concerned, the total amount of red cells is less and the
total plasma volume is not a drop as we would have predicted.
It opens up for this next Skylab mission two lines of questions,
and that is will this longer Skylab mission give the astronauts
a chance to reconstitute or bring back their red blood cells,
since they will be living in a longer period of time at a
normal oxygen pressure. And secondly will this return of the
plasma volume up to normal or near normal, will this be sustained
or another words will the increase the aldosterone hormone
stay, continue to stay high, through this longer mission?
As a side light on the alldosterone, we have talked about in
past potassium losses, and Dr. Leake, our endocrinologist,
feels that the potassium losses are secondary to phenomena
when related to the increase in the alldosterone, because
this hormone causes loss of potassium. And so while it may
be helping one part of the blood - blood picture by increasing
the plasma volume, it may be doing a little bit of harm perhaps
in the muscle in that it's decreasing the total muscle potassium
during the mission. Like the other three speakers we need
to point out that spaceflight is new and that, while we
have theories of what is happening, the theories are bound
to be changed as we continue to study and go to a longer
mission.
PAO Thank you, Bill. Okay, at this time
we will open up for questions, just as soon as we get our
mikes in operation. I'ii have to ask you to wait until
we do have a microphone for it.
SPEAKER Lee Prince of the Stokie News. Two questions,
first for Dr. Whittle, do you believe that if there will be more
exercise, such as the kind practiced by Mr. Conrad on the
last mission, if all astronauts on pre - subsequent mission
SL III PCT-E/2
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were to take part in and there would not be the kind of degradation
in the blood and muscle chemistry that develop? And the second one
for Dr. Hawkins. Would be- Have you considered the psychologlcal
affect of longer term spaceflight, such as the 59 day mission, in
which although the dedication may be there, there may be friction
may develop?
whiC_HITTLE On the question on exercising effecting \_
the muscle loss, it would I think take a great deal of exerci_e_--
in weightless condition to even remotely approach the amount 1
of exercises we get by just standing around and - walking _ _ .
around in a l-g environment. It may well be that to really •
prevent any of this loss of muscle the astronauts will have
to spend their entire time exercising. The other side light
on this is, this is a - this lost of nitrogen and loss of
muscle is one of the things we are studying on Skylab and
obviously we don't want to ruin our studies by encouraging
our astronauts to taks large amounts of exercises. So when
it comes to considering on what we do on the run tomorrow
we Just don't know the answer because the astronauts have
prevented from occurlng the sort of things we are looking
for. We are not at anyway worried about the healthful safety
of the astronauts, from this muscle loss and I think at the i
moment we are interested in measuring it. And when they /
go to Mars, it may well be that they have to take a great /
bit of exercise, but we would like to be at least sure about/
that, before making that decision. /
HAWKINS On the other question now, we are always/
looking at the psychological aspects of individual in
relationship under any type of isolated condition.
This you definitely take into consideration, your selection
of your people, you want people that are compatible.
Now this does not guarantee that you're - you'rr going to have
a complete harmony throughout an indefinite period of time.
Individuals are individuals and there could definitely be some
friction developed and persons who go for a long period
of time in confinement - this is more likely. But we feel
that we do have as you said motivated, highly motivated and
dedicated people who are interested in doing the job that
have been trained to function as a team and they realize that
without that team effort, and their individual inputs into
the total - this whole thing is not going to work. And so
they are driven to perform in that manner.
SPEAKER Dr. Hawkins, if nothing especially
worries them was found after slashdown, why was it necessary
to recommend an additional three days in order to bring the
men down closer to San Diego, so they would not be spending
that much time onboard ship?
SL IIl PC-7/3
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HAWKINS Well the - what we are trying to do is


to elemlnate as many of these varables that are acting upon
in stressing the crewmen in that recovery, immediate recovery
period. Like the amount of time they spent on the water,
the roll of the ship, the vibration of the ship, and so forth.
It's difficult to - you know to eliminate these things and
to throw them out and say how much this particular stress
influences the result of the experiment. So we would like
to do, is to first get them back on terra firma as quickly
as possible where we could examine them, examine them under
that condition and thus eliminate as many as possible.
SPEAKER You were aware of this before this mission
was planned originally. Was there something that you
saw specifically told you that was going to be necessary
or desirable to cut the time?
HAWKINS Well, yes, take for example, Joe Kerwln,
I think all three crewmen exhibited the same type of
immediate post-flight vestibular disturbance or change.
In the form of vertigo or dizziness with head movements,
Joe, more than the others, also demonstrated some seasickness,
Just pure old seasickness. And a - plus as they all did,
pastual hypotension. Okay now, it is hard to say
how much of - how much of his condition was due to pure
sea sickness and how much was due to the other factors.
And this is the type of thing, we would llke to definitely
try to ball down and reduce, as much as possible.
SPEAKER Dr. Hawkins, I'm not quite clear on some
of the results from the vestibular function test, I know that
their ability to withstand motion sickness, to put off motion
sickness was enhanced while in space, and I thought that I
read that when they came back that their performace in the
rotating litter chair was also, was still better than
what it had been in pre-flight. I don't see how that relates
to the ease with which Joe Kerwin got sick, or was that
a totally different eliment involved? Is vertigo not
related to the vestibular function of the body?
HAWKINS Well his vertigo is used as a term to
experss the symptoms and all of which the man experances.

END OF TAPE
SL [II PC 7-F/1
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7126173

HAWKINS In aviation most pilots have been taught


vertigo is an illusion of their position or movement within the
space. True vertigo is actually a condition manifested by a
feeling of rotation, of the individual being rotated within the
room or the room spinning around him, and a lot of people refer
to this and call it dizziness. This is what true vertigo is. What
the crew felt was the feeling of a slight dizziness or a
vertigo as they llke to term it, with the movement of their head.
ow this is back with the l-g condition whereas in flight they were
able to go through a much greater head movement that what
they were pre-flight without any disturbances whatsoever.
z QUERY I am still puzzled though about how
after the period mmediately following splashdown, when
the went to the rotating litter chair, their performance was still
better than pre-flight. Was there a time immediately after
spashdown when if they had been tested it would have been
significantly worse and is that why Joe Kerwin got sick?
HAWKINS We didn't test them until really they
were back in Houston. Now by that time the immediate
post-fllght effects in all were gone. So, yes, I don't
know what that would have shown us had we been able to make
that measurement immediately post-flight on R zero.
WHITTLE As is I understand it, Kerwin was highly
susceptible to sea sickness anyway and the amount of stress
on the vestibular system in that command modular especially
after he had to get out of the couch and move his head
around and do alot of things. That was a considerable
stress and I think it may well be that even at that time
he was less susceptible to motion sickness than he would
have been normally, but it is just that that stress was so
severe that it were - it did elicit motion sickness in
him. Also because he was having a little bit of trouble
standing up due to the fall in blood pressure and possible
hypertension. He drank a large quantity of fluids to try
and get some fluid into his circulation. And this is
of course is another very good way of making yourself
sea sick if your inelinded that way.
QUERY Mike Mostrum, NBC. I'm not sure who
would like to answer this. But I wonder if you noticed
in your collection of data a - an expansion of the decrease.
In other words did the degradation of these different
medical things get worse as you got toward the end of the
mission, toward the 25, 26, 27, 28th days of the mission.
Or was the loss or losses about the same rate throughout the
entire mission?
HAWKINS Okay. I guess we need to kind of
break it up here. Let me say with regards to the MITI 3
the work performance, really we did not see any change
i

SL III PC 7-F/2
Time: 10:00 CDT
7126173

throughout the mission. There were no trends evident.


Now in the M092 1 don't I think that there was some
change. Continuing although this was less than the latter
days of the mission than what we noted in the first half -
first portion of the flight. But there's still some changes
with heart rate during stress periods" and also blood
pressure. Another interesting thing that we did see was a
cycling of the blood pressures and heart rate during the
mission and it seemed to be something like on about every
12 days. It was Just a cycling of change in the readings
in other words like a sign wave with highs and lows. So
we feel llke that in that area was still not completely
stabilized by the end of the mission although we were beginning
ro get some kind of a feel or indication that perhaps it
would stablize on out - beyond that 28-day period.
WHITTLE Calcium loss - the increased calcium
loss in the urine at the beginning of the mission there was
no increase calcium loss and this built up steadily toward the end
of the mission and we have the feeling that it has just
about pla teaued at the end of the mission. And that on the
longer mission we will see the loss of calcium continuing
about the same rate as at the end of this mission. Nitrogen
loss waited a week to get going and then having started
continued about the same rate. And things like sodium and
potassium started being off right in insertion into orbit
and continued to start the rate throughout.
QUERY Then can we conclude that there appears
to he a plateau effect reached that Dr. Hawkins says that
the sign waves seem to be canceling out. That maybe at a
point in time 28 days, 30 days, 40 days or whatever, we
reach a plateau in these changes and functions that are
adaptations to weightlessness. And that these future
missions, 59 day mission, may indicate that there is a
plateau reached beyond which change does not occur.
HAWKINS Yes that is possible and we are definitly
hoping that.
SPEAKER There's one - There's some system in aldosterone
the body - what I'm thinking in particular the aldosterone
response. The aldosterne showed a rapid increase early in
the mission and dropped to a newer higher level and then
showed a rapid increase at recovery, which is typical.
But the new higher level if that is maintained long enough
than the system in the body which are responsive to
aldosterone will change in sensitivity and may not be able
to function properly, the kidneys in this case. I think
this is a know medical situation, so the body can reach
that experience in its various systems. But sometimes
if you're running too high or too low you do have a finite
capacity to maintain that new level of regulation. The
problem is that we as investigators haven't yet been able
SL III PC 7-F/3
Time: I0:00 CDT
7/26/73

to get together and integrate all our findings. And so


unfortunately we are talking to you about independent
systems which in effect are not independent at all. And
so it is very difficult to give you a real good answer on
it.
SPEAKER For example, what effect these changes
he is referlng to really how the hormonal control
functions factors and all effect the cardial vascular system.
This is not clear to us yet.

your QUERY
look at the Skylab Bill data lead you
(garble). toward like
I would the to
conclusion
ask if
! that on the long term space flight that you may have to
, induce some gravity. And as follows to the psycological
question before I think, Dr. Kerwin's in his post-fllght
conference said that on such a long term mission that it would be
desirable to have a more normal socialogical environment.
Would any of you llke to elaborate on what that might
include?
SPEAKER I didn't hear his comment. I wouldn't know how
to- (laughter)
SPEAKER I think Dr. Berry answered that about
a year ago in TIME.
QUERY The first one then on the induced gravity.
r SPEAKER I don't think we yet know enough about
the magnitude of these changes to say whether artificial
gravity would he a good idea. You have to rotate the
spacecraft through a very high angular eacceleration to
produce anything approaching the sort of gravity levels
we think would be useful in protecting the system. And
this could very well produce such severe problems to the vestibula_
system that it wouldn't be worth doing. Also I gather the
engineers are unhappy about it. But I think that we would
first look toward some other counter measure such as exercise
or injections of hormones or additions of particular
dietary costituents before we start to go for artificial
gravity.
QUERY Tom Beldon, UPI. Dr. Hawkins, when the
announcement was made that the mission would be extended
to 59 days it was also said that the crews condition
would be looked at on a weekly basis. As I understand it
Am I understanding it correctly - There is a possibility
if something is saycauslng alarm that the mission could
be called off at the end of each week. And that being the
case, what are the - what sort of things would you -

END OF TAPE
, °_

SLIII PC 7/G/1
Time: i0:00 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER and that being the case, what are the


what sort of things are you - would have to see before you'd
tell the crew to come home?
SPEAKER Well we - we have asked ourself that question,
and I find it difficult to sit down and Just llst specifics
you know, say, if you have a heart rate of this value then you
can Just call it off. It's not that simple, it's a real time
decision based upon a lot of things. You are going to have
got to take the man and look at him in his entirety and how he
is responding in other areas and not Just to any one specific
parameter of measurements really. You would - what we
what was said, was that we feel certainly with a 28-day flight
under our belt, that we certainly can fly another 28 days.
And we will be flying with three new crewmen three - again,
three different individuals. And we may very well see entirely
different things occurring than what we have seen from the
first Skylab. But they - from 28 days on, what we said was
it will be a weekly assessment evaluatlonof where we are, how
goes it, and this will be, of course, presented to management
and it is their decision as to whether we go and continue on or what.
QUERY Dr. Johnson, would you spell that hormone
that you talked about that increased during the flight. Aldosterone.
JOHNSON Aldosterone, its a i d o s t e r o n e.
Aldosterone.
Query And is that similar in function to adrenalin
or something that increases -
JOHNSON Aldosterone is a hormone produced by the
adrenalin why the maldo of the adrenal, is Infront of it.- one of
the reasons. And it's - there are two actually three classes of
hormones produced by the adrenalin in the outer portion of the
adrenal, which we call the cortex, these are cortisone - type
hormones, you have androgens, which are in a sense male hormones
produced by the adrenal in both males and females, and lastly
aldosterone. Aldosterone is in the adrel/alin to handle salt
metabolism. Its basic function,in fact only function is to
conserve sodium, which is the salt that is outside of the cells.
It's in the process of doing that it excretes potassium, which is
a salt in cell. It's signaled to come on or increase - if we have
a change in renal blood flow, either a blood pressure change or a
constriction of the artery, or some change in the kidney, it's
signaled to come on, if the right heart is not feeling with enough
blood each time the heart starts to dilate. It is also signaled
to come on if potassium is suddenly being lost for some other
reason. As an example, if you have acute muscle atrophy, and there
were a lot of potassium coming out, this would increase the amount
of aldosterone, since it - the kidney uses the aldosterone
to help it excrete potassium, and prevent the levels from
SL III PC 70G/2
Time: i0:00 CDT
7/26/73

JOHNSON rising above what is optimal for the body


at that time. So it's a hormone in medicine, we have a
syndrome where tumers produce this hormone in excess and it
is associated with weakness, lowering of a - rises in blood
pressure and in medicine, it can be cured by removing the
affected adrenal or the affected tumor. In medicine it
goes under the term Cons-syndrome, for the man that first
described the syndrome.
SPEAKER Question for Doctor Hawkins, it isn't clear
to me at what point do you consider that the astronauts were
back to normal. You said that the Apollo 15 astronauts took
up to 13 days and that was the longest. Did it take longer
than that for these astronauts to get back or not?
HAWKINS Yes, I remember that RI8 we really didn't
feel that they were hack within the pre-flight baseline
envelope well enough that we would say, you know, happy and
we were sacifled with theresults didn't have to perform any
further tests. But R21 I think was the next measurement.
We felt that really they were, back within that envelope,
however, we do still plan when they get back from vacation,
we will run them again Just to see what their levels are at
that period of time.
SPEAKER Like I say the 13 or 14 days on Apollo 15
was an anomaly and all the other Apollo missions were back
to normal within 48 hours, with respect to exercise response.
Their blood volume measurement still indicates in R plus 14
they haven't recovered the lost cells and we also hope to
repeat that after their vacation but -
SPEAKER I think that is true, the biggest DELTA yet
is still within the hematology and the blood chemistry.
SPEAKER Once again we are running over, so we
will have to take this one more question then we will close
it
SPEAKER Rusty Robinson, with Today. Dr. Hawkins,
let's assume everything goes well on this next mission and we
see a leveling off and so forth. What are the chances of
extending the third mission beyond 59, maybe even on to 90 days
as Joe Kerwin said he would like to see, would yon he for that?
HAWKINS I think that is possible , - I know that
that there are some who feel llke they would llke to extend
it providing that the workshop, the hardware and everything
is still holding together. We would have to make that
decision after we fly Skylab 3.
SPEAKER Okay, we will take one more.
SPEAKER Dr. Hawkins, 4 weeks ago you said you wouldn't
beat on whether the Skylab crew would walk out of the command
module, you said you want to see some more base line data before
SLIII PC7-G/3
Time: i0:00 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER making such a prediction. I was wondering if


you care to make such a prediction today.
HAWKINS For the Skylab 3?
SPEAKER Fir the Skylab 3.
HAWKINS Well, I can't - no I don't think I would
llke to make any predictions.
HAWKINS I'm afraid you would hold me to it.
SPEAKER We would underestimate our astronauts, that's
the major thing. In the position we see very highly motivated
men, and I believe if they had to climb Mount Everest, they would
do it, without an oxygen mask.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Sky lab Ill Premlsslon Science Briefing - EREP


Kennedy Space Center
July 26, 1973
I:00 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Thomas Fishetti, EREP Project Manager for NASA Headquarters


Dr. Veral Wilmarth, JSC Earth Resources Program Scientist
PAO, Bill Pomeroy

PC 8
SL-III PC 8-A/I
Time: 13:08
7/26/73

SPEAKER Okay, ladies and gentlemen it looks as though


we have some difficulty out of Patrick in getting the voice
from the commander so we'll begin the EREP program with , to my
right, Mr. Thomas Fischettl, EREP Project Manager for NASA head-
quarters, and Dr. Veral Wilmarth, Johnson Space Center he is the
Earth Resources Program Scientist. So we'll start with
Mr. Fischetti and if we possibly get some word from Patrick we'll
interrupt the program. Mr. Fischetti.
FISCHETTI What we thought we would do today is to
review for you, to begin with, the EREP - what the sensors are,
what they do- and then go through, and what we plan for SL-III.
And then after that Dick will cover some of the specific
applications of the photograph and imagery that we did obtain
for SL-II and show you some of the areas in which they apply.
Now if we can have the first chart. Well, to remind you, we
have 6 sensors on the EREP package. They're listed here , and
if we may have the next chart these are the spectral ranges
that they cover from the visible to the microwave region.
We have two camera systems. The S190 has an SI90A which is a
six-band _c_m_r__Z_em. In thes_ _1_Eilc_ular'ran-_s,we_ used
_f3-_d white film in four of the b_ _/_ c01or in t___fth,
__i_l_ r esiolu_f6*%--_-bl-o-f in the Sixth. An_-_DTc-_k W_fll show
you some examples in these areas. The earth terrain camera
is a high focal length camera, the single lens covering
this range from 4/10 to 7/10. We also use it with high -
resolution color film, IR color film, and black and white film.
On the SL-II we did obtain information with the hlgh-resolutlon
color film. The black and white, we had a problem with it,
and that's a marginal quality. The IR was damaged by the heat.
We were not able to use it. The S191 is an infrared spectro-
meter; it's boresighted with a_ope. It has a field of view
on the ground of about a quarter of a nautical mile. It has
two spectral ranges here to the IR and in the thermal. This
does not give us an image. What it gives us is a signature
of a particular piece of real estate on the ground, in a analog
form. In other words, it gives us continous data over this
range. The other one is the 192 multlspectral scanner. It's
a 13-band scanner. This prov_'s us with dlgital.info_matlon
which can he reformated into a picture. And Dick has several
examples of that to show you. The 13 band - are concentrated and
are visible to the IR, and there is one band in the thermal portion.
The 193 is an active and passive microwave system. It's all the
way over here in the spectrum, at 2.2 eentlmenters or 13.9 gigahertz,

and
L-bandwe have some
radiometer information
is a passive to system
show you on
operating that. at The
21 19__

meters or 1.4 gigahertz. So those are the general areas of cover-


age. The next chart - we thought we'd summarize it again for you,
some of the unique things of EREP and some of the limitations
of the system. It is a facility in that we are acquiring data
_ for specific users over specific ground test sites. We currently
have 145 principal investigators, so that number has to be
updated. We do have a rather high spatial resolution, particularly
with the photographic system and very good spectral coverage on
SL-III PC 8-A/2
Time: 13:08
7/26/73

- the 192 ml(:row_w, sPt'ctrOtll¢'lt'r -- Itlll sorry, tile 192 sc_lltloF.


And we ace carryLn_ active and passive microwave systems.
All our data are recorded on board in systems opeaated
by the crew and it is a coordinated program involving ERTS
aircraft and ground crews, and we'll illustrate an example
where we did have that type of coordination on SL-II. Also
again to remind you that we're on the anti-solar side, so
that in order to do EREP passes it's necessary that we rotate
the Skylab so that our sensors are Earth pointed. Now,
these are the number of Earth-oriented passes that we planned
on the mission - are a total of 60. We planned 14 on SL-II, 26
on SL-III. In addition to the Earth-oriented passes, we have
several passes planned which are solar-inertial which are
done on the dark side of the Earth, and they're done looking
at the Moon and at the sky. And they are primarily intended
as calibrate passes for our sensors. And we did accomplish
the one on SL-II that we planned. We planned two of those
on SL-III. Now in terms of actual passes that we got on
SL-II, we planned on 14 and we were able to complete ii
of the 14, and we did complete the calibrate pass. These are
the passes in the area in which they cover. In the initial
part of the mission, because of the power problem, it was
necessary to constrain the Z-local vertical operation, in time.
Principally because when we go to the Z-local vertical mode, we
lose power on the solar arrays. So you'll see a number of
short-duration passes. Those all occur during the early
part of the mission. And in the latter part of the mission,
after the solar array was deployed, we did have sufficient
power and we were able to have essentially full-duration EREP
passes going from the United States down through South America.
Now, we bad one other thing going against us during the
SL-II mission and that was the weather. There happened to
be a very large Bermuda high in this area. And throughout
most of the mission there were large frontal systems sitting
over the Eastern part of the United States. So that the
amount of data that we were able to acquire was limited by
the weather conditions. There were also fairly heavy clouds
in the South American area. Now there's one other thing.
During the SL-II mission there was a hurricane that occurred -
an unusual hurricane, hurricane Ava. And we were able to
get data from Skylab in the solar inertial mode - microwave
data - and we do have some more information to discuss with you
on that. Now, these are some numbers. We brought back 18
cassettes of the 190A. There are about 6500 frames. We brought
back two cassettes, two rolls of the 190B. So in total, the amount
of photographic data that we brought back was like 7460. And we
anticipate that some 80 percent of that will be useful; the
other 20 percent has either extreme cloud cover or is the black
and white 190B, which is of marginal use. The infrared - -

END OF TAPE
f
SI,-III PC-8B/I
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER The infrared spectrometer, which is


crew operated, is boresighted with a camera, a 16-millimeter
camera, a rather large number of frames. This is principally
used for the investigator to determine where the crew as
looking when it actually took data. All of the rest of the
sensors: 192, 191, 193 and 4 are on magnetic tape. We
brought back six tapes with data amounting to 41,000 feet
or approximately 8 miles of tape. We collected data over
31 states and Puerto Rico, six foreign countries, and they're
listed. A number of water areas, Gulf of Mexico, Brazil.
I'm sorry. Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans. The data we acquired are for test sites
for 75 principal investigators. Now what that meas is that
we either got complete or partial data for 75 of the UF
investigators. And may we have the next one?
SPEAKER This is a chart which yon have probably
also seen before, listing the number of investigators.
This number has been changed to 150. So we got data for
one-half of the UF investigators on SL-II. And that was
for 186 test sites. Now there are something llke 570 test
sites in the total Skylab UF program. That gives you some
idea of the percentages. Nex one, please.
SPEAKER Now this is the special event, the
Hurricane Ava. What you see here is a picture that was
taken NOAA 2. This is a hurricane and the eye. It was a
rather unusual eye in that it's almost exactly circular.
And the hurricane itself is an unusual event in tha it
occurred in this area and also it occurred in the particular
time of the year that it did. This is the Skylab track 49
in the solar inertial mode. New we weren't exactly over the
hurrlcane_ so what we had to do was rotate the S193 so that
it could scan across track in this direction. And we did
scan about a quarter of the hurricane with the 193 system.
Now at the same time that Skylab was scanning that, and
the crew did take pictures with the Hasselblad out the
window; but at the same tlm_, a NOAA aircraft, which is an
instrumented aircraft, flew through the hurricane and was
seannlng, getting microwave data, scanning in this direction.
And they also made a laser profilometer measurement - that's
the first successful measuring using the laser prnfilometer.
The winds that they detected were 130-knot winds, and the
wave heights were 45-foot wave heights. Sometime earlier
there was an Air Force flight, an instrument aircraft,
through the hurricane. So it - as far as we see, it's the
first sensing of a major storm from space using an active
microwave system. The data are being processed, so we
can't actually show you any results from it. But what we're
anticipating is that if everything works as we expect, then
we might be able to demonstrate that using active microwave
SL-III PC-8B/2
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/26/73
f_

systems in space is a useful way of studying major storms


of this type. The other special event occurred on June i0.
Over the Wabash Valley river basin. This was a case where
we had essentially a five-stage sampling of the same piece
of real estate on the ground. We had EREP, we had ERTS, we
had low-altitude and high-altitude aircraft, and ground
measurements by the investigator all within about an hour.
They also occurred under favorable weather conditions -
0 to 0.3 cloud cover in minor haze. Now the - with the EREP,
we were able to get the photographic data. We got spectrom-
eter data and scanner data, the ERTS scanner because ERTS
has only a scanner working at the time. So we got scanner
data from ERTS, scanner data from the low-altitude aircraft,
and on the hlgh-altltude aircraft, the multiband camera
that we referred to here is the camera that is very similar
to the camera that we have on Skylab. Now we're hoping to
get several things on this particular event. We're hoping to
be able to make a comparison of the usefulness of using
different types of space systems.
PAO Ladies and gentlemen, apparently the
Skylab III crew has landed at Patrick, and we anticipate
some remarks from the crew momentarily, so we'll hold the
llne open.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 8-C/I
Time: 13:08 CST
7/26/73

SPEAKER Planned 30 casket tell for tile SI9OA and six


rolls of film for SI90B. And we plan to use 11 magnetic tapes.
Tile magnetic tapes are already on board Skylab with the ex-
ception of two which are going up on SL-IIZ as replacements.
In the coverage area we expect to continue the U.S. coverage.
One of the situations in SL-III was that all we had, because of the
particular time of the season and the orbital mechanics were
descending passes over the United States. On SL-III we'll start
off with descending passes, but near the end of the SL-III
mission we will have opportunity for ascending passes going
up along the east coast. We plan to cover northern Europe to
get data for investigators from that area. We're planning
several passes over Africa, at least one pass over Japan, and
at least one pass over the southeast Asia in the Thailand,
Malaysia, Australia area. In terms of the status of the EREP
sensors, the sensors preformed well in SL-II. Our data analysis
has shown us that we probably need to refine the alinement
on the S192 mulispectral scanner, so er plan to try to do that
at the beginning of the mission. As far as we know, the rest
of the sensors are in good shape, and we should be able to continue
to do the SL-III mission with them. Now at this point, I am
going to turn it over the Dick Wilmarth who will show you some of the
imagery that we got and point out some of the areas of application.
SPEAKER To repeat: its Dr. Wilmarth EREP Program
Scientist from Johnson Space Center.
SPEAKER Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Last
time I was down here I gave a short talk on what we expected
from EREP and I didn't have any data. I kept saying, "Well,
that's what it's supposed to look like." So today I have a few
examples, some of it new and some of it's already been
released, as far as public affairs people are concerned. To
begin with, we've got a nine program element as far as earth
resources is concerned and all of the 145, 146, investigators
are distributed throughout here. What I'm going to do this afternoon
is try and give you a few examples of the kinds of data that we
have been able to process, and we've looked at it very briefly.
This is not an exhaustive discussion of what the individual Pl's
are going to be looking at but it gives you a fair idea of the
kinds of data that are available for our selective investigators
to work with. To set the stage so I won't be asked the question
at the end, the data are now beginning to flow out of JSC to the
people, to the investigators, both the domestic and the foreign.
Specifically, all of the imagery from the multispectral cameras,
both the 190A and the 190B, is to go out either the latter part of
this week or the first part of next week. The 192 data_ as Tom
has already told you, is essentially in magnetic tape form, but
in order to ensure that the Pl's are working in the general area
of their approved test site, we are providing a screening film
to the investigators to select the specific GMT times that they
SL-III PC 8-C/2
Time: 13:08 CST
7/26/73
7_

want data put into a magnetic tpae form for them to process through
their own computer facilities. That data has already gone to
the Pl's and they will be getting back to JSC in order to provide
us the information for processing of their 7- of 9-track tapes.
Okay, so that's kind of where we are relative to the data analysis.
So let's look at some of the examples that I brought with me. \
We'll look at a few of these in here, and I'Ii show you some \
of the discrete examples of what you can see. This one is
the 190B. It's essentially the color, aerial color. It's in
the sandhills of Nebraska, Holt County, O'Neill, essentially
on the Elkhorn
here is some
River.
acreages,
This is O'Neill.
the various types
Now what
of plots,
you see in
and the
\L
reetangulars. It's espeesially a dryland farming with wheat and 1
corn. Cow raising is the primary interest in this area. But
what does this do for the individual Pl's? Simply this it
provides a rather rapid assessment of the utility of the 190B
in determing the acreage under cultivation at the present
time. It also provides some of the people working in
hydrologic areas an assessment of the total river basin along
the Biobrara River which flows on over into the Missouri.
This is the Elkhorn. But in combination with the next slide,
this information can be very useful. Now this is in channel
12. Now take a look at the pattern so you can see what I'm talking
about. Here is the Elkhorn. Look at the same circular pattern,
that you can see in there. This is a drop out in data here. But
you can see that enhances the black areas, which are essentlally
irrigation areas. They're on a rather unique irrigation syste
out there. They center it on about a quarter section or perhaps
an eighth section of land and irrigate it, and that's what you see
is the water. The irrigated areas extend out over here as black
as does some of the patterns relative to the agrlcultural plots
But see how this is enhanced relative to some of this area which
is essentially the river valley through the Niobrara. Another
composite that we have put together is the next one. This is
the 192 color composite of channels I0 and ii, which is essentially
in the middle IR range. Now you can see the white areas, the circles
coming up in here. Now this area is essentially again showing
the vegetation of areas in the red along the river valleys. This
is the sandhill country down here with the sagebrush and things
llke that. Now as far as the Pi is concerned, again computer
processing of the data will provide a rather rapid assessment of
the kinds of vegetation, the kinds of agricultural products
that are being raised as well as in acreage, so that if you had
this over a major area, and we do have this kind of information
from the 192 scanner, the utility of the 13-channel scanner can be
assessed rather rapidly for future use in planning experimentation,
which is one of the goals, as I told you last May, of the EREP
Program: to determine the utility of the various sensors, the
channels, the scanners, the microwave for earth resource programs.
The field of geology of course is a very - finds a very great
SL-IIT PC 8-C/3
Time: 13:08 CST
7/26/73

ust_ for color ph_tography. This Is the 190A, arelal color. Ilere
again, chose Las Vegas, klnd o[ turned around, but this is Las Vegas,
Nevada, wlth Lade Mead down in Hover Dam country falling on down
through forgot the name of the lake down in here. What it does
is to provlce the geologist a chance to look at the major structures
that you can see in the rocks in here such as this, a major offset,
a fault in the series of sedimentary rocks that are present in this
area. It shows also the major folding and anticlinal structures
that are always present in a major tectonic region such as the basin
range country in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Again this is a very
useful document for doing essentially geologic mapping, which is
indicated over there under the geologic application.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC g-D/I
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/27/73

SPEAKER Again, this is a very useful document for


doing especially geologic mapping, which is indicated over there
under the geologic applications. To give you an example of the
time phase and the kind of utility, this photograph covering
something on the order of 3600, maybe 3700 square miles,
the standard geologic mapping program in the United States,
is at a scale of i to 250,000. These maps and these
photographs can be used at the present time very adequately
to update the geologic mapping of this area and other areas
in the western part of the United States because of lack of
vegetation and the standing out of the - and the features that
stand out so very readily in this photography. Let's have
the next one. San Fafael swell. An old mining area in
Utah. Here again, from a geologic standpoint, knowing the
various V-shaped features that you see in here, geologists
can plot and can calculate the actual dipping of the strata
off of horizontal. They can plot the various types of rocks,
such as the red. You can trace this bed all the way
around to see how it's folded and soldered- solid as it
comes over here. As far as the agricultural area is
concerned, all the black is essentially an agricultural
plot. This is along the Green River on the Tavaputs
Plateau. This is the Price River flowing into the Green.
This is San Rafael River coming across here. What it does,
is to provide, at a very quick glance, and very rapidly,
an updating. On the original, you can see in here, the new
roads that have come across. This is the Interstate coming
through here. So it has that utility of quickly updating any
man-made or cultural features, provides the geologists a
very quick assessment of the geologic structures, which of
course, in this area are very important because it's a uranium
producing area. There's also an area off in here, which has been
mined for silver, since in something like the ig60's. So
one scale, one photograph covered in this area provides a
very useful tool for geologic mapping, for the agricultural
assessment of the area, for future planning, for looking at
the water resources, planning future dams, and so on and so
forth. Let's go on. San Francisco. Meteorology, very
interested in the offshore characteristic features of the
cloud cover. This is the color. This is color IR Again, the
color IR shows very definitely, the agricultural areas. It
produces, also, some very interesting features in here.
Especially the Oakland Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge
coming across here. The very famous San Andreas Fault stands out
relatively clear through there as it does on this area
through here. Again, the salt pans so that you can see
that in this area, the 190A data is of use for geologic
mapping, geologic and hydrologic studies, for looking at,
hopefully, with some of the urbanization problems and,
again, looking at some of the Bay Area pollution problems,
f_ as well as the sedimentation problems, which are very
prevalent in this area of the Bay. Okay? One area which
we had hoped would be rather outstanding, and although we did fly
SL-2 somewhat later than we had planned, and that is looking at
SL-III PC 8-D/2
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/27/73

the total snow cover out in the western part of the world, l
i_ where sunny and western part of the United States. We had
hoped that there would be an adequate resolution capability
as well as discrimination capability, and the 190A and the
190B photograph utilizing some of the 193 scatterometer data,
to accurately look at the total snow distribution in some
of the western states, I'm showing an example here. Mt. Ranler
is off to the north and west. This is part of the Cascade
Bumping River Plateau. Here , you can see, that for the
first time, a major area, sufficient discrimination and
resolution capability to map fairly accurately the snow cover
in this area. This is simply color OIR and we have not
experimented any further with some of the other parts, other
black and white of some of the color IR combinations in order
to see if we can enhance some of these contacts and look
at those to insure a more accurate mapping of the snow cover.
But Dr. Barns is interested in this and he is one of our PIs

working out there ion the west coast to - who is going to be


utilizing some of this data for certain - specifically snow mapping
in this area. Of course, it ties back again to the agricultural
and irrigation capabilities of the area, depending upon the
snow cover. Okay. For thee_graphers, we've looked at several
of the examples. This is 6he l_90-_estern part of Puerto Rico, and,
in talking to some of them, again, these features, down through
here, the shallow water and the deep blue water indicates to some
of the investigators, as well as the lighter blue along here,
some of the coastal processes, the effects of wave fronts, the
depth, the symmetry of the area, how deep is it in these areas,
updating some of the navigational charts. Over on here, you can
see the airforce base and the power plant right here. As well as
to look at the intricate road pattern, the agricultural pattern,
along through here. So in one 190B photograph, Dr. Trouble of U.S.
Geological Survey has an eye-vlew of looking at the whole
thing from the standpoint of coastal processes the symmetry,
agriculture, some of the geologic features off up in the high-
lands, as well as the stream pattern. Now, we get away from
the pictures for a moment and look at the 193 scatterometry,
radiometry, and altimetry. Remember, I told you one of
the interesting features one of the interesting experiments
as far as the EREP program is concerned is to try and map the
depression of the sea surface over the Puerto Rican trench.
We overflew that a couple of times and we've plotted out very
preliminarily, some of the data relative to mean sea level.
And here's what it shows. We know that, as we pass over the
Puerto Riean trench, that there is a sea depression. It's
estimated here at approximately 20 meters. I think theoretically,
they calculated at about 13 meters. Here again, this is very
preliminary analysis, this is time hacks along here in
minutes, so we _re operating the altimeter, and it tells us one
thing; that we can measure this amount of displacement along
the sea surface using the altimeter. Now we've taken
altimeter data over land/sea interfaces, we've taken it over
some of the rough country out there in the western United
States and, again, we'll be getting back to this to look at it
SL-[II PC 8-D/3
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/27/73

from the standpoint of how u._efuI the altimeter Is lo mapping


major topographic or geomorpl|ic features on the surface of the
Earth. Okay. The RAD/SCAT. What we did here is to try and, as I
stated a few minutes ago, one major objective of the EREP program,
is to try and determine how useful microwave data can be in the
analysis, or in the study of Earth resources. One of the first
things that were attempted here, is to see what the radiometer/
scatterometer, effects would be across a land and a sea interface.
What we did, is about 120 to 140 miles out in the Gulf along
the ground track 20 of the last EREP pass, we went back and
we calculated the effects and then went into the data and
found out and re-calculated again the effects of the return
energy as picked up by the scatterometry_ and also the antenna
temperature data off of the radiometer. And here's what
it showed: The only thing I can say is it does show that
there is a tremendous response on land, versus the sea, as
people would expect. But it does demonstrate that the radiometer
was working, that it does provide us with a data point for
determing the effects of land and sea. Okay. The 194.

END OF TAPE

f_
SLIII PC 8-E/I
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/26/73
r_

SPEAKER Okay. The 194 is a passive radiometer and


has a 60-nautleal mlle footprint and a 90 percent overlap.
This was taken along path ii and the last one in the first
EREP pass, and what it shows is that the radiometer is rather
constant in its operation. The results are fairly close as
far as reproducibility; it also provided us a rather interesting
standpoint that we've been able to identify a lake up up in
the part of the United States as well as the land/water inter-
face with this instrument, I think that the first thing is that
instrument does operate very satisfactorily. It also provides
us what we were not expecting, an additional data point on
trying to identify various types of land/water interfaces as
well as water areas within continental areas. Okay. Coming
back again to this area over here in the coastal zones area.
This is a 190A photograph, color, of the Brownville, Texas,
area. Very obvious, this is the Rio Grande coming down. Look
at the difference in patterns of the U.S. versus the Mexican.
And we've seen this in some of the Apollo photography, but here
is the Harllngen-Reinosa area as I understand it. It shows
very definitely the pattern, usefullness in determining the
agricultural productivity as well as the land under cultivation
or in fallow state. This is the Laguna Madre, Padre Island.
And a major scar along here, which is manmade as a part of a
canal, provides for the first time provides not for the first
time, but provides the PIs who will be working in this area on
coastal processes - such as Paulson out of the University of
Michigan an interesting comparison and study of the various bay
water features as well as some of the pollution and the sedi-
mentation and onshore and offshore currents. So that the
dynamics of the area such as the southwestern part of coastal
region of Texas can be studied and can be determined and
analysed. Okay. We come to the mighty Mississippi as the
last two slides. What it shows is this is the 190B, and
what I've done is to take a portion of this picture - and this
is a lO-year old standard topigraphic map produced by U.S.
Survey. The area you can see is approximately - this circum-
ferential highway is the one that you see here. What we tried
to do is to show that this area in here is a lot more complex
relative to the land surface features and utility of the land.
It shows obviously here the major agricultural plots, shows
you the distribution, the character of the farming in this area.
And it shows you some of the new wrinkles - updated wrinkles
along the Mississippi and the incoming Missouri and especially
in this area here in detail we've looked at it and we find that
there is some rather striking changes in the pattern of the river
as well as the land forms adjacent to it. You can also see in
here - there's boat and here's another boat off up in here.
So in detail, land planners, city planners, urbanization people
can see very quickly where there are changes from updates to the
cultural plans and so on and so forth. So essentlally_ these
_ kinds of EREP data will be used in the study of census cities
which are essentially 28 identified within the United States.
St. Louis is one of them, so I think with that brief discussion
,
i

SLIII PC 8-E/2 I
Time: 13:08

7/26/73 t
QUERY EREP data has now been used by Pls to help in
certain of the land-use problems that skylab was designed for.
In other words, to help the average guy on the street. Have
there been any specific examples of cases where the data ob-
tained from SL-2 was used to help in certain of the problems
that you have identified.
SPEAKER No, we can't say that specifically, simply
from the standpoint that as you so stated the data are still
being processed and they are Just now going out to the Pls.
But as soon as they've had the data for some time we plan to
have a preliminary science conference in order to clearly
identify the kinds of features and results that you're talking
about. But right at the present time, no, we have not identified
any and the Pls don't have it. Sometime probably this fall, and
a lot depends upon how the Pls react and how their results are
coming along.
QUERY Did you get a pretty good figure for the
depression of that sea over the Puerto Rican trench? You gave
us the figure of 20 meters and 13 meters. Can you tell what
the EREP data indicated?
SPEAKER The chart that I showed you indicated on pre-
liminary analysis that there is about a 20-meter depression -
I think that's what it showed. But there is a theoretical calcu-
lation that there is approximately a 12- to 13-meter depression.
You can do the calculations, but based on results of our analysis
- it's preliminary and all it looks like maybe 20 but those
will certainly be modified based on further PI studies.
SPEAKER It also could be said that our measurements
of the Puerto Rlcan trench are not as routine as you might
expect from some other satellites. For instances, GOT, one of
it's purposes will be to study the Puerto Rican trench and some
of the data that we will get will be used by those investigators
to prepare themselves for more detailed studies.
QUERY I wonder what EREP passes have been made and
what EREP pases are planned for South and Latin America?
SPEAKER Well, on the chart I showed - had the passes
in South America on SL-2, And on SL-3 we plan a number of
them, I can't tell you the exact number. Most of the descending
passes over the United States will be extended into the South
America and there are a few extending passes which go across
Argentina into Africa. It's probably seven or eight.
SPEAKER John, we have a list of those downstairs.
Do we have another question.
QUERY After SL-2 there was some talk that the
passes over Africa could be used to gather data that would
indicate the extent of the drought over there and possible
some of the land use or some indicators as to how it could
be coped with. At that time my recollection was you were
talklng about one pass over Africa and that was over Mall -
now you say there will be several passes. Does that indicate
_ that you have increased in your planning the effort to find out
SL-III PC 8-E/3
Time: 13:08 CDT
__ 7/26/73

something about Africa and the drought or not?


SPEAKER No, it does not because in the African area
there are a number of investigators. No w there is one in Mali,
there are several in Ethopia, out in Tunisia. There are a
number of investigators in Africa, a number of areas, and we
expect on this outfeed to get some of those we expect on SL-4
to try to cover some others. We hope to get the one over Mall
on SL-3.
QUERY Could you Just give me an idea of the resolu-
tion of that of that SI90A camera, how - what is the resolution
and temperature ground?
SPEAKER Well, it depends on the film type but gen-
erally it's about 30 meters resolution. We have not gone through
and studied the photographs in detail to get accurate informa-
tion. About 30 meters.

END OF TAPE
I

SL III PC8-F/1
Time: 13:08 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER Bill Gerk and I - as a matter of


comparison to that last statement, what wou1_ you say the
ground resolution is from the astronauts Just viewing out
the wardroom window? How much better are the cameras than
their eyes in terms of what they can see in detail?
SPEAKER In terms of what they can see or in terms
of the Hasselblad?
SPEAKER Of what they can see.
SPEAKER I don't know how to answer that.
SPEAKER Indications are we have no questions
from Houston. So if there are no others here, we'll close.
Hold on_ we have one more.
QUERY An EREP experiment is used for, let's
say, an environmental investigator, you said it takes about
3 or 4 months for the data to be processed and this would
represent - by the I time he got the data, it would represent
a seasonal change bver the area he was investigating. Now
wouldn't this mean a loss of data because the man would want
it almost exactly at the time. Now for the Earth resources,
they get it much faster. Is there a degradation of data?
SPEAKER Well, in the enviornmental case, while
we're flying over it, the investigator is making measurements
so he's getting ground data at that time. And the couple of
months depends on the type of data. For instance, the photo-
graphic data has been sent to the investigators; the multi-
spectral data takes longer. But they do get the ground
measurements not always exactly the same time because in
some cases it doesn't have to be. It can he within a few
hours or within a few days depending on the type of study.
But he does have the information to make the comparision with
what we see from space and try to analyze it. Realize again
we're not trying to determine or provide him with operational-
type information; we're providing information which he can
use to assess the feasibility of using these systems for
other programs.
SPEAKER To what extent if any are EREP experi-
ments affected by political matters? Are there or have there
been any changes in experiments because of negotiations with
other nations or is it completely separate?
SPEAKER Nop there's no problem there. We've got
45 investigators. We have at this Ime concluded agreements
with 35 and there are i0 others that we're still waiting for
the final agreement to ge signed. We anticipate no problem.
SPEAKER Okay. Thank youj ladies and gentlemen.
We'll start with the corollary experiments after a lO-mlnute
break.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

SKY LAB III Pre-Sclence Briefing - Corollaries


KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
JULY 26_ 1973
1:45 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

JACK H. WAITE0 MSFC, CHIEF, SKYLAB EXPERIMENTS


DR. JERRY L. WEINBERG, PI_ GEGENSCHEIN, ZODIACAL LIGHT_
DUDLEY OBSERVATORY, S073
DR. JOSEPH A. MUSCARI, PI, CONTAMINATION MEASUREMENTS,
MARTIN MARIETTA, T027
DR. ERNST STUHLINGER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR SCIENCE,
MSFC (TECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENTS)

,-_ PC-9
SL-III PC-9A/I
Time: 14:15 CDT
7_26_73

SPEAKER Okay_ before we start this afternoon's session,


I want to remind everybody again about parking next door in front Of the
Seven Seas restaurant. We are informed that cars parked there are
subject to blng towed away by the Cape Canaveral police. There's
plenty of parking room in back of this buildlng. And I wanted to
remind you all of that. This afternoon we are going to cover the
corollaries, and we have quite a few of them. And we'll be interrupting
more frequently for questions and answers because the subject is going
to be changing from time to time. We have with us today Jack Walte on
my right, who is Chief of Skylab Experiments from the Marshall Space
Flight Center. Next to him, Jerry Welnberg of the Dudley Observatory.
I think most of you have the schedules: Dr. Joseph Muscarl of Martin
Marietta; Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger also of Marshall, who is the
Associate Director for Science down here; Eugene McKannan, Chief of
(garble) Materials Branch at Marshall; astronant, Dr. Darl Helnze, who
is also the p rinclpal investigator on SO19 in astronomy from Johnson;
and Bob Bond is the principal investigator for the M516 from JSC.
To start us off this afternoon we'll hear a few words from Jack Walte.

WAITE Thank you. Good afternoon. Well, we did conduct


18 corollary experiments and sight student experiments on the SL I-If
mission, and we won't have an opportunity to cover each of those.
But we will be covering the Johnson Space Center corollary experiments
and the Marshall corollary experiments this afternoon. And we do have
six of our principal investigators with us. We do feel that we had
a very successful corollary experiment program on Skylab Ill. We have
very briefly - We have approximately a total of 97 experiments counting
all of the experiments on Skylab. We had planned to operate 57 of
those on SL I-If. That's counting the EREP, the ATM, all of these,
the biomeds and all. We planned to operate 57. We were able to
operate all but five of those. One we left behing because of a weight
problem, go p the parasol - the solar protection. It
was the crystal growth experiment, M555. And we did not operate on
SL I-If three of the experiments that utilized only the solar scientific
alrlock and we did not run E026, one of the student experiments, because
of time. But we do plan on accommodating these at a later date. We
did have - well, I'll go through Just a classification of the problems
that we did have that relate to the corollary area. As you are all
aware, we did - we did block. Well we I would llke to say we
salvaged the mission, because we allowed them to use our solar
scientific alrlock to deploy the parasol. So we gave up the solar
selentlfic alrlock. And i'll be talking some more about the impact
there. We did have extremely high temperatures in the film vault before
the parasol was deployed - in some cases above 120 degrees Fahrenheit,
so we did have damage to some of the film that I'll be discussing very
brelfly. Because of the problems and the crew activities in solving
those, crew time and then the availability of the antisolar airlock for
all we were trying to Jam into it was quite a problem.
SL-III PC-9A/2
Time: 14:15 CDT
7126173

WAITE But one thing I wollld |lke 1o _ay there, With the
dedication of the crew of giving up their day off each week and
starting early and working late, they were able to accomplish most
of the things that we had hoped to accomplish. And they had a lot
of interest and a lot of perslstance in making - in successfully
completing the experiment program. We had several hardware malfunctions.
The thing that I am most pleased about though, in every case the crew
was either able to make the necessary repairs or procedurally we were
able to work around tl. So none of our malfunctions on the experiments
caused any real loss of data. I will briefly mention In going
through it rather quickly, I won't spend a lot of time on all the good
things that came out. I will, though_ Just mention to you a few of
the problems as I go through. On our DO24, the Department of Defense
Thermal Control Coatlng_ when we were trying to pull the solar panel
out that first time, we did - on the flyaround, we did get some
thrustor impimgement on that experlmen_. We amy take up a new
package on SI-IV on that one because we did have quite a bit of thrust
impimgement on that one. Our student experiments worked out very well.
We had one exception: the ED31, the sacteria and spores. We lost a
good bit there because of the high temperatures. We will - we are
going to send another package up and rerun the ED31. The ED76, the
neutron analysis. We deployed i0 panels. Four of those were returned.
You know these are covering several energy ranges. They've so far looked
at the lower eneray ranges. I think they're rather excited about -
you know, the results from that experiment. This is coming out real
nice. The neutrons in the lower energy range were quite a bit more
than had been anticipated there. The materials processing experiment.
We did conduct M551, 2, and 3. r. Stuhllnger will be covering those
a little later. Those were successfully completed with a lot of
persistence on the part of Pete. The nuclear emulsion, the SO09 experi-
ment. This one - we knew it was marginal. We did get this back.
Dr. Spiro is the principal investigator at NRL. We did lose that
because of the high temperature in the film vaults. We will sent up
another package on SL-IV on the SO09 nuclear emulsion. On the French
experiment, the S183. it was in two parts. We had the - you know, the
SC-5 film, 35 slides, in each of two carrousels. The SC-5 film - we
did have - we did have rather extensive volume on that. And then the
data acquisition camera - we had - we had a low focus problem there,
but we can also, but - we have partial data on that. We're planning
now on SL-IV to sent up two carrousels. We're going to be sure we
have the film problem solved. And we will be sending up two carrousels
on SL-IV. We'll probably take some data acquisition camera data on
SL-III, hut we will not try to use the carrousels. We - on the -
(garble) cosmic ray experiment, $228, of course we did deploy that. We
will not bring that back until SL-IV; those 36 panels. The infllght
aerosol analysls. We've Just gotten a preliminary report back.
Sl.-Ill PC-9A/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER (CONT'D) They say we have a very clean spacecraft;


exceptionally clean, sort of like a hospital operating room. The
T027 sample array ray and the TO27/SO73 photometer will be covered
by a couple of investigators and Dr, (garble will be covering SO19;
and Bob Bond, M516; and Gene McKannan, M415. So that Just gives you
a brief overview, and without any further adiew, we plan to start the
day on M415, Gene McKannan, because he has a tight plan schedule today.
And after you finish, Gene, we'll go right into a short question and
answer period so you can get away and make your plane schedule.

MCKANNAN Thank you, Jack. _15 Thermal Control Coating


Experiment is differentiated from many_ of the others as a separate
engineering experiment. However, we do have a great deal of data,
which I think is going to help the materials scientists, who developed
new coatings. The purpose of this was to define the exact temperatures
of the spacecraft based on the thermal control coating and, hopefully,
therefore, to, in the long run, be able to prolong the llfe of the
spacecraft. The experiment measures the change, in the optical properties
of light thermal control coatings that occur during the prelaunch and
launch part of the space stay. People have done a great deal of work
on light coatings, which are stable to UV, ultraviolet energy over
long periods of time in space, and they've made great progress in
that area. But they are still getting quite a shock at the seemingly
strong degradation which occured very early in the flight.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC9B/1
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER But they were still getting quite a shock at the


seemingly strong degradation, which occurred very early in the flight.
And we surmized that this change was due to problems which were
occuring during launch, and the retrorockets firing, putting some
dirt and some acid and water on the coatings. And so this experiment
was designed to examine that particular situation. The coatings were
llke this little thing that I am holding in my hand, about a i inch in
diameter aluminum disk, with the coating sprayed on it or painted on it.
And t e
whole purpose of that sensor was a stand-off to make the the coating
firmly isolated from the spacecraft. Now this is not new on Skylab,
we have had sensors llke this operating on previous Saturn vehicles
and on the Pegasus vehicle, so - but there they were designed to
measure this long term space effect rather than the launch effect
that we were concerned in here. By way of backgrgund, you probably
know that the temperature of the spacecraft is controled solely by the
radiation, that is the amount of heat it adsorbs from the Sun, the
amount of heat it readmits or reradiates in addition to any internal
heat trolled
by the properties of this coatin , the adsorption and the emission of
this coating. And the property we're interested in then, is the ratio
of adsorptivlty over emissivity, which is directly related to the
temperatures measure. In this case, rather than the astronauts making
the measurements, we - these data were very precisely measured with
resistance thermometers and telemetered back to Earth. So we may talk
about the whiteness of the coating but numerically we're talking about
this adsorptivity/emissivity ra_io. Earlier in spacecraft history, of
course, the small satellites were shrouded in a nose cone, and changes
that occured in these coatings were very small, very subtle, and of no
particular concern. When we came to the very large spacecraft, we can't
keep them - everything covered with nose cones, and so several of
them were found to run a lot hotter than predicted. And it was in this
problem of trying to flnel out Just what stage of launching caused this
heat up, caused the coatings to get a little darker, and when I talk
about darker it's something that's highly perceptible to the eye. It's
still a white coating when I talk about a darkened poating, but its
adsorptivity and emissivity ratio is certainly a higher value, that is
and it operates at a warmer temperature than it did in the laboratory
before we started out, or even in the paint shop. So the objectives
of this thing is to explain how and why these coatings change so rapidly
even when they get started in orbit duging the launch phase. The
materials we were concerned with were basically two paints that we
used a lot in the Apollo and Saturn programs and Skylab, and we keep
perfecting, and they are one called SI3G - it's a zinc-oxice pigment
which has been studied to be the most stabllzed white pigment available
to scientists, in an organic or methyl silicone binder or vehicle.
It's known to have a fairly rough surface, be soft, electrostatlcally
attractive, its easily sprayed on and currd at low temperatures and we
heat up, caused the coatings to get a little darker, and when I talk
about darker it's something that's highly perceptible to the eye. It's
still a white coating when I talk about a darkened poating, but its
adsorptlvity and emissivity ratio is certainly a higher value, that is
and it operates at a warmer temperature than it did in the laboratory
before we started out, or even in the paint shop. So the objectives
SL-III PC9B/2
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/28/73

use it quite a lot, becuase it's very easy to handle. Another one that
we were comparing this to was Z93, which is again the same pigment, but
in a sodium silicate, which is an inorganic binder, with a lot smoother
harder surface. (garble) that has to be baked out. I might liken that
that is some instances to the porcelain enamel (garble) you would have
on your refrigerator although it's not quite that hard or smooth.
SPEAKER You can understand that these differences in
smoothness and hardness and so forth are the kinds of things we're
looking at in the way they react to retrorockets, wated, and dust,
which is exactly what we get from retrorockets. We're trying to see
exactly which would be the better coating and which would be the better
grades of these coatings to use to overcome these launch problems.
While the results of the experiment so far - and by the way, the
experiment worked very well. We got very precise temperature meas-
urements back and we have reduced all these themperature measurements
now to adsorptlvity/emissivlty ratios, which show that just the
rainfall, the salt air, and all that handling of, getting ready on
the Cape changes these coatings. And I'm Just going to talk about
S13, it's a typical one, from a ratio of 0.2 to about 0.26, even
before we take off. Now of course we had known this from ground tests,
we Just wanted to check this out on the vehicle_ but then what we
didn't know was how much this would change due to the retrorocket fire.
The retrorocket - of course, right up close to it, puts out a lot of
heat but up along the vehicle where this experiment was, which was
incidentally, 46 feet away from the retrorocket, we got very little
change in tempera ure when the retrorockets fired but a lot of dust
and it changed in the skirting to 30 0.31. Which means something
like 20 degrees centigrade or 36 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than if
the skirting had stayed clean and like it had been in the shop before
we left. One of the things that we've learned so far is that we may
have to live with this situation as long as we have the kinds of
retrorockets we have. That seems to be our major cause. We were
looking for this, we were even trying to plot them using different
positions; the differences we might see around the vehicle. The
answer to that was that the dust clouds of the retrorocket, at least
at that distance away from the nozzle of the retrorocket, puts the
cloud, homogeneously around the vehicle and all of the coating got
darkened the same amount. And so our thermal people are going to
have to learn to live with and to design with this higher figure,
rather than having the material people keep trying to make lighter
coatings. It doesn't help you to make lighter coatings if you keep
covering them up with dark - with dust. It's kind of like living
next to a steel mill in a sense. You know, it doesn't matter how
often you paint if the smoke keeps covering your house. So that's the
basic preliminary result, with lots of finer and more subtle data
still being collected on Just exactly how much of the coatings were
attracted to the, the paint and which exact paint it would be
SL-III PC9B/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/28/73

/_ SPEAKER (CONT'D) better to use in the future. But you can appricate
that in engineering a spacecraft and in maintaining long life of
spacecraft, maintaining its temperature white coatings is indeed very
important to us. I think at this point I'd like to open I think I've
said enough. I'd llke to open this to questions, if there are any.
SPEAKER I would llke to apologize to the speakers. Many of th
vies and slides and to expedite things since we're
running late I asked them to cut them out so Gene left off his movie,
nd so Gene, I apologize for the time.
QUERY Mr. McKannan, was there any problem in terms of
your sensors caused by the shroud difficulty at the top of the vehicle?
SPEAKER No. No, we didn't. I neglected to mention I
should have to you - that this particular experiment was on the 206
S-IVB stage, which was the Skylab 2, which carried the astronauts up
there. So we weren't even on Skylab i, That was my omission in not
mentioning that point.
QUERY Can you do a little interpretation for us, and
would you say that if your paint chips or your coating had been on
Skylab 1 it would have been a better thing to have than a micro-
meteoroid shield?
SPEAKER Well, no. The micrometeorold shield there was
needed, and incidentally I think that is a real interesting question,
of course, because it is very much related to what our experiment was
trying to measure. Because we had these little chips or patches on
there. The micrometeorold shield had, very largely, a white coating
llke this which would have kept things nice and cool, but the underside
of it had a dark coating in order to radiate heat rapidly between the
shield and the skln_ of the Skylab vehicle and of course when the
shield was ripped away, that left the dark coating there so it adsorbed
a lot more heat and it's just as simple as that. The - these coatings
- well the - then the answer came that the parasol was put up, not
only simple to shade the vehicle but again the adsorptivlty/emissivity
ratio of the parasol was very important so that it would again just
adsorb Just right amount of heat and reradlate the right amount of heat
tokeep the temperature down, so it was more than a matter of shading
the vehicle with the parasol but of shading it with the thermal coat-
ing of Just the correct adsorptivity/emlsslvity ratio.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 9-C/I
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER I hope that answered the question. I'm not sure.


SPEAKER Thank you, Gene.
SPEAKER Thank you.
SPEAKER We appreciate it.
SPEAKER I told him to get to work on Skylab III.
SPEAKER--s time we'll move on ahead to Jerry Wineberg,
his report
SPEAKER Thermal(?) is one of several who uses the
scientific alrlock facility for ... experiments and when possible we
share it with the Earth terrain camera which is also using this facility.
Some of us look through the alrlock facility and some of us are extended
out of the facility to operate outside. So its another one of the
facilities similar to those that already that have already been discussed,
llke the HM facilities, the Earth resources and so forth. In view of
the latest to do about television and the fact that we're being recorded,
I'd rather hesitate to say that my thing for a number of years has been
dust and dirt, but that's what my experiment is all about. So I'd llke
start out by showing one way it's manifested with the first slide,
please. Okay this is a photograph from the ground of a phenomenon call-
ed the zodiacal light. This brightness here which appears quite bright
to the eye. It is not twilight; it is after twilight and it's not the
Milky Way although it is close, and this is taken from a ten thousand

foot mountain top in Hawaii where we conducted observations of this


phenomenon for a long time. Zodiacal is derived from the word zodiac,/
which is the path along which the Sun, Moon, and planets lle. This o_e
_ of a number of manifestations - Do we have some of the fainter lights _
on now? One of the manifestations of dust and dirt - I guess we can \
turn on the lights and let the slide go off for the moment. It's one
of the manifestations of dust and dirt that we find in the lower and
upper atmosphere, in the solar system, in and around asteroids, comet
tails, in solar atmospheres and in the Milky Way. Dust is everywhere
and one of the ways that we determine the characteristics of this dust,
in fact the only way is to measure the effect on light that is either
absorbed by this stuff or reflected off it. Now this phenomenon which
you saw here which is the principal source of study of my Skylab ex-
periment, SO73, is caused by sunlight scattered off microscopic dust
particles thoughout the solar system. And in the next slide you'll see
a picture of the experiment hardware that we using to make these measure
ments from Skylab and in particular from SL-2 in collaboration with
Dr. Mascary (?) who will follow me, in measurements of both contamination
around the spacecraft and of this phenomenon, zodiacal light. Very
briefly, and I might add that Jack has asked me if I could hold my talk
down to 6 or 8 minutes, which gives me about 30 seconds for each year
that we've been working on this. So I'ii try to speed it up a bit.
This part of the instrument is a canister containing electronic and con-
trol equipment which butts up against the scientific alrlock and the
astronaut operates this and with a number of rods here extends this out
SL-III PC 9-C/2
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

!_ up to a distance of 18 feet from the spacecraft where this equipment on


the end of the canister, an extension mechanism, scans the sky to re-
cord the characteristics of this flight. The next slide, please. On
this, could we have the lights completely off for this, please? There
are two systems on the end of this instrument, one is a camera and a
little sunshleld, another is a so called photoelectric photometer and
its sunshleld which records the electrical signal that arises from light
going through the system and striking an electrical circuit and being
converted to an electrical voltage which is then telemetered to the
ground. The camera system takes photographs periodically while it is
pointed in the same direction as the other instrument making measure-
ments does. Can I have the Vugraph set up now and the lights on again
and those slides, please? The Skylab experiment was designed as one
part of the coordinated program involving observations from the ground
in Hawaii, observations of other sites around the world, notably
... and Canary Islands, and in Japan and possibly later in India for
a SL-3 or SL-4, and from the Pioneer i0 and Ii asteroid Jupiter probes.
In this Vugraph - It's the bottom one on the chair. During the first
Skylab mission, we were able to obtain for the first time coordinated
simultaneous observations of this glow in the sky which comes from a
number of sources, as I mentioned earlier, the zodiacal light, it comes
from light from starlight and dust in the Milky Way, we're able to
coordinate observations from Skylab which is in Earth orbit here with
Pioneer ii. This is from June 14 and with Pioneer i0 which is out
here beyond the asteroid belt nearing Jupiter's orbit. On June 12th,
in particular, we made simultaneous observations from the Earth and
from Skylab. A day later we made observations from Skylab and from
Pioneers ii and 10 all at the same time looking at the same direction,
making similar measurements. Now this has not ever before been accom-
plished and it is significant for a number of reasons, one because the
distribution of dust which gives rise to these phenonmenon is considera-
bly different over the space. Quite a bit of it is concentrated in the
asteroid belt and we had thought for some time that perhaps the major
source of material that gives rise to zodiacal light comes from this
area. It was either from this area or from comets or a combination
of these. So we fully expected from the Pioneer observations for exam-
ple, to see essentially no zodiacal light after we got through the
asteroid belt. I'll mention why Skylab was so very important to these
combined observations in a moment. We found, however, from Pioneer i0,
even out here that we see quite larger background than we ever expect-
ed, indicated that there is a lot of dust out beyond us and we did not
see a sharp boundary here when we came out of the asteroid belt. The
importance of the Pioneers with Skylab is that had we Just performed
the observations from Pioneer and from the ground without Skylab also
at this distance, we would not have a unambiguous interpretation for
the simple reason that operations from the ground are confused by the
light being absorbed in the Earth's atmosphere and being scattered in
different directions, and there being, in addition, other sources of
SL-III PC 9-C/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER (CONT'D) light namely the airglow in the Earth's atmosphere.


So by having Skylab which was the key element in this combined, coor-
dinated, and simultaneous experlment_ we were able to relate present
and previous ground observations and we were also able to tie in
Pioneer observations at different distances looking through different
path lengths in the median. And for the first time try to get a snap-
shot view of what the dust distribution is in the entire solar system.
I might add briefly that what is shown here is the orbit of Jupiter and
where Jupiter will be at encounter with Pioneer i0 which is in December
and where it will be a year later at encounter with Pioneer ii. The
experiments we have on Pioneers are similar in some ways to Skylab ex-
cept that the Skylab instrument is much more sophisticated. The Pioneer
is quite small, it has a little one-_nch telescope and it's similar to
some of the instruments that have been flown in the unmanned ERTHA (?)
program. The Skylab instrument is the first instrument of its kind
that has ever been used in the manned programs, that is to make photo-
electric measurements of the faint skyglow from a manned vehicle. Sim-
pler versions have been used from the orbiting solar observatories in
the past. Our principal concern for making measurements of the charac-
teristics of this light is to determine where are the particles, where
do they originate, what are their sizes, their shapes, they're physical
characteristics, how do they move about, and a rather practical bene-
fit, what are the scattering properties of particles suspended in a
medium that we cannot duplicate in the laboratory. And these are appli-
cations to the studies of solar atmosphere, the Milky Way, the inter-
planetary medium, the upper atmosphere, and even that atmosphere pollu-
tion. Thank you.
SPEAKER At this time we'll proceed to Dr. Maseary (?) for
his presentation and following that, we'll stop for a Q&A session for
the questions.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9D/1
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

SPEAKER I have some copies of material related


to our experiments, if anyone's interested after the
AKER Jerry mentiond that he's interested in the
d dirt at astronomical distances. The objective of
s to study the contamlnatlon_oblem. This problem
during some ear ghts where windows became
degraded during the flight. In order to look at this problem
and study it, understand that on the Skylab mission the T027
experiment was developed. An extensive ground program was
brought about for Skylab where the kinds of materials that
were used - to be used - were selected and had to pass cer-
tain criteria and were studied in a laboratory to look at
their outgasslng properties. There are many other centers
beside T027 on the Skylab craft itself to try and detect this
phenomenon. What I'm particularly interested in is two
aspects: one is the deposition of contaminants onto an optical
surface and its change in property. And the second is what
is the sky brightness caused by any particular cloud around
the scacraft scattering sunlight. I think that we can show
the first slide. We can look at the - the first piece of
hardware developed was the sample array. Simply, it exposes
the (garble) connects the canister to the scientific airloek,
extends it, and exposes 248 optical samples outside the
spacecraft to expose them for various periods of time.
_ These samples are brought back to the laboratory where we
reanalyze their optical properties in terms of transmission,
reflection, and so forth. That's enough of that. Can I have
the first viewgraph, please? The first viewgraph will show
you some of the potential vents that were on the Skylab that
have contributed to contamination. This is an old viewgraph,
so many of these vents have been rerouted and eliminated.
But as yon can see here, the representation of the photometer
system, which Jerry showed you, extends through the scientific
airlock. The photometer head looks then back across the
vehicle looking at the scattering from any particular cloud
around the vehicle. And what we did in essence, we did a
series of many different programs on Skylab-ll, which we will
be doing on III and IV to look at time variations in the con-
taminant clouds. We looked a right angles as we entered in
to the sunlight, looking at the changes in the light levels
that the head would pick up. And I have some numbers and
what the light leves we've seen so far, and we also then
looked back toward the vehicle and scanned the various regions.
Of course, in the case of Skylab I-II, this panel is missing,
and we are able then to look in this region around the space-
craft. This is Just listing in detail some of the objectives
and goals of the photometer and the sample array. I have
some copies of these viewgraphs. In essence, its nothing
different than what I explained before. We're looking at
surface deposition and particle scattering. New viewgraph,
please. All right, this gives you some of the slight results
SL-III PC-9D/2
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

• from the experiment that was performed out of the anttsolar


airlock. This was unfortunate because the amount of po-
tentia] contaminants is ahout 2 orders of magnitude less
than the antisolar side. It saw 2 of 5 days exposure. As
you can see here, about 46 hours and 30 minutes, and it was
performed late in the mission starting on day 24. When the
array was returned, we did a residual gas analysis to de-
termine if any contaminants on the surface otgassed from
the samples into the container, and there were no significant
contaminant peaks. We took photographs of the samples. There
is no visual evidence of contaminants on the samples except
for three of the samples that were exposed for a brief period
of time to the OWS environment. In this case we have some
residue remaining from evaporation of some liquids. There
were 71 primary samples that we have already measured for
changes in optical properties from the vacuum ultraviolet, in
this case the 1200 angstroms, out to the far infrared. We
have seen no significant changes on any of those 71 samples.
We have used a mass spectrometer to try and identify any con-
taminants on the surface, and to date we have seen - there
have been a large number of high mass peaks, but again in
this case this is a very sensitive instrument and we're
looking at trace amounts of contaminants. What we've seen
so far are hydrocarbons, which we expected; some dioctyl
phthalate, which is a plasticizer used, which is a common
_ bagging material used for many of the instruments; and some
unknown substance, which to date we have not been able to
determine what it is. I'm sure that with more time, we'll be
able to hunt down and determine what this Substance is.
It has very high masses up to the 600 atomic mass unite,
and it has an odd number of multiple deltas to the mass for its
fracture pattern. We have looked at what's called attenuated
solar reflection absorption spectral. We had six of these ATR
crystals that are used to look for very trace amounts of
material. We see two absorption bands. One at 9.45 and one
at 13.79. Again, this is not sufficient enough to allow us
to pin down what it is by itself. And we hope with some more
of the chemical identification, we'll be able to match what
it is from our catalog of potential contaminants. We have
used (garble) to look at - We cannot see visually any con-
taminants on the surface, but is there a very thin transparent
film and our measurement to date say, yes, there is. There
is a film of the order of 6 to 24 angstroms. Again, this is
a very small amount of material on the surface. In essence
then, from the sample array we've predicted what type of -
degree of contamination we would see based on two things,
three things really. One is that we're located on the other
side of the vehicle away from contaminant sources. In this
case, we're down about 2 orders of magnitude. Second we
are performed at the end of the mission where the natural
(garble) character of contamination means that we have 17
percent of the initial contaminants left. On the basis of
SL-III PC-9D/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

all this, the sample array says that, yes, there is some sur-
face deposition, but it appears at this time that the ground
controls, that the controls of the various venting in space
allows us a clean environment around the spacecraft, and
there should not be a problem with respect to optical in-
struments. The second vlewgraph, as a result of the photom-
eter, again the performance - it was performed at six different
days, running the different modes, eight of the 15 minimum
modes that we requested. The real data - the data from the
telemetry system in terms of magnetic tapes has Just become
available, and so there is really insufficient materials to
make any statements about that. However, during the flight
we had some new real time data come down in terms of strip
charts. And from the strip charts, we've look at particularly -
Well, again this is only when we had ground site coverage, so
that we have again a scarce amount of data at this time. But
what we have in particular of mode IA is where we're in a
fixed position and we're operating in the daylight for a
series of scans with our 10-filter photoelectric photometer
that Jerry showed you on the previous slide. Looking at the
difference between the light levels we see in the daylight
and the light levels we see in the dark. Again, signifi-
cantly, the only change is that the contaminant cloud around
the spacecraft is not illuminated. Therefore, we are not
measuring scattered light from this particular cloud. We
see levels of around i0 to 14, the ratio of the scattered
brightness to the brightness of the Sun. Essentially, what
this means is that only for experiments of very low light
level in the range in the order of zodiacal light and less
is this particular cloud at this time going to be in effect.
We've also been able to look at some mode 3D, as I mentioned
before, where we look back at the vehicle and se scan the
regions and see is there - what is the special distribution
of the contamination around it, and again in this case, there's
very little data but what we've been able to look at. We're
talking about scattered light levels of the range i0 to 13
of that of the Sun. So to date we do see the presence of a
• cloud, but it is of such tenuous nature that unless yon have
a very sensitive experiment, that is looking at low light
levels, it will not he significant.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9E/I
Time: 14:15 CDT
.... 7/26/73

SPEAKER So, today we do see the presence of a


cloud. But it is of such tenuous nature that, unless you
have a very sensitive experiment that is looking at low
light levels, it will not be significant. We will be
looklng at - to see if does this cloud vary from one
mission to another. Does the fact that the command
module orbits with the vehicle - will this have an effect?
About the only thing that tempers our data right now is
that we're perform a long period of time after the vehicle
has been up there. It had gone through an initial outgasslng
period - most of the experiments, of course, there were covered
up. So that there will have to be some inferences made to
future types of satellites and whether or not the initial
contaminate cloud will have an effect. I have some
copies of the vlewgraph; I also have some photographs
from the DAC camera that was part of the photometer
head. Unlike the ATM and the EREP photograph, the
camera - the film that we selected was not for resolution.
Therefore, the pictures are not very spectacular and they're
nothing but photographs of stars. Of course, we - there's
enough data in there for the scientific analysis, but for
Just the visual ... there's almost nothing, and it's almost
llke you would have to he the father of it to enjoy these
pictures. But I have them if anybody would llke to see
_" them. I also have some photographs of the evolution of
the photometer and the sample ray from its very concep-
tion back in 1967 and the various design models that we
went through to finally the - flight hardware that you've
seen some slides of.

PAO At this time, we will invite any


questions you may have for Drs. Weinburg and Muscari.

QUERY A question for Dr. Welnberg. I am


intrigued by the idea of the dust cloud beyond the asteroid
belt. Does this indicate any fundamental reexamination of
the origin of the solar system, or any new data on how our
solar system is constructed?

WEINBERG This is very preliminary data. This


data, from Pioneer i0, specifically, we Just got about
four days ago. But the data before that, a month or so,
agreed with it, that there is a - We did not see a sharp
falloff in the brightness from dust particles beyond the
asteroid belt. _ow, I must say that the particles that
we're seeing are very small. We know the asteroid belt,
as you normally think of it, has a lot of rock-slze
particles in it. The particles which contribute most
to the zodical light phenomena are, in fact, mocroscoplc.
SL-II] PC-9E/2
Time: 14:I5 CDT
7/26/73

WEINBERG That means that they are mlcron-size or


bacterla-slze particles that - that are they're in very
large numbers, so even though there are a lot of rocks there,
there are a very many more of the very small particles. And
they are the ones that primarily contribute to this. And
they are not distributed, apparently, as the larger particles
are - I mean confined to the asteroid belt - but, in fact,
do go out beyond the asteroid belt. And there isn't a
sharp demarcation there, which does suggest, in fact, that
the particles are either left over from the original cloud
of gas and dust from which the solar system evolves or that
they are at least partly of cometary origin.

QUERY This may be premature for this conference,


but as long as we' re on atmospheric dust, do we have a count
a hit count on Skylab's hull or a solar vane?

WEINBERG I don't know if I'm the one to answer


that. There - there is an experiment called S149 which is
now currently exposed, which has a number of thin film
surfaces in place, that ere sitting there during the
unmanned mission that will be ground-commanded closed
and brought back for laboratory analysis to indicate
what the rate of deposition of mlcrometeoroid material
is on these plates. There is something like 10,000 tons
per day of this material, that we measure in space, coming
into the Earth's atmosphere. And - one of the purposes
of this other experiment is to measure how much of the
material - look at it in the laboratory and determine
the sizes and the chemical composition of it. So we
don't have any results on that yet.

QUERY With the sophisticated equipment on


Skylab for photographing the zodlcal light, would you he
able to determine if there were zodiacal rings, such as
Saturn's rings that behave under the gravitational influence
of the Sun, and could effect these particles, since I
assume they are traveling in orbit in capital ±?I orbit.

WEINBERG This material is in orbit around the


Sun. What we get out, more uniquely from Pioneer than
from Skylab, which we - Pioneer moves through the medium -
is what the spatial distribution is. The material is
not unlformally distributed throughout the solar system.
It's - it goes rather irregularly, although we do expect
the the particles to essentially to drop off beyond -
near or beyond Jupiter. We expect Jupiter to sweep up
any particles that are out that far in the solar system,
that most of the particles are in close to the astroid belt
or within. The ... experiment will provide not unique data
on how they are distributed in space, but will provide
/- detailed characteristics of the nature of the particles
their sizes, their shapes - these elongated or spherical -

are they glassy-like, things such as that - chemical


composition, also.

i
SL Ill PC9-E/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/26/73

PAO Okay, if there are no further


questions, we'll proceed with Karl Henlze.

HENIZE I'd llke to - dlse_.s______-


say a few
words
toyouabout
Skylab
experimen Sl
And,first
of
all, I'd - a bit of history. The eq_pm/t for S19 was
constructed and conceived by myself wh_ I was professor
at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, before
I became an astronaut. The equipment and the basic
observing program were - were -the equipment was constructed
and the observing program was pretty well put together at
Northwestern University. And, only a year ago, the scientific
staff at the university, then, was transferred to the University
of Texas. The equipment let me show slides, please the
equipment is basically an astronomical telescope and - let me
give you the quick fix that whereas most of the Skylab
looks at the Earth and looks at the Sun, which is indeed a
very interesting part of the universe, this experiment is
one of the few on board which looks out beyond the solar
system at the billions and billions of stars and galaxies
out beyond the solar system. The equipment consists
basically of a small astronomical telescope, a 6-inch
aperture telescope, whose optical system is contained
in this small canister here. And here you do see the
f_ assembled system setting on the anti-solar alrlock in the l-g trainer in
the - of the orbiting workshop down
in - in Houston. On the back end here, we have a film
canister that holds about 150 slides of film in each
canister. And then this is all mounted on a relatively
large articulated mirror system, which allows a mirror
to be extended through the airlock and then to rotate
and tilt around the sky, so that we can see a large
fraction of the sky even when Skylab is kept in its
usual solar inertial position. The next slide, please.
Gives you a quick diagram of the optical system of the
basic spectrograph or the basic telescope. Basically
it's simply a Cassegraln reflecting telescope with two
interesting little gimmicks. The first interesting
gimmick is that in front of the main - in - in the incoming
light beam we insert a small prism of calcium flouride
which transmits in the ultraviolet. And as the light goes
through this small prism - it has a wedge angle of only
about 4 degrees the light is dispersed into its various
colors. And, again we emphasize in this experiment the
obtaining of ultraviolet light, the obtaining of ultra-
violet spectra in stellar radiation, that part of the
radiation which is not transmitted by the Earth's atmosphere.
The light comes through the prism; it's broken into its
various colors. It's focused then by the primary mirror and
the secondary mirror, and the Cassegraln telescope, and then
it's focused finally down here on the - on the photographic
film slide after it passes through a little set of correetor
elements, which gives us a flat focal plane and also allows
us to have a fairly wide field for an astronomical telescope.
SL III PC9-E/4
Time: 14:15 CDT
7126173

The field size we have is 4 degrees by 5 de_rees on


_ a site. Here, again you see the film canister where
we have about 150 slides. The next slide please?
Pardon me for showing you a slide full of numbers, but
this helps me give you a quick rundown on where this
sort of astronomical experiment fits in between the
big astronomical - the big - -

END OF TAPE

f
SL-III PC 9F/I
Time: 15:16
7/26/73

SPEAKER Pardon me for showing you a slide ful] of


number_ but thls helps me _tve you a quick rundown on where
th_s sort of astronomlcal experiment flts lt_ between tile blg
astronomlcal observer - astronomical observatories whlch have
been operating in earth orbit. And the key data is I think
here at 1500 angstroms, where we really get the interesting data
in our experiment. Let me explain. Twenty-eight hundred
angstroms is in the ultraviolet, just beyond that wavelength
that is transmitted by the Earth. To get everything straight,
let me say that the range of angstroms transmitted by the atmos-
phere is roughly from 6000 angstroms, maybe 7000 angstroms down
to 3000 angstroms. At 3000 angstroms, the ozone layer of the
atmosphere begins absorbing - it doesn't begin absorbing, it very
suddenly and strongly absorbs sunlight, starlight, anything else
that impinges on it. So that, short of 3000 angstroms, we
simply do not observe radiation from the Sun or from the stars
until we can get above the Earth's atmosphere. Twenty-elght
hundred angstroms is sort of a beginning of astrophysical data,
2000 angstroms is another interesting point, and 1500 angstroms
were're getting into far ultraviolet where we really expect
to see new things and interesting things and perhaps unexpected
things in the spectra of stars. At 1500 angstroms we are
achieving a resolution of about 2 angstroms and we are reaching
down to faint stars. A B-zero star is one of the rather very
hot stars in the overall array of stars that we might observe
but for a B-zero star we reach down to about six maybe six and
j a half, visual magnitude. Now what are these? These are the
two basic numbers that compare it with the orbit - orbiting
astronomical telescopes. The first one OAOA reaches to about
the same limiting brightness that we reach to, but the resolu-
tion of the spectra that is - that it obtains are is about
i0 angstroms. And the smaller the number, the better the
quality of the spectra, the finer the details you can see in the
spectra. So we're doing about - At this wavelength we're doing
about five times better in quality than the orbiting astro -
the first orbiting astronomical observatory. Whereas they were
barely able to see a couple of the very strong absorption lines
and emission lines in the ultraviolet spectra of stars, we
expect to resolve them much more clearly. And this is one of
the main things we are looking for is the absorption and emission
lines in the ultraviolet spectra. The next point is this - that
if you compare us with the - the third, or really the second,
operating orbiting astronomical observatory; that's OAOC, known
as Cohernicus, they have a much higher resolution, on the order
of a hundredth of an angstrom unit. But with this high resolu-
tion, they reached only relatively bright stars. They are
reaching to third and fourth magnitude stars of the faintest
whereas we reach roughly ten times fainter, down to six - six
and a half magnitude stars. So in a way, not only in a way but
in fact, we bridge the gap between the low resolution spectra
obtained by the first astronomical - orbiting astronomical ob-
servatory and the very resolution spectra of only very bright
_ stars obtained in OAOC. And actually bridging this gap is very
important, and without being too immodest, I think it's not
unfair to say that probably the bulk of modern astrophysics is
based on moderate resolution spectra of this sort, in optical
SLIII PC 9Ell 2
Time : 15 : 16
7/26/73

SPEAKER wavelengths. And l'm sure that in ultraviolet


-_ wavelengths large numbers of res - of spectra of this moderate
resolution will probably continue to be the b ackbene of ultra-
violet optical astronomy as well, The next slide please. This
illustrates the data obtained by our equipment on Skylab II and
we are extremely pleased with its quality, and let me give you
something of a road map in what we're looking at here. First
of all, this is indeed an objective prison spectrograph, so that
you basically have a telescope in which every star in that
4-by-5 degree field is imaged in its relative position as you
would see it in the sky. So here you see the overall field
4 degrees by 5 degrees on the side, with all the pattern of
stars that occur in that particular area of the sky. But
since we have the prison in front of the telescope, the stars
no longer appear as nice points, as you see them on ordinary
astronomical photographs. But they are spread out left and right
according - The various colors are laid out in an array that
we call the spectrum of the star, And then we do a little
vertical motion in the spectrograph in order to widen out what
would ordinarily be a very narrow needle. We'd llke to widen
that out so we can get away from the problems of the photographic
grain noise - so we can distinguish these very weak sometimes,
and very narrow lines, from grain structure in the photographic
emulsion. So here we have the various colors laid out for this
particular star. And to show you exactly what we have that's
new - as you recall, 5000 angstroms is transmitted by the atmos-
phere. The atmosphere transmits all the way down to 3000
angstroms, down to a position just about right here. You can
see 3000 angstroms illustrated up above. Got his initial little
square, you might say, is visible light. All the rest of this is
not transmitted by the atmosphere and is new information on these
particular stars. This star - you can see we have ultraviolet -
the ultraviolet radiation of the star turns all the way past
1400 angstroms all the way down to about 1300 angstroms, which is
basic - basically the limit - the wavelength limit in this
instrument set basically by the transmission of the calcium
florida optical elements we have in the optical system. In this
star you can see at least three you can easily see three
lines and there are a couple of faint lines appearing in the
spectrum. These were easily identifiable. The strong line
there is ionized carbon at 1335 angstroms. And the pair of lines
the strong one and faint one that you see right there near 1400
angstroms, are a doublet due to triply ionized silicon atoms in
the atmosphere of the star. This illustrates also, I think, the
quality of our spectra - the fact that our resolution is on the
order of 1-1/2 to 2 angstroms in this wavelength region. The
separation between these two lines is 9 angstroms. We have
them well resolved. The lines are - the llne widths are a small
fraction of that separation. I - at this point I would like to
point out another star by comparison and say that one of the
main objectives of observing stars in the ultraviolet is to -
is to learn more about the temperatures of the stars. We are -
especially in the very hot stars where at least 80 percent of
the radiation is in the ultraviolet and only about 20 percent
comes through the Earth's atmosphere. We have some preliminar_
i_@_Sabo_tt_osSi_Sw_d their temper@tures and their^compos_
_n you gee Eo une remaining - _u percent
". j
si.lll Pc 9_'It 3
Time: t5:/6

SPEAKER of their radiation we expect - we hope to


find some surprises and we at least expect to make some major
_-_ corrections on such things as compositions and temperature
scales. Just to illustrate for you, we - I must confess we
haven't had time yet to make detailed analyses and to come up with
great discoveries yet - but just to illustrate you something
of the leverage that we have on stellar temperatures, let me
show you some - compare these two stars for you. Now this star
is a relatively cool star. An F-zero star has a surface tem-
perature on the order of about 15 thou - pardon me - about
15000 degrees. The sun is still cooler; it has a surface temper-
ature of about 6000 degrees. But this is a little hit hotter
but still is a relatively cool star - 15000 degrees. Now here
is a B star which is much hotter - much - it probably has a
surface temperature on the order of about 25000 degrees. Now,
of course, the hotter the object, the hotter the starp the more
ultraviolet radiation it gives off. That's the reason, when
we work in the ultraviolet, we are necessarily concentrating on
studying the very hot stars. So here we are in the ultraviolet
and in optical - optical wavelengths now, by comparing these two
novas you can see this star is actually brighter than this star
by a factor of 2 or 3. But when you get out into the ultraviolet,
you can see this star goes on a long way - much ultraviolet
radiation. This cooler star fades out very rapidly, and at
2000 it essentially disappears. So you can see we have tremen-
dous leverage here in - in measuring stellar temperatures.
Looking at other stars, here in the particular field - here we
have a - a - a - just a slightly cooler star than that one,
still extending far out into the ultraviolet. And there is at
least one absorption line visible there in the original plate -
doesn't show up here very well. Here's another star, consider-
ably cooler - a BH star has a surface temperature of about 12000
degrees. This Roman numeral II says this is a rather high
luminosity star and, as a result, you see quite a number of fine
lines in here which we have not yet analyzed but are going to be
very interesting. So you can see that on each of our photo-
graphs, we get spectra - ultraviolet spectra - of anywhere
between - depending on what wavelength you are talking about -
of somewhere between - three - at least - at 1500 angstroms or
out in this region perhaps three or four stars per plate,
whereas if you're talking about 2000 angstroms which is still in
the interesting inaccessible ultraviolet - we're getting maybe -
spectra of half a dozen stars per slide. On Skylab II we did
get - we did get data on eight fields in the sky and we - we
have data at 1500 angstroms, measurable for at least 22 stars on
those flights. At 2000 angstroms, we have data measurable for
approximately 50 stars. The next slide shows us another field
and this is in the region of Signus, up in the northern Milky
Way. nd let me illustrate one more interesting thing that
we're after by looking at ultraviolet stellar spectra. The star
up above is the peculiar star, P-Signi. It was known to be
peculiar. It has emission lines in its spectra which means it's
throwing out a big cloud of gas around it, so much has that the -
the emission lines from the gaseous envelope are really stronger
than the continuous emission from the denser main body of the
star. Down here, by comparison, you have a star that's a -
SLII 1 I'C ql,'/ll 4
Tl_me : 15:16
7/26/73

SPEAKER actually a little bit cooler than that star


but it has almost exactly the same visual magnitude. Both
of these stars are about 4.8 visual magnitude. Now, they both
have equal brightnesses in the ultraviolet - in the visible.
This star is actually a little bit cooler. I - I should say this
star is a little bit hotter. Therefore, you should have even
more ultraviolet radiation in this star than this star has. But
in this case, the star comes out to about 2500 angstroms and
then just chops off very cleanly, the obvious answer to this,
from what we already know about this star, is that this is a
result of absorption of dust clouds between -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9G/I
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

SPEAKER The obvious answer to this, from what we


_ already know about this star, is that this is the result of
absorption of dust clouds between us and the star; the so-
called interstellar absorption. And this is another thing
that becomes extremely exaggerated in the ultraviolet, and
the ultraviolet observations allow us to study it with greater
precision, in greater detail than we can study it in optical
wavelength. In this particular case, the chop is very sharp.
We haven't had a chance really to go into detailed analyses,
but one of the questions that one is interested in in this
particular star - Is the absorption simply in that long
interval, light years between us and the star, or is it,
perhaps, in a circumstellar shell? Since this star already
has a gas cloud around it, it might be suspected that the
absorption may be concentrated mainly in a circumstellar
shell. I hope we might have evidence on that after we
measure the detail of where this chops off and how it chops
off to distinguish between the two. And one final feature
on this slide, and you have difficulty seeing it from your
distance, are emission lines spectra visible in three stars
here, which are very hot, very peculiar stars called (garble)
stars. These two stars show emission lines and here's the
third star showing emission lines. The next slide is a
close-up of this and you begin to sort of say, "Hey, this
astronomer's crazy. Those funny little blobs are rather
difficult to see, and they certainly aren't very photogenic."
But to me these radiations from given atoms in the atmospheres
of these stars and, hopefully, might give us some new clues
into the nature of these stars. These stars, as I say, are
very peculiar stars. They seem to be stars evolving by mass
ejection. For some reason that we don't quite know - this is
one of the questions we'd like to answer. What triggers the
mass ejection? Is it simply that these are super massive stars
that became unstable, or did some sort of thermonuclear process
take place in their interior as they blew an outer shell? But
at any rate, it appears that these stars are essentially the
core of a star that's been left over after the outer layers
have been blown off. Extremely hot, and then as the outer
layers were blown off, a bit of gas was left behind to form
emission lines, but the emission lines that appear are
highly ionized emission lines. One of the interesting things
is that there are two distinct types. Some of these stars
show mainly nitrogen lines in their spectra, and the second
class shows mainly carbon lines in their spectra. And it'll
be interesting when we get into the ultraviolet lines, as
you do see here, there are about three new lines in this
spectrum and four or five new lines in this spectrum that
is in the ultraviolet, which we normally cannot see. And
again, I must confess, we haven't had time to analyze them,
but it's going to very exciting to know whether the sharp
distinction between nitrogen and carbon, in which we see in
optical wavelengths, is preserved in the ultraviolet wavelength
SL-[II PC-9G/2
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

I'm afraid I've talked over my time. Thank you


very much.

SPEAKER At this time we'll take any questions for


Dr. Henize.

SPEAKER What specific areas of the sky are you


planning to photograph?

SPEAKER We concentrate our fields, of course,


in the areas that are rich in the hot young-type stars; and
this, of course, is in the Milky Way. During Skylab-ll the
mirror system, which sticks out and allows us to point around
the sky is confined to a fairly narrow band. And this band
intersected the Milky Way in the Carina region and we obtained
the - The first slide you saw was a region in the constellation
Carlna. And it also intersected the northern Milky Way in
Cygnus. Now on this next mission, Skylab-lll, we are in a
very nice situation where the band of sky that we can observe
lies right on top of a large section of the Milky Way. It
runs parallel to the Milky Way all the way from Centaurus down
in the south up through Scorpius and Cygnus, all the way into
Perseus and Orion. We have about two-thirds of the Milky Way
available to us on the next mission, and we hope to observe
many many fields and indeed conduct a very considerable
survey of ultraviolet spectra.

SPEAKER Is your camera capable of galactic


resolution?

SPEAKER I'm not sure what you mean by galactic.


Oh, are we able to see galaxies? In this mode we are not
able to - We reach down to six magnitude, and we don't
really reach faint enough to record galaxies. We do have
a mode where we can take off the prism and get some data
which doesn't have nearly the wavelength resolution that
we can get from crude data on galaxies. But that is relatively
crude data.

SPEAKER During this first manned mission, what


results have you obtained so far on S1837 Isn't that correla-
tive experiment?

SPEAKER Yes, S183 is observing stars in ultraviolet


wavelengths, and I think I had better defer that to somebody
who knows more about S183. Jack Waite?

SPEAKER This is the one that I was covering very


quickly. You know, there we were using - We had a couple of
(garble) of the SC-5 film plate, and then also supplemented
in a different wavelength with the data acquisition camera.
Now we had with the SC-5 film - We had a rather severe loss
..- in sensitivity there. And we don't know Just what we'll be
SL-III PC-9G/3
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

able to salvage from the SC-5 film. They do have the film
from the data acquisition camera. You know that Is the
French experiment. We're planning, at the present time -
We haven't been able between missions to resolve the film
problem. We went basically to - The French shifted to
basically the same film that Dr. Henlge was using, and we
have a material compatability problem, or something, so what
we plan to do is solve our film problem and send up a
couple of carrousels on SL-4.

SPEAKER Dr. Henige, on the three stars that you


showed us at the end here, is it possible yet for you to
speculate on what we're seeing? Is it something spectacular
like a mass ejection of the formation of planets or stars
somewhere in the nova sequence?

SPEAKER The (garble) stars are probably - It's


not too much of an exaggeration to relate them to the nova.
An appreciable fraction of the stellar atmosphere has been
blown off, although it may not have been blown off explosively.
It's probably being blown off at a more gradual rate over a
longer number of years.

SPEAKER These stars these stars I shouldn't


speculate too much. That's one of the things interesting
about these stars that we dontt know too much about them.
Most stars evolve, keeping more or less a constant mass, and
they evolve simply because they've used up their hydrogen
fuel. They're turning hydrogen into helium all the time
through nuclear fusion. When they run out of hydrogen,
then they must stars doing things llke contracting gravita-
tionally and things llke that. This particular group of
stars fairly clearly is evolving not so much because of these
effects but because something has caused the atmosphere to
blow off. Now this might have been triggered by the depletion
of hydrogen in the nyclear fusion process. Whether that's
true or not true is difficult to say. The average star
certainly doesn't react this way, however.

along to the technology experiment area with Dr. Stuhlinger.

SPEAKER I'm goint to talk briefly about the materia


processing program on board of Skylab. Copies of my chart and
viewgraphs are available in the press room. This program on _,
materials processing purnsed two objectives. First, we want
to try the production of new materials which cannot be pro-
duced on Earth because of gravity. Among these materials are •
semiconductors, certain types of (garble), perhaps (garble)
conductors, (garble) crystals, composites of metals, whose
components alloys whose components are of similar in den-
sity and therefore do not mix or do not stay mixed during al-
loying. We expect to obtain materials of this kind of much
SL-III PC-9G/4
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

better purity and homogenity than we could do them on


Earth, and possibly we will be able to produce materials
which we cannot produce on Earth at all. All of these
materials will be made and produced for use on Earth,
for practical uses in electronic circuits, in optics
technology, and so forth. The second objective, which
we are pursuing with the materials processing program,
concerns the development and the verification of methods
of construction and assembly and of Joining metal parts
in orbit under weightless conditions. These are proce-
dures which we need in orbit when we want to build large
structures; among them, large antennas, large reflectors
for hlgh-energy microwave beams, large collectors for
solar energy, large stations - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9H/I
Time : 14 : 15 CDT
7/27/73

- - (garble) large reflectors for hlgh-energy microwave


beams, large collectors for solar t, ncrgy, large basins
In orbit, and large spaet, cr;Jlt, and so forth. These mt, th-
ods arc routine methods on I';arth, but we want to find out
whether they can be applied in orbit under weightlessness.
And these experiments involve mostly the flow of
molten metal and the solidification of molten metal in
processes of welding, of cutting with a torch, of (garble)
and Joining of metals. When we say torch, we do not mean
a blowtorch (garble). What we mean in this case is an
electron beam welding torch. Electron beam welding has
been known on Earth and has been applied in many instances
with great success. It is the ideal torch or welding tool
for space because it works in high vacuum, it's very clean,
it's easily controllable, and it allows to concentrate
energy in a narrow beam to a precise spot. We would like
and we have been able to find out, to try out some of these
methods already in the first manned mission, SL-II. We will go on
doing that on SL-III and SL-IV. I would like now to show
a number of slides and to explain further what we have done
and what we will do. The two purposes again are the possible
production of new materials for Earth use end the develop-
ment of methods to build and repair structures in space.
This experiment, this and these three, these four, have
been executed in SL-II. This one will he done in SL-III.
On the next slide we see first the faciltiy on which these
experiments are being carried out. We see mainly a sphere-
like_ serrated container about 16 inches in diameter, which
can be vented to space for evacuation. It can also be
filled with cabin air, can be opened here, too, and things
can be put in. It has a heater - has heaters in installed,
a movie camera and things like that, and then we have this
electron beam, which is produced in this electron beam gun
assembly with a power supply. The beam shoots in this
direction inside the container and allows to heat up cer-
tain parts in certain (garble. There are a number of
auxiliary things around here which I will not mention
further with the exception of this little black box that
is a container for one set of samples of metals which I will
mention later again. This is here for storage. It will be
put in here for the experiment. The same is true with this
box here. It is also here for storage only. It will _ put
into the container for operation. All of these operatio_e were
made by the astronauts. They not only did it rou-
tinely and as told, but they put in a lot of enthusiasm of \
their own inventiveness, hard work, and enthusiasm, and
we are happy and proud to say that all the experiments
on SL-II worked perfectly, Just as planned. The results /
/
are extremely interesting. Next slide. In the first set
of experiments, we talked about metals melting for /i
joining and cutting. Jointing and cutting means weldin¢
% .'

SL-III PC-9H/2
Time 14:15
7127/7:_

.._ procedure,_ and the cutting ol ._heeL metal or other m*iterlal.g


with the electron beam. These ,are our lnvestlgator_q who will
analyze now the probes and the materials are tantalum,
aluminum, and stainless steel - three-metal sandwich.
And the particular objectives are analysis of the molten
metals flow and solidification under very low gravity.
Very low means almost zero. And then the demonstration
of the joining and cutting with the electron beam. We
see here one disk. This particular disk is tantalum.
This dark ring is tantalum. The electron beam began
here at this hole, and while it burned the disk was turned
so that the welding spot or the cutting spot marked
around here was about 35 inches per minute. Now the
thickness is paper. It's very thin here and it is thicker
over there. So we have a clean cutting here, and over here
we have a bead formation where we have more materials.
Then the beam stopped here and (garble). At this point
it was defocused to cover a larger area and have a lower
density of energy even though it has the same total energy.
By the way, the total power in the beam is 1.6 kilowatts.
1.6 kilowatts. So it's a lot of heat energy. In that
case, a so-called puddle formed, a puddle out of molten
metal. The idea behind this is again to investigate the
solidified material after the return to Earth and to see
how compact and solid the material is after solidification.
There may be voids inside and cracks and this is what we
_ are analyzing now. Next slide. In this case we have
aluminum specimen. The film began here at the thin part of
the disk. The disk is thicker here. Here it cut right
through. Here the metal melted and solidified again, and
here was the puddle formation in the aluminum. Next
slide. The last one is stainless steel. In that case again,
the cutting began here, the bead formation, and here the
welding. The soft molten material formed and solidified
again. Now all of the samples have been investigated
visually and with X-rays. So far the fine detailed analysis
is not completed yet. It will take a long time - weeks
and months. But what we have found out so far is that the
method worked very well in space. In fact it seems to have
worked at least as good if not better than on the ground.
The bead formation is very normal. The formation of the
molten metal and the solidification in the formation
(garble) is very normal and besides that the metal - the
quality of the solidified metal seems to be very high.
Now I would like to show a short movie in which we see
how these strips are cut and before we begin I would like
to say that we see also another experiment which I will
SL-III PC-9H/3
Time: 14:15 CDT
7/27/73

describe later - that is the formation of molten spheres,


of molten beads out of molten out of cinders of metal.
The cinders, small things about a quarter-inch in diameter
._ are on a little stem - on a little stem - They are hit by
the electron beam, they melt, and becaus e of the surface tension,
they form a sphere, a round droplet, and because there is
no gravity to distort the sphere, the sphere is relatively
perfect. You will realize it is quite - quite spherical. Then
in some cases the little droplet is pushed up by spring
action so that it floats around in the container and solidifies
before it hits the wall. In other cases, it remains on the
stem, solidifies there, and forms the certain surface
structure and an internal mlcrostructure. We see that also
in the film. I will describe it a little further later. Now the
movie.
SPEAKER The analysis of the samples will be
done by a number of specialists at these places. Pete
Conrad was the main expert behind this idea, Again the
disk which will be cut by the beam. Let us (garble) develop
first and then a little later here it has not penetrated fully.
Only a molten puddle is being formed. Now the beam stops here and
begins again defocuSed over a larger area. The motion of
the molten metal is very interesting. That it's only under the
impact of the electron beam - not under the action of thermal
convection, of course. Similar disk - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-91/1
Time: 14:15 CST
7/26/73

STUHLINGER - under the impact of the electron beam.


f No under the impact - not under the action of thermal con-
vection, of course. Similar disks are aluminum, ere is
now the liquid aluminum, it's no longer cut through here.
That is the proper formation, 1.6 kilowatt of power.
Tantalum melts at 3,030¼ centigrade, stainless stell at
1550, and aluminum at 660. So we have three very different
metals. Watch the bead formation here. Again, the melting
temperature is about twice as high as that of steel. Here's
again the impact of the beam forming a panel of molten tantalum.
Now, we are going into the next experiment. I realize that
the beads which I described were not on that film. That was
somehow ..., but we'll see them on the slides later on.
But the next experiment is one in which the exothermic brazing
of two connections were to be tried out. Tubes are often con-
nected by putting a sleeve over the two ends, which are joined
together, and then the gaps between the sleeve and the tube ends
are brazed together. We have in this case three different ex-
amples - two examples. Needle tubes and stainless steel tubes
and the braze alloy is silver and copper, maybe a little bit of
lithium. What we want to observe here is the tudy of hydro-
dynamic and capillary behavior of molten metal in the gap
between the sleeve and the tubes. Study of concentration
brazings at near the interface between brazed and base metals and
then study of the metal flow with the help of a radioactive
tracer, which allows us to find out later on where the metal
has gone. Now, the results are listed here. The brazed metal
fills the joints very satisfactorily. The brazed Joints are of
good quality. The distribution of brazed metal over Joined
region in space test is different from distribution of - observed
in ground test due to lack of gravity. I would like to add that
it is better. The diffusion is better because it is not held
back by gravity. It says exothermic brazing in space is feasible.
Actually, we are very happy to say that it is even better than
on the ground. Here is one example. Two tubes - The Joint is
in the middle here; there's a sleeve over there. Shown again
here the sleeve, the two tubes, and then here are two rings in
the grooves which contain the brazed alloy. The whole thing is
heated up. Now in the particular case not electrically but by
exothermic compound, by a chemical reaction. It's a kind of a
cup which is put over the joint_ ignited, and then it goes on by
a chemical reaction and heats up the joint sufficiently for
the braze. Next slide. This is a similar Joint, only here the
gap is conical and not cylindrical. That's a little different
from a mechnieal standpoint. In both cases it worked very well.
And from all we have to know to find out so far is to complete
the feasible method to Join tubes and pipes and other members
in space. Next slide. This indicate this show the container
of the standards for brazing the R4. It's a closed container
which we saw earlier in the left-hand corner of the facility
that is being put into the ... container, then eleetirrilly
ignited, and the whole thing goes on inside. Next slide.
Inside, we have the four tubes - four tube centers.
SL-III PC-91/2
Time: 14:15 CST
7/26/73

behind this round ring-shaped boxes are the exorthermic compound


which do the heating. This experiment is done completely automa-
tically with the exception of putting it into this ... taking it
out again. It is left in there relatively long, about 160 hours
all together, for the heating up and then the cooling down
again. Next slide. Now, it's not on 60 hours, it's a shot time.
It's only a couple of - half an hour or so. Now, let's go to
the next experiment, which is listed over here. We call it
metal melting solidification studies. Here are the little
samples of metal. They look llke this here. They are sitting
on little things, about 1/4 inch in diameter - little ceramic
holders. And then an electron beam is aimed at each of them,
one after the other and then they melt. In some cases they re-
main on this thing as shown here, and you see how spherical they
become when they solidify out of - When they melt and they remain
spherical when they solidify. In this case they were pushed off
gently by spring action and they floated around after about
30 seconds. So 35 seconds, they are solid again. Next slide.
This shows how the disc with the little samples is mounted inside
this spherical container. The electron beam comes out of this
opening and hits one after the other. The disc turns and then
the next one is hit. Over here we see the objective, melting and
solidification of ... definitive metals under the low gravity.
These metals are nickel, nickel and i percent silver, nickel
and 12 percent tin, nickel and 30 percent copper. Melting and
solidification of ... metals without a container. This is very
important - that we do not have a container which holds the metal
and which means a thermal contact to the rest of the facility.
We can melt the metals without this contact and that will help us
to find out how the microstructure and the symmetry of crystalli-
zation develops without a container. Such studies are very
important when we try to make certain glasses. There are
materials which do not form glasses on Earth even though their
chemical combination would be correct for glasses. They do not
form because they crystallize and become milky and opaque. But
there's hope that if the same materials can solldify without a
container, without touching a surface, they will solidify as
an amorphous glass. And such glasses would be great of impor-
tance for the optical industry. So that was one of the objec-
tives to see how certain material can solidify and does
solidify without a container. Then we wanted to study techniques
to melt and to handle metals under zero gravity without con-
tainers, and again this was the alloys, and the results of the
specimens melted all right. Some floated off, some remained on
the holder. There are now studies underway to cheek with greater
accuracy and in great detail the structures, the microstructures,
the crystalline structures, the surfaces and so on, which were
obtained under these circumstances. Next slide. This is one
of the spheres in a molten state after being hit by the electron
beam. That is the ceramic holder and that shows how beautifully
round these samples get under the lack of gravity. That was
expected, of course, because it's only the -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9J/I
Time: 14:15
7/26/73

SPEAKER - - get under the lack of gravity, is


not expected because it's only the surface tension which
acts as a force and not gravity, so the perfect shape
under these conditions is a sphere. Here some of the
spheres after it fell off, this one here fell of a little
bit too soon so it was not completely molded and we see a
little bit of impact from the sting still remaining here.
All together we obtained 20 cylinders of this kind out of
this experiment and all of these will now be investigated
in great detail. Here is now one experiment which will
flown on the SL-3 on the forthcoming flight. Its objective
is to watch the growth of a crystal. A single crystal from
a solution. The solution in this particular case is gallium
arsenide, salt in gallium. It is doped with silicon and this
combination, gallium arsenide doped with silicon, is of great
importance, for in the semiconductor industry - for electronic
components and also for photocells and things like that. The
solvent is gallium. We would like to watch the growth of a
crystal, a solution growth, under low gravity conditions for
greater perfection of the structure and for great homogenity
of the dope in the solution and we would like to study the
diffusion characteristics in absence of convection currents.
There is a cross tube used in this experiment about 4 or
5 inches long and about i inch in diameter. At one end
is a chunk, a piece of polycrystalline gallium arsenide.
This whole tube is filled with liquid gallium. Here is
a preforated place so that this piece does not float over,
or move over here, and then at this end, which is our
cold end, 480 degrees C - that is the hot end, 720 degrees -
at this end we have a seed - a little small piece of a
single crystal of gallium arsenide and the expectation
is that the gallium arsenide dissolves here, diffuses
over here, and solidifies here, forming a large single
crystal into this direction here. In our experiment we
have three ampules of the tubes of this kind; they are
put together into one oven. We have to keep the gallium,
the solvent, liquid at all times so we keep it warm even
from the start from the Cape here, up in the command
module at about 50 degrees centigrade which is 8 degrees
Fahrenheit. 32 degrees centigrade, about 80 degrees
Fahrenheit. The gallium is molten and it will be kept under
this condition until this whole container is put into this
sphere container where it will then undergo the diffusion
the heating, the diffusion, and the crystallization. The
three tubes are identical, the hot end again is under
72 degrees centigrade during the experiment itself and the
cold end, 480. This experiment will last about 160 hours
all together. Now, I would like to show the last slide.
On the fourth mission we will use the same oven again, the
same container with three heating elements in it and we will
go through a number of experiments, ii altogether, and they
f_ will pursue a number of similar experiments even though
different. In this case, we want to grow crystals out of
SL-III Pc-gJ/2
Time: 14:15
7/26/73

the vapor phase. Here we want to mls alloys which do not


mix under gravity. We want to study here the diffusion
of radioactive tracer methods. Microsegregation in ger-
manium, growth of spherical crystals whisker - reinforced
composites, indium antimonide crystals growing. Here
another crystal growing experiment. Here a metal and
halide alloying experiment, Here is simply the melting
of a silver grid. Melting and resolidlflcation. We'd
llke to see how the grid solidifies when there's no
gravity that pulls the material down. And then here
again the investigation of an alloy, copper aluminum.
This will be the program for the last manned flight.
That is the end of my presentation.

SPEAKER De we have any questions for Dr. Stuhllnger?

SPEAKER Does that sphere forming experiment have other


values besides in optics?

SPEAKER What we would like to investigate here is


the change in microstructure. And in crystalline structure,
if a melt solidifies without gravity. Also, we would llke
to find out how the surface develope, the surface of the
melt. And the fact that the melt is also round is only of
secondary importance. In other words, we do not expect
that this will be a future factory of ball bearing balls,
but we do believe that we will find out a number of new
and important features of metals that solidify under
conditions which we cannot reproduce on Earth.

SPEAKER You said there was success in the joining


of metals. This holds good promise for man's development
and construction of a large space station in space. Do you
think that's entirely feasible?

SPEAKER We certainly do. Probably among the


first things that will be formed and built and constructed
in space may be a reflector flr microwave energy. There
is a good chance that in the further future we may transmit
large amounts of energy from one point of the arth to
another point of the Earth not by wire or surface means
or by truck full of oil, but by beaming a beam of micro-
waves to an orbiting reflector and down again to the place
it is needed. Now a reflector of this kind would need a
size of about half a mile, that means about - between
one-half and i kilometer on the side, and a structure llke
that must be put together in space; we cannot launch it
in one piece. And we believe that the Joining of metal
structures, of structure elements, can be done. We have
gained a lot of confidence out of this experiment.

SPEAKER Two questions. You mentioned also


that this method could be used for a solar energy array.
Is there any kind of timetable or procedural picture by
SL-III PC-9J/3
Time: 14:15
7/26173

which you can say when or whether or not or how much trouble
it would be to get some more energy from the Sun and from
_-- space, in other words, to supplement the energy available.

SPEAKER I can say two things. First, it is


principa]]y posslb]e; and second, [t Is a |ot of trouble
as you mentioned. Because in order to be effective it
must be large it must be very large - to build and
maintain large structures in space is not simple and not
easy even if and when we know how to combine and connect
the parts. The problem is how to hold a very large
structure in the right orientation.

SPEAKER One other question. Going back to these


manufacturing processes that were demonstrated on SL-2 and
some more that will be demonstrated on SL-3 have you done
any cost analyses or peoJeetions that would indicate whether
it's economically feasible to do some of these processes?

SPEAKER I think that it is too early to go into


cost analysis. On the other hand, we believe that it will
be, for at least some considerable time to come, a method
for small volumes of material only. In other words we will
never produce window glass up in orbit, but we may produce
certain glazes as they are needed only in small quantities
for certain optical instruments for optical filters,
microfilters, or laser filters, or something like that.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9K/1
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

SPEAKER for certain optical instruments, for


r optical filters, or laser filters, or something like that
where we can do a lot of good with say 3 pounds of material
of character[stlcs i which we cannot obtain on Earth; absorp-
tion characteristics, and deflection coefficients. Also,
there has been some talk about the possibility of producing
(garble) fluids for medical use in orbit. And the weight-
lessness. It is still again too early to talk about this
and to say how probable it is, hut there are promising
beginnings for things of this kind. And again when it
comes to producing liquids for immunization, one does
not need to produce tons. Pounds will be a great progress.

SPEAKER Okay, we will please take two more questions.

SPEAKER This is a two-part question. First of all,


I assume you are really talking, Dr. Stuhlinger, about pre-
shaped and preformed microwave dish reflectors being sent up
from the Earth's surface, not being built in orbit, which
would be a huge job. And the second part of it is, you
talk of the techniques, if they prove feasible, as being
of great use to the (garble) industry. You are talking
far into the future on a future shuttle vehicle or a space
station, I assume, with industry paying its own share of
the freight to get it up there and build in orbit, are you
not?

_ SPEAKER This is very true. What we are doing


on Skylab is exploratory. We are trying to find out what
can be done, what is feasible, what is not feasible, and
where are the problems. But when we talk about production,
of course, we cannot do it on a Skylab basis. And we need
to, perhaps not on the shuttle, hut on the super-shuttle, to
go into lock production. Now you mentioned the building of
structures. Of course I mean the assembly. The putting together
of units, which are preformed on the ground in units, which are
just large enough or small enough rather, to he put into a
shuttle. But if it comes to areas a half a kilometer on
the side, then we cannot - We have to assemble it in
space. We cannot unfold it out of one piece. We have to
assemble it in space, and we do need - We certainly do need
methods of putting structures together in orbit. And here
we see a possibility of trying out this method. We feel
that we are on the right way to develop such methods.
Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER No, not really.

SPEAKER Would you - -

SPEAKER You answered the seond question, but


not the first. I fail to see how these techniques would
be utilizable, if you will, in assembling large preshaped,
prelaunched structures into orbit. What you're talking
about with mirror or microwave reflectors, I assume, are
!
SL-III PC-9K/2
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

"_ lock-Jolnt type structures, not welding type vehicles


llke this, a new technique, if so, what do you mean?

SPEAKEI_ I'm not sure whether I understood the


question quite correctly, but let me mention the following.
If you think of a microwave reflector. This reflector will
consist of a grid, a mid brush of small mesh size, about
quarter-lnch mesh size, consisting of units, maybe square
shaped units. Each unit say i0 meters or 30 feet on the
side, and one of the units may be packageable and put
together into shuttle. Even several of them folded to-
gether can be brought up and then they have to be put
together to form one big area, even with a - possibly with
a little convex or concave shape. In order to do that, we
need the framework to hang these grids on, and this frame-
work will be in a llght-loaded structure of tubes, Joined
together on the certain way and this joining together; this
we feel can be done with methods as we try them out here.
Or they can be welded and again we feel that with an
electron beam welding system, we can do things llke
that. Is that a better answer now?

SPEAKER What kind of (garble) and what sort of


metrlx, and is there any particular structural objective
that you hope to achieve in that, specifically?
f_

SPEAKER The point here, is the following. (Garble)


a composite, in general, consists of a metrix, which is
normally of the metal, in this case a metal, and then the
whiskers are long, threadlike fibers which are embedded
and which should be homogeneously distributed. The length
of the whiskers may differ. They may be long ones; maybe
some an inch long, but they should be homogeneously dis-
tributed. Now in a number of cases, the metrlx in the
whiskers are quite different in density. If we mixed
them on Earth, on the ground, on the gravity, and had
the whole mixture solidified after melting the metrix,
the whiskers may float on top and the metrlx may be at
the bottom because of difference in density_ or the other
way around. The whiskers may just stay on the bottom and
the matrix may be on top and they do not mix homogeneously.
Even if they are shaken and mixed, they unmlx again because
of the difference in density. If you do the same thing
with no gravity around and after shaking and mixing the
two, in the molten state, they will remain (garble) until
they are solid. So we can hope to produce homogeneously
structured composites out of whiskers and metrix when the
gravity is absent. What we are trying out, and I'm not
quite sure at the moment which (garble) will be taken
here. I don't know whether you remember. We had two in
particular which I remember. The one is simply to try
-_ out the method, which has not much practical value. In
that case, we use one organic substance as the metrlx and
the other one, which I think is aluminum or (garble) has
SL-III PC-9K/3
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

two materials with different density to see whether this


density business works. And in the other case, as far as
I remember, it's aluminum and tungsten. Again, two
elements which are different density.

SPEAKER You aren't going to try and grow any


sort of single crystal whisker or anything at this stage.
Just the density proposition is your main eoncern?

SPEAKER As far as I know, we do not have plans


at this moment to grow whisker crystals, but we do want to
grow single crystals in large volumes, the same that we
grow on Earth, only we believe that under no gravity
conditions we can grow single crystals with more purity
and larger ones without any disturbance and any imperfee-
tion in them than we can do it on the ground. There are
indications that many of the imperfections in single
crystals on Earth are caused by gravity. Gravity affects
some change in density or something like that. That
means a change in the crystalline structure and the
imperfection the crystals. And that can be avoided
under space conditions.

SPEAKER We're going to have to mov_g at

from Bob Bond, the principal investigator f_51_ )

this SPEAKER
time. We are Thank
running you,behind
Jack. s chedule.__t_
_,___Ifyou don_d, hear
I'd _ _e_ _
like to integrate some remarks here_on _reatur comforts into
all of this science by talking about 4_, also. Let me speak
to two experiments then instead of just the one that's adver-
tised before you. The experiment I'm principal investigator
for M516 entitled "Crew Activities, Maintenance Study." In
addition to tha_y_mmediate boss is the principal inves-
tigator for the_M48_xperiment entitled, "Habit ability Crew
Quarters." And _eh_o are basically inseparable. And I'd
like to speak to them in an integrated sort of a fashion
here for Just a few minutes. Somewhat differently from
what you have heard so far today associated with science
as a pure medium instead of using a particular piece of
hardware to gather information on a particular subject
area of science, we are indeed not experimenting, per se,
but conducting more of an observational investigation on
board in an attempt to evaluate the design adequacy of the
man/machlne interfaces on board Skylah. And instead of
using a tool or a sensor in a mechanical sense, we are
indeed using the man, the crewman, as our predominant
sensor. Consequently, most of our data is subjective
in nature, and the difficulty in an operation like this
is to reduce all of that subjective data to quantitative
numbers that can be used in the design and application of
._ downstream vehicles and products. Now with that kind of
disclaimer at the very beginning, let me say that the team
that has put together the protocol to conduct these two
experiments or operational analyses, if you will, is also
the same team that is going to have to reduce the data and
SL-III PC-9L/I
Time: 14:15 CST
7/26/73

SPEAKER In order to conduct these two experiments


_ for operational analyses, if you will_ is also the same team
that is going to have to reduce the data and come to grips
with what that really means in terms of application to
future designs. Consequently, wetve had very little
opportunity to analyze and reduce the data off the SL-2
mission because we had to turn around immediately and
begin restructuring the protocol, writing the checklist
for SL-3 and now getting ready to mount up the correlary
PI room on a 24-hour basis for the next mission. Conse-
quently, we have very little to say in terms of hard data
reduction kind of analysis as a result of what we have in
hand from SL-2. The data that we have is predominantly
subjective. It falls into about three major categories.
The first one is visual. Comes to us through the
medium of the TV that was recorded on beard, of which we
have some 9 hours total recorded TV. A great majority
of that is associated with the crewmen, actually performing
functions on board. And we have in all cases attempted to
be as unobtrusive as possible and observe the crewmen in
the process of doing their activities as they do them in a
normal mode rather than asking for a demonstration of a
particular activity, for fear that the demonstration would
in some manner be different than it was ordinarily done.
So we hang cameras about and turn them on at a particular
point in and checklist as the crewman goes through a series
of functions to accomplish a task. One step in that checklist
says turn the camera and then he proceeds to the next step
and continues with whatever it is that he is doing and he is
photographed in the process of doing that periodically then
throughout the mission. We supplement the visual data with
solicited subjective data, if you will. We have on board a
checklist and it has within it several debriefing sessions in
which we llke for the crewmen to get together around the
wardroom table or wherever they can get together on a multiman
basis, e have a series of questions for them to answer and
to reflect their ideas and answers off of each other. Thinking
here that any particular individual within the crew might had
more opportunities than another individual to have experienced
or dealt with certain things. They may have opportunities here
as they in group session answer these questions, stimulate each
other's remembrances of particular activities. In order to
gather their personal opinions of how various things, if you
will, on board the habitat supported them, we have additional
evaluation guides in this checklist that we ask them to do
individually. Go off in a corner somewhere periodically
throughout the mission and record on the onboard voice
recorder, which is then dumped and we gather the data as a
transcript, to evaluate various items of equipment that
are on board and habitability parameters in terms of the
habitat itself and we'll talk about this a little bit more
in a moment. The final set of data opportunities is quantita-
tive in nature and is gathered either as a result of the
telemetry that comes down from the spacecraft and this is
associated predominantly with the environment that on board
SL-II1. PC-91,/2
Time: 14:15 C_T
7/26/73

the spacecraft. And on board there is a small kit of


environmental measuring instruments which can be used
to supplement the crewmen's subjective impression of
what's going on within his environment at any particular
point during the mission. Then we supplement all of this,
of course, as questions arise throughout the mission by
documenting these questions and saving them up if they can
be saved until the postfllght debriefings, or if we feel they
cannot, then we attempt to get a question into the evening
crew debriefing on a daily basis to have some particular
aspect clarified that we may not understand at that particular
point in the mission and had a good deal of success in doing
that in the past mission and anticipate that that success
will continue, n terms of the kind of data we have back
off the SL-2 mission, I have been through something like
25,000 feet of film, both onboard 16-millimeter film and
16-millimeter kinescopes of the onboard television. That's
about 5 miles worth and it's going to have to be gone through
eventually frame by frame if we're interested in reducing
some of the data in terms of how the guys actually function
on board the spacecraft. There are transcripts by the ton
and I imagine most of you have had access to the transcripts
from the mission and have seen probably most of the
television in 16-milllmeter. It's not very good. The
16-millimeter on board is not particularly good for PAO
purposes because it was done at reduced frame rates in
order to stretch the film budget out further across the
mission so we take film at 2 or 6 frames per second rather
than 24 which makes good PAO usage but it makes good data
analysis film even though it doesn't sell well on television.
And then, of course, once we have in hand these kinds of data
and have taken a preliminary look at them, we have an oppor-
tunity to harass the crew at the formal postflight dehrlefings,
which we have done all ready. They are off on a period of
R&R at the moment and will be back about the first of September.
By that time we hope to have been through the data in a bit
more detail and get them off one at a time in the hallways
and wherever we can corral them and have more opprotunlty to
ask specific questions about specific activities. Let me
enumerate for you the manner in which the elements are broken
down between the two experiments and what specific things we
hope to achieve in terms of the subelements or areas that we're
looking at. The habitability experiment has been broken into
nine separate areas and these are what we'd like to call
the nine definitive elements of habitability, which make up
the total spectrum. We haven't broken the 516 experiment
down into definitive areas but we nevertheless have chosen
four particular areas for investigation. Within 487 habitability
experiment we have environment, architecture, mobility and
restraint, food and water, hygiene, housekeeping, garments,
communications, and off-duty activity. Within the 516
experiment, the four areas are manual dexterity, locomotion,
mass handling and transfer, and maintenance. And let me
_ speak very briefly to each one of those and maybe find some
SI.-I I I PC-91./3
Time: 14:15 CST
7/26/73

sort of a single example out of all of this morass of


_ data that we have that might give you some insight into
what each one of those elements consists of. The environ-
ment, of course_ is somewhat self-explanatory. Consists
of the onboard environment made up of about 4 or 5 sub-
parameters; illumination, temperature, humidity, airflow,
and noise. There are instruments on board to measure all
of those particular parameters. Of course, the one that
we were most harassed with on board the SL-2 mission was
the temperature early in the mission and the instruments
that are on hoard were used to track that temperature until
it came back within what we call the comfort box. However,
the environment reflects into what the crew does and how
they conduct their particular activities and one of the
crewmen on the SL-2 mission was driven out of his sleep
compartment because of the temperature environment and
chose to move his bed to another part of the spacecraft
that was cooler and more sleepable. Early in the mission
we were under the misguided assumption that there was
something architecturally wrong with the sleep compartment,
which would have reflected significantly into future space-
craft designs. We were worried about the fact that maybe
you can't really sleep in essence standing up against the
wall even though you are not standing but floating in
the zero g environment. Turns out what really was working
there was the fact that there was a certain portion of the
thermal parasol shield that had a wrinkle in it and did not
cover the applicable portion of the exterior of the space-
craft and that reflected back into a certain sort of a head
load into the crew quarters themselves. And one of the
crewmen had a little bit higher metabolic rate than the
other two crewmen and he found it to be too warm in his
sleep compartment. So he took up his bed and walked, so
to speak, and he went somewhere else until the Beta angle
associated with how the Sun and the Earth and the spacecraft
hit together changed as the mission progressed and the Sun
struck different portions of the spacecraft and he eventually
moved back into the sleep compartment because that was
cooler than where he had chosen to go. Architecture, thenj is
associated with structurally how the interior of the spacecraft
is put together and whether or not there is sufficient volume
to do business, whether all of that volume is acceptable to
the crewmen, whether the stowage within that volume is accept-
able to the crewmen, whether the aceruements and projections
and indentures within that volume present problems to the
crewmen. It turned out that we were quite concerned and -
interested, I guess, is a better term than concerned - as to
how the relative difference between a structure like the lower
floor of the workshop where there's a ceiling and a floor
6-1/2 feet apart differed and reflected on the crewmen's
part from the cylindrical architecture of the multiple
docking adapter. They seemed to adapt quite well to
either of those particular vehicles, one of the surprises
to us, we had anticipated that there would be more of a
tendency on the part of the crewmen to loeomote through the
SL-III PC-9L/4
Time: 14:15 CST
7/26/73

spacecraft in a headfirst goldfish-in-a-bowl kind of method.


If you do that, then you can save yourself an awful lot of
worry and bother in terms of how big and what shape you
make doors and passageways in the vehicle instead of
cutting out a large door and potentially structurally
influencing a wall, you can cut out a much smaller kind
of a device like a porthole and a guy can go through it
headfirst. Turns out that the crew adapted - or adopted
maybe is a better term - a coordinate system consistent
with what they had been familiar with in training and -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC9-M/I
Time: 14:15
7127/73

SPEAKER tended to locomote through the majority


_ of the spacecraft in the same one g orientation that they had
used in training. Now that's associated with the fact that the
workshop, particularly, is built with gravity vector, and there
is a very definite ceiling, a definite floor_ and a definite
orientation of all of the things that are on the wall; all the
writing is in a certain direction so that you must be erect
with respect with that writing in order to be able to read it,
the notations on the lockers, et cetera. And the crew adapted
to that and moved around in an erect manner so that they recom-
mended, that, no, you don't change those doors that are in
Skylab for their particular application. They were about the
right shape and the movement between compartments was done
very much in a one-g kind of mode. Mobility and restraint
was a concern rather than an interest. We were quite concerned
that there might not be a sufficient number of restraint de-
vices and that there may be things that the crew Just could
not physically do due to the inadequacy of the restraints
on board. A pleasant surprise was in store for us there he-
cause the crew seemed quite capable of restraining themselves
whereever they were and performing whatever task was required
of them at that point. They were, indeed, particular re-
straints, specific restraints at various places throughout the
spacecraft, the gridwork floor and the shoes with the various
kinds of cleats on those shoes seemed to react quite well, and
gave the crewmen the kind of restraint they needed, where
they needed it, and they were able to accomplish tasks that
had both linear and rotational forces associated with them
where they had to push or pull on something or when they had
to apply a torque to something. All of those things were
quite capable of being done. Food and water is almost self-
explanatory. We were not interested in the metabolic medical
kinds of aspects of this, but in the - rather the engineering
aspects of it, in terms of whether or not the system was usable.
And the system turned out to be quite usable. The wardroom
table served quite well. The food tray, the cans, the utensils,
all worked quite nicely. As a matter of fact, certain things
associated with consuming the meal worked better in the zero
gravity environment than they do here. If you eat some sort
of a viscid medium llke soup, it adheres to the total spoon,
rather than Just to the bowl of the spoon, and you get a
globuler of soup on the spoon. It adheres to the bowl and to
the bottom of the spoon. You actually get a bigger bite.
And there's no way it can fall out and go away. Turns out that
that's nice. You can't spill the soup out of your spoon,
and if you move slowly enough between the can and your mouth,
you get a larger bite than you would indeed get on Earth. So
there were some nice surprises for us in that area. The food
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

SPEAKER (CONT'D) system, per se, worked out quite well, and
_- there were a minimum number of problems associated with that.
Hygiene also was one of the more pleasant surprises. And it's
interesting to compare the comments of the first timers with a
veteran. Pete had flown three different other missions, two
different types of spacecraft, and had been confronted with a
very Spartan type of hygienic facility, with which to do business
previously, And now he had one that was not so much different
than what you have at home. And for elimination of body wastes
and collection of those wastes and sampling of those wastes, it
was very well done, worked very well, and at no point during
the mission was there any sort of a major catastrophy. There
was no major urine spill, a major fecal catastrophy of any kind.
All of those collections went very nicely and smoothly and
were not a problem, and that particular kind of a device is
now a good candidate to be continued in future programs.
Certain engineering aspects of it, like the flow rate of the
air that moves through the fecal canister, it looks like it
could be increased to manifest a bit better retention. A bit
better separation of the bolus from the individual, but never-
theless, it did work fine. It was not a problem, and that
was one of the more pleasant surprises, ousekeeping turned
out to be what we sort of expected it would be. It takes time
to do and you must allot time within the mission time llne to
take care of that particular chore. The spacecraft stayed
extremely clean, and you heard previously, that the interior
of the spacecraft, from the aerosol analysis, was quite clean.
There weren't too many unusual things running around in there,
in terms of atmospheric containments, and very little contrib-
uted to that, other than in the wardroom, where the food was
consumed. There seems to no way at all that you can open one
of these snackpack cans and sever the membrane inside the
can without emitting a certain amount of what is in the can
into your habitable atmosphere. Occasionally, as you depart
from the can with the spoon, or the fork, or the knife, to
your mouth, yon' re going to separate a small amount of what-
ever it is you're trying to move, and you essentially spatter
a lot. And one of the more predominant comments that we re-
ceived from the crew along this line was that the wardroom
was the only place that seemed to get very dirty, and it was
full of a lot of nooks and crannies, t had a grid floor
for a ceiling and for a floor or had a gridwork for a
ceiling and a floor. And the recommendation was that in the
future, wherever it is in future spacedrafts that you eat,
that you make it flat surface. The waste management compart-
ment in Skylab consists predominently of flat surfaces, and
it was put together that way, Just so that the things that
go on in there could not leave that compartment and go out
SL-III Pc9-s/J3
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

SPEAKER (CONT'D) and contaminate the rest of the spacecraft.


Turns out that you really ought to do something like that for
_- the eating area, also, and you might not ought to locate those
two places contiguous to each other. They mlght should be
separated a bit from ea(:h other In future missions, Just so
that tllere Is no Intermlngllllg of the things that go In those
two seperate compartments. And that if you have flat surfaces
without nooks and crannies an'd crevices, even though you are
going to occasionally make a mess, it turns out being a great
lot easier to clean up, if all you have to do is wipe off a
flat surface. The garments elicited very few comments. At
certain points in the mission, it was extremely warm in £he
spacecraft. At other points of the mission, it got cool in
certain portions of the spacecraft and there was an ample variety
of garments on board to accomodate both ends of this spectrum,
as far as the spectrum went, it seemed to stay reasonably
within the comfort box_ and the only recommendation we got
garment-wise was from one crewmember, whose metabolic rate runs
a bit lower from the others, that maybe he would have liked to
have had a long-sleeved shirt. Something with a stepping stone
between the short-sleeved shirt that was on board and the jacket
which was - indeed had long sleeves, but nevertheless was a bit
more cumbersome to use and to put on than would have been a
Banlon cling-to-the-arm-type long-sleeved shirt. But garments
seemed to fare quite well. There were a sufficient number on
board. There was a recommendation that maybe they would have
preferred to change some of their undergarments and their socks
a bit more often. But in terms of what was available to do
business with, there seemed to be a sufficient amount available
and everything was there seemed to perform quite well. Communi-
cations was interesting. Communications in this sense speaks to
the ability of the crewman to communicate with each other on
board the spacecraft. Not necessarily with the ground, but with
each other in a IVA mode on board the spacecraft. And in the 5-psl
environment, sound does not propagate well. In that particular
atmosphere, and without the communication intercomm boxes to talk
between vehicles and compartments - sometimes even within the same
vehicle - it became impossible to communicate, so you needsome
sort of mechanical means to help the people communicate with each
other. Within a vehicle if there's going to be another one as
large as Skylab - that will allow people to get as far apart from
each other as Skylab did. It turns out that from the wardroom,
say out to the experiment compartment where the ergometer was, was
a fairly easy range to accomodate. Up into the forward area
through the grid was a bit more difficult, and if the guy was as
far away as say the dome, or into the alrlock, they could not
shout and make themselves heard. So you need some sort of assist
device to get you there. That has to do not only with the
SL-III PC9-MI4
Time: 14:15
7/27/73

SPEAKER (CONT'D) propagation of the sound through the 5-psi


environment, but with what frequency tile voice falls In wlthln the
total sound spectrl,m. Cerlalu ._l._es l_ropag:itod qulle wel I through-
out the _parecralt . Some .I tho music Lilnl {-ullll, I tom the I_lP¢,
recorders filtered through quite a lot of the ,_pacecraft because
it was in some of the higher frequency ranges, which leads us into
the off-duty element. Unsurprislng, the interest of the crewmen
did not change between their Earth environment and their orbital
environment. What they were interested in on Earth, they were
also interested in in their orbital environment. If they did not
play cards on the ground, they did not play cards inflight, If
they did not read on the ground for pleasure, they did not read
inflight for pleasure. There was an off-duty activity kit on
board. It consisted of a number of items which they could have
used, either for curiosity's sake, or for personal entertainment,
had they wanted to. The two items that got used the most out
of that kit were the individual cassette recorders, which they
used not only in their sleep compartments at night to lull them-
selves to sleep, if you will, to relax, but they took to certain
duty stations to use when they were sitting at the ATld panel.
A lot of times there was music in the background when they were
riding the bicycle ergometer, and there was nothing to do except
sit there and pump for 30 minutes. It made a nice background
to have the recorder running, and have the music - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-9N/i
Time: 14;15
7/26/73

SPEAKER background when they were riding the


bicycle ergometer and there was nothing to do except sit
there and pump for 30 minutes. It made a nice background
to have the recorder running and have the music in the
background. There were other things in there that were
not used. Some of the items were broken out and tried to see
about the feasibility of them in zero g. Some were feasible,
some were not; but predominantly the two things that took
up most of the off-duty time were looking out the window at
the ground, and, if you will, investigating the wonders
of the zero g environment and determining what your own personal
capabilities for doing things were within that environment.
The recommendation came back very strongly that there would
be windows, plently of them and plenty large, to look out
of in future vehicles so that there can be that medium provided.
In the area of 516 then, the manual dexterity element, we were
interested in the total range of the man's capability from time
manipulative tasks to gross muscular tasks. We saw no degra-
dation whatsoever in any of these tasks anywhere along that con-
tinuum over the whole spectrum of the mission. At the moment
there's very little to say about that except that representative
tasks were performed at all points along that spectrum, and
we can't find any particular problem with any of them. At the
samll end of the spectrum where you talk about fine manipulative
tasks, that gets you into an area of logistics management. If
you're doing fine manipulative tasks, you have to have a number
of small items that you are manipulating, and when that happens,
you have just logistics management problems in terms of retaining
those items and controlling them. That is an area that probably
needs a great deal of attention in future programs where there's
a possibility having to deal with scientific devices that might
have a lot of assembly or disassembly associated with them.
Locomotion, we've talked a bit already. The guys seemed to be
able to get around without any difficulty at all, moving in
whatever mode they chose to, whether erect straight ahead,
backwards, turning somersaults in the process of going from
point to point. There seemed not to be any difficulty whatso-
ever in locomoting from point to point, either by themselves or
carrying something, which brings us to the mass handling and
transfer point. Now we were interested also in Jerry's T027 or
S073, I guess, and Joe's T027, but from a different kind of a
point of view. Rather than being interested in what science
came in through the other end of that device, we were interested
in whether or not the crewman could unstow that device from
where it was located, get it to where it was supposed to be
used, functionally set it up, assemble the parts that were
associated with making it functional, do the chorej disassemble,
relocate it to its stowage position_ and restow it without doing
any kind of harm to the device or to himself that would degrade
the science. It turns out that they were quite capable of
moving all of the masses on hoard Skylab, and they ranged
from small minute masses like screws that they took out of one
thing or another in th process of opening and closing or repair-
ing something masses of slightly over 200 pounds mass which were
relocated early in the mission during the reactivation phase.
The food boxes, the scientific experiments ranged 135 to 50
pounds maybe, roughly about the same mass as an individual.
,_L- I I I I'C-9N/2
TLme: 14:L5
7126173

SPEAKER And they seemed not to have any dlfflculty


at all in locomoting with those masses and moving them from
point to point. What we're interested in analysing here and
attempting to scope was whether or not we had reached the
limit of man's useful capability in moving items manually from
point to point. It seems that we have not approached wherever
the knee is on that curve yet. There was nothing too big to
handle in Skylab. The long pole in that tent seems to be
whether or not you can see around it. hether what it is
your're moving obscures your visual field to the point that
you can't see where you're going with it. If you can see how to
handle it in Skylab, there seems not to be any particular problem
in getting it there and retaining it once you have arrived. The
final item is the maintenance area and what we were interested in
here was an evaluation of the tools that were on board. Whether
the proper tools were there, whether all the tools that were
there were useful, whether there were tools that were needed but
were not there, whether the procedures on board to use those
tools and maintain and repair items were proper or improper,
whether the preflight preparation had been sufficient in order
to prepare the crew to do the tasks that they would be con-
fronted with on board. In this case we got interested in
other pieces of science like Carl's S019 which developed a
problem early in the mission and had to be maintained on board.
At that particular juncture we got involved with him in develop-
ing the procedures to do that. And in evaluating the guys
capabilities for doing it, we wanted to know where he went to
do the job, how much difficulty he had in doing it, what proce-
dures he used, and whether or not in future missions and
designs there needs to be maybe a dedicated place to go to do
maintenance some sort of a work bench kind of a sight, rather
than just having to go off into a corner some place and catch
as catch can. Those are the kinds of things that we will be
evaluating throughout the remainder of the program and the kinds
of data that we are receiving we feel llke we can eventually
quantify into something that will help us design a better
mousetrap in the future.
SPEAKER Thank you, very much, Bob. That was an
excellent summation of the many facets of those two experiments
areas I think we are going to have forego questioning at this
time because we are running so late, and we need to get to
Bob Parker, who is going to give us alook ahead to the SL-III ex-
periments and immediately following the briefing with Parker,
we'll have Richard Thornberg, a test supervisor from the Kennedy
Space Center, here to give us a status briefing on how the count-

down is going and to answer any questions concerning the count-

down. At this time we'll hear from Bob Parker.


SPEAKER At this time I'd like to introduce the
Skylab Program's chief scientist, astronaut Dr. Robert A. Parker,
from Johnson Space Center.
SPEAKER Well, I guess that I got two bum deals today.
one

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Skylab III Premlssion Science Briefing - New Experiments


Kennedy Space Center
July 26, 1973
4:00 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Dr. Robert A. Parker, Astronaut Skylab, Chief Scientist


Bill Pd'meroy, PAO

PC 10
f-
SL-III PC-IOA/I
Time: 16:30 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER I guess I got two bum deals today.


One I got to talk at the end of 7 hours of briefings and,
two, I got to talk about new items that don't have any
results in the face of all the exciting results we've
been listing today. I've been here all day myself
listening to these things. It's the first time that
, I've heard a great many of these results from Skylab
because the data and the PI's diffused so rapidly
across the country to work out their various and sundry
experiments and work up the data as much as it's been done.
So I was sitting here all day, not as a reporter, but as
someone who has got to decide what to do about these experi-
ments the next mission, and, I would say, very excited to
see some of the results for the first time. In fact, to me
anyway, this is at least a partial reward for all the effort
we put together trying to get these experiments in. Just to
" see the enthusiasm of the PIs, let alone the results, Just
the enthusiasm of the PIs to the results this data had
obtained. And I quite taken by all that. And I guess I
should thank them for giving me that much information today.

SPEAKER We have in the next Skylab, which is


really what I'm here to talk about today, under the item,
at least in some of the internal (garble) today, is called
"new stuff." And, basically, this consists of nine or ten
new experiments whlch were not flown at all on Skylab-ll.
They were really not intended to, in most cases. Most of
these experiments are in the area that we would call corollary
experiments, and if you recall from a llttle talk I gave to you
in early May before the launch of Skylab-l, that means Just
mlscellaneous. Let me Just briefly llst these and explain what
some of them are. l_m sure that they must have press kits
that tell themall about the ones, hut let me just call them
to your attentlon. First of all, in no particular order
here, since these are all Under miscellaneous, we come up
with__T013, which is a vehicle disturbance experiment, looking
at how man movlng around the vehicle, a_d in this particular
case, doing some fairly controlled exercises with motion
sensing plates within the vehicle, how he disturbs the whole
spacecraft. To what e_xtent is this a problem in the design
of future spacecraft? The next one, which I'ii Just mention
briefly, is S150, which is a totally passive experiment. It
rides on "th_ booster. It's an X-ray experiment doing an
X-ray survey for sources particularly the continuous back-
ground of X-ray stars - X-ray sources in the sky. It's a
part loca_d in the i _ of the Saturn
booster. It is like M415, a totally passive experiment that
doesn't even stay with the crew when they get to orbit. Two
_f other very passive experiments, as far as the crew are con-
cerned, are S071 and S072, which are essentially circadian
SL-III PC-10A/2
Time: 16:30 CDT
7/28/73

rhythm experiments. One -l've forgotten which is which,


but one of them was vinegar g_ats, and one of them was
_- with d_s.e..r.J_.._t_e. And these - both • sets of anlmmls are
confined in containers in the service module and their
day/night cycle studied in the situation of zero g to
see how this affects these little animals in terms of
temperature changes of the animals. Desert mice, in
terms of their metabolic changes and in terms of develop-
ment of the gnats, thems elves_ in PUPa. Two very large
and important experiments, not that the others aren't, but
two very large and important in terms of time consumption
and as far as being sort of key experiment, which you hear
an awful lot about are the M509 an_20 , which I like to
group together as two experiments. I'm not sure that the
Pl's appreciate that, but they both have to do with the
movement and locomotion of man, essentlally, in EVA-type
.ILu,_ons. If you 11_e, the real bonlfied version of the

flying machines, which will be operated in the upper


dome
Buck section
Rogers of the spacecraft
backpack. These arewhere
both there
small isspacecraft
a very "/'_//*U
nice controlledflylng area for these machines. With
different types of control systems and s essentlally, it's
an evaluation of these two particular techniques and
various techniques within each one as to which would be
the best for operational use. For an astronaut who had
to fly, particularly around in space separated from his
mother vehlcle, tethered to do things like construct
these microwave dishes, which you Just can't move the
spacecraft along always staying in the spacecraft doing
it. We are, as Dr. Stuhllnger noted, carrying u_M555,
the galll__arsenld@ crystal _rowth which does not
carried on Skylab-ll because of weight and power
problems. We're also carrying up experiment S015,
which is an experiment in the command module._"T_ a
very passive experiment which looks at cellular mechanisms
and m tet_._aabollsmof human cells maintained in vitro in the
spacecraft _n ze__ experiment in more or less
the earth resources area, which is being carried for the
first time. The apparatus is already on board. It's Just
being performed for the first time, and it will also be
performed on Skylab-IV, is the experiment called _. It
looks at the Earthts atmosphere in _.xmL_aJ_ o_onJ_L__Ir-
glow, the upper p_--art'_of_th_e. In particular_ this
_rlment sometimes looks out the mlnus-Z, the Earth-polntlng
scientific alrlock during EREP passes and looks at the atmos-
phere in the ultraviolet, since we can't see through it,
implies going upward, you know, from the ground. That's why
you have all of that ultraviolet astronomy on board. Looking
through it, coming downward again is also not very feasible.
You could not see too much of the ground that way, because
again, the ultraviolet light is absorbed. It doesn't come
up from the ground. However, this does allow us to look at
the, if I can coin a phrase here if the Pl's haven't already used
SL-III PC-IOA/3
Time: 16:30 CDT
7/28/73

it, the clouds of ozone, which is one of the ultraviolet - one


of the primary sources of (garble) in ultraviolet. It
allows us to look at the so-called clouds of ozone above
the Earth, at regions of i00,000 - well, far above the i
Earth. And to see how these are structured how these
are affected by the seasons, and, in fact, because this
is a big controversy in terms of the SST, we also will
try to look at them over the United States, in particular,
in terms of their effect or how they are shaped or how
_they are affected by things llke airplane travel. There's
one experiment that's been on board which will assume more
_promlnence on Skylab-III and that is the S149. or micro-
meteoroection. It was deployed at the ver_f
_lab-II, and it'_ been left out, hopefully collecting
micrometeorold particles, which might impinge and be
captured or make small craters on the (garble), which
have been left to absorb this contamination. One set of
these exposed plates will be retrieved at the beginning of
Skylab-III. These were deployed and they have a ground
command, which allows them to open after the vehicle left,
so that they'll see a clean environment and they will be
closed again llke the petals on a flower do - that's quite
what they look llke - before the Skylab-III command module
arrives, again, so that any contamination from the SPS
system does not get on the (garble). A set of these will
also be deployed probably sometime duirng Skylab-III near
the solar telescope on EVA. This is a new procedure which
was developed because of interest in deploying these particle
collectors facing the Sun instead of Just facing away from the
Sun, which is the way they've, of course, been deployed
currently, out of the antlsolar airlock. Also coming up
this time are a number of educational student experiments.
He carried a number last time. We're carrying some more
new ones this time. Particular ones of interest would be
the spider. We're going to try and determine how a spider
wo_a web in zero gravity. We're also going to look
at the ways that the cells carry the cytoplasm around inside
growing plants. Those are two of the more obvious ones.
We're going to continue making some astronomical observa-
tions, with S019 and some earth resources observations for
the students_T_o on EREP. A new area of experiment or
observations, which has been added on Skylab-III and will come
into fuller play, we hope, on Skylab-IV, is a series of earth
resources observations made, not with _ameras, but with the
human eye, namely from the crewmen. In terms of trying to
evaluate the capability -

END OF TAPE
SL III PCI0-B/I
Time: 16:30 CDT
7/26/73
SPEAKER Not with the camera, with the human eye,
" mainly from the crewmen, in terms of trying to evaluate the
capability - the spectral - the special characteristics and
extra capability the human eye observing features might add
to the complement of cameras. If there is such it's not
clear that there is, but it's something we want to investigate.
The human eye, after all, does serve many special functions.
One, is being able to integrate a scene as it moves over it, and
get rid of the flat view that a single photograph has. And is
able to pick up and zero in on many small obJeetsj which then
become - tend to get lost in the large-scale photographs that
are frequently taken. We're trying to make some sort of esti-
mation with these sets of observations of Skylab 3 and 4 in terms
of what, if any, partlcular type of visual activities might be
useful in space in terms of Earth Resources or is it all going to
be Just photographic. Almost unmanned-type observations. These
are this essentially completes the general llst of new experi-
ments which you can expect to hear about on Skylab 3, which were
not performed on Skylab 2. I might comment that in general,
beyond this, you will hear a great deal about most of the same
experiments about which you heard today. These experiments -
I might n_te are being repeated on Skylab 3 and will also then
further be repeated on Skylab 4 again for most of them; for a
couple of different reasons: i_ is Just plain to gain exposure
time, to observe the Sun with ATM for one pass, for one rotation
of the Sun is one thing, to gain more data, to know whether or
not that particular flare is what we saw. We saw a flare, but
one flare is not necessarily the same as all flares. So to con-
tinue those observations, to Just give you Just one particular
example, hoping to find other flares to see if they're all the
same or to see what differences there are from flare to flare,
which again would be a way of helping to understand them. is one
particular example. The other one is, in the medical area, for
instance, is another particular example, to extend_ of course_
from 28 to 56 or right now, 59 days. Beyond that, there is the
other fact that Just because three men react one way - a sample
of three men react in one way for 28 days - does not mean that
we don't want to enlarge that sample to look at the statistical
variations from man to man. That has always been one of the things
that plagues space medicine, in terms of the small number of
people going up, it is a very - not the sample of thousands which
doctors llke to work on in their national surveys and studies.
In EREP, for instance, as an examplep we're looking for seasonal
changes. Particularly now that We've seen the beginning of the
growing season, we'd like to see the end of it, and then of course,
on Skylah 4, the winter season. And also_ new geographical areas,
which is an extension of time. That's all. If you find you get
something - I guess it's a nubbin that it all comes down to anyways -

/
SL III PC10-B/2
Time: 16:30 CDT
7/26/73
SPEAKER if you're trying to get a whole bunch of sites
done and you've Just three men for 28 days, you Just can't set out
to do it all at one time. You can do part of it in one mission, and
then set up to do part of it in the next mission, and part of it in
the mission afterward. We will see, by and large, 90 percent of the
mission of Skylab 3, will sound an awful lot like the mission of
Skylab 4. That's the way we intended it and I hope you're not too
surprised or disappointed when it comes out that way. There will be
new surprises and new interests, I'm sure. But it will sound 90
percent of the time very much llke three different people doing the
same thing all over again D and that is because there is so much to
be done. Thank you.
SPEAKER Thank you, Bob. Again _ I'm sorry that we can't
allow for questions_ but we are very late and welre gown g to have to
run along. I hope that Dr. Parker can perhaps stick around if some-
one wants to see him afterwards. At this time_ we'll move on to the
countdown status

END OF TAPE

!
/
,- SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houst on _ Texas

Skylab III Prelaunch Briefing (T-l)


Kennedy Space Center
July 27_ 1973
i:00 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Donald D. Slayton, Director Flight Crew Operatl ns_ JSC


Dr. Royce Nawklns_ Deputy Dlrector_ Medlcal Operations, JSC
Mr. Leland F. Belew_ Skylab Program Manager, MSFC
William C. Schnelder, Skylab Program Director_ NASA Hdq.
Walter Kapryan, Director Launch Operations, KSC
Kenneth Klelnknecht_ Skylab Program Manager_ JSC
Richard G. Smlth_ Saturn Program Managerj MSFC
Col. Alan Vette_ USAF
Dlrector DOD Manned Space Plight Support Office
Chuck Holllnshead, PAO

i
I

PC-II
SL Ill PC II-A/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

PAO Make a few logistics announcements before


we start with the conference. Bus transportation will be
available tonight for photographers who wish to go out and
cover the removal of the mobil service structure. That
will be - also, they'll remain there for some sunset shots.
You should sign up in the photo office for this if you
wish to attend. If you'd sign up right after this meeting,
we'd appreciate it. And that bus will leave at 6:30. We'll
be open here in the news center all night tonight. We'll
have bus transportation going out to the press site starting
on an as-needed basis after 3:00 a.m. I'll remind you
that you may have been going out to the press site at this
time in your own car. Unless you have a parking pass, now,
you can't go out in your own car. You'll need to take one
of our shuttle buses. The last bus will be leaving here
at 5:30 a.m., so be sure to be here no later that 5:30 if
you're planning to go out on one of our shuttle busses. Also,
I'd llke to remind you that your press badge allows you to
go unescorted by the fastest route to the press site only.
Anywhere other than the press site, you must have an
escort. Now we're very anxious for you to cover the
launch, but if our security people pick you up in an un-
authorized area, there is a chance that you wouldn't get to
cover the lauh. We're expecting Donald Slayton. Hers
on his way here now. He was tied up, but we'll go ahead
and start without him. On my right is Doctor Royce Hawkins,
Deputy Director for Medical Operations at Johnson Space
Center. To his right is Leland F. Belew, the Skylab Program
Manager from Marshal Spaceflight Center. To his right is
William P. Schneider, Skylab Program Director. On Mr. Schneider'e
right, Walter Kapryan, Director of Launch Operations here at
Kennedy Space Center. To his right, Kenneth Kleinknecht, the
Skylab Program Manager from Johnson Space Center. And on his
right, Richard G. Smith, Saturn Program Manager from Marshall
Spacefllght Center. And to his right, Col. Alan Vette,
U.S. Air force Director of the Department of Defense Manned
Spacefl_ght Support Office. Col. Vette, do you want to start
off with a DOD update?
VETTE Okay. About the same as always. The
forces are deployed around the world now. The crews are
trained and they're qualified. We're ready to go and support
the mission as it's currently planned. The DOD forces are in
the control room at Houston with the NASA recovery people.
And right after this meeting I will go out there and that'll
put all our forces in place to support this mission. So I
can report to you right now that the DOD is ready to support
the mission.
PAO Thank you Colonel. Mr. Schneider?
SCHNEIDER Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
"- We've Just concluded our last final review of the preparations
for launch of Skylab If. And I'd llke at this time to
SL III PC II-A/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
_- 7127173

spend a few moments reporting to you on that. First, the


condition of the workshop in orbit - we have had a comprehensive
examination of the condition fo the workshop. Briefly, the
thermal situation is under control, the temperatures inside
vary as the beta angle of the orbit changes but they are
right now around 79 degrees. The electrical power system has,
if anything, gotten better since we were last there. And
our one major problem is the rate gyros which continue to
be in an area of uncertainty. But the vehicle is well
controlled. Our uncertainty is in our redundant systems.
Which brings me then to the readiness of Skylab II. And,
briefly there, the countdown is on schedule. Scheduling for
liftoff at - right now, it says 7:10 and 50 seconds for
approximately a lO-minute window. We have had some great
changes in the internal storage of the spacecraft, primarily
related with activities designed to allow us to repair the
rate gyros if they deteriorate any more. It has resulted in
some changes in our internal storage. Most notable, we did
remove two scientific experiments, SOO9, which is a nuclear
emulsion experiment and our friend M555, I which we were
forced to delete from the Skyiab II spacecraft. Both of
these we hope to get on Skylab IV. The_'re both rather
large, heavy experiments. In addition _o that, we had
some problem with the films on the FrenCh experiment - the
S183 panoramic - ultraviolet panoramic camera. And because
of that uncertainty in the film we have not taken up any
camera cassettes. But we do have on board, as I stated,
a 6-pack of rate gyros which we may hav e to install when
we get up there - sometime while we're dp there. The launch
vehicle is in good shape.

END OF TAPE
SL IIl PC II-B/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
,.- 7127173

No open anomalies. The crew is eager, waiting. Operatlons_


newtowrk is all in great shape. We've had some noise on
the Vanguard end they are probably going to operate from the
ocean for this mission. The DOD you heard about and the Mis-
sion Control in Houston is ready. The weather report is very
favorable. Scattered clouds, about a 6-knot wind out of the
west. Possibility of afternoon thundershowers Just about
llke it is today. One thing that I would like to make clear.
As we llft off - we are fundamentally lifting off - we would
go for a 28-day mission. We do expect a medical examination
prior to the 28 days. A medical examination of the crew as
they are on board and a re-evaluatlon of our Skylab II data.
And at that time, we will ..... a GO for an additional week.
week. Each week we will review the crewts condition and give
a conscious go for an additional period of operation up until
we get to the end of the 59 days. I say each week - that's
liable not to be a 7-day interval - it will be around a
week's interval and we will play that real time with the
recovery force. Yesterday you heard a great deal of discus-
sion about the results of Skylab If. The scientific results
were outstanding. The sclentlsts_ the englneersj the tech-
nicians are for the most part delighted with their results
and all they've done has been to whet our appetites for
Skylab Ill. During Skylab Ill, we will fundamentally continue
- our experiments. There are some new ones that I am sure you
are aware of. The llft-off, as I said, is tomorrow morning.
We will the, after rendezvous, we will begin the activation
of the spacecraft. EVA is currently scheduled on mission day
4, at which time will deploy the twlnfold thermal shield and
replace the film in the Apollo telescope mount, and then we're
looking forward to an additional period of time up to 59 days
for completing our experiments. At the end of the 59 days,
we will recover, using our standard techniques. There is one
thing that I would llke to draw to your attention and this is
that we have groundruled that the helicopters will hodl off.
They will not go in as close to the spacecraft for, I believe,
it is i0 minutes, to assure that there is no safety hazard due
to parachutes and equipment llke that coming down. We did
have an incident on Skylab II where one of the helicopters
encountered a piece of rope. No damage was done, but we don't
want that to happen. So do not look for the helicopters to
move in and hover immediately as they have in the past. We
are groundrullng them to stay outside of a given circle for
i0 minutes before they enter. I think that's all I want to
say.
SPEAKER Okay. We will open it up to questions
now. If you will wait until the mike comes to you so your
colleagues in Houston can hear. Start over here with one.
QUERY For Bill Schneider. Would you consider a
28-day mission a completely successful mission?
SL Ill PC II-B/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

SCHNEIDER Well, obviously we're aiming for 56 days


at least, or 59, hopefully. I would certainly be very dis-
appointed with a 28-day mission.
QUERY For Dr. Hqwkins. That 28-day medical exam.
How much can you really get, because a lot of the things that
you've learned about calcium loss, red blood cell loss and
things like that, come from the samples that are brought back.
How can you know what the situation is at 28 days with this
crew?
HAWKINS Well, obvlouslys we will not have that
information. This will be based upon the results of the
physical examination of a clinical nature, plus the results
of the experiments that will have been conducted at that time.
And that's the type of exam review that Mr. Schneider was
referring to.
QUERY You don't have a doctor up there this time.
HAWKINS No, we don't have a doctor. We have a
scientist who has been given some training, who can report
to us and have consultation with us. And I think we can get
the necessary input.
QUERY I'd llke to find out why the M-5 rendezvous
What is the constraint against simply doing an M-I llke you
did from the Moon?
SPEAKER We picked M-5 as the One that gives us
the most time. It's the best one from a crew standpoint.
Perhaps Deke, you ought to answer that one.
SPEAKER I don't know the fine details on it
either except that it works out best from a time llne point
of view.
SPEAKER You recall we did an M-I in Gemini,
Gemini ii, I believe it was, and the crew really had to move
fast in order to do it.
SPEAKER No requirement to do it any earlier, really.
We don't want to spend too much time before we get there though,
so there is a requirement to not let it go out into the 19 and
20 time period because we are eating up mission time and not
getting any scientific results out of it.
QUERY Bill Schneider, how much do these rate
gyros weight and will will be the decision governing whether
you install or replace the other ones that you have? And
what kind of an EVA do you have to do? You know, what kind
of work do you have to do to plug them in and get them working?
SCHENIDER Would you believe they weight 144 pounds?
The total package of six rate gyros and three different black
boxes, coupled to electronic boxes and brackets weigh about
146, 47 pounds. The EVA involves decoupllng, I think, out-
side - two disconnects, electrlcal plugs, and replugglng those
back in. And this package goes back in plus some slmilar
activity inside. The EVA looks like the time required to con-
_ duct that activity is in the neighborhood of 1 hour after
you get outside. We think that's adequate with some margin
SL IIl PC II-B/3
Time: 13:00 CDT
7127173

attached to it. The work has been demonatrated in the


neutral bouyancy slmulator. We've run through that several
times already, plus one-g trainer activity.
SPEAKER The mission rule is right now we know
we will put it f we lose all gyros in any one axis.
QUERY in iOt!herwlse you won't put it in at a11?
SPEAKER No. We know we'll do it if we've lost
them in any one axis. If we're down to one, we ili serlously
examine it to see if there is anything that would change
our minds. Right now, we don't think we would do it unless
we lost them all.
QUERY For Bill Schneider. You said there is
some doubt to the film on board for the French experiment.
Did you say you were Or were not going to carry up more
film cassettes?
SCHNEIDER The film is not on board. We were to
carry it up. When we got it here, the film was fogged and
we elected in consultation with the French principal in-
vestigator not to carry up the cassettes. The experiment
will not be performed using the cassettes. We will probably
perform it using the data acquisition camera, which is the
second mode of operation. We did that in Skylab I/ZI also.
QUERY The standard question for Deke. What
-_ do the astronauts do today and have they sald anything
exciting about their mission into space?
SLAYTON Well, nothing very much. They got the
physlcal this morning. This afternoon they're Just out laying
around in the Sun, what little there is; ilsn't much. We've
got a briefing at 4:30 on some connectors, to make sure we
get a last minute update on that. Probably eat at about 5:30,
quarter to 6 and go to bed around 6:30. As far as anything
dull or otherwise, I guess, the general _one of the conversa-
tion probably would summarize it and not use their words.
They're kind of worrying about having a Christmas present when
they get up there without the wrappings that go with it. WeVve
done so much Juggling around of the stowage here in the last
24 hours that they are going to see it for the first time
when they go into activation day up there. We hope they don't
find too many surprises.
QUERY Have there been any problems with the
launch vehicle and the spacecraft and all? And the second
one, could you give a specific time in the MSS roll back? L_
SPEAKER That should start rolllng back about
7:30 tonight. We have had a few problemS, but we have had
no major problems. We have had fewer problems with this
vehicle than any one we've processed to this point in time.
We did have a problem that we encountered during the countdown
demonstration test, last Firday, where we found two sensors
in the hydrogen tank of the SIVE mlswlred. Wetve corrected
that condition. We did have a delay in one of our terminal
countdown sequencers coming on llne. It did come on llne
SL III PC 11-B/4
Time: 13:00 CDT
_ 7/27/73

before we actually got in the termalnal sequence and every-


thin E worked well, at TTO. We did have a - with respect to
the spacecraft - we did have a sound and open Eround re-
turn in one of our two redundant master event sequence con-
troller assemblies that - would we have to depend on that
particular controller to deadface certain circuits prior to
CSM - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 11-C/i
f_ Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

would you have to depend on that particular controler to


dead phase certain circuits prior to CSM separation. We
would have been separating with hot connectors. We have
replaced that mess key ±?i, we have retested it and Itts working
well. We also had a problem in that we developed a leak
in the - again a redundant gaseous nitrogen package for
the SPS system. We've changed that out we have retested it and
at this point in time we have no problems. It's been a
very clean bird.
QUERY I have two question for Royce Hawkins.
The first, are there any residual effects at all on the
Skylab I crew, at this time?
HAWKINS Resldual effects?
QUERY Yes, I meanp are they still are they
totally back to normal from the way they were?
HAWKINS Well, as we reported yesterday in some of the
hematology and the endocrln area, hormonal area - no at
the last examination some of these measurements that were still
not back to basellne levels. We will of course do another
blood sampllng on them and - to determine for certain
whether they are back as yet or not_ that has not been
picked at this time because the crew's away on some
vacation. So those measurement are definitely still open.
f_ The - From the physical standpoint physiological standpoint -
I think that the crew is back within their preflight
baseline envelope. This means that they are back within
the confidence llmlts that is being placed on those measurements
preflight.
QUERY And the second subject is about the
private conversation, - medical conversation that you had during
the first Skyleb. Were there any conversations that you
had that you feel now could not have been discussed openly
without any problems?
SPEAKER Let me answer that. We have already
said we're not going to comment on those private medical
conversations and we will not. It's a matter of policy
that we are going to have private medical conversations
once a day that will not be paraphrased. You get a medical
report every day which includes the results of the medical
conference.
QUERY I was asking Dr. Hawkins a question
which it was a medical question My understanding is that
medical reports, medical information is one of the most
important things out of Skylab and if the general publlc
which is paying for Skylab can't find out in real time or
at all, what's going on with medical information_ then
perhaps we don't have an open program. I dontt know how we
can ask the Russians to divulge information to us during
the Joint mission if we wont± tell about our own mission.
SL III PC ii-C/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
A 7/27/73

SPEAKER I can't for the llfe of me think that


you don't think that we run an open mission after how we
bared our soul to you during the Skylab 1/2. Now you do
get a medical report every day Just llke it is given out
on the presldent. We do not paraphrase their conversations.
QUERY I wasn't asking for a paraphrase. I
asked a simple question to Dr. Hawklns, not to Mr. Schneider.
And my question to Dr. Hawkins was, was there any private
conversation that you had with the astronauts during the
first Skylab that could not have been discussed openly
without any problem, such as we did during Apollo?
HAWKINS Well_ I guess you could say in one
answer to that_ no. I mean, it could have been discussed.
Yet on the other hand_ the type of discussion would not have
been done over an open loop. And we would have not have
gotten the epth of information and all which we thought was
needed on a personal basis.
QUERY In what general areas - I'm not even
asking about which astronaut - but in whatr geneal areas did you
get information that you could not have obtained through
an open conversation?
HAWKINS Well, I don't think I have to answer
that. That was under the rules of private communication
that it would not have to be dlvulged unless it had mission
_ impact.
QUERY If it didn't have mission impact then
what was the point of having them to begin with?
SPEAKER Do you like to answer your doctorts questions
on - in Macy's window?
QUERY If I were an astronaut and being paid
by the government, yes, I would answer the question.
SPEAKER Why can't you- -

END OF TAPE
SL Ill PC II-D/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
7-27-73

SPEAKER As an astronaut and being paid by the


government - Yes, I would answer that question.
QUERY Why - Why can't you allow the astronauts
to discuss their physical status with dignity - with their
personal physicians?
SPEAKER I'm afraid your argument is not with us.
anyway.
QUERY This is a NASA policy question. It was
established by the administrator of NASA. It is the policy
that we have followed. It is the pollcy that we will continue
to follow unless we get direction from the administrator in
NASA to change that policy.
SPEARER As I say, that's what I'm trying to do
right now.
SPEAKER Okay. You' re addressing the wrong body.
SPEAKER I'd llke to get back to the gyro package
kit and Vanguard. First on the gyro package kit - where did
you stow it for llftoff? Where will it be fixed if you
have to use it? As I understand it it's a cable connection
but the package is fixed somewhere else. And then I'll
ask you the Vanguard question.
SPEAKER Well the - the package is being stowed
in the - in the command module, of course. And it's stowed
in several locatlons. We have a 4-pack and what we call a
2-pack. One is - the 4-pack is being stored in the locker
that is designated A-7. And the 2-pack gyros are being
stowed in, I believe A8 or A9, The gyros themselves will
be mounted on a bracket in suitable mounting places that are
already in the multiple docking adapter. So the gyros them-
selves will be inside the spacecraft. And it's Just the wiring
connections that have to go from within multiple docking adapter
to a feedthrough connector to the assembly that is
presently installed.
QUERY On Vanguard. How far did you move it?
Where is it now?
SPEAKER I believe he said 25 miles at sea -
something on that order. It's Just off shore.
QUERY Mr. Schneider- at this gathering
before the first launch you described the concept of the
Skylab program as a marriage of science and engineering.
Can we say at this point that all the honeymoon problems
have been worked out and we're on to a llfe of scientific
bllss?
SCHNEIDER Well as an old married man you know
that when the honeymoon problems are worked out why you
sometimes find there are some longer term problems (Laughter. I
suspect that we'll find that there are little things that'll
come up and bite us. We are very concerned about the
gyro 6-pack - about the gyros - the rate gyros on board.
But we fully expect that there will be other things that'll
keep us busy. We hope it's a very dull and boring mission
as far as you' re cancerned.
QUERY The essence of my question was - Is
Skylab now a functlonal hlgh-powered scientific laboratory?
SL III PC II-D/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

SCHNEIDER In my opinion, Yes. And that answer


also - I would have also given that answer about the middle
of the axis mission, too. (Garble)
QUERY I'd llke to know if you are very
concerned about the gyros on board? Why you would wait
until one axis set of gyros is completely out of
operation before making any replacements?
SCHNEIDER Well, what we're concerned about is,
we dontt want to be without any in - any one axis. As long
as we have one functioning wetre in good shape. The concern
is - do you open up the connectors and give up the one set
that you have before you can hook up the other set. And
that's the conscious decision we'll have to make.
QUERY Okay. Can you give me a figure of the
liftoff weight of the Apollo command module and how close
does that liftoff weight compare to the maximum that is allowed
for llftoff?
SPEAKER Liftoff weight will be about 13,405 to
13,410 pounds. The limit liftoff weight is 13,500 pounds.
That's established by the hung weight on the parachute
should you have an early abort,
QUERY I have a question for Deke Slayton.
Knowing the personalities of these men, how do you anticipate
them getting along in a fairly closed environment for 2 months?
SLAYTON Well, we anticipate they are goint to
get along very well together. We have no concern about that at all.
They' been working together here now for about 2 years. And they've
been totally compatible. We anticipated they would be when
we put them on the flight.
QUERY You don't think that being in such
a closed space by themselves for so long might not cause
inevitable friction between, say, three individual people?
SLAYTON No, I don't. Our experience has been
that when you have motivated people doing something they think is
important you don't have that klnd of problem. And I guess
we've got one pretty good ground test data point that might
make you feel warmer about it. The SMEAT.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II~E/I
Time: 13"00 CDT
7127173

SPEAKER No, I don't. Actually, it is better


when you have to motivate people doing something they think
is important you don't have that kind of problem. And I
guess we have pretty good ground test data point that might
make you feel warmer about it. (Garble) you may remember
we ran it through 56 days in the altitude chamber and we
made no effort at all to match those gentlemen in terms.of
personality or anything else and they certainly did not
have the motivation or the challenge or the interest and
they got along beautifully.
SPEAKER Schneider. If during the long Skylab
III and IV missions, if there happens to be an intense solar
storm on the Sun, is there any possibility that the radiation
can go - penetrate the spacecraft and damage the astronauts
in some way, or the instruments?
SCHNEIDER Pass that to Dr. Hawkins.
HAWKINS Not sure I completely understand exactly
what you are asking. What was your statement again?
SPEAKER Let's say, like last year, there was one
of the biggest storms on the surface of the Sun in a long
time. Now, during the longest of all the Skylah missions the
chances are great that there _ll be a - the chances are greater
that there will be a major storm. Now, could any of this
radiation, once it hits the earth, disrupt the instruments on
• the spacecraft, and in any way affect the crew?
SPEAKER (Garble)
HAWKINS The answer to that is no, it cannot affect
the instruments. In the event there was a large solar flare,
we would have the crew retreat into the command and service
module. In the event that the instrument showed that it was
an unusually large one, one larger than what we have experienced,
why we would bring them home.
SPEAKER Back there.
SPEAKER Two questions you mentioned that there was
a noise problem at Vanguard, was that RF or political noise?
SPEAKER RF, automobiles running by the highway,
and fishing launches.
SPEAKER The second one has to do with - -
SPEAKER A matter of fact, I might say that there
has been very great political cooperation on that, they have
even offered to close off some of the highways. There has
been a lot of cooperation.
SPEAKER Good. On Skylab II, there were some
stories that people had some difficulty differentiating
between certain taste-allke food. Was something done about
this, in terms of herbs or spices and something here changing?
SPEAKER Yes, there have been spices added, in
form of garlic powder, celery powder, pepper, tabasco sauce,
SL III PC II-E/2
_. Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

SPEAKER 8 pounds of catsup?


SPEAKER Right.
SPEAKER First question for Dr. Hawklns i I believe
you said that from all you can determine that the - well,
to use the press terminology, the Skylab 1 crew of Pete
Conrad and so on, they have returned to medical norm. Does
this include their red blood cell counts?
HAWKINS No. That's one of the things we were
talking about awhile ago in response to - I believe Mark
asked the question. But those - The hematology, the blood
count, the matter in which the type of thing you are talking
about there are the measurements which were still not back
to base line levels at the last examination, the last blood
drawal.
SPEAKER One to Schneider. Assuming and hoping,
of course, that all go well on Skylab 2, we've heard some
talk, of course, about the possibility of extending Skylab 3,
the last mission up to 90 days. What would be the absolute
maximum duration of this final Skylab mission?
Schneider Right now, our spaceflight plan is 56,
59 days. It's conceivable that after we get the 56-day
results we may decide to extend the mission of Skylab 4, but
if we did it would be a matter of days, not a matter of
_ weeks or months. It's a consumable rate that weirs following
leads us to believe that we probably would have to bring up
quite a bit of food if we tried to extend the mission any
more than Just a yew days. Also, things like underwear and
things like that, them running out of that kind of stuff.
So right now 56 to 59 days is about the length of the mission,
if it is extended, it won't be any great amount, Just a few
days.
SPEAKER Bill, you said that the Skylab workshop
was in excellent condition, can we break that down a little
bit? Before lift-off, we were warned to expect the possibility
of micrometeorite hits. And some of the solar vane damaged
and possibly hull leakage. Is there any indication of any
thing?
KEATHLEY I'ii pass that to Lee.
SPEAKER The indications are that the straight
pass is extremely tight, for instance the pressure we have
been running it at, 2 psi, were leaking about 0.3 pounds per
day, the spec would of allowed 4.5 or so, so it is very tight,
no indications of leaks either by flanges or by any penetra-
tions. We couldn't have any penetrations of any size at
all and hold that type of leak break.
SPEAKER Okay.
SL III PC II-E/3
Time: 13:00 CDT
- 7/27/74

SPEAKER This is probably to Bill Schnider here,


is now almost certain pending a normal SL-3 mission_ you'll
hold it until you can get an ideal observant kind of comet
coming around the Sun before.
SPEAKER That's highly probable. We haven't
completed all of our studies, but it looks more and more
each day, as if we will probably delay the launch until
the middle of November, such that we can go up and observe
Kohutec over - around the first of the year.
SPEAKER Are you on a November 9 lift-off now?
Are you going to move it back?
SPEAKER I wouldn't - I wouldn't pick a date now
other than to say it is probably around the middle of
November. We would like to stay up there until about the
lOth or the 15th of January-

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II-F/I
Time: 13:00 CUT
7/27/73

SPEAKER We would llke to stay up there until


about the 19th or the 15th of January. They aren't picked
that yet. Then back off 56 days from that rang and you
get the range and launch date.
QUERY If I could get back to the rate gyros, if
you have to put them in and have to do the EVA, how do
you stabilize everything? Would you do it with the command
module? Well, would have to use TACS to do any of that?
And what's your TACS status anyway?
SPEAKER The first part is that we use the CSM;
do do not use TACS and Lee can tell you how much we have
got.
SPEAKER Well, we are holding about 35 - 36 thousand
pounds secons of TACS. We have used none since the unmanned
mission started. !
QUERY What's the status of that?
SPEAKER Well, of what we have loaded, which we
have loaded about 80 thousand pounds seconds, you know, and we
used a great deal in the initial phases of Saturn 1 - 2.
Since we obtained our thermal protection which got us into a
favorable attitude control mode, w e have been down a very,
very low TACS usage, lower than wehave planned, really. It
took let's see, on a nominal mission from here on out 3 we will
wind up the end of the mission with something in the neighbor-
hood of 13 to 15 thousand pounds of_ that 35 thousand pounds
seconds load. So we have a margin onboard right now, for a
nominal mission.
QUERY The last part of the question - if they go
EVA, how many guys will do that, will there have to be one
guy in the ommand module controlling or stabilizing the space-
craft?
SPEAKER Yes, We have always planned to have the
capability to control Skylab from the CSM. Two guys will be
EVA and one guy would be in the command and service module.
SPEAKER One thing you might have not caught earller
when Keathley was answering this. The bulk of all the rate
gyro hardware will be installed rather early in Skylab 3 mis-
sion. Inside the MDA. The only thing that would not have been
done is the innereonnects, that's electrical harnesses. So the
bulk of the work other r_an that EVA and some harness work
which will be a little dlffieult, will all hae been done.
QUERY I have a question that was called in by
Howard Benedict of Associated Press. Has the decision definitely
been made to erect twin fol sunshades. If so, when was the
decision made:
SPEAKER Yes, and that decision was made at the end
of Skylab 2.
SPEAKER Do we have any more question here?
SPEAKER ! have one comment, I forgot when I was
giving general comments, there is one change - minor change in
SL III PC II-F/2

Time: 13:00 CDT


7/27/73

SPEAKER the recovery procedure, I want to make


sure that everybody understands. Last time the crew got
out of the spacecraft almost immediately when the spacecraft
was put on the deck. This time we are asking them to stay
in there, for a period of time while doctors go onboard to
check their heart rate and pulse before they do come out.
And then when they do come out, I believe they are going to
stand on a platform and the platform will be lowered and they
will not walk down the stairs.
SPEAKER Over here.
QUERY One more about the gyros. I wonder
whether you plan to install those extra gyros at the end of
this mission even if you still have one of the original gyros
going - one of the axis.
SPEAKER That would depend upon the failure mode,
assuming we fall - another gyro in one of the axis that has
already had one fail. You know, we have three gyros in
each axis, for redundancy. You only need one. To date,
we have three in one axis and three in another axis and -
three in one axis and two in two other axes. So we still
have redundancy.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, was this last announcement
made by Mr, Schneider a medical decision_ based on this idea
t_at they are not going to walk out of the spacecraft?
HAWKINS Well, it a - I guess you could say it's
based on medical request for handling the crew a little more
efficiently than what we were able to do on the last mission.
And the operation people said yesp they could provide this
type of support.
SPEAKER Over here.
QUERY For Walt Kapryan. Ab 4
ut a week ago -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II-G/I
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7127173

- were over the limit 13,500 on the load. And since then you
have come down like 90 pounds. That seems llke an awfully big
off load from what you were last week.
KAPRYAN Well, that came about _s a result of
coming up with the optimum stowage configuration. We do
of course have concern that should have an unfortunate failure
shortly after llftoff and would have to have an earlier
abort such as the spacecraft would be impacting or landing
on land t we wanted to have the maximum clearance envelope
for the crew. And we have been working on that and finally
came up with the best configuration we could, yesterday, and
that required off loading some equipment. Also because of the
fact that it was necessary - we feel necessary for us to take the
rate gyro six pack up. That could cause a real of
p rob le m.
QUERY Are you still packing?
KAPRYAN Yes. The final stowage should be underway
its way at this time. We have some experimental - some
experiments that have to be installed. The time of stowage
is critical to llftoff time. i
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, again. Let's go hack to this
question of them not leaving the spacecraft immediately and
walking down the steps. What were some of the things
that you found that you would llke to have seen on the
crewmen on the first mission after splashdown? What were
some of the things you would have liked t@ have seen that
did not happen because, or as a result of hls walking in - -
HAWKINS I think it was quite o_vlous to
everybody watching TV that all 3 crewmen were unsteady on
their feet when they first got on the deck. And they had
a step to climb down and this was a struggle for them,
really, which I feel llke we can do a little bit better and
provide a little better arrangement for g_tting them out
of there and into the lab without adding a lot of extra
effort on their part to accomplish it.
QUERY But in no way was it a factor of the medical
examination ?
HAWKINS No. It was exactly what you saw and
I saw on TV in the way that they were able to navigate.
SPEAKER Do you have anymore questions?
Gentlemen thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
_ Houst on _ Texas

Skylab III Prelaunc Briefing (T-l)


Kennedy Space Center
July 27, 1973
i:00 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Donald D. Slayton, Director ht Crew 0peratl ns_ JSC


Dr. Royce Nawklns_ Deputy r_ Medical Operatlons_ JSC
Mr. Leland F. Belew, Skylab Pro Manager, MSFC
William C. Schneider, Skylah Pro m Director, NASA Hdq.
Walter Kapryan, Director Launch KSC
Kenneth Kleinknecht, Skylab Pro tanager, JSC
Richard G. Smith, Saturn Program ;er, MSFC
Col. Alan Vette, USAF
Director DOD Manned Space Fll )fflce
Chuck Hollinshead, PAO

PC-If
SL Ill PC II-A/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
J'_ 7/27/73

PAO Make a few logistics announcements before


we start with the conference. Bus transportation will be
available tonight for photographers who wish to go out and
cover the removal of the mobil service structure. That
will be - also, they'll remain there for some sunset shots.
You should sign up in the photo office for this if you
wish to attend. If you'd sign up right after this meeting,
we'd appreciate it. And that bus will leave at 6:30. We'll
be open here in the news center all night tonight. We'll
have bus transportation going out to the press site starting
on an as-needed basis after 3:00 a.m. I'ii remind you
that you may have been going out to the press site at this
time in your own car. Unless you have a parking pass, now,
you can't go out in your own car. You'll need to take one
of our shuttle buses. The last bus will be leaving here
at 5:30 a.m., so be sure to be here no later that 5:30 if
you're planning to go out on one of our shuttle busses. Also,
I'd like to remind you that your press badge allows you to
go unescorted by the fastest route to the press site only.
Anywhere other than the press site, you must have an
escort. Now we're very anxious for you to cover the
launch, but if our security people pick you up in an un-
authorized area, there is a chance that you wouldn't get to
cover the lauh. We're expecting Donald Slayton. Hats
on his way here now. He was tied up, hut we'll go ahead
and start without him. On my right is Doctor Royce Hawkins,
Deputy Director for Medical Operations at Johnson Space
Center. To his right is Leland F. Belew, the Skylab Program
Manager from Marshal Spaceflight Canter. To his right is
William P. Schneider, Skylab Program Director. On Mr. Schneider's
right, Walter Kapryan, Director of Launch Operations here at
Kennedy Space Center. To his right, Kenneth Kleinknecht, the
Skylab Program Manager from Johnson Space Center. And on his
right, Richard G. Smith, Saturn Program Manager from Marshall
Spaceflight Center. And to his right, Col. Alan retie,
U.S. Air force Director of the Department of Defense Manned
Spacefl_ght Support Office. Col. Vette, do you want to start
off with a DOD update?
VETTE Okay. About the same as always. The
forces_d around the world now. The crews are
traln_ and they're qualified. We're ready to go and support
the mission as it's currently planned. The DOD forces are in
the control room at Houston with the NASA recovery people.
And right after this meeting I will go Out there and that'll
put all our forces in place to support this mission. So I
can report to you right now that the DOD is ready to support
the mission.
PAO Thank you Colonel. Mr, Schneider?
SCHNEIDER Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
._, We've Just concluded our last final review of the preparations
for launch of Skylab If. And I'd like at this time to
SL III PC II-A/2
Time : 13:00 CDT

r. 7/27/73
spend a few moments reporting to you on that. First, the
condition of the workshop in orbit - we have had a comprehensive
examination of the condition fo the workshop. Briefly, the
thermal situation is under control, the temperatures inside
vary as the beta angle of the orbit changes but they are
right now around 79 degrees. The electrical power system has,
if anything, gotten better since we were last there. And
our one major problem is the rate gyros which continue to
be in an area of uncertainty. But the vehicle is well
Icontrolled. Our uncertainty is in our redundant systems.
_Whlch brings me then to the readiness of Skylab If. And,
_brlefly there, the countdown is on schedule. Scheduling for
llftoff at - right now, it says 7:10 and 50 seconds for
approximately a 10-minute window. We have had some great
changes in the i_nal storage of the spacecraft, primarily
related with activities designed to allow us to repair the
rate gyros if they deteriorate any more. It has resulted in
some changes in our internal storage. Most notable, we did
remove two scientific experiments, SOO9, which is a nuclear
emulsion experiment and our friend M555, which we were
forced to delete from the Skyiab II spacecraft. Both of
these we hope to get on Skylab iV. The@'re both rather
large, heavy experiments. In addition to that, we had
some problem with the films on the French experiment - the
S183 panoramic ultraviolet panoramic camera. And because
of that uncertainty in the film we have not taken up any
camera cassettes. But we do have on board, as I stated,
a 6-pack of rate gyros which we may have to install when
we get up there - sometime while we' re up there. The launch
vehicle is in good shape.

END OF TAPE
SL IIl PC 11-B/1
Time: 13:00 CDT
._. 7/27/73

No open anomalies. The crew is eager, walting. Operations,


newtowrk is all in great shape. We've had some noise on
the Vanguard and they are probably going to operate from the
ocean for this mission. The DOD you heard about and the Mis-
sion Control in Houston is ready. The weather report is very
favorable. Scattered clouds, about a 6-knot wind out of the
west. Possibility of afternoon thundershowers Just about
llke it is today. One thing that I would llke to make clear.
As we llft off - we are fundamentally lifting off - we would
go for a 28-day mission. We do expect a medical examination
prior to the 28 days. A medical examination of the crew as
they are on board and a re-evaluatlon of our Skylab II data.
And at that time_ we will give a GO for an additional week.
week. Each week we will review the crew's condition and give
a conscious go for an additional period of operation up until
we get to the end of the 59 days. I say each week - that's
liable not to be a 7-day interval - it will be around a
week's interval and we will play that real time with the
recovery force. Yesterday you heard a great deal of discus-
sion about the results of Skylab II. The scientific results
were outstanding. The sclentlsts_ the engineers, the tech-
nicians are for the most part delighted with their results
and all they've done has been to whet our appetites for
Skylab III. During Skylab Ill, we will fundamentally continue
our experiments. There are some new ones that I am sure you
are aware of. The llft-off, as I said, is tomorrow morning.
We will the, after rendezvous, we will begin the activation
of the spacecraft. EVA is currently scheduled on mission day
4, at which time will deploy the twinfold thermal shield and
replace the film in the Apollo telescope mounts and then we're
looklng forward to an additional period of time up to 59 days
for completing our experiments. At the end of the 59 days,
we will recover, using our standard techniques. There is one
thing that I would llke to draw to your attention and this is
that we have groundruled that the hellcopters will hodl off.
They will not go in as close to the spacecraft for, I believe,
it is i0 minutes, to assure that there is no safety hazard due
to parachutes and equipment llke that coming down. We did
have an incident on Skylab II where one of the helicopters
encountered a piece of rope. No damage was done, but we don't
want that to happen. So do not look for the helicopters to
move in and hover immediately as they have in the past. We
are groundrullng them to stay outside of a given circle for
i0 minutes before they enter. I think that's all I want to
say.
SPEAKER Okay. We will open it up to questions
now. If you will wait until the mike comes to you so your
colleagues in Houston can hear. Start over here with one.
QUERY For Bill Schneider. Would you consider a
28-day mission a completely successful mission?
SL III PC 11-B/2
TimeZ 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

SCHNEIDER Well, obviously we're aiming for 56 days


at least, or 59, hopefully. 1 would certainly be very dis-
appointed with a 28-day mission.
QUERY For Dr. Hqwkins. That 28-day medical exam.
How much can you really get, because a lot of the things that
you've learned about calcium loss, red blood cell loss and
things like that, come from the samples that are brought back.
How can you know what the situation is at 28 days with this
crew?
HAWKINS Well, obvlously, we will not have that
information. This will be based upon the results of the
physical examination of a cllnical nature_ plus the results
of the experiments that will have been conducted at that time.
And thatts the type of exam review that Mr. Schneider was
referring to.
QUERY You don't have a doctor up there this time.
HAWKINS No, we dontt have a doctor. We have a
scientist who has been given some training_ who can report
to us and have consultation with Us. And I think we can get
the necessary input.
QUERY I'd llke to fln!d out why the M-5 rendezvous -
What is the constraint against simply doing an M-I llke you
did from the Moon?
SPEAKER We picked M-5 as the One that gives us
_" the most time. It's the best one from a crew standpoint.
Perhaps Deke, you ought to answer that one.
SPEAKER I don't know the fine details on it
either except that it works out best from a time llne point
of view.
SPEAKER You recall we did an M-I in Gemini,
Gemini ii, I believe it was, and the crew really had to move
fast in order to do it.
SPEAKER No requirement to do it any earlier, really.
We don't want to spend too much time before we get there though,
so there is a requirement to not let it go out into the 19 and
20 time period because we are eating up mission time and not
getting any scientific results out of it,
QUERY Bill Schneider, how much do these rate
gyros weight and will will be the decision governing whether
you install or replace the other ones that you have? And
what kind of an EVA do you have to do? You know, what kind
of work do you have to do to plug them in and get them working?
SCHENXDER Would you believe they weight 144 pounds?
The total package of six rate gyros and three different black
boxes, coupled to electronic boxes and brackets weigh about
146, 47 pounds. The EVA involves decoupllng_ I think, out-
side - two disconnects, electrical plugs, and replugging those
back in. And this package goes back in plus some similar
activity inside. The EVA looks like the time required to con-
._ duct that activity is in the neighborhood of 1 hour after
you get outside. We think that's adequate with some margin
SL III PC II-B/3
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

attached to it. The work has been demonstrated in the


neutral bouyancy simulator. We've run through that several
times already, plus one-g trainer activity.
SPEAKER The mission rule is right now we know
we will put it in If we lose all gyros in any one axis.
QUERY Otlherwlse you won't put it in at all?
SPEAKER No. We know we'll do it if we've lost
them in any one axis. If we're down to one, we ill seriously
examine it to see if there is anything that would change
our minds. Right now, we don't think we would do it unless
we lost them all.
QUERY For Bill Schneider. You said there is
some doubt to the film on board for the French experiment.
Did you say you were or were not going to carry up more
film cassettes?
SCHNEIDER The film is not on board. We were to
carry it up. When we got it here, the film was fogged and
we elected in consultation with the French principal in-
vestigator not to carry up the cassettes. The experiment
will not be performed using the cassettes. We will probably
perform it using the data acquisition camera, which is the
second mode of operation. We did that in Skylab I/II also.
QUERY The standard question for Deke. What
_-- do the astronauts do today and have they sald anything
exciting about their mission into space?
SLAYTON Well, nothing very much. They got the
physical this morning. This afternoon they're Just out laying
around in the Sun, what little there is; ilsntt much. Wetve
got a briefing at 4:30 on some connectors, to make sure we
get a last minute update on that. Probably eat at about 5:30,
quarter to 6 and go to bed around 6:30. As far as anything
dull or otherwise, I guess, the general _one of the conversa-
tion probably would summarize it and not use their words.
They're kind of worrying about having a Christmas present when
they get up there without the wrappings that go with it. We've
done so much Juggling around of the stowage here in the last
24 hours that they are going to see it for the first time
when they go into activation day up there. We hope they don't
find too many surprises.
QUERY Have there been any problems with the
launch vehicle and the spacecraft and all? And the second
one, could you give a specific time in the MSS roll back?
SPEAKER That should start rolling back about
7:30 tonight. We have had a few problemS, but we have had
no major problems. We have had fewer problems with this
vehicle than any one we've processed to this point in time.
We did have a problem that we encountered during the countdown
demonstration test, last Firday, where we found two sensors
in the hydrogen tank of the SIVB mlswlred. We've corrected
_" that condition. We did have a delay in one of our terminal
countdown sequencers coming on llne. It did come on line
SL IIZ PC II-B/4
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

before we actually got in the termainal sequence and every-


thing worked well, at TTO. We did have a - with respect to
the spacecraft - we did have a sound and open ground re-
turn in one of our two redundant master event sequence con-
troller assemblies that - would we have to depend on that
particular controller to deadface certain circuits prior to
CSM - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II-C/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

would you have to depend on that particular controler to


dead phase certain circuits prior to CSM separation. We
would have bean separating with hot connectors. We have
replaced that mess key -+?I, we have retested it and it's working
well. We also had a problem in that we developed a leak
in the - again a redundant gaseous nitrogen package for
the SPS system. We've changed that out we have retested it and
at this point in time we have no problems. Itts been a
very clean bird.
QUERY I have two question for Royce Hawkins.
The flrst_ are there any resldual effects at all on the
Skylab I crew, at this time?
HAWKINS Residual effects?
QUERY Yes_ I mean_ are they still are they
totally back to normal from the way they were?
HAWKINS Well, as we reported yesterday in some of the
hematology and the endocrln area, hormonal area - no at
the last examination some of these measurements that were still
not back to baseline levels. We will of course do another
blood sampling on them and - to determine for certain
whether they are back as yet or not_ that has not been
picked at this time because the crew's away on some
vacation. So those measurement are definitely still open.
The - From the physical standpoint physiological standpoint -
I think that the crew is back within their preflight
baseline envelope. This means that they are back within
the confidence limits that is being placed on those measurements
preflight.
QUERY And the second subject is about the
private conversation, - medical conversation that you had during
the first Skylab. Were there any conversations that you
had that you feel now could not have been discussed openly
without any problems?
SPEAKER Let me answer that. We have already
said we're not going to comment on those private medical
conversations and we will not. It's a matter of policy
that we are going to have private medical conversations
once a day that will not be paraphrased. You get a medical
report every day which includes the results of the medical
con fe fence.
QUERY I was asking Dr. Hawkins a question
which it was a medical question - My understanding is that
medical reports, medical information is one of the most
important things out of Skylab and if the general publlc
which is paying for Skylab can't find out in real time or
at all_ what's going on with medical Informatlon_ then
perhaps we dontt have an open program. I dontt know how we
can ask the Russians to divulge information to us during
the Joint mission if we won't tell about our own mission.
SL III PC II-C/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
_ 7/27/73

SPEAKER I can't for the llfe of me think that


you don't think that we run an open mission after how we
bared our soul to you during the Skylah 1/2. Now you do
get a medlcal report every day Just like it is given out
on the president. We do not paraphrase their conversations.
QUERY I wasn't asking for a paraphrase. I
asked a simple question to Dr. Hawkins$ not to Mr. Schneider.
And my question to Dr. Hawkins was, was there any private
conversation that you had with the astronauts during the
first Skylab that could not have been discussed openly
without any problemp such as we did during Apollo?
HAWKINS Well, I guess you could say in one
answer to that_ no. I mean, it could have been discussed.
Yet on the other hand, the type of discussion would not have
been done over an open loop. And we would have not have
gotten the epth of information and all which we thought was
needed on a personal basis.
QUERY In what general areas - I_m not even
asking about which astronaut - but in whatr geneal areas did you
get information that you could not have obtained through
an open conversation?
HAWKINS Well_ I don't think I have to answer
that. That was under the rules of private communication
that it would not have to be divulged unless it had mission
_-_ impact.
QUERY If it didn't have mission impact then
what was the point of having them to begin with?
SPEAKER Do you llke to answer your doctor's questions
on - in Macy's window?
QUERY If I were an astronaut and being paid
by the governmentp yes, I would answer the question.
SPEAKER Why can't you - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC 11-D/1
Time: 13:00 CDT
7-27-73

SPEAKER As an astronaut and being paid by the


government - Yes, I would answer that question.
QUERY Why - Why can't you allow the astronauts
to discuss their physical status with dignity - with their
personal physicians?
SPEAKER I'm afraid your argument is not with us.
anyway.
QUERY This is a NASA policy question. It was
established by the administrator of NASA. It is the policy
that we have followed. It is the policy that we will continue
to follow unless we get direction from the administrator in
NASA to change that policy.
SPEAKER As I say, that's what Itm trying to do
right now.
SPEAKER Okay. You're addressing the wrong body.
SPEAKER I'd llke to get back to the gyro package
kit and Vanguard. First on the gyro package kit - where did
you stow it for llftoff? Where will it be fixed if you
have to use it? As I understand it it's a cable connection
but the package is fixed somewhere else. And then I'll
ask you the Vanguard question.
SPEAKER Well the - the package is being stowed
in the - in the command module_ of course. And it's stowed
in several locations. We have a 4-pack and what we call a
2-pack. One is - the 4-pack is being stored in the locker
that is designated A-7. And the 2-pack gyros are being
stowed in, I believe A8 or A9. The gyros themselves will
be mounted on a bracket in suitable mounting places that are
already in the multiple docking adapter. So the gyros them-
selves will be inside the spacecraft. And it's Just the wiring
connections that have to go from within multiple docking adapter
to a feedthrough connector to the assembly that is
presently installed.
QUERY On Vanguard. How far did you move it?
Where is it now?
SPEAKER I believe he said 25 miles at sea -
something on that order. It's Just off shore.
QUERY Mr. Schneider - at this gathering
before the first launch you described the concept of the
Skylab program as a marriage of science and engineering.
Can we say at this point that all the honeymoon problems
have been worked out and we're on to a life of scientific
bliss?
SCHNEIDER Well as an old married man you know
that when the honeymoon problems are worked out why you
sometimes find there are some longer term problems (Laughter. I
suspect that we'll find that there are little things that'll
come up and bite us. We are very concerned about the
gyro 6-pack - about the gyros - the rate gyros on board.
But we fully expect that there will be other things thattll
_ keep us busy. We hope it's a very dull and boring mission
as far as you t re concerned.
QUERY The essence of my question was - Is
Skylab now a functional hlgh-powered scientific laboratory?
SL III PC II-D/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
/'_ 7/27/73

SCHNEIDER In my opinion, Yes. And that answer


also I would have also given that answer about the middle
of the axis mission, too. (Garble)
QUERY I'd like to know if you are very
concerned about the gyros on board? Why you would wait
untll one axis set of gyros is completely out of
operation before making any replacements?
SCHNEIDER Well, what wetre concerned about is,
we donVt want to be without any in - any one axis. As long
as we have one functioning wetre in good shape. The concern
is - do you open up the connectors and give up the one set
that you have before you can hook up the other set. And
thatts the conscious decision we'll have to make.
QUERY Okay. Can you give me a figure of the
liftoff weight of the Apollo command module and how close
does that liftoff weight compare to the maximum that is allowed
for liftoff?
SPEAKER Liftoff weight will be about 13,405 to
13,410 pounds. The limit liftoff weight is 13,500 pounds.
Thatts established by the hung weight on the parachute
should you have an early abort.
QUERY I have a question for Deke Slayton.
Knowing the personalities of these men, how do you anticipate
them getting along in a fairly closed environment for 2 months?
r SLAYTON Well, we anticipate they are goint to
get along very well together. We have no concern about that at all.
They' been working together here now for about 2 years. And they've
been totally compatible. We anticipated they would be when
we put them on the flight.
QUERY You don't think that being in such
a closed space by themselves for so long might not cause
inevitable friction between, say, three individual people?
SLAYTON No, I don't. Our experience has been
that when you have motivated people doing something they think is
important you don't have that kind of problem. And I guess
we've got one pretty good ground test data point that might
make you feel warmer about it. The SMEAT.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II-E/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
_ 7/27/73

SPEAKER Noj I don't. Actually, it is better


when you have to motivate people doing something they think
is important you don't have that kind of problem. And I
guess we have pretty good ground test data point that might
make you feel warmer about it. (Garble) you may remember
we ran it through 56 days in the altitude chamber and we
made no effort at all to match those gentlemen in terms of
personality or anything else and they certainly did not
have the motivation or the challange or the interest and
they got along beautifully.
SPEAKER Schneider. If during the long Skylab
Ill and IV missions, if there happens to be an intense solar
storm on the Sun, is there any possibility that the radiation
can go - penetrate the spacecraft and damage the astronauts
in some way, or the instruments?
SCHNEIDER Pass that to Dr. Hawkins.
HAWKINS Not sure I completely understand exactly
what you are asking. What was your statement again?
SPEAKER Let's say, llke last year, there was one
of the biggest storms on the surface of the Sun in a long
time. Now, during the longest of all the Skylab missions the
chances are great that there'll be a - the chances are greater
that there will be a major storm. Now, could any of this
radiation, once it hits the earth, disrupt the instruments on
_- the spacecraft, and in any way affect the crew?
SPEAKER (Garble)
HAWKINS The answer to that is no, it cannot affect
the instruments. In the event there was a large solar flare,
we would have the crew retreat into the command and service
module. In the event that the instrument showed that it was
an unusually large one, one larger than what we have experienced,
why we would bring them home.
SPEAKER Back there.
SPEAKER Two questions you mentioned that there was
a noise problem at Vanguard, was that RF or political noise?
SPEAKER RF, automobiles running by the highway,
and fishing launches.
SPEAKER The second one has to do with - -
SPEAKER A matter of fact, I might say that there
has been very great political cooperation on that, they have
even offered to close off some of the highways. There has
been a lot of cooperation.
SPEAKER Good. On Skylab II, there were some
stories that people had some difficulty differentiating
between certain taste-allke food. Was something done about
this, in terms of herbs or spices and something here changing?
SPEAKER Yes, there have been spices added, in
form of garlic powder, celery powder, pepper, tabasco sauce,
SL III PC II-E/2
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

SPEAKER 8 pounds of catsup?


SPEAKER Right.
SPEAKER First question for Dr. Hawkins, I believe
you said that from all you can determine that the - well,
to use the press terminology, the Skylab i crew of Pete
Conrad and so on, they have returned to medical norm. Does
this include their red blood cell counts?
HAWKINS No. That's one of the things we were
talking about awhile ago in response to - I believe Mark
asked the question. But - those - The hematology, the blood
count, the matter in which the type of thing you are talking
about there are the measurements which were still not back
to base llne levels at the last examination, the last blood
drawal.
SPEAKER One to Schneider. Assuming and hoping,
of course, that all go well on Skylab 2_ we've heard some
talk, of course, about the possibility of extendin E Skylab 3,
the last mission up to 90 days. What would be the absolute
maximum duration of this final Skylab mission?
Schneider Right nowp our spaceflight plan is 56_
59 days. It's conceivable that after we get the 56-day
results we may decide to extend the mission of Skylab 4, but
if we did it would be a matter of days, not a matter of
weeks or months, lt's a consumable rate that we're following
leads us to believe that we probably would have to bring up
quite a bit of food if we tried to extend the mission any
more than Just a yew days. Also, things llke underwear and
things llke that, them running out of that kind of stuff.
So right now 56 to 59 days is about the length of the mission,
if it is extended, it won't be any great amountp Just a few
days.
SPEAKER Bill, you said that the Skylab workshop
was in excellent condition, can we break that down a little
bit? Before llft-off, we were warned to expect the possibility
of micrometeorite hits. And some of the solar vane damaged
and possibly hull leakage. Is there any indication of any
thing?
KEATHLEY I'ii pass that to Lee.
SPEAKER The indications are that the straight
pass is extremely tlght_ for instance the pressure we have
been running it at, 2 psij were leaking about 0.3 pounds per
day, the spec would of allowed 4.5 or so, so it is very tight,
no indications of leaks either by flanges or by any penetra-
tions. We couldn't have any penetrations of any size at
all and hold that type of leak break.
SPEAKER Okay.

i
SL III PC II-E/3
Time: 13:00 CDT
/_ 7/27/74

SPEAKER This is probably to Bill Schnider here,


is now almost certain pending a normal SL-3 mission, you'll
hold it until you can get an ideal observant kind o_ comet
coming around the Sun before.
SPEAKER That's highly probable. We haven't
completed all of our studies, but it looks more and more
each day, as if we will probably delay the launch until
the middle of November, such that we can go up and observe
Kohutec over - around the first of the year.
SPEAKER Are you on a November 9 lift-off now?
Are you going to move it back?
SPEAKER I wouldn't - I wouldn't pick a date now
other than to say it is probably around the middle of
November. We would llke to stay up there until about the
10th or the 15th of January -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC ll-P/l
Time: 13:00 CDT
- 7/27/73

SPEAKER We would like to stay up there until


about the 19th or the 15th of January. They aventt picked
that yet. Then back off 56 days from that rang and you
get the range and launch date.
QUERY If I could get back to the rate gyros, if
you have to put them in and have to do the EVA, how do
you stabilize everything? Would you do it with the command
module? Well, would have to use TACS to do any of that?
And what's your TACS status anyway?
SPEAKER The first part is that we use the CSM;
do do not use TACS and Lee can tell you how much we have
got.
SPEAKER Well, we are holding about 35 - 36 thousand
pounds secons of TACS. We have used none since the unmanned
mission started. 4
QUERY What's the status of that?
SPEAKER Well, of what we have loaded, which we
have loaded about 80 thousand pounds seconds, you know, and we
used a great deal in the initial phases of Saturn 1 - 2.
Since we obtained our thermal protection which got us into a
favorable attitude control mode, we have been down a very,
very low TACS usage, lower than wehave planned_ really. It
took let's see, on a nominal mission from here on out, we wlll
wind up the end of the mission wlth something in the neighbor-
hood of 13 to 15 thousand pounds of _ that 35 thousand pounds
seconds load. So we have a margin onboard right now, for a
nominal mission.
QUERY The last part of the question - if they go
EVA, how many guys will do that, wlll there have to be one
guy in the ommand module controlling or stabilizing the space-
craft?
SPEAKER Yes. We have always planned to have the
capability to control Skylab from the CSM. Two guys will be
EVA and one guy would be _n _ the command and service module.
SPEAKER One thing you might have not caught earlier
when Keathley was answering this. The bulk of all the rate
gyro hardware will be instailed rather early in Skylab 3 mls-
sion. Inside the MDA. The only thing that would not have been
done is the innereonnects, that's electrical harnesses. So the
bulk of the work other r_an that EVA and some harness work
which will be a llttle difficult, wlll all hae been done.
QUERY I have a question that was called in by
Howard Benedict of Associated Press. Has the decision definitely
been made to erect twln fol sunshades. If so, when was the
decision made:
SPEAKER Yes, and that decision was made at the end
of Skylab 2.
SPEAKER Do we have any more question here?
SPEAKER I have_ one comment, I forgot when I was
giving general comments, there Is one change - minor change in
SL III PC II-F/2

Time: 13:00 CDT


7/27/73

SPEAKER the recovery procedure, I want to make


sure that everybody understands. Last time the crew got
out of the spacecraft almost immediately when the spacecraft
was put on the deck. This time we are asking them to stay
in there, for a period of time while doctors go onboard to
check their heart rate and pulse before they do come out.
And then when they do come out, I believe they are going to
stand on a platform and the platform will be lowered and they
will not walk down the stairs.
SPEAKER Over here.
QUERY One more about the gyros. I wonder
whether you plan to install those extra gyros at the end of
this mission even if you still have one of the original gyros
going- one of the axis.
SPEAKER That would depend upon the failure mode,
assuming we fall - another gyro in one of the axis that has
already had one fail. You know, we have three gyros in
each axis, for redundancy. You only need one. To date,
we have three in one axis and three in another axis and -
three in one axis and two in two other axes. So we still
have redundancy.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, was this last announcement
made by Mr, Schneider a medical decision, based on this idea
t_at they are not going to walk out of the spacecraft?
HAWKINS Well, it a - I guess you could say it's
based on medical request for handling the crew a little more
• efficiently than what we were able to do on the last mission.
And the operation people said yes, they could provide this
type of support.
SPEAKER Over here.
QUERY For Walt Kapryan. Ab 4ut a week ago -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC II-G/I
Time: 13:00 CDT
7/27/73

- were over the limit 13,500 on the load. And since then you
have come down like 90 pounds. That seems llke an awfully big
off load from what you were last week.
KAPRYAN Well, that came about _s a result of
coming up with the optimum stowage configuration. We do
of course have concern that should have an unfortunate failure
shortly after llftoff and would have to have an earlier
abort such as the spacecraft would be impacting or landing
on landt we wanted to have the maximum clearance envelope
for the crew. And we have been working on that and flnally
came up with the best configuration we could, yesterday, and
that required off loadlng some equipment. Also because of the
fact that it was necessary - we feel necessary for us to take the
rate gyro six pack up. That could cause a real of
p rob le m.
QUERY Are you still packing?
KAPRYAN Yes. The final stowage should be underway
its way at this time. We have some experimental - some
experiments that have to be installed. The time of stowage
iS critical to llftoff time. I
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, again. Let's go back to this
question of them not leaving the spacecraft immediately and
walking down the steps. What were some of the things
that you found that you would llke to have seen on the
crewmen on the first mission after splashdown? What were
some of the things you would have liked t_ have seen that
did not happen because, or as a result of hls walking in - -
HAWKINS I think it was quite o_vious to
everybody watching TV that all 3 crewmen were unsteady on
their feet when they first got on the deck. And they had
a step to climb down and this was a struggle for them,
really, which I feel like we can do a llt_le bit better and
provide a little better arrangement for getting them out
of there and into the lab without adding a lot of extra
effort on their part to accomplish it.
QUERY But in no way was it a factor of the medical
examination ?
HAWKINS No. It was exactly what you saw and
I saw on TV in the way that they were able to navigate.
SPEAKER Do you have anymore questions?
Gentlemen thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
•__ ._ T_ _

SKYLAB NEWS CEN

Houston,Texas

Skylab Ill - Post Launch Briefing


Kennedy Space Center
July 28, 1973
7:20 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Walter J. Kapryan, Director Launch Operations, KSC


Chuck Holllnshead, PAO

PC-12

f
SL Ill PC-12AA/I
TIME- 07'11 CDT
7/2S/_3

KAPRYAN We really don't have a heck of a lot


to talk about. We had one of the smoothest countdowns that
we've ever had. We really had no problem with the vehicle
Itself. We did develop a leak in a and (garble) cell
for the S-IB stage, which occurred after we had completed the
LOX flowing. We did make a pad entry with a team of
four men to fix - to stop the leak_ which was successfully
completed during the 1 hour built-ln hold. We did have
a momentary drop-out of one of our display systems at
approximately a half hour before T-zero. That came right
back up and we then followed through the rest of the
countdown. We did have a momentary glltch_ which was deter-
mined to be an instrumentation problem. One of the RATE
GYROs in the spacecraft. I guess this one occurred
approximately a half hour before launch. We got that one
isolated and resolved by the time we got to T minus 10
minutes. And that's really the sum total of any unusual
occurances that we had during the entire count. Well_ I
can give you a few numbers here with respect to the final
events. We lifted off 0,2 of a second late. We
had S-1B inboard engine cutoff 0.8 of a second late.
S-IB outboard engine cutoff occurred i.i seconds late. S-IB
S-4B SEP was 1.1 second late. S-4B ignition was 0.8
of a second late. We're late on the (garble), later than we had
nomlnally set prior to llftoff. S-4B cutoff was 1.8 seconds
early. Orbital insertion was 0.4 of a second early. And
our orbital velocity was 5.06 feet per second off. We
were aiming for 25 705 94, and we got 25 7 ii. As you
know, we had no unscheduled holds.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 12-A/1
Time 07:11 CDT, 01:12:11 GET
7/28/73

KAPRYAN - early, formal insertion was 0.4 of a


second early and our orbital velocity was 5.06 feet-per-second
off. We were aiming for 25 705 94 and we got 25 7 11.
As you know we had no unscheduled hold. I wish we had a
little better visibility, we did have ground fog and we had
about 3 miles of visibility, the temperature was 74 degrees;
the wind was from 250 degrees at 7 knots and the ceiling was -
the lower clouds were at 1500 feet. And the space vehicle
entered the cloud cover at 49 seconds after llft-off.
The planned orbital altitude was 80 by 120 nautical miles
as you know, actual was 83.6 by 125, and I guess that's
about all I have and be happy to entertain any questions
you might have.
SPEAKER Would you all wait for the question
mikes please and keep your eye over here on Chuck?
SPEAKER Walt, how much of that T minus 15 hold
did you use to adjust the position of the spacecraft?
KAPRYAN We didn't use any, we had a target update
at the - at 8 hours_ you know, T minus 8 hours. So we just
had the nominal hold_ period, and that was it. We had
adjusted the time earlier.
QUERY What was the weight at llft-off?
KAPRYAN The total weight of the bird? I don't
know that, don't remember it.
SPEARER We'll get it for you in the News Center.
QUERY The weight of the Apollo capsule?
KAPRYAN The weight of the spacecraft was 13,400
and either 10 or 11 pounds.
KAPRYAN That's the command module.
QUERY Do you have the time of separation between
S-IVB and spacecraft?
KAPRYAN I don't have the actual time lifted here.
It was approximately 18 minutes - -
KAPRYAN - - that table, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER Over here?
QUERY The problem with the rate 6 pack that
was being carried up with Skylab -
KAPRYAN No, this is one of the rate gyros in the
spacecraft, in the command module. No, it really wasn't a
problem with the rate gyro, it was a momentary indication
which was an instrumentation problem.
SPEAKER Back up here.
QUERY After launch, how were the men feeling?
What was their spirits, okay?
SPEAKER The spirits were very high, you talklnE
about the flight crew?
QUERY Yes
SPEAKER They were exuberant.
SPEAKER John, over here.
QUERY What were the first words from the
flight crew after llft-off?
SPEAKER I don't remember, I was so busy watching
the events that I can't tell you what was actually the first
SL-III PC 12-A/2
Time: 07:11 CDT, 01:12:11 GMT
7/28/73

word. I'm sorry.


SPEAKER It will be in the transeript_ John.
Mary?
QUERY (Garble) In lookln g back over the entire
countdown of those nearly 2 week periods

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-12B/1
Time: 07:11 CDT
7/28/73
QUERY Looking back over the entire countdown
of those nearly 2 week periods, how would you stack that up
with other countdowns?
SPEAKER I can't think of any that we've had thetis
been smoother than this one. We had in the last 2 weeks_
we had - as you know we did have to change out a master event
sequence control on the spacecraft_ and a nitrogen package in the
SPS system, which was_ we donVt normally have that kind of
change out to do. But it was a straight forward operation_
so there was no panic to it. And of course todayls countdown_
I guess was about the smoothest weVve ever had.
PAO Craig, down here in the blue_ in front
of you. Thank you.
QUERY What's the time llne on stacking SL 4 in the
VAB_ and roll out on it? Well roll out would depend on the
scheduling. But what stack - -
SPEAKER No, roll out does not depend on schedule.
As you recall, we have to be prepared to fly a rescue mission.
So we're planning to roll out to the pad on the 20th of
August. The total launch vehicle minus the spacecraft will
be stacked by Wednesday. We'll stack the IB on Tuesday, the
SIVB on Tuesday also and we'll finish up the stack with the
boiler plate on Wednesday.
QUERY We seem to get a lot more of these little
minor anomolies that come up on the IB than we had on the
Saturn V. Would you attribute this to the age of the hardware
and the storage it had been through?
SPEAKER No, I don't think so. Z guess in all,
being candid about it I'd have to say we had as many minor
anomolies with Apollo, but we had a few bigger ones in the
countdown, we Just talked about the bigger ones. I don't
think we have - this countdown was as smooth as any we've
ever performed.
QUERY At llft-off what were the crew's reaction
llke, heart rate, that sort of thing?
SPEAKER Well, I can Just give you unofficial
information. I talked to Chuck Berry very briefly after the
lift-off. And speaking from memoryj I think Jack Lousma's
rate went up to 118 or 119. Garriott's went to 1 think a
peak of 108. And A1 Bean's went somewhere between 130 and
140. At one time during the - prior to lift-off_ Jack Lousma
actually dozed off quite a bit and his heart rate went down
to 38.
PAO Do you have any more questions. Do you
have any more questions from Houston?
SPEAKER None from Houston.
8L-II PC-12E/2
Time : 07:11 CDT
7128173

PAO Thank you very much, Mr. Kapryan.


SPEAKER Thank you.
PAO You want to set Mark Blume.
SPEAKER I don't know. Chuck Just told me and
said this is what they peaked at. Whether that was actually
at lift-off or just before, I donlt know.
QUERY No, what I meant was how close to lift-
off did Lousma doze off? Before llft-off.
SPEAKER Oh, I think it was, I think it was in
the time frame of about 45 minutes or so prior to launch.
QUERY Can I Just get in, did he say 38 it went
down to?
SPEAKER Yes. Some people would be dead with that
I know.
PAO Could I have your attention. Houston
Just came in with Bean's heart rate was 150, and these are
all at llft-off, was 150 at llft-off. Garrlot's is 138,
and Lousma is 126. And the separetlon was at 18:12. All
of this is on the transcript.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas
f

Skylab III Change of Shift


Johnson Space Center
July 28, 1973
4:20 pm CDS

PARTICIPANTS:

Don Puddy - Flight Director


Phil Shaffer - Flight Director

PAO - John MeLeash

PC-13
SL-III PC 13A/I
Tlme: 1610 CST
7/28/73

_- SPEAKER Yes. Sandra, yes, can you - can we have


Terry klnd of cue this thing?
SPEAKER Okay.
SPEAKER Okay.
SPEAKER Okay, I guess we are live right now and
ready to start the first change-ofshlft news conference for
Skylab III. With us today on my immediate right is Flight
Director, Phll Shaffer, and next to Phil Shaffer is the
other Flight Director, Don Puddy, who has been following the
workshop activities. Why don't we open wlth statements from
Phll and followed by Don /
SHAFFER I'd llke to be sure that y'all understand
the relationship for the highly dynamic phase like the launch
rendezvous or deorblt and entry. There's more there than one
guy can cope with, so we split that activity and Don for the
launch rendezvous took care of the SWSand I ran the CSM. It's
an integrated effort; it's not divided by the mains but it takes
two of us to deal with entries the essentially the same way.
If you remember, there is about 5 or 6 hours of deactivation of
the workshop preceding entry. Neil Hutchinson and I did that on
SL-2. I'll most likely do that on 3 but that's - it's a bit
different than the normal orbit the work day. What's the ringing?
SPEAKER ... I believe that's associated with our
equipment.
SHAFFER Okay. Prelauneh was - (otone) - better than that.
SPEAKER (Laught e r) .
SPEAKER Stand by i, please. Okay, I think we're - -
SPEAKER Okay.
SHAFFER The prelaunch was very clean very straight-
forward. We launched on time. The targeted lift-off time was ii
hours, i0 minutes, 50 seconds, GMT, and the recorded ]eft was
four-tenths of a second later than that, but I would remind you that the
vehicle has to move far enough to break a wire to record the
actual llft-off time; so we think it was very, very close.
Base phase was completely nominal. The rendezvous itself was
nominal up to the time we started hang problems with Quad Bravo_ "
which is one of the servlce i module RCS--qua_s. we'_s&w'_]Ttr_6ellum
pressure and a propell_nt quantity - a computed propellant quantity
both going down. Aat the same time we isolated that quad and the
quantitites, both helium and propellant, stopped going down. We
developed troubleshooting procedure to hunt for plumbing problems,
then for electrical problems, and then hopefully for sticking
problems. And the plumbing problems, depending on where they were,
we would flnd them or we wouldn't. It turned out the first
thing that we did was told us what the problem was.
And the extra cue we had thert' was when Jack told us he could
see the propellant streamln g by the wlndow, and as qu|ekly as
he responded to that the only way It could hal_pen was /or the
SL-III PC 13A/2
Time: 1610 CST
7/28/73

raw propellants to be streaming through the sthruster in coming


by the window. So, our best estimate now is - the oxidizer
valve in the Bravo 3 thruster which points forward and comes
back to command module window 5 is stuck open, and if you
enable propellant through the plumbing to that thruster,
raw propellant flows. We secured the thruster, we didn't use
it any more, and we pressed on with the rendezvous. That was
the only problem of any significance we had all day. We went
up we did the inspection, we waved the parasol a bit more than
we would have liked too we did a go for docking, we went and
docked and when I left the control center the guys were -
like one-armed paper hangers, beginning the activation. Don?
PUDDY Well D like Phil said, our only job
was to keep the SWS in an orbit so he could come up and
dock with it. Had no problems there. We've always kept you appraised
on the average temperature so let me start off by saying our
gas temperature is around 79-1/2 degrees and, of course, right now
in the activation, they're turned on the air conditioning, so
that ought to drop it about - probably around 3 or 4 degrees.
So we ought to be running 75 degrees in there sometime tomorrow.
The only problem we had was a fail - -
END OF TAPE

J
SL-III PC 13B
Time : 16 :i0 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER - probably around 3 to 4degrees -


So we ought to be running 75 degrees in there sometime
y tomorrow. The only problem we had was a failed gyro. It
did cost us a little bit of TACS gas - I shouldn't say a
failed gyro it was one that was drifting abnormally. We
did take it out of the loop for awhile - finally had a chance
to compensate for that drift - put it back in, and we're in
our nominal configuration for docking. Phil also indicated
to you working with the SIVB deorblt that was successfully
accomplished. We up-linked the commands over Hawaii rev 3.
The dump was started by automatic sequence at 05:19, and
Quaduline reported that they saw the SIVB break up at about
80 kilometers, at around 05:52. So, all in all, it was a good
day for the SWS, and as Phll has already pointed out, a good
day for the CSM, so we're very happy at this time - looking
forward to a good 59-day mission.
PAO Okay, let's open with questions from Houston,
and then we'll switch to the Cape (garble)
QUERY A couple of questions. There have been
some reports about the - or question about the where the
crew is going to spend the night. And the second question,
relating to the SIVB, you are planning to have some - some
X-ray astromony experiments with the SIVB. Do you have any
word on that?
PUDDY We'll take yo_--_question first. Yes,
we did run the - what we call th_ Sl50_xperiment. It's going
to take some time before we can a_'_lly determine how suc-
cessful that experiment was. We did accomplish the data
dumps. Actually, we had four data dumps on that particular
experiment. From all we can tell at this point in time, the
experiment which was mapping some X-rays, was very successful
and we have no reason to believe that we won't get a good
scientific return from it. As far as where the crew is sleep-
ing tonight, they do plan to stay in the command module, as
far as I know. Isn't that right?
SPEAKER They' re activating the wardroom sleeping
compartments - the food the first day, and -
PUDDY Are you sure about that?
SPEAKER Yes, I asked a half a dozen people before
I came over here. (Laughter)
PUDDY Okay.
SPEAKER Okay? However, be aware that you can
hang those bags anywhere you want to, and it is, as Don told
you, average temperature down there - about 80 degrees and there
may be one in the command module and one in the MDA, and one
in the wardroom, but the nominal plan, according to as many
people as I could find, (laughter) is that they would sleep
SL-III PC/13B/2
Time: 16:10 CDT
7/28/73

in the workshop tonight.


PUDDY As y'all are probably aware, we couldn't
keep track of that last mission either. (LLaughter)
PUDDY There's no constraint on where they sleep.
Let's put it that way.
PAO Questions? No further questions from
Houston. Do you have questions from the Cape?
QUERY Have there been any private conversations
yet? (Laughter)
PUDDY Not on my shift.
SHAFFER Not on mine.
QUERY How have the astronauts spirits been
during these first few hours of the flight?
SPEAKER The question was how have the astronauts
spirits been during these first few hours of flight? I think
that's logically what - -
SPEAKER Well_ let's see. Until we started
pursuing the thruster problem, I would call them as happy
as clams. They were happy. They were excited about what
they were seeing and they were excited that everything was
going well. They seemed a little quieter while we pursued
the thruster problem, and after we gave up on it and
reassured them that we were completely GO for the
mission they perked back up and they were really jumping
around when we left in the process of activation and were
very excited again. Now those are impressions. If you want
to know how they really felt, you've got to ask them.
QUERY Have you ever established a precise time
on the docking?
SHAFFER No, they came over the hill at about
09:09 AOS, I think it was, and said, "We have docked." And we
began updating checklists and getting - -

END OF TAPE

f
SL-III PC-13C/I
Time : 16 :i0 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER - 09:09 AOS, I think it was and said, "We


have docked." And we began updating checklists and getting
things squared away and getting in the process of activation
and we never asked them for an actual time of docking.
SPEAKER 09:51, CRO.
SPEAKER You're right. Before 08:51 CRO. cCROr
being Carnarvon, AOS.
PAO Okay, let me verify one thing. We have
an indication that there are no further questions from the
Cape, at which point we'll switch back to Houston.
QUERY When will the minnows and spiders be
transferred to the workshop?
PUDDY (Laughter) I - I can't answer that one.
I don't know exactly when that transfer - We've got, as you're
probably well aware of, a two and a half-day period of <_
activation which is, of course, in progress right now. The _..
main thing they' re doing todayj is turn on the lights, turn
on the alr-conditloning, and getting house set up so to
speak, doing some of the stowage. That type of activity
continues, and if I had to hazard a guess, I would assume //
it would be tomorrow. I don't believe they'll probably have /_
that in their schedule tonight, but I cannot answer your j
question as to the exact time that's planned to take place. J
PAO Dr. Campbell? /
QUERY What is the condition of the parasol a_
you know it at this time?
PUDDY We have - we have monitored that, of course,
extensively throughout the unmanned time frame, and observed
the condition - the temperatures of the workshop at the
various beta angles. And at this point in time, in our
opinion, there has been no noticeable degradation of the
parasol.
PAO Arthur Hill.
QUERY There was a fleeting reference made to
the fact that perhaps because of the way the thing jiggled
around during the flyaround that they might have to do
something to the parasol from inside, and I needed some
clarification on that.
SPEAKER Yes. That fleeting- They said that
it appears rotated 5 to I0 degrees, like it was when Pete
left it.
PUDDY Yes, I think they said, "As expected"
were the end words on that, which - -
SPEAKER Yes, and that's really all it was. They
- Pete rotated it - When they were outside on the EVA they - they -
they thought that they cou]d rotate It a l_ttle bit and help
cover up a bit more area o! tile workshop. And at least

r
J
SL-III PC-13C/2
Time: 16:10 CDT
7/28/73

they did rotate it and then rotated it back.


PUDDY Yes, if you remember, you know, right at the end
of Skylab2 after - following the EVA. The crew went out
and rotated it. I think it was 15, 20 degrees. And then
there was one of the sleep compartment areas that was getting
too warm, if you recollect, so they rotated it back. But
we - they still knew that they had about a 5 degree offset,
which is what Pete had estimated, 5 to i0 degrees, which
is what Pete had estimated he really wanted in the first
place. So it was exactly - looking at the pictures on TV
today, it's exactly what the pictures showed that were brought
back from Skylab 2.
QUERY Yes, I under - I understand that. I think we're
not talking about the same thing here. It seemed to me that
Bean or somebody had talked about the thruster firing against
the shield, had perhaps stretched one or more of the little
the little fishing rod things to where he might want to do
something with that.
SHAFFER Not at all. What - what he said was that it
had appeared to him that the rods were not fully extended,
leaving some slack in the parasol, allowing it to flap more
than one would expect.
PUDDY That's what I copied from him also. And
he was also saying it was coming up and the springs were
__ pulling it back in place.
PAO This gentleman here.
QUERY In that the shield does look good, what
about the T-plus 4 EVA and the possibility of a second
deployment of the sunshield?
PUDDY I think the plan - well the plan is still
to go ahead and put out the alternate sunshield as a nominally
scheduled event, and to have that there to - we're Just going
to have redundant parasols. It will also - the other parasol
will also cover some of the area that is presently not covered
by, I should say the sail, will cover some of the areas not
covered by the parasol.
PAO Any further questions? No further
questions, we'll adjourn.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CEN_

Houston, Texas_ _'_\\

_ /

Skylab III - Chan t "-.


Johnson Space Center j

4:20 pm CDS

July 28, 1973 _ _


/

PARTICIPANTS:

Don Puddy - Flight Director


Phll Shaffer - Flight Director I

PAO - John McLeash

\\

/
]
/

PC-13
SL-III PC 13A/I
Time : 1610 CST
7/28/73

SPEAKER Yes. Sandra, yes, can you - can we have


Terry kind of cue this thing?
SPEAKER Okay.
SPEAKER Okay.
SPEAKER Okay, I guess we are llve right now and
ready to start the first change-ofshift news conference for
Skylab III. With us today on my immediate right is Flight
Director, Phil Shaffer, and next to Phil Shaffer is the
other Flight Director, Don Puddy, who has been following the
workshop activities. Why don't we open with statements from
Phll and followed by Don /
SHAFFER I'd llke to be sure that y'all understand
the relationship for the highly dynamic phase like the launch
rendezvous or deorbit and entry. There's more there than one
guy can cope with, so we split that activity and Don for the
launch rendezvous took care of the SWSand I ran the CSM. It's
an integrated effort; it's not divided by the mains but it takes
two of us to deal with entries the - essentially the same way.
If you remember, there is about 5 or 6 hours of deactivation of
the workshop preceding entry. Nell Hutchinson and I did that on
SL-2. I'Ii most likely do that on 3 but that's it's a bit
different than the normal orbit the work day. What's the ringing?
SPEAKER ... I believe that's associated with our
equipment.
SHAFFER Okay. Prelaunch was (otone) - better than that.
SPEAKER (Laughter).
SPEAKER Stand by i, please. Okay, I think we're
SPEAKER Okay.
SHAFFER The prelaunch was very clean very straight-
forward. We launched on time. The targeted lift-off time was ii
hours, i0 minutes, 50 seconds, GMT, and the recorded ]eft was
four-tenths of a second later than that, but I would remind you that the
vehicle has to move far enough to break a wire to record the
actual lift-off time; so we think it was very, very close.
Base phase was completely nominal. The rendezvous itself was
nominal up to the time we started having problems with Quad Bravo,
which is one of the service module RCS quads. We saw the helium
pressure and a propell_nt qluantity - a computed propellant quantity
both going down. Aat the same time we isolated that quad and the
quantitites, both helium and propellant, stopped going down. We
developed troubleshooting procedure to hunt for plumbing problems,
then for electrical problems, and then hopefully for sticking
problems. And the plumbing problems, depending on where they were,
we would find them or we wouldn't. It turned out the first
; thing that we did was - told us what the problem was.
And the extra cue we had thert, was when Jack toJd us he could
see the propellant stream|ng by the window, and as quickly as
he responded to that the only way it could happen was [or the
SL-III PC 13A/2
Time: 1610 CST
7/28/73

raw propellants to be streaming through the sthruster in coming


by the window. So, our best estimate now is the oxidizer
valve in the Bravo 3 thruster which points forward and comes
back to command module window 5 is stuck open, and if you
enable propellant through the plumbing to that thruster,
raw propellant flows. We secured the thruster, we didn't use
it any more, and we pressed on with the rendezvous. That was
the only problem of any significance we had all day. We went
up we did the inspection, we waved the parasol a bit more than
we would have liked too we did a go for docking, we went and
docked and when I left the control center the guys were -
like one-armed paper hangers, beginning the activation. Don?
PUDDY Well, llke Phil said, our only job
was to keep the SWS in an orbit so he could come up and
dock with it. Had no problems there. We've always kept you appraised
on the average temperature so let me start off by saying our
gas temperature is around 79-1/2 degrees and, of course, right now
in the activation, they're turned on the air conditioning, so
that ought to drop it about - probably around 3 or 4 degrees.
So we ought to be running 75 degrees in there sometime tomorrow.
The only problem we had was a fail -
END OF TAPE
SL'III PC 13B
Time: 16:10 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER - probably around 3 to 4degrees -


So we ought to be running 75 degrees in there sometime
ytomorrow. The only problem we had was a failed gyro. It
did cost us a little bit of TACS gas - I shouldn't say a
failed gyro it was one that was drifting abnormally. We
did take it out of the loop for awhile - finally had a chance
to compensate for that drift - put it back in, and we're in
our nominal configuration for docking. Phll also indicated
to you working with the SIVB deorbit - that was successfully
accomplished. We up-linked the commands over Hawaii rev 3.
The dump was started by automatic sequence at 05:19, and
Quaduline reported that they saw the SIVB break up at about
80 kilometers, at around 05:52. So, all in all, it was a good
day for the SWS, and as Phil has already pointed out, a good
day for the CSM, so we're very happy at this time - looking
forward to a good 59-day mission.
PAO Okay, let's open with questions from Houston,
and then we'll switch to the Cape (garble)
QUERY A couple of questions. There have been
some reports about the - or question about the - where the
crew is going to spend the night. And the second question,
relating to the SIVB, you are planning to have some - some
X-ray astromony experiments with the SIVB. Do you have any
word on that?
PUDDY We'll take your last question first. Yes,
we did run the - what we call the S150 experiment. It's going
to take some time before we can actually determine how suc-
cessful that experiment was. We did accomplish the data
dumps. Actually, we had four data dumps on that particular
experiment. From all we can tell at this point in time, the
experiment which was mapping some X-rays, was very successful
and we have no reason to believe that we won't get a good
scientific return from it. As far as where the crew is sleep-
ing tonight, they do plan to stay in the command module, as
far as I know. Isn't that right?
SPEAKER They're activating the wardroom sleeping
compartments - the food the first day, and -
PUDDY Are you sure about that?
SPEAKER Yes, I asked a half a dozen people before
I came over here. (Laughter)
PUDDY Okay.
SPEAKER Okay? However, be aware that you can
hang those bags anywhere you want to, and it is, as Don told
you, average temperature down there - about 80 degrees and there
may be one in the command module and one in the MDA, and one
in the wardroom, but the nominal plan, according to as many
people as I could find, (laughter) is that they would sleep

f
SL-III PC/13B/2
Time: 16:10 CDT
7/28/73
J

in the workshop tonight.


PUDDY As y'all are probably aware, we couldn't
keep track of that last mission either. (LLaughter)
PUDDY There's no constraint on where they sleep.
Let's put it that way.
PAO Questions? No further questions from
Houston. Do you have questions from the Cape?
QUERY Have there been any private conversations
yet? (Laughter)
PUDDY Not on my shift.
SHAFFER Not on mine.
QUERY How have the astronauts spirits been
during these first few hours of the flight?
SPEAKER The question was how have the astronauts
spirits been during these first few hours of flight? I think
that's logically what - -
SPEAKER Well, let's see. Until we started
pursuing the thruster problem, I would call them as happy
as clams. They were happy. They were excited about what
they were seeing and they were excited that everything was
going well. They seemed a little quieter while we pursued
the thruster problem, and after we gave up on it and
reassured them that we were completely GO for the
mission they perked back up and they were really Jumping
around when we left in the process of activation and were
very excited again. Now those are impressions. If yon want
to know how they really felt, you've got to ask them.
QUERY Have you ever established a precise time
on the docking?
SHAFFER No, they came over the hill at about
09:09 AOS, I think it was, and said, "We have docked." And we
began updating checklists and getting - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-13C/I
Time : 16 :i0 CDT
7/28/73

SPEAKER - 09:09 AOS, I think it was and said, "We


have docked." And we began updating checklists and getting
things squared away and getting in the process of activation
and we never asked them for an actual time of docking.
SPEAKER 09:51, CRO.
SPEAKER You're right. Before 08:51 CRO. cCROr
being Carnarvon, AOS.
PAO Okay, let me verify one thing. We have
an indication that there are no further questions from the
Cape, at which point we'll switch back to Houston.
QUERY When will the minnows and spiders be
transferred to the workshop?
PUDDY (Laughter) I - I can't answer that one.
I don't know exactly when that transfer - We've got, as you're
probably well aware of, a two and a half-day period of
activation which is, of course, in progress right now. The
main thing they're doing today, is turn on the lights, turn
on the air-conditioning, and getting house set up so to
speak, doing some of the stowage. That type of activity
continues, and if I had to hazard a guess, I would assume
it would be tomorrow. I don't believe they'll probably have
that in their schedule tonight, but I cannot answer your
question as to the exact time that's planned to take place.
PAO Dr. Campbell?
QUERY What is the condition of the parasol as
you know it at this time?
PUDDY We have - we have monitored that, of course,
extensively throughout the unmanned time frame, and observed
the condition the temperatures of the workshop at the
various beta angles. And at this point in time, in our
opinion, there has been no noticeable degradation of the
parasol.
PAO Arthur Hill.
QUERY There was a fleeting reference made to
the fact that perhaps because of the way the thing Jiggled
around during the flyaround that they might have to do
something to the parasol from inside, and I needed some
clarification on that.
SPEAKER Yes. That fleeting- They said that
it appears rotated 5 to i0 degrees, like it was when Pete
left it.
PUDDY Yes, I think they said, "As expected"
were the end words on that, which - -
SPEAKER Yes, and that's really all it was. They
Pete rotated it When they were outside on the EVA they they -
they thought that they could rotate It a l_ttle bit and help
cover up a bit more area of the workshop. And at least
SL-III PC-13C/2
Time: 16:10 CDT
7/28/73

they did rotate it and then rotated it back.


PUDDY Yes, if you remember, you know, right at the end
of Skylab2 after- following the EVA. The crew went out
and rotated it. I think it was 15, 20 degrees. And then
there was one of the sleep compartment areas that was getting
too warm, if you recollect, so they rotated it back. But
we - they still knew that they had about a 5 degree offset,
which is what Pete had estimated, 5 to 10 degrees, which
is what Pete had estimated he really wanted in the first
place. So it was exactly - looking at the pictures on TV
today, it's exactly what the pictures showed that were brought
back from Skylab 2.
QUERY Yes, I under - I understand that. I think we're
not talking about the same thing here. It seemed to me that
Bean or somebody had talked about the thruster firing against
the shield, had perhaps stretched one or more of the little
the little fishing rod things to where he might want to do
something with that.
SHAFFER Not at all. What - what he said was that it
had appeared to him that the rods were not fully extended,
leaving some slack in the parasol, allowing it to flap more
than one would expect.
PUDDY That's what I copied from him also. And
he was also saying it was coming up and the springs were
pulling it back in place.
PAO This gentleman here.
QUERY In that the shield does look good, what
about the T-plus 4 EVA and the possibility of a second
deployment of the sunshield?
PUDDY I think the plan well the plan is still
to go ahead and put out the alternate sunshield as a nominally
scheduled event, and to have that there to - we're Just going
to have redundant parasols. It will also - the other parasol
will also cover some of the area that is presently not covered
by, I should say the sail, will cover some of the areas not
covered by the parasol.
PAO Any further questions? No further
questions, we'll adjourn.

END OF TAPE

pf
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

SKYLAB 111 CltAN(;E OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
JULY 29, 1973
9:43 AM CDT

PARTI CIPANTS i

HILTON WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


PAO- HILT REIM

PC-14
SL I[I PC-14A/I
TIME: 09:43 CDT
7/29/73

PAO Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll


get started here. Milt Windler, Flight Director, is
here right now, and Dr. Buchanan should be Joining us
momentarily. We'll let Milton start it off.
WINDLER Okay, well, we had a fairly uneventful
night, which we're glad for, needless to say. The crew
went to bed about the right time and got up when we celled
them. I don't think they had been up before that time_ but
of course, we can't be very sure of that. The spacecraft
was fairly quiet. We didn't really have any problems; we
spent most of the time trying to retrieve some of the data
from yesterday's rendezvous and docking. And I don't really
have a whole lot to add to the malfunctions, that you pro-
bably already know about the quad Bravo and some of the things
like that. But, basically, we plan today to have an activation
sequence_ as you've already been listening to, and press on
with getting the spacecraft back up in an experimental type
mode. But things are going very well. We haven't had any-
thing unusual, I don't think, other than the same problems
with the rate gyros and that sort of thing. We did run the
ATM some last night for the first time in several days, I
don't recall Just how many. And that, as you recall, we had
a problem with one of the pointing gyros, or the gyros that
controls the pointing, holds it finely adjusted on the Sun -
several days ago. And then we have just now, then, reactivated
this experiment pointing control. And it worked very nicely
while we had it on. We did have to stop it in the night
because one of the tanks on the command module was getting
full of water, and we thought perhaps it would start venting over-
board. As you recall, the fuel cells produce water, and
these were being stored in the waste tank, and the crew had
inadvertently not - chosen not to chlorinate the water last
night. And if they had of done that procedure, they would
have left another tank valve open, but as it was they didn't
do that last night. And that tank wasn't accessible
for this extra water. And the other one - the one that the
water was flowing into - filled up, and we suspected it would
vent. So the ATM people closed their doors and shut down
their experiment until we could get the crew up to open up
this second tank. But that, of course, turned out to be no
problem, and they're pressing on today. So I'ii answer any
questions that you might have.
QUERY It sounded llke this morning that they
were running behind schedule because of their inability to
move quickly in the spacecraft. Are they actually much behind
schedule in their activation today?
SL III PCI4A/2
Time: 09:43 CDT 02:14:43 GMT
7/29/73

F WINDLER I'd be very surprised if they were. Now


I've been in a meeting since 8 o'clock, and I haven't been
listening to the air-to-ground. But the time line, in general,
is falrly loose - Loose is not the right word - hut it's
it has allowances for this very thing. And I noticed yester-
day they didn't have a lot of trouble staying up with their
time line. And I think by the time - Today is going to be a
busy day, of course. But I think they'll probably be able
to stay up.
QUERY Milt, do you have any good characterizations
for the difference between the second crew's first day in
Skylab, and the first crew's?
WINDLER Gosh, I ought to be able to come up with
something clever, but it's not coming at this hour of the
morning. No, I really it's a little early to tell. I do
get the impression, and it may be a false one, that they
have slept better. You didn't get the impression that the
Skylab-2 crew slept real well for the first several days and
they confirmed this, I think, later on. And I don't know
why, exactly why I say this, maybe because it was so quiet
last night. Now when I came on duty at 8 o'clock Houston
time, they were just getting ready to go to bed. And
essentially, we had Just one station contact with them after
I got on, something after 8 o'clock, between 8 and 9, and
heard nothing else from them until this morning at 6. So
at least from my point of view, they were well rested, and
I guess that's about the only thing I could say. But IIm
sure that we'll begin to see the differences in the two
sets of people here as we go on through the mission. I'ii
try to pay attention to that.
QUERY Was it your understanding from what
Garrlott recorded today, that they had all been able to eat
something for dinner last night after all?
WINDLER No, it wasn't, and I'm probably not a very
good data source here. The last thing that they sald - that I
thought that Jack Lousma didn't eat one of his meals last
night. Now this morning they were saying that he ate
butterscotch pudding and an instant breakfast and something
else. That sounds like a funny thing to eat for breakfast.
I don't guess he was saying that he ate it for supper, was he?
I understood him to say he was eating that for breakfast.
I don't believe he ate anything else last night.
QUERY Have you been able to finally to figure
out where they slept? And what is the temperature situation?
WINDLER They - As far as I know, they were suppose
to sleep in the - down in the OWS in the wardroom in the
SL III PCI4A/3
TIME: 09:43 CDT
7/29/73
r

crew quarters, and they did. I


didn't hear anything to the
contrary. And the temperatures are probably around -
depending on, you know, where you look at them - I think
they're probably between 75 and 78 degrees. As a matter of
fact, it was kinda cool last night. We had both cooling
loops on, and we turned one of them off because it was at the
dew point, since we don't have the water removal system
activated now. The dew point was climbing, Just from the
crew's breathing and we had - and the temperature was fairly
cool. So we had to shut down one of the cooling systems
last night. It did warm it up enough to where we don't
think it condensed anywhere.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 14-B/I
Time : 09 :43 CDT
7/29/73

PAO Anybody else Do we have any questions


F from the Cape?
WINDLER Must all be waiting for the doctor.
PAO Yes, we'll stand by here. If no one has
anymore questions for Milt Windler why, we'll let him go on
home and we'll wait for Dr. Buchanan. Did you have another
one? All right.
QUERY Have there been any - any little problems
at all that are - could you outline them? Discuss the little
problems that they've encountered since entering the workshop
yesterday.
WINDLER I guess I've already mentioned
the fact that as they were eating the - or finishing up
with their evening activles, they - they forgot to open
this particular valve. I don't think that they reported
any trouble with the - with the workshop Oh yes, that's
right and that really doesn't - right - on one of the - the
fans that - that runs over the the air removal - seal
removal system - and there are two of these, one of them did
pop the circuit breaker. And this morning they were going to
try it again and with one other switch postlon and if that
didn't work, we fully expected we'd be able to go to an-
other power source for that same fan, now it may not - or
another fan I should say - sorry. That would allow us to
use that same removal system. What else has happened
exciting?
SPEAKER We do have a question coming from the
Cape.
WINDLER After the Skylab II with all of the
docking problems and the real long day and everything and
all the heat and the attitude problems that we went through
I think that biggest thing that affected everybody yesterday
was watching that parasol flop around. It's probably just
as well that that TV was only half effective because if
we'd been able to see that through the whole flyaround it'd
probably given everybody a heart attack.
SPEAKER Okay, from the Cape?
QUERY What were the exact temperatures when the
crew - entered the workshop and how long did it take the air
conditioners to bring it down to the 75 degree level that
you mentioned?
WINDLER I think when they got there it was
that temperature. We've - the spacecraft has been very cool
for quite a while now as you' re probably well aware and stablized
since we got down from the real high beta angles that we had
when the Skylab II crew left. Before the Skylab III crew launched
SL-III PC 14-B/2
Time: 09:43 CDT
7/29/73

we turned on the - the second cooling loop to - to provide


some additional cooling. And the temperatures - I don't know
what you mean by exact - you know you can measure them in a
multitude of different places. In some they're down around
73, others they're around 75 and then there are some places
where it's circulating around 78 I think is about the highest.
Does that - does that answer your question?
SPEAKER Okay, do we have any more questions here?
Bill Johnson.
JOHNSON What's - what's the latest on the television
came ra?
WINDLER Well, the supposition is that the color
wheel is - is jammed up and y'all probably know more about
color wheels than I do. In my mind I have a vision about
that - just what that is a - not that big but a wheel behind
the lens that spins around with different colored filters on
it and they tell that these openings are shaped llke
crescents and judging from the way that the camera responded
this wheel is stuck. Fortunately where it's partially -
where you can see through one of the filters and you can -
the black and white part of the camera is working okay but
the color part is not and of course it's not fully open. Now
you can get at this wheel by unscrewing the - the lens and I
don't know if anyone right now people are working on - what
would be the best thing to do to try to break it loose - free
the wheel, if that's really the problem. So we expect
by this afternoon to have a better idea about some of the
things that we might try. But that's the best supposition right
now is that the wheel for some reason is not - is not rotating.
QUERY If you loose that camera what's it going to
do to your present schedule that you have?
WINDLER We do have another one, but it'd be llke
the last mission where we early in the game lost - lost one of
the cameras.
QUERY You still might - like put it on the hand-
rail for EVA or something like that? Will it inhibit that
decision?
WINDLER Well, as a matter of fact I guess we would
want to take one more look at that and be sure we're doing the
right thing if we do get down to Just one camera and review again
the criteria that the camera was tested to and that sort of thing.
We'll do that before the EVA. I hope we decide to do that
because I'd like to see it. (Laughter)
QUERY What is the humidity running in the eabln?
WINDLER Well, earlier I can't tell you in percent,
at one point though it was close to 100 percent - well, the dew
point was 52 but in the middle of the night - now the air around
SI.-I l l I'CI4-I_I J
Time: 09:43 CDT
7_29_73

where the crew was, as I said, was around 75 - 78 and I don't


know what that is in percent. But in the location where
the coldest part in the loop was the temperture there was
also around 52 so that was the reason that we raised the
the air temperature and we got that particular location up
to about 56 degrees and prevented it, we think, from collecting
in this heat exchanger are. It doesn't sound as bad as Houston
to me (Laughter).
SPEAKER Any more questions? All right we'll let
Milt go now.
QUERY Is Dr. Buchanan coming?
SPEAKER Well, he's supposed to be on his way.
That's the last word I had. So if you want to go on Milt
thanks a lot.
SPEAKER All right.
SPEAKER And we'll wait on Dr. Buchanan for a few
mlnutes.
WINDLER Take two aprin, drink lots of water
(Laughetr) and call me in the morning.
PSO Dr. Buchanan, being that he hasn't shown
up We have a stateside pass coming up here in about 5 minutes.
So we'll going to come up llve with that on air-to-ground
and then when the doctor does show up - if anybody wants to
wait around and ask his questions, we'll get to that then.
All right?

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CEN'['ER
ltouston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
July 29, 1973
9:20 pm CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Nell Hutchinson, Flight Director


Dr. W. RoyCe Hawkins Medical Operations
PAO - Jim Kukowski

_ PC-17
SL-III PC-17A/I
Time: 21:18 CST
7/29/73

SPEAKER No, leave it on.


SPEAKER (GARBLE)
_ SPEAKER Okay, we will get the briefing underway here.
Neil Hutchinson, Flight Director is here, Dr. Royce Hawkins
is due here any minute. Nell do you have anything to lead
off with.?
HUTCHINSON Yes, I'll Just kind of give you a little
run down of today. I guess probably some - most of you -
at least the ones that are still here probably have been
paying attention to what being going on today. We didn't
have any change of shift last night, of course you know that
yesterday we did do several hours of activation and we picked
up again this morning and did several more hours. And I'm
sure you are all aware that the crew has not been particularly
been up to snuff as far as the amount of activity they are
able to carry on that we had in the preplan Plight Plan.
However, things have been going along what I would consider
under circumstances to be fairly well. We - as we went through
activation today, I'ii go over some of the anomalies Just
briefly. We didn't have a whole beck of a lot. I think
to sum it up basically, we are probably down about -
we went to bed tonight or we will E o to bed tonight _ probably
down around 4 hours total activation tlme_ maybe a little
more than that. The basic plan from here on - we are going
to get up tomorrow morning, the crew is a - has requested,
and we agreed with them that their going to sleep in in the
morning. I kind of expect they will get up about on time,
but we are not going to give them a callp they are goin E to
put a code in the keyboard in the ATM computer to tell us
they want a call when they are ready. And we are Just goln E
to sort of pick up were we left off. And a we have pretty
well decided now I don't think you can say it is firm
but I think we've - it's highly llkely that the EVA will not
be on day 4, probably be on day 5 at the earliest. The main
reason is that we Just have X amount of work to get done
between now and then. And since the guys are moving a little
slow, and we don't have any desire to require them to move
any faster. We Just have that much work to get done between
now and then. Like I said, we are carrying over probably some
four to five hours work into tomorrow that should have been
done over the period of yesterday and today. And we will be
picking up right where we have left off tonlght_ in the
morning. And pressing on with the activation. I think if
we have a reasonable day tomorrow, we can probably expect to
finish actlvation_ tomorrow. And then on Tuesday_ normally
in the Flight Plan, after activation is over, we have about
2 or 3 hours of free time, it's not really - -
SL-III PC-17A/2
Time: 21:18 CDT
7/29/73

(CONT'D) free time, but we call it regroup time


where they are literally not scheduled for any work at all.
It was to be in the Flight Plan for tomorrow. We will probably
put this in the morning, on Tuesday morning and just let
them kind of get reorganized and settle down Tuesday morning.
And then we will probably do pretty much a standard Flight
Plan day, as opposed to the EVA on Tuesday. And Let me
Just go over very briefly some of the stuff we've - we've
ran into today. Couple of gages down in the workshop on
the panel 800, WMC waste tank pressure and WI_C waste processor
exhaust pressure are not operative. And neither one of those -
well - one of them is operating sort of and the other is
not operating at all. And neither one of them bothered us
much, it kind of caused us a headache today because while
we were trying to get the water system activated we needde
both of them, and it slowed us down a bit. However, we managed
to get around both of them. We tried CBRM3, one more time
today when we turned on the ATM panel and it was - we wanted
to try it one more time with the crew, and it was unsuccessful.
Which we fully expected it would be, and we have shutdown
CBRM 3 permanently. We have another strange funny, we have
picked up in the CSM eomm system -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-17B/1
Time: 21:18 CDT
7/29/73

HUTCHINSON We have another strange funny we've


picked up in the CSM comm system. It's very similar,
although it's a different fault, it's very similar in nature
and in the same general piece of electronics that we had
some trouble with on Skylab II. On Skylab II you recall,
we had a situation where we sent a command to do a DSE
dump, we got the FM transmitter on, in the CSM and it was
caused by a shorted diode. They discovered that after we
got the spacecraft back. This time we have a situation
where when we try and stop the DSE, which is the tape
recorder in the CSM, the thing rewinds. We get a DSE re-
wind. And basically, what that really means is we
can't accumulate data in little chunks on the recorder. We
have to get a whole bunch, and when we stop the recorder,
it's automatically going to go back and we'll have to
dump it. That's no real big deal. Probably the biggest _
thing that happened today, we had a short circuit in the
CSM in the SO71-SO72 experiment package, and we have _ost _ _..
th_nt f_.._ m4_sion. The experiment is powered /
off one of the service module busses directly with no _._
circuit breakers. It's fused onto the busses, - a 15 amp
fuse for S071 and 15 amp fuse for S072. And this after-
noon we experienced a main A undervolt, and the crew went
up there and never did quite figure it out. It cleared
itself, however, we thought at first it was loaded cycling
on, but it turned out after we got the data back and looked
at it that we lost the telemetry coming from the S071-72
slmulataneous with the short or the main - the undervolt situation
clearing up, or in that same general vicinity. So, we have
powered the experiment down it powered itself down
actually, when the fuses opened up. So, we've lost the
- those two circadian experiments. And I guess that was
about the biggest thing that happened today. We had a little
anomaly in the fuel cel_-_diator bypass valve which we
got around without any problem.--_" think basically, to sum
it all up, under the circumstances we're pressing on pretty
well and the spaceship looks llke it's in pretty good shape,
about llke we left it. Got a couple of little ditties and
certainly nothing that's going to bother us very much.
PAO Thank you, Nell. Dr. Royce Hawkins
is here, Medical Operations. Dr. Hawkins, do you have
anything to say now, or do you want to open it up to Q and
A?
HAWKINS Well, let me briefly Just summarize
what we have learned here since the 4 o'clock press con-
ference
part
this afternoon.
of the day, all three
The crew
did exhibit
is - through
varying
the early
degrees of

\
SI,-[II PC-17B/2
Time: 21:18 CDT
7/29/73

nausea and motion sickness. They - this resulted in A1


Bean's report to us - something like about 11 or 11:30 this
morning, local time. Now, the - I have later learned that
Jack did vomit twice after the breakfast this morning, and
since that time, felt considerably better, and was able to
go ahead and continue to work fairly steadily, but at very
much reduced rates as did the other two crewmen. On our
instructions 3 the crew - each crewman has had two of the
anttmotlon sickness medications, that's these scopola-
mine/Dexedrine. And they have - at least Owen Garrtott has
been able to find some time to do the - the full up protocol
that we recommended to him on the head movements designed
to assist in the adaptation to the - of weightless condition.
They have all three showed substantial relief of their
symptoms following the medication, and have been able to
work at very steady rates of - as I think it's quite obvious
with all the trouble shooting and everything else they've
had to do this afternoon, and are still feeling - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 17C/1
Tlme: 2118 CST
7129173

IIAWKIN_ - - able to work at very steady rates, as


I think is quite obvious with all of the troubleshooting
and everything else they had to do this afternoon and are
still feeling fine. Jack feels a little - I guess a little
below par compared to the other two and although is not having
any severe symptoms of any sot- any kind he nevertheless
is still feeling a little queasiness of his stomach and
has begun - has tried to carry on his tasks at a little
bit of slower pace. This really brings us up to the night
sleep period which we are rapidly approaching. I think that
we will find that the'y'll - we will all be able to sleep quite
comfortably through the night without any problems
whatsoever.
PAO Thank you Dr. Hawkins. We'll have a few
questions here and then we will go to the Cape.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, the scop/Dex all it really
does is cut off the symptoms. It has no effect at all as far
as helping them in any direct way adapt, it that correct?
Uh-huh. That's true.

QUERY Is there, then Just 'cause they're feeling


a little bit better they've had twice today scop/Dex which
I guess last 4 to 6 hours each time in effect. So
we don't know if they're any better. Is that would that
be considered ?
HAWKINS Well, it's true they're working under
the - with the benefit of the mediation that's very true but,
the way they adapt is through head movements and if they are
able to perform these head movements as they are doing
moving about through the cabin even in addition to any of the
prescribed head movements within the cardinal plains and all
this which you are aware of then each head movement assist
in this adaptation coming to pass. Now if they're lying there
maintaining a motionless condition to - in order to prevent
the symptomatology resulting from head movements, they are not
adapting, see? So the idea is to give them a chance to adapt
that's the rationale back of it.
QUERY Also, neither A1 nor Owen have vomited,
it that correct?
HAWKINS That's correct.
PAO Wanda Neal?
QUERY Neal. Would say there's any possibility
that EVA will go before Wednesday? A possiblilty?
SPEAKER No.
SPEAKER Anymore questions here?
SPEAKER Okay, let's go to the Cape and, Dr. O'Neill,
after the questions are asked, could you give us a little time for
the redllght here to come on so we can get our mikes on. Okay,
let's go to the Cape for questions.
SL-III PC 17C/2
Time: 21:18 CST
7/29/73

-.,_ SPEAKER Early in the day, A1 Bean asked, you


considered him to having a day off earlier than Saturday.
Was any real consideration given to this?
SPEAKER Yes, it was. We talked about it and I guess
a combination of things decides - we pretty much to decided not
to do that. Number 1 is that the fact of the matter is that
as long as they are moving around and during productive work
they're not only helping get the spacecraft turned on and
getting us back on the mission plan but they're also helping
the basic problem which is getting themselves acclimated to
during their work. So the combination of those two things we
pretty much decided that the proper thing to do was to really Just
press on with this activation Plight Plan at as slow a pace as the
crew would like to take and if it takes us 4 days to turn it on
it will take us 4 days but we're making headway getting the
spaceship squared away and they're making headway getting
themselves squared away.
SPEAKER In preparation for the EVA is there anything
that they would be doing the previous night or is this all
something that they do prior to going out?
SPEAKER No, they are- there's about - I guess about
an hour and a half worth of EVA preparation done the night
before they go out and so there's very definitely is - are
EVA preparations. For example, if we were to go out on Tuesday
we would be making those preparations tomorrow evening.
QUERY What time?

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-17D/I
Time: 21:18 CDT
7/29/73

HUTCHINSON And so there very definitely is


are EVA preparations. For example, if we were - were to go
out on Tuesday, we would be making those preparations tomorrow
evening.
QUERY If I understand you correctly, you are
not planning to put that into their Flight Plan for tomorrow
at all.
HUTCHINSON That's correct.
PAO No more questions at the Cape.
KUKOWSKI Any more questions here, real quick?
Go ahead.
QUWRY Are there any tests or checks now being
made of the atmosphere inside Skylab, to determine whether
or not that - that that might be contributing to the slckness2

HAWKINS No.
QUERY Will there be?
HAWKINS No, not a- not at this time.
HUTCHINSON No, we have a standard - I don't know
whether we got that thing done. we've gof a CO measurement, done
here during activation, which is be picked up in the
morning, I suspect, but it's just a - carbon monoxide measurement.
It was a standard thing in the Activation Flight Plan and we are
not doing anything special or out of the ordinary - - to
measure any strange constituents in the atmosphere, which
there aren't any. If you recall, we Just filled it up with
fresh 02 here anyway, the last over the last couple of
days, from almost a vacuum.
! KUKOWSKI We got a couple of questions handed
in here from Mary Baba. All but one has been answered, Mary.
Third question was did the crew get any rest period today?
How long? Dr. Hawkins said they had about an hour's rest.
KUKOWSKI ABC News - What time has been established
for EVA on day 5? Any hard time hack on that?
HUTCHINSON No. I don't think the time when - the
day we pick to do the EVA, the times will be effectively
the same Just about, plus or minus a little hit, because we
are Jockeying around to get the best station coverage, hut they
will be more or less the same as they were on the original
day.
SPEAKER One final question from Art Hill, Chronicle.
Will MII0, the blood letting experiment as he puts it here,
(laughter) be conducted in the morning?
HAWKINS Put that in quotes, will you?
KUKOWSKI Right. It's in quotes. (laughter)
SL-III PC-17D/2
Time: 21:18 CDT
7/29/73

HUTCHINSON We have no reason to belleve it won't.


It's in the Plight Plan, scheduled, and I suspect they
will do it.
KUKOWSKI Okay, that's it. Thanks Cape and here.
That's it for tonight.

END OF TAPE
j-- SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
IIOUSTON, TEXAS

SKYLAB III CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
JULY 29, 1973
10:42 AM CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

DR. BUCHANAN - FLIGHT DIRECTOR


PAO - MILT REIM

PC15
SL III PCI5A/I %_
TIME: 10:42 CDT
7/29/73

PAO All right, we have Dr. Paul Buchanan,


the doctor for tile Skylab ] Jl crew and we'll just open it
up for questions rIKht now. Start with Al Rossiter.
QUERY Can yuu discuss the motion sickness or
the slight feeling of motion sickness that the crewmen
felt yesterday and apparently still have a tendency to
feel today?
BUCHANAN As you know from the Apollo missions and
from the reports that Dr. Berry has written on earlier
experiences on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, motion sickness
or stomach awareness during the first few orbits and even
well into the flight is not at all abnormal. It is also
not abnormal for many of our past crews to take antimotlon
sickness drugs prior to launch. Captain Bean and his crew
elected to try it without any medication at all. A decision
with which I heartily concurred, and two out of three ain't bad.
We were able to get away with it really pretty well. They
have had some stomach awareness with rapid motion, rapid
head movements. The PLT, Major Lousma, did have a little
more trouble, and approximately at the time of insertion
or a little after, he elected to take his scopolamine
Dexldrene tablet. This alleviated his symptoms enough that
they went right on through the docking and early activation phase
with no problems. As a matter of fact, Jack went at it, we
thought a little too hard during the early activation
phase, and with the fluid deficit that they built up in
the early phase of the mission, overcompensated a little
bit and as the scop/Dex wore off and the fluid in his
stomach increased, he had a little more problem than the
other two, but it did not impact the mission at all. He
was able to continue with his duties right up until about
meal time last evening. He decided at that time that he
did not want his evening meal, but he was feeling otherwise
pretty good. The other two crewmen continued to function
relatively normally. They did slow down a little over what
they might have otherwise done, simply to keep down the
head movements. And as long as they did this there was no
problem. Jack, incldently, did go on back and eat his
evening meal. He ate some butterscotch pudding and something
else and some kind of drink last night after I talked to
them about 8:50, so he got to feeling a good bit better.
Now it's rather typical of Captain Bean, I think, to elect
to slow the whole thing down a bit this morning. After
working with him on some of his training, this is the way
he approaches things. We'll do it safe and we'll do it
right. And so he slowed them down today and they're going
SL [II I'C15A/2
Time: 10:42 CDT
7/29/73

ahead not missing things and feeling relatively well. I'd


hazard a guess that by the close of business this evening,
they'll be just about where they ought to be. This is Just A1
Bean. Any other questions?
PAO No other questions? You have another
one AL?
QUERY Did Lousma - was he actually nauseous
yesterday, then?
BUCHANAN Yes, he was, Mr. Rossiter. He was
nauseated enough that he needed the capsule. The other
two did not.
QUERY That was right after insertion, not in
the -
BUCHANAN No, he had a recurrence of symptoms after
this first one wore off. When they were deactivating -
activating the workshop. Approximately 3 or 4 hours later.
So, he slowed down again.
QUERY But, you do expect these symptoms to go
away.
BUCHANAN Oh, yes, yes.
QUERY Even today. As early as today.
BUCHANAN I think probably later in the day, it
will have subsided to a very low level, and by tomorrow
I doubt if there will be any real trouble.
QUERY The first Skylab crew didn't have any
symptoms of this at all, did they?
BUCHANAN They had some awareness, and Dr. Kerwin
actually took a scop/Dex on the pad, so that he was a little
apprehensive that he might have some problems, and didn't
want to. So this has been documented in our mission report
for SL-II.
PAO No more questions? All right, we have
one more here, and then we'll go to the Cape for a couple.
QUERY How much vibration was there during
takeoff?
BUCHANAN Dr. Campbell, I haven't seen the dynamics
reports on this yet, but in listening to the reports
from the command module on liftoff, there was a fair amount
of buffeting. It was a fairly hot shot, we're told_ and
they went up rather rapidly. It was a good bird. But, as
they went through MAX-Q I understand there was a little
buffeting. We could hear and tell it in their voice, but
I haven't seen the dynamics report on that. Maybe someone
at the Cape knows. I don't.
PAO Well, I understand that we do not have
any questions now from the Cape. So is there another
question here?
SL III PCI5A/3
Ti_e: 10:42 CDT
_ 7727"/73

QUERY How is Lousma today? And will he take


some mere drugs for nausea?
BUCHANAN No, they haven't taken any drugs at all
today. In fact, they took - the total drug count so far
if you read evening status report, was two aspirin and one
scop/Dex. That was it. That was for yesterday, and the -
they have taken none today. At least not as of about an
hour and a half ago. I don't anticipate they will.
QUERY Row did the crew sleep last night?
BUCHANAN I haven't gotten that report yet. That
will come down later. But, in talking to the MOCR surgeon
who was on the console this morning, he said they sounded
good, and had announced that they were going to slow down,
but he had no concerns about their sleep. They sounded
good this morning.
QUERY Can you compare a llttle bit how the
first crew adapted in their first few days in space with
this crew?
BUCHANAN No, I don't think you really can make a
comparison there, because you know there were a lot of
problems with SL II, getting it going. They spent a lot
more time in the command module, which, even with the
standup EVA, I think you'd have to say it was kind of like
Bpending more time in the quiescent mode of operations.
These fellows docked and after a very short period of time
they were activating the workshop. So, it would be very
difficult to compare the two. I certainly wouldn't want to.
Now, maybe they could get together and draw you up a
comparison, but that's going to be a final mission report
item.
PAO All right. Thank you.
BUCHANAN Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
July 30, 1973
9:40 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Donald R. Puddy, Flight Director


PAO, Milton E. Relm

PC-18
SL III PC18A/1
Time| 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

PAO We'll get with the morning change of


shift briefin E. Start off with Mr. Don Puddy, Pllght
Directors with a brief statement.
PUDDY Okay. We had a few anomalies last night,
nothing of any super significance. We continue to have our
oscillations in the Y2 RATE GYRO. Have updated it a consi-
derable number of times, however it is still on llne right
now and we plan to keep it on llne as long as we possibly
can. However, we have discussed the alternative procedures
if that gyro should continue to plague us. If it does we
will be going to a single gyro in the Y axis. This will be
gyro YI. The primary reason we'll be doing this is merely
to avoid the constant commanding that is required to keep
the gyro compensation up to date. In other words, it will
randomly drift off scale in one direction, it will come
back and we can continue to update it, but it's Just one of
those things where it's becoming a once a rev type of
occurance, and as a result it's re,qulring a little more
management than we really would llke to put into it. So,
we have evaluated all that. This doesn't mean in any way,
shape, or form that wetre going to the slx-pack or any of
that type of procedure, but we will merely be going to a
gyro in the Y axis, single gyro in the Y axis. The gyro
that we are going to, we've had absolutley no problems with
whatsoever. You also may have heard last night that we
developed a cabin leak. But, before you all Jump to any
conclusions, it's Just because the crew hadn't completely
closed the trash can lld. And we didn't want to wake the
crew up because we had a hunch that's exactly what it was
and went ahead and opened up the AM fill valves, which Just
allowed an increased flow of 02 and N2 into the cabin over
and above what the normal cabin regulators will supply, and were
able to bring the pressure back up to 5 psi. It had dropped
as low as 4.7. And you probably remember, the crew remarking
during some of their debrleflngs that the spacecraft is
extremely quiet. Well we found out how quiet_ because they
heard the gas coming in and it woke them up. So, even though
we tried not to do that, they did wakeup about 6:10 local
this morning. We gave them a couple of items to check, sure
enough the trash alrloek wasn't completely closed. We did
put that handle back in the detent position and the leak
went away and we backed out of our fill procedure. We're
now back on the cabin regulators and all status quo in
that area. We're - as you probably have been briefed, we're
essentially about a day behind, as far as our nominal Flight
Plan is concerned. Our plan of attack on that is to go
ahead and evaluate it on a day by day situation and to try

/ --
SL _II MC-18A/2
_" TIME; 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

to have it completely regrouped and back on the nominal


Flight Plan by day 9. Of course day 8 being the crew day
off. And we feel llke we can do this with a minimum loss
of experiment gain. But, we are, of course, going to he
looking at that on a daily basis. The only other
problem we had last night was one associated with the ATM
experiment, S055 aperture door. You're aware that we have
had problems with those doors on and off, in fact, we have
pinned the S054 door open. This one for some reason, just
doesnVt want to respond to a single cycle from the computer,
as far as an open command is concerned. Each time it hap-
pened, we went ahead and tried it again from the ground and
the door opened successfully, and this last re,, we ran a
test to see whether or not the computer, issuing itts signal, if
it did it twice in a row, would open the door, just to make
sure that the computer logic was doing all the right things.
And sure enough the door opened. So again, we don't feel
that there's any problem there. We have an alternative of
always using two motors and we think what basically is wrong
there is that some of the lubricant in the door ramp
mechanism is not doing it's job quite as well as it should
and it Just takes a little more force to get it off the
ramp, so we can always go to two moter operation and take
_- care of that problem. Dontt want to not give you the
average gas temperature, which has become a habit. We are
now running about 77-1/2. We are operating on a single
coolant loop and later today, we will he going to two
collant loop operation and should drop off a little more
in that area. The EVA, as it stands right now, will be on
day 5. That is a change in the Flight Plan you probably
want to be aware of. And we may or may not run the EREP
pass on day 7. That is one of the options that we have
considered as a possible place where we might be able to
make up some Flight Plan time. If so, the first EREP pass
would be on day 9. That's about all I have. Let's open
it up for questions.
QUERY Don, a couple of things that I understand
that they may go ahead and do the MI31 today. Is that still
in the Flight Plan?
PUDDY No, I think in general, although today's
Flight Plan again is going to be more or less a real time
basis, in general today, we're going to try to finish up
those activation items that were not completed. We do have
in the Flight Plan for day 4, we do have an MI31 run scheduled
there on the Science Pilot. And we presently have also
two M092, M171 runs, one being on the Commander, and one
being on the Science Pilot. That's tenatlve planning. We'll
refine that tonight, if required.
SL III PCI8A/3
i--_ TIME: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

QUERY On day 4 they're going to do the 91 171?


PUDDY Yes, two of them.
QUERY And also, if, say the crew's still asleep
now, if they sleep in most of the rest of the day, or don't
get much further ahead, is there a good possiblilty of
pushing off til Thursday, the EVA, til day 6? At what
point are they going to have to start really getting
caught up and getting ready for preprep?
PUDDY Well, I think that you're well aware
that there's no real rush to do the EVA, let me say that.
The things that we're doing during that EVA is the deploy-
ment of the S149 experiment. Of course we're putting out
the twin boom sail, and we're resupplying some of the ATM
cameras that no longer have any film. We are continuing
to run the three ATM experiments that we can by ground
command up until that point in time. We have plenty of
film left there, and I certainly think that we're going
to want to make sure that all of the nominal activation
functions are done and the crew is perfectly fit before
we commit to the EVA. So, _e're not really concerned about
what day it is, we could sllp another day and it's not
going to impact us that much, but we are presently planning
on day 5. Does that answer what you're after? What more
can I say?
QUERY I realize that it's not all that urgent,
but what I'm saying is, where do we start stretching even
further and does look llke we'll have to go on to Thursday,
regardless of the concern of whether we have to or care to,
I mean, is the crew going to have to really get busy to
make it for day 5, or can they easily make it from this
point?
PUDDY No, I think if the crew today is up and
at them, so to speak, without really doing more than we
would nominally expect them to do in a crew work day, we can
get to the EVA on day 5, with no problem. If they're not
completely up to snuff today, then we might have a problem
meeting a day 5 EVA. And we won't know that until they
wake up. And they're not planning on sleeping all day. They
did wake up about, as I said, 6:10. They went back to sleep
around - just shortly after 6:30, and Just gave a comment
that they had got to bed a little bit late last night. I
think they didn't actually go to sleep until around mid-
night, and they would Just like to grab a couple of more hours
of shut-eye. So we said fine show, and they're going to
give us a call when they're ready. We expect to have that
call shortly.

END OF TAPE
i--
SL-III PC-18B/1
Time: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

PUDDY - - we said fine show, and they're going


to give us a call when they're ready, but we expect to have
that call shortly.
QUERY What is the present situation in the
planning on TV recordings and TV dumps?
PUDDY In what area are you talking about?
QUERY Well, general TV from the spacecraft.
PUDDY As far as our intent is right now, we
plan to follow the TV plan that you all have. I understand
that we - your question is probably directed to the fact that
we have the one camera problem where we think wetve lost
a color wheel in one of the TV cameras. I think the only
question that we're kicking around a little bit is whether
or not we want to use that one camera on the EVA. But as

far as all the other TV coverage, we plan to do it just as _._

QUERY
nominally scheduled. Could you go through some of the EVA "_.

us arun down on what's exactly going to be happe


PUDDY
procedures Well,
j especially I'm not
deploying sure exactly
the sall and how
so _n?_ h G_eV_re_
_ _-_/$_
how much detail you want there. Our nominal plan of attack "'_'_ _--
on that of course is to go out and attach the bracket for _--_
the S149 experiment, and to mount that experiment. Of course - .
to do the standard, nominal EVA resupply of the ATM film, }
possibly take a look at one of the doors, that hasn't really /
been decided yet, but we're looking at that possibility, _/
and of course to go into deployment of the sail, And as /_
far as the deployment of the sail, that's more or less the /
same procedures that we're talking about on Skylab II. /
QUERY What about removing the other one, is /
this one going to go on top? //
PUDDY No, no. The only action that we will
take with the parasol is that we will lower the parasol
closer to the OWS body Just about as low as we can possibl_
get it. Then the other sall will be placed over the top _f
it. But there is no intent whatsoever to remove the parasol.
QUERY Has there been any discussion of the
eliminating the deployment of the sail, or Just postponing
it to the next EVA in the middle of the mission?
PUUDY No.
QUERY Who are going on the EVA? And at what
time of the day is it going to take place?
PUDDY It was originally scheduled if I'm not
mistaken around 10:30 in the morning. And as far as I know,
it's still scheduled to be Garrlott and Lousma, the
original people scheduled on that EVA. I believe Garriott
SL-III PC-18B/2
P Time: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

is EVI and Lousma is EV2. Let me mention one other thing


before I forget too. We did have one other failure which
you may or may not have heard about. And that is we did
have some sort of short, the exact location of which we
have not yet determined, and may not be able to determine.
But it did cause us a loss of all of our data on the S071
S072 experiments which are the ones we discussed earlier,
the vinegar gnats and pocket mice which were carried in the
service module.
QUERY Don, on the TV say following the flight
plan, when might we expect to see our first TV_ because we're
kind of off the plan right now?
PUDDY I can't really answer that, but I will
check it and get the information hack to the control center
over to the News Center, so that they will have an answer
for you. I cannot answer exactly when they now plan to
do the first TV.
QUERY Today some time or tomorrow?
PUDDY I'm really not positive. I have a hunch
it will not be today because, in fact I'm almost positive
it will not be today strlct]y because we will be going
through the activation functions that we've missed so far.
And I don't think that there was any planned TV during that
particular mission time.
QUERY Is there any way to get the electrical
power back to that 71/72 experiment? Are you giving up on
it entirely?
PUDDY Yes, we've had to give up on it entirely.
It looks like what has happened is we have had a short, and
there is an open now somewhere in the circuit. And there
is nothing that we can close or do. Of course it's completely
inaccessible since it's in the service module. So there is
no further action now that we are aware of now that we can
take that will restore those experiments.
QUERY Are you saying the gnats are not and
also the mice, as far as existing is concerned?
PUDDY No, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying
is we're not going to know what they are doing. Everything
may be going on back there, but we're just not sure about it.
QUERY Don, I was a little surprised when I read
that evidently the data system for these experiments was
fused right into the bus bar, and there weren't any circuit
breakers in the circuit.
PUDDY Well, there is always two ways to attach
electrical components to a bus. One is through fuses and
one is through circuit breakers. And as you're probably
SL-III PC-18B/3
Time: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

aware/ in Skylab we have multiple uses of both of those


types of devices. In fact, the ATM is very heavily fused. And
you run that risk with a fuse. But you also run the same risk
with a circuit breaker if you are putting a major short on
a bus you always question whether the gain is worth the risk
by pushing the circuit breaker back in. I'm sure you've been
briefed many times on how judiciously we look at each one of
those items before we decide to put a circuit breaker back
in that has popped. We usually have to convince ourselves
that there is very little risk, that the gain is worth it,
and the chances are that it did not pop because of electrical
overload. And in this case, we know we had an electrical
overload, not once but several times, and it finally did
get the fuse.
PAO Did you have a question, Bill.
PUDDY Could you look at your flight plan and
tell me right after cabin depress where they had camera on.
PUDDY I'm not sure my current flight plan is
going to be valid exactly from the standpoint of sight cover-
age and where the EVA is now planned. Why don't you go ahead
to another question, and I'II look it up though.
QUERY Have the crew taken any more antinausea
drugs? And have they said how they are feeling, are they
feeling any better this morning?
PUDDY We did not discuss with them this morning
per se, a detailed discussion of how they were feeling.
They were up just a few minutes in order to clear the problem
and then asked to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. In
addition, I don't think with the symptoms that we've seen
so far that you're going to have a real good feel for that
untll they have been up and moving around for a while.
As far as medication, again I don't have a detailed report
of just exactly what they have taken. As far as we know,
however thecopolamlne which they are taking should correct
the problem. It's one of those things where you have
to wait and see. As far as we could tell from what they
said this morning, they had slept well. They didn't go to
bed exactly at the same time we thought they did. But
evidently they commented they had 6 hours of sleep. And we
detected the time of the anomoly to be about midnight, and
they finally woke up and started to discuss the problem with
us at 6. So they said they got 6 hours sleep, it sure
computes.
QUERY How long will the EVA last?
PUDDY The EVA right now if you want to talk
all the way from prep through completion of the EVA, we've
SL-III PC-18B/4
Time: 09:40
7/30/73

got it scheduled for about 5 hours. This is probably a


conservative time with the EVA prep taking about 2 hours,
and the EVA itself scheduled somewhere around 3 hours.
We usually allow a little more time there than is
necessary, but we want to make sure they have plenty of
allowances.
QUERY Wednesday would not be hatch opening exactly,
it could be EVA prep?
PUDDY That's true. As far as the exact time
moving it into mission day 6, that has not, or 5, excuse me,
that has not been exactly decided. We'll be working on that
tonight as far as trying to work out a flight, an exact flight
plan. But we'll try to keep the site coverage such that
we can get the TV if we go that route. But it looks like
about 2 hours into the EVA is when you should expect to see
the TV. Does that answer you question?
QUERY (garble)

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-18-C/I
Time: 09:40 CDT
_- 7/30/73

PUDDY You should expect to see the TV, did


that answer your question?
PUDDY The cabin depress or -
PUDDY Yes.
QUERY We're going to go to the Cape for
some questions, and then we will come back here.
QUERY Did the surgeon on duty agree without
any discussion, that extra sleep was a good thingj in view
of the fact that the principal investigator for the
vestibular experiment, indicates that unless the crew
gets up and moves around, their movements - they're
never going to adapt?
PUDDY Well, let me put it this way, I donlt
think the flight plan and the orignal concept we started
out with was to give the crew 8 hours worth of sleep.
They did have that sleep period interrupted and I - I did
not discuss this with the surgeon this morning, but
wholeheartedly concure that the crew should go back and
get their extra two hours sleep that they requested.
QUERY All right, in light of the problems
that you are having with S071, this may seem a little
irrelevant, but we would like to know the names of the
mice in the study?
PUDDY Which one?
QUERY All of them.
PUDDY I'm afraid you got me. I really don't
know the names of the mice.
QUERY Thank you_
QUERY Earlier you mentioned, they were
going EVA on day 5. And then you said something that
they were going to do on day 7, which we couldn't plck-up
here because we're kind of low on the volume.
PUDDY Oh, I think all I mentioned there
was, that what we were hoping to do was to go ahead and
complete as much of the activation as we possibly could
today. Move in tomorrow to, more or less, finish up
activation or regroup, start on the medical day, accomplish
the EVA the next day, and then on day 6 and 7 go ahead as
much as we possibly could with our nominal flight plan
and try to be completely regrouped and be able to start
completely on the nominal flight plan, following the
crew day off which is day 8. The exact details for the
day 6 and the day 7 flight plan has not been worked out.
But we'll try to accomplish as many of the items as we
possilbly can. That you have in your nomlnnal flight plan.
The candidates for deletion that we are looking at
SL III PC-18-C/2
09:40 CDT
7/30/73

right now are the EREP pass on Day 7, one of the


M192, M171 runs. Possibly one of the M131 runs
and deleting a little bit of the ATM viewing times. These
are some of the items that we're considering as far as catch-
up. We would llke to get back on the nominal fllght plan, as
soon as possible.
QUERY I'm sorry, I didn't understand your reply earlier.
Did you say that the surgeon agreed with your decision or
your didn't discuss it with him and you felt he must have
concurred since he didn't fight it?
PUDDY I think your latter position is
correct. I did not dlscuss it with him extensively. We
had agreed with the crew last night before they went to
bed_ that we wanted them to get a full eight hours of sleap
we had hoped there would be no action taken which would
interrupt that sleep and we tried to make sure that their
sleep was not interrupted. However_ the alrflow did
interrupt it and the crew said that they would llke to go
back and get 2 hours worth of sleep and I gave an
immediate go. So it was not discussed with the
surgeonj and he never come back and raise any objection
to that.
QUERY Is there a plan to ask them to take
a motion sickness pill, upon awakening or shortly after
awakening?
PUDDY I think all of that is going to depend
on the crew's comments_ when they wake up this morning.
Certalnly_ if they request it, there will be no problem
and the doctor's agreeing to give it to them.
QUERI No more questions from the Cape.
QUERY Is the crew scheduled to do more
of these conditioning exercises today_ and if so, what will
that involve? How extensive will they be?
PUDDY What do you mean by conditioning
exercises?
QUERY Nod their heads, say, shake their
heads and so on.
PUDDY l'm sure they will be doing some more
of that, during the day to day to make sure that they are
acclimating properly, yes.
QUERY As I understand it_ there has been some
problems on the ATM telemetry data retrlval. I Just
wondered if you know what the current status on that is?
PUDDY I think the primary problem we have
had on the ATM data retrlval is more or less one of
insuring that we have a continuous dump from the ASAP
recorder, and I don't know whether I'm talking your
lingo or not_ but, essentially what we do is between sites.
_" SL IIl PC-18-C/3
09:40 CDT
7/30/73
we do record the data from the ATM experiments. We
then pick a site and dump that data. And some of
the problems that we have had are that there are
certain sites such as the Vanguard, for instance, where
there is some RFI interference that has caused some
gaps in that data, and I certainly don't want to imply
to you that we have had a total loss of any
experiment data. I think the concern has been
expressed that we are not getting every segment of data
that we had hoped to, and we have experienced some drop
outs. What we have done is we have taken steps in the
data dumps themselves to minimize the sensitivity to
RFI to decrease signal strength, at the low elevation angles
where we have acquisition of signal, loss of signal.
We have decided that where possible we will optimize the
antenna switching for the transmitters that are dumping
this data to insure that we have the highest possible signal
strength on the dump data. Things of this nature and we
believe that these corrective actions will take care of
those minor data drop outs that we have had in the ATM
experiment data to date.
QUERY Why not use the six-pack of gyros, and
go ahead and replace it on this EVA that you have coming
r-- up, which you've got to do anyway. Instead of maybe letting
it ride to when you would have to replace it and maybe
have a special EVA for that?
PUDDY Well, there's - all the rate gyro
failure analysis has not been completed. And I think there's a
couple of things that you have to recognize about putying in the
slx-pack. One is: we're talking here about 2 gyros that go
into each axis, as you are well aware, we normally run with 3 gyros
in each axis. We installed that particular device, we are auto-
matically substituting 2 rate gyros in each axis. We can then use
1 gyro out of the present gyros that we have, and two of
the axes, we have two good rate gyros going for us, in one
axis we have two with one improbable. In other words, Y-2
the one I have been talking to you about this morning
is not looking too swift as faras we are concerned. That could
put us down to a signal gyro in the pitch axis. The other
thing that you have to realize is that most of the failures
that we have had in the gyros to date_ I shouldn't say most, I
should say all of the failures that we have had with the gyros todate,
including the one that we had in the experiment pointing system the
other day that I briefed you on, have been with gyros that exibited
off scale high characteristics early in the Skylab 1 time frame.
Now the gyros that we have remaining in the Y-I gyro, the one thats
left in the pitch axis, is not one of these gyros. You also
have to realize that once we put the six-pack in
f_ we lose our visibility in being able to monitor the gyros,
SL III PC-18-C/4
-- 09 : 40 CDT
7-30-73

in other words, the six-pack has uo teleaetry associated with it.


So there are several very serious considerations that must be taken
into account before we actually go ahead and break connectors, this
type of thiug, aud install the six-pack. And we Just want
to make sure that we understand exactly everything that
weWve been able to obtain from the stand point of rate gyro
failure analysis, ground testing, aud so ou and so forth, before
we comment the six-pack. But we got it there in case, but
we donlt intend to allow the vehicle to get out of control.
QUERY Don, could you explain what the
significance of the gyros -

END OF TAPE
SL III PCI8D/I
TIME: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

PUDDY But we don't intend to allow the vehicle


to get out of control.
QUERY Don, could you explain what the significance
of the gyros going off-scale high is?
PUDDY Let me try to bring this into scope.
Basically what happens is we have what we call a redundancy
management scheme. And what this means is that in the
control loop, you take let's just take the Y axis, you
have two gyros that you place in the loop and what happens
is that the outputs of these gyros are averaged and that's
what's used in the control of the vehicle. If you have one
of them that starts oscillatlng_ in other words, it's not
quite sure where it wants to go and it starts putting out
an erroneous input, this is averaged with the output from
the other gyro and we have what we call test limits, nd
when we exceed those test limlts_ we have what we call
a redundancy management failure, and we go on what we call
interim strapdown. And interim strapdown control laws say
that you will pick the lowest gyro, the lowest numbered
gyro for control. And in this case it's Y-I_ so we always
fail over to Y-I gyro by itself, and then our testing, of
course, is done on momentum state. We have had over the
last two or three days five failures in redundancy
management on the Y-I/Y-2 combination. But we have never
had a failure where we have exceeded the test limit and
actually gone out of control of the vehicle. I don't know
if I explained that very well to you, but that's about the
level I would have to go to to try to get that picture
across to you.
QUERY Don, do you plan to awaken the crew or
are they going to just get up on their own now at the end
of this period?
PUDDY No, probably by now, they have - I
would expect that they are awake. The way we normally do
this when they have more or less left an open loop is; when
they wake up they're not sure exactly what sites they are
over, they just key what we call i0,000 into the onboard
computer. We read it on the downllnk and we give them a
call. That's the way we did it this morning. They gave us
a i0,000. We gave them a call. We knew they were up.
QUERY Coming back to SO71 and 72. How much
data did you really get and when did the dropout of data
occur, the short?
PUDDY I don't think we - to the best of my
knowledge, we did not get any data of enough duration to
say that we could - had a real good feel for that experience.
The failure occurred - I believe, that we had some indication
SL III PCI8D/2
TIME: 09:40 CDT
7/30/73

that we had a problem that we couldn*t track down, where


the caution and warnings were coming from on the CSM
buses early yesterday. I think the failure occurred late
yesterday afternoon - the total failure. From that time
on_ of course we haven't been able to get any data from it.
During the activation period where we started experiencing
problems, so as you are well awar e, on the vinegar gnats,
you've got to allow some time before that experiment would
start returning useful data.
PAO l got a question here that's called in.
Will the ocean game fishing experiment scheduled for August
4 and 5 in the Gulf of Mexico still be conducted?
PUDDY Milt, I can't answer that one specifically,
but there has been nothing other than what I've briefed
you on today, that I've heard any intention whatsoever of
deleting.
PAO Any more questions here? Thank you.

END OF TAPE
•f:_---. sqB •

SKYLAB NE_S CENTER


HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
JULY 30p 1973
10:09 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

NEIL HUTCHINSON, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


DR. PAUL BUCHANAN, FLIGHT SURGEON
PAD - JIM KUKOWSKI

PC-20

f
SL-III PC 20A/I
Time: 22:09 CST
7/30/73

PAO All right we're ready here with Nell


/_ Hutchinson Flight Director, Doctor Paul Buchanan Flight
Surgeon. Nell, you want to start off on this.
HUTCHINSON Yes, let me Just kind of give you a
summary of what we did today and I probably again won't talk
much about the problems. Crew got up this morning at which
you all know but I'll just kind of recap so we can put it all
in perspective. They got up at this morning at about 8:00.
We had made arrangements with them that we would not call them
this morning until they put a code on the keyboard in their
computer in the workshop which they did not do until 10:30
this morning approximately so they were up about 2-1/2
hours and when we finally talked to them they were well in
their postsleep and had already done the blood drawing or
doing the final processing of it on the centrifuge and of
course as you know our plan today was to continue with our
activation activities to try and finish getting the workshop
all turned on and get all of the stuff out of the command
module and in various places in the workshop stowed and re-
stowed and tidied up. And the one big thing that we had to get
straight this morning is as you know when I was here last night we
talked some about not having the water removals systems working
exactly right and it wasn't working exactly right last night and
still wasn't working exactly right when we got up this morning
in fact it wasn't working at all. So, we commenced on a
troubl shooting procedure about 10:30 or ii:00 this morning
which we worked on off-and on all day long and it's not
completely clear yet but we still haven't gotten it fixed.
And we have tape - we took some steps last night to try and - or to-
night get ourselves in a condition where we could use the mol
sieves to remove the water in the atmosphere and keep the
dew point - control dew point anyway, about where it is now and
tomorrow we are probably going to have to do some more things
to try and get our condensing heat exchanger water removal system
fired up and working. That was the big system's duty today
the crew - you probably kept tabs on, feels better today and
I'll let Dr. Buchanan talk some more about that. They're still
not - certainly not up to snuff as far as the amount of things
they can accomplish. They worked steadily all day and we did
make quite a bit of headway. In the Activation Checklist we
probably got about 4 or 5 hours per work per man left in
activation excluding any troubleshooting we're going to do
on the condensate system and because we didn't finish today
we have chosen to put the EVA off 1 more day and we will
continue activation tomorrow. We expect probably to take the
entire morning or the morning and maybe a couple of hours into
the afternoon and we ought to be pretty well cleaned up and
then we are going to kind of let the crew - they've mentioned
some housekeeping items that need taking care of. For example,
they want to vacuum off some of the fan inlets and they still
have some tidying up to do in terms of getting things stowed
SL-III PC 20A/2
Time: 22:09 CST
7/30/73

"_ all in the right place. Still have some things to take out
of the CSM and so the afternoon we have left completely open
for them to kind of regroup and then we will pick up Wednesday
with what we hope is a fairly normal flight plan routine
leading to an EVA on Thursday. Now, if we don't make a lot of
progress tomorrow on finishing up the activation we probably
- delay the EVA another day - wouldn't surprise me. The point
here is what we want to do is get the vehicle turned on and
get everything settled down including the crew so when we do
pick up with full-bloomlng experiment operations we aren't
going to have to do it in a nonnormal fashion. And I'm
satisfied that thing s are going along pretty well. It's slow
but we are certainly making progress and we are going to work
on it again some more tomorrow.
PAO Thank you, Nell. Dr. Buchanan do you have
a statement you would llke to - -

END OF TAPE

F
SL-III 20B/I
Time: 22:09 CDT
7/30/73

HUTCHINSON It's slow but we're certainly making


s progress and we're going to work on it again some more
tomorrow.
PAO Thank you Nell. Dr. Buchanan do you
have a statement you'd llke to make before we open it up to
questions and answers?
BUCHANAN Really only to echo what Nell said,
that things are going along better. The crew definitely
feels better tonight. They have all day. There have been
no vomiting episodes today. And, I think that we've past
the crisis and the patient is going to - not only survive but
do very well in the next - in the next few hours.
PAO We had those questions and the answers
that came back here not too long ago but we'll open up
for questions here at Houston and then we'll go to the Cape
after a few and Nell and Dr. Buchanan if you'll wait for
a little light here when the Cape questions come, when they
pose their questions. I'll give you a nod or you can watch
the light here. So let's start out here if we have any
questions and wait for the mike, please. Right up here in
fron t.
QUERY Hutchinson, you said at one point there
in your summary that it wouldn't surprise you that the EVA
was delayed another day. That is, I suppose going from
Thursday to Friday. Would you amplify that and explain the
reasoning on it?
HUTCHINSON Yes, well it's strictly a function of
trying, you know between now and then there's X amount of
work to get done and Y amount of time and the crew - the
" crew's ability to do work is of strictly a function of how
well they continue this adaptation process. And, we've got
a couple of unknowns, we donIt know how much time we're going
to have to take out to get this condensate thing straight.
The crew had indicated that they have quite a bit of general
tiding up to do. And before we get involved in the EVA
situation which really is a start of our on orbit operations,
we want to make sure that we got everything else squared
away. The vehicle and the crew. And, I guess, you know we've
sort of been putting it off a day at a time here, logically
I think. Each day we are doing a day's worth of work and
seeing where we are and looking ahead and saying, well how
much time have we got between now and the EVA and cam we get
all things done. And the answer is no and so we move the
EVA one day and stick in some more time. And I'm saying that
it is possible that that process may take place one more
time.
SL-III 20B/2
Time: 22:09 CDT
7/30/73

PAO Over here.


QUERY If I understand you, what you're saying
is the EVA is depended upon the activation, not really on
the crew's adaptation at this point.
HUTCHINSON Oh both. They're so interrelated it's,
I don't think you can separate them.
QUERY Would it be possible if after they've
finished activating and still not be adapted enough to do
the EVA?
BUCHANAN It is possible but I consider it rather
unlikely.
PAO One more here and them we'll go to the
Cape.
QUERY A1 said that he was having a little
trouble since this was a huge spacecraft, Just getting
everything squared away. Was - did the first crew leave a
lot of things out of place or what did he mean? Do you
think yon could amplify that?
HUTCHINSON No, sir. First off, let me answer that
backwards, or your first question first. The Skylab II
crew, the philosophy of deactivation and getting out of the
vehicle during Skylab II, as it will be in Skylab III and
Skylab IV, is to leave it llke you found it. And, in that
connection we go to great pains to try and get everything
as completely organized as possible for the crew that's
coming up. Like we even go to the pains of putting their
clothes out for them and their toothbrush, so to speak.
It's that - carried that far. I think basically he's re-
ferring to the fact they've been just a tad disorganized
it's awfully hard with nh - when you're not feeling too
swift and yon got an awful lot of work facing you and to
keep it all rolling along. And ofcourse we've been segmenting
this thing and picking up a job here and a Job there. And
I think he was merely referring to the fact that he feels
he needs he's going to need some time to get everything
organized. It's kind of like moving into a house and having
all your furniture come with you and you know where yon want
it all to go but even though it's sitting in the room, the
box hasn't been unpacked yet. And you don't feel comfortable
until you got it all put away on the shelves and I really
think, things like for example, today you remember on, you
may not remember, but on a typical example of this is on the
first day of activation, we carried that that rake -
SL-III PC 20C/I
Time: 22:09 CST
7/30/73

HUTCHINSON You remember on - you may not remember


• a typical example of this is on the first day of activation
we carried that rate gyro six pack into the MDA and he Just
stuck it in there and they were suppose to on the first day
of activation when they carried it in there put it up on the
wall and put it away but in the process of trying to get as
much stuff done as we could and they didn't happen to get it done
now they didn't get it done yesterday either as a matter of
fact it just got done this afternoon. And it's those kinds
of things that he's talking about that he needs time to get
straightened out and that's why I say that tomorrow we are going
to just press on with activation as ssee how it goes. And he
is going to have some open time in the afternoon, we think, if
the morning goes reasonably well and they should have several
hours to get organized so to speak.
PAO Okay, let's go to the Cape now direct your
questions to either Neil or Dr, Buchanan.
QUERY The question for Dr. Buchanan. I understand
that the food and fluid intake is down to about the last
24 hours down about 20 per cent of what it should be. What
does this do to the fluid and the electro light balance in the
body and how does this impact the EVA?
BUCHANAN Well, I don't know where you got the per-
centage figure I haven't received that particular number. Yes
their fluid and food intake is down but I haven't heard any-
thing near that low as a matter fact I haven't heard an exact
figure and our food and nutrition people are figuring that
right now because tonight is the first time we had a really
inclusive look at those food and water figures. Secondly, I
think that they have had adequate intake for the past few days
but certainly not optimal and with the vomitous that we have
had and have yet determined the amount in quality of. I can't
really say whether or not we're looking at any particular
electorlight imbalance in the PLT or not. And listening to
him this evening he sounds chipper and as Nell told you they
all three were working today. I can tell you they are eating
better today than they did in the previous two days. They
have had more water today than they had the previous two days.
Generally I'd have to say that they are on the mend and looking
well. Now if we do determine that indeed the fluid intake and
food intake is down low enough that we are really concerned
about their electorlight and fluid then it will depend upon
our ability to have some dynamic assessment of their physical
well being before we would commit them to an EVA and this is
the situation that we are certainly looking at.
PAO Go ahead, Kay?
QUERY One other question. Why didn't Bean take
a scop/Dex today when the other two men did?
BUCHANAN He didn't need it.
PAO The answer was he didn't need It, Cape.
SL-III PC 20C/2
Time: 22:09 CST
7/30/73

PAO Guess no more questions. Any more here?


QUERY Dr. Buchanan, if I understood you correctly
you said that if after examining the findings of the
nutrltlonist there are indications the electrolights are low
in the astronauts and it may require dynamic assessment of
the physical condition before committing to an EVA? Can you
explain precisely what a dynamic assessment is, you talking
about the experiments on board?
BUCHANAN Yes, we use probably a combination of the
H092 and the 93 that's the lower body negative pressure and
the short run on the ergometer where senoring for the vector-
cardiogram. There is also a very good possibility that
if they are feeling well and we have no reason not to do this,
we might go ahead with the full 92171 protocol which is a
little more demanding than the (garble). And it gives us an
even better look at their entire medibolical state at that
particular point. So we're going to - as Nell does in
determining the po ...
END OF TAPE
SL-III 20D/I
Time: 22:09 CUT
7/30/73

BUCHANAN - - there, there entire metabolic state


at that particular point. So, we're going to, as Nell does
in determining the point of the EVA. We're going to have
to play it from day to day determining whether or not we can
commit the EVA. Right now it looks good.
QUERY Okay_ but without the electrolyte
deficiency occurring or showing up there would be no need
for this dynamic assessment. Is that - are you all (garbled)
I mean can I turn the coin ever?
BUCHANAN Perhaps no need but we would certainly
llke to do it. And this is something we're going to have to
determine based on the intake for the next couple of days.
QUERY Would it be a categorically necessity be-
fore committing the EVA?
BUCHANAN No. I would say not. Not as things stand
right now.
PAO Okay, let's go back here,
QUERY Do you expect the astronauts to start
exercising tomorrow?
BUCHANAN Yes, as a matter of fact there is some
possibility that they will tomorrow.
HUTCHINSON Owen did ask us a question about firing
up the bicycle. And we had already, that happened Just be-
fore we came over here. We'd already radioed them up, at
least I thought we had radioed them up a couple of circuit
breakers they needed to close and so on. In fact the actual
page in the checklist to get it going and I'm sure that they're
going to send the message up on teleprinter tonight to allow
them to do that if they choose to tomorrow. And tomorrow
being an unscheduled day flight plan wise_ other than to
complete deactivation, they'll have they should have the
time to do that anytime they choose.
PA0 Okay_ we'll have time for just a couple
of more questions. There was a question from the Cape on
whether - why Bean did not take scop/Dex. We may have lost
it on the switchover. Dr. Buchanan said he didn't need it
Cape. Okay, right back here.
QUERY Dr. Buchanan, how many days could the
PLT or any of the other crewmen go eating as they have been
without doing some harm to themselves. Just eating very
little.
BUCHANAN Well_ tomorrow we're going to have to
have a look at the cumulative totals for the past three days.
And I won't have a chance to do that until tomorrow. They're
Just coming off command module food now, going on workshop
SL-III 20D/2
Time: 22:09 CDT
7/30/73

- food. And we should, whereas we've been getting some


estimates as we go along. We don't have the real hard
numbers that we want or won't have until later tonight. So
I really can't answer your question, l_d have to say that
Just on a kind of quick and dirty look at the numbers that
were read down tonight and making a Just very crude calcula-
tion. I would say that if they continued as they had today,
we wouldn't be in really bad shape. But I - I'm still going
to have to have a look at the numbers before I'll say this
as you say categorically.
PAO Okay, one final one here, it's getting
late. It's 11:30 at the Cape, 10:30 here. Go ahead.
QUERY I was Just wondering Doctor. In your
assessment of the thing, did y'all categorically and un-
deniaBly and beyond all doubt decide that this - -
BUCHANAN l'm almost inclined to say no before you
go any farther - -
QUERY - - Okay, I figured that. Did you decide
that it could have been no other ailment except motion sick-
ness and if so how did you reach this determination?
BUCHANAN We certainly considered this but number
one. Motion sickness was most likely based on history of
this country with space fllgh aAnd certainly based on
the Soviet Union's experience with space flight. Also
72 hours is not an unusual time for this sort of thing to
last. The symptoms that they read us did fit the picture.
Now we, of course, considered possibly that they might have
been germinating a viral inneritls (?) that they might have
been having some sort of food polslonlng or water poisioning
that sort of thing. But it didn't add up and with the
temperatures that they taken for us and with the pulse and
blood pressure readings that they had given us, and with the
course of this, in the past few days, we have come to the
conclusion that it was as we originally thought it was,
motion sickness.
PAO Okay, it has been a long day for Doctor
Hutchinson and Dr. Buchanan and Mr. Hutchinson.
And for me too. 6:00 a.m. CDT wakeup for the crew. That's
it for tonight, thank you.
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
_ HOUSTON, TEXAS

MEDICAL STATUS BRIEFING


JOIINSON SPACE CENTER
JUI,Y 30, 1973
4:51 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

DR. W. ROYCE HAWKINS - MEDICAL OPERATIONS


PAO - BOB GORDON

PC-19
SL-III PC 19-A/I
Time: 16:51 CST, 21:51 GET
_-" 7/30/73

PAO Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Royce Hawkins,


Deputy Director for Medical Operations at Johnson Space Center.
Dr. Hawkins does have to return to the Control Center so we'll
start with a brief statement by Dr. Hawkins and question and
answers. And please wait for the microphone. Dr. Hawkins
HAWKINS Okay, I think the status on the crew
this afternoon looks certainly better than it did yesterday
and last night when I last spoke to some of you. We have a
continuation of the motion sickness problem which has been
with us from the beginning of the mission, however. I think
yet all three of the crewmen are still experiencing some
varying degrees of symptomatology. The Commander has reported
no medication today whatsoever and has been able to carry out
quite a bit of the activation phase of the mission. The
other two crewmen have also supported this activation but
both Owen and Jack have taken the scopolamlne/Dexedrlne
medication today. I feel quite confident that what we are seeing
here this afternoon is a very marked improvement and a big
advancement towards the adaptation to weightlessness.
PAO Okay. Let's start with Don Fink.
QUERY Doctor are they still doing the head
exercises that they started yesterday?
HAWKINS Well, I don't have a positive report on
just how much of that they have accomplished. I have the
feeling that Owen has probably carried out a few more of them
than the other two crewmen have. Now, let me say this, that
with any movement and as they go about their work in moving
around turning of the head, these are all movements which
assist in adapting, so that they - I think they are aceompllsh-
ing the same thing as if they were really sitting still and
going through the head motions.
QUERY Doctor, over the alr-to-ground loop there
seems to have been a sort of reluctance on the crew's part to
talk about their condition. Have you had a lot of any kind
of long talk with them about it that we haven't heard?
HAWKINS No, not a thing. I came over last night
and gave you an update upon the private medical conference
that we had which was in toto.
PAO I think on the last pass the crew did
volunteer before the questions even arrived and they discussed
their condition ...
QUERY I missed that.
PAO Did you?
HAWKINS Yes, they gave a fairly good run down
today on two ocassions really, but there still, you know, some
bits and pieces you like to a)ways know more about. But
I
i,,,, II I,." Kc'I I I._ Iln:;I .
I'AO (}kay, AI.
QUERY Doctor, do you agree with AI Bean, his
(
assessment that the space walk is better off postponed until
Thursday?
SL-III PC 19A/2
_ Time: 16:51 CST, 21:51 GET
;/30/73

HAWKINS Yes, I agree with him. They're behind


with this activation and I was talking with the flight
director Just before coming over here, and I believe he told
me they have another 8 hours which they should accomplish
today and he doubts that they - really if they will be able
to get four of them in.

END OF TAPE
SL-II[ PCI9B/I
Time: 16:51 CDT
.... 7130/73

HAWKINS really whether they'll be able to


get four of them in. So they're behind and they've got to
get this out of the way. They've got to get the spacecraft
squared away before we can really get on with the EVAs or
with the experiments themselves. This Just has to be done.
And so it's a logical move.
QUERY You say they're showing marked improvement
in adaptation but this morning they were sounding as if they
felt actually worse than they had late yesterday. Now since
they've taken the scop/Dex todayl do you think maybe they're
Just feeling better because theytre under medication or do
you think they've actually improved in their adaptation.
HAWKINS Wellp I think the statement this morning
was that I don't recall a statement that they were worse
than they were yesterday. The statement to quote A1 Bean
was that Owen was about llke he was yesterday - yesterday
morning I believe was the words, which means that he was start-
ing off from about the same point. But he had not taken the
scopolamine/Dexedrine which had been prescribed if he was
in fact showing some symptomtol0gy, which tells me that he
was feeling better this morning, really.
PAO Bob Thomas?
QUERY Doctor, from what I could understand last
night, it seemed that Owen was in the best shape of the three
of them. Would you say that still holds or is AI, who's not
taking the medication now, better off.
HAWKINS Well, don't really know. I'm a little
bit confused at this time about Owen's taking the - if the
report I got later on that he had taken the scop/Dex later
in the day, whether that really meant that he was really
he took it because he began to feel more symptoms or whether
he took it just as a preventive measure. I Just don't know
at this point.
PAO Tom Belton?
QUERY Doctor, do you have any more theories
about why it is taking this long for them to adapt. Why
they're making - they seem to be making slow progress in
adapting.
HAWKINS Well, it's - here again, I think we're
really dealing with individual differences and susceptibilities
and I don't know how to explain this in any other way. There's
nothing I know of that would say - say that this was going to
happen - that you could predict it based on anything that they
did prior to the flight or didn't do prior to the flight.
The only thing I can say is it's an individual difference
and we have seen this - we have seen similar time periods in
Apollo with other crewmen, we've seen some in Apollo who took
longer than this, so I still donVt think that we're, you know,
we're completely out - extended beyond the time frame that
you might normally expect to encounter. The thing that's
interesting is that we do have all three of them- again,
to varying degrees here. I don't recall that we really had all
SL-III PCI9B/2
Time: 16:51 CDT
f_ 7/30/73

three crewmen in any previous mission. Two, yes.


PAO Let's have one more question and then
we'll switch to the Cape.
QUERY I'd heard that you'd been conferring with
a number of experts in vestibular problems around the country.
Have any of them been able to shed any light or help in any
way?
HAWKINS Well, I haven't made any recent inquiries
or had any talks with any of them recently. Not during this
mission as yet. So it's Just all from previous discussion
that we've had in - over the years.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, it seems that you prescribed
medicine for the astronauts and some take it and then some
don't and they seem to do it almost at random and then you
prescribe head movements and you go into some details of
explaining the theory behind them and then the crew shows no
interest. I'm kind of curious. Why do you think they tend
to ignore you?
HAWKINS Well, Mark, there's they, as individuals,
have some ideas about what they think and what they've devel-
oped over the time in carrying out some of these exercises
and there are varying opinions among some of the other astronauts
in the Corps and I think that they begin to get the inputs
from too many people.
QUERY In other words, am I right in assuming
that you feel that if this crew had paid more attention during
this flight as to what you told them to do, they'd be in
better shape now than they are.
HAWKINS Well, I don't know that they would be,
Mark. I think that very definitely, I feel the head movements
are a benefit in adapting to the weightless condition. We
do have some good, positive evidence from ground-based labora-
tory studies that show that this can be done. There is always
the open question whether the same thing really does apply
in zero gravity. I don't have any reasons to believe yet
that it wouldn't and - but I think that there is some indivi-
dual reluctance on the - maybe the part of the crew, especially
Jack who is - who has suffered more symptoms during this
mission and I guess he has the feeling really, you know, that
"Gee, my symptoms tell me that I'm not going to move my head.
and if I start moving it, I believe I might get sick." And
I guess maybe we just haven't really convinced him yet that
he - this is really what he ought to do.
QUERY Dr. Hawkins, I'm asking a simple question.
Do yon think that the crew is better off going about their
business, medically speaking, the way they simply chose to do,
than they would be if they had followed medical advice.
HAWKINS I don't think that they have really not

r
SL-III PC19B/3
s Time: 16:51 CDT
7/30/73
followed medical advice. We have given them some latitude
In - In the rate at which they approach this and I don't
th[llk that there has really been any violation of that. I
think that what they are doing is - and certainly the move-
ments that they are making are as effective as if they were
seated and going through the prescribed head movements which we
had proposed. It gives you the same results.
QUERY One final - Just one final follow, if
it gives you the same results to go about and Just do your
business, then why do you have the head movements planned in
the first place?
HAWKINS Because we proposed this as a means
whereby they could sit still and do it and not have to be
going about the activation phase if they in fact did not feel
up to that task.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-19-C/I
Time: 16:51 CDT
7_30_73

PAO We have no more questions from the Cape


and we have some more here? Abbey, you were late. Do you
have them?
PAO Have one more back here.
QUERY I know you mentioned yesterday_ that there
might he some psychological aspects here. What I - what I
was wondering is, since all three of them have it_ do you think
it is possible that a - that there is some kind of suggestion
one of the got sick and then talked about it and then the
others started becoming more aware of it. And it is Just
something that - that happen that way?
HAWKINS Wellj there's there is no question but
what - what you say - does exist and does influence people
who a - who a - observe another person - sea sick or motion
sick and a - and certainly if there is any - emphasis - the -
thls is - this is Just llke turning on the reflects
within within that in - that other individual whose observing.
This this has happened, but I think the a- I really don't
think that there is really any of this partlcularily and
we have not seen any - any of they - the vomiting in the other
two crewmen.
PAO Dons do you have one more.
HAWKINS Dr. Hawkins, how have they been eatlng_ today?
And how will the medical experiments be effected by the diet
that they have been - have been mantalnlng so far?
HAWKINS Well, the - I think they are eating better
today. Now I'd - I expected that this evening in the crew
status report that we are going to get a complete update on
the fluids and food, which is what A1 Bean told us a little
while ago. That they were trying to get this - really - a good
comprehensive report ready for the - for us this evening. Now
they realize that we are concerned about the about their intakes
and - and it definitely has an effect upon upon the food
study - the MITO series. Now Just exactly what, what it is
going to mean to us we - we certainly don't know. And we are
really going to know until we until we get all of the Infllght
samples back and we have a chance to put it all together and
see what this - this particular - variation, what impact it has.
SPEAKER We have one question submltteds Dr. Hawkins,
from Mary Bub. If the astronauts physical conditions does not
improve within a certain length of time, say one week_ will
any consideration be given to terminate the mission at an early
date?
HAWKINS Well, we haven't really faced - faced that
question yet, at all. I - I feel confident and optomlstlc
that we're - that they are going to make - the adjustment an
SL-III PC-19-C/2
Time: 16:51 GMT
f 7/30/73

HAWKINS adapt and be able to go right on into the


normal nominal flight plan. Obvlouslys if they were Ill and
we couldn't - couldn't curs them, then certainly they would
have to be some considerations given to terminate the mission.
If they were not able to preform.
SPEAKER Okay_ Dr. Hawklns_ Ladies and Gentlemenp
thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston _ Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
July 31, 1973
9:54 CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Donald R. Puddy, Flight Director


Milton E. Reim, PAO

PC-21

f
SL-III PC-21A/I
Time: 9:54 CDT
7/31/73

PAO We'll get started now with Flight Direc-


tor Don Puddy. Take it away, Don.
PUDDY Okay. Let me Just say to start off with,
that we had no new major anomolles during the night time
frame. I think you've been brought up to speed by Nell on
everything that occurred during yesterday. Our temperature
In the spacecraft is runnlng around 77 degrees in the sleep
compartment is a little blt lower than that, around 74.7 degrees.
We're still operating on the single cooling loop, so the
expected temperature decrease that I mentioned to you yesterday
still hasn't occurred. And be advised that that will also
be a fairly long term thing. If you remember when we did accomplish
that on Skylab If. We saw a drop usually in the temperature
during the night time frame. And then we Just never quite
regained back to thesame point during the daylight cycle. So
you can expect to see that over the next few days. We had
no TACS usage or any problems in that area. I think one of
the things that is of primary interest to you is to glve you
a little bit of a feel as to where we stand from the stand
point of flight plannlng. So let me give you an idea of
what we're planning on doing today and tomorrow. As you
are probably well aware, we're a little blt over a day behind
as far as what we had planned to do nominally during the
mission. And so today is a continuation of the activation
more or less a regroup session in order to let the crew
catch up on some of the paper work that wetve been sending
them from the stand point of checklist changes and things
llke that. Today's activation time frame is more or less
a collection of items from the day 2 and day 3 flight plans
that I'm sure you've seen published. Such things as the
02 sensor replacement, C02 filter replacement, the C02 sampllngD
installing the tape recorder, items of this nature, and I
can go into detail with any of you that want to after
the briefing as to any of the items that you would
like to hear about. So that's the plan for the day. I'm
not saying that it is an ambitious flight plan at all. _t's
not too ambitious, but I do think it wlll go a long way
towards finishing up the activation tlme llne. From the
standpoint of tomorrow, one of the key items that we've
got going of course is the beginning of our medical runs,
and we do presently have two of the M092, M171 runs scheduled
on two of the different crewmen. We also of course, before
we start those runs have to activate the biomed system.
We are beginning our EREP preparations by transferrln E the
film, and also by going into a start up on the S192 thermal
and optical channel alignments. If you remember back in
SL-III PC-21A/2
Time: 9:54 CDT
7131173

Skylab 2, we did tweak these up some. We have looked at


that data, and have determined that it isn't as optimum as
we'd like to have it. So we have a rather extensive set
of procedures that weirs going through in order to make
sure that we have the best possible alignment on the 192
electronic channels. We'll be starting that tomorrow and
_also doing the EREP checkout. We also have a fairly impor-
tant malfunction procedure. I think Nell probably briefed
you last night on the fact that we were having a problem
with the condensate system. This system of course is required
to give us adequate water removal from the cabin atmosphere.
And it's also something that does have an interface with
the EVA equipment in that if you don't have the proper
vacuum there3 you can run the risk, however slight it may
be, hut you can run the risk of getting some air into the
liquid cooled garming loop, the liquid cool garment that the
crew wears during the EVA, and therefore degrade their cooling.
Of course there is an alternate to that cooling by using
an increased 02 flow. But it is something that we don't
normally use as our procedure and we'd like not to if we
don't have to. So this is something that we would certainly
llke to get squared away before we attempt an EVA. We also
plan to begin tomorrow, as is presently scheduled anyway, at
least one pass of our manned ATM synoptic. This is using
the instruments that we presently still have film in, that's
S052, 54, and 55. And for Owen to go up and take a look at
the Sun. He's been kind of patiently walking back and forth
throughout that thing wondering when in the dickens we're
going to let him on the console. In fact, the last couple
of nights he's been up there telling us what we're doing.
So we decided tomorrow to give him a shot at it. Of course
until we do accomplish the EVA, we do not have a complete
full up ATM system. But we can accomplish a lot with the
experiments that we do have. Going a little further, and
let me mention here that we certainly are doing our flight
planning at this particular point in time on a day by day
basis. The crew is certainly - I think they are beginning
acclimate much in the same way that Pete mentioned he had
a little trouble acclimating the first few days. I think
this crew is running into the same type situation. I think
you have a fairly decent feel for the medical aspects of
it. We're Just more or less taking the flight plan on a
day by day basis, figuring out those things that we can put
in and then adjusting the flight plans on a real time basis
as is required. But looking ahead at day 6, we begin some
of the corollary experimentsj specifically S073. We also
SL-III PC-21A/3
Times 9z54 CDT
7/31/73

begin our M131 series. Another run on the M092, MITZ at


this point in time we will have completed one run, one med-
ical run, major medical run on each of the crewmen. Looking
at our S019 and finishing up our troubleshooting and align-
ment of the S192 EREP experiment. That's about as far as
we have gone as far as fairly gross over all flight planning.
And each of these flight plans that I talked about of course
will be worked out in more detail during the evening shifts.
The only other thing Z think I would llke to mention is that
the EVA is probably scheduled no earlier than Saturday. And
could be postponed beyond that time. And the rationale for
the EVA, as I mentioned to you yesterday the prime reason
for the EVA is to go ahead and get the S149 experiment mounted,
to go ahead and load up the other ATM cameras. And to go
ahead and put out the Marshall sall on top of the parasol.
None of these items are time critical. We'd like to start
on our full up ATM operations as soon as practical. But
there is a possibility that we would opt, assuming the weather
is very good to go ahead and take advantage of an EREP pass
that is available to us on day 7 rather than do the EVA. So
that item still has quite a bit of work left to do on it,
and we're Just going to have to keep you appraised as
we go there.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC21B/I
TIME: 09:54 CDT
7/31/73

PUDDY - Can't really think of anything else


that would be import - You might have heard on the loop,
or you might not have heard. Owen, this morning, decided
to take a look at the minnows, and sure enough he found
out they were, at least from all appearance, they were
disoriented. They all thought they were trying to swim
towards the surface, but they were heading straight down.
He was going to take them over to the window and let them
see a little Sun and see what that did for them, and I
left the Control Center before he had completed that portion
of it, so I really can't give you much information there.
The crew woke up this morning on time and seemed to be in
very good spirits and seemed to be ready to go for a
full day. So let's turn it over for questions at this time.
QUERY How many of the planned experiments
have the astronauts done so far, and does slipping the EVA
again influence what you had hoped to get done for the
mission? Do you feel you will be able to complete every-
thing that you had in the 59-day plan?
PUDDY No, I think you go to take a
look at the overall mission plan and you would certainly
have to say that there are certain things that probably
will not get done. The initial days were, of course, dedi-
cated towards activation and as a result there was not a
lot of experiment activities scheduled. We have slipped
into a time frame now, where we did plan to do some of the
experiments. A lot of the type experiments that we are
talking about, however, are some of the redundant medical
runs. Like dual MI31 runs on each crewman. We probably
will not accomplish those dual runs. We will probably
have some sort of a tradeoff on optimizing the 192 experi-
ment, possibly for an EREP pass. We have those type of
tradeoffs that we're trying to make. Our overall goal is
to try to get back on the nominal Flight Plan as rapidly
as possible, and we're looking at trying to do that in the
day-8, day-9 time frame. We do feel, however, that the
losses that we're going to suffer at this particular polnt
in time, are not significant, and w[l] not affect tlle
overall scientific gain that we expect l-rein the miss|on.
And as you're probably also well aware, during Skylab II,
we had several cases there where we had to insert activities
in that impacted the various experiment activities because
of the SEVA, the EVA to go out and deploy the wing and
everything, and if you'll remember, at the end of the
mission, the results on the experiments ranged anywhere
from 70 to 75 percent on up to 115 percent on a couple of
them. In other words, we got more done. And we do expect
SL III PC21B/2
TIME: 09:54 CDT
7131/73

with the longer time frame of this mission that some of the
runs that we might have to put off now, some of the 487
evaluations, you know, where the crew is giving their subjective
feel of the spacecraft, that type of thing, which you try to
do early in the mission, those things are not going to be
seriously impacted by a few days' delay. And as the crew
becomes more and more acclimated and more proficient in how
they accomplish their activities, we feel llke we're going
to regain a major portion of those items.
QUERY There's one thing on the EVA slipping
that I wish you would explain to me. Maybe my concept on
this thing is wrong, but I suddenly have the feeling that
the ATM has been clicking away unattended now for quite
some period of time and I'm wondering about some of those
cassettes running out of film if the EVA is delayed too
long, and you having to sacrifice something there.
PUDDY No, no, we still have some film. Also,
if you will remember, we did have some concern a few days
ago, when we lost the primary UP/DOWN gyro, and as a
consequence of that loss, we did delay for a period of
about, I believe it was about 5 days, accomplishing any of
the unmanned ATM operations. So, we have at least that 5 days
and even then, we had extra film. So, noj there is no
concern about running out of film on the three experiments
that we are running in this phase.
QUERY Don, I'm curious when the decision to
go on the EVA no earlier than Saturday was made, when yes-
terday evening we were still no earlier than Thursday. Was
this an emergency call overnight type thing? I mean, the
crew got it before wakeup time and we didn't really know
anything about it.
PUDDY No, I don't think it was any emergency
at all. In fact, I sat down last night with the mission
scientist and some of the ideas that he had come up with
as representative from the various Pls as to what was the
most optimum to try to aecomplish in the time frame, and
we looked at those items and Just said, well look, we're
really not convinced that everything is going to go Just
exactly as planned. In other words, some of these things
may take a little bit longer. We've come up with a couple
of anomalies, llke this condensate tank that we spent quite
a bit of time on yesterday and weren't really able to solve.
We had a star tracker, as you probably - Ne_l briefed you on
last night that the door on it stuck and we haven't quite
psyched all that one out yet. We've had a little concern
on the SO55 door. Finally got that operating perfectly wlth
two motors, late yesterday. A few of these things that we
SL III PC21B/3
TIME: 09:54 CDT
7/31/73

knew were going to crop up and they're going to crop up at


the beginning of the mission and the EVA is not just that
time critical, as I pointed out, so there was no emergency
at all. It just seemed to me like it was - I guess I
consciously did it and briefed management on it this morning
and got their concurrence that the thing that gave us the
most flexibility in long-range flight planning and last
minute changes, due to any systems problems that might
develop, was to go ahead and plan the EVA for a few days
downstream, because you do have certain items that you
have to get squared away before the EVA. And if you con-
tinually move those for a few hours, you have to slip some-
thing else a whole day. So what we did, was we looked at
that Flight Plan and it looked like to us that by moving
it down no earlier than Saturday, we would have most of the
systems problems worked out, the crew would certainly be
stabilized by that time frame and we would have the minimum
peoauration to the overall science objectives that we were
all trying to accomplish.
QUERY Well, we're looking at no earlier than
Saturday. Would it be at all surprising if we were like
next Tuesday or Wednesday?
PUDDY Wouldn't to me.
QUERY If you are going for the EVA on Saturday,
would it still be at 10:30 or is it conceivable that it
would be at any other time of the day? And my second
question, what is the health status of the crew? Do they
indicate anything, and are they in for a full days work, or
are they still going slow.
PUDDY I think - As far as the exact health
status of the crew, I really can't comment. The last report
of course, was the doctor's last night, and of course, you've
received that information through the medical bulletin. The
crew was up on - When we gave them the initial call this
morning, the crew was already up. Sounded chipper. Owen
was running around with his minnows, and the rest of them
seemed like they were moving right along, so we have no
reason to believe that they're not stabillzing and adapting
to the environment, and we have planned a rather soft day,
and they may elect on their own to speed it up. And that
we don't have any feel for, and probably won't until they
get into it.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-21-C/I
Time: 09:54 CDT
7131/73

PUDDY - - in adapting to the envlronment and


we have planned a rather soft day. And they may elect on
their own to speed it up. And that we dontt have any feel
for and probably won't until they get into it. I donVt know
if that answers your question but -
QUERY The EVA time?
PUDDY The EVA time, agalnj I think we're going
to have to walt a little further down stream. There is about
a 2-1/2 hour prep period, that we would llke to schedule in
addition to the nominal EVA prep for the crew to make their
last minute checks on the sail, put in some items that
have been carried up, some odds that have been carried
up for that particular sail, check - review their
procedures and thls type of thing. And this has always
been planned. Itts in your premlssion flight plan, I
believe on day 3 when we plan to do the EVA on day 4. And
it's just when, logically, we can sequence that thing in. I
still expect the EVA to be accomplished midmornln E. We do
expect to mount the TV camera outside and the other crewman
wlll be giving us selected TV sequences, depending on the
slte coverage. That will either be on the VTR or will be
down-llnked in real-tlme.
PAO Abbey.
QUERY Do you have any word about the spiders?
PUDDY About the spiders. No there's 2 of them
(chuckle) and ah - -
QUERY - - the spiders, you know, in their
cages, I mean dolng their thing?
PUDDY Noj I really haven't checked Into that
one extenslvely. And as far as I know, that experiment has
not yet been activated. What we would llke to do on that one,
is, and hopefully we're going to be able to accomplish it
today, is to let the first spider have hls chance. And - -
QUERY (Garble).
PUDDY Huh7
QUERY (Garble) activated spiders - -
PUDDY Well, they're in a vlal. And we release
them in a cage and there's - there's 2 vials. You've got
spider in a vlal and you got some water in a vlal. You let the
spider out, and of course, you hope itls going to spln its
web. And you give ita few days, and if that doesn't work
you decide that that spider's not going to do its thing and
you get the other spider out and give it a chance. And,
hopefully we are going to get started on that experiment
today. We usually allow, I believe the tlme frame on that's
about 7 days for them to spin the web. And if they don't
we try the other spider. And I think we're looking at something
$L-III PC-21-C/2
Time: 09:54 CDT
7/31/73

llke a maximum of a 20 day lifetime on the spider.


QUERY Don, you sald that you haven't had any
report, this morning, on their physical status, but thls has
been the big block to, you know, on unscheduled mission so
far. Aren't you concerned at all on how space sick they are?
PUDDY No, I think the doctors have more or
less given them the best routine to follow as far as any
motion sickness that they are experiencing and they are
free to go ahead with that treatment. And as long as they
sound cheerful and sound ready to bang into the task, we're
not going to push the point. They do have, of course, their
evening medical conference, where they'll report. And also,
I think you've got to realize that _ust like any other person,
when you get up in the morning, you know, you're ready to
have at them, and I don't really think you would expect
to experience much of this until miday after you've
started to put in a little bit of a workload. So, if they
are feeling a llttle rocky later today, and - they wlll
come down and tell us. We have operated with this crew on
strlckly a free exchange basis. They know that we're going
to say to them exactly what we feel and we know they're
going to tell us exactly how they feel. So, as far as
qulzlng them on it, no we're not pushing it.
QUERY Well, yesterday. You klnd of quizzed
them on it and they wouldn't answer you for a long time.
PUDDY We dld? Hum. Well, I wasn't there
during that shift, so I don't know exactly, what was sald
to them. So, I really can't answer that question. When I
was on yesterday morning, they - we said how's everything
going this morning and they said fine. And that was about
it. Thls morning they sounded bright and cheerful and that's
about all I can say.
QUERY Are they still taking scopeDex and
did they eat a full breakfast thls morning, do you know that?
PUDDY I cannot answer that question. I left
the control center before they'd actually started breakfast.
And I don't know whether they did, or whether they have
taken the scope/Dex or not.
PAO Any more questions? Okay. Thank you
very much.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
JULY 31, 1973
4:10 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Milt Windier - Flight Director


Dr. George Armstrong, Flight Surgeon
Jim Kukowski - PAO

PC-22
SI,-III PC. 22A/I
Time: 16:09 CST
_ 7/31/73

PAO Will it be here ...


PAO Ready, ready, all right. Milt Windier,
Flight Director is here for this briefing; Dr. Armstrong,
Flight Surgeon was scheduled to be here he may be about
5 minutes late. So we'll start off with you Milt, if you want
to make a brief summation of what's been going on.
WINDLER Well I we had a kind of mixed day today
I guess we didn't do as good as I really thought we would do
starting off however we did do what the flight plan for today
called for which was to - or we think we will have done it by
the time another hour or two goes by, which was to finish
the activation checklist on the spacecraft. The crew, I
thought sounded real good when they got up this morning. I
haven't had a chance to talk with them very much in the
previous shifts that I was on and I guess what I found out
they responded about like they've been responding. That is,
they get up in the morning they feel pretty good and I guess
as they go toward lunch it - maybe like a dentist appointment
or something you don't know exactly how to approach it and
as they indicated over the air to ground, they didn't know
whether to go ahead and eat because that was the thing to do
to keep up their strength or whether they should do what they
felt like doing which was not eat very much. And I guess
that's a similar problem. The Doctor will probably be here and
_ give you about 15 long words that - tell you what all that
means in medical talk but I know it's a problem that I have
some times. I never know whether I feel bad because I haven't
eaten and I ought to start eating or whether I feel bad because I
still got a stomach virus or something like that; I guess that's
the situation that they've been in but I thought that they
sounded pretty good in fact they continued to sound relatively
good all day. They didn't - well as I said they did what
the flight plan called for which was I didn't think a very
rigorous day, but probably perhaps better than what we have
been able to do in the past. We expect tomorrow to be able
to start into the medical run. We plan to do the rotating
chair (chuckle) experiment without the rotating chair. I mean
the first time around (laughter) - It sounds kind of funny,
they call it mock rotation. I don't know, it's sort of like
a cockpit check; I guess you can say they just sit in it and
do the head motions but they don't move the chair and they
plan to do that on two of the crewmen; the SPT and PLT
and also to get an M092 run in. So the day and then another
part of the day will be involved with looking at the EREP
equipment as you're probably aware there's some concern
about the alignment on the EREP instruments. And about
three of the channels I believe are not quite aligned and
it is causing some degradation in the 192 data - a fairly
complex instrument that looks at a multitude of different
spectrum and it's pretty important to try to get that tweaked
J_ back up if we can so we plan to spend a number of hours
SL-III PC 22A/2
._ Time: 16:09 CST
7/31/73

probably around 5 or 6 working on it of which they maybe


around 3 of those accomplished tomorrow or 2 or some number
like that. So it's sort of an ongoing type thing it - that
we'll be doing for - over a 2- or 3-day period or as we can
get it in. And I guess that you might say starts the Skylab
off. We do think the crew got some exercise today - two of them
did and they said Jack was going to try SO I think they're
probably getting back into what iS a more normal mode of
operation and I'm sure we are going to see them getting better
accustomed to the spacecraft. We're having a little bit
of movlng-ln pains, I guess you'd say. Since one group of
people - you know stowed all these hundreds of items and
another group now is trying to find them all and I think that
the guys that are responsible for the stowage do very well
at keeping track of that and they have been able to come up with
answers to most of the questions there have been a couple
that we haven't been able to answer and we - does in itself
slow things down a little bit to have to look around and find
things. I know - use another personal example; I seem to spend
half my time in my garage trying to find my tools as
opposed to actually working them. I guess I'm not a very orderly
(chuckle) now I can't blame it on my wife or my kids even - It's
me, I think. I blame them anyway, but I shouldn't. But they
_-- are having that kind of problem and as they get you know -
more used to where things are stowed and start using them - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-22-B/I
Time: 16:09 CDT
7/31/73

WINDLER I blame them anyway, but I shouldn't. But


they are having that kind of problem and as they get more used
to where things are stowed and start using them themselves and
putting them away and putting them in a place that is - a little
more convenient for them and that will go qu - faster, also.
So that is about where we are now.
QUERY Could you explain this problem in that same
#.._

PAO Wait. Do you want to give - Wait for the


mike, there.
WINDLER Okay a - I almost forgot to mention that
we didn't really do anything on that today, it's a falrly compli-
cated system which essentially applies a vacuum across a -
a series of plates and sort of sucks off the you might call it
siphons off the moisture that - that is in the air and reduces
the yeah, eliminates the moisture maybe a - a little bit of
the way that the moisture condenses across your air conditioner,
except in this case, it is drawn off by the vacuum. Now we
had some trouble with it in the Skylab 2 as you know during
the EVA a - the pressure differential which is normally around
5 psi dropped off indicating that for some reason we had lost
our vacuum - our - our pulling power to separate the water.
And when we went back and tried to - to investigate that problem
we did it on 2 or 3 different occasions and got actually some
- different answers and different responses each time, perhaps
indicating that some of the fittings - there are some quick
disconnects that - that may have not a - when the plumbing was
pulled out of the fitting that the - the disconnect may not
have sealed off and that may be still happening to us because
yesterday they tried the the fluid goes into a small tank and
then into a larger tank and it isolated the small tank which
has a vacuum on it and it leaked and it went down to zero differential
pressure. But last night - over the night it had about a
2 pounds per square inch pressure differential on it and it
stayed all night long. So here again - you know - it's a -
a very strange sort of circumstances. Plus the plumbing is
scattered or kind of spread over the spacecraft and it is
very likely that a - perhaps we you know - going through the
procedures the crew may have missed a fitting or we have over-
looked something in the ground. And the large tank - the main
holding tank is a - also had a - a loss of pressure, the - lost
it's vacuum, I guess is the right way to say it over the night
and we were looking at the - some of the things that were in the
transcript from yesterday and there is some chance we may have
actually taken all of the water off this set of plates I was
talking about and when you take the water out it lets the gas
go through and the air - the vacuum all dlsappears that way.
SL-III PC-22-B/2
Time: 16:09 CDT
7/31/73

WINDLER It's important that you have this ability


of the water - surface tension of the water to hold back the
air to keep it from - from going away. And it may have been
Just the plates dried out and let the - had a break through
as they call it, and let the air disappear, or a - let the
vacuum disappear. So tomorrow one of the things we will be
doing is res - being sure that the plates are reservieed and
if they are wetted properly and start the a - the procedure
over again and it will - it is hard to say which exactly how
it will turn out of course until we see but there is certainly
one possibility that we could go through the whole
thin E and get all reconnected and it - it may hold pressure
this next time.
PAO Okay Wil -
WINDLER I know it is not I wish I knew what the
answer was.
PAO Brinner. Wait for the mike.
QUERY Do you have any estimate on when they are
going to do the ED52 and when we can expect the TV on it?
WINDLER Well, lets see, refresh my memory. IS that
the spider or the plants?
QUERY Spider.
WINDLER Okay, that's the spider, I got them confused
today which one was the plants and spider. They tell me that
the spider when it hungry starts spinning the web so I guess
they activated it today and I'm not sure bow lon E it takes it
to get hungry, so I guess I can't really answer your question
other than it has been activated. So that process is started.
Incidentally, I didn't tell them anything about the crew's
condition today or anything else. I'ii let you do that.
ARMSTRONG Okay.
PAO Milt, you said you had to get back fairly soon?
WINDLER Yes. I'd llke to - -
PAO Okay, go ahead, Fred.
QUERY This will be quick. What do you mean by
activating? Do you turn the loose loss inside the -
WINDLER That's what I understand, I guess I didn't - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-22C/1
Time: 16:09 CUT
7/31/73

PAO GO ahead, Fred.


QUERY This will be quick. What do you mean
by activating? You turn the spider loose inside the - -
WINDLER That's what I understand. I guess I
didn't ask that particular question, hut it comes in a little
I don't know what you want to call it, a little tube-llke
affair that they open up and let it get out.
PAO All right. Go ahead.
QUERY When will we firm up the EVA definitely?
WINDLER Well, if you reviewed the air-to-ground -
probably if you've listened to it - The crew was very con-
cerned about the EVA because they have been thinking it
was going to be on day 6 and they were concerned that they
would not be ready to do the EVA properly. And I think they
were obviously very very pleased when we talked about day 8.
There's no intention, though, to try to rush the crew into
the EVA. We want to be sure that the crew is feels llke
that they're ready to properly handle those procedures, and
we certainly don't want to do it before they feel llke that
they are physically well able to do it. And just of course
that remains to be seen, but I kind of feel llke they're
on the upswing, and I think day 8 is probably a reasonable
target date. And I would guess in the next couple of days
we'd find that date firmed up to answer your questions speci-
fically.
PAO Question over here, then we'll go back
to John.
QUERY How much are you not getting from the
ATM instruments that have to have the film replaced on the
EVA each time you delay another day?
WINDLER Well, one of the big things in the ATM
is a desire to get a synoptic of the Sun, which is, as you
know, probably is a reading every 12 hours. And they'd
like to have this over a whole rotational period of the Sun.
And we are missing that with the instruments that take the
film, of course. However, the SO55 has got a very good
electronic capability for taking data and converting it into -
essentially into the same kind of form pictures. Or use
for analysis, and we are getting data on the S055. And,
you know, I'd - it's hard to really - so we're getting a
partial synoptic, but certainly we're losing something by
not having a full range. I thought we were in a quiet Sun
period. Before I left last Sunday they were showing me
how few active regions we had on the Sun. And then I found
out that they had a little eruption, or whatever it was.
And so, we did miss that of course. Well, the crew wouldn't
have been - even if we'd been planning on doing the EVA
they still wouldn't have gotten it. But we could have got-
ten it unmanned.
SL-III PC-22C/2
Time : 16:09 CDT
7131173

PAO John Wilfred.


QUERY I saw something in the transcript in
discussing the EVA that therets one possible conflict. An
EREP activity over the weekend. I gather - is that that
Gulf fishing exercise? Two parts of the question: Would that
impact the EVA- -
WINDLER - - I don't know anything about what
you Just said. I'm sorry.
QUERY Okay.
WINDLER The I don't - there is a desire - as
you're probably aware, the best United States passes come
early in the mission, and then some more come up real late.
So it - we - you know, if the crew felt like it I suppose
one possiblity might be to delay the EVA if they don't feel
like they can do thatp but they might feel like that they
might want to do an EREP pass, so day 7 might be a good day
to do something llke that. But that's - you know, several
options and we don't exactly how it will turn out yet until
we see how the crew feels. I don't really know.
QUERY If the PAO was to be believed - there's
a press release out about how all the fishing fleets of the
Gulf of Mexico are going to be out, and there's going to
be one boat in the middle and they're going to target on
the EREP is going to target on that and learn something
about temperatures and salinity and that sort of sweet stuff.
And I Just wondered - the second part of the question is
- beside the EVA - the second part is_ will the EREP be
ready for that? You talked about it's not quite tuned up
of something.
WINDLER Well, you have me there. I really
wasn't aware of that coordinated effort on the water. I
know we've talked about looking at some of the type activi-
ties off the coast of Africa. My guess is though, it gen-
erally speaking you know, that boats and everything can
wait around for a day or two until the weather conditions
are right. And the second part though - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 22D/I
Time: 16:09 CST
7/31/73

WINDLER - I say, oh generally speaking, you know that


bolts and everything can walt around for a day or two until
the weather conditions are right. The second part is that
the EREP the way it is now does put a useful date of course.
All of the photographic instruments work the S193 and the
194 work so the instrument that we're talking about is this
Multispectral Scanner and the majority of the channels do
work in that there are only three of the 24 that are bad
and the chances are - the has is practiced with this mal-
function procedure or working on the alignment I should
say and they are very confident that they will at least get
it you know if though they worked with it some they'll be
able to get it back to the same condition that it's in now.
If not they fully expect to be able to make it better so I
don't think that you know well - we may take a little extra
time in here which may have some effect when we can do our
first EREP pass.
PAO John, hat is out there at the desk and
we'll try and fill you in on that as soon as possible.
Get us on the query desk there and we'll try and answer that
for you. Milt, we have a couple of questions that
have been phoned in here. Mary Bub wants to know what have
the astronauts accomplished today in the experiments area-
I think you answered that. Another question from Tom Logan
Easy Reader out on the west coast press directed to the Flight
Director. How often is the tracking network tested during
flight. And also, during Apollo, comm tech could often be heard
checking in with CAP COMM, why not on Skylab?
WINDLER Well, the comm tech was up on the net today
They normaly do their checking before the station has
acquisition so I really don't know what he's referring to
on this Skylab except that we used to do some checks as the
spacecraft came out from behind the Moon and that may be what
he has reference to. We don't - we do that now you know before
they get to the ground station. Say it's Carnarvon, why
they would check before the spacecraft actually got there
so you probably wouldn't hear it. And as far as tested, of course,
they are tested every day. I guess I'm not quite sure exactly
what the intent of his question is there. The basic test
though is in their performance.
SPEAKER Right. Comes right out of Goddard every day
and there's not too much time left between testing and - -
WINDLER No we use each site about three times a day
so that's you know 5 or 6 hours or so a day right there.
PAO All right. Cris Kimsell, Gardina Valley
News : Is the present gyro problem due to bubbles in the gyro
fluid? Second part of the question: How do the bubbles
in the fluid cause drift?

i--
SL-|II I'C 22D/2
Time: 16:09 CST
7/31/73

WINDLER Well there are several theories about


what the gyro problems are. One of them is that there are
bubbles in the fluid and of course the gyro is designed -
and when I tell you this I'll tell you about all that I know
about them - but they are designed to work in a constant
density, I guess you'd call it - fluid, and when you have a bubble
in there why as this bubble gets, you might say caught up in the
mechanism, it confuses it, causing it to oscillate. Other theories
about what causes gyro problems: there is a theory that the heaters
are on causing higher temperatures which might have a adverse
effect on it. Certainly the ones that have given us trouble are
the ones whose temperatures are high. And then there are some
theories about the motors in the gyros themselves that spin
the rotors I might have some malfunction with them.
PAO Let's go to Dr. George Armstrong,
Flight Surgeon. Do you have a - anything you want to say right
now or you want to open up questions.
ARMSTRONG Well Milt said they were on the upstream.
I've heard it expressed other ways today that they are over
the hill and that they are around the curve and I think we have
a crew and we have a mission; they're still moving a little
slower. They're not, I guess as Daniel Boone described it,
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed yet, but they're not feeling bad
and they're functioning. And I think all of us are very
enthusiastic and very encouraged by what we've seen and have
_- heard today.
PAO Questions here? I've got some written
question - John? Wait for the mike.
QUERY Have they taken any of the -
ARMSTRONG Scopolamlne/Dexedrlne today?
QUERY Yes.
ARMSTRONG No, sir.
QUERY Have they taken any other medication today?

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-22E/1
Time: 6:09 CDT
7/31/73

PAO John. Wait for the mike.


QUERY Have they taken any of the - -
SPEAKER Scopolamine/Dexedrine today? No sir.
QUERY Itave they taken any other medication
today?
ARMSTRONG Not today, sir.
QUERY Is any being prescribed maybe before
during the evening?
ARMSTRONG No. I don't anticipate any medications
at all being prescribed. They have a standing sort of - like
a - take in case of pain type of order that you might leave in
hospitals that if they do feel nauseated or stomach aware-
ness or motion sickness - that they do take scopolamine/Dexe-
drine, and they have a definite regimen that they would take
it.
QUERY Would you say that all three crewmen
ate square meals today - three square meals?
ARMSTRONG I would say all three crewmen ate today.
How square or round or trapezoidal it was - I don't really
know. They are not up on their feed. They are eating less.
It's pretty muchly as you and I would be if we were motion
sick. I commented to somebody today that I've been motion
sick twice in my life, or approached it twice in my llfe,
and once was on the fantail of a cruiser. The other time
was riding a camel in the Sahari Desert. And I didn't
want to eat too much on either occasion either.
QUERY This question has been asked before and
it's been answered somewhat before, but I was just wondering
if there's been any new thinking as to why this crew - all
three of them, has had so much trouble, whereas Skylab-I
crew had - in fact they were bragging about how they were
acclimating so quickly in their environment.
ARMSTRONG I think all was - -
QUERY In previous Apollos I think - at no
time did all three men get sick. I'm not sure of that but

ARMSTRONG Well all three on past occasions and


almost every occasion have had some degree of stomach
awareness or some degree of vertigo, or some degree of not
being real hungry early in the mission. It's always taken
though you know, varyng depths with the individual and
to varying degrees. I'd guess that - I would llke to approach
your question like this if I might. That this is something
that all of us here have been asking ourselves over and
over. It's something that we've been looking indepth into
to try to identify differences between the men - between
their reactions. The things we do know about them, the
SL-III PC-22E/2
,_ Time: 16:09 CDT
7/31/73

studies that we've made upon them - between the missions


and the conditions of the missions. And we're doing the
same thing you are - so - looking at differences and trying
to put some thoughts or theory together_ but as yet, I - we
dontt have anything that would really hold water,
QUERY I think that the only thing that Dr.
Hawkins has come up with is that perhaps these guys went
in too fast and were moved around too much too fast.
ARMSTRONG Yes, that is - -
QUERY I was wondering if there are any other
things that - -
ARMSTRONG That is one of the major differences
outside of the fact that you have three different individuals.
And the fact that they - I think the Skylab-ll crew spent the first
night in the command module and moved slower into the work-
shop. This crew rendezvoused, and within 24 hours were
actually within the workshop and sleeping. So, that is
a difference. Yes sir.
QUERY Dr., based on your experiences with
SL-III. Are you going to recommend any changes in proce-
dures for SL-IV? Are you going to recommend that - -
ARMSTRONG At this point in time_ no. I don't -
you know we have three that did well, and then
three that were sort of woozy and - so_ I don't think
we have grounds to establish any drastic changes in - either
than the mission.
PAO I have a three-patter from Mary Bub
over at the Cape. It's been answered partially in some_
Doctor, so we'll read them quickly and you can make a re-
mark on it. Are the doctors alarmed by the lack of sub-
stantial improvement in the astronauts' health?
ARMSTRONG I think we're enthusiastic by the im-
provement that we've seen today.
PAO Question two. If the astronauts had
taken scop/Dex daily, do the doctors think the astronauts
would be feeling better?
ARMSTRONG I don't think - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-22-F/I
Time: 16:09 CDT
"_ 7/31/73

QUERY - - the astronauts will be feeling better?


ARMSTRONG I dontt think that question really has
an answer or I don't think that Itm really capable of answering
it. It would be Just sure conjecture on my part as to
whether I thought they would or they wouldn't.
ARMSTRONG Yes, not quite but - perhaps they would
have and perhaps they would have less symtoms, hut perhaps
they would not have adapted as fast.
PAO Final question, what's going to recommended
about eating in regards to Commander EeanVs comments today?
ARMSTRONG As I recall, his comments were that
the real times of tests are at will be at lunch and then
at dinner and that we do very well until we get up to
mealtime, and then if we eat then we don't feel so well and
it takes about an hour until we feel better. Right at the
present time when I left, we had a group of people including
some physicians and our food people looking specifically at
the diet and particularly what was on the menu for this evening.
I don't know exactly what their recommendations will be but
I think it will probably be that - yes, one shouldn't
stuff oneself, one should sort of pamper your appetite and
your stomach if you would until you get over this feeling
of motion sickness. I think we will recommend specific
items they should eat unless these make them more aware or
more feeling of feeling bad to maintain their nutrition,
but we won't recommend that they try to keep up with the
eating the complete diet until they do get on top of this thing
and feel better.
PAO Do you want to - Okay we will have two more
questions here and - -
QUERY Doctor, do you expect that this feel of
uneasiness as meal time approaches is anything other than
psychological? Do you think that it is - -
ARMSTRONG I think it is motion slcknes and I don't
know whether l'd care to try to psyche out how much of a
motion of - how much of a motion sickness is psychological
and how much of it is physical. But I think in this instance
and what we have seen here that it is physical, and we do
know that it - it has a - a physical cause in weightlessness
and the fact that the vestibular apparatus does depend upon
gravity here on Earth. And it is a gravity sensitive organ system
if you will, and we sort of bumped it a little bit by
weightlessness and it's reacting to it. And it think that
in this instance that it is indeed physical.
SL-III PC-22-F/2
Time: 16:09 CDT
,._ 7/31/73

PAO Question over here from Dave. Your last


answer Doctor_ Just answered Brian Webb of the Grlfflth Observer
on his question from the west coast. So Dave do you want
to wrap it up here.
QUERY Doctor, yesterday Doctor Hawkins - I think
it was yesterday that he said you weren't outside of the
range of time that we might normally expect from previous
experience for this motion sickness to hang on. I was just
wonderlng_ in Apollo, what was the - in our previous experience
what is the longest time thls kind of feeling has hung on?
ARMSTRONG I don't remember exactly, but best I could
recollect it ran from 3-1/2 to 4 days about the longest, and
I think in a few individuals and on occasion they had a little
bit of stomach awareness not a - not a (garble) vertigo
or nausea or anything llke that at intervals throughout
the mission. So it's sort of still within what we have seen
in some indlviduals.
PAO Okay, I guess that's it. This is the
flnally news briefing for today, thank you.

END OF TAPE

,/
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 1, 1973
9:10 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Charles R. Lewis, Flight Director


Milton E. Relm, PAO

PC-23
SL-III PC-23A/1
Timel 09:10 CDT
811173

PAO Once again, we'll start over with a


morning change of shift briefing with Flight Director
Chuck Lewis. Go ahead, Chuck.
LEWIS I guess, Neal must have said something
last night about Channel B problem on our - for our voice
record onboard. We have a failure, apparently, sometime
yesterday in the - somewhere in the interface between the
intercom and the tape recorder, that records the voice.
Now we have two channels in the intercom, we have Channel B
and Channel A. We normally configure to use Channel B -
the crew uses channel B to record on recorders. Channel A
they normally use for intercom and air - real time air-ground.
So we're merely going to switch the two. We'll go to
Channel A for recording and Channel B for real time. No
impact. I thought maybe Neal had mentioned that since somebody
said Channel B. Okay. The ED52 experiment, the spider in the web,
there is a malfunction somewhere in that system. And basically,
the malfunction doesn't allow the electronic sensing unit,
that senses spider motion to trigger the camera and light for
photography. And the crew, yesterday, ran a malf procedure
on that with no success, and we're now looking at further
trouble shooting procedures, and try to fix that problem.
If we can't fix that specific problem, we can still run an
experiment with 35-millimeter still shots. Pardon? The
spider? I'm not real familiar with the experiment. I
think they've released the spider from - It must - It's been
released and there's - it can survive in this mode for several
days. There's no rush on trying to get the fix in on the
camera. Other than that, we've laid out the flight plan
for day 6, and very basically that consisted of concluding
the EREP preparation, which includes time for the additlonal
trouble shooting on $192 alinement, plus an alinement.
We've got two MO92/171 runs scheduled, which will then
give us one run each, on each of the crewmen before the EVA.
The EVA, we're planning now, day 8. Day 7, a crew day off.
And I think the crew wants part of that day off for EVA
prep. I think they want to do some work on the sail. That's
basically about it, in summary.
PAO Okay. We'll start with questions here,
with Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Chuck, on the EVA prep for one thing.
Did I understand something about bringing one of the sails
down from Marshall to work with the crew on? The guys over
in the MOCR to workwhen the crew's pulling theirs out and
looking at it? Did I hear something about that yesterday?
LEWIS Gee, I don't know. I haven't heard
anything about it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they
wouldn't do that. Milt Windler is the - He's on during the
SL-III PC 23A/2
Time: 09:10 CDT
g/1/73

day. And he is the EVA flight director, and he may have


/_ worked something up. He, or some of the crew, Capcom and
/ so forth. I really don't know.
QUERY Are they doing a 92/171 run today?
LEWIS They're doing one today. And I don't
recall which crewmen. And theytre doing two tomorrow. There
will be one on each of themt today and tomorrow - total.
QUERY I take it that you haven't had any
report on what the spider is doing in the cage?
LEWIS No, I didn't really get into that too
much. This happened yesterday during the execute shift -
early evening, and I Just noted the problem. That's as
far as I looked into it.
QUERY Well, you made mention that the spider
can survive in that mode for several days. Are you tellln g us
that, without the lights and all that, that the splder_s
doomed?
LEWIS Well, eventually, the spider's doomed,
I believe, the way -
QUERY Well I mean - -
LEWIS No, I think - I1m not sure how they feed
or care for the spider. Now ifWs been released, as I
understand it, I'm not familiar with the hardware in the way
they have him packaged or stowed. But, as I understand it,
he was released and that in the present configuration, that
the spider can survive 15 or 20 days. So, as I said, there's
no rush to try to, you know, get into immediate trouble-
shooting procedures underway to save that experiment.
f QUERY I thought you were talking about i or
2 days.
LEWIS No.
PAO Any more questions? All right. That's
the end of our brief briefing. Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 1, 1973
4:53 P.M. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

MILT WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


BOB GORDON, PAO

PC-24
SL-III PC24A/i
Time: 16:53 CDT
,- 8/1/73

" PAO Ladies and gentlemen, we have Mr. Milt Windler,


Flight Director. e'll have Dr. Paul Buchanan - he's on his
way over. We'll start with Mr. Windler and give summary of
change-of-shlft here.
WIHDLER Okay, well, I think - of course, there
was another noticeable improvement in the crew today, as you are
probably already aware of. They continue to get feeling better
and move around a whole lot better as the days go on. I
think we got one, one small problem that we need to get behind
us. It has to do with the hardware, but I think, other than
that, it looks llke we can see the sunshine on the other side
of the clouds here. After we get past the EVA, I think we'll
be in good shape. The big problem that we have now is - is
in this condensate tank. It - someone was asking me about it
last night. And of course, that's the system that removes
the water from the spacecraft, nd I guess we know, we know
a lot more about it than we did yesterday. But it's not
necessarily very good. Apparently we have some, some leak
which is in a part of the system, I guess part of the plumbing
that's, that's common. And it's goes to all of the - you
know we have 3 or 4 of these separator plates, 4 sets of them.
And unfortunately this leak appears to he in the common plumb-
ing that goes between all of these. However, the rate appears
to vary somewhat. The - the - today it's less than it appeared
__ to be yesterday, or the day before I should say when some
activity went on in that area. And what we plan to do now,
in fact, what we've told the crew and they're doing, I guess
now, during this LOS period is going ahead and connecting
it up. One of these 4 sets, the one that we thing the best,
they're connecting it up to the vacuum tank and we're going
to see how long it takes. We will be removing water and
which we've built up a fair amount of. We will be removing
water and watching how often or how long it takes the pressure
to drop off in the vacuum tank, or the vacuum to drop off.
And there are several options we have there, one of which
we can, every day or so, we can reservice the tank which would
not be an untolerable thing. It would take us a few minutes
a day that we don't normally have to do. Or we still have
the option of tracking down the leak and the crew does have
some (laughter) some bubble gum on board - some putty of some
sort that they can use to fix the leak. Of course, the pres-
sure's not very great across it and if we could ever find it,
I'm sure we can probably fix it. So, we're not through doing
the work on that, but we'll know some more again tomorrow after we
have a chance to see how the - how this operation with one water
separator works on the - on the large tank. Back to the crew,
they're probably somewhat behind today, although they did have
SL-III PC24A/2
Time: 16:53 CDT
8/l/73

a pretty full day. And I think that's progress that they -


that they've done so well. They've had a bunch of small
problems that you're aware of. On the biomedical calibration,
when they went to calibrate the metabolic analyzer, they had
some trouble with one of the valves. But, Owen Garrlott re-
ported, he on the last pass, was able to get a calibrated
okay. It seemed to work fine. Appearently inside of it is
sticking. And it's free now. And so, they're pressing on
with the first M092-171 run. And we have some more of these
scheduled tomorrow. We did two 131s today and we'll do
another one tomorrow - do a couple more tomorrow as a matter
of fact. In fact starts the chair rotating. So, we - we're
getting on into the experiment operations, we hope tomorrow.
to power up the ATM console in a man mode, but not full
up, of course, since we don't have all the film put back in.
We haven't done EVA. I guess, I don't know whether it's been
announced or not, but the crew told us, that they think
day 8's a good day to try to do the EVA. They used the
word "perfect." Assuming I think a certain implication there,
they felt that their strength would be back by then and they'd
really be up to full speed. In fact, we asked them what they -
if they'd like to do anything on their day off and we gave
them a shopping list of I think about 4 things. And they came
back and said they'd llke to do all of those. So, we are
going ahead and planning an EREP pass for day 7, the normal crew
-- day off. Plan - -

END OF TAPE
/I I i
f I

SL-III PC24B/I
Time: 16:53 CDT
811173

WINDLEP. I think about four things and they came


hack and said yea, they would llke to do all of those. So
we are going ahead and planning an EREP pass for day 7 the
normal crew day off. Planning to allow them a fair amount
of time at least a couple of hours so all of them together
can look at the Marshall twin beam sail and also amount of
time to get EVA equipment together which is sort of standard
and around that they'll get a chance to try to shower and
also each one of them will get a chance to do - we hope
to be able to work this out so each one of them will
get a chance to work some on the ATM console and work with
the SO19. So they are they volunteered to do this and I
think they sounded pretty enthusiastic about it and if you
haven't seen the TV of them eating lunch I was pretty impressed
by that. I thought they were rushed since they were Just
a little behind when they were eating it. I think at that
time we were getting it they were within about 5 or i0 min-
utes of the end of the meal and they appeared you know not
to be that far along. So I imagine they were kind of of eating
on the run but they looked like they were enjoying it pretty
good in fact you probably heard a comment that Jack, he was
everybody else was moving off and doing things and Jack
was eating right along there. And I - but I guess he's got
a lot to catch up on.
WINDLER But - that's about where we are and I
think that - the - they are really getting settled down and
we are going to be able to ! think make the flight plans
probably from here on in.
PAO Okay, please wait. John? Okay.
QUERY On the condensate problem does this mean
that things are getting rather humid in the spacecraft
(garble) and they're not - -
WINDLER Humid and warm both. I believe it's
gone up a couple degress since earlier this morning. I
hate to say since this morning it's gone up a little over
2 degrees and I'm not sure whether that's from yesterday
when we turned some more of the fans off or just since this
morning. But it's up now somewhere pretty close to 80 degrees
I believe .
QUERY Okay, could you explain how you would
reserviced the tank?
WlNDLER Well, you open it up and expose it to
the vacuum again and dump the water overboard.
QUERY At this stage -
WINDLER And the vacuum gradually leaks so that's
our problem, it won't hold the vacuum.
QUERY With this tank this is the tank that
collect the water out of the atsmophere in the space station
is that it ?
SL-III PC24B/2
Time: 16:53 CDT
811173

WINDLER Yes, it is.


WINDLER Yes, right. This is the larger
tank that I'm referring to. Of the two.
QUERY Where does that water go later? Is it
purged - -
WINDLER It's dumped overboard.
QUERY And then when you reservlce you Just purge
the tank and re - pressure re - recreate the vacuum.
WINDLER That's affirmative.
PAO Pred.
WINDLER You're doing good I'm- -
SPEAKER A lot better than me.
WINDLER Take me a long- long (chuckle) a long
time to get that far.
SPEAKER That's as far - -
QUERY Does this you think the problems in the
plumbing - does this mean that you can't as you thought before
solve this by putting in the new tank?
WINDLER That's correct.
QUERY Okay, and also why is it - -
WINDLER That's the way we see it now. Now I
have to admit that we're a long way from completely understand-
ing the symptoms that we observed but the times that we have
put this smaller tank on - I think you are referring to that
we originally had suspected the leak and the times when we
really carefully isolated it has helped pressure. So I
suspect that the times before that it appeared to leak we
probably still had a connection made that we didn't realise.
These - the plumbing runs all of the place. It's a different
part of the spacecraft and it's real hard to be sure - even
on the diagrams that you've done all of the right things plus
the crew could hae in advertently had left one in I think
on that two or three days ago when they were working through
it and they were just fresh in the spacecraft plus they didn't
feel real good either. But today we carefully went through
it and I think we - we are certain that the small condensate
module is not leaking in itself in a way it is unfortunate
because we could have replaced that but the lines that are
apparently leaking are the - you might call them the collector
lines that are common to the other parts of the system.
QUERY One more. Why is it getting warmer?
WINDLER Well, because we got the heat exchangers
off and we're not - two reasons we're not circulating the air
over the cooling plates that normally you know transfer the - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC24C/I
Time: 16:53 CDT
811173

WINDLER - - not two reasons we're not circulating the


air over the cooling plates that normally, you know, transfer
the heat out to space. Plus, the humidity's going up, which
doesn't make it get warmer, but makes it more uncomfortable.
QUERY (garble)
WINDLER Well, because that if it - if the humidity's
up so high, that the air - the moist air that we have in there
now flowing over them, would cause water to condense in these
places. This, this is not the water separator now. But this
just in the cooling part of the air, which is normally intended
to run dry. And we don't want that to fill up with water
because it would be a - would take us a long while to get
that dried out. So we're trying to avoid that.
QUERY What is the humidity - humidity reading
in the spacecraft now? That's one question. I have another one.
WINDLER I guess I don't know the answer to that.
The dew point, and I didn't eve r look at it when I left today.
It was up around 52 or 53 arid the temperature is somewhere up
in the high 70's. Dependent on where you measure it, whatever
that is.
QUERY They're better off in there ...
WINDLER They may be. Well, probably better off
than we are inside, anyway.
QUERY Well, Don Puddy said the other day that
they didn't get this thing fixed, they might have some dif-
ficulty doing the EVA. Is that - that still hold?
WINDLER Well, I don't think so now. The reason
I say that, and I'm not real sure, it depends a lot on the
leak rate that we experienced when we put this big tank on
the line, which we're doing now and start taking the water out.
It's still possible that we can - probable I'd say that we'll
be able to take the water out for the EVAs from the suit loops.
Before, I think he was thinking that we thought the problem
was in a different place, but I think now we probably will
be able to still use it. Bruce?
QUERY Yes, which, which on the EREP pass do
you remember the pass number or what
WINDLER Well, it's 34, track number 34 is the one
that looks best from a weather point of view. It starts from
oh, a little south of Seattle, I'd say, and comes down across
the western United - central, Nevada, that area down in
through there and doesn't go over Houston but it doesn't come
too far from it. It does go through Texas.
SPEAKER My guess make it all a late morning to
mid, about noonish type - that type of pass. I guess I really
don't know the answer to that.
PAO Art.
SL-III PC24C/2
Time: 16:53 CDT
811173

QUERY Last couple of days, they've had a lot of


troubleshooting to do. Are there any other open problems
besides this condensate thing?
WINDLER Yes, we have a number of problems. I
don't even know if I could even llst them all. Most of all
them are - are small. We have had to change out, of course,
one of the tape recorders onboard the spacecraft, which we knew we
knew we were going to do, and subsequent to that time, the
onboard - one of the recording channels is not working right.
And we had to switch the communications over - flip flop it.
You know, we normally record on one channel and talk to the
ground on the other and we reversed those. That seems to be
working okay now. There's a minor problem with the - the
command module with - when you send commands to - to activate
communication systems in the command module, it sometimes
gives us an incorrect response. And we're in the process of
tracking that down. We noticed a similar thing - not exactly
the same thing, but a similar thing on Skylab 2, which was
unexplained and here we have a different set of electronics.
So it's very hard to understand it, a lot of this is occurring.
We had the problem with the metabolic analyser that I mentioned.
Now that seems to be working okay. We've bad some trouble with
the camera on the spider. I guess you probably are aware of
that. And that procedure's going up to the crew tonight
to see if they can get a chance to work on that some tomorrow.
I've already talked about EREP. And I guess I didn't say
what they found out there. They discovered essentially that
the instrument is not - was not aligned correctly. It was
launched that way_ and I don't know Just where that happened.
But it - one of the I should say four kind of thumb screws -
they're - they're much more elaborate, than that, but they're
intended to fasten the - what you might consider to be the back end
of the instrument down on the optical bench and provide the
precise alignment that's needed. Two of these of these
four screws were not installed correctly and it was kind of
causing it to be offset. Now they've since readJu- -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC24D/I
Time: 16:53 CDT
8/1/73

WINDLER And provide the precise alignment that's


needed. Two of these four screws were not installed correctly
and it was kind of causing it to be off set. Now they've
since readjusted that and have it now - screwed back down
to the optical bench and have been proceeding on with the
alignment. And I haven't heard from that right now they're
in the process of during that now but it looks like it's
going pretty good. This probably will - of course the rate gyros
don't affect the crew very much. The startracker door is
operating somewhat oddly it doesn't alway close when it's
commanded to. And we'll work that later on. I guess that's
the ones that I could think of now they're not the real
significant one though is this condensate thing.
QUERY And what's the current thinking of the
quad B Bravo gyro on the command module - on the sezvlce module?
WINDLER Quad B RCS system - well we still think
that that's an oxidizer leak I don't right now I don't
know of any plans to really troubleshoot that. We're working
on how we go on about on docking and control the spacecraft of
course which require some different procedures than we had
planned because that's one of the quads we were going to use
to avoid impingement on the workshop and it looks like it's -
well we had planned to use the command module if we had to
as sort of a emergency method not an emergency method but as
a way of helping out the CMGs to desaturate the system
to the workshop instead of using the onboard TACS, the
nitrogen that's on board. And we think now because of that
quad failure if we use it it would cause us some contamination
problems so we hate to do that but on the other hand we hate
to use that TACS fuel also if really got into a situation
that require a large amount of it so that's - we probably
play that depending on how bad a penatly it was to use the
TACS.
PAO Bruce?
QUERY What else did the crew agree to do on
their day off? I didn't hear all of that list except the
EREP and with all the troubleshooting that they have been
doing and the other little hassles that have been coming up
it doesn't really sound llke they are going to get much a day
off on Friday.
WINDLER They're not. But merely they look upon
it you know I don't know what's in a day off you know.
People do things on their days off that I think are pretty
hard (laughter) hard work and you know you might build a
some big project at home or something like that - might be
relaxing and doing that. Probably the way they look at it
is that it's a day where they get a chance to really get at
some of this experiment hardward the EREP and the ATM and
I'm sure looking forward to it and if they're - don't have to
busy a day they - it'll be a change you might say and I think
they get some change of pace out of if but you're right they're
p
SL-III PC24D/2
Time: 16:53 CDT
811173

going to be busy all that day looks llke.


QUERY The EVA on Saturday have you got a time
for commencement of that I've heard l0 a.m. Is that still
hold and is it still run approx 2 hours prep 3 hours p.m.
WINDLER It haven't been any change in that. I
don't have the time on that but whatever it was it still it.
QUERY We have a couple of questions Milt,
sumitted by telephone from the Cape from Mary Bub: Is
arabella still in the dark without lights and camera?
WINDLER I feel if it's a spider I suppose so.
QUERY And has it spun a web?
WINDLER We don't know the answer to that.
Supposedly not. I think this is a spider that's not supposed
to spin a web until you want it to (chuckle). But yes, yes, the
experiment is still inoperative I guess is the way to say it.
Nothing wrong with the spider but their recording equipment
is not working right so we don't want the spider to do anything
yet. And as I understand it however you keep spiders from doing
their thing that's being done.
QUERY And her other question is: What happens
if the condensate tank is not fixed?
WINDLER Okay, well I think I've already answered
that, haven't I.
PAO Yeah, you have.
PAO Do we know yet if Dr. Buchanan is on his way,
Art?
PAO Unless there are any further questions for
Mr. Windler, we'll let him go back to the Control Center.
WINDLER I'ii mention I guess The coming - the
Commander did take a Seconal but other than that there's been
no medication and apparently they've been eating real well.
PAO Okay. Thank you.
WINDLER (garble) a more technical description of
all of that.
PAO Art, do you have one more?
QUERY Yeah, is there any indications why
AI, asked to have a private conversation with his wife
tonight?
WINDLER He probably likes her.
SPEAKER (Laughter)
QUERY Well, is it an anniversary or something?
PAO No, it's no anniversary.
PAO There are no anniversaries in the flight
book. We checked it out,
QUERY Is it being arranged for him to talk wlth
her tonight ?
W[NDLER ¥os.
QUERY okay.
QUERY Is that (garble)
f PAO Yes. At 07:11 isn't it?
SL-III PC24D/3
Time: 16:53 CDT
8/1/73

PAO Yes, 07:11 launch time.


WINDLER 00:ii - -
PAO Eastern daylight time.
PAO We understand Dr - Pardon me.
WINDLER Th&t's Central daylight isn't it?
WINDLER Yes, 00:ii.
WINDLER I think you said Eastern_ here.
SPEAKER Well I meant 07:11 is launch time.
SPEAKER We understand that Dr. Buchanan is still
in the Control Center so rather than keep you all in here
our ice box we'll give you - -
QUERY Will they have a medical briefing later or
is that it for today?
PAO Well, we hoping to have Dr. Buchanan
if he can get out of the Control Center.
SPEAKER They're Okay. They're getting along fine.
PAO Dr. Windier.
SPEAKER Dr. Windier.
SPEAKER Yea (laughter)
END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

MEDICAL BRIEFING
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 1_ 1973
5:24 PM CDT

PARTICIPAI_TS:

DR. PAUL BUCHANAN_ PLIGHT SURGEON


AMOS CRISP• PAO

PC-25
SL-III PC-25A/I
Time: 17:24 CDT
811173

PAO Okay. Here we go. We have with us Flight


Surgeon, Dr. Paul Buchanan, and if you'd llke to open it up
Dr. Buchanan?
BUCHANAN The only opening statement that I could
make is that the crew says that this is the first day food
has really tasted good to them. So, if they were 95 percent
yesterday, they must be well over i00 percent today. Any
questions?
PAO Questions.
QUERY Yes, doctor, do you see any reason why
they can't do the EVA on Saturday now?
BUCHANAN I'ii be in a batter position to answer
that after I see the result of our 92-171 runs. But on the
basis of the rather extemporaneous 171s they gave us yes-
terday Just more or less for exercise, I'd have to say that
I see no physical reason at this time why they couldn't.
Whether or not it's feasible in the overall tlmellne, is
something that - well we'll have to wait and see. But we
should have complete dynamic testing on them completed by
tomorrow.
PAO Bruce?
QUERY Yes. Dr. Buchanan, what about the crew
day off on Friday? I know that they haven't been eating
real well up until today and they're starting to get back
on that now, but - and they've got a full workload now for
Friday. With all the things they've accepted to do and things
they're going to be doing - they're not going to be resting
very much. Are you in favor of that - or do you quibble with
that - with - -
BUCHANAN I haven't seen the flight plan for Friday
yet. I don't know. That'll be worked tonight during the
detailed shift when I get back there. We'll be talking about
that as well as of course, the shift for tomorrow. I'll get
back to really, the same answer I gave the previous question.
I'd llke to see the results of 92-171 before I commit them
to a full all-out program. But I'd have to say that the
way they sound now, and with the work that they're doing,
and the way they're eating today, I can see nothing that
would tell us to back off on a full program at this time.
QUERY Do you have any feeling for how the
MI31 runs went today?
BUCHANAN Yes sir, we got about 40 percent of the
data down on both crewmen. And let's see, on the SPT, there
were 150 head movements at 0 rpm and only a very slight
sensation of dizziness and no nausea. And we do not have
the data yet on the PLT, but we do know that he did it, and
we've heard from him since then, and there was no complaint.
SL-III PC-25A/2
Time: 17:24 CDT
8/1/73

PAO Any further question here? We had two


questions phoned in, Dr. Buchanan. Number i: Was it deter-
mined that the electrolyte and fluid levels of the crew were
at their lowest, and where do they stand now in terms of
percentages of normal?
BUCHANAN There's no way we can tell yet. The calcu-
lations on the amount of - or I should say on the deficit from
their expected intake would lead us to believe that they
certainly were down a reasonable or considerable amount on
potassium. And we have taken steps to replace that. But the
exact figures are still being worked. There are many ways
you can lose potassium, and different people have a different
level - or a different ability to withstand X number of
milligrams of potassium loss. So, I can't really tell you
at this stage whether or not their serum potassium levels
have dropped down to an uncomfortably low level. Now there
would be no way we could do that without blood samples that
we could analyze inflight to get those readings. And with
the extemporaneous 171s that they did yesterday, Owen Garriott
said he checked pulses throughout, and there was certainly
no sign of any arrhythmla. And their pulses did get up
fairly rapidly while they were riding the ergometer. So
I would have to say that while their electrolyte levels are
certainly - or were certainly up until now a suspect that
we Just don't have any hard numbers that we can talk to you
about .
PAO Okay, fine. Thank you. One further
question. Have the doctors come up with any further clues
as to why all three astronauts developed queasy tummies from
zero g? For an example: do you think moving the same night
from the comparatively confined quarters of the command module
to the big can of the Skylab was too much too soon?
BUCHANAN I think that was certainly a contributing
factor. This would have to be speculation on my part at this
time, but I think the reason that we have seen perhaps less
dramatic nausea or motion sickness in previous flights, would
and this includes SL-II, would be due to the relative
confinement of the command module, and the more gradual
transition into the workshop that they made. Of course, now,
we have seen motion sickness on Gemini flights and we've seen
them on Apollo flights, Soviets have reported large numbers
of cases in their spaceflights. I was asked Sunday if I
thought that the workshop contributed to the motion sickness
and I said no, I didn't, other than the fact that it gave
move space for movement and I still say that. I don't think
there's anything in the construction of the spacecraft itself,
which predisposes to it. I think that it is merely a matter
of room in which you can exercise your vestibular mechanisms,
t

SL-III PC-25A/3
Time: 17:24 CDT
8/l/73

and that the workshop simply presents more of that space.


So_ I guess the answer to the question that was asked would
have to be yes, I think perhaps it was too much too soon.
PAO Thank you very much, Dr. Buchanan.
BUCHANAN Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston_ Texas

RCS Status Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 2, 1973
9:50 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Dr. Clynn Lunney, Apollo Program Manager


John McLeaish, PAO

PC-26
SL-III PC-26A/I
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

PAO Okay. This is a repeat. We'r_ r_'ady


to start now. We have with us Dr. Glynn Lunney, Manag_.r ol
the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. And we'll pick up wlth
Flight Director Chuck Lewis, when he arrives.
LUNNEY Okay. I would like to try to give you,
this morning, assessment of where we are in the problem that
happened this morning, was not here when the problem
occurred, which was about 5:37, our time. 5:37 - I0:37's a
little guess. However, I would like to describe the situa-
tion as best we know it, right now. And discuss somewhat
the options we have available to us, and then try to answer
any questions you might have on the situation. I believe
the crew was asleep at the time and they got a caution and
warning on a package temperature on quad Delta. Quad Delta
is on the Sun side of the vehicle when it's docked, although
it is not quite as directly in the Sun as quad Alpha. It's
about 60 some degrees, 60 degrees from the Sun light.
The condition of the quad was that the helium was isolated
and the propellant isolation valves were open, and that the
heaters were not on. In summary, and more generally, the
quad was really completely passive. It was not being used,
the heaters were not on and it was in a completely static
condition. You recall, we had a problem earller in the
mission with the quad Bravo, which is a hundred and eighty
degrees away from this quad. The conditions there were
quite a bit different, in a way. We were using the quad at
f the time and we apparently had a leak out the oxidizer side
of the valves that actually feed the propellants to the
engine, itself. And most of the particles were external
and there was no internal effect, that is internal to the
service module, seen as a result of the leak. It was purely
out the engine valve. In the case we had this morning,
there apparently is a mixture of conditions resulting from
the leak. By that, I mean, the crew reported some sparklers
which is representative to the fact that the oxidizer goes
to a nice light crystal, and sparkles, as reported by the
crew. This was seen outside of the service module, obviously,
in order for the crew to see it. There was also, a variety
of temperatures inside the service module that cooled off
very rapidly. Just to give you some examples, quad Delta
is in the same bay, in which the fuel tank for the SPS engine
is. The fuel tank is sitting in the bay. And the bay, of
course, is insulated with insulation material that we have
built all around the bay. But, the tank, itself, is painted,
but is is not covered with anything. The temperatures on
the tank dropped about, oh, 20 degrees fairly quickly. By
that, I mean, a matter of minutes, probably up to a half
hour, as a result of the leak. This could represent some
SL-III PC-26A/2
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

change to the insulation that we had there. It could just


represent a cooling as a result of the stuff being released,
and then evaporated inside the service module bays. The
temperatures now, after a few hours, have all essentlally
returned to normal. I say, essentially, there's still
some degrees difference. But, basically the system has come
back up in temperature. We have not appeared to have lost any
heat permanently from the service module. And the service
module, itself, is fairly stable. Now, relative to the
quad, there was a leak for some period of time. There was
a total of about 12 pounds of oxlduzer lost. So, there was
not a great deal of oxidizer involved in the incident. And
the leak rate was really very low. As a matter of fact,
it was so low, that it was undetectable at first. But, again,
it was on the oxidizer side of the quad. And in that respect,
it's similar to the early problem we had. And it also
was the oxidizer. The quad was - the valves were shut, which
apparently isolated the oxidizer from the place where the
leak was occurring. And the quad is holding now, and there's
no further leakage from the quad propellant tanks, the
oxidizer, in this case. Ah - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-26B/I
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

LUNNEY the quad propellant tanks, the oxidizer


in this case. However, that does make the quad, I don't want
to say completely unusable because you can always use it and
accept the leak, but it makes it usable only in a very de-
graded way. The same as quad B is usable but only in a very
degraded way, and you would have to be willing to use it for
short periods of time where the leak rate would not be so
large as to use up a large percentage of the propellent we
have available. Excuse me. Now let me try to describe for
you if that will do for the present as a description of the
problem. Let me try to describe what that means to us in
terms of mission posture that we are now in. We had
earlier the problem with quad B, and we now have this problem
with quad Delta. As of right now, the 2 quads that we believe
are fully operational and usable are quad Alia and Charlie.
And they are in affect on the top and bottom of the spacecraft.
The two on each side have the leaky condition. The spacecraft
is flyable in this mode, although it would he flown in a
mode which is not entirely standard. That is to say, you
can use the two quads top and bottom to fly the spacecraft
in this axis and this axis, and if you want to rotate in the
other axis and yaw you can either use the translation hand
controller or you can roll the vehicle 90 degrees in yaw.
So it is controllable, however it is not the kind of attitude
control system we would like to have which we would have
with 3 quads available. The problem, the problem that concerns
us as much as anything about the condition that we have now,
is that we have had two problems which are related, at least
they seem to be related in the sense that they have both
happened in the propulsion systems on the oxidizer side. I
probably don't need to recall for you, but to put it in per-
spective, we have had really no problems at all in the entire
Apollo program with the thruster systems in the service module.
Particularly we haven't had any problems with the oxidizer
systems per se, or leaks in the plumbing. Therefore
the fact that we now have two problems related in the sense
that they are both in the oxidiser side of the quad systems,
gives us some - more concern than two problems that might
be entirely unrelated. And we therefore feel we have to go
a little bit slowly in terms of how we might respond to that
problem because indeed the problem may be related in such a
way that says you could have further problems some where. As
a result of that, we're going falrly slowly in terms of
responding to the problem. We want to be as sure that we
fully understand it as we can before we take any further
action, relative to the propulsion system. The reentry
SL-III PC-26B/2 /_
Time: 09:50 CDT _ _

8_2_73 _
recovery posture that is available is one that says If we \
wanted to return the vehicle quickly, we could always retur,\
it very quickly, but if we wanted to return it in a reasonable \
well planned way, we would probably be thinking about comlng _
down probably tomorrow in the Hawaiian area and recovery with \
the helicopters. I should hasten to point out that we are
not necessarily planning to do that, that is one of the
options available. The other option which looks some what
more favorable at this time is to sit tight ad try to better]
understand what is going on with _s, and
understand whether there is any related condition in the ]
spacecraft that we might find in effect later in the other
quads and at the same time we have talked to the Cape about
planning, making plans necessary to accelerate the next /
vehicle in flow such that it could be available as a rescue /
vehicle. We have not turned that flow on, that is to say /
we have not made the decision that we should actually fly /
the next vehicle as though it were going to be flown as a /
rescue vehicle, but we are now verifying all the plans, et /
cetera, that would have to be made in order to /
premlt that to happen. The earliest launch date for such /
a rescue mission would be perhaps on the order on 5 weeks /
from now. I heard a September 10, but you have to accept /
that is a very preliminary number as the earliest time whlc_

another vehicle could be brought up there.


END OF TAPE

/
l
SL-III PC26-C/I
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

LUNNEY - - earliest launch date for such a


rescue mission would be perhaps on the order of five weeks
from now. I heard September lOth but you have to accept
that as a very preliminary number as a earliest time in
Which another vehicle could be brought up there. I think
then I could best summarize our condition by saying that
with problems in two systems that are somewhat related we
are looking at the rest of the systems to see if we can
understand better what this relationship might be. We are
looking at all the options available to us in terms of
continuing the mission and in terms of - of how we would
choose to terminate the mission if we - if we so desired.
No final decisions have been made on any of those kind of
subjects. I expect that they will start being made today
and that you'll start hearing about them further during
the course of the day. But that about summarizes our
present posture and maybe the best thing I could do at this
point would be to try to answer your questions to help
you understand any further if you wish to.
PAO Okay, let's throw it open for questions
now, Roy Nell.
QUERY Right off the top then your re talking
quite seriously on the mo- right now about if we wanted
to return quickly we could make a return tomorrow; you' re
talking about rescue possibilities. I take it that this
is indeed a very serious problem.
LUNNEY Yes, it's a very serious problem, Roy.
Yes, in relative to return, I think if we did not have a
rescue capability we would be very much moving in a direction
of getting the spacecraft down as rapidly as we could. But
we do have that which enables us to study the problem a
little bit further and try to understand it. But we do
recognize it is a very serious problem.
QUERY When comes the follow through. You're -
right now is either of these alternatives considering
cutting this mission short?
LUNNEY No, I wouldn't say that. I - No, I
wouldn't say that yet. We are not planning to cut the
mission short. That certainly is a possibility as a result
of what has happened. Okay?
PAO John Wilford.
QUERY What is it that disturbs you
so much? You mentioned earlier about the effect on the
SPS, is that one of the biggest concerns?
LUNNEY Not at this time. This SPS tank, the
fuel tank, got cooler by 20 degrees and then became warmeragaln.

S_
SL-III PC26-C/2
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

.4 There's really no concern at all relative to that temperature.


The concern is that we've had a problem in two propulsion
systems in the oxidizer side of both of those systems
and we just have had no experience in the program with
that kind of a problem and one of the questions you ask
yourself is, is something wrong with the oxidizer. We've gone
back over the records at the Cape and they all show that
the chemical analysis et cetra, the oxidizer was Just where
it ought to be well within spec. But still one has the
nagging thought that there may be something associated with
that or - or something else that we don't know yet that
could be related and might in effect be threating the other
system. Okay, which gives us caution in terms of quickly
Jumping into the spacecraft and undocking. We would not
want to do that without some understanding of the problem
for fear that indeed it is something that's common and
could get us after undocking. That's the reason for caution
and going slow.
QUERY Then you're saying that one possible
reason - You don't know why it's leaking. Is that correct?
LUNNEY That's correct.
QUERY But come possible cause of a leak would
be some corrosive element in the oxidizer?
LUNNEY It's a possibility but all of our facts
say that that is not the case. Okay. In affect today right
at this minute that's a blind alley, but it still some-
what nags you.
QUERY What are some other possibilities that
would cause a leak?
LUNNEY Well, it's difficult to imagine but it
could be that a fitting somehow was not tight, but the
difficulty with that is that the system was so static at
the time [ that that this particularly leak occurred.
It Just was not being used at all. It had been used during
the rendezvous and indeed if the fitting were loose you
would think that it would come leak at the time when it
was being used more dynamically than it is now. So, again
I can't give you a very good candidate for what it is - cause
that quad to leak. We Just honestly don't know.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-26D/I
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

LUNNEY Again, I can't glve you a very good


candidate for what it is, caused that qnad to leak. We Just
honestly don't know.
PAO Roy Neal.
QUERY Any concern for the safety of the
astronauts, at this writing?
LUNNEY Well, I think right now we're stabilized,
Roy. I think the spacecraft is entirely flyable as it is.
And if we had to, or wanted to, we could use it to do the
reentry. We are concerned, somewhat, about not understanding
the problem that has happened. You know that in the program
we always try to understand as fully as we can, anything that
has happened. Relative to the men staying up there, you
have heard described their condition everyday. I won't
comment on that. But that seems to be improving. Status
of the workshop continues to be one that maintains a very
hospitable, inhabitable environment for the men.
QUERY I guess - I guess, what the thrust of
my question is, Glynn, is that right now you've lost about
50 percent of your attitude control - -
LUNNEY Yes.
QUERY - - on the service module. So
sooner or later, you're going to have to use, either that
or another, that's wha - That's the real thrust of
the question is.
LUNNEY Yes.
f-
QUERY Not the immediate moment for the
astronauts, but casting that downstream Just a blt?
LUNNEY Yes. And that is obviously not as
good condition as having all four quads, or even having
all three quads. It's Just It is probably the minimum
flyable condition of the attitude control system. Okay?
QUERY Coming back to the cause. Could a
mlcrometeorold have been involved?
LUNNEY I suppose that's possible. It is possible.
QUERY Perhaps you reviewed this, I missed the
first few minutes of this. But, wlth these 2 quads out,
have they lost their deorblt, their backup deorblt capability?
And also, wlth all of the SM reaction control system, out,
theoretically, if it were, isn't the CM reaction control
system sufficient to act as a back up for reeentry? The
CM system wlll take care of the attitude, once you separate
from the service module. To do that, you obviously want to
be on a reentering trajectory. I'd llke to hasten to
point out, relative to the backup deorblt, that these quads
can be fired and used for backup deorblt. One Just has
to be willing to accept the leak rate, and the leak of the
total amount of the oxidizer that will be lost during the
SL-III PC-26D/2
Time: 09:50 CDT
812173

course of such a burn. And we would, indeed, have the


amount of propellant onboard that would permit us to do a backup
deorbit today with the quads in the condition that they
are. We would Just have to accept this leak going on, and
the difficulty with that is, that although you measure a
leak rate, you - and we think we know what the leak rate was in
this last occurence, as best as you can average it out.
You never really are comfortable that it is going to get
any better or any worse. But, to answer your question
directly, we had the propellant on board, even assuming that
the leaks continued at the present rate, to do backup
deorbit with the service module RCS and the PSM. Okay.
QUERY If you are considering coming down in
Hawaii tomorrow, by what time today would you have to
make that decision?
LUNNEY Gee. I could only give you an approximate
answer, but I think sometime late afternoon or evening, because
I think the crew would have to get on with a lot of stowage of
the ship, command ship, and get ready for that operation
tomorrow, which would take a certain amount of powering up
and getting ready to bring the command module home. So,
we would have to be getting into that sometime thls afternoon.
QUERY And, approximately, if you went ahead
with this schedule what time would they splash down?
LUNNEY Gee, I wish I could tell you that. But,
I don't have the numbers on when they go by the area in
Hawaii, where we would recover them. I asked that, they
didn't give me a time. It's sometime tomorrow. Chuck Lewis
is coming over in a little while. He may have a better idea
of the numbers associated with that recovery. Okay.
QUERY And this would be a recovery by helicopter,
from land?
LUNNEY Yes - -

END OF TAPE

t
SL-III PC-26E/I
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

QUERY One other thing. Is the crew - as of


now, the crew is Just going to go about its normal daily
activities?
LUNNEY Yes. Now I can't tell you that we won't
again make some adjustments in the flight plan as a result
of this. We may want to check some things out before we
take some other steps in the flight plan. That's really Just
almost at the "talking about it" stage. But, if I were you, I
wouldn't be too surprised if we have to do some more flight
juggling as a result of this.
QUERY I realize that you still don't quite
understand the problem. Do you think that there is any way
to make a fix on these quads, either one of them? Is there
anyway around, in other words, can the guys who have performed so
many miracles in the past turn this one around? Or does
it look pretty hopeless?
LUNNEY Well, I do not see, Roy, what we can do
to stop the quads from leaking. Although we can choose to
use them in a way that is only - supply propellant to them
in a way where we get the maximum advantage of them. Like
for a deorbit burn, you could choose to watch the leak and
say it's not a very big leak compared to how much thrust
you're getting out of the engines, and that would be acceptable.
I cannot hold out any promise, nor even indicate to you that
I'm hopeful that we can make that leak stop. I frankly don't
see how that can be done at this point. We had talked about
the earlier leak that we had in quad Bravo, relative to
cycling the thruster. But we had done that a number of times.
It didn't seem to do much good, and as a matter of fact, there
is a degree of risk in operating the engine when you are
leaking oxidizer into it.
PAO Any further questions from here?
QUERY If you had to come home tomorrow or use
the rescue mission, what would that mean for SL 4?
LUNNEY I can't give you a very good answer for
that yet. I think we would have to wait and see what we
had to do and what our other program options would be to us.
I wouldn't want you to think that I'm saying to you that
closes out the option of flying it, so far. I don't think
it does, I think there are ways that could be done. I think we
just have to address that in course as we solve this problem,
and haven't had a chance to look at that one. But we would
not close out that option.
PAO Paul Risher.
QUERY Can you kind of characterize what would
drive you towards one or the other of the options? I mean
SL-III PC-26E/2
Time: 09:50 CDT
8/2/73

What are the factors that would cause you to bring it down
quickly or the factors that would cause you to distort the
flow on the rescue mission?
LUNNEY Well, I'm inclined to think that where
we are now, we will probably end up sitting tight, Paul.
If we had a further problem, depending on what it was, that
might force _s to either come down or to stay, depending
on where the problem was. But with the conditions as
they are now, and having some feel for what we're going to
get out of the research of what kind of oxidizer we put in,
et cetera. That is, looking at what might possibly have
happened and how we could characterize it. I don't see any -
I can't put mY finger on any fact that I would llke to uncover
that says hay, everything is fine and we can use the ship
and come on in. I don't think we could make the risk that
we would have with that, go away. That may not be an entirely
adequate response to your question, but so far everything
that we have turned up, and I don't know how much else we
can, does not give any cause to correlate the problem with
th_ two systems. And therefore you're left kind of with the
uneasy feeling that you can't prove anything, but you sort
of suspicion that there may be. And you are therefore a
llttle bit reluctant to go ahead and undock unless, for other
reasons, you really think you have to.
QUERY I want to be sure I understood what you
Just said, Glynn. Because if I'm reading you correctly, you're
pretty well throwing out the idea of coming down tomorrow.
You're looking at taking at least a longer time to study
this thing and work it over.
LUNNEY Yeah, thatts my opinion, Roy. It's obviously
not a considered opinion of everybody in the business. But
my opinion right now is that we will continue to look at it for
a while, and not necessarily come down tomorrow. But that's
really one of the options in your hearing Glynn Lunney's opinion
of whatts going to come of looking at those options. Okay.
PAO Any further questions? We had several
questions called in, but I think in the course of the questions
that we got from here we've answered them. We'll pick up
with Chuck Lewis when he arrives.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON , TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 2, 1973
6:00 PM CUT

PARTICIPANTS:

MILT WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


JIM KUKOWSKI, PAO

PC-29
SL-III PC-29A/I
Time: 18:00 CDT
812173

PAO Okay, we'll start this briefing here.


Milt Windier, Flight Director, is here. And Milt, do you
have anything to start off with before we open it up to
questions?
WINDLER No, we've already, I'm sure there's
been at least three briefings today about the spacecraft
systems and I just wanted to mention that the crew activities
have been, as we predicted, getting better and better each
day. They started off this morning and finally got around
to as much as an hour behind, particularly during that first
MO92 run, which was the first one that Owen had observed,
which means he has to set up all the equipment and everything.
But in the afternoon when he did his second one - run, it
worked out much quicker. And in fact, they've wound up the
day, I think, not too far behind the flight plan. Although,
part of that you might say was somewhat lucky in the sense
that we did have some ATM activities scheduled with the TV.
But the recorder is not working right now. So, we gained
a little bit of time in the flight plan there. But I think
they're much move mobile and they're getting around now
and they're picking up speed as everybody thought they
would. And they're cleaning up a lot of the activities that
we've had - doing some ttroubleshooting and things like that.
So, we think that as far as the crew and if nominal flight
plan activities are going and everything's going along fine.
- PAO Questions. Wait for the mike. Go ahead,
Art.
QUERY Any late word you might have heard on
the examination of the quads problems and any kind of relation-
ship or anything?
WINDLER No, I don't have any in - anymore informa-
tion on that at all, other than what y'all have been briefed
on.

PAO A1 Flagle.
WINDLER In fact, I haven't even read that
transcript so y'all know more than I do about it.
QUERY Having not heard probably all the alr-to-
ground, has the crew had anything to say? Have you sensed
any feeling they've had so far as this new problem is concerned?
QUERY Any psychological - -
WINDLER Well, you need to get the transcript of
the conversation between they and Dr. Kraft and read it.
They seem to be very happy about the decision to continue.
QUERY Milt, have you got any inputs on the
science types that they're concerned that these so-called
spock was floating around and might contaminate the area and
degrade some of their experiments?
WINDLER No. No, I haven't. And I guess the
,i

SL-III PC-29A/2
Time: 18:00 CDT
8/2/73

_-_ reason for that is that number one, the of course the ATM
equipments is generally buttoned up. We have had another
malfunction on one of the ATM doors - the S055 door. Or,
I should say an anomaly I guess, in which it didn't at f_rst
indicate OPEN. It's similar to the things that have happened
in the past. So we're still looking at that. But the corol-
lary people - the only one of them that has an instrument
out is having trouble with that is, the S073 gave us some
trouble yesterday - or I guess this morning. Excuse me.
So really we're not in a full-blown experiment mode which
is kind of - tended to not make that question you just asked
come up yet. If we'd been in a normal ATM viewing, why we
probably would have - they would have been more concerned.
QUERY Do you have - - Go ahead.
QUERY Do you have any feeling for is there
some way of overcoming this? Is there some way of doing
something to overcome this?
WINDLER The sparkllngs?
QUERY Yes.
WINDLER Well, I think they'll go away. I'ii
presume that that's the oxidizer that was leaking - it'll
vaporize and go away.
PAO Tom, do you have a question
WINDLER In fact, we haven't seen anything on the
QCM - these contamination devices. We haven't even seen
anything on those. But then they don't respond to all kinds
of contamination of course.
PAO Tom O'Toole?
QUERY I might be repeating something that was
answered earlier, but how does this rescue thing impact the last
Skylab mission? Does it - -
WINDLER I don't know the answer to that. You'll
have to get Mr. Schneider's briefing. Let me tell you - I
wanted to answer that. I've been busy trying to work with
the crew all afternoon and make trying to make S073 work,
and get through all the medical runs and do the startracker
and watch condensate tank, and a few odds and ends like that.
And all the off-llne people have been working on running down such
things as where the batches of oxidizer came from and what
the status is of all the vehicles at the Cape, et cetera. And
so I really have not kept up with that. But I understand that
all that was discussed by Bill Schneider here a couple of
hours ago - an hour ago. So I really don't have anything
else to add to that.
PAO Right here.
QUERY A couple of - MilE, dealing with things
that you ought to know about, I guess - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-29-B/I
TIME: 18:00 CDT
8/2/73

WINDLER a couple hours - an hour ago, I really


don't have anything else to add to that.
QUERY A couple, Milt dealing things you ought to
know about, I guess. First of all tomorrow's flight planning
are we still looking at possibly EREP or we Just out of that
now? And I'ii have another one after that.
WINDLER No, we are - that and right now is that
you might call it our prime plan to do the EREP pass the same
way I described to you yesterday, as track 34 down from the
ruffly Portland perhaps or somewhere up there along the
Washlngton-Oregon coast down through the Central Western United
States coming across Texas and at data take time is around
18:00 Zulu tomorrow, on up to about 18:27 long in that time.
In the weather looks fairly good, it looked medium and then
it looked better and it looked not so good and now it is looking
better again and now I see it is raining outside so -
but in any event, we expect in a front, but of course the
Houston area is not a key facture,;there is a lot of sight up
along the thing. So we think that the chances will be good
and we will do the EREP tomorrow and probably some ATM and a -
a some - short type corollary experiments perhaps some S019 and
things like that.
QUERY The other, we haven't talked about the
rate gyros in a good while now so I'm - cannot quite recall but
seems to be if we loss all the gyros in one of the axes, we
- had of course we have the package up there we can install and
get everything back, but what was going to be used to stabilized
the station in case we did loose the rate gryos and all and
had to delay, say a day or so before we could get out and do
the EVA to hock up the package?
WINDLER Well, of course the Command module was going
to be used to do that or the service module. What was going to
be the control system to do that now? Of course recognizing
that we have been in a free dif MOD and that not instantaneously
you know we don't wind up and spin up or anything llke that so
it not - it Justwould depend on how the gyro failed under what
condition it failed whether there was any blg urgency to - to
get into the command module, what we do plan to use the command
module.
QUERY Our two good quads.
WINDLER Yes, it would - hear again it would depend
on you know, which axes failed and all that, but I don't
know how far along the systems people have but a certainly if
on the real duress you could turn on the QUAD-DELTA for brief
periods of time and probably get some thrust out of it because
it is - it does have some capacity left and they may announced
what that is, I haven't heard how propellant went overboard yet.
PAO Art Hill.

f_
SL-III PC-29-B/2
Time: 18:00 CDT
8/2/7s

WINDLER 12 Art says. He knows everything.


QUERY Ah (laughter) I'm trying picture in my
mind and I wish you take a crack at it a - the reasons for
delaying the - the EVA while you work-up procedures using - using
two QUADS, could you just kind of give us a scenario of what it
is that might happen while the EVA is in progress that will
require jumping into the command module and getting away and
things like that?
WINDLER Well, there probably isn't any direct thing
that can happen. Today one of the things that we did, started
working on and compiled a first list of was a list of the
normal activities and how they stress the systems, and starting
with the EVAs since yon mentioned that of course we depressurize
the airlock module which puts, you know makes us exercise the
pressurizations system and it makes us exercise the thermal
system to some degree. It also if you will recall during one
of the EVA's we actually got into a rate-gyro situation there
where they unscheduled momentum that came out of the vent cost
us our CMGs to - to become saturated and we we had to - we
at that time - lets see I guess we failed one of our rate-gyro
test and then we actually we to thlee in one axes. So when
you get into those kind of situations now. he medical runs
even tend to do the same thing. The vents from the a - this
vacuum this lower body negative pressure device does a similar
type thing on down to Just putting the warm urine and the
warm blood in the freezer puts some heat load on the freezer
and we don't think that's any problem but we are looking at
all of these things now. The EVA is a fairly dramatic event
in itself. You want to have all of your systems going as you
know we are just beginning to try to made the condensate system
work better for us and a -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC29C/1
Time: 18:00 CDT
812173

WINDLER lou want to have all your systems going.


As you know, we're Just beginning to try to make the condensate
system work better for us, and we have been extracting water
all night. We have Just now, and have been dumping that big
holding tank. And have planned to put that back on the line
and extract some more water today. So, I guess one of our
major concerns in the EVA, is that the fact when we do de-
pressurize, we will have this moist water in and we might
have a tendency for the valve to block with ice as it's done
before giving us some propulsion, probably. And snowballing
into momentum problems and TACS problems and attitude control
problems and it's just seems to be a proven course of events to
let all systems stabilizing settle down before we try to do
the EVA.
PAO We have another question over here.
QUERY Just to kind of get - to get all this
cogentally organized and go back to the beginning and ignoring
the thruster problems that have occurred today, could you just
check off the problems that have come up on Skylab and Just -
right on down the line. And the ones that your having to
work around that are impacting the mission at this time.
WINDLER Well, I- I went over those last night,
and I did it from memory. I didn't have a list and we have
about 30 pages of anomalies on the spacecraft some of
which have occurred during Skylab II and some of which are more
important than others as you can well imagine. Some of them
are lights that are, you know_ that are indicating wrongly
and it be be will be kind of hard for me, of course. We
have the problem with the rate gyros and that we do have
two of them that have failed and another one that has settled
down recently but has been erratic for several days prior to
that, making us very concerned about the rate gyros. This
has lead this into a potential situation where they are
TACS consumable while we have a lot of that now. We keep
using it in an unscheduled manner. Although so far on Skylab IIIp
we haven't really had any big problem with it except that
one time during a flyaround, we did use some extra tax that
we didn't count on. The condensate tank water removal system
is - has a leak in it. The word I couldn't think of the
other day when I was trying to describe in the manifold
system, which kind of implles this im the common plumbing.
And I couldn't think of manifold word, hut that's a good
way - it's not a true technical description of the thing,
but it gives you the right idea. We have had several problems
with the shuttle (?) valves and the - in the refrigeration or
the cooling loops, ithough they, they - we can by various
work-around procedures. And by the way, we have work arounds
for all the thinks that I've said. And I guess I won't have to

f
SL-III PC29C/2
Time: 18:00 CDT
8/2/73

go into those. You probably know what they are. The - the cooling
systems - we've had, you know, the trouble with the AM cooling
system and refrigeration system. A similar type device where
apparently contamination is in a valve that goes from the
cold source back to the bypass and doesn't allow complete
flow through the cold side. The pressurization system - we
had a bad indication on one of the valves, but that didn't
cause us any problems and that's of no real problem right now.
In fact, that system has worked very well. The the basic
instrumentation on the spacecraft is working well. The
communication system is. We have one transmitter that's
degraded. But that's not really causing us any problems.
Not any problems. We have the - today's video tape recorders
apparently acted up and may have a problem with that. I
guess that's perhaps more serious to y'all than to the rest
of the mission. But all of us since we're all interested in
getting that, but it doesn't affect the scientific return, really.
We ought not to overlook the fact though, of course, that that
there is We've always said that the Skylab is a complicated
vehicle and there is - there are a lot of systems on Skylab,
itself and most of these systems are working very nicely.
And it may be it's behaving a lot llke - like an airplane.
You know, the more you fly them, the better they are. And
leavin 8 them sitting around in the ramp, and they tend to
get hydrolic leaks and things llke that. And so, as we
keep using these systems, theyVll probably get better too.
I didn't about cover them all, but _hat's probably a reasonable
synopsis.
PAO More questions here. Milt's expressed
a desire to get back as soon as posEible. So, if we have anymore
questions - Thanks, thank you Milt.

END OF TAPE

S
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston_ Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 3, 1973
9:23 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Charles R. Lewis_ Flight Director


Milton Relmt PAO

PC-30
SLIII PC30-A/1
Time: 09:23 CDT
8/3/73

PAO All right we'll get started here. We


have Chuck Lewis, flight director. We'll let Chuck start
off with a statement.
LEWIS Okay, with regard to the - the quad
problem we had yesterday, they're still doing the data
analysis on that, and the - and KSC is preparing the rescue
vehicle should we have to use it. I really don't have too
much more on that. We've got a couple of the flight control
teams working offline on that particular problem. Yesterday
we had some difficulty with the SO13 retract. We couldn't
get it retracted. Tried several things without any success.
Today they're are going to try additional malfunction procedures
and if we can't get the S03 retracted we'll probably jettison
at that - jettison it this afternoon so we can clear the SAL
for the Earth terrain camera on the EREP pass in the morning.
We've also had a failure in the video tape recorder. And
we expect today to do some malfunction work there and try
to isolate the failure. We do have replacement a replace-
ment package onboard. So, for TV, at least this time, it's
going to be real time only. And we did ask the science pilot
if he could give us some real time TV over Goldstone, the
CONUS Pass. I believe it's the one about 11:20 local of
the commander and pilot as they take the EREP pass. At this
point in time we scheduled the EVA for day i0, would be
Monday. And that's about it as faz as the summary's con-
cerned.
PAO Now we'll start here with Art Hill.
QUERY The last word that I heard was that it
was either going to be day i0 or Ii depending on the African
EREP pass. Could you go - is that still looked at or what?
LEWIS No, we've made a decision to do it on
day i0. And that was one of the considerations.
QUERY Okay, and what about the - the EREP pass
over Africa?
LEWIS It will not be done on day I0. There's
another opportunity for that pass later in Skylab. It's an
ascending pass as opposed to a descending pass, and it may w E,l
be done then. That's late August, early September.
QUERY Okay, that was that was one of mine,
Chuck. The other is, what about the - the SO13, what is
what more or how many more times would that be used in the
flight? What are you going to lose by if you have to throw
it away?
LEWIS SO73?
QUERY SO73, I mean.
LEWIS I really don't know what the schedule
was, the specific mininal requirements were on SO73. I

f
SL-III PC30-A/2
Time: 09:23 CDT
8/3/73

can't really answer the question. We've got, as you notice,


we've been operating SO73 now for a couple of days and we
expect today to take two more passes with SO73. We've got
a limited capability on that. The problem is the shaft
appears to be frozen and we can't center the photometer to
retract it but we can drive in trunnion. So the passes
they've scheduled today will drive in trunnion, scan and
trunnion, but won't have any shaft rotation capab[l_ties.
We'll take two more today and it's possible, with the mal-
[unction procedures they try this afternoon, they may be
able to retract it.
PAO Art.
QUERY Can you give us an idea as to what time
on Monday the EVA will be approximately?
LEWIS No, I can't give you the exact time
hatch open time. This morning, yes. I think we had
scheduled TV, if I remember correctly.
PAO ED.
QUERY What's the - the status of the emergency
procedure or the procedures they would use with these
quad problems being prepared? Do they get that up to them
or when will they get it up or what is the status?
LEWIS The crew doesn't have those on board yet.
The offline teams I spoke about are working those now. They've
got some of them - some of the procedures modified. Some of
the flight crew people are checking those in the simulators
now and in any case we ought to have all those procedures
onboard but prior to the EVA.
QUERY Is that a requirement prior to the
EVA that they do be up there?
LEWIS We basically made that a requirement
prior the EVA so we'd have adequate emergency procedures
should we have some problem during the EVA. Pressurization
problem or some problem of that nature.
QUERY Is there any way you could briefly
explain what these changes amount to, or are they just so
technical that - -
LEWIS Well, since we've got the two - since
they lost the two quads on the service module RCS, you've
got to go through the crew checklist to configure your -
your remaining two quads properly, inhibit the use of the
quad B and D. Then we're going beyond that and saying, okay
what if we lose another one and are down to one, what configuration
we need and what procedure would the crew use to - for
attitude control. So that's - lot of switch changes,
SL-III P C30-A/3
Time: 09:23 CDT
8/3/73

and configuration changes, checking on the simulator; see if


that works and how well it flies in that particular mode.
QUERY Was there ever any simulations prior
to the flight, envisioning the loss of as many as 2 or 3 of
these quads? Or how far did they go in sims?
LEWIS I don't - I can't answer that question.
I'm sure at times some of the astronauts have - have done
that, perhaps not in a formal fashion, though. I really
don't know.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC30-B/I
Time: 09:23 CDT
8/3/73

QUERY It was mentioned yesterday that they


would take the TV camera out in or - during the EVA in order
to look at the quad Delta. Is this still being planned?
LEWIS It's being considered. I don't know that
we'll use it for that purpose. I think they have to look to
see if we really can - it would be a value to us. We talked
about just a visual look by the crew, and possibly TV. But
I'm not sure that it'd be that useful. And I'm sure that's
still under evaluation.
QUERY But it will still be the normal EVA up
the truss, I mean, they won't change anything there like
going closer to the quad?
LEWIS I don't believe they would change anything.
QUERY Chuck, when do you expect to get the
results of the new chemical tests on the oxidizer?
LEWIS I really don't know. Like I said, these
off line teams are working that. And I didn't get that
information from them this morning. And of course, some
of the program office people, and their support are working
that. I haven't heard yet. Maybe Milt- -
PAO I ean make a check on that
LEWIS - - can check on that, and get that
information for you.
QUERY In a day or two or - -
LEWIS I don't even - I don't know at all.
PAO Any more questions?
QUERY How's the appetite of the crew?
LEWIS Increasing. Their food intake looked real
good over the last couple of days. Looks better all the time.
QUERY As I understand, it if you do the EVA on
day i0, the ground stations don't look good for live TV.
You're planning then to try and fix the recorder in order
to get this on tape?
LEWIS I would suspect so. I'm not certain that
we're going to be able to get it changed out before then, but
I think an effort will be made to schedule that change and have
the VTR for the EVA. I would say there's a good chance we'll
have it working for the EVA.
QUERY If it isn't working by that time, would
you schedule the EVA earlier in order to try and get live
TV.
LEWIS No, I don't believe you really can, because
you've got to consider the crew wake-up time, the preparation
time, and that basically fixes the EVA time.
QUERY Are they going to get a day off next - over
the weekend, or are they going to work straight through?
LEWIS Well today's their day off, I believe.
Day 7. And we don't (laughter) there's a lot of work to be
done on their day off. But as far as I know, we'll stay on

b
SL-III PC-30B/2
Time: 09:32 CDT
8/3/73

the premission day off cycle. Day 15, I think, is their


next day off.
PAO You want me to read those?
LEWIS We've got some questions from the Cape.
If the condensate tank can't be fixed, is there any
danger during the space walk that the coolant system will
freeze up, or that the space walk might have to be shortened
due to the moisture problem? And the answer to both of
those is no. Even without moisture removal we can assume
you have moisture removal going up to the EVA. If we lose
that before the EVA, then there's no problem, no humidi_y
problem for the duration of the EVA. Matter of fact, I think,
for several hours, 4 or 5 hours. Are the crewmen back to
full health, or do they still suffer from poor appetites and
dehydration? I'm not sure they're back to full health, as
far as the medical people are concerned, as far as their
potassium and electrolytes, and so forth, but it's certainly
improving over the last couple of days. Says, if the Saturn-
Apollo at Cape and CSM for SL-IV has to be used for rescue
mission, what will they use for SL-IV? Would they use the
ASTP rocket and our spacecraft? And I think that's the plan
If they had to, they'd pull in the ASTP vehicle as a rescue
vehicle for the SL-IV.
PAO Ed.
QUERY Have there been any private conversations
other than the normal medical conversation, last night?
LEWIS No. There may have been some family
calls, okay. That's all that we've had. There have been no
operational private com.
PAO All right. Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

SKYLAB PROGRAM DIRECTOR BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUG. 3, 1973
3:10 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, SKYLAB PROGRAM DIRECTOR


BILL OtDONNELL, PAO

PC-31
SL-III PC-31A/1
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

PAO Okay. We have with us again today Mr.


William C. Schneider, the Program Director of Skylab Program.
SCHNEIDER Good afternoon again. Just a few words
of status on where we are in the overall Skylab program.
We're continuing our investigation in the command and ser-
vice module. It appears now - I think I reported yesterday
that the two failures in the two quads seemed to be - although
they're both in the oxidizer system, they seemed to be a
little bit different. We have reexamined our come-home
capabilitles and we're pleased to find that by our slmulations
we still have three alternate ways of coming home. The
primary SPS system, we still have backup RCS system, and
then we have a hybrid RCS - command module RCS system which
we could use. So we still have all three ways of coming
home and therefore we're feeling considerably better than
perhaps we had yesterday morning. There's been a slight
change in our activities down at KSC. Yesterday I had
initiated a full rescue flow and quite properly the Cape
interpreted that as meaning to - that we were to enter into
the altitude chamber tasks at KSC this Sunday, in the rescue
configuration. This morning I reconsidered that decision,
and concluded that the best - the most flexible posture we
could be in would be to go through the altitude chamber
tests in the Skylab-IV configuration, and live so directed
KSC. This will add about two days to the tests flow down
at KSC. And because we have a 5-day launch window, it means
our earliest launch date would now be September the 10th.
That again is only if we commit to a rescue mission. So that
was a minor change to our activities down there, but I
believe, again, the one that allows Skylab program the
maximum flexibility. We then have full confidence in that
way in any one of three operating modes, either initiating
a rescue on September the 10th, or initiating a rescue at
the end of the 56 - 59 days, or continuing on with a basic
reentry with the 117 spacecraft and using 118 for the basic
preplanned Skylab-IV mission. I've been receiving a number
of questions as to what the cost of this activity is for
Skylab. I'm sure that you are all aware that the alternate
vehicles - the spare vehicles, have been programmed in the
Skylab program right from its initiation and they have all
been included in all of our cost estimates to date. And
so that cost is behind us. The additional activity at KSC -
it's a little bit hard in one day to get a firm determination
of exactly how much it is, but it looks as if it's the
Skylab portion of the money, the money that comes out of the
Skylab budget, is roughly about one million dollars. That
money is in my program plan - this - I do not need any
additional funds from Congress. That was in the the
A

SL-III PC-31A/2
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

contingency money had been in our plans right from the


beginning. In addition to that, there's probably an
equal amount that will be required in things such as our
operating base money and things of that nature. And that
also is available within the NASA funds. So we're not A,
we're not cranking up an effort that is going to break the
bank and B, we're not going to require any additional funds
to the best of my knowledge right now. And - -

END OF TAPE

/--
SL-III PC-31-B/I
Time: 15:06 CDT
_ 8/3/73

SCHNEIDER - - the money can be we are not going to require


any additional funds to the best to my knowledge right now.
And I guess that about empties my memory bank and I'll go
to questions.
PAO You've got Arabella's - -
SCHNEIDER Arabella - -
PAO Arabella call or something.
SCIINEIDER Probably Anita.
MC (laughter)
PAO No web. John Wilford.
QUERY You said you have three alternate ways of
coming home, primary SPS, backup RCS and a hybrid, now what
do you mean the backup RCS is the RCS in the command module.
SCHNEIDER Servlc_ module. We still have 2 - 2 plus
QUADs. We have - -
QUERY What is the hybrid?
SCHNEIDER The hybrid would be where you would use the
both the service module RCS and the command module RCS and
then you then co -
SCHNEIDERR Yes. And this has always been one of
our backup HODS. We have always had three HODS, these have
been the three HODS, we still have that capability. So we
are no worse position as far as alternate MODS than we were
when we started off the mission. We're lower on fuel, but the
capability still exist.
QUERY What is the rationale for this change in
your procedure at the Cape? The business of going into the
vacuum chamber with the Skylab configuration?
SCHNEIDER Well the rescue - the vacuum chamber rescue
activities had been predicted on the assumption that the vehicle
was to be readied for a short 3, 4, 5-day mission. For that
kind of mission you checked out those things that were essential
just for that mission, for a basic Skylab mission, we require
other systems and we check those out as well. We would not
have checked those out under the - the yesterday altitude
chamber plan. In addition there is some additional checks
that we do on the basic service propulsion system, the big
SPS, because Skylab is required to operate quiescent and
the - and the rescue vehicle would not be required to operate
quiescent. So it's a matter of degree of testing, the
depth of testing that you would do for one mission versus the
other.
PAO Back here, David.
SCHNEIDER Incidentally, the configuration is different
from the spacecraft, one you have five seats in and the other
one you have three seats and a lot of stowage.
SL-III PC-31-B/2
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

QUERY You've got to hold off between those extra


seats.
SCHNEIDER That's correct. We will not put those
extra seats in until we decide that we want to make the next
step. The next step of commitment.
QUERY Which is when?
SCHNEIDER Probably not before, the beginning of September
and even then it is not irrevocable until we get ready to launch.
QUERY Bill, we were told earlier this morning
that there was some more checks on the oxidizer and do you
have anything on that and number 2, do you have any results
yet from the films of playing with quad Bravo and Just shutting
down that one thruster and what have been your results on that?
I take it that is what you meant by your 2 plus.
SCHNEIDER Yes, that's right, we think that we now on
the way we are looking at it right now is that we have lost
i quad and a thruster, rather than 2 quads which would have been
kind of away we have been looking at it, yesterday. So a -
we think we have a seml-usuable quad there, that we can use
that quad for attitude stabllzatlon and that - that changes
the situation for us quite a hit. And I don't recall your first
part of your question. Something about testing.
QUERY. Anything on the oxidiser?
SCHNEIDER The only word I had, I talked to Cappy
down at the Cape today and he didn't have the details other than
he said that there was nothing unusual found in looking at
any of the test that they had on any of the oxidizers at that mo-
ment. We had decided yesterday to take additional samples out of
the tanks down at the Cape, the storage _anks, I have not heard
the results of that as of yet.
PAO (garble)
QUERY I gather you are feeling pretty good because
of some of the simulations you have did, using these various
combinations of thrusters for deorblt and for attitude control.
I would of thought you would have done that at the beginning
of the program, when the command module first come into being.
SCHNEIDER Yeah, we did, as you know we did a great
deal of that. The amount of attitude examinations that we did
with 2 quads out was not as great as we have done with 1 quad
out. Most of our assumption had been a failure was the failure
of -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-31C/l
Time: 15:06 CDT
r 813173

SCIINETDER - - attitude examinations that we did


with two quads out was not as great as what we had done
with one quad out. Most of assumptions had been, the failure
was the failure of a quad. And that's why when we had two
quads failed why, we - it was - hit us as so unusual yes-
terday. All of the simulations here have shown that the
vehlcle is controllable, particularly with the one thrustel
in the quad B. And we have no qualms about that and we even
have determined in the simulator that the vehicle is con-
trollable even with an additional quad had gone out. So,
you're quite right_ we ar_ feeling quite a bit better. Our
simulatlons have been surprisingly good and we find that
- got a pretty versatile vehicle. Of course as Glenn Lunney
tells me - he says "That's the way we designed It", but - very
versatile vehlcle.
PAO Fred (garble)
QUERY You missed me on which of those quads
had Just one thruster out. Was that ravo or Delta?
SCHNEIDER Pardon?
SCHNEIDER That's Bravo. The first one that went.
PAO Nick and then Art.
SCHNEIDER Incidentally we're not planning on using
that unless we get to the nltty grlttles.
QUERY What do you think has caused the leak
in the oxidation system and what about your concern for
how that unknown element migh t affect the other quads and
systems and so forth?
SCHNEIDER We don't know yet what caused the leak.
Glenn Lunney told me this morning that when they took the
pressure data in the manlfo[ds and they adjusted the pres-
sures for the temperature, they found that there had been
a - an apparent slow decay in pressure for a few hours prior
to the more rapid decay than yesterday morning, indicating
that there probably was something going on for several hours
that we did not detect because of the pressure-temperature
relationship. What it is, we don't know right now. And as
far as our concern - why, yes_ we still - that still is an
open item. And obviously if we end up with concern in that
earlier concern about the basic oxidizer or something llke
that why then that is the time when we would use the rescue
ve ch i le.
QUERY Can you _ive us some idea of the numbers
of people you've got working on this problem and where
they're working on it and some idea - some examples of
what's being done?
SCHNEIDER Gee, I can't give you ideas and numbers.
We haven't hired anybody new. Basically they're the people

f--
SL-III PC-31C/2
Time: 15:06 CDT
8_3_73

on the command module side and theytre the people at Downey,


primarily obviously RCS people and the people here. We've
got the Cape people examining their records, looking at -
see if they can find anything unusual or different. Inciden-
tally, they found nothing. No ususual discrepancy reports,
no new people, no nothing that is easily traceable that
says that's the problem. The people at the Cape are basically
preparing the vehicle. There are no new hires there or
anything like that. Itts primarily putting people on extra
hours. Cape is - the operating portion of the Cape, the
operations portion is basically working two 12-hour shifts,
seven days a week, and thatts where the extra cost comes in
on Skylab. ITm sorry I can't give you numbers of people. If
you really want to know where they are, well, I'll have to
get that for you.
QUERY What's the status of recovery forces right
now? Are they Just hanging on?
SCHNEIDER Same as it was yesterday. Our recovery
status is exactly as it was to be prior to the mission. That
is, we have the Hawaiian fence once a day where if we had
to come in we would deploy our forces and pick up the crew
by way of the heavy helos. We have not changed the deploy-
ment of the recovery forces in any way, nor have we alerted
them in any special way other than keep them informed of
what our concerns were. They have not sent anybody special
_- out - no special deployment of ships or anything like that.
QUERY Mr. Schneider, I'm a bit confused. Did
you say one of your options on coming back would be to turn
on quad D and isolate Just that one thruster - that minus-X
thruster in quad B?
SCHNEIDER Baker. Quad Baker.
QUERY You would turn on quad Baker.
SCHNEIDER ' Yes, and use quad Baker for attitude - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC- 31D/I
Time: 15:06 CDT
813173

QUERY Mr. Schneider, I'm a bit confused here.


You say one of your options on coming back would be to
turn on quad D and isolate Just that one thruster, that
mlnus-X thruster in B?
SCHNEIDER Quad Baker.
QUERY You would turn on quad Baker?
SCHNEIDER Yes, and use quad Baker for attitude
stabilization?
QUERY And then would you use three thrusters
in quad Delta?
SCHNEIDER No, no.
QUERY You wouldn't use quad Delta at all. Right?
SCHNEIDER Delta - as far as we're concerned
Delta is unusable.
PAO That's all.
QUERY Assuming that you don't have to fly the
rescue mission, but you have on your hand the spacecraft
ready to go. Would you consider moving up the launch date
of SL-IV?
SCHNEIDER Well right now, as a matter of fact, the
reason I was a few minutes late getting over here was, I was
busily working the launch date on Skylab-IV. As you probably
are aware, the scientists _ant us very much to look at the
comet Kohoutek over the Christmas period and we were trying
-- to firm up what a launch date would be if we were to do that
and what a protocol would be if we did that? Again, our
posture is approximately the same. have not had any
go ahead for looking at comet Kohoutek, although the probabi-
lity is probably pretty high. If we do not look for Kohoutek
we probably would go sometime late in October - middle to
late October. If we do, we'll probably go sometime around
the middle of November. And incidentally, if we }*ave to
deploy - if we have to use the rescue vehicle, we still
could get the comet Kohoutek with a November launch, probably
a little bit later in November of Skylab-IV.
PAO John?
SCHNEIDER Just how - to make sure everybody knows
our numbering system. You know, Skylahs-I, II, IIIs and IV,
as far as we're concerned, the rescue vehicle, if launched
would have the designation of the launch of SL-R. And the
next in line - (laughter). You've got to say we're inventive.
The next in line launch of full bore 56-day mission, is
- would still be SL-IV.
PAO Okay, John.
QUERY Bill, does the launch of SL-IV and the
desire to launch late into November cost you so much money
that it's going to be taken out now expended on preparing the
SL-III PC-31D/2
Time: 15:06 CDT _
8/3/73

rescue vehicle - that's the argument for not launching into


November?
SCHNEIDER Oh no. No, no. Let me be clear. Skylab
had always had in our funding estimates, a pot of money that
said, if we bought the rescue vehicle - we bought the hard-
ware, it's in existence at the Cape. It's been there for
some time. And we've always said we have that contingency
to contend with. And in my budget estimate I've always
had this one or two million dollars for an accelerated flow.
Th_ comet Kohoutek would cause the program to be a - would
cause our viewing period to be extended from a base llne
of January 4th that's our baseline recovery day, on out
to somewhere llke January 15th or 19th, something llke that.
At that point in the program we're probably it's probably
costing us a quarter or a half a million dollars a day to
extend the program. And that's it's that money versus
- versus not seeing Kohoutek that's being debated.
QUERY This goes back to that early estimate,
though, of a million dollars a day for every day of extension.
SCHNEIDER Yes, but I'm in a higher pay period right
now. Skylab costs rates are coming down very rapidly and
when you get to the end of the program it's down to about
quarter or a half million. Currently, today - spent thirty-
two million I believe last month.
PAO Nick?
SCHNEIDER About a million today.
QUERY Can you tell us briefly some of the things
that Vance Brand and Dr. Lind are going to be doing in the
very near future in preparation for this rescue mission?
SCHNEIDER I can only tell you in general. I'm
sure that - and I know they have been over in the simulator
the last few days, and I would assume that they will spend
a great deal of time over in that facility practising the
rendezvous and the rendezvous missions. I'm sure also that
they'll go down to the Cape and look at the vehicle and do
things like that. I don't know where they are today or
where they are planning on being the next few days.
PAO John.
QUERY Is there still any planning going on or
any procedures being devised for an even earlier return of
the crew as was being discussed some yesterday?
SCHNEIDER As I told you yesterday, we are preparing
all of the onboard checklists and procedures such that if
an emergency did come up, the crew had the ability to come -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-31E/1
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

SCHNEIDER - on board checklist and procedures. Such


that if an emergency did come up the crew had the ability to
come home. We have no - we hope we dontt have to use those
procedures and we have no plans for it. However it is only
prudent to us, to put the crew in the best possible posture
in case they have to do it. So there are no plans to do it
and we - we hope we'll be ready. Thatls why I said we have
done all of our work in the slmulator_ that was to develop
all of the procedures for not only the 2 QUAD re-entry but
also for a 1 QUAD re-entry which obviously if you lost one
more QUAD that - that would be the - a real reason for wanting
to come home.
QUERY Schneider, is it fare to say that right
now, what's going on is you are preparing in essence Skylab IV
for a launch to use as a rescue, if you needed it, but that
if nothing changes seriously in the status of the command and
service module or the workshop for that matter, that you plan
on bringing back Skylab Ill as originally planned.
SCHNEIDER Ah- I would llke to reverse that, and
say I'm planning to launch the next in llne vehicle down at
the Cape for a fundamentally unaltered Skylab mission, however
we are taking all of the prudent steps which would permit us
to convert that to a rescue vehicle if such a - if such an
event becomes a necessity. We - We still would like very
much obviously to come back with the basic Skylab III reentry.
QUERY The way things are right now, if nothing changes
you could and would do what you Just said, is that true?
SCHNEIDER The wy things are, we would - no we haven't
concluded that we would, no sir. We have concluded that we
want to make sure that we can, if something - if we develop
some knowledge between now and when they have to come home that
we have to. We're not sure what that - what the configuration
of the RCS system on board ±s.
QUERY How do you trade off the simulating of -
of Brand and Lind with the regular SL-IV crew, as far as use
the simulators and also does the - are they - Brand and Lind
practicing with a flve-seat simulator or - or Just how is that
being worked out?
SCHNEIDER Wail, we don't have, I don't believe we
have a flve-seat command module simulator over there. They have
practice the re-entry procedures in a two seat con - using two seats
of our basic three seat configuration. There's no big reconflguratlon
of the Apollo command module simulator because we don't
have any great differences in performance say as we did in
Gemini where there was a great deal of reconfiguration because
each spacecraft had a very much different capasity - capability.
SL-III PC-31E/2
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

(CONT'D) So a - their practicing in the normal


command module simulator located over here. As far as who
has priority, I'm sure for the next few days, why we probably
give priority to the rescue crew, although the Jerry Carr and
his guys are very busy practicing the in orbit operations
of - of Skylab. As a matter of fact, I believe Jerry today
[s out at Langley practicing the - one of the Langley experiments.
QUERY Bill, can you bring us up to speed on the
EVA, where, when?
SCHNEIDER Well as of this morning, at the flight
management team, we debated a- changing it another day to
get another EREP pass and I decided that no it was best to
keep it on Monday and we're currently scheduled for EVA Monday,
whatever mission day that is, this coming Monday and at
which time we will deploy the twin pole, we will also
deploy the S149 and put the new set of ATM film in.
QUERY What time?
SCHNEIDER Believe it's 3 - 3 hours -
SCHNEIDER i0 o'clock. My signal is in the back. About
4 hours after wake-up call,
QUERY Do you have any estimate on when these
new procedures of checklist will be completed and are also
could you elaborate a litt]e bit morep on what directions they
are taken in your investigation on the QUAD problem?
SCHNEIDER Well the new procedures, we finished
up some of them yesterday and were available last night and
we expect to have them all up, including the single QUAD
procedures by tomorrow, tomorrow morning. That's about -
there about in some way or another there perhaps maybe
14 different procedures and checklist that are affected
in one way or another. It's not, it's not a small task,
it's a rather good size task. As far as what we are doing,
guess all I could say is that one of the things that continually
amazes me about the Space Program is what tender loving
care our hardware has received and which sometimes may not
be evident when you see the small little cracks show up.
But we are able to go back and re-examlne the history of
this hardware, right from the day it - the basic material
entered into the hard entered into the factory. That is
being examined at Downey. They are examining all of the
expection reports, they are examining all of the - all of
the materials that may have come into contact with the -
with the a - materials, all of the cleaning - cleaning solvents
and what not may have been used. Looking at the records
on all seals. Basically looking at every bit of history
that we have and everything is generally well documented.
SL-III PC-31E/3
Time: 15:06 CDT
8/3/73

(CONT'D) I think I mentioned yesterday, we so far


haven't seen anything unusual in it's history, so we can't
say anything wrong there. We have not yet come up with any
basic test program, or I'm not aware of any basic test program
that's being thought of to - see what the problem might be
It's basically a matter of detective work to try - - -

END OF TAPE

t _
SL-III PC31F/1
Time: 1506 CDT
8/3/73

SPEAKER - - that's being thought of to see what the


problem might be. It's basically a matter of detective work
to try to find out where the leak has occurred. Because I
said it looks to us as if there are two different ones. One
something keeping the valve from closing and the other one,
perhaps a small crack internal to the - into the dok1_ouse or
inside of the service module itself.
QUERY Okay. You mentioned Just now the S149
as part of the EVA. Is that a new wrinkle?
SCHNEIDER No, no. If you recall, S149 was an
experiment that we were forced to, to change because the
solar scientific airlock is unavailable to us. And we had
devised a bracket whereby we could put S149 up in the front
by the ATM and gather the, the particle data, S149 is looking
for, for collection of particles. We had that out of the
antisolar alrlock all during the unmanned period. Now we
would llke to put it out for about 30 days looking out
towards the Sun. The - it's one of my favorite experiments
I llke it very much and I hope we get some good data out of
it.
QUERY So, the length of time out during the
EVA should be about what then? What's your guess on that at
thls point?
SCHNEIDER I think the - I think we're talking in
terms in about 3 hours. Last time I looked, it was about an
hour and a half for each. The 149 is a small (garble).
We're looking for about an hour for the ATM, maybe an hour and
a half for the twin pole and a few minutes more put up the
149 experiment.
PAO Have any other questions? Thank you
very much.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 3, 1973
5:07 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

MILT WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


JOHN LLEWELLYN, EREP FLIGHT OPERATIONS CONTROLLER
JOHN McLEAISH_ PAO

PC-32
SL-III PC32A/1
Time: 1707 CDT
8/3/73

PAO Okay. Tell me when we're - Okay, we're


ready to start with the change-of-shlft conference. Assuming
we have some press with us. Okay. We're now officially ready
to start. We've got with us today, Flight Director Milt Windler
and EREP Flight Controller John LLewellyn and we'll turn it
over at this point to Milt for a status.
WINDLEE Well, of course today was Just a normal
day off for the crew. They worked all day long. And they
had their day off today between about 3 and 4 this afternoon.
But they really, as we expected of course, they continued to
pick up and run through their procedures. Did a very good
Job on the KEEP pass this morning. And John will tell you
that later on. The - but the rest of the operations has been
going well. We still are unable to figure out what's wrong
with the S073 and we're going to take data on it overnight
probably and looks llke we're going to have to jettison that
experiment while we make ready for the putting the Earth terrain
camera in the solar airlock for the EREP passes is in the
future also the other experiments that require that alrlock.
The ATM was powered up by Owen Garriott today and he's used
up most of two passes that he's had since then talking about it.
We figure it's going to be hard to get any words in in the
future. Cause he's going to spend so much of his time telling
us about what he sees coming the other way. And so, it's
seems to be - but the part of it that is powered up, looks
-- fine and I think Owen is already happy to get a chance to work
with it. The spacecraft's systems (cough) excuse me, space-
craft's systems are all working all right and the water
removal is operating in what you might call in normal
fashion. That is, it, we have all the normal compliment of
fans on and water separater is going. The only problem is that
this large vaeeum tank that the water's going into, does
have this leak in the manifold as we indicated and it requires
servicing perhaps everyday or something llke that instead of
every 28 days like we had expected it in the past. All before
the mission, on Skylab as it was on Skylab II. One unusual
thing about that is the leak rate is slowing down, or at
least it's been slow this afternoon. And it maybe that it
we won't have to dump it as often as we think or we reinstitute
the vaccum. The EVA is set up now for day 10. And crew thinks
that's a good idea and we'll, we'll of course proceed and develop
plans for all the EVA things. Including a look at the quads to
see if there's anything that the crew can tell about the quads by
a (garble) inspection. And the offline work, I don't know what
has been said about that today, but the people that are working
on all procedures have been working two 12-hour shifts, and lot
of work's gone on along those lines with simulator runs and
SL-III PC32A/2
Time: 1707 CDT
8/3/73

(CONT'D) procedures development and that's getting to be pretty


well in hand. In fact, right now we're preparing a massive set
of up-llnks to the crew to change their onboard checklists. But
it looks llke that the procedures for using two quads and even
one quad are working fine in the simulator and so, we do have
adequate methods of control available. And meanwhile, I'm not
too up to speed on all the research that's going on on the other
side. I'll let somebody else - other people talk about that as
far as the trying to determine the source of whatever is wrong,
the quads, and anything that might be appropriate to the - to
the construction of it or whatever. So it might be - we'll let
John tell us a little hlt about the EREP pass. Stand by for
questions.
LLEWELLYN Okay. the pass today -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-32B/1
Time: 17:07 CDT
8/3/73

WINDLER - - let John tell us a little about the


EREP pass. Stand by for questions.
LLEWELLYN Okay. The pass today started over northern
Oregon. Well - the first thing we did today over the Pacific
Ocean, was do a nadir align, which gives us a radial - radial
altimeter data. And this is more or less a calibration
for the data gathering we did over Utah, Colorado, New Mexico,
and Texas. The - this data will be cataloged and used to
identify terrain characteristics, s we and that's the
altimeter data. The next data we took was 191 data and this
is the one that the crew interfaces and this was the Salt
Lake desert, and this is our scanner. And this will be
used for a sense of population distribution and land use
studies. And this is in conjunction with a multl-band
photography and a multi-band scanner, e took the same
type of data of those three sensors with the microwave data
as we came across the San Juan Mountains and that was - we
were lucky today. That was 0.3 cloud cover there which
is essentially clear. Let me say this also, that the crew
was very effectively, for the first time - they were able
to - to take to view finding tracking system and identify
that Salt Lake Desert. Then that's reference to the
- our scanner. As we - the next - we again_ all along the
ground track and into Texas we have taken microwave data
of these terrain characteristics. Okay_ the next thing
-- we do - a nadir track with this scanner, which was going
to be used in studies of meteorology and cum - what is site
and was aecumulous over land. e are into Texas now and
the crew was able to identify three unique sites. The
Somerville dam, Eagle Lake, and the range land in Rosellnd
- Rosenburg, Texas. This of the our scan, these will be
for land use. Then we - as we they had another one - site
on the San Bernard River basin, but this is where we
ran into the 0.8 cloud cover and he was unable to identify
the site even though he was in the vicinity searching for
it. Okay. As we go into the Gulf we have taken photography
in - microwave data. Across the Yucatan, and we do some
more nadir tracks with the hour scanner. The high trade
wind Q between Panama and the northern coast of South America.
The course that we were working again with this scanner,
we had our multi-spectral cameras and scanners that work
in conjunction with these meteorology and oceanographic
studies. The next major target was a cemented tropical con-
vergent zone near the Equator and we sweep across South
America and Argentina and Brazil -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-32C/1
Time: 17:07 CDT
8/3/73

LLEWELLYN - - the next major target was cemented


tropical convergent zone near the equator and we sweep across
South America and in Argentina, Brazil and those countries.
We use the S192, which is a multispectral scanner and a -
associated photography, plus the microwave system. And then
we went off into the Gulf to get the land - ocean interface
with the same compliment of sensors. The conduct of the pass,
for the first one was excellent, we had no sense - we didn't
have any sense that normally is that we know of at this time.
of course, we well have to get the subsequent analysis will
be done tonight to see if we have any anomalies, but it seem
like, to me, the pass was very smooth, Lousma did a very good
Job, describing what he was looking at and identifying the a -
difficulty acquiring sights with the view finding tracking
system. If a - that's about it - I - Windler did you have
any don't know exactly at what depth to go into this thing
I'ii Just - -
WINDLER We will wait until questions.
PAO Why don't we through it open for questions
now. Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Milt, first I want to go hack to the S073,
l'm not sure I understand exactly how that thing stuck amd
in why, hecause they can pull it hack into the side of the
craft, right
WINDLER It has to be orientented in a certain direction
in order to fit through the hole, and it's not, it's twisted
you might say or it, won't go through in all directions,
it has to be alined in a certain way and they can't aline it,
it's okay - it moves in two directions, it moves around the shaft
and trunnion. And they can make it work right on the trunnion
but but they can't rotate it right on the shaft, so it hits
a - frame. It in fact, a fairly long instrument it's, but
long way though okay, but it - a well.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Is that all?
QUERY So cost us the T027, doesn't it, hecause
it uses the same, if we have to Jettison understand it?
WINDLER No, I don't - well I'll have to check on
that, I don't helieve that's right though, I think the a -
that we can still, the part that's left, we can still use.
I'ii have to verify that to be sure though.
PAO David Gray.
QUERY Sorry I'm late, Charlie, (garble)
LLEWELLYN Yes, sir, so do I. Excellent, in fact
crew on the pass before gave a very good dlscriptlon of the
United States through - the one of the camera stations using
a TV camera, which was very excellent. In fact it was about
SL-III PC-32C/2
Time: 17:07 CDT
8/3/73

(CONT'D) 15 minutes of discrlptlon from Great Lakes


across the United States into, I think it was the Atlantic Ocean
around Charleston, very interesting.
QUERY When are you going to have the procedures,
do you know yet on the EVA?
WINDLER Well, they are coming up for review tomorrow,
the detail procedures and we hope to get them to the crew the
next day after that, which is, what that Sunday isn't it?
Day i0 is EVA. I said that before he came in. So we
expect to have those reviewed and perhaps some of them opllnked
tomorrow, and if not then Sunday.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY One more on the condensate tank, do I
understand, from what you are saying, is all we have to do
is just service every now _nd then and we don't really have
any problems on it anymore? Major problems?
WINDLER That's the way it looks right now, of course
we need to keep using it. There's still somewhat high on humidity
and we need to bring that on down. We hope in a couple - a
day or so that that will be down.
PA0 David Gray.
QUERY And on the crew, how was their feeling today?
They pretty well over their stomach awareness?
WINDLER I believe they are, they sure looked like
they were moving around very well on the television, if you
_- had a chance to see that. And they didn't take any medication
and they said they felt real good. They seem to do things
more importantly, they seem to do things on a - more of a -
time llne schedule, in the past we have been getting about
an hour behind, but today we stayed pretty well, up, even though
it was a busy day. Is now for a day off.
SPEAKER Is now for a day off, (laugher)
WINDLER (LAUGH) Very much so for a day off.
QUERY Is this the first day they have gone without
medication since like day 2?
WINDLER No I don't think they actually had any yesterday,
I believe the day before that, only the Commander took a seconal
I believe and other than that, I don't think they had anything
either. And I would have to run that back in my mind to see which
days they were, hut a - hut they didn't a - but - but this would
be the second or third, I won't - really the third day, as far
as their stomach awareness is concerned.
QUERY They on food intake.
WINDLER No, I really don't, except have every reason
to think that it is normal, they did say that there is no more
requirement between they and the biomed people, they agree that
there was no reason to keep sending up these special menus so
they went right on to the normal spacecraft menus that had been
SL-III PC-32C/3
Time: 17:07 CDT
- 8/3/73

(CONT'D) arranged premlsslon. And that comes


down the voice recorder but they didn't report and deviation
and so I'm by that I'm pretty sure they probably ate the normal
menu.

PAO Bruce Hicks.


QUERY John, or Milt, we're still looking at an
EREP pass tomorrow, posslbily, and today did I hear something
about a double EREP or I just you were talking about
two consecutive U.S. passes on Sunday?
LLEWELLYN That's presently under consideration.
WINDLER You might be talking about tomorrow, but
I don't really think we will be able to do two EREP back to back,
because we need to do some work on evaluating our power system
and establish that - that capability a little hit better.
We probabily not going to have a chance to do that. But you
might tell them about tomorrow. (garble)

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC32D/I
Time: 1707 CDT
8/3/73

WINDLER - - okay, Milt, a little bit better. We're


probably not going to have a chance to do that. But you might
tell them about tomorrow.
WINDLER Tell them about the - I want you to ask
them about the fishing boats please. Somebody.
LLEWELLYN Oh, yeah. That comes up tomorrow.
WINDLER You asked me about that twice and I haven't
known the answer but John knows.
LLEWELLYN This is under the combined survey to go
flsh[ng. And I hope I can go through this all right, Ted. The
prime investigator is Stevenson. And he - this is for Sunday's
pass, August the fifth and then fishing off the Gulf Coast
and we'll have the Skylab overpass in NASA aircraft flights
for the participation is mostly ocean geographic and fishing -
(garble) the fishing boat. At field stations, destined Florida,
Pensacola, Panama City, we won't need them call their acti-
vities too. (Cough) We combined (garble) NASA operation
who will do all the coordination. And I - I heard one time
how many sport fishing boats would - were involved in this
by the lO-mlnute (garble).
QUERY Is it 60 some and 40 of them have a
have a fish sky on something like that.
LLEWELLYN Yes, this fairly large a number of
boats involved in this. I knew yesterday and I probably
forgot, somewhere. But if it's important, we'll put them
down. And these dual - the ports, will sample through the
Gulf and the oceangraphlc samples aboard the fishing boats
have been training presently around to the ports for sample
kits and data sheets. And this is the thing Milt was commenting
on that will be part of this fishing plate.
WINDLER Where is tomorrow's pass, John. I didn't
ask you today?
LLEWELYN That's track 48 with, I don't know. I
never really got a chance to look at it. I know that is a - -
WINDLER He's got a map of all tracks.
LLEWELYN Oh, here it is. The game fish to collect
fish and distribution data. We can expect about 70 volunteer
vessels and 280 fishermen from St. Petersburg, Florida to
Golden Meadow, Louisiana to cooperate in this experiment. And
of course, NASA will have vessels from the Earth Resources Lab
in Mississippi and no one will have the vessels.
WINDLER You know, it'll probably rain.
LLEWELYN j We did see some clouds in the forecasting today
but we thlnk we'll go on with it. It's the same front we saw
here today.
QUERY I was just going to ask you about that
over Houston. That was kind of bad, wasn't it?
LLEWELYN There was a crew, I didn't happen to go
SL-III PC 32D/2
Time: 1707 CDT
8/3/73

LLEWELLYN out during the pass, but they commented


on the haze. So I knew there was alot of haze and when I came
in this morning, it was overcast. He was- I think it is what
we call 04 - I mean 4 to 7/10 and he was able to identify
the targets - I mean sites.
WINDLER There were, I believe 4 sites that the
crew was suppose to try to find in the Houston area. And
they were able to find 3 of them - I think John went over
that before you came in. Just a little while before you
walked in - -
LLEWELLYN I know.
WINDLER I noticed one of them was close to the
coast because - probably the front must have been right off the
coast at the time. Hight off Galveston and I guess up around
ashore again at Port Lavaca.
LLEWELLYN That's the kind it wrapped around there.
And that weather forecast from the time we got it had 3 hours
prior the pass it held by what the meteorology people said.
That you would have the 8 to i0 tenths which is totally overcast
that all around Galveston and like you said, Port Lavaca down
to Brownsville. And then 4 to 7 - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-32E/I
Time: 17:07 CDT
8/3/73

LLEWELLYN around Galveston and llke you said


Port Lavaea down to Brownsville. And than four to seven
inland. And that's how we were able to identify those sites
that we talked about earlier. We were at Somerville and
Eagle Lake and the range land at Rosharon.
PAO Davld ...
QUERY Tom, _y any chance - what - I was driving
down there early thls mognlng and we really bad somebody
doing a heavy dump on the ship channel for about 5 miles
because I got sick to my stomach for 5 miles. And I was
thinking about that at the tlmep during the pass and if
you hit a big block of bad air llke this, how would that
show up in your sensors?
LLEWELLYN You would probably - I'd hesitate to
answer that. I really would. But if it's a - you knowD
thermal - you can certalnl 7 see that. But that's one of
the things we're doing with the Earth's Resources packages.
One of the bigger ones are pollutlon, and we had some
investigators and I can't name them right now that were
some of our task sites were involved in that today in the
Houstonarea. And how that they manipulate this data to -
you know, the signatures that contrast and enhancement
and so forth. I wouldn't Know.
QUERY About two months ago Jacques Cousteau
was in Houston and he'd Just gotten back from a trip to
the Antartica. And he was talking about - NASA had some-
body with him and he talked more about space than he did
the ocean. And he mentioned something then at the time about
Skylab and how he hoped to have a piece of it or something
along that lines. Do you know if - or maybe I should be
directing this at the gentlemen to find out?
SPEAKER He's not one of our principal investiga-
tors. No.
WINDLER I read that in the paper, too, and I don't
know - there's a lot of Investlga - oh, there's several
investigations that have to do with oceanography. Not just
weather-type stuff, but up-welling in the sea and the currents
and fisheries and things like that that he is interested
in. And certainly - I've already forgotten the details of
that too, but he could certainly get the information and
analyze it as anybody else can.
PAO Yet, I do think that we have some ad-
ditional background materials, not so much through the
Johnson Space Center, but through NASA headquarters. See
we had one question which has been called in. And that
question reads: Has there been any success with the camera
equipment for arabella?
WINDLER No, that's on the shopping llst today, and
SL-III PC-32E/2
Tlme: 17:07 CDT
f_
8/3/73

I don't believe the crew's gotten around to doing that yet.


They haven't reported anything to us on it yet at least. They
might probably get to it this evening, and we dontt know
how it's going to turn out yet.
PAO Any further questions? We're adjourned.

END OF TAPI:

f_-.
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Skylab Ill Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 4, 1973
4:54 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Hilt Windier, Flight Director


Gary Renick, ATM Controller
Amos Crisp, PAO

PC-34
SL-III PC- 34A/I
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

PAO Okay. For this evening's change-of-shift


briefing we have Flight Director, Milt Windler, and ATM
Controller, Gary Reniek. We will begin with a brief state-
ment from Mr. Windier.
WINDLER You said brief. We had a good day today. The
crew is Just a little hit behind the flight plan, but once
again, it was a real full one, particularly early in the day
when we had them really Jammed up trying to do some last
minute things on that SO73 instrument and get configured
for the Earth Resources pass with the Earth terrain camera.
Somebody asked me yesterday - Bruce did, and I told you that
I didn't think we'd lost the TO25 and 27, hut we have. I
bad in my mind that we got some of that mechanism back but
that was incorrect, so we - that's unfortunately we had
to jettison it, as you know. And we tried everything we
could but we could not get it configured so we could retract
it. The EREP pass went well today and the weather was about
as we had expected and the crew was able to find all their
telescope sites tracking sites and the only excitement, I
guess, occurred right at the very end of it when, as best we
can tell, the - either a combination of the ultraviolet light
from the Sun or maybe some of the particles from the South
American anomaly, since you recalled it, are right down there
off of the Vanguard at the end of South America, triggered
the fire alarm onboard. It didn't seem to bother Jack Lousma,
p though. I thought - he was just pressing right on llke - you
know, llke we do around here, espec:[ally when you first get
in the building way it seems like the smoke from clears and
cigarettes triggers the fire alarms and you get used to them
going off all the time. And I guess that's bad, but we do.
But anyway that seemed to be no real problem and as I said,
it did happen to us a time or two on Skylab II. The Earth
terrain camera did stop running in standby a couple of times.
And we still don't know why that is. The only thing that
we may find out there are - well the only obvious thing is
the fact that it was a real long pass, let me put it that way.
And this camera does have a history of really not liking to
run for long periods of time. But we are looking into it
and are trying to get the data on the electrical power going
to it and see if we can tell anything from that. But it
when he shut is down, of course_ it was running again and
so we do expect to use it for the pass tomorrow. Medical
runs went well. We plan to try to see if we can figure out
what's wrong with the spider camera later on today. And we
because - I guess the most significant problem I haven't
mentioned yet, and I don_t know if that was said this morning
or if there was even a change-of-shlft briefing this morning,
but in the about 10 o'clock last night or a little after
SL-III PC- 34A/2
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

i0, we apparently had about a 3-second short of about 300


or 350 amps on the - one of the ATM busses the TV power
bus. And Gary can tell you what that means science-wise_
hut basically it looked it probably cleared itself most
llkely by burning the wire into. And all this is outside of
the spacecraft. We're now trying to establish where the
wire bundle is - what other routing pass that it has. If
there are any problems involved in looking at it. I mean
in using the equipment, I should sayj and also what we can
do in having the crew perhaps look at the bundle and - or
look in that area and give us any ideas during the EVA.
So right now that is - I wouldn't say it's a mystery but
the complete effects are yet to be evaluated. We did run
the instruments after that time. It turned out that this
happened while we were LOS and it happened so quickly that
the crew didn't notice it either. So, as far as you know,
seeing it on the instruments and we only found it out in-
directly through the fact that the we had the MC&W from
the command module that apparently was Just generated by
some EMl-type effect. And also the pressure inside of the
ATM canister started going up. And this may or may not be
related. We still have to determine that hut one cause of
it could have been outgassing from the wire bundle. So
anyway putting all this - it took a while to put all those
clues togethet" and we' re Just now, also, trying to see some
of the slde-effects you might say from this. The crew
f" plans tomorrow to do a back-to-back EREP passes. Tracks
number 61 and 62. Sixty-two is the one that y'all have
asked me about several times that comes across the coast
of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, the panhandle area
down in there with all those dozens of fishing boats, et
cetera. The weather looks real good. Track 61 is one that
goes across the east coast of the United States, goes through
that great state of Virginia, through the tide water area.
And both of these have a lot of pass _ites involved

END OF TAPE

w
SL-III PC-34/BI
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

WINDLER - that was through that great state of


Virginia, through the tide water area. And both of these
have a lot of (garble) sites involved with them up around 50,
so we're looking forward to a big EREP day tomorrow. And
both maneuvers we've done so far have worked out very well.
And we're quite pleased with that the results from that
system so far. In the afternoon the crew will be doing
a lot of pro-EVA activities. They're going to get out the
twin-boom sail and check it out and go through their pre-
paration for the EVA. And we've allocated them an extra
hour. The following day, which they can either use - it is
kind of complicated - either they can work late and sleep
in late or if they want to - which they indicated they pro-
bably would do, or if they don't want to do that they can
get up in the morning and do it in the morning. But right
now we plan on them sleeping late and getting all their
pre-EVA prep done tomorrow night. And this will put the
EVA back by an hour from the previous time, or pretty close
to that. So that's where we are an Gary can tell you a
little bit about the ATM and how the - the problems that
we've had with it affect that system and -
RENICK Do you want me te Just give a statement
on it, or take questions?
WINDLER Why don't you start with a statement.
RENICK I guess what data we got, when we finally
r discovered the problem, we lost the TV Bus. And we have
two TV busses and we still have the primary Bus. We lost
the number 2 Bus, was what it was. We haven't run the TV
system since that time, but we have powered the system down.
And we did run the instruments as Milt mentioned, for about
5 hours after that and we've now powered them down. And
we're standing by to check the wire bundles to make sure
we possibly won't have another probl,_.m in some other system.
We haven't been able to - in the data we pulled out so far
we haven't found any problems at all in the system of the
instruments themselves. So, we' re going to have to open
the doors on the canister to get the pressure down before
we turn the instruments on. The pressure is higher than
some of the instruments can stand in OPERATE. So, I think
that's what will be coming up here tonight. They'll be
opening the door, and trying to bleed the canister down.
And then we'll probably bring the buses up one at a time
to see if we still have a problem or if we can run. And
Huntsville is still looking into what could possibly be the
cause of it. And as far as I know right now, nobody knows
what it is what caused the problem.
PAO Okay, we'll take questions. Bruce was - -
SL-III PC-34B/2
Time: 16:54 CDT
814173

QUERY Okay, Gary, I guess I'ii start with you.


On - would you list what all the repercussions of the short
could be other than if you turned on the instruments and
you had too much pressure,in the canister because that seems
like a fairly easy thing to bleed down. But what are the re-
percussions it could be and losses and where would other failures in
this same say connected system or whatever, and what could
that cause you? Since you - I guess have kind of lost your
backup with Bus 2 now.
RENICK Well we're not sure we've completely lost
Bus 2. We don't know for sure. It went off line when they
had the short,. But, all of the TV cameras on all the dif-
ferent instruments are connected to these busses. Okay, there's
two busses. Generally both busses are on feeding the TV
cameras. Also, both the onboard TV monitors are fed off
these busses. Now if you lose any of the cameras, in parti-
cular instruments, you won't be able to do the pointing with
it. And if you lose the monitors, of course, you won't be
able to see it.
QUERY Well, are there any other repercussions
other than the TV? I think we got a little hit of under-
standing on it this morning? Now that you've had all day
to look at it, what more do you understand about it than
you understood at 9 o'clock this morning and what are the
possibilities of danger and/or losing more in the ATM?
WINDLER Well, let me point out. Excuse me. You
can point out on the design board that you can take this
one bundle at this wire that runs through from the - to the
Bus that appears to be affected and the one that's -

END OF TAPE

........... r
SL-III PC34C/I
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

WINDLER - - on board, that a - that you can take


this one bundle that this wire runs through from - to the bus
that appears to be - affected and the one - that's probably
burned into, that's what I'd guess, but of course we don't
know that yet, and maybe never will. And you can show - well that
doesn't effect anything else, but then you have to ask your-
self is that really true and that takes awhile the -
the first glance at it, there's no obvious connection between
these other lines going to the instruments. So it's going to
take awhile to uncover the less than obvious, but we did operate
the instruments, some of them for awhile after this occurred
so we know - have some data there.
QUERY Can you run a - both TV monitors and both
a - both cameras off a single bus?
WINDLER Yes, we can.
QUERY Okay.
WINDLER There's no problem there.
QUERY And Milt a - looking ahead to the EVA,
I wonder if you could summarize what the new sunshield is
going to do for you that the old sunshield isn't doing?
WINDLER Well, I hope it covers little more of the
spacecraft. As you know we do have a problem in that the sunshield
didn't fully deploy and while it go= us into acceptable
thermal situation, at least for very - most of the -
the beta conditions that we operate under. It did leave a
f discernible hot spot, you might call it, on the - on the side
the - OWS in which it - which the Skyla5 II people reported
that they could feel distinctly where the shadow was but we -
we do expect it to - to bring us back in a better thermal
condition essentially that is what it does for us, it brings
us back in the higher beta angle conditions where we're exposed
to a greater percentage of sunlight ,luring the orbit.
QUERY Could I get you to restate that in - in
little a - less complex terms llke a - are you talking about
the interior of the spacecraft getting too hot when the sun
angle is high and things llke that, and also go into the
deterioration aspects of it?
WINDLER Well, theoretically anyway the a- the a-
parasol is put on there now, is the fabric has a limited
llfe time. And the - and the twin boca sail has fabric which
probably will last a longer - well the test show that it will
last a longer period of time past the lifetime of the Skylab.
Of course, as you know, everytime we ask a crew to look at the
sall they say looks like it did when they put it out, and there
really has been no - no discernible change in it and it still
seems to he effective, the parasol I should say, I'm sorry
I'm trying - I should use that term to distinguish between

i--
SL-III PC-34C/2
Time: 16:54 MT
814173

(CONT'D) the two. But what it but what the twin


boom sail will do, it will give us a better thermal protection
inside the cabin during those periods when we are at the
high beta angles, as we will be here in a - several more days
now, or couple of weeks now. And we were at the end of
Skylab II, when the cabin did get warmer than we would llke
to see it. A - -
QUERY Talking about temperatures a - that the
crew will feel which would be in 90 verses the 70 - -
WINDLER No they were in the low 80's when the
crew left. They said it was not real comfortable for sleep,
as you will recall a-
QUERY There was a difference of about
i0 - 15 degrees, with the high sun - -
WINDLER That's probabily a fair statement, that's
right, in fact we think with the - the sall deployed, we
probably will have to use the heaters under some conditions,
which is of course, the way the systems were designed in the
first place, to essentially run cool and you bring it up to
temperature by using heaters.
QUERY Were there any ATM experiments run today,
or were you Just running the system to test it?
WINDLER No we didn't run any of the at all today.
QUERY What's the EVA start time?
WINULER I don't know the answer to that, it's an
hour later than what they have been telling you.
QUERY They haven't been telling us. (laughter)
WINDLER They haven't been telling you_ (laughter)
WINDLER I'm sorry I thought we'd -
QUERY It's - -
WINDLER we'd admitted what it was.
PAO 14:50 znln is in the flight plan, I
think there - -
WINDLER Well it will be an hour later than that.
QUERY But, okay, a - How much time are you going
to spend - I mean what is that block of time you have allocated
to look in that the QUADs?
WINDLER Well, that's a sort of open block, because
a - we - we're planning on doing that in real time and expect
the crew to run over

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC34D/I
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

WINDLER That's a sort of open block because we


are planning on doing that in real time and expect the crew
to run over at a time when they feel llke that they get to
a stopping point perhaps they will feel llke resting for
a while between tasks we have three or four tasks for them to do so
I don't think it will take us more than - I couldn't see
how it could take more than i0 minutes at the most and if
any thing it will almost be llke a rest period then it will
be a - no active work no generating of Btus really.
QUERY Milt, will you llst the steps or which
tasks they are going to to first, second, third Just very
briefly and also they're going to be taking a sall out tomorrow
putting the poles together and everything else inside the
workshop and every - is anybody in here a little worried that
they are going to get all that stuff pulled out which I
think it's packed very neatly now as I understand ready to
be deployed and they are going to have a mess up there and
not be able to you know - pack it all back and take it outside
and do it right you anybody - you know anybody (garble).
WINDLER No, quite the contrary as a matter of
fact cause I think that it'll be to our advantage to have
them open it up and look at it - it for one thing in my
mind anyway it'll sort of shake the creases out of it a little
bit they're not going to fully deploy it l'm sure but they'll
do what they can but I think I - by actually exercising
the equipment that it will be will worth the time because
they'll of course get much more familar with it and they'll
get a chance to see what all the pieces look like and the way
that stuff is packed for launch of course it's designed to
be stowed in a very small space and that requirement doesn't
necessarily exist - it doesn't exist in an airlock and of
course within limits reasons - reasonable limits so and-
we even if they don't get it packed back into this exact
same size that won't be any real problem. Bt,t we plan to do
the sall deployment and the ATM fil_ change. Pardon?
QUERY In that order?
WINDLER Yes, that's the thinking now of course
the crew we Just told them about thai: today so they may have
some different ideas but I think they will go along with that.
We have some work to do on deploying the S149 and doing some
work on another experiment 230 and I really forgotten which
order that's in to tell you the truch, they're really
relatively small time users though and we do plan to take
off the stops on the ATM doors got some launch stops on one
door excuse me on the S055. This is a little thing they call
a ramp but essentially it's a launch lock it's intended to
protect it during the launch environment and they're going
to take that aloose expecting of course that will free up the
door make the door operations better and then look at the
quads. And probably we'll now go down and do something and
SL-III PC34D/2
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

look - spend some time looking at the ATM wire bundles.


QUERY What's the situation regarding TV during
the EVA?
WINDLER Our video tape recorder is broken we
have another one on board we will have to change it out but
right now there's - if we continue on the present schedule we
have there'll not be time to change that - it takes two men
and another probably another 45 minutes perhaps a little
longer to do that so we'll be restricted to real-tlme coverage
which will probably not be until December from - we gotten
some real time coverage here recently during the few S passes
around ii and 12 o'clock.
QUERY Where is this ATM wire bundle located? You're - -
SPEAKER They were describing it to me over the
phone just before I came over here and I couldn't tell you
(chuckle). To tell you the truth I was having a hard time
visualizing the way they were describing the way it ran.
QUERY Well your compadre this morning_ Mr.
Lewis was concerned about a possible danger if the anstronauts
went very close or got to digging around anywhere close
to some of these wire bundles is that - have you looked at
that in this problem?
WINDLER Well, normaly we're doing that the
normal EVA pads is not close to the area where all of these
wire bundles run but the thing that bothers me and I don't
really have any data to tell me that this is a problem is
the fact that of course when the crew puts the ATM film in
they do have to rotate the canister and - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-34E/I
Time: 16:54 CDT
8/4/73

WINDLER - - on but the thing that bother me, and


I don't really have any data to tell me that this is a pro-
blem is the fact that, or course, that when the crew puts
the ATM film in they do have to rotate the canister and to
move it around to where they can install the film. And the
way the canister moves around it does move these wire bun-
dles that are tied to it. So, Just inherently you've got
to think that you want to be sure what's going on in there.
And that's one of the things that we need to work on and
understand before we let them go. o that is an area that's
got to be studied, and that's the thing that Marshall's working
on now while they're looking at - and have been doing this
all day.
QUERY I Just want to make sure I understood
you. Did you say there will be real time tomorrow, or there
might be real time TV tomorrow?
WINDLER I didn't mean to say tomorrow. I meant
the day after - -
QUERY I'm sorry. For the EVA.
WINDLER Yes, - -
QUERY There will be EVA real time TV -
WINDLER We'll do the best we can depending on
you know, when the crew actually goes out. As you're well
aware, they - the times - we're not always sure when they're
going to get through preparing, but we're planning to do
real time TV during the EVA as best we can.
QUERY How does - -
WINDLER It all is - of course we've only got a
few stations we can send it down to.
QUERY All right. How does the crew feel about
doing the EVA now? At earlier in the mission they've been
a little bit reluctant, or they felt that they were very
busy, or they - -
WINDLER Well that was very early in the mission
then they became very anxious to do it in fact they wanted
to do it - llke tomorrow I guess - no, today. Today's day
8 isn't it? And I'm sure they're ready. In fact they said
they were. They're very anxious to press on with it.
QUERY If your EVA prep went well, and you got
ready early, would you start your EVA early and make up the
hour you've Just slipped?
WINDLER Oh, yes, we once we've let the crew
get started why they proceed on. In fact if - -
QUERY - - then it's Just an event scheduled.
Right?
WINDLER Yes, it's - (laughter) all the above.
QUERY During the VTR checkout today - y'all
I
814173

talked about hearing clunks and so forth and that that


sounded as though it were very meaningful to somebody. What
- do you have any idea what's wrong with the old VTR, there?
WINDLER Yes, it's - l'm sorry I was going to
answer your question before you got through. What - I - so
I was going to answer it wrong. What was your very last
sentence? Do I have any idea what's wrong with it?
QUERY Yes, what the clunk was? What was the
original answer?
MS Yes (Laughter)
WINDLER I was going to talk about the clunk. You
know bow you - what the clunk meant was that the commands
were getting into the recorder. That was one of the - that
was really the primary intent of the troubleshooting was
to see if we were really telling the recorder what to do.
It's kind of llke standing to the side and listening to your air-
conditioner, you know, you just click it on and off to see
if it - if the relays are doing their thing on the inside.
And yes, it was. And we did try to erase the tape oh, not
erase it, but to clean the tape head on the off-chance that
that was part of the problem, which it was not. So, apparently
there's something wrong in the electronics inside and it's
just not getting it's signal off the magnetic tape. And
it's we feel llke there's - short of really opening it
up and going inside, therets nothing - that one's gone.
And that was almost, you know, it wasn't a sure thing but
it - we were - we didn't have a fifty-fifty chance of fixing
it with the - with that malfunction. But we felt llke we
needed to try because it didn't take much time for the crew
to work with it, whereas this other procedure's going to
take a long time.
PAO Warner has a question.
QUERY Are you going to put the second VT]% in
then, and how long would that take?
WINDLER It takes two people about two men
about 45 minutes, so that's a sizable block of time. And
we' re going to do that as soon as we can get it into the
flight plan, which will probably be the day after the EVA.
That was discussed at some length today, but we felt llke
it was better to do these good EREP passes than it was to
replace the tape recorder.
PAO Are there any further questions? Okay,
thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Skylab III Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 4, 1973
9:52 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Chuck Lewis, Flight Director


Milt Reim, PAO

PC-33
_. SL-III PC-33A/1
Time: 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

PAO We'll get started this morning with


Flight Director Chuck Lewis.
LEWIS Okay, we had a major anomaly last night.
We had about a 350 amp short which lasted for about 3 seconds
and then apparently burned itself out. We suspect that it
is somewhere between a couple of buses in the ATM. In leading
up to this, on the previous shift at about 3:20 gulu Just after
crew sleep, the crew got a master alarm in the command service
module. It woke them up, they went up and checked it and
found no reason apparently for the alarm. A little bit later
one of the other controllers noticed that the fine Sun sensor
wedge position indication had gone to zero. And subsequent to
that, we noticed TV bus 2 ill the ATM had gone to zero. We went
back and looked at our recorded data and discovered the short
which occurred about the time the crew got the command module
master alarm. Apparently the short was of such magnitude that
we had enough EMI on the ground in the system to get an alarm
in the command service module. The only thing common electrically
between the vehicles at this time since the CSM is providing
it's own power from the fuel cells is the ground. As I said
it looks like it is between I buses. We didn't lose any loads.
We have redundant TV buses. We have TV bus 1 and 2. We have
redundant ATM buses, bus 1 and 2. So it doesn't look at least
at this time that we will lose any components or loads off those
buses. But that is still being analyzed, and that's Just a
suspicion on my part based on the preliminary data. And we
think that the fact that the fine Sun sensor wedge drive
output dropped to zero is again EMI, a glitch in the electrical
system and the counters Just reset. But they are going
to do a malfunction procedure or checkout on the wedge drive
this morning. Also after the crew woke up this morning -
Well let me go back. Another thing we noticed on telemetry
when we played the data back was we showed a caution and
warning in the AM system with regard to the short. However,
the crew did not get that same caution and warning. We asked
the crew to select a particular position with regard to the
CBRMs so they could look at the type particular CBRMs with
the master caution and warning system in the alrloek module.
In the process of doing that, when they selected CBRM 17, it
kicked the CBRM regulator off llne for some reason, which
basically removes that CBRM from the bus. They switched to
CBRM 16 and kicked that regulator off llne, which may mean
that we've got a bad switch. We commanded those Regs back
on llne, on the ground, and they are back on now. So that's
another anomaly.

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-33B/I
f_ TIME: 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

LEWES We had a bit of excitement. We thought


we had another anomaly, which would have been major. It
turned out to be a ground processing problem I might tell
you about. It set us on the edge of our seats. We were
breathless for awhile. During the night at one of the
Honeysuckle passes it looked like the command module helium
tank for ring 2 was decreasing. St turns out that it wasn't.
We got some funny in our ground processing. Somewhere
apparently, it had given us erroneous indications. We looked
at the tape playback from the command module and the system
appears fine. But that gave us a real scare. With the
problems that we've got presently in the service module
RCS. o it was a very exciting night to say the least.
And I think most of you Just noticed on TV playback that
we have Jettisoned the S073 this morning. That's basically
a summary of the activity.
QUERY Chuck, I've got several dealing with
the electrical. First of all, was the caution and warning
alarm in the AM that the ground saw and the crew did not, did
that come about the same time -
LEWIS It did. Let me give you a sequence of
events at about that time. Somewhere between 03:04 and
03:34, the TV BUS 2 telemetry dropped to zero, off scale
low. That particular measurement is not on the on board
recorder, so we couldn't find out specifically when that
happened. At about 03:13 is when we had the CSM master
caution and warning. Now that occurred LOS also, Just before
Guam_ so when the crew at Guam said i "Hey_ wetve had one,
we think about 5 or i0 minutes ago." So that's an
approximate time. Playback data indicates that at 03:20:21
to 03:20:22, Just a second difference_ we had the warning 1
and caution i, that|s the AM on telemetry. At 03:20:22
ATM BUS 1_ that's the good BUS, 27-1/2 volts, the ATM BUS 1
current was zero. The short - everything was going to the
short. At 03:20:25 three seconds later, the ATM BUS 2 was
242 amps, the transfer BUS i, from the airlock module
electrical system was supplying 92 amps to the short for
a total of about 350 amps feeding the short. At 03:20:33,
was when the ATM fine Sun sensor wedge drive indication went
to zero.
QUERY Okay, and you called it a major anomaly
and from all of the things that went wrong at the same time,
how would you put this anomaly in perspective with possible
repercussions and future problems with it, and where do we
stand_ and could this thing knock all the CBRMs and the ATM
control panel and set off things in the command module at the
same time. St really got widespread there.
SL III PG-33B/2
TIME: 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

LEWIS I aid major anomaly_ it's a major


anomaly to have a failure like this, a short between two
buses. The preliminary look at the data doesn't indicate
it's going to be an impact to the mission, because we have
redundant buses to the loads. So I don't, at this point
in tlme, I don't see a major impact to the mission. As a
matter of fact, there may be none• The anomally is the fact
that we had a short of that nature between two buses.
QUERY Well, does this short, does it definitely
knock out BUS 2?
LEWIS It looks like we've lost TV BUS 2. That's
a subbus off the ATM BUS 2.
QUERY But it doesn't indicate that this could
also cause us to loose any of the CBRMs.
LEWIS No.
QUERY Could you explain that a little bit further
as far as buses and that sort of thing? Are we talking
about part of the electrical power availabiltiy to the
vehicle and -
LEWIS No, the short apparently burnt itself
open, okay, so now we're not feeding the short. We've got
no additional amps we have to provide now. It burnt itself
open. Now, got a list of solne of the loads off of the
TV buses, for example now. There's TV BUS i and 2, looks
llke we've lost 2. The loads off the TV BUS are the video
switch i and 2, the TV monitor i on board, sync generator
associated with that TV and the EUV monitor. Now, those are
the loads off of TV buses.
QUERY Okay. So what you're saying is, if you
happen to loose the redundant TV bus, whlnh is the one you've
got left, whichever one that is, then we would get no more
television from the vehicle, nor would Owen be able to
monitor on board the XUV from the ATM.
LEWIS I don't think we'd lose all that totally.
We'd lose TV monitor i and I'm not certain at this
point whether the sync generators for both monitors. I'ii
have to check on that for you to see if in fact we lost TV
BUS i, the remaining BUS, we'd lose all the TV monitoring.
I'ii have to check on that. I don't know.

END OF TAPE

j_
f_

SL-III PC 33-C/I
Time: 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

QUERY Is there anything that you can say now


that we would definitely lose if both of those TV buses
went out?
LEWIS For certain the TV monitor one. We got
two monitors on board. Okay, TV monitor one for certain.
Judging from what these loads look llke, perhaps both TV
monitors. But I'll have to check to be sure if thatts a
fact. It shows video switch one and two. That may tie both
the TV monitors in_ so fill have to check on that.
QUERY Now_ when you're talking about both TV
monitors, are you talking about the one for the XUV and the
other one for the - the what is itj the white light - -
LEWIS If we lost both monitors we'd have no
capability in either case. If itts only the one monitor -
it's only the one bus, the one monitor would be XUV only. Thatts
I'm not certain about that.
QUERY Could you run the ATM from the spacecraft
with both those monitors out?
LEWIS It would obviously be, you know_ a
degradation of what the crew could do as far as pointing
and sighting on the - on the Sun and recording that. Obviously
I don't know how severe it would be. I suspect very severe
as far as the crew really being able to do any viewing on
the - on the Sun.
QUE RY Ok ay.
LEWIS If in fact we lose both monitors on the
TV BUS.
QUERY We're talking about now both the buses
going out.
LEWIS Yes.
QUERY And that sort of thing.
QUERY The other thing that I'm curious about
you said this funny thing on the ground had you on the edge -
edge of your seats and I'm wondering if you could characterize
for us what - what is sort of the flight controlling environment
in the mission control center now with the problems that have
developed? I know you all watch things carefully all the
time, but I Can you perhaps sense and express to us in your
own words your feellngs now about how people are watching
and so forth, and whether it's a more tense situation, or
just exactly how you would describe it?
LEWIS It was certainly tense when we got the
first indication. And very tense until we had our next AOS
period and it indicated okay. First obviously
one of the first questions was what action did we take in
a case like this, you know, what are we going to do2 The
f_

SL-III MC33-C/2
Time: 09:52 CDT
8_4_73

tank is already isolated from the propellants - excuse me


and the mission rule calls for activating that ring. In
other words pressurize while you still have some pressure
in the helium tank. And you begin to look at that procedure
and say well that procedure calls for wetting the ring all
the way to the thruster do wereally want to do that. We
want to 8o just down to the propellants and do not wet the
manifold beyond the propellants. So, began to look at those
things and you hope it's instrumentation problems. That
was my first question, let's check instrumentation make sure
it's not a - just a head - you know - - It was not apparently
an airborne instrumentation problem, it turned out to be
ground. I don't know how to really characterize it. It's
very tense and quiet in the con - in the con - in the con -
MOCR. And all other activit£es as far as I was concerned
and some of the other controllers were working and stopped
obviously. And rather spooky.
PAO John (garble)
QUERY I got in a little late. The fine Sun
sensor, is that related to the same BUS short and - -
LEWIS Well, we think the only way it's related
is that possibly the glitch in the electrical system Just
reset the counters. And that we still have a fine - good
fine Sun sensor, but that' ii be checked this morning.
QUERY It is operating now?
LEWIS We have not tried to operate it yet. Now
we have a secondary fine Sun sensor, might say. If we
]*ave in fact lost that part of the primary fine Sun sensor we
have a secondary system. We suspect that the short Just glitched
the system EMI and it reset the counter, and they've seen that
in premisslon testing we had problems.
QUERY On the SO73 experiment, I wonder if you
could kind of summarize the problems with that in the reason
it finally had to be ejected.
LEWIS Well, basically the - they could not
get the photometer to - back to a retract position. The
shaft appeared to be stuck. Trunnion drive was okay. Shaft
drive - we could not drive it in shaft. And not - so that
you can't get it back into retract position they tried several
things back on SL-II. You know we bumped it against the
side of the vehicle and got it to straighten up. We tried
that again this time. They've tried bypassing the - the
the controls on the panel. They've tried any number of
malfunction procedures to try to fix it and without any success.
f_

SL-III PC33-C/3
Time-" 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

QUERY Let me see if I understand that then. The


instrument in question, the photometer, sets off from the
rod on which it is supported at some angle or another - -
LEWIS You can drive it in shaft angle or
trunnion angle.- -
QUERY Okay, - -
LEWIS -... for viewing.
QUERY ...you can drive it in two directions
off the rod. Is that what you're saying?
LEWIS Yes. In rotation and in - in trunnion.
QUERY And, let's see, and in one of those -
was it rotation or trunnion? In other words it seemed to have -
it seemed to freeze in one direction.
LEWIS Rotation. It froze in a rotation. - -
QUERY And there- -
LEWIS . . .position.
QUERY Uh huh.
LEWIS And we couldn't move it back to a retract
position.
QUERY On the same experiment were you able to
salvage any of the results or did you get any results from
the experiment before your Jettison.
LEWIS Yes we did. As a matter of fact they
ran that again yesterday and they were in a scanning mode
with just a trunnion scan during the night. So they did
get data.
QUERY Does the ejection affect any of the other
experiments that use that same thing?
LEWIS TO27, SO73_ that - that combined experiment
that's all.
QUERY That's gone too for the mission 9.
QUERY Is there any progress on the - or any
thing new into what caused the quad problems?
LEWIS I really haven't heard anything more
since really a day and a half or so ago.
QUERY I wonder, I'm a little confused, I've been
reading the transcripts on the possible rescue mission. There
seems to be some debate on which port they would use. And
it's unclear to me on why they wouldn't Jettison the existing
CSM or Just what the arguments on both sides are, Could
you enlighten me a little bit on that?
LEWIS Okay, they - The rescue vehicle docks
in the side port. The present CSM is in the - the end port
and well, I don't think I'd want to Jettison the command
service module I had there if I had any capability at all.
And it may be a questionably capability but I wouldn't want
SL-III PC 33-C/4
Time: 09:52 CDT
f- 814173
to Jettison before Idock the other vehlcle_ then find
out I couldn't dock the other vehicle.
QUERY In reading the transcript, you know,
long before the mission, it seems that the whole idea
was to Jettison but that's the reason now, I was assuming
that it was a totally useless vehlcle.
LEWIS The reason for ejection is to provide
a capability to return on a subsequent flight to that - that
end docking port. Other words, your umbilical - your power
umbilical system only works through - and communications
only works through that one port. It does not work through
the side port. You don't have the capability in the side
port you've got on the end port.
QUERY Well, in the premlsslon planning it was
assumed that this was going to be a useless vehicle so
all the planning, if I'm correct was done to Jettison it
and then have the new CSM move into the axial port. Now
because you've got at least partially useable vehicle they
would llke to keep two of them attached. But if they do go
into the radial port then would £he plan be - sometime or
another you would have to Je_tlson that wouldn't you if
you're going to use the (garble) again?
LEWIS Yes we would. We would Jettison that
vehicle when we had the rescue vehicle docked we'd jettison
the CSM.
QUERY Well, then also, because they're not
these umbillcals the rescue vehicle would be there a relatively
short time then have to go home.
LEWIS Yes.
QUERY A1 Bean asked last night a question that
has come to mind before. He wanted to know what would be
the emergency procedures on handle - on stabilizing the
space station in the event of losing the gyros in one axis?
He was unclear on what they would be with the quads out.
What will they he?
LEWIS Well, I think he was referring to some
cryterlan we had established before the flight that in order
to save TACS if we had control moment with gyro hardovers or
reset that would utilize TACS to correct itself we prefer
to use the service module RCS and save the TACS. Wlth the
situation we've got now that cryterlar doesn't apply.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-33D/I
f" Time: 09:52 CDT
8/4/73

LEWIS The situation we've got now, that criteria


doesn't apply necessarily. I think we'd go back now and use
TACS for those cases and not the RCS.
QUERY I'm talking about if you lose all the
gyros in one axis - the reason you have the gyro package up
there to install - before you can get it installed.
LEWIS Okay. There is a study under way now
to see if the workshop would stabilize in a free drift mode
without any RCS, and the results of that study are not com-
plete. If it doesn't, we'll have to use the service module
RCS to maintain it within some attitude deadband. And that's
some of the contingency work that I spoke about the other day
that is being done - looking at the quads and how we would do
that, the procedures. And the crew is also simulating some
of these, - ground crew.
QUERY On the loss of one of the TV buses, is
this a repairable kind of loss that the third crew might
attempt to make, or would this be lost from now on?
LEWIS I think it is a loss from now on. That
circuit - I'm not real familiar with it hut those two buses,
and apparently where the short occurred, are outside in a
relatively large box that has got a lot of circuitry in it.
And I don't thin we'd ever want to open anything llke that,
even if you could, for fear that you would have subsequent
damage. And I imagine it's very dangerous to working in a
circuit that way. I think it is a premanent loss.
QUERY Have you got any final information on
the tests of the tanks at the Cape, that had the chemical?
LEWIS Excuse me. I don't have any final
information. I understand that the preliminary analysis
indicated that they didn't suspect any contamination from
their batch you say they looked at. There is more a feeling
now that it was Just two independent failures that occurred,
which is a very, very remote case as we operated those same
quads baslcally through the entire Apollo program and never
lost one quad.
QUERY What is your assessment of the safety of
the CSM just now? Would you order it to start up at the
moment?
LEWIS We would if we had a major problem and
had to use it, at the moment. We may decide later and
develop the qonfldence to use it for an entry. But at the
moment, we'dlhave to have a major problem onboard requiring
you know, a rapid reentry.
QUERY You say you're a day and a half behind
on how the chaps are going. Could we get information on
f_ SL-III PC-33D/2
Time: 09:52 CDT
814173

what it's like this morning?


LEWIS Perhaps Milt could get Glenn Lunney or
someone in that area to brief you on what that analysis shows.
! think Glenn Lunney would be someone they could ask or
someone in that area.
QUERY So, at the moment, the mission is just
going to proceed? There is no change in that?
LEWIS That's correct.
QUERY The real scare about this helium tank was
that this was such an emergency, potentially?
LEWIS Well, combined with the problems we had
already had in RCS systems, limited now - you're limited now
in the service module RCS because we've got 2 quads that are
unusable. Like I said, the rule calls for activating that
ring. The reason we keep them isolated, one of the reasons
is just to prevent, you know, if we do develop a leak, we
can keep the - well, if we do have a leak somewhere, we would
not leak either the helium or the propellant out. So it was
the combination of things that really put us on edge. You
could very well have fired the ring and activated it and left
it that way for the 59 days with no problem, but since you
are exposing your helium and your propellants to your plumbing,
you run a risk of a leak. It was the combination of things.
QUERY Will Monday's EVA be televised to Earth?
LEWIS Right now we've got a VTR problem, you're
probably aware of that. The video tape recorder has malfunc-
tioned. They plan a malfunction procedure today to try to
correct that. If that is not successful, although we have
a replacement unit onboard, we will not replace it. We do
not have time in the flight plan. And that's one of the
items that I've got to go back and look at now is to see
what the network coverage is during the EVA. It may not
be worthwhile to try to get the TV Just real time only, if
you've only got one Goldstone pass or so. There is a chance
we will not have TV on the EVA, probably a good chance.
QUERY Are you still looking at Monday for the EVA?
LEWIS Yes.
QUERY Do you have a time?
LEWIS I don't have a time.
QUERY Isn't it supposed to be i0:00 in the morning?
LEWIS That's about right, that's what the nominal
time is. I don't have a specific time.
QUERY I0:00 for the hatch opening? Or the
prep aratlons ?
LEWIS I think someone asked me that yesterday,
and I still don't have the time. I'ii have to go back. I
don't work the EVAs, and I really haven't talked to Milt Windler.
He's the EVA flight director. But I can get that time and
F

SL-III PC-33D/3
Time: 09:52 CDT
814173

get it back to Milt.


PAO Okay, one thing. We do have some additional
information on today's EREP pass out on the Query desk if
you want to get a copy of it. Thank you.
LEWIS I'll hold my time on EVA.

END OF TAPE

f
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 5, 1973
5:34 p.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Milt Windier,, Flight Director


John Llewellyn, EREP Controller
Dennis Williams, PAO

PC-35
SL-III PC-35A/I
Time: 17:34 CDT
8/5/73

PAO We didn't have a regular gong so I had


to use that.
PAO We're beginning now in building i the
press conference now with Milton Windier and John Llewellyn.
We'll let Milton give you a brief status report and then
we'll go on from there.
WINDLER Is everybody over here? I guess they
are, you're starting?
WINDLER First of all let me announce that the
EREP shows that it's raining this afternoon in Houston right
now. Secondly, we had a good day today. My only problem
is that I think I'm gettin the flu, so I hope y'all - after
you cover the EVA tomorrow that y'all be okay. Don't get
too close. Let me talk about tomorrow first, and then we'll
back up to today. We - as far as we know now, and we've done
everything that we can think of. We're go for the EVA as
you've probably noticed by listening to the air-to-ground
or reading the transcripts. We've exercised - we sat down
this morning and went through all the things in the check-
list that we exercised, electrically speaking, and separated
those into the things that were powered on the alrlock mod-
ule bus and those that are powered by the ATM buses. And
all the ones that are powered by the ATM bus all of those
functions that we're going to be doing tomorrow during the
EVA, we exercised this afternoon with the crew. So, we
have powered up the ATM, we've run the experiment pointing
mode, we've rotated the canister over it's full range of
travel and_ of course, that brings a lot of cables around with
it. And we've exercised all that. So far there's no in-
dication that anything is affected by this short that we
had a couple of days ago, with the exception of this TV Bus
that we've already discussed. And we have the Bus number 1 -
is powered up, and later on, of course, we'll put some of
the equipment on the llne, not before the EVA, but we'll
put it on later on and check that out more. And also we'll
run the instruments after the EVA and that'll give us a
better feel if there's any other problems associated with
that short. But right now, anyway we've exercised every-
thing and we - and we're GO for the EVA. The events - the
crew is now getting everything organized. They've already
done their pre-EVA preparation, which technically speaking
is words for part of the normal checklist. In addition to
that they've also deployed the Marshall two twin-pole sail.
Looked at it. Probably about now they're in the process of
getting it stowed away again and installed up in the alrlock
module. We expect to go on out and deploy the sail first,
do the ATM film removal, take the ramp off of the SO55. We
SL-III PC-35A/2
Time: 17:34 CDT
815173

probably will do the 149 next and then the 230 S230 experiment
which is taking some aluminum loll off of one of the experiment
mounted on one of the tubes or the structural numbers on
the TRUSS there. Somewhere in there, when it's convenient,
in the daytime, of course, we'll go around to the side and
look underneath at this thing they call the power distribu-
tion transfer distribution box that, we think, contains the
area that's shorted, to see if there's anything they can
see there. I don't know if they'll see any wires discolored
or whatever, but they will be looking at that and they will
also be looking at the RCS quads. We're not sure exactly
what we're going to get from this but we feel like we have
to do the - try of going ahead and looking at it so that if
there is anything out there we'll know it, or we'll al least
satisfy ourselves if there is nothing. Tomorrow that's
about all there is on the flight plan, is the EVA and the
post-EVA. We still need some time for the crew to sit down
and work on their checklists and if they should happen to
get through earlier, why, they could do that tomorrow. They've
got a few small housekeeping tasks that they have to do
associated with their normal operations. You've asked
me several times about when the EVA was going to be, and we
want to give you the work in estimate - working man's estimate
on the AM depressurization and that's 10:50 tomorrow morning
central daylight. So you can make a note of that. That's
the concensus opinion among the procedural experts. My guess
it's a little bit earlier than that - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC35B/I
Time: 17:34 CDT
815173

WINDLER or in Central Daylight. So you can make


- a note of that. That's the consistence opinion among the
procedural experts. My guess it's a little bit earlier than
that but anyway at 10:50 is what we are saying. The flight
plan so something a little bit later than that about 20 min-
utes later, but we think it's going to a little early. I
think we pretty well set a world's record today for EREP's
and John's going to tell you about that, in fact I just -
want - you tell them about the first back-to-back EREP, by
the way, when he gets through you'll note that the power
system held up very well during that - it substained in these
dual EREP operations very nicely. And John?
LLEWELLYN Okay. Just about i0 o'clock this morning
we did our first EREP pass and it started over - up around the
U.S., Canadian Border, Webster, and we went to the Atlantic
Ocean. It was about an 18 minute pass and I'ii kind of
describe generally operations we did and come back and try
and answer the questions on what sense of accomplishment we had
and what generally we were trying to do. And then we came
out of the Z-Local Vertical or the data take attitude and
then went into - back to the basic solar attitude and went
around and we started again over up around Seattle this time,
Pacific and came across Seattle came across the mld-part of
the United States and came out about Eglln where Eglin is in
the Gulf, and crossed into South America and then off of
Paraguay and that pass was a fairly long pass. It was better
than 30 minutes. So that was what we call a back-to-back
p" pass and it was the first time we've done - we planned on
it earlier but this is the first time we've been able to
do it and it was very productive. The weather seemed to
cooperate with us better today especially in the - for the second
pass the one we call track 62. The one where we had - this
port fishing the weather opened up in that area and 114 ships and
I don't know many aircrafts. That turned out to be very good.
Of course, we like the Flight Director said it was the first
one and concerned about the power. Can - Is there any questions
on.

WINDLER Might tell how many sites there are --


LLEWELLYN Oh, yes, the task sites. I don't know if
you understand this, this is a task sites _lat generally
describes the - a distance is a task like geology or meteorology.
The site is the particular area of the investigation. We had
a upwards of 42 - well we had 42 just to be - numbers 40 or 42
o_ the first and task site and 50 on the second, so we were very
pieased. This is a very productive EREP _y.
WINDLER Plus one pretty hurricane.
LLEWELLYN Plus we got a hurricane. I guess it was around
what, three? Is a new off the coast of Mexico, in the Pacific,
where they're not really suppose to be. Is there any I
really don't - is there any questions.
SL-III PC35B/2
Time: 1734
815173

PAO Okay, we'll take some questions now.


QUERY On these passes does the ship remain in
a true vertical -. Do they change it to take pictures or they
Just stuck with it - what is directly under them?
LLEWELLYN Hum, I'd say in the data take attitude
they are stuck near right on the ground track. We call it - -
WINDLER I think he's asking us about what we
call Z-Local Vertical. We actually manuever the spacecraft so
that all during the time that it's crossing the area of
interest, in this case the United States and South America,
it manuevers at a rate so that it is always pointed straight
at the ground, perpendicular to the ground, and this then takes
it away from being pointed at the sun which it's normally
isn't that's why the power solar cells don't - are not very
efficient. Now at noontime, local of course, it concides with
the directions that it points at the Sun, more or less_ so
it starts off one way and goes to the other way.
QUERY What I was wondering about as per _ the
commentary and the points that Jack was calling off - -
END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-35C/I
Time : 17 :34 CDT
815173
s-

QUERY What I was wondering about was from the


commentary the points that Jack was calling off really weren't
in that much in a line and where the map says the pass is going
I got a little confused on that.
LLEWELLYN Well I thought that was the question you
getting here so we ;ire able to take the - what we call the
viewfinder tracking system which is a telescope and he is able
to this is kind of like a - portable device and he can
go out to about 50 degrees in front, I0 degrees in back and
30 or 40 degrees on each side along the ground track.
QUERY He is actually giving data during this
time or just looking at it?
LLEWELLYN Yes, sir. He is actually getting data.
The viewfinder tracking system is built where he points
the instrument and then he can get the data into a by a
s cat tar.
QUERY Once he mentioned noted that he got some
data from Lansing Michigan is there any - Why did he specify
that place?
LLEWELLYN That was -his main objective was the
Great Lakes. And because he has a site book prior to going
into the Michigan area, he picked sites other than the ones
that we had sent up to him ad he - he after he - that was
like an alternate, his own alternate wasn't planned. He knew of
that site he Just pointed over there to see if he could get
it. He was not able to acquire the site. In fact he said it
was, he was compressed, to take data, he could see it, but
never acquired the site.
WINDLER Your a- of course he's from Michigan and
he's familar with the area and there's a - an objective to
take data from large metropolitan areas which almost any place
and in that part of Michigan would probably be considered that,
anywhere around the Great - close to the Great Lakes l'm
sure if your not up in the agriculture area. Also the way
the pad is designed too, you allow him time to find a - the next
sight and if he acquires it and gets a data on one sight right
away then he has some time left over I think that's what he
was doing, he'd - what was he - Was it Chicago he had Just done?
Or something llke that, anyway he had Just taken some data and
I think moved to another, I guess that I don't know if that
works right or not, but anyway you do have some spare time
some times.
LLEWELLYN He got several sites, he got the lake
itself and the surrounding area.
QUERY You, you mentioned he did get Lansing.
SL-III PC-35C/2
Time: 17:34 CDT
815/73

" QUERY(CONT'D) I just read the transcript and he said


Houston, I got some data on Lancing and he said wait and let me
look at my map or something, is there some other way you found
out whether he got it or not?
LLEWELLYN Well of course my memory could be bad, if
you have read the transcript. I thought he said I acquired
today, I acquired Lansing but I don't think I had time to take
data. He never -
QUERY But in any event, you do get a picture of the
place he was looking at, time to - so you would know where the
data was taken. The VTS itself doesn't - the telescope doesn't
take the data; it's another instrument that's pointing in the
same direction takes the data, the primary data.
QUERY Then actually it isn't true vertical when he
does that if he's ... the ground?
LLEWELLYN That particular instrument, usually
it's not that away however you a - well go ahead - -
WINDLER Sometimes they put it in the vertical and
just take a sweep, in fact that is what they were doing was it
yesterday or this morning-
SPEAKER This morning-
WINDLER - - when they had the a the front funnel system
up in Montana or wherever it was.
LLEWELLYN Montana, yes, they had a cumulus clouds.
WINDER But you get your best data if it's vertical,
so you kind of wait until you get over it if you can but you can
take it off the ground track.
QUERY When he is ... does he get all of the
cameras going? In this case apparently he wasn't taking Just
a solid line he was selecting targets.
LLEWELLYN Yeah, this is the only portaible system we
have got. Maybe should clarify that, the rest of them do.
Essentially points straight down to the Earth. The vlewfind - the
IR-speetrometer is the only one that is a turret
type portable system_ and that's the only one that can do that.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-35D/I
Time: 17:34 DT
8/5/73

LLEWELLYN the IR spectrometer is the only one


that is a turret-type portable system. And that's the only
one that can do that.
PAO Excuse me, would you please wait for the
microphone?
QUERY During this pass were the other cameras
on, too or - -
LLEWELLYN Yes, they were. At that particular point.
With a 192 -
LLEWELLYN Okay. That's generally that's why it's
so odd to satisfy these task sites. It's a difficult job
because generally they have to have more than one sensor
over this site itself. And at this time we had to - they
are the spectrometer and the camera system, and the 191
power spectrometer.
QUERY I've got one question on the EREP. On
the alr-to-ground, the storm off the coast of - I - it looked
about - I thought it was California and Mexico - BaJa,
California, there. That was a hurricane and not Just a
tropical storm? It was identified as a tropical storm
when it - -
LLEWELLYN They said tropical storm.
QUERY And a couple of questions for Milt on
the EVA. Can you give us a rundown on the timeline? It's
going to take about 3-1/2 hours, is that right, or 3? And
..... can you tell us about how long each thing is going to take?
And I got one more - -
WINDLER No, I really can't, to tell you the truth.
Somebody has timed it out and I really hadn't - my mind
hasn't broken everything down. The ATM activities take
around an hour and 40 mintues from the time you depress until
you get back in and repress. The twin boom - I've been told,
but I don't remember exactly how long that takes. The others
are relatively small tasks that are almost in a way they're
sort of incidental. I think we - we'll let me - there is
another number. I know it's 30 minutes on the unscrewing
this so-called ramp this latching device from the ATM door.
Then the other ones are incidental. That one is a substantial
time. hirty minutes is fairly good time.
QUERY And, what color is this shield the Marshal tlwn -
WINDLER Oh, gsh,I'm not really sure. I think
it's the same color it's white. Okay, he's telling me,
see.
SPEAKER It's painted with a white thermal r,'flec-
tlve paint.
QUERY Did you say that the EVA depressurlzatloo
would start about 10:50? That's the way - But the
SL-III PC-35D/2
Time: 17:43 CDT
815173

WINDLER Yes. Airlock module depress.


QUERY But the actual opening of the hatch and
the egress will not start until after II:00 if that starts
at 10:50. Is that right?
WINDLER No, if that starts at 10:50 they'll get
out right away. Remember? You probably weren't here yes-
terday, but it's once they get started, you know, they
get the equlpment going, they get their suits on, and they
press on. And if they have good luck and no problems they
can certainly get to that point earlier and we don't - In
this case they're operating in areas that are well llt. You'll
recall the first EVA we wanted to hold them because we needed
them to go to a certain place with relation to the day-nlght
cycle because that area was not llt, but the areas they'll
be working in are all designed for continuous day-night-type
EVAs. And we - and that's a point I guess. We think we
did turn the EVA lights on. They're hard to tell if they
came on from the way the busses responded, hut certainly
they didn't cause us any problems. It's conceivable that
all of those may not: be worklng_ but as best we can tell
now, they are. That might affect what I just said, too.
But basically they can work anytime, day or night, and they
- when they start gnlng through this process, they'll press
on. Now, obviously they can't look at the these quads
in the other areas the area that's got this big box in it
Unless it's daytime, so they would - that's why we're not
real sure they'll do that - it's the best - most suitable
time. They just press on. I'm sorry.
QUERY Milt, you lost me here for a minute. On
the camera, now did I understand you to say that the camera
is out again? Or are we going to have TV?
WINDLER We are going to have TV over the States
of course. Plus, I presume that we'll be recording it at
other stations that receive TV, but it takes a lot longer
to get back. I think - I don't know what 're said to con-
fuse you. I've said that the TV tube bus has a short on it
has to do with the ATM television, not with the color tele-
vision we're using for showing scenes inside the spacecraft.
And outside. Is that what - - Did it - -
QUERY All right. One other question. Any idea
who's going to be looking at the box for both of them? I
me an --
WINDLER Well, no I kind of Just guess Jack will.
I - he's the one that's probably going to be out in that
area - -

END OF TAPE _ '


SL-III PC35E/I
Time : 17 : 34
8/5/73

_ WINDLER Well, no, I klnd-a Just guess Jack


will I - he's the one that's probably going to be out
in that area and I kind of think that he will. He's the one
that's going to be probably unscrewing the ramps so, I -
which has - this has really taken up seven-slxteenths bolt loose
and taken out a little piece of metal. A ramp is the wrong word
it's a latch we should be calling it that. What everybody else
calls it is a ramp. But anyway he'll probably be the one to
do that but here again we're - we had two choices that we
could have gone through a full blown order of emergency
facility exercise and come up with a complicated procedure
to tell them which way to go, but since we're not sure
exactly where the best influences are going to be we felt
that it was better to let them choose their own exact way to
go so that's the reason other reasons for being a little
indefinite about th_Lt. Watch it.
WINDLE R (Garble) backwards.
QUERY r_uring their rehearsing today, did they
actually deploy the sail itself and then fold it back up
and everything or just the booms?
WINDLER They haven't said yet. Mow there's right
much room, of course, in the workshop, as you know, and Conrad's
people - team actually deployed the - all that equipment
when they released the wing before the EVA and I would guess
they've probably deployed most of this equipment. They
haven't told us yet as exactly what they've done. I'd expect
- that may happen right now or it maybe happening (chuckle)
QUERY Could you describe briefly how they're
going to deploy the S1497
WINDLER Well, it fits in a bracket off the
sun end of the shield and below, it originally was going to
stick up a little bit but the people were afraid that it might
get into the reflect light in the ATM instrument, so it's -
another bracket has been made to lower it and it'll actually
be put on the sun end, but it will below that round collar,
slightly below it and it Just sits right there and collects
the particals to be inbetween EVAs.
QUERY I'm still trying to pin the beginning
time of the EVA. Now you - what I'd like if possible is a
guess as to when they will actually open the hatch and go out?
WINDLER 10:50.
QUERY I0:50.
WINDLER Yes.
QUERY And, that's sort of a guess. You also
said that it might start a little earlier than that_ is that
right ?
WINDLER Yes.
QUERY Okay. Thank you.

WINDLER And that - the time I Just gave you is


20 minutes earlier than the flight plan now calls for.
SL-III PC35E/2
Time: 17:34
815/73

(CONT'D) I think it will be earlier than that ppersonally.


QUERY Milt, about - just before 5 o'clock
there was some air-to-ground over Vanguard about the -doing
something with the CSM and shutting off the oxidizer. That's
as about as much as I could understand.
WINDLER That's a key word these days, isn't it.
That had to do with last night as part of their housekeeping
in the CSM. You know we - each night they have ho - during
the day they have a whole bunch of things that they do to
they look at meter readings they turn on pumps, and some
cases etc. And they were looking at the RCS system- I mean -
yes the RCS system in the spacecraft or compulsion system in
the CSM and while they were during that we noticed a pressure
that dropped - one of the manifold pressures dropped to 12 psi
one of the - the ESP oxidizer and then it's been almost
24 hours now and it's stabilized every since then. Mow a lot
of times gas gets trapped in these lines, in between valves
that are open or clesed, I should say. So in some cases
they respond, you know, unusual - _n unusal ways Just due to
the plumbing and right now we're we looked at it and the
reason for asking the crew, of course, was just to verify that
what they did- if they did do the procedure correctly and
they said they did. So we're still scratching our heads a
little bit over that:, but we're not concerned since it's
holding up still.
PAO One last question.
SPEAKER Is there anythin_ new on the investigation
on the QUADS and has all of the procedures been sent up to
them yet on how to come back? I heard the radio ground, but
has it gone up on the teletype yet?
WINDLER No, and yes. (chuckle). We have sent
the changes up and I don't know how many feet of teleprinter
paper that is, but it must be a huge amount, ne guy told me
that he changed his checklist on the ground here. It took him
a hour and a half to change the CSM flight data file that he
had on the ground, o the crew has indicated though that they have
put a lot of the changes in already and I don't know where
they are on during that. We want to allow some time though to
finish that up and to talk with them about it brief with
them some. Now regarding, any - and I we think we have
completed the up- linking of all of the procedures, by the way.
The as far as anything new, I really didn't think to ask
anybody today. I know that the thing that I heard yesterday
and I guess they've probably already told you this, but they're
looking at the fuel and I they keep - apparently they save the
filters and samples of the propellant liquid itself, etc.,
and they've looked at all of this and everything seems to be
fine and the present thinking is that it happended to be two
nonrelated incidences - incidents and the only other thing
that I have mentioned so far is the fact that they going back and
correcting the data on the pressures for temperature effects
SL-III PC35E/3
Time: 17:34
8/5/73

they did noticed a very slow leak rate for some period of
time before the large larger rate was observed early in
the morning, whatever day that was. So other than that that's
and that's all really kind of old data, so that's all I know
now, you now what I know. Let me tell you that they tried the
malfunctions on the spider and the couldn't make the equipment-
camera equipment work, so they shook her out of the little
vile and I understand she didn't want to come out, but they
finally got her out and she kind of provoked for awhile, but
then clung on to the screen, and I hadn't heard any words
on any webs spinning starting yet. But, anyway the spider is
activated I guess, as far as that goes.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC35F/I
Time: 17:34 CDT
815173

WINDLER -. - green and I haven't heard any words


on any web spinning starting yet. But anyway the spider
is activated I guess as far as that goes.
QUERY With these procedures and the work that
has been done would you have any qualms in bringing them
back for reentry now?
WINDLER No_ I think they've gotten a very good
- procedure has gotten a very good review. And no, we don't
have any qualms about it.
PAO Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 6, 1973
9:47 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS :

Chuck Lewis, Flight Director


Milton Reim, PAO

PC-37

F
SL-III PC-37A/I
Time: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

PAO He'll start this morning's change of


shift briefing. We have Flight Director Chuck Lewis. Go
ahead, Chuck.
LEWIS Well, let me say this, you had a briefing
early this morning or late last night, how ever you'd like
to look at it. And I really can't add any more to what Don
Puddy briefed you on with regard to the coolant loop leaks.
We expect more data in from Huntsville, which they are getting
in conjunction with the contractors some time this afternoon.
I think as Don pointed out last night, the numbers, the leak
rates and so forth that he gave you are very preliminary.
We hope to get better numbers some time late today. With
regard to any other problems we have on board, nothing real
significant, it looks llke we may have lost an instrumentation
multiplexer, hut this is no significant impact. A few measure-
ments are lost, but _aot critical measurements. And we may
have some degradatloa in one of the airlock module tape re-
corders. We're running malfunction procedures on that now.
That's all I have on the systems. With regard to flight plan,
I believe the EVA is on schedule. As a matter of fact, it
may he a little, they may depress a little early. I talked
to Milt Windler briefly before I came over here and he suspects
they might be a little early. We'll have to wait and see
on that item. Also with regard to the EVA, we are going to
ask the crew to do some visual inspection out around the
radiator area where we might have leaked the coolanol. And
s as I understand it that is supposed to be a yellowish brown
color. It leaves an oily residue as I understand it. And
they have specified particular locations to the crew for
any visual clues. That's all I have as a summary.
PAO Art Hill.
QUERY Could you maybe use the model to show us
where they will be looking for the spilled, possible spilled
coolant? And there is another question I want to ask you too
about the, about the coolant, and whether in - whether you
are satisfied that there really is a leak? And as far as
the leaks are concerned in looking over them I guess you can
tell from differential in pressure. And do the primary and
the secondary loops both seem to follow in the same pattern
as far as what you have been able to dig out of the data?
LEWIS Well, back to the data again. The data
is very preliminary. And it may go back - The accumulator
in each loop, each loop is identical. The accumulator has
a hilevel indication when it reaches a low state. Now when
it's protected against leak cases. Now there is no correetlve
action you can take in this loop. And that's basically why
it was instrumented that way. However, there is one danger
of letting a loop leak down like that and that's cavitating
the pump.

END OF TAPE
SL IIl PC-37B/I
TIME: 09:47 CDT
816173

LEWIS - then the loop leaked down llke that and


that's cavltated the pump, so the low level on the accumulator
basically gives you a clue. You've got a leak and you should
shut the pumps down. Now that's the way it's instrumented.
Now I'm sure we can go back with our hindsight and taking
into consideration a lot of variables and say yeah, there
may have been a clue there in the inlet pressure on the
pumps, they have changed since the beginning of Skylab II,
but you see variations in those pressures Just through the
day/night cycle each rev. But we're going to go back and
look at that and - let me say this, the inlet pressure
on the pumps, the primary pump inlet pressure has about
20 to 21, sometimes I even see it drop down to 19.3 or 5.
So it's ranging about 20. The secondary inlet pressure is
up around 24 to 25. Now, see the leak rate data that we
gave you last night indicated a higher leak rate in the
secondary loop. It started later and those are some of the
numbers that don't look quite right and we going to go back
and try to firm those up for us.
QUERY I guess what confuses me or what makes me a
little suspicious here is that you would have two independent
leaks of about the same size this way, and I'm wondering if
there is still a possibility that there are no leaks.
LEWIS We definitely think there are leaks. And
they're not about the same size. They're both very small,
but the initial data we got, which llke I said, is very
preliminary, indicates the secondary loop has got about
twice the leak that the primary has got. But started later.
There's a lot of noise in the data. We've got a factor out
to really say that that's right.
QUERY l'm trying to keep track of the leaks here.
Now you've got You also have a leak in the oxidation system,
right, the cause of which has not been discovered.
LEWIS You've got to go back to the command module
now. That's correct. We had leaks in the service module
RCS quad B and Quad D. Now we've stopped those leaks by
isolating the quads. We still have propellant in those
quads.
QUERY But you never did determine what caused those
leaks.
LEWIS No, that analysis is still going on.
QUERY You have the leak in the primary coolant system
would last about 16 more days. And in the secondary 60 days?
LEWIS That was the initial estimates we got last
night. No, they haven't given us any more data. We expect
to get some more late today.
QUERY What happened yesterday that brought these
leaks to your attention. In other words the secondary -

,F
SL III PC-37B/2
TIME: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

LEWIS On the midnight to eight shift, my shift, I've


caught them all this week it seems llke. We picked up the
first indication of the accumulator low bilevel that I
mentioned. And it occured - it started about half way
through our shift, not for the entire orbit. It only
occurred during the coldest portion of the orbit, we said oh
temperature is giving us that, but we said Okay, it might
be a leak. The next rev we saw it again. It's repeated
since then. And it seems like the duration that we have
the low indication before it goes back to normal is increas-
ing, you know, very slow. But that could be in thermal
noise too. It's very close.
QUERY What is the impact of these two leaks on
this mission and on the next mission.
LEWIS The impact is you have to really go back
and we have to establish what we think is a reasonable - a good
leak rate_ I don't think wetve got one yet. Now, if we lose one
loop during the mission, we can continue on the second loop.
We can operate with one loop. So I really couldn't say
what the impact is at thle point. I wouldn't like to say
because I don't think the data we've gotten this far is
that good.
QUERY What about the f=llowlng mission?
LEWIS Well, there could be impact in the following
mission and I think they indicated last night that they're
already thinking about some type of reservicing on SL IV.
QUERY Several questions all about this. As I
understand_ the leak apparently continues whether the system
is actually operating at the time or not.
LEWIS That's correct. We're not sure whether or
not the leak rate is necessarily the same. We suspect

END OF TAPE

f
SL-III PC-37C/I
Time: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73
r

LEWIS -- certainly the same. We suspect it


may be.
QUERY In that same order, then in the length
of time left in the loops. Is that with th - would the loops
be completely empty of cooling- of coolant at that time?
Or would they be so low that they would be useless and they
would actually automatically shutdown, with no way to bring
the back on? I don't understand - -
LEWIS Are you talking about with regard to
the estimated 16 days and 60 days? Those estimates, as I
understand it, are when the loop - the fluid is de -
Let me go back. The quantity of the fluid is to the
point where you' re in danger of cavitatlng the pumps. It
gives us some safety factor in getting those pumps off.
QUERY Don, last night, was saying about the
- if it was got down, and you shut the systems down,
possibly, you would be losing within a matter of hours
certain systems and all. One of the things he talked about
was the AM batterie_t and power systems, and still going
back up and doing some sort of a third mission. If you lost
the AM batteries, what power supply and usage would that
give you in the rest of the vehicle? You mean, if you just
threw them out the window is what you would be doing, it
sounds like to me?
LEWIS No. What you're - You're assuming that
-- we lose both loops?
QUERY Right.
LEWIS ()kay.
QUERY In 60-
LEWIS Right. All right. Now there's several
pieces of gear on the loop, and I don't know whether Don
described that to you or not. The batteries - the airlock
module batteries, the power conditioning control
electronics modules,, which are just part of the power system,
the airlock module tape recorders, the telemetry transmitters,
the ATM and EREP control and display, equipment, all the
heat exchangers. So what Don was probably trying to say is,
we could probably operate unmanned without a loop. Now,
the way you'd do that, and of course, this has got to be
looked at closer - we've only looked at some schematics
very briefly - is you can take the batteries - disable the
batteries, Just turn them off, and yon can turn off the
PCG's so they won't get warm. Therefore, you don't need
cooling. So you don't lose them, you don't throw them away.
If you can reservice the loop later, and provide cooling,
you can turn them back on.
SL-III PC-37C/2
Time: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

QUERY At the management briefing this morning,


was there a discussion of going ahead and using the rescue
ship to take up, and not only provide a safety factor on
the crippled Apollo, but to take up coolanol to keep the
Skylab - -
LEWIS Those type options were discussed, but
nothing, you know, that's the kind of thing we're going to
go off and various Marshall and ourselves are going to
look at. And we talked about where are the various servicing
ports, are they all external, are there any internal, which
is a better way to service, external or internal? A lot
of discussion. And we're going to go back and look at
all these options and, you know, confirm with it where our
servicing ports are.
QUERY You have on this mission accomplished
some really spectacular feats in Skylab. Do you sometimes,
get the feeling, that one of these days, you're going to
be pushing your luck or pushing your knowledge too far on
this thing? It is all new equipment as you stated earlier
in the mission. And there are bound to be some problems
because of that and so forth. And there certainly have
been. You some times get that idea that maybe you might
be going a little too far out on the limb, or maybe pushing
your luck a little too far.
LEWIS No, I think that we we're certainly
"- not going to risk the crew. If we feel llke we're ever
getting into the position where it will be any danger to the
crew, we would not pursue these fixes that we seem to
come up with everytime we have a problem. Yes, I have the
feeling that someone doesn't like us at times. I've been
on the summary shift, now for about 5 nights and it seems
- and I guess we have had a major problem every night.
And, I'ii be glad when this particular shift I'm on ends,
(laughter) and somebody else gets it. Bill Shaffer's next,
but I hope we're through this and we get by the EVA, we can
get on with what we now have planned, normal ops. Now, we
have a rather large list of troubleshooting while doing
various systems. Some are very minor, some are major.
Obviously the 350 amps short, we haven't really done much
troubleshooting on except to verify that we think we have
a safe EVA. And we're Eolng to start scheduling about an
hour or hour and a half each day to try to pick these things
off. We may have more. And we're getting behind a power
curve. I

END OF TAPE

p.
/
SL-III PC-37D/1
Time: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

LEWIS - and more, and we're getting behind


a power curtain. It's - I don't know how familiar you are
with our simulation before we have a flight. The way they
try to drive you to your knees with problems. And this is
like a simulation, it seems. It can't be real, but it is
happening. But I think we can cope with all the problems
we've got to date.
QUERY Have you had a chance to look much at
where the coolant loops are on the outside and so
forth? Or has anyone looked at the possibility of having
the astronauts in some way shut off the loops up stream?
Being able to shut off one loop up stream or wherever the leak is
to preserve and extend its life to another time when you might
be able to use it? Also would you explain what cavitating
a pump means?
LEWIS Well first, I don't think you would want
to try to shut the loop off because the only way I know you
could do that is crimp a line or something. And then you
get faced with if you do reserviee it I don't know how you
would take that crimp out. I don't think you would want
to take that approach. With regard to pump cavitation it's
a run away pump. You don't have the friction of the fluids
you normally have in a pump, and the speed increases. And
it could damage the pump. You could have mechanical damage.
I guess at some point in time if you didn't reach an
electrical failure you could have a mechanical failure. It
might spin a blade off the pump and so forth. It's a run
away high speed pump.
QUERY Could you Just look back on this whole
Skylab program and think off all tese little problems that
have cropped up and sort of make a brief list, that gives you
the feeling that somebody doesn't llke you up there.
LEWIS We have such a list. As a matter of
fact before the SL-3 crew launched we provided them with a
list as it was then. We updated that list on the crew day
off. I spent 4 hours after I left the console editing and
putting together the message, and Don Puddy spent another
4 hours working on it before he ever sent it up. And it's
probably going to be the longest teleprinter message we've
sent to the crew. I would imagine you've got copies of that
in the execute package. I would suspect - no it was sent up
the crew day off or the evening before the day off.
PAO Yeah, we have all the execute packages
out there.
LEWIS And it's quite a package.
QUERY Roughly how many items are on it?
SL-III PC-37D/2
Time: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

LEWIS I wouldn't even know the number. And a


lot of them are kind of insignificant and some are major.
I don't know. A lot.
QUERY Do you ever get the feeling that it is
sort of like an air bubble under a blanket, that you get one
and another one comes up?
LEWIS I had that feeling this last week.
PAO John Wilford.
QUERY How does the coolant loop leak compare
with the CSM leaks as far as being critical to the mission,
and to the safety of the astronauts?
LEWIS Well, the oxidizer leaks were much more
of a concern to us from a safety point of view, because you're
talking about the way to get home. From the safety point of
view the coolant loops don't bother us that much. What you're
talking about there is the possible impact of the program,
SL 4. Now there may be some - if we try to reservlce there
may be some safety implications there that we'll consider. But
we'll address those as we try to determine the procedure for
reservieing.
QUERY Well now in view of this newest problem,
does it look more likely that you are going to have to go
with the rescue mission?
LEWIS No. The rescue mission was initiated
because of our concern over the command service module.
QUERY Yes, but you mentioned the possibility of
having to reservice using the rescue.
LEWIS Now if we determine that the leak rates
are such that we will lose both loops, then in less time than
we predicted now on this preliminary data, could mean an early
termination of Skylab 3. But llke I said I think that we
would be able to go unmanned for a length of time. So it
doesn't necessarily mean we'll use the rescue vehicle. On
the other hand it possibly could, to expedite a launch for
SL 4.
QUERY My understanding is that one of the leaks
in the part - -

END OF TAPE

f
SL III PC-37E/I
TIME: 09:47 CDT
816173

QUERY One of the leaks in the primary system


began not long after launch on July 28, and I'm won-
dering how it could continue that long at even a slow dribble
without noticing it before late last night.
LEWIS Well, I guess I can try again. I think Don
went through that fairly well and I think I've already
talked about that myself again and there's a lot - that's
only a suspicion that it started about launch and Ithlnk
there is a suspicion that the secondary loop may have
started somewhere around the first EVA, but those are only
suspicions now and when you - you got to remember back in
SL II, you've got to factor out the thermal implications
of all of this. Because a loop like that is affected by
temperatures and your fluids contract and so forth and as
you remember early in SL II, we were flying abnormal
attitudes because of the loss of the meteoroid shield and
so forth and so there's a lot of noise that you've got to
go back and try to pick out of this thing. It would take
a lot of detailed analysis to do that and I'm not sure you
could prove when the leak actually occurred.
QUERY Well, is your feeling then, that the problem
has a chance of getting worse, rather than stabilizing out,
and if it gets to the point where you have to shut both
loops down, does that mean major experiments could shut
down too?
LEWIS I would say major experiments would get
shut down if we turned down both loops and if our suspicions
are right at this point in time, that we've had a leak for
some time, a small leak_ then I wouldn't expect it to
worsen. In other words, if we could develop what we feel like
is the actual leak rate, we could probably rely on that leak rate
for planning. But that's just a guess on my part at this time.
It always could worsen for some reason.
QUERY When you develop a leak in your automobile
radiator, there is some kind of stuff - stopleak or what
ever you call it - to put in. Can't you apply something
similar here.
LEWIS Well, I thought about that too, but you
know in these spacecraft loops we've got a lot of valvlng,
you know, for example we've already had some trouble with
modulating valves sticking. There's a lot of close
tolerances on these valves, not like your automobile. And
I'm afraid if you tried something llke that you may well
end up in a worse situation than you are now. And this is
a special coolant and I'm not sure you have to have a special
stop leak.
QUERY I have a few questions about the EVA. You
mentioned that it might begin a little bit earlier than it's
SL III PC-37E/2
TIME: 09:47 CDT
8/6/73

currently scheduled for. What do you mean by earlier? Is


it i0 minutes, five?
LEWIS Oh, maybe 20 minutes. I'm not talking
about a lot of time.
QUERY And what time will you turn the TV monitors
on?
LEWIS The cameras?
QUERY Yes.
LEWIS I would assume they would be turned on as
they initially go out the hatch, but I'm not certain of
that.

QUERY If they don't turn them on when they go out


the hatch, how much later will they turn them on?
LEWIS Idon't know. I really couldn't answer your
first question but I would suspect it's turned on the
initial part of the EVA, right at the beginning of the
EVA. After they've opened the hatch and start out they
would - I think they put that out on a - they don't put it
out on a tripod, it's handheld - I don't remember. But they
will have the TV camera out as soon as they can get it out
in the EVA so we will get as much coverage as possible.
PAO Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 6, 1973
12:40 a.m. CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

Don Puddy, Flight Director


John Thomas, Marshall Spaceflight Center
William Moon, EGIL
Terry White, PAO

PC-36
SL-III PC36A/I
Time : 0 :40 CDT
8/6/73

PAO Okay, unscheduled change-of-shift


briefing regarding the coolant loop problem. Bill Moon is the
EGIL on this shift and Don Puddy, Flight Director and John
Thomas from Marshall Space Flight Center. Let's see Engineering
Intergratlons Office is It? And I have here a brief statement
for Bill Schnleder on thing to start off with.
P O "This coolant loop problem presents no
immediate danger to the crew. It is one of the long range problems
we're investigating. Hopefully in the next few days we'll be
able to further to analyze the problem and determine what the
long range effects will he. We are investigating not only
the problem and the consequences, but also what corrective
measures which might be taken." Okay, Don you want to kick
it off.
PUDDY Okay, well I think probably during your
change-of-shift briefings that you had today, one of the
Flight Directors have probably mentioned to you that last
night we had a - I should say earlier this morning, we had
an accumulator low indication in the primary coolant loop.
We started tracking that particular problem, trying to determine
just exactly what was causing it and tonight we had a tag up with
the Huntsvill people and they in turned had been in contact
with the engineers at St. Louis. And I guess a general
synopsis of the data that the people had pulled together was
that we indeed it looked llke, based on all the data they had
run to date, do have a very small leak in both the primary and
secondary AM coolant loops. The leak rates based on preliminary
indications right now are approximately .125 pounds per day
in the secondary loop and .074 pounds per day in the primary
loop. We've taken a look at the data and tried to figure out
Just exactly when these problems may have occurred and as you
all are probably well aware during the initial portion in the
mission we were in some fairly unique thermal conditions and
attitudes and we're also constantly having a changing beta angle.
So, the - any characteristic changes in the pump in the pressure
which is a prime indications that we have, in the higher
pressure regions as to a leak in the coolant loop can very
easily be camouflaged by these changing thermal conditions, but
as best as we can pull the data together it looks like that
the leak in the primary coolant loop was probably the
started very close to the Beginning of the mission and - I
should say the program, around the launch of Skylab I. The
leak in the secondary loop probably occurred sometime in and
around the period of the first EVA on Skylab I. Now - so
you can see that there has been a very suttle pressure decay
throughout thls tlme frame. You can also note that the
pressure in look - if you're looking at the pressure thls
pressure will change as much as 2 psi during a rev, sometimes
Just due to thermal conditions. You certainly have changes on
a normal- expected chnges on a weekly basis. But if you look at it
very long term trend, it does look llke, indeed, that we do have
SL-III PC36A/2
Time: 00:40 DT
8/6/73

a leak. s far as the immediate impact, I think Hr. ehneider's


statement is very well put. We do not feel there is any
immediate impact and we will be going as far as the nominal
operations of the mission. We'll be going ops normal. As far
as the long range planning, we're certainly looking at just
exactly what we can do in terms of the period between - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-36B/I
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

SPEAKER - - due in terms of the period between


Skylab 3 and Skylab 4. We are looking at the possibility of
not even running with either the primary or the secondary
coolant loop and although this doesn't sound feasible right off
the top of your head, I think the primary thing that you got
to look at there is just exactly what is cooled by those loops.
And what we're primarily talking about is your cabin gas atmos-
phere, your crew cooling, of course your cooling for the
astronauts' EVA. The primary method of cooling, but we also
have of course the 02 flow. Your AM hatterles, and the
associated instrumentation with the AM system. The lifetime
of these components of course, if the if the if the loop
fails, is not very long, certainly in a matter of hours.
However, during the unmanned portion of a - of the mission, you
don't have the crew cooling requirements and certainly with
our electrical loads during that time frame, there is no
reason in the world that we have to operate strictly - we can
operate with the ATM electrical power system and not use the AM
electrical power system. If we don_t use the AM electrical power
system, we certainly don't need the instrumentation, so
therefore, right now anyway, it looks like it may be feasible
I'm not saying that - that is the plan of attack or that's
what's going to be done, but it is a feasible option. We're
also looking at the possibility - long-range possibility of
reservicing these loops. There are several ports where the
_ loops can be reserviced, and of course this would be something
that could not he done on Skylab 3, _hey neither the equipment
nor the coolinall that would necess -. be necessary to reservice
that loop, so we are talking about something that would have
to be accomplished on Skylab 4. And those are two of alternitives
that are being worked. You'll have to recognize that a -
we've Just started actlvly pursuing this problem in the last
few hours so, I certainly can't sit here and give you all of
the answers to all - to a - and the ramifications to this particular
problem. I don't think that there's too much more to add to
that_ let me Just open it up for questions.
PAO Okay, Hines back there. John Wilford.
QUERY Does it appear right now, that you would
be able to complete a full 59-day mission of Skylab 2? and
if so does it appear that you would be able to have another
mission?
THOMAS Well, based on the figures, I gave you,
I think there's still some tightening up that we need to do on
the numbers, as to just exactly the exact lifetimes, some of
the leak rates and the times don't quite tag up yet. In our
minds but right now, based on this particular problem, if you
take the estimate htat we have on the secondary coolant loop,
which is presently -
SL-III PC-36B/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

THOMAS
(CONT'D) in or around the 60-day time frame, you
can see that far exceeds the - the original magnltude of the
Skylab 3 mission, so there no reason to believe that we cou]d
not complete the normal Skylab 3 mission.
PAO A1 Rustler, UPI.
QUERY Do you loose anything when you switch from
the primary to the secondary loop as far as operations?
THOMAS No, the two loops are - the two loops
are completely redundant. Everything cooled on the primary, is
also cooled on the secondary.
PAO Ed Pipp.
QUERY Do present mission rules permit you to
go with just one coolant loop, this isn't continue to hazard
considered a hazard of any sort?
THOMAS No.
QUERY How could something llke this come about
a leak over a period time that reaches a point where they
get what I understand is a low level light on during this
period of time without it being detected on the ground sooner?
THOMAS Well, I think what I was talking about
earlier Ed, was the fact that there is a lot associated with
this loop. We've got i0 reservoirs in this particular loop - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-36C/I
Time: 00:40 CDT
816173
/--

PUDDY associated as - we've got ten reservoirs


in this particular loop. Each one of these, of course, is
got it's thermal expansion and contraction. You've got
the beta angle change. You have the constantly changing
heat loads on the system, so you do have a considerable
variation. Normal variation in the pressure. You also
have to remember that the primary coolant loop was off during
the entire time frame between $kylab-ll and Skylab-lll. It
is a subtle change and it's just very hard to pin down. And
other than that I really don't have any other explanation
for it. John do you have any other words on that?
QUERY How much liquid is involved?
PUDDY The primary loop total capacity is around
99-1/2 pounds - I should say - yes - 99.5. Correct?
SPEAKER Right.
QUERY That's one that's been lost - -
PUDDY No. No, no, he asked for the capacity
of the loop. I'm giving you the total capacity in the loop.
And that, of course, is the same figure that applies to the
secondary loop. Based on the figures that we're talking
about _ the primary loop has lost - I believe the figure
is right around 7 pounds of glycol. So, you're talking
close to a gallon of liquid that has leaked. And we're
talking about that over a time frame of since - around
Skylab-I launch. We do - right now, we have no reason to
_ believe that the leak is not exterior, although we haven't
proved it, but it's - we think it is an exterior leak of
some kind.
PAO Why don't you pick up one with John
Wilfred back there and then come back up front?
QUERY Where is it leaking? Is it in - where
in the system is it leaking and where is the leak going?
PUDDY John - that's one of those questions
that we'd all llke to know the answer to and I certainly
don't have it for you. I do feel like, however, if it had
been an interior leak it would have been fairly hard for
that magnitude of leak to he camouflaged. I'm not ruling
that completly out because it is possible that it's in
insulation or it's gone into some cavity or something llke
this where it's constrained. But, I guess you'd have to
say our gut feeling is that it's probably exterior and if
you had to pick a couple of locations you'd say it's probably
in and around the pump reservoir package which is behind
the thermal shield, right beside -
QUERY ...
PUDDY Well, that's the - where you've got
the reservoirs and the actual pumps for the loop. The
SL-III PC-36C/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73
/

pump packages for the loop. Or, it can be in the radiator


of course, which is on the MDA.
PAO AI Ruslter.
QUERY I don't understand the difference in
predicted lifetimes of these two systems. If they both
have the same amount of - started out with the same capacity
of coolant and the primary, as I got the figures, is leaking
at a rate less than the secondary, and yet it only has 16
days
PAO You've got a zero between the decimal
point and the number there on that second one.
PUDDY And the figures I gave you are .124 for
the secondary, .074 for the primary. .074. That - the
Delta, of course, the Delta - I also gave you at different
time when we think the leak occured. Okay? One was close
to Skylab-I launch, one was somewhere in and around the
time of the first EVA. Skylab-ll EVA. So, you have a
quite a time delta there.
PAO John Wilfred.
QUERY Is there any reason to associate the
beginning of the leak with the launching or with that EVA?
In other words, did something happen at that time that would
lead you to suspect a cause for the leak?
PUDDY I wish I could give you a straightforward
answer to that question also, but the only thing that one
could possibly postulate and it's certainly nothing that
you could say definitive. And that is you always have your
maximum vibration environments during a launch phase. But as
far as the EVA per se, no, there'_ not even anything that gut
feeling would tell you there -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC36D/I
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73
f

PUDDY The EVA perse no, there's not even


anything that gut feeling will tell you there - as a
possible reason why one would start and we're not really saying
that it was the day of the EVA or the hour of the EVA, it's
in and around that time frame. The data is very rough, it's
very hard because of all these factors that I indicated to
you that camouflaged a very gradual trend in the pressure.
It's very hard to pick out this point, so you have to take
the information that I'm giving you as far as leak rates
and the time they started with a grain of salt and I want to
emphasis that. They're based right now on a what welve
been able to accumulate in a very short period of time and
l'm sure there's going to be some refinement, probably in
both the rates and the actual time when we think the rate
occurred as we get more and more data.
QUERY Right. Now Mission ontrol takes great
pride in nowing exactly what's going on at all times on
that spacecraft -
PUDDY Yes sir.
QUERY what ever spacecraft it is. Why is it
that it took you so long to find out that you had a leak in
this very vital; obviously very vital system? It took you
three months, almost, to find out that you had a leak.
PUDDY I really can't say more on that subject
than I've already said.
_ QUERY But does it indicate that you don't have
the proper sensors on the spacecraft to determine this?
Or does it indicate that the sensors weren't sensitive
enough? Or are they sensitive enough and this is Just the time
you want to catch a problem llke this? In other words, you've
caught it soon enough to take action?
PUDDY Well, I think ..
PAO Put the switch on Amos, I don't think so.
PUDDY I think we've - 1 think we caught it
soon enough to take the action. When we design a spacecraft
we always include in it addition to ground telemetry on
board indication that our supposedly_ set at certain trip
points in order to give the crew and or the ground sufficient
time to go ahead and perform the analysis and implement
the corrective actions for a given problem. The first
lndications that we're reaching a point where we tripping
an onboard indicator, and it was not continuous, it was
interruptive and, in other words, we were Just barely touching
that limit once in awhile again to all this cycling that
I've been telling you about and it did not trip, for instance,
all during the shift this evening - ah it was last night.
So I think we have got and we still got that pride.
MOON Another point that should be brought
out here that the primary loop was off on the entire unmanned
SL-III PC36D/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

_- phase there. It was only powered up a couple of days ago -


the primary loop so ...
PUDDY That is the loop that we got the indication
out ofokay ?
PUDDY We're still running very, very close
to what you would call the nominal - the absolute maximum pressure
in the secondary loop.
QUERY What is glycol? Is this llke ...
• UDDY It's co_lanol.
MOON Coolanol.
QUERY Is it a refrigerant?
PUDDY Yes. Yes.
QUERY IS is like the stuff . ..
QUERY Well, they use some (garble).
QUERY Well, no it's not a freon and it's not -
QUERY (Garble).
PUDDY John, you want to give the exact technical
THOMAS I hlnk you might want to call it
a silicate ester blend if you want to talk about it in that
terms.
QUERY (Garble)
MS (laughter) .
PUDDY It is a coolant _ has a low vapor pressure.
It's not toxic like glycol and that's one reason it was
selected.
MOON I don't - John you got any words on it.
_ THOMAS Well, it's a special blend that's
manufactured for just this purpose. It has a very low freezing
point and that's why it's chosen for a coolant loop operation.
QUERY Can you compare it to like when -what we
put in the radiator of our car to keep it from freezing,
glycol or anything like that.
THOMAS I don't know the exact constituent of
it it's a silicate base material.
SPEAKER In what respect Ed, are you talking about
on that chemical.
SPEAKER Trying to describe this fluid to the
factory worker in Detroit if I use any of these words it
means nothing.
SPEAKER Yes, yes.
THOMAS It's basically the same principle. It
flows through a radiator, its a low freezing point of
material and it doesn't use expansive process llke a
refrigerator does. It's basically like to

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-36E/1
Time: 00:40 DT
8/6/73

THOMAS - they're the same principle. One


flows through a radiator - it's a low freezing point mat-
erial. And it doesn't use expansion process llke a refrig-
erator does. It's basically like an automotive engine.
PUDDY Yeah. I think that'll be the best way
to describe it. Where you're flowing through a radiator
that is at a very cold temperature, this particular substance
has a very low freezing point so it can pick up a lot of
cooling, can in turn come hack and he heated by the electronic
equipment that is being cooled and subsequently return and
go through this phase change without any degradation.
PAO A1 Ruslter.
QUERY Do these two systems have any common
plumbing? Or are we talkln s about two separate leaks - two
holes in two pipes somewhere apart from each other?
THOMAS I guess the common point would be the
radiators. They have their own flow paths, but the - it's
on the same structure.
QUERY So there could be Just one hole or
opening in the radiator - -
PUDDY No. It would have to be the - -
THOMAS ...
PUDDY - - a structural breakage or something
llke that had stressed two independent flow paths. But
it could happen at a common point in the structure. Other-
wise all the plumbing is completely separate. They have
their separate - their own pumps, their own reservoirs,
completely independent from that standpoint.
SPEAKER It would take a major hole of say about
that big in the radiator to flat surface before you could
get both systems.
QUERY - - several weeks anyway, after the
other. Is there any reason to - it's getting back to
the CSM, is it generic? You know, will yon expect more
of these leaks to develop or something?
PUDDY I don't know how we can have any more. We
got one in each loop. No, that's certainly something that
of course - that we'll be straining to keep our eyes on
as far as a change in the leak rate itself. Either up
or down. But you really can't - you can't say that right
now we know it's a generic problem. Just don't have the
data to answer that.
PAO John Wilfred.
QUERY Okay. You've got 16 days [or the
primary, 60 days on the secondary.
PUDDY Estimated, yes.
SL-III PC-36E/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

QUERY Estimated. Okay, that means the primary


is going to go out before this mission is over.
PUDDY Yes.
QUERY The secondary is going to go out soon
after this mission is over. Between Skylab-ll and Skylab-lll,
using the journalist's numbers for these missions, between
those two missions what are you going to do to keep the
thing viable? What can you do to keep the thing viable?
Or can you keep the thing viable?
PUDDY Well. Yes, I think we can. I think
the only problem that you can state is one where you must
continue to keep the loop flowing. Okay?
QUERY ...
PUDDY Nope.
QUERY If you have a leak that is going to wind
up in 60 days, how can you keep it flowing?
PUDDY Well, in 16 days that really - if that
estimate is really valid we will be shutting down the
primary loop. I mean it's that straightforward. Okay?
We will go over to the secondary loop. We have 60 days,
okay? Now, we're if you're talking 60 days, you're
talking day 278 jillion day 278 or are you talking around
the 5th of October? And if you will remember, although
we've - haven't really firmly set a Skylab-IV launch date,
and I certainly don't want to get mTself committed to saying
when we're going to launch Skylab-IV, but if you'll remember
the pre-mission planning, in and around that time frame
is certainly a viable time to launch Skylab-IV. So, nothing
real significant has to happen in order to make a Skylab-IV
launch in the time frame that we've been talking about, nd
certainly not in the time frame that's been talked about
as far as the rescue mission, if that should ever be required.
You've got more latitude with this one than you have if
you had to go on a rescue mission.
QUERY If you do run out of this fluid in either
of the loops and there is a chance of replenishing it, don't
you run into the problem of alrlocks and all these other
funny things?
PUDDY Yes, and we've been talking about that
this evening. What you certainly don't want to do is get
yourself into the problem where you cavitate the pumps and -

END OF RAPE
SL-III PC-36F/I
Time: 00:04 CDT
816173

SPEAKER and we've been talking about that


this evening. What you certainly don't want to do is put
yourself into the problem where you cavitate the pumps and
start burning up the pumps. Because then even if you could
reservice the loop, if you don't have the pumps you can't
flow, and if you cant, flow you cant, cool. Sop what we're
certainly looking, making sure that _ have proper pressures
and so on and so forth to insure that we dontt get to the
point where we cavltate the pumps and we stop the loops in
that time frame so that they can be reserviced and if we
can reservlce them and use them thereafter.
QUERY Then really what you're talking about
is less than 16 days and less than 60 days to save the
pumps if that's when - -
SPEAKER No, no. The way this is the way we under-
stand this system is going to work is that essentially, we're
going to be able to go for a fairly long period at a pressure
and a flow rate that is not going to give us any problems
as far as pump cavitation. And once we get to a given point
and a very small amount of liquid is going _ drop us to
that point in a very short period of time. In other words
something in the order of maybe an ounce or 2 ounces - some-
where like that is going to drop us from a pressure that
is very very acceptable to one that is unacceptable. And
all we got to do is sketch that point and we still have
some time even after that. That's just dropping us down
to say around 5 psi. And we still have some time after that
before we're actually going to get into the point of pump
cavitation. I don't know, - John have you calculated -
What - 2 psi is where weIre starting to cavitate?
THOMAS It's - we've brought them down to about 1
psi.
PUDDY Okay. And - so llke I say the profile
as understand it today, will continue fairly constant with
a gradual decrease in trend until we get to a point where
we're around - I guess it's 1920 psi. Then there's a point
there where you extract a very small additional portion
of liquid. You drop quite rapidly to 5 psi. Then you have
to pick up - say - approximately g to 10 times that amount
of fluid decrease before you actually get yourself in a
posture where you're cavltating the pump. And before we
get to that point is where we're going to stop the loop.
So we can reservlce it. That is an option.
PAO Why don't you move up here to AI, and
then go back to John?
QUERY As I understand it, you're not sure now
whether or not you can service it? Is that right? Or how
SL-III PC-36F/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
816173

_" do you feel? Do you think the chances are good that you
can the next crew can go up and replenish the supply or
what?
PUDDY I'm always optimistic.
QUERY But you don't know for sure?
PUDDY No. I could sit here and say that tomorrow
we'll have all the procedures and all the thoughts worked
out where you can go up there and reservice or that you
can even reservice?
QUERY And if you can't then you'll lose the last
mission?
PUDDY If there was no way to reservice and there
was no way to operate only on the ATM electrical power system,
you would lose the Skylab-IV mission. And I'm not say_ -
I'm not ruling out that we could not operate in the CSM,
with the ATM power system for a fairly lengthy Skylab-IV
mission. The fact is we've still got quite a bit of power
from the those two sources. And if you'll remember, we
ran quite a while without the AM system.
QUERY If you had to reservlce, how much coolant
would you have to take up? And how would you _plenish?
What is there a little valve that you open up and you pour
the stuff in to, or what?
PUDDY There would have to be some special
equipment developed to put this liquid in the loop. How
r much we take up of course, is - when we take it up and how
much we've leaked during the time frame like I say right now,
we're down about 7 pounds in the primary loop. So, you know,
if we reserviced tomorrow, you're talking 7 pounds. And
we're leaking we think somewhere around ,074 pounds per day.
So you can more or less take that - I think what is it
around 7 or 8 pounds a gallon - give you some rough feel
for the amount of liquid you've have to carry.
THOMAS Total reservoir capacity is about 26
pounds .
QUERY Twenty-slx pounds? Does it - what does
that work out in gallons?
PUDDY I don't know what the density of coolanol is.
QUERY It's several gallons.
PUDDY Let's make a rough guestlmate and say it's
somewhere between 3 and 4 gallons, l'm sure it's close to
that. I

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC36G/I
Time: 00:40 CDT
816173

'_ THOMAS Well I don't know what density of coolanol is.


MOON I don't know.
PUDDY I don't know either.
QUERY There's several gallons.
THOMAS Let's make a rough estimate and say it's
between 3 or 4 gallons. I'm sure it's close to that.
QUERY And is there an easier way that you can
put the stuff into the system or do you have to tear some-
thing apart to put it in? I mean is there a place that you
know of that you can reservice this thing or do you have to
really rejigger the whole system?
THOMAS Well there are several servicing points
within the system, hut the one we're looking at, I guess, is
either right outside the EVA hatch or right out beside the
radial port and...
QUERY Outside the thing?
THOMAS Yes.
PUDDY Everything that we'll taking about now
from a standpoint .
QUERY Then it have to be an EVA, then?
PUDDY Yes.
THOMAS Right now, right now I want to qualify.
QUERY Why is it outside? I mean I thought this
thing is cooling the inside of the thing.
THOMAS As I indicated to you before, the radiator
of course, is exposed to the vacuum it's outside and I
mentioned the pump package and all the associated reservoirs
everything, they're right outside the EVA door but they are
external to the spacecraft.
QUERY There's no way inside to replace this
supply?
THOMAS I did not say that. Right now there has
- the most optimistic locations for reserviclng are either at
the pump package itself or on the radiator. Ones on the
MDA, ones outside the EVA hatch, but right now you would have
to say that based on what we know right now the most likely
point would require an EVA.
PAO I have two questions phoned in from
Mark Blum: What are the prospects for flying the next
Skylab and the second one, do you know the way for the next
Skylab crew to service these coolant loops, which I think
we just covered. What are the prospects for flying the next
Skylab? I think that has pretty well been answered too.
PUDDY I think so.
PAO Ed?
QUERY On the air ground loop, there is some
indications maybe this crew would look for the leak is
anything they could do if they found the leak?
PUDDY You'd have to - to answer that question
properly you'd have to get the information as to where they
SL-III PC 36G/2
Time: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

found the leak. In other words there are some, as I understand


it there are some connections in the systems where you
can tighten up some things like this, if you canj get to them.
A lot of this is fairly inaccessible and...
QUERY If I read this transcript right, it
they said they didn't have the procedures, they were thinking
about it or something, is somebody going through something
to have them tomorrow?
PUDDY No, no. I would think - as far we'll go tomorrow
or as for the crew to Just observe the area outside the EVA
hatch and see if they can see any indications more less of
the coolanol, which leaves a yellowish brown stain, it's
certainly going to - as far as we know going to sublimate and
gradually leave unless it is intrained somewhere trapped
somewhere and the main thing wetd be doing there is looking
for any residue that indicated that it might be coming from
a certain locale. We certainly - will probably have the crew
take a look just to be doubly sure that the leak isntt inside
the spacecraft, we'd like to know that, of course, if it is.
But all we're really doing tonight was what we - always llke
to do is to keep the crew informed. We're not trying to hide
anything from the crew as far as what's going on in the
spacecraft. It's their home and they have a right to know.
So our intent tonight was merely to as soon as we found out about
it and we're fairly confident that it looked llke we indeed we
had the leaks was to let them know, so tomorrow morning when
they get up on the EVA and when we toss out a couple of places
for them to look they're not surprised, they had a chance to
think about it. They may even have some thoughts of something
they've seen themselves that may give us an indication. .Just
their awareness and their health is certainly an asset in all
of the problems that we've had in Skylab the way we've been ablt
to troubleshoot, as I'm sure that you all are aware.
QUERY One more question, Bill Schnieder's
statement he said that it is one of the long range problems
we're investigating. Are we aware of the other ones have they
been covered or we have to get something new sprung at us
long range problems?
PUDDY Ed, you know we don_t keep any problems from
you. No I - in all seriousness, I think what
Bill was referring there, to ...
END OF TAPE
SL-III PC-36H/I
TIME: 00:40 CDT
8/6/73

PUDDY In all seriousness, I think what Bill


was refering there to, you know, you have been briefed on the
CSM quad problems, that's a long-term problem. The - we
had some some of the battery capacity problems earlier,
still haven't completely verified those or up to capacity,
your been briefed on those. These are all open items, there's
nothing, there's nothing other, no other problem that l'm
aware of and I hope I'm aware of all of them that's of a major
magnitude that you haven't been thoroughly brief on, hadn't
been covered extensively with the crew, in fact as I, think
you all get a - all of the teleprinter up-links, is that
correct? And a - the - your' probably well aware of the
procedure that we instituted on Skylab 3 where each week,
we summarize all of those problems in a teleprinter message
and up-link those to the crew. And we will continue to do
that.
PAO Any further questions?
QUERY If they try to replenish this am I right
in assuming that the replacement will have to be done under
pressure in addition to the normal pressure you'd have because
of weightlessness? In other words, there's pressure in these
loops, if they put new fluid in, it's going to go in under
some kind of pressure and be capped off, is this correct?
PUDDY Yes.
QUERY In other words, it isn't simply dumping
some fluid and putting the cap on, it's a -
PUDDY Nothing in zero g is just as simple as -
QUERY I mean aside from zero g - -
PUDDY Aside from the sero, you are absolutely
correct, there would have to he some sort of pressure feed
to put it in.
SPEAKER Bleed the air out and all of that, I guess.
PUDDY Well, that's very easy to do.
SPEAKER (Garble)
PUDDY That's very easy to do than zero- though.
As far as bleeding air out. You don't have to pull a vacuum
on it, we've got one already made for us.
QUERY What are they Just quick connect type thing?
PUDDY Don't have the hardwarej yet as far as
what we would use up there, but I'm sure - -
QUERY I mean on the spacecraft now. You know the
port you're talking about.
PUDDY John, you may be able - -
SPEAKER It's a cap.
SPEAKER I'm sure it's a cap QD, yes.
PAO Okay, thank you very much.

END OF TAPE.
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

COOLANT SYSTEM STATUS BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 6, 1973
4:31 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

WM. SCHNEIDER, SKYLAB PROGRAM DIRECTOR


GEORGE HARDY, CHIEF, MSFC SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
BILL POMEROY, PAO

PC-38
SL-III PC-38A/1
Time: 16:31 CDT
816173

SP All right at this time we have with us


Bill Schneider, the director of the Skylab program. And
George Ilardy, from Marshall Space Flight Center, the Chief
of Systems Integrations will be -Mr. Hardy will have a
brief statement.
HARDY We'd like to make a statement this
afternoon relative to condition, I believe, brought to your
attention, last evening concerning leak or potential leak
In the coolant systems of the airlock module. As you -
probab]y explained to you, we have two systems, a primary
system and a secondary system. They are redundant in nature.
We found as a result of! getting an indication, onboard
indication, of a accumulator low in the primary system. We
went back and looked at the data from, essentially from the
beginning of the Skylab I mission, to determine the condition
that we had of the fluid in both of those loops. I might
explain, what we're looking for in those loops is the mainten-
ance of a pressure at which the pumps will properly operate.
And that pressure, of course, is directly dependent on the
mass of fluid that is in the loops. And as one might lose
fluid the fluid is resupplied or made up so to speak from the
accumulators up until the point that the accumulators themselves
have been depleted of fiuid. Some time after that the pressure
then would drop to the point that the pumps could not properly
operate. The indication in the primary loop was that the
accumulator had reached! that point. Now, there is a tolerance
on the measurements and so in fact there is still - we're not
at the point in the primary loop to prohibit operation on
that primary loop. But there was a definite indication that
we'd lost some fluid from that loop. By the way I might add
that we're operating on that loop right now. And it is, in
fact, supporting the crew on the current EVA. This re - the
result of this, we went back and looked at data and started
looking at the data from the beginning of the mission. It
is necessary in order to determine the mass of fluid that
is in the loops to go through a fairly complicated integration
of data on the ground with the data that is measured from
the spacecraft. Taking into account the temperature, and of
course the temperature does change within the day and on a
data basis of the loop as well as the pressure measurements
in order then to determine then the masses in the loop. Now
we know what we loaded in the loop at KSC. Initially, last
evening after having looked at that data for a very short
period of time, a few hours , we confirmed the indication on
the primary loop that we had a leak in the primary loop and
had had this leak for some period of time. We also initially
thought from looking at the data, and it's very difficult as
I mentioned before to discern in some cases just what it's

f
SL-III PC-38A/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/6/73

telling you because of the fluctuations in temperature and


pressure. But initially we thought also that we had a leak
in the secondary loop. Now we've gone back and looked at
more data. We've tried to integrate it to a somewhat finer
degree. We haven't completed that activity yet and of course
we're watching these loops very closely now. But the indication
still is that we have a leak in the primary loop, however
there is indication now that we do not have a leak in the
secondary loop or if in fact we have a leak, it is a rather
small leak compared to what I think was reported to you last
evening. Possibly as low as .04 pounds per day. Now, of course_
a great deal of interest is what does this mean to us in terms
of the maintenance of the cooling system in the alrlock.
As I mentioned, we are continuing to operate on the primary
loop and of course we will do that even though we have an
indicated accumulator low. There is a tolerance of about
i to 1.2 psi on that measurement. And at such time we would
switch over the secondary loop. The secondary loop is not
leaking. Of course, it can sustain the mission very well,
both in the storage period and in the manned perlodp remaining
in SL-III andSL-IV. The secondary loop is leaking at the low
potential leak that we now predict that it does have it can
also sustain a mission through SL-II to storage period and SL-IV.
We've Just simply had a chance to look at the data in more
- detail at the onset of the problem and the indication from the
primary loop and the first analysis of the data we wanted to be
sure that the crew was aware of what we had seen what we were
worry, and what we were working on. Consequently, the crew
was advised and of course you were advised likewise. So, we
have, I'd say, considerably more optimism today than
we'd had last evening. We will continue to look at this data.
It is very difficult to pull this data and actually it's
in the neighborhood - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC38B/I
Time: 16:31CDT
_-_ 8/6/73

(CONT'D) And last evening. We'll continue to


look at this data it is very difficult to pull this data
actua]ly it's in the neighborhood of 2 to 5 percent of mass
change in the fluid that they were looklng for and with the
temperature variables that we do see and the pressure variables
which occurr with the operations of the system like for instance
and EVA we see temperature rise in a loop and consequently
a pressure change and with these variables and trying to
determine the mass in the loop and this rather narrow band it
is difficult to do but we feel as I said that the secondary
loop at this time would consider - would be considered to be
a good loop throughout this Skylabmission and the remaining
Skylab Mission. If there are any questions I'ii be glad
to answer them.
PAO Okay, if you wait until the microphone
has settled up.
QUERY Sir, with the primary loop, does that
leak as I understand it now_ about .074 pounds per day, and
when do you expect that to go o_t if such is true?
HARDY With that leak at that rate, and we're
going to have to look at that one of course and the same
detail we do the primary we do not feel that's it greater
than that it's some possibility that it may be less but if it
is in fact leaking at that rate then that loop would continue
to operate somewhere between 18 and 25 days, I'd say.
QUERY Let me be sure I understand what the
situation is. The situation is that the - there is a leak
in the primary loop but it may not be quite as bad as you
thought last night, that is instead of 16 day capacity, you've
got an 18 to 25 day capacity. And in the secondary loop you may
have a leak but it's alvery miniscule leak and that it could
hold you through this mission as well as the next mission,
is that correct?
HARDY That is correct. I'll emphasize again
that we're continue to look at the data because it is a very
tedious process but that is our current feeling. After spending
almost all of last night and most of the day looking at the
data.
QUERY Mr. Hardy, last night during the
breifing there were some discussion about during the storage
period or the unmanned period that you would cut down more
equipment to keep the coolant. Will that still take place?
HARDY Well, we're still looking at the -
preparing ourselves to do that should it be necessary to
do it. It does appear'that with proper management of the
equipment that is generally cooled by this system during the
storage period, of course, we did not need it for cabin cooling.
It does appear with the proper mangement that if that became
necessary, which is at this point, and time we would not
consider it to be necessary, but should it become necessary
we could go through the storage period in that configuration.
SL-III PC38B/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/6/73

SPEAKER (garble)
QUERY Are you saying now that the secondary
loop has the capacity, as you see it now, to go throughout the
whole SL-IV mission into mid-January ifthere is a November
launch?
HARDY Let's see I'ii have to do a little mental
calculating here in days, but the answer to that is yea,
assuming that the situtaion remains stable as it does and
our calculations doesn't show any differently, but we feel that
way about it right now.
QUERY What is the rational behind the using
up the primary down to this point that you were talklng about
before to switching to the secondary?
HARDY Well it the leak in the system would be
very difficult to isolate and there is pressure on the loop
even when the pumps are not running in fact the pressure
upstream of the pumps is essentially the same whether the pumps
are running or not. It's some what a kin to the refrigeration
system in your refrigerator where you have a locked up pressure.
QUERY Bill, what is your mission rule, assuming
that you deplete the fluid in the primary loop during this
mission. Would you go for the SL-IV without reservicing the
primary loop, in other words would you - -
SCRNEIUER We can't reserviee the primary loop as
we are now.
QUERY Last night we were told that there might
be a possibility of reserviclng the system in that - that is
inoperative now?
SCHNEIDER I wasn't no, no, no, no, no.
SCHNEIDER Hey, let me just say, you guys want to what
we're thinking and our thought process is very dynamatic and
so you get very dynamatic stories from us, so don't so don't
be surprised if they do change. We try to do it that way, so
that you know the way that we're thinking at all times, but I
think - I didn't hear that press conference last night, but I
would assume what they were talking about last night is that's
we're looking at an option of bringing up a servicing kit, much
like the six pack, but obviously there's nothing like that in
orbit now and we would have to bring that up on Skylab IV. Now
Marshall will continue looking at that and I assume that if
we do have one go bad and six - servicing kit is available
for us before, we'll probably try very hard to get it on.
QUERY That's my question really. Would you
commit to another mission knowing that you had only the
secondary loop available?
SCHNEIDER Oh, yes, yes, yes.
SL-III PC38B/3
Time: 16:31 CDT
/-_ 8/6/73

QUERY Would you commit to that same mission


knowing that you had a small leak in the secondary loop
with the primary out.
SCHNEIDER Yes_ there's no danger to the crew or
anythlng like that. What we're looking at is whether or
not you can operate all of the systems, and as George says
there's - there are even some modes that you can operate in
without any of the coolant loops on. Certainly you can do that
during the unmanned period , so if you had one loop all you're
worried about is, can the systems operate.

END OF TAPE
SL-1II PC-38C/1
Time: 6:31 CDT
:_" 7/6/73

SCHNEIDER - there are even some modes that you could


operate in without any of the coolant loops on. Certainly
you can do that during the unmanned period. So, if you had
one loop, all you're worried about is can the systems operate
and if they fail to - if you fail that loop, then you - then
probably some inoperative systems or systems you'd want
to turn off and you'd curtail the mission quite a bit.
QUERY With theleaks of this nature wouldn't it
the way they seemed to have appeared, wouldn't it be a pretty
good chance that it could be a corrosive agent in the loop? And
If so, wouldn't it getlworse instead of better?
HARDY Iguess that we need to talk a little bit
about the way they seemed to appear. I guess that as far
as you're concerned here, and as - and the crew, and to many
of us in NASA. They did in fact, appear to the point that
we alerted the crew. We ta]ked to you and we - we started
going deeper into the data, but the data does indicate that
the leak in the primary loop has been with us - a very slow
leak, over a long period of time. Now, as far as corrosive-
ness, or any corrosive action, the coolanol that's loaded
into the loop, has been exposed to extensive compatibility
testing with the system itself. We had this coolanol in the
loop for quite some time before launch. And we're not really
r- concerned with that type of a problem. Actually, there are
a large number of connections in this sytem. Something in
excess of a thousand. And the more probable postulation is
certainly - and a very feasible one, is a very small fuzz-
type leak around one of these connections.
SPEAKER Incldentallyp I should say that this system
is essentially the same system that flew in Germany. Same
coolant, same pumps, add things like that.
QUERY George, last night we heard that the leak
in the secondary loop may have occurred at the time of Pete's
EVA on June the 7th. What has happened now to make you change
your mind about that?
HARDY Well, in looking at what I'll call the raw
data, last night the trend that we thought we were seeing
that indicated a loop - a leak in the secondary loop, mani-
fested itself in that time frame. So, from that data, draw-
ing a conclusion there was a leak there, we looked to see
where we started seeing an indication and that was in the
general time frame of The EVA. But I'd llke to emphasize
again that it is diffleult to find this very small change
that we're looking for in percent mass, and even tie it down
to any single day.
QUERY When would you expect to be able to definitely
tell us whether there is or is not a leak in the secondary
SL-III PC-38C/2
Time: 16:31CDT
8/6/73

loop and what could you say at this point about possible
causes for the leak in the primary coolant loop?
HARDY We will, as you can well imagine, go into
a concentrated program for very close periods of monitoring
both temperature and pressure in this loop, in order to get
a finer granularity in the predictions than what we have right
now. We're working sort of on a day-to-day basis. And we'll
obviously be looking at temperatures and pressures now, on
an hourly basis trying to get a finer trace of what's hap-
pening iobetween those points. I would think that several
days of that - tracking that will give us a much better -
will, I think, confirm what we now believe that there is no
leak in the secondary loop, or a very small leak indeed. And
I think we'll be able to quantitize that leak from that from
monitoring that data. With regards to the source of the pri-
mary leak in the primary system, I think again, that it is
certainly reasonable, very reasonable postulation for this
week. And many fittings that we do have in the system. There
was an incident that we are not necessarily connecting at
this time because we haven't researched the data sufficiently,
in the - during the first EVA where we did experience an
anomaly in the control valves in these loops, such that we
feel like we did expose some heat exchangers that have water
passes through those heat exchangers. And the temperature
is at resulted in freezing of those heat exchangers. Now
whether anything could have happened at that time which could
have initiated a leak, we're not sure. We're going to look
at that. We're going to have the crew do some inspection,
internal to the cabin. But I would say that it's certainly
a very reasonable postulation that with over a thousand con-
nections of this type that we could very easily be leaking
in one of those connections. Especially since many of them
have been ther - subject to the thermal cycling on a multi-
daily basis.
QUERY I'm a little confused now. I thought it was
the secondary loop that was associated with theEVAand the
primary loop with launch. And you just used the primary con-
nected with the EVA.
HARDY That was what you were told I believe last night,
and I had mentioned earlier,I don't think in looking at the
data, particular in the earlier part of the mission, when we
were, as you well know, orbiting the vehicle in various atti-
tudes to maintain thermal stability. It's extremely difficult
to look in - at that data and that time frame and determine
where the leak in the primary may have started. The leak
rate that we talked about last night and the prediction of
mass that we have in the - -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC 38D/I
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/6/73

ItARDY - - where the leak in the primary may have


started. The leak rate that we talked about last night and
the prediction of mass that we have in the system now would
have indicated that it would have started hack very early
after launch. The only connection that I make to the EVA
is the fact that we did experience freezing in one of the
heat exchangers and there were coolanol lines that go
through those heat exchangers and we Just very simply want
to have a crew inspect them to make sure that that is not
a source of the leak.
QUERY Are you saying that the men can live
and work in the station - space station without either coolant
loop_ I mean if you had neither of them?
HARDY I didn't say that. And don't think
Mr. Schneider said that. He did say that during the unmanned
period that the we could turn off equipment that is cooled
by thisloop and manage that on on-off basis. Such that we
could - we feel at this point time that we could go through
the unmanned period if necessary without either coolant loop.
Now, the reason for doing that would be if we should determine
that isolating or turning off the loop would lengthen the
life of that loop. Welve not done that at this time. Or
if for some reason you should get down and be completely out
of loops, and wanted to sustain the Skylah for a revisit for
recharging of a loop.
QUERY As things now stand, George, would you
have Skylab IV crew take up a service kit?
HARDY Well, I think that Bill has said it
right. We'll continue to look - as things stand right now,
if we think we can hold Just what we've got here we would not
it would not be absolutely necessary to do that. On the
other hand we want to continue to look at the loops and also
we're looking vigorously at ways and means of recharging, one
or more of the loops. And we'll work that on down toward
the launch date and assess the need and the feasibility at
the same time. We'll look at ways to charge it outside and
possibly ways to charge it inside.
QUERY What does all this mean for the SL-IV
launch date. hat date are looking at presently.
SPEAKER Four options going right now. Might be
five. Launch the rescue vehicle as soon as possible, which
we've told you is the 10th of September. Launch the rescue
vehicle approximately the end of the mission which would be
the 25 of September. Launch Sky - and then if you don't the
rescue mission - Launch the Skylab IV relatively soon, sometime
early mid October. Or for, comet Kohutek launch Skylab IV around
mid-November. They are all viable options at this moment.

Ir
SL-III PC 38D/2
Time: 16:31 CDT
8/6/73

SPEAKER And if you need a coolant reserviclng unit


I'm sure George and his guys take a little time to get that
and there might be a fifth option in there that's Inbetween
the October and the November.
QUERY So, you're mind's considerably eased over
this situation from what they were last night. All right,
does this put back as to the number one priority or the
anomaly, the quad rocket problem on the CSM. And as of this
morning there were still some checks being made on the oxidizer,
and if you've had any further results from tests of the
oxidizer.
SPEAKER You asking what our biggest problem is?
QUERY Right. And a status report on the oxidizer.
SPEAKER Oh, on the CSM oxidizer. I can only tell
you what Glenn Lunney told me this morning which was it appears
that we are continuing our tests out at Downey and we have
no test results in the last 24 hours that lead us to any
other conclusion than the one that we've been telling you
about, that it appears to us that we had a leak in the dog
house on quad Delta and a different kind of a leak a valve
leakj on quad Bravo. The data seems to be confirming that
and going down that llne. The tests are in progress and
they have not been completed yet.
SPEAKER Whether this is the hardest problem we've
got, Iguess it depends on whether or not you're a CSM man
or a workshop man or airlock man or an ATM man.
PAO Okay, thank you very much.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAE NEWS CENTER
HOUSTONI TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 6, 1973
8:05 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

MILTON WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


STORY MUSGRAVE_ CAP COMM
JIM KUKOWSKI, PAO

PC-39
SI,-I [ t PC-39A/1
Time: 20:05 CDT
g/6/73

PAO Okay. We're ready to go with this briefing


this afternoon or this evening. It's been a long day.
FlightDireetor,Milt Windler, and CAP COMM Story Musgrave.
Milt do you want to start out with your usual short statement?
WINDLER Right. We Just had another nominal day today,
just a llttleEVA. Other than that it was pretty straight-
forward. I guess everybody - in fact while I was driving
over here - I was too tired to walk I guess. I usually enjoy
the walk, but mainly because I wasn't planning on going back
to the control center. I heard a very nice report of it
on the radio. Y'all should just get that off the tape and
it's right. Anyway, it's going to be hard to top that to
tell you the truth. I thought he had all the data right there.
I won't tell you who that was. It was 6 hours and 31 minutes.
Most of the time it was quite a bit over time, as you well
know. Most of the extra time ws used in trying to put out
the Marshall twin-boom sall and we don't know exactly how
long that took but I'd personally say it's probably in the
excess of 4 hours just judging. There were long periods of
LOS in there as you well knew, so we didn't have a real good
hack on exactly when that h_ppened. I think probably the
ATM film changing and the incidentals that we asked them to
do probably took about the right amount of time. So, most
of the extra time was basically in the sall deployment. And
_ I'ii let Story talk about that in a moment. The - we're
already seeing some systems changes you might say due to
the sail, the temperatures are coming down somewhat. And
it'll be a while before we know that. The plan is to cut
off some of the activities for the day. Let the crew not
do all the things that they normally would have done and
cut off some of the flight plan in the morning - or tomorrow
I should say, and let them catch up some tomorrow and then
some in the succeeding days, but tomorrow is basically a
medical day as you probably already realize. Since the
medical people didn't get their turn due to the back-to-back
EREPs just before the EVA. And one other thing before I
Story talk. The spider did try to spin a web. Not too
surprisingly, she's not able to go straight across the cage,
not having a good propulsion system, I guess, but apparently
the web was strung up around the corners of the cage and we hope.
And of course we'll be getting some camera pictures of it
and we'd like to sneak in a TV picture or two. I'd like -
we'd all llke to see that I guess. And maybe we can make
that happen. I'm going to let Story tell you about the EVA.
And the grommets.
MUSGRAVE Oh, shall we start on the grommets? I've
got a rod up here I can show you a grommet. As you know we

F •
SL-III PC-39A/2
Time: 20:05 CDT
8/6/73
f-,

got each - each rod that we string out is 55 feet long and
it's ii rods that are each 5 feet. To connect these rods,
one rod goes inside another and it's got two little pins
and you stick it in and rotate it. But with a lot of motion
and torquing we get with this rod, you can bend the joint
here, so we have a nut, that once you go in and you rotate
It - a bayonet-type connection and make the connection, you
run this nut down on top of it to give you a tight fit.
Woll, in zero g, nuts and bolts, if they don't have a lock
washer or something llke that - constant tension on them,
they tend to just float there and there's no friction
between the nut and the thread and they'll Just unwind.
They can unwind by themselves with just any little motion
they'll unwind. So, after running this nut down to give you
a tight fit, we had a rubber grommet that's like
a rubber doughnut, on the rod and all you have to do
is push the grommet and it rolls down on top of the
threads and it stops this nut from backing off. So
that's what we used the grommets for. Now, in - the
rods are all stowed - on a rod pole plate. That's how we
drag all the rods out there on two plates. And they're
stowed - say where Owen pulls them out like pulling an
arrow out of a quiver. The nuts down here and the grommets
sitting here and it's a nylon tether that goes around the
rod and it holds it on that plate. That's what holds the
rod and he's grabbing this end up here and he's pulling
trying to get the rod out. And until he got the fix or a
better method of getting that rod out, it was taking him,
we calculated, 7 minutes to get each rod out and get it
affixed to the rods exceeding it. After he came up with
a better way of doing it it only took him about 2 minutes
per rod. And of course you heard his pass up to him that
he did have some scissors in _he airlock to cut this thing.
And we were worried that the grommet was sitting on top
of the nut and when he pulled it out that little nylon
retainer slid the grommet down over onto the lower part
of the bayonet portion of the rod and therefore he'd have
to lift the grommet up and roll it back which with a gloved
hand would be very hard. So what he did is he reposltloned
himself with respect to the pole plate so that he hmd a
method of torquing the rod and at the same time rolling it.
And so he rolled the grommet underneath the retaining line.
And that's a very simple basic thing, but it points out
one of the differences between getting a method of doing
something. And the other thing is that the flight item
was different from what we had in training in the water.
If we had a high fidelity trainer in the water we would have
SL-I [I PC-39A/3
Time: 20:05 CDT
816173
f

identified ths problem early. Possibly redesigned the


rod and the grommet itself, or at least in our training
would have developed a good method so we wouldn't have had
to get the on-the-job training up there. That's the run on
the grommet.
WINDLER Let me mention a couple of other things I
forgot. That we did ask the crew to go oat and look at the
external parts of the spacecraft and since that was so
negative I forgot to mention it. But they could find no
they looked at the power transfer distribution box and
that was no evidence on the outside of any problem. And
they couldn't find any evidence of any coolant leaks or
anything llke that. And we also asked them to look at the
quads and they could see nothing with the quads. And we
really didn't expect to find anything but we felt like it
was we never really rested easy and - until we asked them
to look at it. And so, now they've looked at it and there's
nothing obvious out there, so we'll press on with the -
some of the troubleshooting from the inside consoles.
PAO Okay. Let's move to questions. Bruce?
QUERY Yes. A couple. First, for Hilt. You
say that - -

END OF TAPE

F
SL-III PC39B/I
Time: 20:05 CDT
r 8/6/73

WINDLER - - press on with the troubleshooting from


the inside console.
PAO Okay. Let's move to questions here. Bruce.
QUERY First, you say they found nothing, well
what does it tell you as far as the junction box where they were
going to look around that area for where the wiring may be
burnt out. What does it tell you by not seeing anything and
what would it have told you if they really seen something and
for Story, if I could, how would you - -
PAO One at a time,
QUE RY Ok ay.
WINDLER Well, what it would have told us if they
had seen something would have depended on what they would have
seen. There was a failure earlier in the program where they
actually burnt a hole in the box itself due to an internal
short, not the same kind of failure that we are supposing
happened here, but you know, if there's some heat inside you might
see some paint discolorations if a wire bundle is has a burn
in it some other place, you might see some discolorations.
I'm always amazed at what an experienced eye can see. You
didn't ask me this but I'ii give you this free information,
1 landed an airplane one time and it was making funny noises,
and I couldn't see anything wrong with it and the mechanic
came over and said, "Oh, yeah, you got a cracked cylinder."
_-- And when he showed it to me, there it was. Because it was
obvious from the outside. So expecting the crew, who is
familiar with the equipment ]ooks like since they've seen it
all through the construction and all that, that they would
be able to tell perhaps, you know, point the - locate the
problem, better for us to a certain extent. So Does that
answer your question?
MUSGRAVE Yes. I think the real important thing
here are there other things damaged inside that box. It's
a distribution box where's there's all kinds of things coming
and going. We are pretty certain that what we really lost in
there are lines that go from ATM and BUS 2 to TV BUS 2. That
we are pretty certain is the part that burn up. Now, the
reason for looking at the box is, if there's a lot of damage
to the box then we know other dlstrlbultlon wires and relays
[u that box also got damaged. Ithink that was the real
reason for looking at it. Other things besides those lines
we know are burnt out, were they hurt also? ATM BUS 2 to TV
BUS 2. We think those are the lines that burnt.
QUERY What else is in there?
MUSGRAVE I don't know, but there's a tremendous
number of things. The name for it power transfer distribution
box, is a pretty appropriate name. There's a lot of stuff that

i_ .
--9 m

SL-III PC 39B/2
Time : 20:05 CDT
f-- 8/6/73

goes through there. And I can't tell you all of it.


PAO Okay, go ahead Bruce.
QUERY And now for Story. How would you assess
the overall work on theEVA today? A couple of rookies spending
6-1/2 hours during the first EVA.
MUSGRAVE You want an assessment of their performance?
I think it was extremely meticulous, careful, and it was
perfect. They got everything done. We didn't ever want them
to hurry and in pre-flight they didn't plan to hurry. And
there's no critical time line at all in theEVA. You can
do it in 2-1/2 or you can do it 6-1/2. They did run into
some on the job training. It took a - that's probably what
added more time. On the other hand it wasn't the standard
EVA. We called up numerous changes to their checklist and
changes to their procedures and also on the teleprinter pad and
also some real time changes today. But as a crew they do
operate in a very careful meticulous sort of way, as well as
having all these additional changes. But I think the performance
was perfect.
PAO Any more questions from the floor here?
Right here the lady in the red sweater.
QUERY I'm curious about the spider TV. Do you
have any idea when it might be or what we'll see in it?
WINDLER Well, it won't be very lone - thetis
the only one I can probably answer it'll Just be a couple
of minutes. It won't - you won't see any web spinning or
anything like that. All you:ll see - whatever's in place.
And when you've seen 30 seconds of web you've probably seen
all of it. It won't e very long hut when it'll get done I
don't know. We kind of had in mind doing it tomorrow morning, but
it's one of the things on that candidate llst for not being
done, due to the crew being up longer tonight.
MUSGRAVE The purpose isn't to look at the spiders,
the purpose it to check our video tape recorder, and at the
same time get some pictures of the spider, so we can kill
two birds with one stone, but after the flight they are
taking a lot of still pictures of the web. The automatic
signal which sets off theDACgo to look at the spinning while
it's in progress that has not been working. There's a malfunction.
So what we will have is a lot of still pictures of the progress
as it comes along.
QUERY Also, I understand there's going- some
work was going to be done on the video tape recorder after
the EVA. Do you know when that will be and do you think
that will - -
WINDLER That was what I was talking about that
was scheduled for tomorrow morning. But it's a candidate for
deletion at the moment. They're deciding that right now.

f
SL-III PC 39B/3
Time: 20:05 CDT
f- 8/6/73

PAO Werner Buedeler


QUERY Do you have any idea how much additional
TV we got besides the real time TV over Goldstone. And my
second question, when are you trying the ATM out?
WINDLER I didn't count up the passes. But - I
don't know, maybe the PAO knows -Oh, I know we went up over
Vangaurd at least 3 times and 2 passes over Hawaii.
MUSGRAVE I'd say we have about i0 passes in all.
WINDLER Yes.
WINDLER It was down-link and not real time.
The - You asked - that will probably happen right around - about
17:00 tomorrow, Zulu like Jn the order of noon, between
i0 and ii in the morning, from 12 o'clock. It depends on
exactly how they adjust the flight plan. Originally it was
scheduled to happen early in the morning but I think it will
probably be delayed a little bit.
QUERY And another one, and I guess it's for Jim.
When are we getting the TV in here from Hawaii and Vanguard.
PAO I'ii find out.
WINDLER Let me point out to you that Vanguard is
25 miles at sea now. I told one of the guys that I was pretty
sure that Fred Koontz who is working that area would have one
of these boats llke they used to run up to the oil rigs and
then I got to thinking later I should have made that a helicopter
because that's probably -he'll - I expect him to have that
back on the shore in less than a day. But now, he hadn't told
me that I'm just predicted it. I'm Just so good at
predictions, you notice -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC39C/1
Time: 20:05CDT
816173

(CONT'D) lle hadn't told me that I'm Just predicting


It. I'm so good at predictions you know. (Chuckle) I hope
none of you got up early to watch that EVA today.
PAO Anymore questions here on the floor, I've
gotten a couple of written ones, though asked from the Cape
area. What will the record show as elapse time for EVA?
It was reported as 6 hours and 31 minutes and also 6 hours
and 29 minutes.
SPEAKER It depends on whether you're listening to
AI Bean or PAO.
WINDLER Well, I don't know the answer to that
except if it's necessary to run it up precisely that we have
data that we can use for the completion of the depressurization.
AI reported that it was 6 hours and 31 minutes on his watch.
SPEAKER I think he probably hatch to hateh_
though. My guess is when the hatch in the EVA checklist
it's the hatch that dictates the EVA not the depress and
repress.
WINDLER That's normally I think the time we use
is hatch open to hatch close that's what we used to use on
surface lunar surface anyway.
QUERY Is that the one that you used on the
Conrad one 6:32?
QUERY 635?
WINDLER Was that the elapse time on his 6:33?
SPEAKER 3:23.
WINDLER Oh,l thought that this one was quite
a bit longer than that.
SPEAKER 3:23 was the SL-2.
WINDLER Yea.
WINDLER I guess I'm - I stand to be corrected we
used the depressurization on the surface that's right.
QUERY Second question here: do you feel the
sail is fully deployed is it covering the area you wanted
covered?
WINDLER The answer to the second one is basically
yes. And the answer to the first one was a little indetermin-
ate now. The more you listen and think about what the crew
said the more you tend to feel like basically it is fully
deployed even though the crew had some questions in their
minds and I think perhaps they expected it to completely
cover the parasol that's all. But looking at the way that
it's organized - orientated now I really
SPEAKER It can't cover the parasol.
WINDLER So I think we may find out that in
retrospect talking to them some more that it is
SPEAKER It - it lays right parallel on the parasol
which in the nominal is parallel to the X-axis even then if it
lays right square on top of it you only got an extra 6 inches
on either side in other words the sail is 6 inches wider on either
side. But the parasol is kilted over rotated over so that - I
SL-III PC39C/2
Time: 20:05 CDT
8/6/73

think they are exaggerating how in their own minds - how big
they think the sall should have been. There's no way you can
_et that parasol covered up. Lengthwise you can but not
[atera]ly or in width. And I have faith it's deployed exactly
the way it ought to be, but the way the temperatures are coming
down it looks llke it is.
QUERY One final remote question it's almost
redundant but just a little bit - have they taken any pictures
of Arabella as yet?
SPEAKER Yes, they have, they've taken still photos.
PAO Any more questions from the floor. Yes
wait for the microphone.
QUERY I may have been late when you started, so
I don't know whether you answer that question about the tem-
perature. Do you know precisely how much it decreased since
the sail is on?
WINDLER What we said was they've already started
coming down it takes awhile for that to stahlize so they.
SPEAKER I didn't hear the numbers we were AOS and
we heard them calling it - to call it up to the crew and we
only had two stations what was it Vanguard and Ascension
after they got in. But it looks like a pretty fast response.
PAO Pete.
QUERY Milt, why did you say that didn't really
expect to see anything in looking for particularly evidence
of coolant leaks because we've been told that the coolant
leaks were external now is there some reason why yon wouldn't
see a_ything?
WINDLER Basically.
QUERY Even if it were external?
WINDLER The fluid is expected essentially to
sublimate - freeze and sublimate and not really smear
all over the place. The engineering people they told us they
didn't have much hope for that any - in any of these areas
really but - -
SPEAKER Then where leaks is covered up by thermal
blankets or behind boxes and that sort of thing.
QUERY It wouldn't tend to impinge against something
and that kind - dribble around the edge and leave some - -
SPEAKER I suppose it would if it didn't freeze first.
PAO No further questions, thank youStory.
M[It thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
Houston, Texas

Change of Shift Briefing


Johnson Space Center
August 7, 1973
9:40 a.m. CDT

pARTICIPANTS:

Chuck Lewis, Flight Director


Milton Reim, PAO

PC-40
SL-III PC-40A/I
Time: 09:40 CDT
817173

PAO All right we'll start this morning


with our change of shift briefing. Flight Director Chuck
Lewis, go ahead, Chuck.
LEWIS Okay. I might first mention that
since the crew got the new shade up, we've_en the - some
of the temperatures begin to improve. The couple of measure-
ments we've been watching up around the 2 water tanks that
are up on the plus Z side of the vehicle, one temperature
measurement had been off range above a hundred and twenty
degrees, the other reading a hundred and ten. Those now are
down to about ninety degrees. Wetve seen some slight
drop in the cabin gas temperature, maybe 1 or 2 degrees at
this point in time. No major systems problems last night.
We did have, apparently, a failure in the teleprinter head. And
the crew was to change that out when I left. They may have
that done by now. Itm - primarily Just routine flight
planning during the night. We worked on some troubleshooting
procedures that we want to implement in the next few days.
That's about it as far as the summary.
PAO Bruce.
QUERY Chuck, l didn'_ realize they were going
to change out the teleprinter head. I thought they got
that fixed by moving over that rubber _ommet, and everything
else?
LEWIS They tried that. They tried moving the
grommet over, and we sent up a test message, and apparently
it didn't hold. The last I heard, he was going to change
the teleprinter head out.
PAO Arthur.
QUERY Chuck, what ah .- What could you maybe
tell us about the status on the ATM? It seems as though
there might be - He's having trouble monitoring - getting
a TV picture on the XUV or things llke that?
LEWIS I really couldn't help you. I've been
off the console since about 8:00. And that must have taken
That's probably some of today's activities he's picked up.
I don't know what the status is.
QUERY Well, let me ask you and maybe another
thing. The This goes back a couple of days, but it seems
to me, there was some talk about getting a physical - physical
training in, some PT, and that kind of thing, and it's been
difficult to do because of them having to troubleshoot some
things, and EVA, and what have you. Have _u perhaps heard
any of the medical people commenting on whether they think
the crew is getting enough of their physical therapy in?
SL-III PC-40A/2
Time: 09:40 CDT
8/7/73

LEWIS Well, I think that there's a feeling


that they haven't really been getting as much as they should
get. We_ve heard crewmen, you know, at times, say, well
I'm working on this, you know, I'll Just skip the PT. There
is concern that they're not getting what they should have,
basically, because of what the SL-II crew recommended.
So, a couple two or three days ago, we discussed the
difficulties we were having in the flight plan. And after -
We basically planned after the EVA, to schedule first then,
the PT, the physical hygiene, that type of thing. And
some of this troubleshooting work to get done, and then
plan around that_ as opposed to letting the other things
drive us. So, there's going to be a slight reduction in
the percent of science done each day. And he's disciplined
to accomplish that, until we get back on a more routine
flight planning schedule. But, for example we intend to
schedule about 1 hour man hour a day for systems trouble-
shooting. We've got, as I mentioned the other day, several
odds we want to try to work ont. So, I think we've addressed
that and are putting that in the flight plan.
QUERY How long do you expect this situation
to last? In other words, before you can get back to a
normal science type activity. And also, - -

END OF TAPE
SL III PC-4OB/I
TIME: 09:40 CDT
,-_ 8_7_73

QUERY Before you can get back to a normal


science type activity and also could you maybe run through
some of the major problems there that youIre going to devote
this one hour a day to troubleshooting?
LEWis Okay, I don't want to leave you with the
wrong impression now, when I say we've cut back on some of
the science, it's really very little. For example, where you
might have had eight ATM passes in one day, we may have
dropped one. It's really a small reduction in that area,
but it does give us a little bit of flexibility in each day's
Flight Plan. I got your second question with regard to
troubleshooting. I can mention a few of those - What was your
first question?
QUERY Well, as to - how long you think
this Juggllng period might last.
LEWIS It depends upon the crew. You know it
took the SL II crew some time to get down into a routine
operation and they began to shorten the time it took for
EREP preparations and things like that and we expect the
same thing from this crew. So lid guess _y day within
the next week. The crew would start decreasing the amount
of time it takes to do some of the activity. Some of the
systems troubleshooting we've got in mind, we've still
got some work to do in the condensate system. There's some
- troubleshooting there. Plus we may want to move the vacuum
source that we use for dumping the tank. We don't have
any troubleshooting procedures ready on the short yet, but
that's an analysis and we expect some in that area. One item
this morning is the video tape recorder changeout. That's an
example of the type thing we're doing. There's some partial
pressure CO2 sensors we want to do malfunctions on and
check. It's Just a list similar to that. There's about
12 or 13 items now and you know, we Just want to start
working them off.
QUERY I got in a couple of minutes late, but
did you - Can you give us some OWS temperatures today com-
pared with yesterday before deployment?
LEWIS I mentioned a few earlier. We got a
couple of measurements up around the two water tanks on the
plus Z side, we've seen temperatures drop there about 20 to
30 degrees. From Ii0 to 120 down to about 90. The gas
temp seems to be dropping very slowly. Maybe a degree or
two. A couple of measurements up on the plus Z side under
the parasol, we've seen maybe a couple of degrees. It's
really kind of early to look at any trend at this point in
time. We did see a pretty good drop though in some of the
external temps and those water temps that l wae talking
about,
L. ..c

SL III PC-40B/2
TIME: 09:40 CDT
8_7/73

QUERY What about sleeping quarters, for example.


LEWIS I would expect they would cool down. I
expect the overall temperature in the 0WS to cool. It's
going to take some time, because there's still a lot of heat
in those two water tanks, for example. Take time to dissi-
pate that heat.
QUERY Is the sall properly deployed, I mean,
there was some talk of pleats not quite unfolding properly
yesterday. And it was never clear that they got it all out
and everything is fine there.
LEWIS I really can't answer the question. We
didn't get into that last nlght,but lid heard that they'd
had some trouble during deployment. I didn't realize that
we didn't get a full deployment. I guess Milt Windler to-
night could answer that more speclflcally.
PAO Any more questions? Thank you.

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 7, 1973
3:53 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS

MILTON WINDLER, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


AMOS CRISP, PAO

PC-41
SL-III PC41A/I
Time: 15:53 CDT
8_7_73

PAO Okay. Here we go for today's change-of-


shift press briefing. We have Flight Director Milt Windler
and we'll begin with a brief statement.
WINDLER Okay. Well, today went started off
a little bit - I was going to say slowly, but I'm not sure
that's so, because the thing that we've always said would get
our attention the worse, which is a teleprinter failure, didn't
exactly happen, but we had to change out the teleprinter this
morning unexpectedly. However, we think that the failure in
it is probably not exactly a failure. It's more llke a
degraded mode this rubber drive deal in there that's slipping
off and through some clever fashion we'll figure out a good
way to keep it from slipping I'm sure. But the electronics
and all that works out well. So we've always been very concerned
about the teleprinter and we did - we it got everybody's
attention that we did have this small failure in it. But in
any event, the crew got a - I think a little bit behind this
morning when they were changing out the tape the video tape
recorder. I don't know exactly how long that took because
we had some long LOS periods there, but it clearly took more
than the hour that was allocated for it. And that kind of
got them behind the curve, although I think they'll probably
wind up today in not too bad a shape - wind up, you know, at
supper time in not too bad a shape. The ATM activity is going
well. In fact, it's going to keep us quite busy trying to
answer all of Owen's questions. In fact, it's very difficult
to get in messages to the spacecraft for all the solar physics-
type data that's coming down from it from Owen. But we're
glad to see that happen. I don't know if you happened to
hear Owen when he - the tone of his voice when he asked us
if he should go to the flare mode when he saw that active
region coming up on the tube. He sounded very disappointed
and of course, we - later on told him to go ahead and do it,
but it turned out that, as the PIe expected, or suspected,
I should say, it was not a real bonafied flare, it was just a
low-level affair. I shouldn't say honafied, it just wasn't very
intense. Tomorrow there is going to be an EREP pass in the
morning and, of course, ATM work the rest of the day and
another M092 run on the SPT and pretty well what we hope to
be normal operations. We're going to try to start catching
up on that troubleshooting on the systems problems and we
have a couple of items scheduled for _morrow. And that's
about where we are. I think the crew seems to be in pretty
good shape after the EVA, and we're ready to press on with
all the sclentiflc-type activities. Oh, I meant - Did I say the
ATM was working, well, I am really pleasantly surprised by
that. I really was afraid, or apprehensive maybe is the word,
SL-III PC41A/2
Time: 15:53 CDT
I-_ 8/7/73

that we would have additional problems in that - big


power distribution box. But, so far, it looks like the - the
problem is limited to just that TV BUS 2.
QUERY Any new information on the quads, and what
might have you know_ the testing that was going on down at
the Cape.
WINDLER No, l_m sorry, I don't have anything on that.
ThereSs nothing ther -else thatls happened on the spacecraft,
it's all been very, vecy quiet. And I guess I don't know what's
the status of what's happened down there.
QUERY Milt, looking back over the last week, with
all the things that have crept ups uh, we've gone from one
major problem to another, to a major problem _at turned out
maybe not to be so major, back and forth. How would you assess
this mission in comparison, if you could look back to your
feelings the first week or so of the last mission.
WINDLER Well, I guess I've said at the time that
the Skylab - after the launch of Skylab I that that seemed
more like a send than any other mission we've had, including
Apollo 13. But I guess I'ii have to take that back because
we've had such a variety of - of a - not massive failures here
in Skylab III, but every day it seems that there's that
there's some relatively significant problem that has come up
in the there come up. In some cases, faster than we can get
the data re evaluated on them and decide exactly what the
extent of the problem is. So, it's very much like a simulation
in that respect. I think we know a lot more about the spacecraft
than we did when Skylab [ was up. But, - but, uh, with a crew
up there, it makes it a little bit different situation. You
know, much more attentive to the crew. Systems implications
and things.
QUERY Well, in the same vein, with all the things
that have been going on, are you getting at all pessimistic
toward the future of this or the next mission with Is this
kind of a trend that we're just building up to some big bang
up there, or what?
WINDLER No, I don't think so. In fact, I guess
it may be strange to say, but - but you could get more
optimistic in many respect that I am. Did anybody hear a
noise? I say that because, you know, we keep having problems
and solving them and you get more confidence in the system
and everything when people work together and do that. So I
think, in all these problems, if it turns out that we do have
a primary coolant leak, I've got every confidence that a
device will be engineered to - to fill up that other line
and we'll pump it on up. I don't know what that's going to
be but the people that do that will come up with something, and
SL-III PC41A/3
Time: 15:53 CDT
8/7/73

the crew will implement it.


PAO Any further questions? Thank you.
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CHANGE OF SHIFT BRIEFING


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 8, 1973
5:29 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

DON PUDDY, FLIGHT DIRECTOR


RICHARD KOOS_ EREP OFFICER
AMOS CRISP, PAO

PC-43
SL-III PC43A/I
Time: 17:29 CDT
_.. 8/8/73

PAO Okay, we're ready to start. We're ready to


start the evening change-of-shlft-brleflng we have with us
Flight Director Don Puddy and Dick Koos EREP Officer. We'll
begln with the usual statement from the Flight Director.
PUDDY Okay, today I think we had a very profitable
day from the standpoint of overall science gain of course we
don't have the benefit of all the data but everything we have
on the schedule seemed to go very well we had our fifth EREP
pass of the mission and the weather was very good at the start
of the pass - was about a 38 minute data take. We were a
]ittle- little cloudy when we got down over the Houston
area so we're not sure that we got as much data there as we
had hoped to get. But we feel that we did gather some of
the data there. Before the day is over we expect to have
some 4 hours of manned ATM viewing time and we also had a
MI31-1 and a M092/93 run in fact 92/93 run is in progress now.
We ran a couple of malfunction procedures on some of the
systems one of was on the condensate tank we still have not
found exactly the - where we are getting a very small leak
in that system but we are going to try again tomorrow and
eventually we're going to tr_ack it down. It's no major
problem. Got one scheduled _:hls evening to replace the -
one of the mol sieve fans Again, no problem. Let me let
Dick say a few words to you as far as the gain that we had
or the sites that we covered today on the EREP pass, Dick.
KOOS Well in total there were - well we hadn't
finalized the total yet, after looking at the weather and
getting the verified weather with the pass but it's somewhere
in the neighborhood of 30 to 35 total task sites over the
U.S. and South America. Primarily the South American coverage
is for mapping as you know, South America has a lot of
open areas which are not mapped and those are the primary
studies in South America plus study of geology and terrain
in let's see - in California - Colorado we passed over the
Grand the Rio Grande Reservoir in the San Juan Mountains
and that was a 191 site which the Pilot used the VTS point
191 instrument and that was successfully accomplished. To
correlate with that we also were using the 192 instrument and
we had it on also over Colorado. The interest in Colorado
of course is in geology, morphology of that area plus the
studies of the working of the hydraul - hydraulogy in the
systems associated in that area. As far as we know that was
a very successful area that was also the area we had real
clear weather. Almost all the way from Washington down to
the Panhandle in Texas was clear area, so we picked up a lot
of good data over the U.S. At the same time we were doing
this we also transmitted the data over - to Texas and we
recorded it on 192 and S191 data. At the Texas site and that
tape will come up over to Houston sometime tonight and we'll
SL-III PC43A/2
Time: 1729 CDT

818173

get some chance to get to evaluate it. We're interested in


the performance of the thermal channel on S192.
PUDDY Y'all haven't had a chance to take a look
at that, that's a very interesting data transmission concept
and I'ii try to bring a piece of that data over tomorrow and
I'ii let you take a look at it and I think you'll find it
very interesting as to how they can transmit electronic
data that looks almost like a photograph done that we are
getting from the EREP instrument. Very interesting.
Anything else, Dick.
KOOS Let me see, we had S193 on over the Pacific
the pass started about 167 degrees west and if you look at
the weather, I didn't bring a map over but there was a front
one of these Pacific fronts that come across over the north-
west part of the United States was out over the Coast
and the idea there is to with a RF instrument like S193 to
measure from the back scatter to measure the wave heights
and associate or correlate that with wind speeds so that -
the idea is essentially to be able to predicate sea states
from the winds. We weren't quite as successful as we hoped over
the HATS area I think the Pilot had a quite a bit of trouble
trying to find Lake Sommerville and then as it got closer to
the coast we had a lot of cloud cover and was not success-
ful at all in getting any of the HATS sites. Now we're
-- still trying. We get some more opportunity over HATS on the
ascending tracks, as you know, now we have descending tracks
over the United States come back come down across northwest
and to the northeast and come over South America. Later the
last two weeks of the mission we'll begin to get tracks with
lighting which what we call ascending they'll come across
Mexico and go over to the northeast toward the northeast part
of the United States and then on into Europe and on these
tracks we'll have hopefully more chances and hopefully but -
well the weather will turn out to be a little bit better for us.
PUDDY Okay, as far as the spacecraft status all the
systems performed nominally today. Spacecraft temperature is
running around 75 degrees, still dropping off of course as
I've indicated to you previously most of our gain does come
during the nighttime frame and we more or less never make up
the amount that we decrease during the nighttime frame we
never go back up that far the next day we llke I day we're
at 75 now and still expecting to drop off somewhere between
say one and a half to two degrees a day. And probably we'll get
down shortly to the point where we have to use some heaters
in order to maintain a comfortable atmosphere for the crew.
So that problem seems to be well in hand. As far as tomorrow's
flight plan we have an early EREP that's going to cover the
SL-III PC43A/3
Time: 17:29 CDT
8/8/73

Minneapolis, Chicago, Cape Hatteras area with our data take


starting around 13:41 Z, or about 8:41 local time here. We
also have scheduled around 3 hours of ATM viewing time we
have one of our rocket launches coordinated with the White
Sands where we do ATM viewing in conjunction with a rocket
launch that Is looking at the same area of the Sun and that
happens about -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC43B/I
Time: 1729 CDT
8_8/73

SPEAKER - - with a rocket launch that is looking


at the same area of the Sun. And that happens about midday.
And then we're going to do a little checklist updating in the
evening. We'll also have another 131-2 run which we had a
131 run today. So that's about it from the standpoint of
what we did today and what we plan to do tomorrow and let me
open it up to you for any questions you might have.
PAO Okay, we'll start with Tom.
QUERY I wasn't here this morning, but have you
said anything else or given any thought to the solar flare
that they picked up yesterday? Do you know anything else
about it now? Bow good it was? I wouldn't say that you had
to - he was at the right place at the right time.
SPEAKER No, I personally hadn't received any
data per se on that one, but I will check on it and make sure
I have it for you tomorrow _ight. The exact results what they
got out of there. They were doing some studies today on some
of the prominences and again, they hadn't had a chance to
assess all the data. What _,e were trying to do is to catch
one of the loops on one of the prominences. And it looked
like from all I was able to determine during the actual data
take today, that they've been fairly successful there.
PAO Okay, Warner.
QUERY What's the planning on the TV of Arabella
Have you given up on it or are you still planning it?
SPEAKER Still tr},ing to get it. Like I say, the
only, the only significant thing I know about Arabella is the
that we've given the crew an option of, when they have their
steaks, we've given them a GC' to give arabella a little bit
of raw steak. So, Arabella =ay be the best fed spider in the
world.
QUERY There's a couple of questions on arabella.
I know she's getting more than attention that she deserves, but
(laughter) there is raw meat? As I understand, she will only
eat raw meat.
SPEAKER Right.
QUERY I thought everything up there was cooked - -
SPEAKER As I understand it, they have got some
that raw enough that they can feed Arabella.
QUERY I also understand that this species of
Arabella species does not rebuild the framework of her webb
every night. Like, from the first night that she built this
strange-looking thing around the corners. And the second night,
the second day, it appeared she had built an entire new webb.
Do you know if she really built the whole thing again?
SPEAKER I'm going to quote something that I just
overheard without asking a specific question. I understand
SL-III PC43B/2
Time: 1729 CDT
_. 818173

(CONT'U) that the - this spider actually eats the web at night
and then starts afresh the next day.
QUERY Only on the center of it center part.
SPEAKER Right. Now as far at the - -
QUERY That_ that the framework in the corners
of the cage?
SPEAKER I cantt answer that. But I can say that
we were curious about that and there is a question going up
to the crew tonight to find out Just exactly what Arabella's
doing.
PA0 Any further questions?
PA0 I have two questions phoned in. Any
further word on Arabella. Can camera systems record
the spinning of the web.
SPEAKER I think we've covered both of those.
QUERY Yes. And the other was that tomorrow's
EREP pass, we covered that -- Thank you very much. That's
it.
SPEAKER I do have a map up here if y'all would llke
to look at it that kind of shows the track for today and various
instruments that were used. That'll give you a better feel of -

END OF TAPE
SKYLAB NEWS CENTER
HOUSTON, TEXAS

CREW MEDICAL STATUS REVIEW


JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
AUGUST 8, 1973
3:00 PM CDT

PARTICIPANTS:

DR. LAWRENCE DIETLEIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF LIFE SCIENCES


ED MICHEL, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, MI71
DR. MICHAEL WHITTLE, M070
BOB GORDON, PAO

PC-42
SL-III PC42A/I
15:02 CDT
8/8/73

PAO Ladies and gentlemen, we have Dr.


Lawrence Deitlein, Deputy Director for Life Sciences at
Johnson Space Center; Mr. Ed Michel, Principal Investigator
for MI71; and Dr. Michael Whittle will be coming in the
door momentarily and he's the Principal Cognizant Scientist
for the MOT0 series, Nutritional and Musculoskeletal
Function Experiments. We'll start with Dr. Dietlein and
get a general overview and then go to Mr. Michel.
DIETLEIN Well, at the medical management team
meeting this morning we reviewed the crew's health status
and at the present time, they're in excellent spirits and
have no health problems that we are aware of, or no complaints.
They're completely over the motion sickness problem that
plagued them earlier in the flight. And they're presently
eating essentially nominal menus as had been planned and
have not been utilizing any of,the optional foods that they
could have eaten that were added to the menu yesterday.
In general, the - their weights have stabilized. As you
know, they did lose some weight - approximately 4 to 5
pounds, but they now have stabilized. The Commander's at
about 145 pounds; the Science Pilot, 129; and the Pilot,
Lousma, at 189. Most of that 189 is muscle, not atopose
tissue. In general, the medical experiments have been going
well and we've had several runs in each category. I'd just
_- like to make one comment about the 131 experiment, that's
vestibular experiment. It appears, at least from the
data that we received from two of the crewmen that their
threshold to motion sickness is now quite elevated as we
had seen in the Skylab II crew and we do not anticipate
any further vestibular problems from this crew at this time
based on the results of those tests. We have completed
several runs of the M092 series as you're probably aware.
The first run on the Commander of the M092 had to be stopped
because of abdominal pain because of a poor fit in the seal
area. This was corrected by adjusting the saddle position
and his next run, which was completed - he completed the
entire protocol yesterday with no problems whatsoever. The
heart rates were somewhat higher than preflight but other
than that it was a nominal run. The Pilot, Jack Lousma,
also had an M092 run and his resting heart rate is back
to essentially preflight values. So, in general the Skylab III
crew is in the same status or category as the Skylab II crew
was at this point in their flight. And we've seen no cardiac
decrement at this time. That's all the general comments I
have. Do you want to save questions until the end?
PAO I think maybe we could go along with Ed because
I think all the questions are a tie-in generally in
the same condition.
SL-III PC42A/2
15:02 CDT
8/8/73

DIETLEIH OKay. Then Mr. Michel will discuss the


MI71 exercise protocol, the bicycle ergometer and so forth.
MICHEL To date, we have two runs on each crew-
man. All were completed as programed. As in SL-II, we
did see evidence that there was a learning problem of riding
a bike in the zero-g environment as demonstrated by elevated
heart rates and ventilation. We saw that there was a distinct
improvement from the firs_ run on each of them during their
second run and that they're now approaching their preflight
means. By the way, I guess yon all realize that we sent up
a different handlebar configuration for the SL-III crew.
It was I'm not sure exactly when it was put on. It was
put on prior to yesterday's two runs, I'm sure of that.
And it was not used on Garriott's first run. But whether
it was used on the first two runs - the first run on the
Commander and Pilot, we're still investigating that. But
it appears to be helping. We did not see the differential
in heart rate that we noticed in SL-II. The differential
is not that great this time.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC42B/I
T_me: 15:02 CDT
8/8/73

(CONT'D) The differential in heart rate that we noticed


in SL 2 the differential was not that great this time in the
process of learning to ride the bike in zero g.
SPEAKER Ed, do you want to comment on their none bicycling
exercising?
MICHEL Yea, as you know the beginning of the flight
they had problems vestibular problems with time lines and they
did not exercise very much if at all about the first 5 days
we have now made an input to the time line people which
requires either two 30-minute periods of personal exercise
for each crewman or one 60-minute period per day. On those
days they do not run the 171 on the days they run the 171 they
require a 30 minute personal exercise period and these are
being adhered to when they are in the time line every day so
from now on they should be getting their proper levels of
exercise at least have the the time line capability of doing
the exercise if they want to.
SPEAKER Dr. Whittle, discuss the diet.
WHITTLE As you know the crew experienced vestibular
problems early in the flight and this has been reflected
both in their body weights which I heard Dr. Dietlein referring
to as I came in and also in their level of nutritional status
just go into a little bit more detail on the weights as this
is quite interesting all three crewmen dropped about 3 pounds
_ in weight between launch and the morning of the first full
day in flight. It's impossible to loose that amount of
weight just by sort of not eating and loosing fat this has to
be loss of fluid and this wil[ fit in very well in the fact
that they were feeling nauseated and were taking in very little
of fluid although the figures we had back when urine volumes
suggest their production of urine looks reasonably normal at
this time so that all three o@ them lost a good deal of body
fluid during that first period. Now in the following couple
of days they continued to lose about another two pounds each
so that by 5 days into the flight all three of them were about
5 pounds down on the weight that they were at when they launched
and we're sure that most of this weight loss was in a
form of fluid. At that time the calorie intake all three of
them was down to between a third and a half of their sort
of nominal diet what we expected them to eat. And then at
about the - between the third and the fifth day of flight
their claorie intake picked up and it is now or about the
last 4 or 5 days they've been eating the full diet and in fact
have been feeling hungry and in consolution with the Principle
Investigator on the mineral balance experiment we have been
able to allow them a few additional foods over and above the
diets which were planned for them in an effort to apease some
of their hunger and bring them back into a more balanced
state nutritionally and over the last 5 days they - none of
them showed any trend in the weight of - they all of them
SL-III PC42B/2
Time: 15:02 CDT
8_8_73

fluctuating up and down in weight that is perfectly normal


for everybody but there's no continuing trend of weight loss
although we haven't really seen any gain in weight in any of
the three crewmen which suggest that the situation has
now stablized the fluid loss early in the mission probably
been slowly replaced but - this is probably as far as their
weight is concerned being roughly counteracted by the fact
that they are now going into this condition that we saw in
Sklyab 2 where they're not using the muscles of the lower
spine and the legs very much and these muscles are probably
gradually losing bulk and we're probably seeing two factors
going on at the same time which is just about cancelling each
other out. One is a gradual return to normal of the amount
of fluid in their body and the other is a gradual reduction
in the bulk of the muscles of the legs so that we really don't
see anything in their weight figures but we're fairly certain
that these two factors are going on together as far as their
body fat is concerned they probably all lost a little bit
of fat as a result of the low caloric intake during the first
3 or 4 days of the flight. And on their present caloric
intake they may or may not regain some of this fat we haven't
sufficient precision in our measurements to tell but this is
something we will be able tc measure on them post flight.
But from the nutrional standpoint they're now eating extremely
f_ well we're quite certain that they're back into what is normal
weightlessness in the sort of nutritional balance and we're
very happy with - things are going along very well now.
SPEAKER Okay, ladies and gentlemen if you'll direct your
questions to the individual.
QUERY Perhaps :his is for Mr. Michel, I'm not sure
but; as far as not being able to obtain the prescribed exercise
during the early part of the mission can you foresee any effect
that this might have on the overall de-conditloning process?
MICHEL Not in the amount of time we're dealing with
and right now the exercise level - the personal exercise
level that were seen coming back since they started exercising
are much higher than we saw in SL-2.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY Yes, Dr. Whittle, on their weight changes and
all do you see any trends that would indicate either the crewmen
are going to stay right where they are for the rest of the
flight, or they going to come back fat or is Lousma going to
come back with a big stomach or is he going to stay muscle-
bound that he is or you know what do you foresee at the end of
59 days?
WHITTLE On the data we've got so far it's not
possible to make any predictions but what I can say is what
I think will happen based on what we saw in Skylab 2 and that
is the actual amount of fat on the body will probably change
very little but the amount of muscle in the body will decrease
SL-III PC42B/3
Time: 15:02 CDT
818/73

steadily throughout the mission and we expect to see a


loss of fat of somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds of - sorry
did I say fat? - A loss of muscle bulk -

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC42C/I
15:02 CDT
8/8/73

WHITTLE - - throughout the mission and we expect


to see a loss of fact of somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds -
I'm sorry, did I say that - a loss of muscle bulk between 1 and
2 pounds per week over the mission. So over an 8-week mission,
we expect them to lose something like 8 to 12 pounds of muscle.
This, obviously, depends on how much muscle you've got to start
with. We expect Lousma to lose more than Garriott, for
example.
QUERY He's not going to come back a 90-pound
weakling or anything I wouldn't expect.
WHITTLE I very much doubt that.
PAO Abbey. Right here.
QUERY Does this muscle loss ever level off?
Are there any plateaus that you find in the - -
WHITTLE We have no means of knowing. My guess
would be it must level off eventually. You can't go on losing
muscles till you've got absolutely none. So it must level
off, but we've no way of predicting at what level it will
do so .
PAO Arthur?
QUERY Dr. Whittle, have you noticed any diet
peculiarities, such as Conrad's fondness for butter cookies
the last mission and, of course, I know they mentioned the
strawberries - they're not eating this, because they think
there's something wrong with them, so perhaps you could shed
some light on that as well, but l"m mainly interested in
what you may have noticed about any diet peculiarities thus
far.
WHITTLE No, they're all eating Just about the _
same combinations of foods that they did on the ground. I
think the only real change we've seen is that Lousma seems
to have taken a liking to the apple drink and he's consuming
those in large quantities. I suppose that would he equivalent
to Conrad's liking for the butter cookies.
PAO Is that the in-house drink?
WHITTEL I beg your pardon?
PAO Is that the in-house drink?
WHITTLE I'm afraid I can't answer that. I don't
know who made it. On the strawberries, the Skylab II crew
returned a can of strawberries and they didn't look very
appetizing. They turned in color, from red to brown. Ah,
we rehydrated and tasted them, and to me as a sort of
non-expert in the actual sort of, what food should and
shouldn't taste like. I thought they tasted excellent. If
I had shut my eyes, I wouldn't have known they weren't fresh
dehydrated strawberries. But, our technical taste panel,
thought that they were, you know, quite a lot down on what
SL-III PC42C/2
15:02 CDT
F_ 8/8/73

that should have been like. But to the untutored observer,


I thought they were fine. But it may well have been that various
chemical processes started up in the strawberries, as a result
of the exposure to heat. And that these are being continuing,
even though they're not too reasonable temperature and
they may taste worse now, than the ones thhat we returned
from Skylab II did. But, we have some tests being run
on them, all these foods, at the sort of temperature profile
that they've been subjected to. And, we're now, at the
moment looking at the strawberries to see if there is some,
some problem there.
PAO Pete, did you have a question?
QUERY Yea, I wanted to ask Dr. Dietlein to
recap Garriott's and Losma_s EVA activity, and what
you saw following that, in a way of say tiredness, heart rates,
as compared to and how it might compare, have compared to the
Skylab II crews after they're EVA's?
DIETLEIN Well we've Just began to play back the
heart rates, I guess EVA was scheduled for about S hours or so,
and went 6 hours, 6-1/2 hours or so. And, ah - -
PAO 96 minutes real time.
DIETLEIN ah, I saw some of the EKG traces this
morning, and ah, Garrlott's ah heartrate in general, tended
to be faster or ah then Lousma's. And there were some ah
occasional ah - ah tectopie beats noted ah throughout their
runs on both of the individuals. But these ah, not, these
are unifocal type things, and nothing to be alarmed about
really, we've seen these before and expect to see them again.
As regards to metabolic expenditures, I think Mr. Michel
probably has a better handle on that, the average, on something
like that - -
MICHEL It was about 930 for the SPT, and I
believe the pilot was about close to ii00.
DIETLIN This is a relatively long EVA. All of
the objectives as you know were, were accomplished.
And because part of postfli - I mean after this there
was some fatigue on the parts of the erewmembers, as well
as the ground crew. Ah, but I think they did it very well,
and everything went quite well.
PAO Bruce Hicks.
QUERY I guess for Dr. Dietlein and Dr. Michel,
is, have there been any arrhythmias noted during the exercise,
or the 171 runs, or anything llke that, or has, and at the
same time, has there been any other medical problems, other
than motion slckness, in any case?
MICHEL There was i single solitary arithmea
in the, I believe it was the second step - -
DIETLEIN 171.
SL-III PC42C/3
15:02 CDT
818173

MICHEL - - I'm sorry. Yea durin E 171, on i


individual, that's what I'm trying to think of. It's either
the uh, it was either the Science Pilot or the commander,
I'm sure of that end
PAO Arthur.
MICHEL - - I'll think of him.
QUERY Can I get the last part of the question.
PAO Oh, I'm sorry.
QUERY Any other medical problems whatsoever,
other than motion sickness?
MICHEL No, motion sickness was the primary
problem, no other medical problems that welre aware of,
nothing requiring any medication.
PAO Arthur Hill.
HILL How about the sleep monitoring experiment,
do any of you gentlemen have any ideas to how that's been
going?
DIETLEIN We Just completed the last of three days,
3 successive days, last ni_,t, and the data has not been
analyzed yet, to the best of my knowledge.

END OF TAPE
SL-III PC42D/1
Time: 1502 CDT,
8/8/73

DIETLEIN - - data has not been analyzed yet, to


the best of my knowledge anyway.
QUERY But they have three complete runs.
DIETLEIN Yes, but we Just don't have the data
analyzed.
QUERY Then, then the fix on the sensors and
so forth, and from the last mission, it's working okay?
DIETLEIN Yes. No problem with the sensors.
PAO Abby.
QUERY On the lower body negative pressure test,
exactly how many runs have been run on each of the crew
and what has been the change in the cast clreumferance. Has it
been as great as the - what was observed in the first Skylab
crew?

WHITTLE They were run the same as 092 was preceded


the 171. So there's two on each.
DIETLEIN Two on each have been run, yes, and the
calf sizes, I don't - I'm afraid I don't have that data.
WHITTLE He did men - Dr. Johnathan did mention
that he thought that this crew was about the same stage as the
SL-II crew this time.
DIETLEIN At this time in flight. They're com-
parable both in leg volume changes and in response to the
lower body negative pressure. I don't think there's any great
change to write.
WHITTLE Let me check Dr. Johnson if we have any
change - - Yes.
QUERY They mentioned that in formally they were
going to take tape measures of their arms and then the muscles
in their legs and various places. Have they done that and
reported to you and have you noticed any shrinking?
DIETLEIN Well, this is done preflight and postfllght
and to my knowledge, they have not done the inflight -
WHITTLE I haven't seen anything -
WHITTLE We have no data from the flight yet-
This can easily be done though.
PAO Peter.
QUERY On this on their feeling of - air to date
Bean commented that with the hectic work schedule that they had
going, they were messing up their meal schedules - radically.
And he mentioned and/or digestion too. Was that - and probably
messing up the medical experiments. How are these really
subjective viewpoints or is there any evidence that they
had any digestive upsets or uneasiness? And what effect
would - might it have had on the medical experiment data?
DIETLEIN The only digestive upsets that I'm aware
of are those were related to the motion sickness problem. They
SL-III PC42D/2
Time: 1502 CDT
_-_ 8/8/73

(CONT'D) are in a rather accelerated state trying to do as


much as they can to catch up as you know. And I guess it's sort
of an eat and run type business. And I think upon the last
171 run, they actually had eaten just prior to it I believe.
But they went along with the run and there's no appreciable
difference in the run that we could detect.
MICHEL We haven't been through all the data yet.
DIETLEIN But we - but we haven't looked at all
the data yet. It's - they're really getting started in
the medical experiments, and getting the data back and looking
at it. So it's - it's a little early to say. But I don't
think they have any digestive problems per se other than
that related to the earlier motion sickness thing. And they have
no history of pepticulsers that I'm aware of. Unless the flight
is sufficiently troublesome to generate some symptoms llke that.
But that's the first I heard of it. They haven't complained
about it.
QUERY On the vestibular function, how much set-
how much more immune to motion sickness were they in the chair.
Like the first Skylab crew. in other - what were their
rpm's in flight compared to the ground on the two crewmen
that they ran the studies on?
WHITTLE On the II, I think they went up to 18, was it,
and the threshold was off-scale high. So, the threshold is
now is very high.
WHITTLE The last one was on run at 20 rpm which
was his - -
DIETLEIN Well_ 18 or 20 - -
SPEAKER The level he was run at preflight and he
showed no mission sensitivity at all up there of the repeat of
rotation. So he's obviously far more immune than was in flight. I
don't know about the time.
PAO We have a few questions phoned to you
gentlement, that l'd like to read to you. Have you all come
up with an opinion of the primary cause of the three crew
members becoming ill while adapting to zero g?
DIETLIN Well, I don't think the exact, the (garble)
of this it known, and I strongly suspect that we will not
know. It's very difficult to predict who will become seasick
or airsick, or spacesick even with all the pretesting that you
can do and even though there are test pilots that have been
through a lot of acrobatics and whatnot; it's just an occurrence
that we cannot explain. There was no particular rotation of
the complex up there. The - they're activities were the
essentially the same as the SL-II crew. I mean getting out
of the couches and all and the adaptation time was Just
different for these three. We have no specific reasoning in
the question.
SL-III PC42D/3
Time: 1502 CDT,
8/8/73

QUERY The companion question to that, what


procedures would be recommended for the SL-IV crew to prevent
motion sickness?
WHITTLE Well, if, in my view, from a technical
point of view, I would - First of all, you cannot predict
whether they will have motion sickness next time or not.
They may just as this one had and because of that, I would
personally and this is my opinion, advocate prophylactic medica-
tion following Dexedrine or some other combination which has been
shown to prevent the symptoms of motion sickness. Quite effectively.
We do have a problem, when you do give any medication of it inter-
fering with the medical experiments because these to drugs
influence cardiovas - -

END OF TAPE
S|.-II I PC42E/I
Time: ].5:02 CDT
/_ 8/8/73

(CONT'D) Quite effectively you do have a problem when


you do give any medication of it interferring with the
medical experiments because these two drugs influence cardio-
vascular system hut motion sickness also profoundly disturbs
the cardiovascular and other systems so if I had my druthers
I would have them take this prophylactically prior to flight or
prior to insertion.
QUERY And I believe you have already answered this
one but I'ii run it by you again. How much exercise has the
crew had percentage-wise compared to what was scheduled thus
far in the mission? You said that they didn't do any the first
4 days -
SPEAKER Yeah blt it's impossible to answer that
question because the perso_al exercise is left up to the crew
all we can set aside is th_ time and we are setting aside as
you know twice the amount cf time we did in SL-2 for personal
exercises so they have an cpportunity to do it but I can't
answer whether what percentages.
QUERY Again a comparing question to that: do you
feel extra exercise will help curtail cardiovascular
of deconditionlng?
SPEAKER Most assuredly it will help.
QUERY And the point to that one the questionaire
asked that Dr. Dietlein answer that one also. Do you feel
the same?
DIETLEIN Well, in the certain bed rest studies in which
they've done certain exercises it has helped somewhat but
not prevent the de-conditionlng process completely. And no
form of exercise that we know of will prevent the demineraliza-
tion of the bones so the exercise certainly does help maintain
muscle tone and muscle mass and will help to reduce the
negative nitrogen balance thmt you would see in people in
zero gravity or in people in prolonged bed rest. But I don't
think it will completely prevent the decondltioning process -
No.
PAO Well, one final question. In medical runs
to date are there any signs of cardiovascular deconditioning?
SPEAKER I think you have already answered that one.
WHITTLE Yes, well. It's difficult to say because of
course we had their preflight norm if you will in both 171
and 092 and up comes the motion sickness business which puts
everything out of kilter if you will, and it's not fair really
to equate any of - Judge any of that early data that was
monied by the motion J
sickness. I think we are now in the time
period in which we are free of motion sickness business and
both the M092 and the, as Michael says, 171 looks quite good and
they're at the same stage essentially as the SL-2 crew was so
my - I think at this point and time we have seen no real
deconditioning certainly not on the 092s that we have seen.
PAO Well_ ladies and gentlemen if no more questions,
F-_ thank you Dr. Dietleln, Mr. Michel, Dr. whittle.

END OF TAPE

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