Apollo- Soyuz, as I lived it a half century ago Pt3

 

SON OF A BITCH

Next on the checklist of major events in the ASTP flight was the transposition and docking required to extract the Docking Module (DM) from the S-IVB. The DM was the only piece of real spaceflight hardware constructed for the mission. It was needed because the atmospheres used in Soyuz and Apollo were very different. I'll go into it in far more detail in a later post.

The event took place away from the best ground stations. In fact Mission Control only had communications off and on for a few seconds. The crew, however, videotaped the entire event to transmit later to the ground. The transposition and docking was shot with two cameras. One was the same camera that was used during the boost to orbit and was focused on Stafford and Brand. The extraction of DM was shot with a second camera directed through the rendezvous window. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the camera pointed at the crew which had a voice track. The conversation below was taken from that video. Stafford did not have a fun time while flying the transposition and docking because the sunlight reflecting outside was blotting out his Crew Optical Alignment Sight, (COAS).

 The stand-off cross that would normally have been mounted on the Lunar Module, were now mounted on the docking module truss in the S-IVB stage.

“Okay I’ve got full bright on that COAS,” Stafford reported.

“It’s right out there where he ought’a be” Brand quipped.

“Oh, what’re we, in CMC AUTO?” Stafford checked, “hey Vance?”

“Okay,” Brand replied reading from the checklist, “ENTER, plus-X, three seconds…”

“How did we ever…(garbled)…” Stafford complained, “God damn, I can’t see my COAS… it’s so bright I can’t see the COAS! Son of a bitch! Okay, we can close on him… let’s get this…”

“Did ya’ do…” Brand began, “plus-X three seconds?”

“Got it,” Stafford replied quickly.

“Okay, I got your DAC (Data Acquisition Camera) changed,” Brand reported calmly.

Stafford was clearly flustered in the video, as he moves a great deal in his seat and strains to see the COAS.

“Dick we’ve got a problem,” Stafford reports sharply to CAPCOM Dick Truly, “it’s so bright in that background I can’t see my COAS.”

Apollo, however, was on the ratty edge between two ground stations and Houston apparently did not hear Stafford’s report.

“COAS, or target?” Slayton asked.

“COAS!” Stafford answered.

“Huh.” Slayton replied in a very mid-west Deke manner.

“Oh shit!” Stafford growled with resignation. Then he changed gears and went back into mission commander mode, “How’re we doin’ on attitude?”

“Okay,” Brand reported, “yer’ attitude and uh…”

“Somehow that’s not lookin’ right… now,” Stafford mumbled.

“Okay, got the DAC goin’…” Brand reported.

Highly flustered by the fact that our planet’s nearest star may be about to throw a monkey wrench into the rendezvous and docking of the one human who has done more rendezvous and docking than any other human, Stafford began to go into high bit-rate pilot mode.

“Okay… are we’re supposed to go over that (garbled) some more, hey Dick, we’re off, to… get back on to the computer, we’re not to the pitch attitude yet…” Stafford stammered in one long breath.

“Okay,” Brand replied calmly, “we’ll… do it again.”

“CMC in AUTO,” Stafford called, “okay take it and we’re maneuverin’…”

“Okay,” Brand said, “we should be.”

“(garbled) stopped it earlier,” Stafford said with a calming sigh in his voice as his COAS comes back into view.

Houston can be heard in the background offering a time to LOS and some information on TV settings which Stafford “rogered,” and then he gave a relieved call back to Mission Control,

“And I finally got the COAS back in, finally!”

I transcribed all of that for you, the readers, for one very important reason: other than that final COAS call, none of the above conversation appears in the official NASA onboard voice transcript. When I first saw it on the raw video I thought that it was very human and very Tom Stafford, but when researching the transcripts for this text, it was simply missing. One may think that it was because of the salty language involved, but there are other areas in the transcript where the exact same curse words are used and they remain in the transcript. Why this section is missing is for you, the reader, to ponder. My own theory is that the transcriber took a potty break and left the tape running.

Extraction of the DM took place during a period of an hour and 51 minutes in which the Apollo was out of communication with Mission Control. The process went smoothly. The reason for the Apollo being out of range for such extended periods of time was due to the fact that the Soyuz had a very limited orbital inclination onto which it could be launched. That inclination was set up to allow the spacecraft to fly over and land on Soviet territory. Meanwhile, U.S. spaceflights had been planned from their earliest days to fly down the Eastern Test Range and orbit much more near the Earth’s equator. Thus, the U.S. tracking stations were established along that route, which was far south of most Soviet orbits. The tracking range had been supplemented over the years with communications-equipped ships and aircraft, yet there were still gaps. When a more northerly inclination was taken for ASTP, there were large gaps in communication and tracking.

Stafford, Brand and Slayton spent the next day working to collapse their docking probe so it could be properly stowed and doing an SPS burn to adjust their orbit. Likewise, Leonov and Kubasov did an 18-second burn on the Soyuz in order to circularize their orbit. 

In addition to their burn the cosmonauts managed to repair their broken TV camera aboard Soyuz. Using band-aid type adhesive strips from their medical kit they reportedly spliced some broken wires and got the camera working again. 

Meanwhile, I spent the day with a spray can of window cleaner getting to know every window in the Civic Center and thinking about those five men orbiting the Earth. When your work is dull, the mind has to go someplace- in my case it was Earth orbit.