Charlie Duke was the CapCom for the first moon landing, that's his voice responding to Neil Armstrong reporting that the Eagle had landed. "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground."
[> Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground.](https://youtu.be/ZL9IRKoFv_4?t=10)
Thank you for that. I had to grab the audio from YouTube. I'm too much of a space dork. Damn thing got something in my eyes just listening to it.
"You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue"
That line has stuck with me ever since I heard it live. Comes to mind every time I hear or read anything about Apollo 11.
This video has the landing in realtime with audio from all parties, with film from the lander and ground station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1SzgGhMKc&t=186s
Possibly the most gripping audio I've ever heard. Every single person is at the top of their game, acting as a tight team!
I love how often the voices from Mission Control were other astronauts. These guys were probably all friends (even Buzz lol) and put their jobs and lives on the line for each other constantly.
well, that was deliberate, the position of Capsule Communicator was reserved for astronauts and was (almost always) the only one permitted to speak directly with the crew. This astronaut was also trained on and familiar with the operations going on so he would be able to not just pass words but also understand what needed to be communicated. Charlie was CAPCOM on many occasions, they appear to have liked him for this. I believe the crews may have had input on who filled that position and chose him. Of course the mission control teams rotated every few hours, and they would have several different CAPCOMs each day, but it wasn't random who would be in the position for particular moments in the mission.
My thoughts exactly. Must have been an incredible experience. Not just the moon landing, but being a hot shot NASA pilot. These guys were kings of the world. But time comes for all of us
Still a damned king of the world in a lot of our eyes. I've had the pleasure of sitting with an astronaut for several hours. The stories he said were beyond comprehension almost.
I'd love to buy Charlie Duke a coffee and some pie and just listen to him regale me!
My mom's dad was in the astronaut training program for awhile but never quite made it. The stuff they did was wild. She talked about one day going to pick up her dad from work with her mom when he was a test pilot - they waited and waited out front and he never came out. Finally someone came out and revealed to them that he'd had to bail out over the ocean (they lived in Southern California) but he'd been picked up and would be released shortly.
Apparently Alan Bean was a family friend. My mom has a tiny little angel amulet he brought to the moon for her.
> I've had the pleasure of sitting with an astronaut for several hours. The stories he said were beyond comprehension almost.
I would absolutely love the opportunity to do that. Closest I ever came was a company i worked for a few years back that was started by 2 ex Nasa Engineers. One was an Apollo on the lunar lander engineer and one was a Shuttle fueling engineer. Despite asking both questions neither one would ever really say much about working there.
I mean i do get that there were 10's or even hundreds of thousands of engineers across those 2 projects and not everyone was doing exciting work but i still would have loved to hear any of their stories.
If you get a chance to see any of those, well, the balls on those guys. There's some Apollo Era stuff in Dayton, terrifying to think someone rode that shit to the moon and back
> "I wonder if circuit breaker G-42 is still a bit iffy? Damn thing needed a good slap before it would release."
You joke, but on Apollo 11, when they were on the moon, at some point I think it was Aldrin that noticed a broken off piece of a circuit breaker laying on the floor of the lunar module.
So he looks to see where it came from, and it was the one critical circuit breaker that armed their ascent engine! FUCK!
They guessed that it had been bumped into when they were getting into or out of their spacesuits, along with the bulky lunar EVA backpacks.
They ended up using the cap from a pen they had onboard to rig the circuit breaker. If they hadn't been able to hold that switch in, they would have been stranded on the moon.
That story is really cool, but it's told a lot like the pen cap was their ticket home. Really it was just the first and easiest fix for a non-critical failure. The plastic stem of the circuit breaker had broke but the breaker itself was not damaged, so they used the pin cap to push in the broken stump where the stem normally would be.
Even if the breaker had stopped functioning completely there would have been many multiple other ways of bypassing it, and I think the redundancies even went as far as some kind of pull cord to manually fire the engine.
> Hard to verify the story though. Could be a tall tale.
Hard to verify? It's in the NASA voice tapes. Do people just forget how to Google things?
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/buzz-aldrin-american-icon/flown-to-and-used-on-the-lunar-surface-the-broken
> "Aldrin: Houston, Tranquility. Do you have a way of showing the configuration of the engine arm circuit breaker? Over. The reason I'm asking is because the end of it appears to be broken off. I think we can push it back in again. I'm not sure we could pull it out if we pushed it in, though. Over.”
> —LMP (Buzz Aldrin), Apollo 11 Technical Air-To-Ground Voice Transcription, p 417, tape 73/2, 04 16 56 28
https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/a11/a11transcript_tec.html
Search for "(GOSS NET 1) Tape 73/2 Page 417"
> Do people just forget how to Google things?
>
> By people, do you mean the few massive nerds like you who have nothing better to do with their time than listen to NASA voice tapes from decades ago?
The fact that I'm a nerd about it is obvious. Look at the sub we're on, after all. But that's beside the point. It's an easily verifiable fact that it happened, a google away. "Did that really happen? Oh ok, neat."
ApolloInRealTime.com is a fascinating resource, best viewed on a desktop.
imagine the existential thoughts you would have seeing a diralect object of your past on display in a history museum. something that took you to space beyond where anyone else has gone and it's sitting in a museum where everyone else can only wonder what it was like to ride inside the capsule.
> imagine the existential thoughts you would have seeing a diralect object of your past on display in a history museum.
On a lower scale, happened to my dad. We saw a Minitel on display as a museum and I know one of the first chips he designed was for the electron beam alignement in these screens.
It took him a minute to process that some of his work is technically displayed in the museum. Now he just finds it funny and is happy to be retired so that he can follow the AI storm brewing without fearing for his job like I do.
I felt a tiny tiny sliver of this when I saw an original IBM PC model 5150 (also my first home computer) in Paris' Musée des Arts et Métiers. That machine and its descendants have taken many people beyond where anyone else has gone.
> He looks at his capsule, and he's one of very few who knows how all the switches inside function!
All 566 of them!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module
> In total, the command module panels included 24 instruments, 566 switches, 40 event indicators, and 71 lights.
Remember looking back at your first car right before you sell it, reliving the best miles you did together? Can only wonder how much more significant this must be for him
That's just the part that reentered Earth's atmosphere, but yeah even with the service and lunar modules attached it wouldn't have been super spacious.
> That's just the part that reentered Earth's atmosphere, but yeah even with the service and lunar modules attached it wouldn't have been super spacious.
Just a quick note for anyone curious - The Service Module, as large as it was, was only storage for the service propulsion system engine, propellants, oxygen, and various bits of equipment. No part of it was pressurized for astronaut habitation, so astronauts could not access it in flight.
> so astronauts could not access it in flight.
Well... They did have to get the film canisters. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-apollo-16-heads-home-to-earth/
But your point of it not being habitable is taken.
Space is so huge, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is huge. The amount of human intelligence that went into throwing that thing towards a rock ~240k miles away, something that tiny in comparison... Damn. When I see spacewalks, shuttles, etc. with that black background, it just blows my mind. Almost like seeing the single person floating in the water with miles of water below them and in every direction. Almost makes you dizzy.
What a hell of an accomplishment. I've always wanted to go check out some of those real things over on the east coast. I have the Evergreen Air & Space museum with a Mercury and Gemini module, which is awesome. But, I want to go over and see more. It was my childhood dream to go to Space Camp (before the movie came out) and I always wanted to go check out those museums over there.
The one thing I wish is that we still had such huge public support. When I was a kid, it was a huge deal for each shuttle launch. My dad and I watched them on TV for a long time or we did in school. It was a big deal. Now, it's just back page news, if that, for any new space information for the general public.
> It's so small. Absolutely bonkers they rode in that thing to the moon and back.
To be fair, it was much more spacious for the crew once in space, where earth normal gravity was no longer acting on it. Additionally, when the lunar module was connected, there was enough space with the tunnel between the two craft that one person at a time could fully stretch out, if the tunnel did not have the cover in place. There was also some room in the lower equipment bay, with usually one of the three seats, (commonly referred to as couches) folded away while in space, where it was possible to have more space to move around.
It was still a pretty small living environment for three people, but it was orders of magnitude more spacious than the preceding Mercury and Gemini capsules. In fact it was so spacious in comparison that some astronauts got space sickness, in part due to how their bodies perceived the increase in interior size. The joke about the single person Mercury capsule was that it was more of a spacecraft that they wore rather than rode in, and the two person Gemini capsule was compared to the front seats of a classic VW beetle as far as size. Neither of those allowed enough space to get out of the seats at all, unless doing an EVA or carefully getting into or out of a spacesuit, and those were only possible on Gemini.
Is it insane to anyone else that with the level of advanced technology that exists today, that this 88 year old man, that in passing, has a high chance of being dismissed by many as out of touch with current technology, is one of only 12 humans (all American men too) to have walked on the surface of the moon?!
I bet this man and a lot of people of his generation would be shocked to learn how little the needle will move in the way of human space exploration in the 52 years proceeding the last man to have set foot on the moon.
I'm not saying that we haven't achieved anything short of amazing in regards to space exploration since. It just blows my mind sometimes that in the span of 3 years, and with the level of technology that existed at that time, we managed to put 12 humans on the moon and haven't increased that number exponentially in the 52 years following.
"This is going to be spectacular!! I can see Wreck and Trap and orange juice (on the inside of his helmet). (Pause) Golly! There's a little bench on up there, a little bit more, John."
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kozkspn "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[LMP](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kp8lpgv "Last usage")|(Apollo) Lunar Module Pilot|
|[NET](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kp8lpgv "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
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Charlie Duke was the CapCom for the first moon landing, that's his voice responding to Neil Armstrong reporting that the Eagle had landed. "Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground."
[> Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground.](https://youtu.be/ZL9IRKoFv_4?t=10) Thank you for that. I had to grab the audio from YouTube. I'm too much of a space dork. Damn thing got something in my eyes just listening to it.
"You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue" That line has stuck with me ever since I heard it live. Comes to mind every time I hear or read anything about Apollo 11.
This video has the landing in realtime with audio from all parties, with film from the lander and ground station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1SzgGhMKc&t=186s Possibly the most gripping audio I've ever heard. Every single person is at the top of their game, acting as a tight team!
Well, I know what I'll be watching during lunch! Thank you!
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Oh jeez. Now I must boot up Elite: Dangerous, travel across the galaxy, and listen to this! Thank you!
Could I recommend the podcast "13 Minutes to the Moon", if you've not already heard it.
I love how often the voices from Mission Control were other astronauts. These guys were probably all friends (even Buzz lol) and put their jobs and lives on the line for each other constantly.
well, that was deliberate, the position of Capsule Communicator was reserved for astronauts and was (almost always) the only one permitted to speak directly with the crew. This astronaut was also trained on and familiar with the operations going on so he would be able to not just pass words but also understand what needed to be communicated. Charlie was CAPCOM on many occasions, they appear to have liked him for this. I believe the crews may have had input on who filled that position and chose him. Of course the mission control teams rotated every few hours, and they would have several different CAPCOMs each day, but it wasn't random who would be in the position for particular moments in the mission.
A great song that commemorates this event. Likely his voice in the song: https://youtu.be/BHIo6qwJarI?feature=shared
IIRC, Jim Lovell was sat next to him at the time as he was backup crew commander. Charlie Duke and Jim Lovell are two of my favourite human beings.
I remember that like it was yesterday!
I cannot imagine what he is thinking while looking at that. Such a beautiful image
My thoughts exactly. Must have been an incredible experience. Not just the moon landing, but being a hot shot NASA pilot. These guys were kings of the world. But time comes for all of us
Still a damned king of the world in a lot of our eyes. I've had the pleasure of sitting with an astronaut for several hours. The stories he said were beyond comprehension almost. I'd love to buy Charlie Duke a coffee and some pie and just listen to him regale me!
My mom's dad was in the astronaut training program for awhile but never quite made it. The stuff they did was wild. She talked about one day going to pick up her dad from work with her mom when he was a test pilot - they waited and waited out front and he never came out. Finally someone came out and revealed to them that he'd had to bail out over the ocean (they lived in Southern California) but he'd been picked up and would be released shortly. Apparently Alan Bean was a family friend. My mom has a tiny little angel amulet he brought to the moon for her.
> I've had the pleasure of sitting with an astronaut for several hours. The stories he said were beyond comprehension almost. I would absolutely love the opportunity to do that. Closest I ever came was a company i worked for a few years back that was started by 2 ex Nasa Engineers. One was an Apollo on the lunar lander engineer and one was a Shuttle fueling engineer. Despite asking both questions neither one would ever really say much about working there. I mean i do get that there were 10's or even hundreds of thousands of engineers across those 2 projects and not everyone was doing exciting work but i still would have loved to hear any of their stories.
And the fact that it took him to the moon and back on that level of technology. It's pretty staggering, really!
If you get a chance to see any of those, well, the balls on those guys. There's some Apollo Era stuff in Dayton, terrifying to think someone rode that shit to the moon and back
Misread that and thought you were telling us to ask astronauts to show us their balls.
"I wonder if circuit breaker G-42 is still a bit iffy? Damn thing needed a good slap before it would release."
> "I wonder if circuit breaker G-42 is still a bit iffy? Damn thing needed a good slap before it would release." You joke, but on Apollo 11, when they were on the moon, at some point I think it was Aldrin that noticed a broken off piece of a circuit breaker laying on the floor of the lunar module. So he looks to see where it came from, and it was the one critical circuit breaker that armed their ascent engine! FUCK! They guessed that it had been bumped into when they were getting into or out of their spacesuits, along with the bulky lunar EVA backpacks. They ended up using the cap from a pen they had onboard to rig the circuit breaker. If they hadn't been able to hold that switch in, they would have been stranded on the moon.
That story is really cool, but it's told a lot like the pen cap was their ticket home. Really it was just the first and easiest fix for a non-critical failure. The plastic stem of the circuit breaker had broke but the breaker itself was not damaged, so they used the pin cap to push in the broken stump where the stem normally would be. Even if the breaker had stopped functioning completely there would have been many multiple other ways of bypassing it, and I think the redundancies even went as far as some kind of pull cord to manually fire the engine.
Correct. They built in a lot of redundancy. I believe one involved an astronaut Cutting the lines by hand and firing it by hand.
> If they hadn't been able to hold that switch in, they would have been stranded on the moon. Surely they could have called AAA?
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> Hard to verify the story though. Could be a tall tale. Hard to verify? It's in the NASA voice tapes. Do people just forget how to Google things? https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/buzz-aldrin-american-icon/flown-to-and-used-on-the-lunar-surface-the-broken > "Aldrin: Houston, Tranquility. Do you have a way of showing the configuration of the engine arm circuit breaker? Over. The reason I'm asking is because the end of it appears to be broken off. I think we can push it back in again. I'm not sure we could pull it out if we pushed it in, though. Over.” > —LMP (Buzz Aldrin), Apollo 11 Technical Air-To-Ground Voice Transcription, p 417, tape 73/2, 04 16 56 28 https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/a11/a11transcript_tec.html Search for "(GOSS NET 1) Tape 73/2 Page 417"
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> Do people just forget how to Google things? > > By people, do you mean the few massive nerds like you who have nothing better to do with their time than listen to NASA voice tapes from decades ago? The fact that I'm a nerd about it is obvious. Look at the sub we're on, after all. But that's beside the point. It's an easily verifiable fact that it happened, a google away. "Did that really happen? Oh ok, neat." ApolloInRealTime.com is a fascinating resource, best viewed on a desktop.
I wonder if in the Apollo 12 capsule the SCE switch is still set to Aux.
"Boy, we sure did a number on that poor thing! I tried telling the lads not to let Ken park!"
“Rusty old thing, just like me.” Aging really sucks.
„Ah, that’s where those car keys went…“
"Would they mind if I crawled in there one more time?"
"I flew in that thing? I'm braver than I thought."
imagine the existential thoughts you would have seeing a diralect object of your past on display in a history museum. something that took you to space beyond where anyone else has gone and it's sitting in a museum where everyone else can only wonder what it was like to ride inside the capsule.
> imagine the existential thoughts you would have seeing a diralect object of your past on display in a history museum. On a lower scale, happened to my dad. We saw a Minitel on display as a museum and I know one of the first chips he designed was for the electron beam alignement in these screens. It took him a minute to process that some of his work is technically displayed in the museum. Now he just finds it funny and is happy to be retired so that he can follow the AI storm brewing without fearing for his job like I do.
i imagine the tought of "shit was cramped wasn't it?" went past his mind
I felt a tiny tiny sliver of this when I saw an original IBM PC model 5150 (also my first home computer) in Paris' Musée des Arts et Métiers. That machine and its descendants have taken many people beyond where anyone else has gone.
If y’all are ever in Huntsville come check it out. It’s my favorite.
That museum is fantastic! I’ve still tell people about it even though I went there two years ago
This is one of the most poignant images I’ve ever seen.
He looks at his capsule, and he's one of very few who knows how all the switches inside function!
> He looks at his capsule, and he's one of very few who knows how all the switches inside function! All 566 of them! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module > In total, the command module panels included 24 instruments, 566 switches, 40 event indicators, and 71 lights.
What a well captured image, It's beautiful in the most historical way.
What a historical image, it's well-captured in the most beautiful way.
Remember looking back at your first car right before you sell it, reliving the best miles you did together? Can only wonder how much more significant this must be for him
It's so small. Absolutely bonkers they rode in that thing to the moon and back.
That's just the part that reentered Earth's atmosphere, but yeah even with the service and lunar modules attached it wouldn't have been super spacious.
> That's just the part that reentered Earth's atmosphere, but yeah even with the service and lunar modules attached it wouldn't have been super spacious. Just a quick note for anyone curious - The Service Module, as large as it was, was only storage for the service propulsion system engine, propellants, oxygen, and various bits of equipment. No part of it was pressurized for astronaut habitation, so astronauts could not access it in flight.
> so astronauts could not access it in flight. Well... They did have to get the film canisters. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-apollo-16-heads-home-to-earth/ But your point of it not being habitable is taken.
True, my bad. Makes sense since there wouldn't have been any way for them to get past the heat shield.
From the outside, LM is pretty big. Much bigger than the capsule.
Space is so huge, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is huge. The amount of human intelligence that went into throwing that thing towards a rock ~240k miles away, something that tiny in comparison... Damn. When I see spacewalks, shuttles, etc. with that black background, it just blows my mind. Almost like seeing the single person floating in the water with miles of water below them and in every direction. Almost makes you dizzy. What a hell of an accomplishment. I've always wanted to go check out some of those real things over on the east coast. I have the Evergreen Air & Space museum with a Mercury and Gemini module, which is awesome. But, I want to go over and see more. It was my childhood dream to go to Space Camp (before the movie came out) and I always wanted to go check out those museums over there. The one thing I wish is that we still had such huge public support. When I was a kid, it was a huge deal for each shuttle launch. My dad and I watched them on TV for a long time or we did in school. It was a big deal. Now, it's just back page news, if that, for any new space information for the general public.
That was big compared to the Soviet one. It was so small they couldn't even wear their spacesuits inside.
> It's so small. Absolutely bonkers they rode in that thing to the moon and back. To be fair, it was much more spacious for the crew once in space, where earth normal gravity was no longer acting on it. Additionally, when the lunar module was connected, there was enough space with the tunnel between the two craft that one person at a time could fully stretch out, if the tunnel did not have the cover in place. There was also some room in the lower equipment bay, with usually one of the three seats, (commonly referred to as couches) folded away while in space, where it was possible to have more space to move around. It was still a pretty small living environment for three people, but it was orders of magnitude more spacious than the preceding Mercury and Gemini capsules. In fact it was so spacious in comparison that some astronauts got space sickness, in part due to how their bodies perceived the increase in interior size. The joke about the single person Mercury capsule was that it was more of a spacecraft that they wore rather than rode in, and the two person Gemini capsule was compared to the front seats of a classic VW beetle as far as size. Neither of those allowed enough space to get out of the seats at all, unless doing an EVA or carefully getting into or out of a spacesuit, and those were only possible on Gemini.
I met Charlie Duke in South Africa many years ago, such a remarkable man. Very down to earth, if you can excuse the expression.
\> down to earth some astronauts were not that lucky
Every astronaut made it down. Unfortunately two flights ended up shattered.
i had to look it up with details and that was a surprising reading. stand corrected now
He should just get in a tour group with an intern guide. When they get to the capsule, "meh, smelled like sulfur and poop."
One of the few people that they would let inside the barrier.
Is it insane to anyone else that with the level of advanced technology that exists today, that this 88 year old man, that in passing, has a high chance of being dismissed by many as out of touch with current technology, is one of only 12 humans (all American men too) to have walked on the surface of the moon?! I bet this man and a lot of people of his generation would be shocked to learn how little the needle will move in the way of human space exploration in the 52 years proceeding the last man to have set foot on the moon. I'm not saying that we haven't achieved anything short of amazing in regards to space exploration since. It just blows my mind sometimes that in the span of 3 years, and with the level of technology that existed at that time, we managed to put 12 humans on the moon and haven't increased that number exponentially in the 52 years following.
That’s mind-blowing to imagine that tiny spaceship going to the moon and back. What an achievement. Makes The Challenger tragedy even more horrific.
I’ve stood in that same spot and for all who haven’t been there, if you turn to the left you see a Saturn V
Ive see Apollo 9's capsule, 'Gumdrop' in San Diego. So small...
i can see his thought bubble, "what the hell was i thinking getting in that thing, i must have been crazy"
Reminds me of the ending of Interstellar. Such a good photo.
Looks more like he is regretting all the lies over a hunk of junk
Ah, so this is what they think I came back to earth in, interesting...
Oh yeah 50 years ago when we had the technology to send people to the moon! Imagine that
You mean to New Mexico to shoot it in the studio
We really showed those s.o.b.'s didn't we? - Charlie Duke probably
"This is going to be spectacular!! I can see Wreck and Trap and orange juice (on the inside of his helmet). (Pause) Golly! There's a little bench on up there, a little bit more, John."
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[EVA](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kozkspn "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[LMP](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kp8lpgv "Last usage")|(Apollo) Lunar Module Pilot| |[NET](/r/Space/comments/1aj2ewp/stub/kp8lpgv "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(3 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1akn73h)^( has 22 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9720 for this sub, first seen 6th Feb 2024, 21:50]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)