NASA Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION APOLLO 11 TECHNICAL CREW DEBRIEFING (U) JULY 31, 1969 PREPARED BY: MISSION OPERATIONS BRANCH FLIGHT CREW SUPPORT DIVISION VOL. I GROUP 4 Downgraded at 3-year intervals; DECLASSIFIED after 12 years This material within the me tran…

6-33

6-33 COLLINS I think particularly when you get into the later flights of extended EVA's and lunar activity, somehow the crew must place themselves in a frame of mind of looking on the separation of the LM as the beginning of the flight plan and to relax, get plenty of sleep, an…

6-34

6-34 COLLINS How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window and there it was? ALDRIN Yes, and we weren't sure but what it might be the S-IVB. We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6000 miles away. We had a problem with the high gain about this time, didn'…

6-35

6-35 ARMSTRONG We should say that it was right at the limit of the resolution of the eye. It was very difficult to tell just what shape it was. And there was no way to tell the size without knowing the range or the range without knowing the size. ALDRIN So then I got down in…

6-36

6-36 COLLINS It was during the period when we thought it was a cylinder that we inquired about the S-IVB and we'd almost convinced ourselves that's what it had to be. But we don't have any more conclusions than that really. The fact that we didn't see it much past this one time…

6-37

6-37 ALDRIN The other observation that I made accumulated gradually. I don't know whether I saw it the first night, but I'm sure I saw it the second night. I was trying to go to sleep with all the lights out. I observed what I thought were little flashes inside the cabin, space…

6-38

6-38 ALDRIN (CONT'D) some static electricity because I was also able, in moving my hand up and down the sleep restraint, to generate very SMALL sparks of static electricity. But there was a definite difference between the two as I observed it more and more. I tried to correlate…

6-39

6-39 ALDRIN Sometimes a minute or two would go by and then you'd see the two within the space of 10 seconds. On an average, I'd say just as a guess it was maybe something like one a minute. Certainly more than enough to convince you that it wasn't an optical illusion. It did gi…

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION APOLLO 11 TECHNICAL CREW DEBRIEFING (U) JULY 31, 1969 PREPARED BY: MISSION OPERATIONS BRANCH FLIGHT CREW SUPPORT DIVISION VOL. II GROUP 4 Downgraded at 3-year intervals; DECLASSIFIED after 12 years This material c within the mean…

21-1

21-1 21.0 VISUAL SIGHTINGS ARMSTRONG Most of the items in Section 21, Visual Sightings, have been previously reported. 21.4 TRANSLUNAR AND TRANSEARTH FLIGHT ALDRIN There was only one minor observation returning from the Moon. Looking back at it, at a time after Mars had pas…

21-2

21-2 ALDRIN (CONT'D) to a possible laser. That seemed to be the best possible explanation until we were coming back in the command module approaching the Earth and were able to observe something that gave about the same appearance. When putting the monocular on the light source…