*NAILED* the landing, right next to Surveyor 3!... with a mega-hat-tip to the math wizards in The Trench and Orbital Mechanics/GUIDO studs in the RTCC backroom.
Pete Conrad-Flying a terrifyingly complex controlled explosion heading off into the most hostile environment imaginable, and Zeus has just took pot-shots at him... and he laughs.
And now we've lost Al Bean. Indeed, we really are losing our national treasures. The ships may have been made of titanium, aluminum, mylar, and steel. But the men were made of iron. Godspeed, Captain Bean. Thank you for your service, sir.
@@Sedna063 Of the 24 men who flew to the moon, only 10 are still with us...only 4 of them walked on the moon. The youngest is Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) at 86. The oldest Jim Lovell (13) at 94. I would not hold out any hope that any of them will still be with us the next time a human leaves Earth orbit.
It's the Navy, all three were Navy. Probably the best senseless... ah... I mean sense of humor of any branch of service. We used to laugh and joke all the time -- "It's not for us to wonder why, it's just for us to do or die." "If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer." We quote the Navy ad at the time, "the Navy, its not just a job, its an adventure." As we bring the fish, (sonar transducer) in at 3am in heavy seas with waves pouring into the hoist room. Another fun fact, all the men that landed on the Moon were Navy. They figured the hardest thing to do in aviation was land on a carrier at night. They figured anyone who could do that was the best candidate to land on the Moon.
Once again great work! Dick Gordon: "Pete, there's nothin' I can tell is wrong." He says this as calmly as if they were driving in a car at 15 mph and they hear the engine knocking. Talk about cool and composed under pressure.
Check out the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", and find episode 7 "Thats All There Is". Apollo 12 told from Alan Bean's perspective, as he travels to the moon with his two best friends, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon
Agreed. That being said, some conspiracy theorists say this launch is another proof of their crap. At 9:20 one of the astronauts says "That's one of the better sims", which the conspiracy theorists say is an accidental admission that NASA was just playing a recording from a simulation.
PassiveSmoking Yeah! They think they just "went to the moon". So much ignorance about every painstaking step being carefully explored; Mercury, Gemini, Apollo 9 that only orbited earth. 10 that descended towards the lunar surface and nearly came to grief during the ascent...it's an incredible story.
Dan Grayhill ASMR I'm guessing the reason that comment was made was because the situation with everything dropping out, and indeed the SCE to auxiliary solution had occurred in a simulation during prep for the mission.
Its crazy to hear how calmly they sat there and reported issues to Huston. They were all calm and communicating properly. Shows the amazing training astronauts go through
I laugh everytime I listen to this. Of course it helps knowing that everything worked out in the end, but the "SCE to Aux? What hell is that?" always kills me.
@@matthewwoelfle5533 Yeah, but later on in the tape, "IMU power, where the hell is it?"(Dick Gordon) nearly made me fall out of my chair, wondering if this crew was trained on the panels.
Yes, I am as well. I wish we did not stop going to the moon. We had the hardware for two more trips but Congress decided to cut NASA's budget. We just stopped building upon one of the greatest achievements in human history. It seems very short-sighted.
I remember Pete saying that what hurt our post Apollo space program was the Shuttle delayed launches.(by 3 years)They had planned to carry engines to Skylab and keep it in orbit. That delay caused us to lose Skylab. Pete also said that Skylab was so ahead of it’s time that it could have flown for 20 years or more.
Classic example of maintaining situational awareness and applying systems knowledge to an ambiguous scenario for which specific training wasn't accomplished prior to the mission...FLY NAVY!
First they were surprised, but quickly acted professional and kept their cool. Once the immediate threat was over, they were so overwhelmed with relief after a near-certainty of a catastrophic failure, as soon as they relaxed their guard, they started laughing hysterically about the mortal shock and relief in such rapid succession.
At 5:52 they get struck by lightning, they gave no idea what’s happening, every warning light they can see lights up and it must have seemed as though they were riding on top of a huge, uncontrolled and totally unstable bomb. At 11:15 they start chuckling about it. Less than 5 1/2 minutes between the 2 events. They truly were a different breed, the astronauts and mission control giving a perfect lesson in “Don’t Panic”. Thanks so much for uploading this, wonderful stuff!
Reading about the Apollo missions, you can tell these three heroes loved being with each other. Not that the other missions had animosity, but their’s was a genuine kinship.
Apollo 15 had some seriously nasty animosity between Scott and Warden - they continued to be essentially enemies the rest of their lives. And there were some pretty sour feelings between Aldrin and Armstrong on 11, but yeah, 12 was certainly the most like 3 best buddies going on a trip than any other.
@@GlutenEruption they all knew each other from before to their time with NASA and were good friends. They even had matching ‘69 Corvettes custom-painted gold and black to match the Apollo 12 Lunar Module.
12:52 is just delightful. They're joking and trying to piece together what the hell that all was, and they have staging coming up, so, "Wake up! (chuckle)".
Of all of my heros I've had the extreme privilege of meeting, Pete Conrad really stands out. Jim Lovell made you feel like you were the only person in the room with him, and he was as interested in you as you were in him. Gene Cernan just made you feel like you could do anything he did. Pete, on the other hand, felt like he was having the time of his life and that you should be, as well.
It's easy to go on and on about the very real heroism of Alan Bean, Dick Gordon, and Pete Conrad, but the real hero here was John Aaron, the EECOM who remembered a sim from over a year earlier and then figured out how to fix the problem.
SCE is a system on the Apollo spacecraft. To fix the lost telemetry, they had to flip the switch controlling it to the auxiliary setting... very few people on or running the mission knew what or where the switch was, and had John Aaron not have learned how to fix the problem after an earlier simulation, and that the switch reset could fix the readings, and had LM Pilot Alan Bean not remembered where the switch was, they would have had to abort within a few more seconds.
*BEEP* "The hell was that?!" "We lost a bunch of stuff here I don't what happened..." *....* EECOM:"Try SCE to Auxiliary, over" "SCE to auxiliary, what the hell is that?!" HAHAHAHAHA one of the most complicated feats of human engineering solved by a single button! That is to be marked on history!
"Hehehe... I just can't stop thinking about when all that stuff was lighting up, and CAPCOM calls up "SCE to Auxiliary" and I knew I didn't know what the hell that meant, and YOU were awfully quiet, I might add. All I hear is Al Bean's voice about three octaves higher than it oughtta be, saying "... I know what that is!"" - Pete Conrad ("From the Earth to the Moon" episode 7 "Thats All There Is")
that was , when the Saturn V was struck by lightning and the computers of the comand capsule went berserk. But one guy in command had seen this pattern of berserk computers at a simulation before. The solution was just switching SCE to auxillury
It shows their diligence and training as they did NOT abort or even ask about doing so, nor did they seem to discuss it amongst each other so they must have clearly known that the rocket was still being steered and controlled by the computers internally and that they were likely not in danger as long as the platform came back online.
Yeah;.....But it didn't sound like they were laughing right after the lightning strike;......The laughter came after they had a good jump on getting everything back.
The only thing cooler than Pete Conrad giggling about pretty much every single warning light coming on while flying on top of a Saturn V is Jim Lovell's dispassionate observation that the CSM on Apollo 13 was venting oxygen. It was almost as if he was discussing the weather in Houston that day. They build astronauts different.
I love being able to look at all the old NASA footage of mercury , Gemini and Apollo . I have always loved anything to do with space and now I can see it all instead of a quick few seconds here and there . It's also great looking at what Russia was up to at the same time . They were well in front at the start and America only just got there first.
Hi Keith - the animation is done using Orbiter Space Simulator - available for free download on the internet. You might also like to listen and watch the multi-track stereo version of this launch which is also on my site - it has the crews onboard tape in one ear and the flight directors loop in the other synched together! Quite cool even if I do say so myself!
I meant the EECOM for 12 was John Aaron. He was portrayed in the 13 movie since he played huge part in saving that mission as well. He retired from NASA in 2000 from what I've read.
I think I had specifically requested Apollo 12 last week. Even though you obviously started on this some time before that request, I will shamelessly take the credit anyway. :)
Got to give credit to the Saturn 5 here. Hit by lightening twice, it flew blind for 30 sec and that dam rocket was flying on its own right on track! Respects!!
It wasn’t really flying blind. The issues the crew reported were in the command & service module. The Saturn V was being guided by the Saturn V instrument unit which was unaffected by the lightning discharge.
The reason they launched in a thunderstorm was that the launch window for a lunar mission lasts only a few hours. Also, they were aiming to land near the Surveyor spacecraft, so the launch date had to be one that would put them on target for that particular landing zone.
jetta caldwell the view is, to my eyes, from the ground level looking with the pad and launch tower on the right and if I remember rightly, I edited it to show just as the SV goes through the cloud and left it because it shows a lightening strike - its lokking "up" - hence the rain on the bubble of the lens....imho
oh yea i see .. those are rain drops...oh my .. was I off base....looked like a blue planet of swiss cheese to the untrained eye.. thank you for clearing it up!!
Man, these fellas were cool under pressure! I would've voided my bowels at the first "what the hell was that!" moment. No finer men than the Apollo crews. I can't believe they were up there joking and laughing whilst riding on top of a gigantic missile that seemed to have experienced a few glitches.
5:53 "What the hell was that?" 6:53 "Try SCE to auxiallary" 6:55 "SCE to auxiallary. What the hell's that?" Al Bean knew :-) John Aaron wasn't given the name steely eyed missle man for nothing.
I listen to music that has voice grabs from various missions from the Apollo ere that are used as samples to ambiant soundscapes.The Orb are one such example and it's brilliant to hear it here with it's true raw footage in real time.The slow mo footage of the craft rising is outsanding.
When i was young with these launches going on i couldn't get enough of the Apollo launches But having to rely on local tv and so called viewer ratings we got less and less as time went on ( So today I suck up whatever i can thank god for recordings i say ))
You talk about asking for it!! The Space Shuttle Discovery launched in light rain with an approaching cold front.(STS 51-I) 8-24-85.They lifted off just in time to avoid the squall line.
Imagine that. All that data dropping out during launch phase. Be interesting to see a print out of the crew’s vitals. Bet the heart rates were up. Thank goodness Al knew what “SEC to Aux” was. Ground controller did a great job informing the crew. I was only a kid when these missions took place. I’d give anything to see a Saturn v launch. All that power.
I don't know why but that initial "what the hell was that?" cracks me up. The matter-of-fact way in which it's spoken completely belies the fact that these guys were sitting on top of a Saturn V rocket roaring toward the moon and that they had just been struck by lightning. And yet it sounds like they'd just suffered a minor annoyance.
Tony Rony Aaron saw the same kind of mish mash display that was on his screen during this incident several months prior during a training exercise, and SCE to Aux was the fix for it. That's what he remembered, and a good thing too!
gasaholic47 Yeah, this was no Wally Schirra/Gemini 6 "We're just sitting here breathing" moment. One can speculate like crazy about what might have happened if it was say, 30 seconds later, with so many different variables that might have caused a different outcome...they did not even initially get the instructions straight. But ALWAYS you could count on those guys as being so cool under enormous pressure (although I like Conrad giggling after things settled down).
Man, that Pete Conrad was one cool customer! He could have aborted with a CCW twist of the translation controller, if he had gotten rattled. Wally Schirra showed nerves of steel also when he elected not to eject himself and Tom Stafford on Gemini 6.
John Alvarado in case you didn't know, during tests the Gemini ejection seats had a nasty tendency to mangle the test dummies legs. Plus, if they did eject, the blast would have wrecked the capsule interior, cancelling the flight.
@paulsarna5066, a Gemini ejection probably would have resulted in the loss of the crew in two ways. They would have fired the seats in a cabin soaked in 100% oxygen which most likely would have sent them out the hatches on fire(Wally Schirra had mentioned this in an interview, when they tested the ejection seats, they filled the cabin with nitrogen gas, not the Oxygen mixture they'd use in flight)Then there was the likelihood of getting ejected into what Gene Kranz called the BFRC(Big Fucking Red Cloud) of the Titan booster exhaust which was full of a mixture of instantly fatal chemicals. They were probably going to be too dead to worry about their broken bodies hitting the bulkhead on the way out.
Jack King was great! Love Hugh Harris commentary too, I wish they would always use sort of a fuzzy AM Radio quality Launch Control commentary. It doesn't sound as good these days in full stereo and the way SpaceX does their launch control.....I am sure they would change this to more of a traditional countdown once they are launching manned missions.....
Really like ur downloads there priceless keep them coming. Don't understand why they launched in a thunderstorm ur just begging to b made and example of love the apollo days we had such focus and guts
Thanks Beau - I always thought they launched for one or maybe two reasons - one - the launch would have to be postponed a month if they missed the window - but two (and I always thought the more likely) Nixon was there and the budget for Apollos 18-20 was still in the offing.....?
***** Probably a mixture of both. And its one of those unanticipated events, as nobody had considered that the exhaust contrail would ground the spacecraft. That, and it was not thought to be an electrical storm. I suppose a rocket streaking like a middle finger toward the heavens made Zeus go "oh HELL no!", after which he must take his hat off to the balls on these three guys as the rocket just kept on going. I read a Cracked.com article in which this mission was entitled "John Arron calls Zeus' bluff" :P
Yes I agree Pete was one of my hero's. I miss him very much and wish I could of met him. He dies only 100 miles south of me in Ventura. Go with God Pete.
For you younger people, the points where the screen goes black and the image rolls and gets fuzzy that is caused by lighting strikes. Old TV was effected by such things. Like if you turned on a vacuum cleaner, the screen and audio would get all messed up.
What's interesting is if you read the Apollo 12 debrief, they can't quite agree on the timings. Gordon "A significant amount of time passed before you read out those lights" or something. And other minor discrepancies like Al Bean saying he wants to wait before resetting the fuel cells, in case of an electrical short leading to a fire
Pete Conrad was a national treasure RIP.
Mike OLeary yup he certainly was
He was a bit of a drama queen....but yeah.
And he had guts too.
All three of them were.
*NAILED* the landing, right next to Surveyor 3!... with a mega-hat-tip to the math wizards in The Trench and Orbital Mechanics/GUIDO studs in the RTCC backroom.
Pete Conrad-Flying a terrifyingly complex controlled explosion heading off into the most hostile environment imaginable, and Zeus has just took pot-shots at him... and he laughs.
He's the inspiration for Kerbal Space Program's Jebedian Kerman!
John Aaron made the call of "sce to aux" after noticing the same display readout late at night during a NASA simulation. He saved the mission.
And now we've lost Al Bean. Indeed, we really are losing our national treasures. The ships may have been made of titanium, aluminum, mylar, and steel. But the men were made of iron. Godspeed, Captain Bean. Thank you for your service, sir.
I hope a few of them will be around when we land on the moon next.
@@Sedna063 Of the 24 men who flew to the moon, only 10 are still with us...only 4 of them walked on the moon. The youngest is Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) at 86. The oldest Jim Lovell (13) at 94.
I would not hold out any hope that any of them will still be with us the next time a human leaves Earth orbit.
Sadly, we are losing our Heroes.
Gotta love Pete's laugh. Lightning strikes the world's fastest bomb, and he's laughing his ass off. They broke the mold after him.
It's the Navy, all three were Navy. Probably the best senseless... ah... I mean sense of humor of any branch of service. We used to laugh and joke all the time -- "It's not for us to wonder why, it's just for us to do or die." "If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer." We quote the Navy ad at the time, "the Navy, its not just a job, its an adventure." As we bring the fish, (sonar transducer) in at 3am in heavy seas with waves pouring into the hoist room. Another fun fact, all the men that landed on the Moon were Navy. They figured the hardest thing to do in aviation was land on a carrier at night. They figured anyone who could do that was the best candidate to land on the Moon.
Once again great work! Dick Gordon: "Pete, there's nothin' I can tell is wrong." He says this as calmly as if they were driving in a car at 15 mph and they hear the engine knocking. Talk about cool and composed under pressure.
Pete was one of the best, if not most entertaining astronauts. "Looks like we need more all weather testing!"
Check out the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", and find episode 7 "Thats All There Is". Apollo 12 told from Alan Bean's perspective, as he travels to the moon with his two best friends, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon
"That was one of the better sims, believe me!"
"Amen!"
Yep, it's important to try to not panic and that's exactly what they did. They were totally taking control just like Apollo 13 in many ways
SCE to Aux! Good old John Aaron.
Love Pete Conrad's nervous laughter all the way to orbit.
+deeestuary SCE to Auxilary? What the hell is that?
Signal Condition Electronics to Auxiliary
Good old Alan Bean too, who knew where that switch was :)
It's so refreshing not seeing moon-landing conspiracy comments here. They miss out on such an incredible adventure and period of achievement.
Agreed. That being said, some conspiracy theorists say this launch is another proof of their crap. At 9:20 one of the astronauts says "That's one of the better sims", which the conspiracy theorists say is an accidental admission that NASA was just playing a recording from a simulation.
I guess sarcasm and ironic humor is beyond the grasp of the hoaxers.
Sunray Major most hoaxers think apollo 11 was the only mission.
PassiveSmoking Yeah! They think they just "went to the moon". So much ignorance about every painstaking step being carefully explored; Mercury, Gemini, Apollo 9 that only orbited earth. 10 that descended towards the lunar surface and nearly came to grief during the ascent...it's an incredible story.
Dan Grayhill ASMR I'm guessing the reason that comment was made was because the situation with everything dropping out, and indeed the SCE to auxiliary solution had occurred in a simulation during prep for the mission.
Its crazy to hear how calmly they sat there and reported issues to Huston. They were all calm and communicating properly. Shows the amazing training astronauts go through
The AP 12 episode is my favorite of the "From The Earth To The Moon" series!!
shutterbug98 It's a toss up between that one and "1968" for me. Both excellent.
"Spider" remains my favorite, but "That's All There Is" and "1968" are tied for second place.
It's a tie between it and "Spider" for me.
I'm totally with you on that. Dave Foley did a great job and it was just a lot of fun.
I really liked the commentary. It was clear, concise, very thorough, and not so technical that a layman couldn't follow what was going on.
Those guys are very funny, but still very pro even when everything goes south, what a crew!
I laugh everytime I listen to this. Of course it helps knowing that everything worked out in the end, but the "SCE to Aux? What hell is that?" always kills me.
@@matthewwoelfle5533 Yeah, but later on in the tape, "IMU power, where the hell is it?"(Dick Gordon) nearly made me fall out of my chair, wondering if this crew was trained on the panels.
I am glad I was alive and a young man to have lived through this
Yes, I am as well. I wish we did not stop going to the moon. We had the hardware for two more trips but Congress decided to cut NASA's budget. We just stopped building upon one of the greatest achievements in human history. It seems very short-sighted.
I remember Pete saying that what hurt our post Apollo space program was the Shuttle delayed launches.(by 3 years)They had planned to carry engines to Skylab and keep it in orbit. That delay caused us to lose Skylab. Pete also said that Skylab was so ahead of it’s time that it could have flown for 20 years or more.
Classic example of maintaining situational awareness and applying systems knowledge to an ambiguous scenario for which specific training wasn't accomplished prior to the mission...FLY NAVY!
I didn't think a recording of this existed on the internet... Awesome for putting it up, man. Thanks!
First they were surprised, but quickly acted professional and kept their cool. Once the immediate threat was over, they were so overwhelmed with relief after a near-certainty of a catastrophic failure, as soon as they relaxed their guard, they started laughing hysterically about the mortal shock and relief in such rapid succession.
At 5:52 they get struck by lightning, they gave no idea what’s happening, every warning light they can see lights up and it must have seemed as though they were riding on top of a huge, uncontrolled and totally unstable bomb.
At 11:15 they start chuckling about it.
Less than 5 1/2 minutes between the 2 events. They truly were a different breed, the astronauts and mission control giving a perfect lesson in “Don’t Panic”.
Thanks so much for uploading this, wonderful stuff!
Glad you liked it Mac
Reading about the Apollo missions, you can tell these three heroes loved being with each other. Not that the other missions had animosity, but their’s was a genuine kinship.
Apollo 15 had some seriously nasty animosity between Scott and Warden - they continued to be essentially enemies the rest of their lives. And there were some pretty sour feelings between Aldrin and Armstrong on 11, but yeah, 12 was certainly the most like 3 best buddies going on a trip than any other.
@@GlutenEruption they all knew each other from before to their time with NASA and were good friends. They even had matching ‘69 Corvettes custom-painted gold and black to match the Apollo 12 Lunar Module.
12:52 is just delightful. They're joking and trying to piece together what the hell that all was, and they have staging coming up, so, "Wake up! (chuckle)".
This is just fantastic.I love that static radio quality of the Apollo missions.
this is the equivalent of things exploding on start trek and everything going off line... The Saturn V was a BEAST!!!
Of all of my heros I've had the extreme privilege of meeting, Pete Conrad really stands out. Jim Lovell made you feel like you were the only person in the room with him, and he was as interested in you as you were in him. Gene Cernan just made you feel like you could do anything he did. Pete, on the other hand, felt like he was having the time of his life and that you should be, as well.
It's easy to go on and on about the very real heroism of Alan Bean, Dick Gordon, and Pete Conrad, but the real hero here was John Aaron, the EECOM who remembered a sim from over a year earlier and then figured out how to fix the problem.
SCE is a system on the Apollo spacecraft. To fix the lost telemetry, they had to flip the switch controlling it to the auxiliary setting... very few people on or running the mission knew what or where the switch was, and had John Aaron not have learned how to fix the problem after an earlier simulation, and that the switch reset could fix the readings, and had LM Pilot Alan Bean not remembered where the switch was, they would have had to abort within a few more seconds.
Had Bean not remembered where the switch was Flight was about to send up the panel number to him.
*BEEP*
"The hell was that?!"
"We lost a bunch of stuff here I don't what happened..."
*....*
EECOM:"Try SCE to Auxiliary, over"
"SCE to auxiliary, what the hell is that?!"
HAHAHAHAHA one of the most complicated feats of human engineering solved by a single button! That is to be marked on history!
"Hehehe... I just can't stop thinking about when all that stuff was lighting up, and CAPCOM calls up "SCE to Auxiliary" and I knew I didn't know what the hell that meant, and YOU were awfully quiet, I might add. All I hear is Al Bean's voice about three octaves higher than it oughtta be, saying "... I know what that is!""
- Pete Conrad ("From the Earth to the Moon" episode 7 "Thats All There Is")
that was , when the Saturn V was struck by lightning and the computers of the comand capsule went berserk. But one guy in command had seen this pattern of berserk computers at a simulation before. The solution was just switching SCE to auxillury
It shows their diligence and training as they did NOT abort or even ask about doing so, nor did they seem to discuss it amongst each other so they must have clearly known that the rocket was still being steered and controlled by the computers internally and that they were likely not in danger as long as the platform came back online.
It was a switch, not a button.
@@wusakusa7200 And that man's name... was John Aaron.
You've outdone yourself again Lunarmodule5! It's been a real education watching your 'stuff'. Keep 'em coming.
I love the instrument callouts by Pete Conrad .
He is calling EVERYTHING .
Wow;.......These guys really had some tense moments on their way up.
jeffrey hinkel and yet they were laughing about it too! cool crew!
Yeah;.....But it didn't sound like they were laughing right after the lightning strike;......The laughter came after they had a good jump on getting everything back.
Hey;.........I like your handle;.....lunarmodule5
jeffrey hinkel likes my handle too...glad I chose it all those years ago!
+jeffrey hinkel "There's...something.........out on the wing!"
The only thing cooler than Pete Conrad giggling about pretty much every single warning light coming on while flying on top of a Saturn V is Jim Lovell's dispassionate observation that the CSM on Apollo 13 was venting oxygen. It was almost as if he was discussing the weather in Houston that day. They build astronauts different.
I love being able to look at all the old NASA footage of mercury , Gemini and Apollo . I have always loved anything to do with space and now I can see it all instead of a quick few seconds here and there . It's also great looking at what Russia was up to at the same time . They were well in front at the start and America only just got there first.
I'd long wanted to hear this running commentary. Thank you for this.
You are most welcome John regards LM5
They cowboyed up on this and kept riding it out! So fricken awesome.
Keep Calm and Set SCE to AUX! :)
Christopher U.S. Smith is there a shirt about that. I need it. Im an Apollo Nerd
Jebediah Kerman I think there is. :)
I would totally wear that!
@Jebediah Kerman- just make sure you add extra boosters
Hi Keith - the animation is done using Orbiter Space Simulator - available for free download on the internet. You might also like to listen and watch the multi-track stereo version of this launch which is also on my site - it has the crews onboard tape in one ear and the flight directors loop in the other synched together! Quite cool even if I do say so myself!
I meant the EECOM for 12 was John Aaron. He was portrayed in the 13 movie since he played huge part in saving that mission as well. He retired from NASA in 2000 from what I've read.
Probably the most terrifying statement ever. "What the hell was that???"
leftcoaster67 I think he says what the hell is that, referring to the call "SCE to AUX".
he said "what the hell was that" on the lighting strike.
Pete Conrad said:"What the hell IS that?" He meant the SCE-switch.
Rest in peace Jack King.
These guys are some of the bravest men of their day. Get struck by lightening, then continued on to the moon.
My favorite crew from Apollo, Conrad & Bean were great pals. Fun duet on the moon also. Sad about the Camera
I think I had specifically requested Apollo 12 last week. Even though you obviously started on this some time before that request, I will shamelessly take the credit anyway. :)
Got to give credit to the Saturn 5 here. Hit by lightening twice, it flew blind for 30 sec and that dam rocket was flying on its own right on track! Respects!!
God bless herr Werner.
It wasn’t really flying blind. The issues the crew reported were in the command & service module. The Saturn V was being guided by the Saturn V instrument unit which was unaffected by the lightning discharge.
WE GOT A PITCH AN' A ROLL PROGRAM AND THIS BABY IS REALLY GOIN'!!!
6:54 "SCE to Auxilliary, what the hell's that?"
Al Bean said he knew what it was right off.
+Gasaholic47 He also said he knew what it was about 2 octaves higher than usual~!
Amy Eh...that was just the G-forces pressing down on his crotch.... 😁
Poor Bean-o, weakest crotch of em all!
SCE to Aux. Some tech on the ground know what it was, a sort of reboot button. But it seems they never practiced in the the sim.
6:54 that always makes me laugh!.. Pete was quite the character, “SCE to auxiliary what the hell is that”! Lol
Real men in action. Total respect.
Thanks Tyger - I have also posted the CSM onboard with the Flight Directors loop with the PAO in a stereo track.
Absolutely awesome audio! Great upload.
The reason they launched in a thunderstorm was that the launch window for a lunar mission lasts only a few hours. Also, they were aiming to land near the Surveyor spacecraft, so the launch date had to be one that would put them on target for that particular landing zone.
excuse my ignorance plse..but what is that round bluish tinted object in the frame? not the moon, but ????????? starting at 5:40
jetta caldwell
Its a fish-eye lense view of the pad and launch vehicle
***** thank you so much....i still can't visualize it tho.. are they looking down at the launch pad whilst going up?
jetta caldwell
the view is, to my eyes, from the ground level looking with the pad and launch tower on the right and if I remember rightly, I edited it to show just as the SV goes through the cloud and left it because it shows a lightening strike - its lokking "up" - hence the rain on the bubble of the lens....imho
oh yea i see .. those are rain drops...oh my .. was I off base....looked like a blue planet of swiss cheese to the untrained eye.. thank you for clearing it up!!
Man, these fellas were cool under pressure! I would've voided my bowels at the first "what the hell was that!" moment. No finer men than the Apollo crews. I can't believe they were up there joking and laughing whilst riding on top of a gigantic missile that seemed to have experienced a few glitches.
steely eyed missile men with a sense of humour and perspective I reckon!
5:53 "What the hell was that?"
6:53 "Try SCE to auxiallary"
6:55 "SCE to auxiallary. What the hell's that?" Al Bean knew :-)
John Aaron wasn't given the name steely eyed missle man for nothing.
So cool. Keep 'em coming. I missed out on watching 12 go up live. Must have been in school.
The saturn must be one heck of a ride anyways... imagine having failures on top of the ride.
I love the post mortem laughs. :) Release of tension. Pete Conrad indeed had an awesome laugh
I listen to music that has voice grabs from various missions from the Apollo ere that are used as samples to ambiant soundscapes.The Orb are one such example and it's brilliant to hear it here with it's true raw footage in real time.The slow mo footage of the craft rising is outsanding.
I don't think that was slow-motion...
"Astronauts report it feels good."
When i was young with these launches going on i couldn't get enough of the Apollo launches But having to rely on local tv and so called viewer ratings we got less and less as time went on ( So today I suck up whatever i can thank god for recordings i say ))
"If you can't be good, be colorful!" Pete Conrad. He was both. RIP the crew of A12
After pouring over all things Apollo 11, it's so funny to hear these guys sounding so loose - even in the midst of the lightning strike.
Thanks for the upload, and fighting the Global Dumbdown.
Welcome!
You talk about asking for it!! The Space Shuttle Discovery launched in light rain with an approaching cold front.(STS 51-I) 8-24-85.They lifted off just in time to avoid the squall line.
When 51-I came barreling out of that storm cloud, CDR Joe Engle said, "That cloud was BLACK!" As if to say, "Don't you EVER do this to my ass again!"
Imagine that. All that data dropping out during launch phase. Be interesting to see a print out of the crew’s vitals. Bet the heart rates were up. Thank goodness Al knew what “SEC to Aux” was. Ground controller did a great job informing the crew. I was only a kid when these missions took place. I’d give anything to see a Saturn v launch. All that power.
*WE DONE CLEARED THE TOWER, GOT A-PITCH AND A-ROLL PROGRAM AND THIS BABY'S REALLY GOIN'!!*
"We just lost the platform "....I think that's the scariest commentary!
I don't know why but that initial "what the hell was that?" cracks me up. The matter-of-fact way in which it's spoken completely belies the fact that these guys were sitting on top of a Saturn V rocket roaring toward the moon and that they had just been struck by lightning. And yet it sounds like they'd just suffered a minor annoyance.
Priceless...this is GREAT!
Tony Rony
Aaron saw the same kind of mish mash display that was on his screen during this incident several months prior during a training exercise, and SCE to Aux was the fix for it. That's what he remembered, and a good thing too!
gasaholic47
Yeah, this was no Wally Schirra/Gemini 6 "We're just sitting here breathing" moment. One can speculate like crazy about what might have happened if it was say, 30 seconds later, with so many different variables that might have caused a different outcome...they did not even initially get the instructions straight. But ALWAYS you could count on those guys as being so cool under enormous pressure (although I like Conrad giggling after things settled down).
gasaholic47
Didn't the display also flash "No Solution" across it? Basically the computer going "uh... I don't know what to do"
They were great guy s ,the crew of apollo12!
Try setting SCE to AUX.
What a machine, got hit by lightning during launch and flipping a single switch allowed them to complete the mission.
Amazing.
Amazing how cool and calm they were during an emergency. Dick Gordon I can't find anything wrong Pete
Man, that Pete Conrad was one cool customer! He could have aborted with a CCW twist of the translation controller, if he had gotten rattled. Wally Schirra showed nerves of steel also when he elected not to eject himself and Tom Stafford on Gemini 6.
John Alvarado in case you didn't know, during tests the Gemini ejection seats had a nasty tendency to mangle the test dummies legs.
Plus, if they did eject, the blast would have wrecked the capsule interior, cancelling the flight.
@@Nighthawke70
I NEVER understood the Gemini ejector seats.
@paulsarna5066, a Gemini ejection probably would have resulted in the loss of the crew in two ways. They would have fired the seats in a cabin soaked in 100% oxygen which most likely would have sent them out the hatches on fire(Wally Schirra had mentioned this in an interview, when they tested the ejection seats, they filled the cabin with nitrogen gas, not the Oxygen mixture they'd use in flight)Then there was the likelihood of getting ejected into what Gene Kranz called the BFRC(Big Fucking Red Cloud) of the Titan booster exhaust which was full of a mixture of instantly fatal chemicals. They were probably going to be too dead to worry about their broken bodies hitting the bulkhead on the way out.
Thanks for the comment James - I always appreciate people taking time to comment.
lunarmodule5 On that basis fella.. thank you very much for posting this. Priceless to hear.
Jack king the best voice for Apollo. You couldn’t cast that better.
Jack King was great! Love Hugh Harris commentary too, I wish they would always use sort of a fuzzy AM Radio quality Launch Control commentary. It doesn't sound as good these days in full stereo and the way SpaceX does their launch control.....I am sure they would change this to more of a traditional countdown once they are launching manned missions.....
Pete Conrad: “What the hell is that?!?!?”
Alan Bean: “Hold my beer...”
VTwin Builder
ha ha ha. nice one mate.
pete conrad.... my favorite astronaut
Sad to think all of the Apollo 12 crew are no longer with us.
Pete Conrad was a beautiful human being.
6:50 "Try SCE to AUX, Over" Conrad: "What the hell is that?"
Really like ur downloads there priceless keep them coming. Don't understand why they launched in a thunderstorm ur just begging to b made and example of love the apollo days we had such focus and guts
Thanks Beau - I always thought they launched for one or maybe two reasons - one - the launch would have to be postponed a month if they missed the window - but two (and I always thought the more likely) Nixon was there and the budget for Apollos 18-20 was still in the offing.....?
*****
Probably a mixture of both. And its one of those unanticipated events, as nobody had considered that the exhaust contrail would ground the spacecraft. That, and it was not thought to be an electrical storm. I suppose a rocket streaking like a middle finger toward the heavens made Zeus go "oh HELL no!", after which he must take his hat off to the balls on these three guys as the rocket just kept on going.
I read a Cracked.com article in which this mission was entitled "John Arron calls Zeus' bluff" :P
this is amazing, thank you!
I think there is a picture of the command module showing some scorchig . Pic was taken my LEM crew .
"I got three fuel cell lights, an AC bus light, a fuel cell disconnect, AC bus overload 1 and 2, Main Bus A and B out."
RIP crew of Apollo 12!!
Start at 11:55 for "the relief"
Thank God for Dick Gordon remembering where the SCE dial was (behind him on his left)!
104thDIVTimberwolf Alan Bean switched it I believe.
Zeus wanted a little target practice, but it was man who got the last laugh.
It’s just like my mama always taught me: ‘Remain calm, and set SCE to AUX’
i remember these apollo 12 astronauts were laughing all the way to orbit lol
Yes I agree Pete was one of my hero's. I miss him very much and wish I could of met him. He dies only 100 miles south of me in Ventura. Go with God Pete.
For you younger people, the points where the screen goes black and the image rolls and gets fuzzy that is caused by lighting strikes. Old TV was effected by such things. Like if you turned on a vacuum cleaner, the screen and audio would get all messed up.
John arron what a talented person even when he didn't have to know the answer his wonderment saved a mission
5:47 you can hear the impact of the lightning bolt hit the rocket. Trippy. It shows as a split second static.
5:40
"Its a lovely liftoff, not bad at all"
Lightning: Huh, about that ⚡😂
WHOOPIE! That may have been a smal step for Neil, but a long one for me.."..lol whoopie were Apollo 12 first words on Moon surface..very fun mission
I woulda shit my pants. Big credit to everyone involved for not panicking and aborting the flight.
It's really funny to hear them giggling, with relief, after the strike.
Wait for staging , wait for staging... that’s what the commander is there for .
Childhood memories when everyone was moon crazy!
What's interesting is if you read the Apollo 12 debrief, they can't quite agree on the timings. Gordon "A significant amount of time passed before you read out those lights" or something. And other minor discrepancies like Al Bean saying he wants to wait before resetting the fuel cells, in case of an electrical short leading to a fire
“The hell was that?” “There’s a whole bunch of stuff”