Apollo 17 Launch - CSM Onboard Audio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Apollo 17 launch - December 1972. This is the onboard CSM recording of Cernan, Evans and Schmitt. The video starts with the TV broadcast of the countdown. The CSM audio can first be heard at T-30sec. The sequence ends just after S2 cut off.
Video is approximately synched to audio. Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator is used to add a visual after S1C burnout. The actual launch was in darkness and I have used a "daylight" launch sequence to show the sequence (or nothing but a faint glow would be seen!).
Try to digest this in your mind..This machine was 363 feet tall and 8 million pounds..it achieved a speed of 6000 mph in 3 minutes as it was heading out... absolutely hands down the most bad ass thing man ever made
Yep! It's considered to be the tallest rocket ever built. Until SLS, or big Falcon.
Actually, Patrick, the total vehicle weight was something like 6.2 million pounds (with a first stage liftoff thrust of 7.5 million), but what's a couple of million pounds between friends? : ]
Indeed. And that’s why the Saturn V has got to be the single greatest device ever crafted by the minds and hands of men.
Great German engineering
The coolest looking rocket ever made.
Of all of the astronauts whom I've had the privilege of meeting, I was most in awe of Armstrong and Aldrin, but I enjoyed talking to Cernan the most. This was his second ride on a Saturn V and second trip to the moon (he was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 10) and you can still hear his amazement at the ride.
104thDIVTimberwolf How did you come by the fortune of meeting so many of the Apollo astronauts? Many people would consider themselves fortunate to meet even one of them during their lifetime
I shook hands with John Young in 1982 at an air show, I was only 10 years old. I knew him from the Space Shuttle, had no idea until much later that he was also an Apollo astronaut! 8 years later, I was working at the airport as a lineboy during college, and our most important customer (the owner of the Ford dealer) was a Mr. Frank Borman, had no idea he was an Apollo astronaut until later...he owned a sweet TF-51 (P-51 Mustang with an instructor's seat in the back) and a Mitsubishi MU-2, put fuel in both of them...
Loved hearing the banter and laughter between the astronauts. It's a reminder of what an exhilarating ride it must have been, not some solemn and fear-filled experience. This adds a whole new dimension to these historic missions. Thank you!
I love hearing these guys just being a bunch of big, highly skilled and highly trained, kids. Consummate professionals they all were, but the raw power and unfathomable cool factor of that big Saturn brought out the 10 year old in all of them!
Gene Cernan is and always was a great talker. When he said "What a ride, babe - what a ride" on Apollo 10, it sent chills down my spine. Listening to Gene and Jack during 17's landing, Charlie and John during 16's landing, and Pete and Al during 12's landing is a hell of a lot of fun. Ron Evans' reaction to S-IC staging is hilarious! Thank you very much for this awesome audio. You feel like you're really on board.
That was Ron Evans, who did not heed Commander Cernan's warning to "hold on". As for the "look at that sunofabitch", I believe that was Cernan. Jack would have been busy monitoring the cabin depressurization, and Cernan was actively engaged in conversation with Evans on the experience of the launch regarding vibrations and Max-Q.
"This thing shakes like a son-of-a!" - Ron
"Yeah that's max-Q" - Gene
Thanks for the question! Always love getting a chance to share information that is useless most of the time in my day-to-day life, but what the heck - its fun for me.
Cernan and Schmitt most definitely have incredibly similar voices, especially on the "tonsil mics" used by the astronauts.
As for EVA footage - Cernan (the commander) is wearing the red-striped suit, a nice feature implemented on Apollo 14.
+Jackson Tyler My favorite remark from Cernan was "Son of a bitch" as the LM was tumbling over around 10k feet over the moon :P
E: And getting within 5-10 degree towards gimbal lock, btw
*Staging*
Ron: JESUS CHRIST!
Gene: Look at that son - bitch!
Ron: WOOHOO JESUS CHRIST!
Since 1961 I grew up on the space coast as a kid. My dad was an engineer for a NASA subcontractor. Every launch from the Mercury to the Gemini to the Apollo, I watched from my backyard. This particular launch though, was special to me. The last of the Apollo Saturn 5 rocket, was to be launched at night, was when I was 13. I wanted to view it up close. My father was able to get our family VIP seats for the launch. It was and will always be the most amazing thing I will ever see in my lifetime,. The unbelievable rumbling, followed by the night sky turning in to daylight. To this day, I've never felt so proud to be an American. Afterwards, the Apollo program shut down...the Nixon scandal began...and even though I still was proud of the USA... I felt as though I was told that Santa Claus didn't exist for the second time. But I still had the memory of that one beautiful night.
The first Saturn V launch must have blown you away!
I absolutely loved their reactions to the G forces
"I can barely hold my hand up!"
And of course the sound of them getting thrown forward after S-IC cutoff.
I love this. I last saw this on launch night 40 years ago. I was 18. Cernan was having the time of his life, and so was Evans and Schmitt.
Fitting that the final Apollo launch was probably the most impressive.
I just can't get enough of this recording.
I was there, age 5, sitting on the roof of my parent's station wagon. lots of people parked outside a chain link fence to watch lawn chairs. lots of excitement. God what a roar! It was awesome!
Me and my dad were 5 miles away when she went up. ULTIMATE !! the very air shook and in your chest!
Gene Cernan was one of my favorites. RIP Gene.
"Those are kind words Robert" :-] RIP Captain Cernan. You were a humble man and the astronaut's astronaut. And a naval aviator to your core
I had the immense good fortune about ten years ago to meet Gene Cernan and have a long conversation with him, and I gotta say...
Coolest guy in the universe.
edfou5 anytime you get to meet a moonwalker, that's got to be a good moment!
You should look up the story about the guy who was making the Lunar Landing simulator game for PC, on his own. He was showing it off at bar on his Alienware laptop and who should walk over and introduce himself
Gene Cernan. Naturally they "programmer pilot" handed the controls over to "the guy that actually did it". He was quite impressed and said it was spot on except for the placeholder radio calls, since (ironically) the mission he had up was Apollo 17 but he had a few "1201 program alarms" which only happened on Apollo 11. Had to be a big moment.
Right-O, babe.
I hope I end up looking like him when I'm older.
if i get to meet any of the apollo astronauts i would go straight to heaven
I come back to this video time and time again. It never gets old listening to the banter and reactions of everything happening. Especially that S1C staging. Man that whole experience on board must've been something else... Incredible!
You can tell how much Cernan truly had a heart for what he was doing!
Love these videos, thanks for posting them!! I really enjoy listening to the CSM audio.
Rob Falk Glad you like it Rob - keep watching!
Awesome moments in history! Amazing reconstruction! Like I was there and saw it all myself. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Watching the Apollo videos never gets old.
it is a wonderful channel you have. A real labor of love. Although I followed the shuttle flights, I feel that nothing had the excitement factor like Apollo did. I am still an Apollo geek. (I still have the original mission patches framed in velvet in my office on the wall to my left.).I pray that one day our manned program will return strong. So sorry for the passing of Niel Armstrong.
Terrific com from Gene, Ron, and Jack. They sounded like kids on the ride of their lives ( which they were!) Capt. Gene is all business, keeping them focused on the mission, pushing ahead.
Rest In Peace, Gene, Heaven just got the life of the party walking through the door! 🇺🇸
"We're in a roll Bob!"
That night launch must have been incredible to watch...
Plumbership For those of us that didnt see it we will always be very envious of those who did - regards LM5
***** I saw it live
I lived in DeLand and we watched from the backyard about 60 miles away probably more. The sky lit up brighter than daylight! Those who did not see a Saturn 5 launch and only shuttles and such cannot understand. So powerful.
Lucky enough to be at the KSC Press Site (approx. 3 miles). Not only did we watch it... we felt it too: the noise and vibration of course, but also the warmth on our faces from the F-1 fire on what had become after midnight a chilly December morning in rural central Florida. Unforgettable.
This was the last time that we witnessed mankind at its finest I was so sad after 17 I thought we'd be having moon base in 10 years I'm 64 and I'm still waiting
Totally agree. I turn 64 in 6 days time. We're the Children of Apollo, and those were the days. It gave us the belief that we could do anything we put our mind to. Now we live in the age of disinformation and fake news, where cynicism and narcissism rule, where millennials and Gen Z (Zoomers) are obsessively glued to their smartphones like mindless anti-social zombies. You have people believing in 'Flat Earth' and QAnon conspiracy theories. WTF happened to our world?
This was the only moon launch during my lifetime. When I am going through a stage of depression, I turn this on and it cheers me up. I first taped the launch when it aired on a documentary in 1986 and would play it back.
5:58 Cernan was a hoot! "Jesus Christ...look at that sonofabitch" he says after the 1st stage separates. He was SO animated during the launches!
Amazing stuff! Thanks for the work you've done here!
Nice to hear the internal intercom communications between the crew. Not heard that before.
Great upload....to have lived through the old Redstone rockets of Mercury through the SpaceX starship of 2024 is amazing. Nice upload and impressive camera work for that era 👍
Glad you enjoyed it
Staging: "JEEEEZUS Christ!" That *bump* from SI to SII was legendary.
Apollo 17 'Cussing all the way to orbit" :)
skyprop and, by the sound of things, loving every moment!
@@lunarmodule5 yep!
Do what now
I pains me a little to think of how people used to live moments instead of being so focused on capturing moments... If that were today, it would be a field of smartphones in the air.
This launch was special, being the only night-time launch of the Saturn V.
Me and my family used to travel on vacation in the middle of the night during the 90s in order to avoid the heat during the day, and I always found that very thrilling. I can't imagine what it must have felt like to travel _into space_ during the night.
Fascinating. I remember watching the A17 launch on TV after waiting out the initial launch Hold. Really interesting to hear what was going on inside the cm with the astronauts themselves.
I never heard this before. Great video. Thanks a lot!
God damn, your videos are a goldmine. Fantastic videos.
I love that sound from the command module 😍
I was fortunate to meet Herman Schmitt when he came to talk at the University of Mount Union. Very interesting and inspiring. Wishing we would have kept going on the Apollo missions.
I take it you mean Harrison...not Herman?
What a moment to be a part of in US space history
A great video. Love watching this one. Nice work again!!!
I still remember watching this launch on NBC-TV. The networks had to use special filters through the camera lens to prevent the TV camera tubes from burning out due to the extreme difference between the black sky and the searing bright light of engine ignition. They placed a camera a few miles away at a building, 'Top of the Cape' in Cocoa Beach to show how bright Merritt Island became after the Saturn V cleared the tower. TV showed the blue exhaust light, from the kerosene burning 1st stage.
I watched this live.
Timothy O'Brien I am enviius!!
I saw every Apollo launch. And my Earth Science Teacher from 9th Grade worked with NASA till his retirement after Apollo 14.
Timothy O'Brien Lucky! I'm too young and on a different continent.
It's amazing for me now to watch the old films of the launches. I don't much remember Mercury. I'm sure I watched launches. But I was only five when Faith 7 launched. I was three when Freedom 7 launched. I remember Gemini.
The sight and aseptically the sound, must of been... breath taking!
Welcome aboard!
Those were the days, going to the Moon.
That was the 2nd rocket launch I ever saw. My first was Apollo 13.
You can feel the utter joy of the astronauts during this launch
Five seconds (until staging).........JESUS CHRIST! Told 'ya to hold on. Lookit that sumbitch! That competes with John Young's farts and F Bombs on the moon as the best conversation ever held in a spacecraft.
Sean Baskett Pete Conrad's hysterical laughter after the lightning strike is one my faves
@@ShazzleDazzle87 "what the hell was that?"
Gene got a SOB on 10
Well, Apollo 12 is available - but I havent got the others as they still are to be released
A silver star for the launch, a gold star for LM5.
Always got red or green ones at school...! Nice to get gold lol
Beautiful, thanks for posting and congrats for your work! I wish some telemetry data was available as well. More food for mind, if you know what I mean :)
what a great clip, thanks again
Great job lunarmodule5! To me Apollo 17 is one of the most interesting missions of the Apollo Program. Thank you so much.
Looking at this now is one thing, but watching these missions live was another matter. I found the lunar module descents incredibly emotionally scary...particularly Charlie Duke’s voice on Apollo 16...I had an absolute pit in my stomach.
@10:39 “Am I glad I took my hand off that abort handle.” WHAT!?!
Is there any CSM Onboard Audio for the other launches? Really great upload.
Outstanding graphics!
Dawn arrives quickly after a night launch.
ive got my own home movie of this, the launch was amazing, lit the sky up and i could feel my chest punding
Have you thought of putting that movie on TH-cam so we can all see what you saw?
@@lunarmodule5 Good idea i will do that,thanks
@@lunarmodule5 I have to figutre this ou somehow, i have the super 8, and the VHS is here
@@jonbryn4 need help getting those digitized?
Would be nice to here something like this for Apollo 12.
"one long bleeeeeeep as astronauts figure out they got hit by lightning..... "
Heads Tails Thanks Tails !
Any time, its a good bit of audio, love the giggling
That's funny because Pete Conrad was famous for his foul language. NASA was worried he drop a few bombs over the hot mike. He said it would never be him though, but someone who didn't cuss who would slip up. He was correct. Ended up being Gene Cernan in Apollo 10 when a lunar gravity anomaly pulled 10 downward. He also dropped one during the launch of 17 just after staging.
John Young dropped the best ones on a hot mike during Apollo 16
"here"?
Chuck Hollinshead is in Apollo Saturn Launch Control.
These guys are laughing while most of us would have soiled our undergarments by the time we hit max Q 😊
Conspiracy theories believers that believe we never landed on the moon are obviously are the ones who gave the 4 thumbs down. LAMF!
Stupid pinko-commies voted down their flat earth asses!
@@MrDoneboy I think you will find that most of the Moon Hoaxers are right wing. Fox TV isn't known for its left wing content.
6:33 when you're going mach 3 down the highway and your son in the back seat rolls his window down
Night time launch! Neat!
The Saturn V contained 98 railroad tank cars of fuel. A piece of trivia that I learned from Walter Cronkite, who called it “Ninety-eight railroad tank cars of highly volatile fuel.”
Brilliant !!!!
Great clip! Is there any footage of the abort a few hours earlier where the count stopped at T-30 seconds?
Excellent audio of a fine Apollo crew in action. This was when the United States understood the importance of a bold manned space program. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo proved what Americans can do when the right leadership and commitment are in place. Compare what we were doing then to the sad state of affairs now. It's all about leadership... and lack of it.
John Schreitmueller Well, it also has a lot to do with taxes. Taxes were a lot higher back then, that's why the government could afford to do stuff like this.
I was 8 yrs old ,all I remember was night turning to day could even see the blue sky
Great stuff!
So cooler that they did the launch at night
I was just 14. This was a funeral of sorts. Loved 'look at those sum bitches', 'skirt sep' calls and the yucks of cabin sealed. I've missed them with the shuttle. Somehow, no matter how often they press it, the next 'heavy booster' isn't as handsome, or pleasing as the Saturn V. Sorry just an old fart whose generation actually did do it.
Sorry for my bad english, but i've got one quesion.
In 4:27 CAP COMM say:
- Gene, you are feet wet - feet wet.
CDR answer:
- Roger, Feet wet.
What does it mean? I can't find the answer.
Greetings from Poland and thanks for this great video! :)
hi fanaberia - thanks for your comment - I have always assumed that "feet wet" was a 2nd part of the MODE1B abort mode - and that the feet wet call was meant to tell the crew that they had enough velocity that if there was an abort they would be able to splashdown, rather than on land (which Schirra eluded to in his book was a real possibility for Apollo 7 and was most undesirable in that the crew could be injured).
Here is an extract from the Apollo 16 flight journal:
000:01:06 Fullerton: You’re feet wet now, [Apollo] 16.
["Feet wet" is the US Naval aviator radio call for flight over the coast from land to sea. Young and Mattingly are both US Navy officers, Duke is USAF as is Gordon Fullerton.]
000:01:08 Young: Roger.
Public Affairs Officer: "That callout from CapCom Gordon Fullerton says Apollo 16 now capable of water landing. Mark. One minute, 12 seconds. Coming up on period of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle."
I can't find any other reference to it with regard to explaining the call and it seems to have only been used on Apollo 16 and 17 (I havent checked the Skylab ASTP flights but recall it is used on those flights...could be wrong though!).
I hope that this answer helps a bit?
regards
LM5
***** Yes, it's clear now. I also found that transcripts from Apollo 16 - cool stuff. Thanks for your answer :)
Beautifull launch at night... It must be an amazing ride. I wish i were there, on the top of Saturn V, even it can be the last thing of my life.
In earlier flights the call was "cleared the beach", meaning that the vehicle was over the ocean for an abort and not the land.
"Feet wet" is fighter pilot jargon for flying over the water. You call "feet wet" the moment you cross from flying over the land to flying over the water. Why do the astronauts need to know it? I'm not sure. Maybe it has some relevance if they have to use the launch abort system- the Apollo capsule was designed to land on water, not land.
Tom Johnson that call was made on ASTP too!
Anyone notice how the tv announcer NASA was using for this launch talks just like a 70's sports commentator?
Listen to Rob Navias commentate STS 129. THAT sounds like a football play by play, complete with using terms "going into the pocket' and 'kicking off'. Lol!
it was the 70s
Fantastic night time launch for which I was too young to witness live. Nothing beats though the Apollo 4 launch video with Walter Cronkite's live comment.
damn interesting! thanks for putting it up. anymore to come?
Where did you come up with this treasure? Is there some CD collection somewhere of this stuff?
Thanks! I found an audio-only version from BBC radio but I'd like to see video/film if there is any to be had!
Apollo 17 is, sadly, the final mission of the Apollo program, and there were no more missions to the moon after that because of budget concerns.
Good ole Geno!
Sounds like it was taped live inside.
...it was...;-)
where'd you get the CSM audio from? i looked at lunar surface journal and there's only the PAO track.
lfrankow I have had it for ages on mp3 - think it was sent to me by another enthusiast way back
subscribed!
:o)
The game is Eagle Lander 3D.While on a family vacation the sole creator of the game had the good fortune to be showing off the game at a bar (Alienware laptop) and who should happen by but Gene Cernan. Id tell Mr Programmer to not even bother buying a lotto ticket again, he just used up all his luck :)
eaglelander3d.com
I remember that story. That would be my life ending Whisky Tango Bravo moment. Showing off your Lunar Lander Simulator and who walks up but Gene freaking Cernan (by far the most genial and down to earth of the Apollo astronauts).
It's like being a harpsichord maker and having Mozart stop by. Cernan did mention it would be easier with 2 joysticks like the real LEM (one for translation and one for rotation). The designer kicked himself because had had a perfectly good joystick up in the hotel room (the sim did support dual sticks)
Off topic, but I really hope that Kerbal Space Program for the PS4 uses both of the sticks like that.
It's interesting, when a rocket is using kerozene or solid rocket boosters, a night launch looks like a sunrise. When it is hypergolic, it's not spectacular. A night Proton launch will disappoint you. But in case of explosion, it is still spectacular. With liquid hydrogen, a failure is not spectacular (when Challenger exploded, many people did not even realize)
Does anyone know if new astronauts are taught how to use a sextant to take fixes?
I don't know the voices of these 3 yet, so who is the one who made the joke about the "cabin is sealed "?
Eugene Cernan
03:15 Lift-off!
4:12 mode one Bravo
5:10 mode one Charlie
3:12 3, 2, 1, Spongebob
LMAO
This wasn't meant to be offensive
Who is Capcom? Is that Bob Crippen?
It was astronaut Bob Overmyer
To me, this is an extremely sad video....because that magnificent machine would never again fly to the moon. I still don't understand why NASA felt they had to complete a new machine (Artemis) when the Saturn was proven perfect.
I've got a magnet, too!
The difference of talking among the astronauts and mission control between Apollo 11 and 17 is really crazy.
Apollo 11 - No nonsense, very little talk (all dead serious). Apollo 17 - Lots of joking, nonsensical remarks from Cernan about, "Ok, No more nonsense, we really gotta' pay attention and get thru this action and that action and this other event...
I'm not being critical in any way of Apollo 17, just that there is a world of difference between 11 and 17.
11 was first, so, no time or room for silliness? 17 was the last, so no better time to relax, joke, make fun, be critical?
Neil Armstrong was a rock solid dude... All the other seems to devolve to being silly at times.
Neil Armstrong did have a fantastic sense of humor, it was just very subtle.
I like when they say hey look a silver star lol ...
NeverTwiceTheSameColor TV.
why do they always say babe....
Did that blow up or?
Where can I find the CSM onboard audio (at launch) for all the other Apollo missions? Apollo 12 and 17 seem to be the only two in existence. I know onboard audio recordings were made of each flight, but why are 12 and 17 the only two available? Did NASA never release the others to the pubic? Or are 12 and 17 the only two that anyone has bothered to post on TH-cam? If onboard audio of each launch was available, I would think someone would have made an entire set of videos of all of them by now.
Hi MM...if the others exist they haven't been released. I know there isnt one for Apollo 11 as they forgot to hit record lol
They FORGOT to hit RECORD?? WOW!!! I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for the post flight debriefing on THAT one. I also wonder why NASA would only release 12 and 17 and not the rest of them, especially after all these years.
"There is nothing up there! Nothing, nothing!"
-- Capt. Billy Cutshaw in the Ninth Configuration ;-)
And your point is......
Harry Andruschak
There is no point. Take it easy. It's a humorous quote from a movie you're probably not familiar with. I was just trying to be funny.
My fault for assuming that such an obscure
reference would be understood. I was really just amusing myself.
Paul Catania The problem is...you sounded a lot like the anti-NASA trolls claiming it is all fake. I routinely troll-block them after confirmation. And I rarely go to movies....cannot stand the noise, the rude crowds, and the rest of it. Now to see if anyone else is reading this comment thread to tell what movie is being referred to :)
Hey dude, chill out! I know what movie he was referring to, and I do believe him he meant it as a joke. And I am a firm believer that we did land on the moon, and anyone believe that we didn't are the ones who have not one piece of evidence that we didn't land there. And he did mention what movie it was, " The Ninth Configuration"
lawrencet83 Sorry, I never saw that movie....and sometimes it is very hard to seperate the trolls from the humorists.