The Apollo 16 Lunar Landing
 Hear
the Apollo 16 lunar landing |
as recorded at Honeysuckle Creek from the network (Goldstone
was prime for the landing).
Hear John Young and Charlie Duke as they descend towards
Descartes
– starting at about 104:26:40GET, until just after landing –
from a compact cassette recording made at Honeysuckle during Apollo
16 by Bryan Sullivan.
The 560kb mp3 file and runs for 4min 33s.
Digitised by
Colin Mackellar. |
See also these SRTs at Honeysuckle during Apollo 16.
Honeysuckle Creek Operations Supervisor John Saxon speaks with the crew of
Orion
Before EVA 2, comms lines from Houston to Honeysuckle
are lost, though lines from Honeysuckle to Houston (via Goddard) are not affected.
Sitting inside Orion and having their beakfast,
John Young and Charlie Duke have been discussing with Capcom Tony England
the upcoming EVA. It takes a little while for it to become obvious that they
aren’t hearing anything back from Houston.
In order to inform the crew what is happening,
Honeysuckle’s Operations Supervisor, John Saxon, pushes his ‘Press
to Talk’ Switch to send his voice to the transmitter, becoming the only
Australian to speak with someone on the Moon.
The audio from Orion is very poor quality due
to the problems they were having with Orion’s steerable high-gain antenna.
When inside the Lunar Module, comms used the omni directional antenna which
resulted in a much noisier signal.
|
John Saxon writes:
“Even though it was exciting to finally
get to talk to the Apollo 16 lunar surface crew, I have always
felt somewhat embarrassed about the conversation. Particularly when
I read the transcript. The conversation was somewhat strained to say
the least. It was mostly due to the very poor down voice signal to noise
ratio, making it very hard to understand.
What you can’t hear are my almost simultaneous
conversations on several other voice loops to get NASCOM (GSFC Voice
and Deakin) to sort out the (one way) voice problem.” |
John says that this copy of the Honeysuckle recording was put onto cassette
from the FR1900 recorder for him by John VanderKly.
Here’s the transcript:
Saxon: “Orion this is Honeysuckle. We
have a comm outage with Houston at this time. Stand by one, please.”
Young: “Okay, Honeysuckle nice to talk to you. How are ya’ll all
doin’ down there?”
Saxon: “We’re doing great. Nice to talk to you.”
Young: “You sound good.”
Saxon: “Roger that – We’ll be with you shortly, we are just
getting some lines reconfigured here.”
Young: “Have a Swan for us.”
Saxon: “Say, again, Orion. You’re pretty poor quality on this back
up.”
Young: “I said quaff a Swan for us.”
Saxon: “Ah – I still can’t copy you, Orion. Sorry about this,
the quality is very poor at the moment.”
Young: “Okay you’re loud and clear.”
Saxon: “Roger that, I read you a bit better now."
Duke: “Honeysuckle, what John was saying was have a Swan for us.”
Saxon: “Oh, Roger.”
(John Saxon calls
Houston Comm Tech again on Net 1 – he cannot hear any reply. John’s
voice is being heard in Houston.)
Saxon: “Orion, this is Honeysuckle –
We’re still having trouble with the incoming from Houston. We should
get it restored very shortly for you. Sorry about the delay.”
Young: “Roger, thank you.”
Saxon: “Okay, we’re reading you
this time for a change.”
Duke: “Okay you guys are nice to talk to. We don’t care about Houston.”
Saxon: “Thanks very much. Certainly appreciate it. It’s a pleasure
working on this mission.”
Young: “Roger. We’d sure like to come down there and see you folks
after this is over too.”
Saxon: “Right you’ve got a permanent invite, anytime you like.”
Young: “That’s very kind.”
Saxon: “We will keep the beer cool for you.”
Young: “You’ve just got a couple of fellas going to show up on your
lawn here.”
Duke: “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
Saxon: “I think it’s a pretty good one down here too.”
Duke: “You see in my terminology friendly 48 packs, right now that’s
how I feel. Really love one.”
Saxon: “Roger that. We’re still having difficulty with the comm,
Orion. Hopefully, very shortly, we will get the net up for you.”
Duke: “Okay – take your time, don’t worry about it – we’re
eating.”
Saxon: “Don’t worry Orion, we are worrying!”
The lines from Houston were restored a few minutes later.
|
 |
At the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11 celebrations in Canberra, in 1994, John Saxon finally has an opportunity to share a Swan Lager with John Young.
Top: The beer is poured as Captain Young watches.
Bottom: The two Johns salute each other.
Photos: John Saxon. |
Back
to the Apollo 16 section.
on
the lunar surface. Recorded at Honeysuckle Creek.
