Tom Hanes - NASA Headquarters
PAO Okay, ladies and gentlemen. We have with
us this afternoon - as to - start on the extreme right. My
right. Mr Leland Belew, Manager of the Skylab Office of the
Marshall Space Flight Center. Of course, Mr. Kleinknecht,
Manger of Skylab Program Office here at the Johnson Space
Center, and Mr. Tom Hanes of NASA headquarters. We'll start
with Mr. Belew and then Mr. Kleinknecht, and Mr. Hanes.
PAO Mr. Belew?
BELEW A short overview of the systems, as far
as status is - some f this may be a repeat, but as you know,
we had thermal problems, electrical problems, attitude con-
trol problems. As we stand to date, our thermal situation
on the overall Skylab, is essentially nominal as far as th e
food freezers. We're down the in the range of zero or below
on all of those. As you know, that was a problem the day
that we had the crew coming back. Temp eratures did get as
high as plus 19, and those are nominal at this time. Electrical
power system, - We're running at about 8.5 KW. Of course
we're coming down from the high b eta as far as the sunline
to the spacecraft, and we will go lower. The power situation
projecting into Skylab-lll looks good. And the worst case,
which is over only a few days when we're d own at the zero
beta angle, will still give us reserves in the range of from
around go0 watts to 1.5 - 1.2 kw, which s v ery ample for the
- plan. Of course, we were - we, that is the total of NASA,
JSC, Marshall and Industry, we're working on a module that
might have been required back before we got our solar array
deployed on the workshop to supplement the power, and as of
yesterday th t - there was a decision to not carry that work
forward. That may have been reported to you arlier, but in
case it has not, I'm bringing that up. So we have cut that
backup work out of the program and l'm very happy to say that
we could do that ecause we asse s that w d not n ed that
at this time. And, Just for instance, if th e kind of reserve
on power going into Skylab-lll is equatabl e to - we could
lose as many as three charger battery regulator modules on
the ATM before we got even down to the nominal power loads.
We could go to four, at which would put us in o a little bit
of a bind, but we do not assess that we'll ever get into the
situation - at most we would assess we might lose one CBRM between
now and the end of the mission. That's Just using the statistic
on numbers that one might pu together. So in power , we ould
say we're in good shaF&. As far as the Thermal situation,
the workshop, which has been running at the highest temperatures,
is running around 95 made 94 to ay. They're coming down -
the temperature is coming down as we ar e going down in the
 
had they been aboard over the l
ast several days. However,
we could have lowered those temperatures a bit by p
u
tting
mental control syste
in prior meetings. It is planned to deploy another thermal
shield earlier in the mission. Hopefully, we will cover
a larger area - that is, cov
er a larger area of the exposed
workshop that was giv ng us a thermal probl
e
then get us in a more nominal range of temp
eratures, even
e control system
e
ginning of the mission in ma_ntainlng control due to
the off-polnting, in order to maintain the thermal situation.
And at this time, we have a rather nominal operation. We
have
o
ne - only one of the rate gyros out. There's three
in each axis and in the - th
e
e
last, almost three w
no additional anomalies have occurred in th
e
control systems.
We have been able, as of the last days of the mission, to
put in some corrections into the biases on
t
e
the gas that runs the thruster attitude control system, that
we were going fairly heavy into early in this mission. Early
in Skylab-l, too. And that usage has been essentially zero
throughout the unmanned portion. We'd
expect it to remain as
c We e b
ence
e
e a require-
e it up it would be only on Skylab-IV and
we have quite some time to further analyze our systems. Now,
going into so
me of th
eathley did give a report this morning on that, but
furth
in from some of the Pls. The one from
the NRL experiments, that's $082 B. We have word from Dr.
Tousey
t
tremely elated o er the results th
a
t he's set - sees today.
Now, that's Just preliminary, and with that, one would he hope-
full of seeing much more - along with positive lines. We
eel that the data returned on the corollary experiments and
the primary experimen
u
I would decl
of view - from my point of view, on
that hardware that we're in a very positive GO situation all
the way fro
have been extremely stable since the - since about two days
after the crew returned. And it was at that time that we
correc
t
ed
t
he
t
her
m
t
a
a
t
he 28th of
July, now, at about 6:07, I believe the time is today, central
d
a
yligh
t
before we
get there. KSC is in the process today of performing a flight
re
a
diness
t
es
t
t
u
he 2 th of Ju y. However, we have no
plans
t
go
o
end of mission reco ery ligh
t
t
signific
a
t
urn,
from looking at the hardware and of course, we'r continuing
to look
reports from the crew this morning. We have Just completed
an all day proj
t
e
t hear this morning. And I guess
t
t
t
h
t
a
ta d a l sis of edi l data. They believe
and they feel - believe that their progre s and readapting
and re
Physiological baseline is progressing well. They're not
quite there, but they're almost there. I guess one of the
most significant comments they've made is they did this morning
is that, we'd probably ought to get more exercise during the
mission. We have deleted some items from the Skylab III stow-
age. About 180 pounds, we've added about 500 pounds of stowage.
So that's a net - or a shuffling about 700 pounds of equipment.
Repl cement items I think we talked a little bit about them
yesterday, or failed items on board lik tape recorders, water
heater elements, electronics module for the body mass measuring
device for such as that. Overheated items s
u
We've added equipment to be launched for experiments that we
did not do on - did not carry up on SL-II. And those that
we could not use because we had the solar scientific airlock
obstructed for S149. We're carrying up an adapter for SO63
so that by use of the articulating mirror of S019 we can look
to the heavens out of the anti-solar side of the workshop.
We're carrying an extra battery fo_ M509. Those batterie
were overheated, we've also added an multimeter, vo tmeter,
olmeter combination device so that we can test batterie . We
believe that the batteries that are up there are all right.
We do know that we can test them, and if they test satisfactorily
there is no safetly hazards with using those batteries even
_ though they've been overheated. They're carrying extra film
for experiments and some revised restrain
t
o
us
devices that the crew had to be restrained in. More in order
of lap belts. The crew readiness for Skylah III. They're -
medically, they're health is good. The prelimanary data that's
been reviewed by the PIs and the doctors does not preclude
at this time a 56 mission. And we're very opti mistic, and
at this time, as I say again, they see no reason that we cannot
go for
t
,
I guess by July 9th. It's a little soft as to exactly what day
that's going to occur on. Basic approach to flight planning is
going to be just like Skylab I-II was. Again, we'll have
a full flight plan. We may not do everything precisely as
originally published. We soon - we don't see any reas
o
we cannot perform the overall intent o all the experiments
that are pla ned. And indeed, some that weren't planned
prior to now. We do intend to carry some simple science
demonstrations, and I can't define those in detail right now,
but we'll probably see some of these on TV as a part of educa-
tional programs. I guess, another thing that may be differeilt
in Skylab, quite probably be differen
t t
han Skylab II as i
 
6/29/73
not going to work them as ha d. We had yesterday our pre-
liminary flight readiness review. Where all the JSC hardware,
we identified no problems with either the CSM or the hardware
that we're carrying up for launch date of delivery to the Cape to
support a launch dated July 28th. And that's leading up to a
headquarters flight readiness review at KFC on July 12th. On
summary, I guess, all indications are favorable for launching
on July 28th.
HANES Okay, the 56 day mission, we in the experi-
ments business hope will be much more dull than the SL-II mission
from a AO point of view. From an experimenters point of view,
it proves to be a very exciting thing. It's a little hard for
those of us who are just engineers to understand why a solar-
physisist can get excited about getting twice as uch data
as he got last time. But the fact is that they are excited,
as Lee Belew said, they seem to be extremely pleased with
the data that they're getting. And they have discovered with
the ATM some phenomena that appears to be new. Although,
everybody's being a little bit careful not to say that they've
made a grand discoveries. It's enough new to them that they're
very, very, anxious to get an extreme amount of data on these
phenomena and on the rest of those parts of the observing
programs that they haven't covered thoroughly and so we
had - we shot something like 17,000 frames of film on SL-II,
with the primary intruments we're going to have 45,000 frames
_ with us and I'm sure that the Pls are going to do their
very best to make a very carefnll use of that lot of film.
How you be careful with 45,000 frames of film I don't know.
But they're plotting and planning that now. For the medical
experiments, they should go approximately the same way they
did on SL-II. They have specific intervals that are laid
down which are part of the medical protocol. And those ex-
periments will be run at those intervals. The Earth Resources
System, we have planned 26 passes in the Earth Resources, we
had planned 15 for SL II and we got ii data passes and I calibra-
tion path. We have some 18,000 frames of film available on SL-III
for Earth Resources. We expect to get very, very good coverage
to the United States with this particular mission. We have
taken we have also many foreign investigations, and unfor-
tunately we have a little problem with trying to get some of
the foreign investigations because as we now stand, the sleep
cycle of the astronauts with the noon at Houston makes i
necessary that in order to get some of the foreign investigations
you have to get them up at a different t me. And we haven't
worked out exactly how to do this and we have to have them either
work late or get up early to do those par iculars. We have
taken data, not to satisfy, but for 77 of the investigations.
 
6/29/73
investigators for Earth Resources, so we have a long way to
go in the Earth Resources business. Some of the films are
turning out beautiful and this set of investigators are also
beginning to be quite excited about the results that are coming
back. In the corollary area we have 8 new experime___ts, we have
S150 an X-ray mapping experiment by Dr. Kraushaar, and this ex-
crement is mounted in the instrument unit and operates after
the command module separates from the launch stage. He expects
to map half of the sky in X-ray frequencies that are lower
energy than any one has been able to do from space than
anyone has been able to do from space before. Our main reason
for this is that the instrument, in order to map at very low
X-ray energies has to be quite bulky. And the R large boosters
are the only ones that can get this size of an instrumen up. So
this is an experiment that is exciting to X-ray astronomers. We
have aboard S160 the air glow photography experiment and we will
be operating that. I was interested to hear Paul Weitz say today
that he saw some thing that were strange to him in the air
glow phenomenon. So e'll be planning to get him together with
the doctor's packer to try to have them describe to him what
have him describe to them what they - he saw. And we would ex-
pect - there's a possibility that they - that he actually has
observed something that hasn't been observed. Although this
experiment has been conducted in one form on Gemini and - -
END OF TAPE
that hasn' been observed although this experiment has been
conducted in one form or another on Gemini and Apollo. The
particle collection instrument of Dr. Hemmingways is
presently out of the airlock collecting particles and it's
to be returned when the astronauts fr m SL-III get up there
and then during that particular - that particular experiment
has two facets to it. He originally was attempting to collect
the very very submicron particles that there seemed to be an
awful lot of in the universe and recently has developed a
theory that some part of these particles are eminat ng from
the Sun. Now this is a little bit revolutionary thinking
and there are a lot of solar physicists that don't believe
what he's saying, however_ as Ken said we've made an arrange-
ment to take his instrument and point it towards the Sun even
though the solar airlock is not available to us. This will
have to be done on EVA and we have the equipment with us and
if all goes well we will be able to let him try to prove his
theory of whether some of the subaubtonic particles or sub-
micron size particles are actually coming from the Sun. We
have two biological experiments on this flight; the S015 human
cells, the effect of zero g on human cells which was taken
off of the SL-II will be flown on this flight, nd the S071-
$072 circadian rhythym experiments will be flown on this ....
f-_gh
t
o
t
t
he
t
foot controlled maneuvering unit of Mr. Hughes. And we will
also do some formal measure
m
t
heir
m
probably know by now
t
t
t
But we have always had this experiment aboard the spacecraf
t t
a
y because there has been a question
in our minds - not in our minds - but in a lot of peoples
minds. Can you run large telescopes that take very very long
term fine pointing with a man aboard? Will the man's move-
ments disturb the telescope so that you can't operate that.
This particular experi
one ti
t
t
t
al
grow
t
i
t
was heavy and we will be growing a Gallium Arsenide crys
t
al
t
6/29/73
and through a vapor phase. And I guess the last thing I should
say is that this is the flight that gets the._._r_and that's
our most exciting of the student experiments. WeVre looking
forward to the spider experiment. Perhaps we should go ahead
and go to questions.
QUERY As far as the spider is concerned. Is the
health of the prime spider okay or (inaudible)
HANES Well, I'm sure at this point i the game
the health of the prime spider is fine. We haven't gone so
far as to sele t the exact two spiders?
KLEINKNECHT We have a lot of those - they only cost
35 cents (laughter).
QUERY Mr. Belew, one of the things I was curious
about and this goes back to the high beta angles and the
consequent rise in temperature because you're seeing sunlight
all the time. Why not say, keep the fans running during this short
unmanned period, or keep things circulating. Is it because
you'r afraid that something might go wrong and it's just
better to cut everything off. You've got the power why -
BELEW (garble) high temperature unmanned we
went as high as i00 in the workshop. It gives us no prob-
lem - no p oblem. The fans are crew operated. If we
turned them on they would have to stay on. We don't have
ground turn-on, turn-off capability on fans. But we didn't
expect to go any higher than 97 degrees, which that's about
_-_ right and that doesn't give us a problem. So we went - e
took the right route. Don't run anything any longer than
you have to. ave them for when you need them. Then if it's
i00 degrees it doesn't bother you.
QUERY De you have any comment on new phenomena
in connection with the ATM that you will c ntinue to pursue?
Can you elaborate on that a little?
HANES Well, it's been reported to us that they
have observed two things that they had not expected to see.
One is a continuation and spreading of the granular structure
of the chromosphere on out into the corona. And they - I believ:
that this is the first time that they've noticed that. And the
other one is an appearance of bright dots or spicules[?] that
are associated with this granular structure that appear to
extend also out into the corona and appear to be high energy
or hot, small hot spicules[?] that extend farther than they had
expected before. That may not be - sound like a really fan-
tastic discovery. Of course, they axe being a littl bit caref I
they don't want to run around saying I discovered something
until they really know it. These things are things that appear
to be different from what they expected.
 
QUERY Mr. Cassetti, I guess from MPAD got my
interest today when he went through a kind of schedule on a
launch to launch kind of thing where it was 64 days from
launch of SL-II to launch of SL-III worked that out to SL-IV
and that would leave you with an unmanned period of about
8 days between SL-III and SL-IV. Just how serious a possibility
is that?
BELEW Well there's been some proposals that
say why not send t e SL-IV crew up before the SL-III ret rns.
I think our flight control, our network, and the frequencies
we hav won't allow us to do that. We canlt tell which vehicle
we're talking to. We certainly could fly it with a very short
interval. I see no reason why we couldn't make something
like 64 days again. As I mentioned yesterday there is some
interest in - some science interest in a comet that would
say widen that interval too. We haven't selected the (garble)
for SL-IV yet.
Q ERY Well would you say that the short inter- al
is a strong possibility or fairly remote at this time or
how would you
KLEINKNECHT Well I say it's a strong possibility that
we'll get the program completed at the same time that or
by the same time that we said we would when we were going t_
launch on the first of May.
SPEAKER Ken, if I may, the help of the systems
would have driven us to short intervals and today that doesn't
look llke a driver.
BEL W But there's more than that. We get more
out of it when it's manned and when it's unmanned. Now you
might get some objections out of some of the solar scientists
that are getting more data because there is unattended time
and if shorten the program they actually lose some data.
QUERY How much if you do decide that you would
llke to have it end about the same t me as you would have if
you had May I - about how long a gap would that give you
between the second and third mission?
END OF TAPE
QUERY that you would like to have it in at
about the same time as you would have if you had May ist.
Then about how long a gap would that give you between the
second and third missions?
HANES You can add that as well as I can. I don't
have it on the top of my head.
QUERY How long would they hope to end the - -
KLEINKNECHT Well, we were going to finish on the 23rd,
of, I think originally on the 23rd of December. It's almost
irrevelant and it doesn't make - very open on that end.
QUERY If I recall the dates on the
comment. It was in the later part of December in the early
part of January. Is that correct? Is there someone who
wants to move it back so that you would be up past New Years?
BELEW That community of scientists would, yes.
KLEINKNECHT Some of us would be very happy to get their
Christmas off for a change for the first time in about 12 years.
(laughter)
December.
BELEW The perihelion of the comet, when it comes
the closeest to the Sun i the 28th of December. It's a
very exciting comet to the community.
QUERY But, it costs money and there isn't a lot of
that around.
PAO Well, if you have no more questions,
gentlemen, thank you very much. 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning
people, Skylab III crew.
Johnson Space Center
June 30, 1973
9:00 a.m. CDT
PC-5
This is the final premission news conferenc for the second
Skylab crew. l'm sure most of them are familiar to you,
but we'll go through the introductions. From your left,
the Commander, Captain Alan Bean
,
Owen Garriot, and the Pilot Major Jack Lousma. Then we'll
go directly to questions. Arthur Hill.
QUERY There has been a lot of talk ab ut exer-
cise and what kind of recommendations tell us what your
viewpoint is on the exercise and how you plan to get more
of it if you do indeed plan to do more of it based on the
findings of the first pollo crew. First Skylab crew.
GARRIOT I think the general impression that we
have at this point is that exercise is a very good thing. _¢_
\
ay all along. And we've pursued a rather active exercise
program for a good many months, and it only reinforces our
vie that is what we want to continue to do when we're in
flight. Now we ca actually at thi
s
more quantitative about the amount of exercise that we might
want to pursue. Pete produced on the order of 3000 watt-
minutes of work a day during the time that he was there. And
on he bicycle ergometer that's for, as an example, 150 watts
for 20 minutes. And that sort of exercise is something that
is fairly comfor
a
mount
t
of exceeding on
our average daily workloads at this time. And I would expect
t
o
average of a
BEAN Yeah, I think Jack Lousma is more in the
habi
t
t
QUERY I unders
t
t
hat you have
to, or have you already been getting feedback, and if so
in what areas?
ways. One was on a d
a
tt
of the mission,
towards the middle of the mission we got behind and we then
read it rather sp
ried to keep up with what
you all wrote in the papers hoping that you'd pick out the
poin
t
t
t
ha
t
problem.
D
a
y to day we would receive some comments from t e Capcom
saying "Say I no
6/30/73
"is over in the lower right hand corner." And so we'd go to
our simulator folks and say, "How a out changing the alignment
of the EREP now to the lower right-hand corner, so that we
can practice that way." When an experiment like S054 door
dec ded to get pinned open, well we would go to our simulator
and have it pinned open nd operate that way. Now sometimes
we went back and forth, because we learned to operate without
solar panels on the side of the vehicle. And then when the
guys pulled them out, did a beautiful job, then we had to
change back the other way. But essentially in a ay we
kept up day to day. Okay, when they came back then we got
together with them sort of informally and shot the breeze and
I talked to Pete for quite a little bit. On mostly hings
like - what do you think we ought to do different? Because he
knows how we were trained before he left because we were
all training the same way. So we sat down and talked and
he said I think you ought to quit doing this, you ought to
start exercising more. We'd talk about for example, letts
take the exercise thing for a moment. I said, "Well how
long do think we ought to o it?" And he said, well, he
about the 3000 watt-minutes, and we talked a little bit more.
And he said "I think you ought to have about an hour and a
hal a day." And then we talked some more. Finally he said
"you know I think it would even be better if we tried to
break it up if possible into two 45-minute periods." He even
brought up the point, he said "you remember back in Apollo 12,
we always sort of had a full feeling in the head most of the
time. And we thought we had a cold and probably did, but
we weren't really sure." And then he said, "You know," he
said, "l'd get that feeling during the day, maybe on the
ATM panel." He said, "I'd go down and get on that bicycle
and I'd ride it for about 25 minutes or so and it would go
away." He said, "I don't really understand it, but I do know
I felt a whale of a lot better when I exercised." So discussing
it we finally decided that the best thing we can do is try
to exercise about two 45-minute periods a day, and we're
trying to write that into the flight plan . That plays havoc
with a lot of other things that are worthwhile too. So some
days we get two 45-minute periods. [ ;ome days when we're doin
M092, 171, we might not get that. We might just do that
protocol, which takes 25 minutes, an_ then at the end of that
maybe pump the bike for another i0 or 15 minutes, and then
maybe later in the day do it. nd we might find out up there
too, for example Jack, he may need it twice a day at 45 , and
Owen may need it once a day or an hour. But what we're
going to try to do is keep our mind on that sort of thing.
 
--" exerciser, but we talked about EREP. Let's take that for _ \
a minute. We have, the way w train d for EREP is this way_ _-_\
We have a simulator over there that operates much the same "
as the sighting system used in space in that the pictures of
the targets move beneath you. On a certain time schedule _
\\
to point just at the right lace at he right time, and \"
operate the controls at the right time. And it turns out
when you begin to do that, you don't do it so grand. But \
after a while, at the level of training that we're at, we
think we can do it pretty doggone good. Okay,that's what
we've been doing. We know before flight, there was a lot
of discussion about whether or not we ought to take an airplane
T38, and go fly over the actual sites themselves. In fact /
/
one we use in space in the back seat. Not quite as good /
because we didn't have the money to do it, but it is pretty /
good. So the question is should we do that, too. Now Pete, /
and Paul went out and did it before the flight. We decided
not to do it. We said that takes 2 training days to do it. /
We'll just keep training like we are, we'll find out what
happens up there. The first thing we did was call them up an_
ask them what they thought. Paul Weitz said it's ten times
better from the airplane than anything we've ever seen, we
recommend that you do it. Okay, we said well it still take_
2 training days. Let's wait until they get back and talk
with them some more. They get back, we talk, and finally
they say, after all the discussion, they convince us that
we really ought to go do it. Jack and I are setting aside the
4t and 5th of July to go out and fly our EREP si es in those
airplanes. So essentially what we've done, and that applies
acr ss the board, is just one right after another, take the
things that we think are could be difficult or could be
important to change our training and train them as soon as -
and change them as soon as we can. We're briefing over at
Pete's house tomorrow night. And we're going to sit around
there and probably spend 7 to ii or 12 talking about some
other things that could affect us. Monday, the approach we're
going to use, which I think is an excellent one, and it
was thought of by Pete, Joe, and Paul, is I'ii get with
Pete, and Paul will get with Jack, Joe will get with Owen.
We'll split off and we'll just go around to different simulators.
We'll go over to the, let's sa the OWS trainer, and we'll
walk around that thing, and Pete will say, "Hey you notice
over there, that's where you got the vacuum stowed. We found
 
6/30/73
- that vacuum cleaner then and move it. Then he'll go over
and - in other words we'll use the e vironment of those trainers
over there to walk through the training situation and try
to get up to speed to the level that we can to where they
were at the end. Let's say for example, he says move the
vacuum cleaner over there. And we say to ourselves, mentally,
we still like it here. We're going to move it over there
and start in space that way until we hope to pick up as
much as we possibly can where Pete lef off, where Joe left
off, where Paul left off, and start from that place. And with
that we hope we can get in tune to doing these experiments
and doing life on orbit a heck of a lot faster. So to answer
the question, we're trying all we possibly can to bring
everything into focus on a day b d y basis so that when we
launch we start from where they left off as best we can.
QUERY AI, what barriers human or mechanical do
yOU Owen and Jack see to your flying 56-day mission or
longer if you wanted to? And on May 15, did you three think
you'd be sitting here now?
BEAN First one. I don't think there is any
barriers at all at the moment. And it looks even better,
of course, than it did before Pete flew for us going 56 days
or longer, depending on how that works out. I think, personally,
I think the great - the main challenge in Skylab is sort
of a self-dis_pline one. Not physical from going that long
6r _-d_anical from going that long. I think you're in a
closed environment. I think you've got a lot of work to do.
A let of it is repetitive. A lot of it is rather not - boring
is not the word but not as excit ng as some other things /
,
only going to have to do the job, but you're going to have /
to be thinking at the moment how to do it better. How
should you build a space station, 5 years from now, better? //
What can you do about the shuttle when you come back i - -
END OF TAPE
BEAN mission five years from now better. What
can you de about the shuttle when you come back and say this
ought to be a change that's worthwhile so I think the biggest
challenge is to keep that attitude on a day to day basis for
a long period of time. I think we can do it. I know that's
my attitude. That's what I'm going to be thinking about
every day when I get up in the morning and when I go t o bed
at night - I know from talking to Owen he's done tha t all
his life. And Jack's a Marine. He doesn't quit doing any-
thing he starts. So that's my thinking and of course our
chances right now of doing this are fantastic compared to
any other time in the whole evolution f the Skylab program
and it'll be better tomorrow but let me let Owen and Jack
say something too about it. Because they've got a personal
thing.
LOUSMA What was the second part of your question,
Jules, oh, May 15, obv ously yes we're going to be sitting here.
In fact it wouldn't hurt our feelings at all to think we might
be sitting here a little later than that. I don't think there
are any human or mechanical barriers at this time for us
going 56 days and as AI said I think the fact that Pete came
out as well as he did is a plus for us. I think there were
those who thought that perhaps that he wouldn't be in as good
shape as he is now. So I think that we're even more confident
now as a result of Pete's flight that we can make it and
that we'll be here May 15th.
GARRIOT I don't think that we appreciated all
the pr blems that were in front of us, at least I didn't on
May 15, the first day after the workshop launch and had you
told me also that the temperatures were going to rise 0, 30
40, or 50 degrees that 2 out of 18 CBRMs were going to quit
and 4 others were going to become very sick and that the
full magnitude had been presented to us. I think we would have
been less optimistic than we are today by some c onsiderable
amount but it seemed as the s ory unfolded that every new
difficulty that was encountered almost at the s ame time several
potential fixes were also conceived and as it developed each
problem had it's own fix or fixes available and surely enough
they all developed right on schedule and all the problems
were over come. Now on the 15th I wasn't pessimistic but it
may have been that I didn't feel the magnitude of the problems.
LO SMA Jules, I misunderstood your question to begin with
there obviously but I've expressed this th ought to someone else
before is that Skylab s a new way of operating as f r as
launching manned spacecra t is - are concerned. We previously
of course had always launched a couple of unmanned ones and
 
73
didn't have that luxury with Skylab and so there were a lot
o
f things that had to work right for Skylab to ge up there
and get going and get to it so that we could operate in it.
And I g ess I was always a little conservative in my thoughts
about whether or not I was really going to get up there and
everything was going to work right and so when it got up
there and there were a few problems well I was still at least
a
e
nt after it was up there as I was to begin with
that at least it was in a good orbit and most everything was
working right and if history repeated itself which I was
hoping it would why good Yankee ingenuity was going to come
thr
o
ugh and the great space team was going to work to ether
and pull this one out. So my feelings weren't any different
I guess M
ball game some pluses and some minuses but obviously every-
bodys confidence grew about the firs
t
li
t
QUERY Well, I me
few hours. I'm
thinking now what all of us saw as that last crew came out
a
t
rying
t
I
-__,_
entry even through the deorbit burns we will be carefully _ k
m
a
serving ourselves to make sure _hat we are responding more
or less normal to these effects and once we're on the water
I think we'll take things a little slow and easy. We will
be checking our own heart rates and if necessary we'll have
the apparatus all ready out to check our blood pressure.
We'll probably sit up very carefully at first to make sure
that our orthostatic tolerance is where we think that it !
should be, we're not about to faint. And my guess is we'll !
be fairly conservative about this and if we do have
a
/
/
the doctors and decide what our action should be. But we /
fully expect
/
health and conduct our medical experiments as we would do /
pri
o
r
t
t
i
t
QUERY Could you tell me how much training you've
done now on the deployment of the new sunsh eld and where
that's going to shake out in the Flight Pl an as things look
now?
sunshield several times in the water tank over at Marshall _
Space Flight Center and we feel we're thoroughly familiar _ _
9
with deployment of that mechanism and we feel that we c an do ,
it with no problem at all. We also are carrying a parasol ',
similar to the one that's up t ere now, and we are throughly _ _f
familiar with those procedures. We feel we can do either \
Job equally well, and that we can be successful by either
means. We are going to continue to do some training within
the next few weeks here in Houston_ in the one g trainers,
and polish up the procedures a little bit primarily in the
area of stowage, and that sort of thing. However, the actual
deploymeny went very well. The times that we did it we didn't
have a failure on doing it and encounte ed no problems in
doing it. So we're confident that we c an do either the twin
BEAN You might say something else on that.
Thinking about it as an EVA task, the actu al doing of the
deployment looks like a fairly, not simple, but not a particularly
complex task. It looks like the tough part of it is going
to he this, we've got a lot o parts. Some of them are in
duplicate. For xample the poles on the twin boom sun sail,
we've got a couple of extra poles. So while you're assembling
a total of 22 poles, if one o them dropped, you got it m ade.
Now we got a couple of other parts that we only have one of.
If you lost them, you couldn't ut up the sun shade. So we
said, we've got two choices. One is you take up two of those
parts, so if you drop one, you get the other one out and use
it. The other approach to the problem is let's make sure
we don't drop two of them, and in doing so let's just say
to ourselves we're going to hold them in o r hands and not
drop them. You do like we've done everything else in space
flight, that we wanted to be positive of and we eliminated
single point failure. So the things th at we've done in
stowage for example is every one of those parts, we've got
a tether on. We've got a tether on ourselves. And so that
part is never untethered, and held by hand until it actually
is tethered to ourselves. And we hold it undo the tethered
and so you've got let's say 2 points of cont ct. One if
you accidently let it go, which you don't plan to do, it is
still tethered to you. And then you put it some where and
tie it down, and then you remove the tether. So essential y
 
73
keep all the parts with us through this non single point _,\
failure technique. And then we're going to operate the _
deployment in a non hurry mode because we know we got plenty _
of time. Our total EVA time to do this and to put out the |\
ATM film and to deploy the F149 experiment, we're guessing \
now, is abou
would be okay. We did lunar surface operations with li
m
ited
/
quantities and back packs for 7 hours or so. We've got almost
unlimited quantity, so we don't have to hurry. We can do /
it right and that's the plan.
LOUSMA May I also point out we're all equally
t
t
icipa
t
Owen and I have been w
o
rking
o
t
it
isn'
t
by management and by Pete's reccomendation° And also i
t
will
a
t
there, do some TV of the present parasol, You know that
even though
though the thinking is e'll deploy this balloon it's still
an alternate to deploying another parasol or leaving the
present parasol if it looks good enough there. Our present
thinking at the moment is we'd do it with the EVA where we
replace the film on day 4. Now whether that actually occurs
in flight, I m an before we launch, we don't know. We will !
know after the flyaround. We're prepared to do it then. We're!
prepared to do it any other time that turns out to be the best
time.
QUERY AI, I take from that that you and Jack
are going to do the first EVA and also what about - I think
you have two others scheduled for the flight and who's plan-
ning on going? Will all three of you get a chance to get
outside like the first crew?
BEAN Yes. The answer is yes, to the last part.
The first part, the first EVA, Jack goes out and operates
around the ATM and Owen is in the area nearest the lock or _ _,f_
the pass area as we call it and so on the first EVA, Jack and _ I
Owen would deploy the twin pole sunshade through the ATM and
then put out the S149. Second EVA Owen goes out to around ,
the ATM area. I work with him in the FAS and Jack is insid e _.
The third EVA l'm out doing the AT work and Jack is in the
J
FAS. So we all get two times out. Twin boom would be deployed
on the first, under present thinking, and that's all I can
think of.
LOUSMA Well, that's the wa it was originally
set up. Owen and I were going to be out on the first EVA
anyway and the twin pole just came along recently and AI being
the good guy that he is decided to let Owen and I just go
ahead and do that as part of our EVA. So nothing has reall
much changed EVA wise, except that we're looking at putting
out the twin pole on the first one.
QUERY If you had to replace the parasol with a
new one. How long does it take from jettison of the old par sol
to complete installation of the new one?
BEAN I don't know the answer to that. We have -
I have gone over and looked at the parasol and partially
deployed one of the old ones. I've not practiced jettisoning
the old one. Or going through a time line to deploy the
new one. We've got that put towards the end of our training
cycle. Onc again to see what decision is going to be reached
on what we do and then if it turns out that decis Lon is made
to do that is the primary one, I'ii probably do it 5 or
6 times and I'll know then. But right now I don't know. My
guess is from listening to some other more knowledgeable
 
6/30/73
idea, Paul, Joe. My guess is it's conceivable it could be
Jettisoned Just before sunset and then you would be around
on the dark side of the Earth, you could put the new one in
and put it out near sunrise. Now whether that's true or not
I do not know, but that's what some that are more familiar
with it than I am are saying.
PAO If there are no more questions let the
photographers have a couple of minutes. They want to get
some shots of the crew with the model. So everybody please
do not rush up here and let them have a chance. And then
we'll start the individual interviews. Thank you very much.
END OF TAPE
Johnson Space Center
July 26, 1973
Skylab Program Office, NASA Headquarters
William C. Kea hley, Chief, ATM Experiments
Branch, MSFC
PI SO52
PI S082
Engineering Inc., PI SO54
PI SO55
Co-lnvestigator S056
this time we will start our briefing on the preliminary
results we've getting from Skylab program. And, before
I make the introductions, I want to remind you that we will
have transcripts of this available by som
etime tomorrow -
at least portions of the press conference should be tran-
scribed and available for those who want it - And can be
pick p e i i t m g t, v om ;
Director of Experiments, Skylab Program Office at NASA
Headquarters. Next we have Bill Keathley - ATM experiments
Branch at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Then,
I hope I've got things in the right order - Doctor Robert
MacQueen of the
sti-
gator, and Guiseppe V iana of American Science and Engineering -
Doctor Tousey of the Naval Research Laboratory - and
Ed Reeves of Harvard College Obs
er
vatory. Doctor Underwood
has not arrived yet, but we do expect him this morning.
And at this timep to set the stage for what we'll be listening
to this morning, I'd like to introduce Tom Hanes.
TOM HANES Good morning. As you probably all
realize, the reduction of the data and the analysis for
scientific purposes is going to take many years. What we have
today is not a technical report but a report on the first look at
the
data that the gen lemen have gotten back,and I hope
some amount of feeling toward the scientific impact of what
they are seeing, at this time. It is a preliminary report. We
have, are going to have with us today, some very distinguished
scientists and they all have something to say to us. They
don't have very much time, hut we'll go through this and I
have got - myself picked up a sense of excitement among many
of our investigators. And I'm looking forward very much to
this - this meeting today. I hope you all get something out
of it - that we feel that we're going to get out of it. With
that I think I'ii get out of the way and allow them to talk
BILL KEATHLEY Well, I'd Just
like to make a few intro-
ductory remarks. During - during SL II we had several press
conferences at Houston, during the course of SL II. You
might have detected a certain amount of caution expressed by
some of the comments you heard from me an the other people,
the Pl's. The point was that - that caution was the result
of - of - of the fact that we didn't have our photographic
data back yet. We had indications that the instruments were
performing well, producing the data. How we have that data.
And we - we have tangible evidence therefore of the instruments'
performance. And as a result we can throw away that caution,
now, and say positively that those instruments worked e
xtrem
e
ly
well - met all of our expectations and, in some instances,
exceeded those expectations. Now that the data is there, is
pos - proof-posltlve that the instru ents did perform extremely
well.
f
KEATHLY Another few introductory remarks. As a
result of the fact that we do have that data now, we can now
claim certain firsts, if you will. There's a whole series
of them. Some of the more important ones I'ii Just enumerate
quickly here. This is the first time solar instruments of
this quality have ever been flown in an orbiting spacecraft.
The first time a large complement of solar instruments with a
wide range of spectral coverage has ever been flown on a
single platf rm and pointed at a specific target simultaneously.
The first time instruments of this quality have ever corrected
data that - this quality data over this period of time -
ove an extended period of time. The first time man has
ever operated instruments - solar instruments - in orbit.
And the one that r ally impressed me was the first time man
has ever repaired an optical surface in orbit. I'm
referring there to the fact that Pete went out an removed
a string from the SO52 coronograph occulting disc. This is
a very delicate operation. It's a delicate operation on a
bench in a laboratory. And it was successfully done . And
I think it was most impressive. And particularly from the
standpoint that it prevented a significant degradation of
the subsequent data from that instrument. The - it is the
All of these things sort of dd up . It's the first time
-- that high quality instruments have ever been mounted on
one spar concentrated at one solar target -
END OF TAPE
been mounted on one spar, concentrated at one solar target,
accumulating data scientifically over long periods of tame.
And that in itself is a big step forward. The third point
that I wanted to make was that somewhat similar to the one
Tom Just made that the data you are going to see is this
data that came off of SLII. Many, many secrets hidden within
that data have to be extracted, interpreted. The data has to
be corre ated from one instrument to the next - coordinated,
correlated. Iteratious have to be made and then certain
conclusions can be drawn. That takes time and I expect, during
the course of the next few weeks, months, even years_ that these
concluslons will be generated. And when they are_ th
e
th
consuming thing.
I guess what I'm really saying is the day your re going to see
the data there may be some speculated points made. But,
primarily, the data is the thing that we concentrated on
today, not the interpretation of that data. _._
MACQUEEN I would llke to tell you a little about
the experiment SO52, which is a white light coronagraph. This
instrument observes the solar corona from 1.5 to 6 solar radii _v _
from su
n ce
eg
above solar llmb. The spatial resolution of the instrument
is 8 arc seconds approximately. That resolution is comparable to
_that that can be achieved from the ground during solar eclipse
\depending upon the aEmospherlc conditions. We hope that -
rior mission - that by examining the solar corona on a
egular basis, that is day by day, hour by hour, we could
deduce the three - diRenslonal structure of the corona and
from that information understand the geometry of the coronal -
forms, the relationship of coronal structures to features
on the solar disk, understand the evolution corona with
ti
me
material in the corona which comprises the so - called
solar wind. From our first look at the data I think we
will be successful to a large degree in all of these
objectives. On SLII the instrument obtained 4,315 photographs
of the corona. In addition we obtained TV images followlng
a Jamming of our camera. At the end of SLII a new camera
was installed and it's been operating during the unmanned
phase of the mission tests. Our first impression of the
S052 data is that it's outstanding. In fact, our feeling is
that the quality of the data is - fulfills our every expectation.
In fact it exceeds it. For this we are of course indebted
to many people, not the least of wh ch are the various
engineering te
of our instruments initially beginning almost i0 years ago.
Ball Brothers Research Center in Boulder and to the
Marshall Space Flight Center for the integration and putting
 
7/26/73
together of all the ATM's. Further, it goes without saying we
are all aware of the stories during SLII that the success in
obtaining the obs
expertise of the
astronaut crew and also, and no small part
of the dedication of the flight control team at JSC. I think
the best solution we can give on the kind of data that we have
on SO52 in which I wish to illustrate for you is that our
conclusion is, not surprisingly, that the corona is a d_.n._c
be_._t. That is the corona changes much more than we would have
expected, pre-mlssion, based on various models of corona
structures. We see changes - dramatic, large - scale changes -
in the corona on a day by day basis_ even an orbit by orbit
basis. The explanation of how th
e
of how these changes come about remains in detaied interpretation
which will confront us in the next several years. Like to
illustrate the data that we have obtained, with four slides
which show the corona roughly four days apart during SLII.
If we could have the - the first slide whi ch was made on the
29th of May. Hey, could you try to focus that Just a little
bit please? This is the corona on the 29th of May. The -
the picture that you see is a result of scattered light by
free electrons in the solar atmosphere. These are a series
of occulting disks. The lack area which provides the artificial
eclipti of the sun acts like a moon and a brown solar eclipse.
This is a calibration wedge in the center of the picture
and if you could focus on those lines in the wedge, I think
you would have the best success. Thank you. Now the next
picture, if we could go to that, is from the corona four days
later. You see, obviously, the dramatic changes that occur even
over that time scale. The next photograph is still yet
four days later, is numerous fine scale phenomena in these
pictures. This pictur e obtained on the 5th of June. And
then the next picture, which is four days later yet, you see
again the dramatic change in the character of the structure
of the corona indicating the changes in the overall structure
of the magnatic field of the outer solar atmosphere. If e
could go back to the preceding slide, please. Backup one.
Thank you. The one - several points of interest on this and the
last slide, one is here a very wel ! defined dark region,
which we have coined the phrase corona void. This is a new
e c e e c
that there are regions in the corona where there is a relatively
total absence of free electrons, and the only coronal material
that remains is that of the F-corona or the Zodiacal light.
And this will have the interpretation of these coronal voids -
will have a great deal of impllaations of our understandin g
of what is meant by the so-called background corona. If we go
to the last slide again now - might point out to y ou this
thing, which is the scattered light due to the small white
thread which Pete Conrad removed, as as Bill Keathley alluded, an d
you can see that its manifest itself with scattered light
out into the solar atmosphere and would have caused a substantial
degradation of the data when the coronal forms appeared over that
region. Can we have lights, please?
 
corona structures that are present on the mission, We feel
that the data are is of sufficiently good quality that we will
be able to deduce the three dimensional of the corona during
the period we are in operation and answer the questions
that are allouted too. And in sum I think that our basic
conclusion is that in appearance the corona is now less dynamic
a subject than other solar phenomenon. And this I believe is
our most important preliminary results from the S052 experiments.
END OF TAPE
results of the S054 experiments on board the Skylab. Fr
o
m
what I've seen so far of the data, from our own experiments
and from what I've heard from the data of my colleagues the
scientific results from the ATM promise to be the source of
many exciting new discoveries. Our film that has been
based on a spat al telescope is capable of emitting X-rays
and by rejecting
o
t
what am o
sen
t
t
ion of the
solar atmosphere. This outer hot ray of the Sun is called
the corona. It h
t
eris
t
Just as the yellow light is characteristic of the familiar
6
t
h
although it can be observed at several wave lengths,X-rays
is one of the other fundamental wave o the solar corona -
The same solar corona (garble) visible ligh
t
cha
t
t
t
t
t
- grasp the significance of some of the i dividual things
tha
t
t
rying to find - from wh ch to find an answer one
must keep in mind somehow the overall picture of what we are
t
rying
to do. And one could phrase it as say ng tha
t
we
ul
t
im
at
t
m
t
ernal
t
ha
t
which is
m
larily how the por
peeling the two before it - and the interplay between the
ma
gne
t
m
ion and evolutlon.
It also results in the rough changes in the solar a
t
mosphere
w
ou
t
t
the previous things tha
t
t
ac
t
ivi
t
a
rs of development in space
and several generation of instruments. You can see some of the
early rockets from 1963 out to 65 - 68 - to 1973. And the 1973's
are our latest rocket flight. I would like to show you next
slide, the ATM results. That's the very first sequence of the
_ very firs
the
la
t
t
he 27th of May and it shows you in the full glory -
t
 
VAIANA It is difficult for me not to embark on
some personal recollectlon of when we were with my colleagues_
out waiting for the fllm that would come out from the and be
developers v hands at that time. And somehow_ we were all a
little bit scared, Though_ we certainly didn't know what to
expect in detail. And this kind of tension was broken when the
image started to come out and we suddenly realized the full
impact of what we flnally see. What we had seen_ as you can see
from the previous pictures of the corona (garble) before. But,
as you can see_ the plasma filllng the magnetic field group to
eome extent_ but is a dlffere
nt sort of thing. It is a thing
that somehow with this high revolution sensitivity seems to be
a whole panorama. Now_ Itm not going to go into th
e
details
of the various things that you are observing and that you -
END OF T PE
VAIANA -Now l'm not going to go into the details
of th various things that you are observing on that (garble)
derives some active regions to filament (garble) on the south
nd the associated structures to the very important on the
- what will turnout to be a very important observation I
think from Skylab. Those little bright points that you see
present throughout the disk of the sun, particularly the
presence at the pole is a totally new thing on ATM. The
presence at high (garble). Tog ther with the fact that they
can be identified as being a little by polar regions. If
you put together those two things one can see - that one could
say, at least, the study of those regions is going to be quite
important for the (garble) for the solar cycle. The point is
that the edging on the solar cycle - the fine intense of the
ctivity of the sun to the activity is the fine sense of those
ctive regions which have the bright portions so that you can
see of this and the present solar cycle (garble) the fact that
those a tive regions are kind of (garble) and there are other
regions that are forbidden to them during certain portions.
Well, those little bright points which are piece of corona of
the sun are certainly highlighted therefore they are quite
anomalous in their positionLand somehow this is a fact which
will have to be explained b_ solar cycle theories. There is
.-- one other very crucial and _efinite impression one can gather
from looking at photos of t_is kind. That what I call - What
I would define as the fact that the quiet homo eneous corona do es
not excess any more. We can't see any phase of it. All of it
is very highly structured. If there i any quiet corona is that
there is going to be no corona hole - those black regions that
you see out there but even there you see quite a bit of structure
both at t-he lens and inside it by covering the surface there also.
So that concept of the quiet homogeneous corona which of course
anybody new to that could be abandoned but not to that extent.
I think that what is going to replace it is the loop-form structure
of everything that you can see in the corona regions as well as
the fact that all of (garble) activity which we call corona has
to be associated with - directly or indlrectly with activity on
the sun. Now another very important thing quite unique for ATM
that is totally and completely o en (garble) Can I show the next
slide please2 Is the fact that ATM has the capability of looking
sequentially at things and £herefore looking (garble) has been
pointed out several times. Here is dramatic change on one active
region i0 hours apart, roughly three seen times. You see the region
rotating because of solar rotation. But you also see
quite dramatically the change not only in intensity but
also the change in structure which is more important of
the region. Change of structure means that the plasma somehow
changes - the plasma (garble) changes position (garble) and is
sensitive to associate it that with change in the magnetic field
and seems that visual information which can be gathered the magnetic
fie
ld of the solar corona other than through direct means llke that,
with a f
wavelengths.
7/26/73
Then here is a visual way of displaying those changes. Now
you understand that in order to do the physics of regions such as
this one does not see them in a real sense. There is very
little way that one can do real physics of the (garble). And
that is what I think is going to come out from high resolution
results. Now let me go to the brief but very direct point. You
will recall on the 15th of June that word over the loop at the
mission control center. I would like you to know - to be
the first ones to know that the pilot is the father of a genuine
flare. And this all good - surrounded by the flare (garble) how-
ever X-ray photomultl
plier on boar
please. (garble) of that photomultiplier on top and underneath
it is (garble) total intensity from the display m
odel th
at the
astronauts were using. I apologise for the smallness of the slide
and you can see it is quite confusing but you can certainly see
the increase - he various (garble) increase (garble) flare and
another one showing that before that first big Jump in the (garble)
was stating some of the observations so we made observations prior
to the flare and then from the big Jump, a little bit after the
big Jump (garble) the flare was still going up and the astronauts
started the ATM on the flare program and we have very good obser-
vation of that (garble) and the decay phase and the localization
of the bright
urn out to
point out the
(garble) for the flare. Let me show you in the next slide. Okay,
._ this is the H-Alfa flare. Again I apologize for the quality. It
was hastily put together from (garble) Island Observatory - It
shows the H-Alfa, the brightening on the flare and you can forget
about the - all of four features. Just look at one of them. Now
w t m nt ti n d g wit m ca t
slide shows the loops which are overlooking, which are seen in X-ray
if you want those brightening again outline the plasma and this shows
t
h
e
t
fore and
the active region after. You can s e that there is - despite every-
t
ed a visual change in the overall con-
centration of the active region before and after. That is not a
general rule but that is certain to investigate. And the exposure
time of the - those photos out there is about 16 seconds. In the
next photo I'm going to show the sequence of Just four very, very
short exposures which cannot be shown on a 16 second exposure I'm
using will be moving out. Very, very fast exposure. The first
one is 1 second is the brief flare o localisation. And the other
three show the bright spots of the flare in 1/16 of a second exposure.
Ther
e
hat is
taken between the (garble) light and this one is the effect of
(garble). Then down on the left side is a p
e
ak of the flare and
the decayed portion is the - exemplified in the right one. On the
other roll the surface brightness changes by something in excess
of a couple of thousand during that phenomonan. I think that in
conclusion one can say that we can - we now know what we before -
and forget regarding the performance of the ATM experiments (garble)
_ experiments in particular and I think we can look forward to SLIII
and SLIV wi
PAO Dr. Tousey
REEVES I want to spend a couple of minutes on
two experiments, the first is an experiment which was carried
aboard the Skylab, the 22-H-Alpha telescope. These two telescopes
were put on - o board SkylaD co gulde _ instruments with
very narrow fields of view, namely the - particulary the Harvard
and the NRL instrument. Two very pr,ecise targets on the solar
disk because the field of view f those instruments are rather
small. The telescope_ hydroge -alpha telescopes, are not a new
development, they are very common from the ground, provides
monitors of the sun in the light of hydrogen. They show
most of the features in the lower part of the solar atmosphere -
the chromosphere which is formed around i0 or 20 thousand degrees.
They do not show pictures of the outer part of the solar
atmosphere, the transition region and the corona, were the
temperatures are much higher. Could I have the first slide
please7 Thank you. The H-alpha telescopes, there are two
onboard, now that you Just got the lights on. There are two
H-alpha telescopes onboard for redundancy. These are - both
Vgive video images of the sun to the astronaut and one of the
telescopes, which is referred to as H-alpha number i, is provided
with a photographic camera which records an image of the
sun with varying kind of revolutions and is used for post-dat
analysis for all of the experimenters on ATM. This picture
h
e
r
e
h
.
That Dr. Vaiana was Just mentioning. It shows the full solar
disk and down in the lower righthand corner you will see
what is left over of the flare about one hour later. We
are extremely pleased with the quality of these photographes
in that they provide a time consistent set of data, which
is much better than what e can get from the ground. They
provide over the period of operation, the fraction limited
perfect operation for the size of the telescope, one odd second
pictures usually every minute or four times that, for a long
, duration periods of time and could be used for the studies
in thei
_-_oth of these telescopes are provided with video zoom. So
that the astronaut can get a magnified imag
e of a small portion
of the sun. The erosshalrs are aligned to the Harvard and NRL
instruments precisely using the sharp llmb of the sun, and
then those crosshairs are used to point the whole cluster of
ATM experiments at selective features. And here you see proof
positive that the astronaut did in fact precisely locate the
Harvard and NRL insturements at the solar flare. This is a
picture that was taken precisely at the time
F
REEVES of the ATM data secquence on the solar fla
that Dr. Vaiana mentioned earlier. And you can see the
the structure thatTs there; one arc second, the chromospheric
network, the quiet regions surrounding the solar flare and
down in the lef han corner_ an old decaying active region
which had been followed previously ifor studies by the - by the
ATM. This telescope was - both of these telescopes were
build under Harvard connectlon_ but they were built by the
Perkin-Elmer Corporation,
and I think it certainly exceeded our expectations for the
quality of H-alpha records which_ are hope about this week
due to be distributed and released. Thetis all I wanted to
say there_ could I have the lights again please? Now the
other experiment the main one I wanted speak about today was
the - is the Harvard experiment S055, which differs from the
other experiments on the ATM that it is not photographic
experiment. We do not rely on film. Our instrument is photo-
electric. The data is recorded in dlg_mS_tape _orders
aT_dum_to the ground every revolutlon of the spacecraft_ so
that we were not q
u
film development, some of our colleagues we had the - although
we had some of our own difficultles, different than film
development. We did have assurance throughout the mission
-_
what we could reasonably of expected to get from instruments
performance. .The resolution of the instruments, the ultraviolant
instruments looks that those wavelengths is below the ultravlolant
part of the sound do not come through e
arth atmosphere, has
these observations can only be conducted from above the earths
atmo
sphere. It observes from 300 to 1350 amgstroms. The wave-
length range in which most of the atoms and ions in the outer part
of the solar atmosphere_ the chromosphere, the transistion
region and inner corona have there strongest lines. Lines
that are formed between i0,000 degrees and 1 or 2 million
degrees. Th instrument can either stop at a given feature
and scan its complete spectrum for an annalist of pravatures
such as temperature and tenancy_ or it can sit on a number
of lines, seven lines which are distributive in height over the
solar atmosphere and build up a picture of the sun -a so call
e
d
pictu
r
digital data and
convert it into a quasi - photographic form because this is
much easier to talk about and reams of numbers. Here you
see an ctive region, one rather unspectacular_ I thought,
active region that was observed - this is a reproduction or a
photographic construction of the intensity as seen in the light of
magnesium i0_ that's magnesium with nine of it electrons stopped
off. And that particular ion is only formed at temperatures
f
REEVES of about two million degrees. So where
we see white or light in this picture we know that intensity
is coming from a region that only exsist at temperatures of
I
which some of loop structures have been seen before by
the AF (garble) instruments in rocket flight, but we have
never seen anything llke this in the ultraviolet because
the resolution was Just too large. Here we have a - you can
see the resoluation element by the oeassional missing spot
in the data, 5 arc seconds about 3000 kilometers. And the
resolution elements of previous instruments was just too
big to allow this fine scale structure to be seen. See these
beaut
iful loops were the c rona material is constrained by
the magnatlc field to be in bundling rather than a uniformally
distributive. The movement of these displays with kind -
are immensch interesting for these to show the changing magnatlc
field patterns on the sun and these can be seen down to
time scale as low as - 5 arc minutes. Five arc minutes of time.
The repetition rate when we are taking these kind of photographs.
Now the next slide. Here we see a projection against the sharp
solar limb of an active loop prominence which is formed fro
iron 15. Fourteen times ironized again only present
at temperatures around three million degrees and the picture
here is a hit blotehe
r becau
se the
account rate is extremely
_
lower lefthand corner. The quiet sun up in the top righthand
corner of the quiet corona, again a very little contribution
from iron 15. But these magnificant constrained magnetic loops
where the hundredeths of times enhancement in the local density
of a plasm of 15 times ironize iron. The structure here
of course, will be closely compaired with that available
from the other ATM insturments because there in lles the power
of ATM. Not just an observation in a single llne by a single
experiment, but the capability of all these experiments then
to go back and put together the best elements of there particular
types of observation into a consistant pattern and really
try to understand some of the physics of what is going on.
Could I have the lights please.
END OF TAPE
REEVES I Just wanted to mention a couple of
other things, briefly. What we've seen here is going
from previous resolution at Harvard of around 20 - around
30 arc seconds to 5 - we've seen all kinds of new structure -
features we didn't expect to see, with a crispness we did
not expect to see either. Sensitivities are - of scattered
light are both better than we predicted them from laboratory
testing. We see time changes with - with every kind of
name we look at. We have one scan which goes across the
flare with 5 seconds of time resolution. And again we see
large changes in the structure of the active region with
time. One type of observation we even have which we never
even designed the instruments for. We've been able to look
at the two limbs of the Sun and various parts of the Sun to
see rotation. We've looked at the (garble) once every
27 days at a low rate of 2 kilometers per second. And you
can look at the Sun - the east limb and the west limb by
looking Just on the edge - the hairy edge of some of these
lines. You can see the difference in velocity from one
side of the limb to the other. This gave us great faith that
the instrument could be used to make some velocity observations.
So we turned it on active regions and have in fact, for the
first time, seen velo - what we think are velocity changes
shifts in whole large areas of the Sun in lines of the
transition region and the corona which have never before
been seen in this part of the spectrum. Well, I won't bother
giving credit to - because I think Bob tried to cover that
in his part of the talk. Again, merely ending with the fact
that the - both the astronauts and the experiments them-
selves all worked out extremely well on the SL II mission.
We did get a very much, once-over lightly view of a large
number of solar phenomena. And - but we're very far form
having completed the objectives of the mission. Because
now, having had a quick peek-a-boo at a number of things, we
have to go back and do a lot of hard wor , a lot of detailed
structures of a few detaile studies of a few number of
subjects. And we've got to pin down some of these things
in much more detail. And we look for ard to doing this on
SL III and SL IV,
PAO Dr. Tousey?
TOUSEY The results that I shall show you mark
the culmination with me, personally, of more than 25 years of
work which can be divided into three phases more or less, starting
with V2 rockets and small rockets. We developed simple
instruments for observing the Sun's extreme ultraviolet
spectrum from 1946 until the late 50's. The second phase
st
inued into the late 60's and
is still going on. And this is the development of more
- sophisticated instruments that do much more detailed obser-
 
t
period
t
ha
t
led
to the ATM experiment. They iare, so to speak, develop
developmen
t
t
about 1966.
t
devel
o
p
m
en
t
t
resul
t
s we've ever
seen, both in quality and in quantity. And I hate _o sa[
so? but, I sometimes think that with these experiments we
have reeord_d---_mBr6-_-T_atlon a,,d _=_ o ar or-
mation..than everything We did before, rolled fbg_her._"_ffut
that isn" t -q ulte'--true. _'_d_i_
{
done if we hadn't been engaged in a long
d
evelopment
a
w
t
ronau
t
m
something llke the one that Dr. Vaiana showed you in
X-rays, but one which canno
t
possibly be seen from the
rou except by relayi g it from the spacecraft. A this was,
indeed, done in SL II. We had nice TV pictures
t
t
a
p
ee_
z
_he_io-
r
a
a
nges
a
images, when compared with each other, produce a much better
pic
t
t
up through its outer atmosphere. And could be governed with
a single ins
not so easy to explain. I think wha
t
to have go
t
of
t
I au
t
li
tt
t
TOUSEY Probably look better ig we extinguish !
the lights but I see a man with a camera there and perhaps
he has infrared film. This is simply one image of several
hundred obtained with one exposure of our S082B instrument.
From here it looks as tho gh the revolution was not very
good and I attribute that to the man that made the vi wgraph
not the one who is projecting it. In any case this is the
sun seen in the light of singly ionized helium. The same
as 304 angstrum line that is sometimes called the Lynan
Alpha-line of helium. The sun shows many different aspects
and characters characteristics in this line. In the first
place we see all this spottiness, and this has been known for
along time because it has been cleaned in calcium K emission, but
it looks different in helium and there are different areas
that are characterized by this spottiness or chromospheric
network, hHaving a rather different appearance. In places
it's brighter and more diffuse in character. As has been
remarked before today, the poles are different. This is the
north pole - the north pole is dark. It turns out on this
- at this time the south pole is even darker and here is
great dark region surrounding the south pole, which has
been called a coronal hole. But we see that it is not
simply a cor nal hole. Is a hole that extends down well
into the lower outer atmosphere and the temperature is say
only 50,000 degrees. So t's really a fun damental hole in
the sun's outer atmosphere that goes right d own to the
bottom of the outer atmosphere and perha ps to the temperature
minimum. And again, as you heard before, it's filled with these
_i.bright points that seem to be the remains of the network
that is present all over the sun. Then there are the
active regions and this is a great active region that I
think only by chance resembles a cyclone with a great dark
filament this side, on spiraling this way and you can sort
of dee a dark filament up here. This region di d flare later
on, and the region over here, Just coming over the limb, which
did produce the flare that is photographed, afterwards got
down to about here as the sun rotated. Then the re are prominences,
and on this particular day there were not very many prominences
around the edge of the sun as seen in helium. This is Just
one of many images. In here you see images - pieces of
images of the image of iron 15, but I'ii show you some more later.
I thought I would Just leave this on Just for comparison
with the other viewgraphs. The next viewgraph covers the
other instruments. The one over there is the A instrument
and that one - and this is the B instrument or spectrograph s
which is an extremly complicated instrument. The results
are not spectacular in a sense that the sun image is. But
they contain a tremendous amount of detailed information
 
73
perhaps a 10th or 15th of the - or less than that of the
entire section to show what can be done with the instrumen
t
t
and I was in Houston
and the numbers giving wavelengths
should be
I have atte
marker rather
tra, one t
a
ken
wi
t
/
t
his on the disk for
• the upper spectrum and for the lower spectrum it was about
llke so Just off
he disk. So the lower spectrum is the
flash spectrum that one sees and is visible during a total
sol
a
r eclipse. As the moon comes along and - my hand may be
thought of as
t
t t
hese lines from above the lens
correspond to dark lines on the surface of the sun. Bu
t
among these lines we expect to find a lo of new forbidden
lines from the corona and many other new results. This is
Just one sample of what one can do with this. The instrument
can be pointed and was pointed at all sorts of features on
the sun, the active regions, the fil
a
t
t
rument and all I am
showing you is a sample. Let's drop the B insturment, al
t
hough
t
rument.
m
ples
t
he
stratosphere and above. Here we have an image ma
d
t
of i
t
a half
a million degrees. We sti l ee the network structure in
its full detail and here is a ra
t
END OF TAPE
bright points. Oftenj however, hav ng streamers attached
to them that are obviously following magnetic fields. Remember
that the sun in a sphere and we are looking at this one in
perspective and seeing it - and seelng it as ones finger
scanning it this way. Whereas, in Ithls case, it's near the
center and the - most of the loops are probably coming straight
out so that one doesn't see them in perspective and Just off
here. When they come to the v ry edge you see them sort of
spraying off into the region above the llmb. And the limb
itself is a bright narrow ring; which is characteristic of
all the lines in the transition region of which there are
some more here which are still different in character.
Now let's have a look at the next one which is higher up
still. This combines two things. First I want to - to contrast
a - the image made low down in the eun's outer atmosphereat
the bottom of the chromosphere helium llne at 5 - at 50,000
degrees With this image, that actually goes off the screen-
I'm outlining it because you may not be able to see it very
wel . This is from iron with 14 electrons tipped off At
nearly 2 million degrees in the corona , so the very hottest
or not quite - very hot way out on the corona - earth is way
down at the bottom of the rising part of the - of the - the
part of the sun's atmosphere where the temperature is rising.
Here we see active regions only. The disk itself is almost
completely black and we see, also, this general diffused
coronal ommission above the llmb. But_ in many places, strong
ehronal omission above active regions - active regions such
as you're looklng at h
e
r
e
direct on. Now_ this is the flare -
a piece of the flare spectrum you saw before - images of the
flare in H-Alpha and in X-rays. Here we see the flare
and some more lines and, in fact, We
have hundreds of images
of the flare on - on a slngle exposure made in different lines.
Here is the flare in the helium llne. Oddly enough, the flare
looks black. And this is a photographic phenomenon
th t is not recognized by most people, fortunately, because
amateur and professional photographic emulsions don't
ordinarily do this. But if you ishine too much light on the
film - in other works - if you over expose too much instead
of Just getting black
disappear and, in fact_ disappears completely. In other
workd, the
e
- of the hottest - of the most intense types of
the flare was indeed so bright that it was this material itj
so to speak, burned a hole in the in the emulsion, figuratively.
And produced a - automatically reversed image. So this
is the flare solarlzed. However, in iron 15, the flare is
shown in its normal, bright sense. And this is the image
of the flare in iron 15 and this in iron 14 and various other
images.
TOUSEY So we are very pleased indeed to have
images of the flare in so many different lines. And there
are active regions scattered here and there. I have one
more picture which is, to me, the most spectacular of all.
A flare is supposed to be the most spectacular and dramatic
thing in solar physics, but, - - This eruptive prominence, as
far as I'm concerned, is far more dramatic. This is, of
course, helium, the image itself is overexposed. This
eruptive prominance goes way up i00,000 or more miles above
the sun. And it shows a great deal of structure following
magnetic loops. This, as you will recall, is from the
50,000 degree level. Iron 14 times ionized happens to be
on the other side the way the slide is made up. Here is the
same thing in iron 14 times ionized. And you can see
it's completely different in structure. It's sort of
painted with a broad brush. It still has loops and curves
and that's showing that the magnetic fields are present in
the corona. But for some reason which I don't understand, there
is little - there is no trace of the erruptive prominanee
itself in the iron image. But it does show how nicely how
black the disk is as seen in the coronal line. But it's
spotted with fantastic active region images which
are different from - between almost every line that we see
in this region. We have_ it seems_ thousands of these
images to look at and, as someone else saidp it's going to
take years to extract all the information there is from
these images.
(-- PAO I am happy to say we are joined by
Dr. James Underwood of Aerospace Corporation who will have
some remarks for us. Dr. Underwood?
UNDERWOOD Good morning. I'm sorry to be late, but
unfortunately I went to the wrong place, I finally found
out were I was suppose to be and got here. I will also
apolloglze if I'm a little repet tive because I haven't
heard what the other experimenters had to say, so if I - if
I have to - if I repeat some of what has already been said
I thinklyou'll yall understand that I hav en't been hear to
hear the previous discussion. Especially in regards of
in the regards of what - what Dr. Val na and what S054 says
as thetr experiment is being quiet slmular t