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NASA Science

Houston We Have a Problem 116

Posted by CmdrTaco from the oh-tom-hanks dept.
thanosk writes "NASA has started releasing the transcripts from the early NASA missions and started with releasing the transcripts of the Apollo 13 mission and the famous 'Houston we have a problem' quote."
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Houston We Have a Problem More

Houston We Have a Problem

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  • Misquoted (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sacro ( 1138603 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @08:54AM (#34764320)
    The actual quote was "Houston we've had a problem".

  • I really want to know what people are going to write for the statement that Neil Armstrong made when he stepped off the LEM ladder.

    • Re:That's one small step for ? (Score:5, Funny)

      by jimbolauski ( 882977 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @09:02AM (#34764386) Journal

      I really want to know what people are going to write for the statement that Neil Armstrong made when he stepped off the LEM ladder.

      "Can we do a retake?"

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by boxxa ( 925862 )
        How entertaining would it have been if he fell off the ladder or something. A slightly weightless tumble down a ladder on international tv.

      • Knowledge = Power
        P= W/t
        t=Money
        Money = Work/Knowledge

        Wouldn't that be:
        Money = W/K = W/(W/t) = W*(t/W) = t

        So, either Money = time (and vice-versa) or time = time. Or did I miss something?

        • Knowledge = Power P= W/t t=Money Money = Work/Knowledge

          Wouldn't that be: Money = W/K = W/(W/t) = W*(t/W) = t

          So, either Money = time (and vice-versa) or time = time. Or did I miss something?

          Yes time is money (t=Money) and yes time=time.
          Money = time = W/P = W/Knowledge
          I've been using my sig for 3 or 4 years now and it has yet to be disproven it may even be a law of science now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sznupi ( 719324 )

          ...and it took just a few missions for the enthusiasm to mostly vanish ;/ - I guess "it's epic because the first will only happen once" doesn't have much appeal for nth landing.

          I kinda regret how Russians didn't make it (it was not only a case of few setbacks along the way - it was almost like they didn't really want to succeed [astronautix.com]), how N1 was cancelled just before v2 (with its mostly understood problems possibly resolved) was ready, how the ignorant Soviet generals pushed for a "strategic parity" with (nonexi

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Armstrong: "That's one small step for... holy cow, it really *is* made of cheese!"

    • Re:That's one small step for ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Virtex ( 2914 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @11:43AM (#34766072)
      My understanding is that what he meant to say was "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". That one little extra word makes the phrase make a lot more sense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by igaborf ( 69869 )

      I really want to know what people are going to write for the statement that Neil Armstrong made when he stepped off the LEM ladder.

      "Hey, Houston! I just cut the cheese!"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fishbowl ( 7759 )

      "I claim this land for Texas."

  • To translate into newspeak for you youngsters... (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @08:58AM (#34764348) Homepage

    ...that would be "Houston we have an issue".

  • Starting to release? (Score:5, Informative)

    by HonIsCool ( 720634 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @09:14AM (#34764488)
    The transcripts of the Apollo missions have been available online for a long time. Apparently these are new "multimedia" transcripts, or at least transcripts with hyperlinks or whatnot, but the actual text in the transcripts have been available. I know because I read a fair few of them before...

    • Re:Starting to release? (Score:5, Informative)

      by RussGarrett ( 90459 ) <{russ} {at} {garrett.co.uk}> on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @10:09AM (#34765038) Homepage

      Yep. We built Spacelog to make the transcripts in NASA PDFs more accessible and searchable. For some reason everyone thinks we're NASA and this content is new. (We're not related to NASA.)

      What is news is that NASA has recently started to release the full mission audio for Apollo/Gemini/Mercury missions on archive.org. Hopefully we'll be able to do something fun with that.

      • Aha, I was surprised at NASA's use of "Now open to the public in a searchable, linkable format." - I thought, well, that's mighty brilliant of you to realise how good that is, and why didn't you do it in the first place ;-).

        It would be wonderful to be able to hear the audio linked with the quote / range of time on spacelog.org. Actually that's what I hoped this was.

        Congratulations on a great project.

      • I seem to recall a long time ago - ~2000 - a nice website, with full transcripts of all the apollo missions, including commentary, in a nice text searchable format - not PDF.

        I've forgotten the name though.
        I don't think it was a NASA project.

        • Re:Starting to release? (Score:5, Informative)

          by RussGarrett ( 90459 ) <{russ} {at} {garrett.co.uk}> on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @11:26AM (#34765872) Homepage

          I suspect you mean the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal [nasa.gov] and the Apollo Flight Journal [nasa.gov], and they are semi-official NASA projects. (To tell the truth, I didn't know about the latter until after we built Spacelog.)

          Although some of the commentary and analysis interspersed into them is awesome, we're not a huge fan of the ALSJ and the AFJ because:

          • The weird split between Flight and Lunar Surface is a bit arbitrary
          • They're a bit ugly (ugh, frames), whereas Spacelog is pretty (photos are inline, for example)
          • It's difficult to link directly to a quote
          • The commentary is on the technical side, while we want Spacelog to be fairly accessible
          • Their transcripts only cover certain Apollo missions (notably not 13). We want to cover Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and more (NASA just released some Shuttle transcripts)
          • They claim copyright on their corrected version of the transcript. All of Spacelog (both the corrected transcript and the code) is public domain like the original transcripts
      • Since your NASA when are your movie reviews coming out?

    • Re:Starting to release? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@gmai l . c om> on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @11:44AM (#34766088) Homepage

      The transcripts of the Apollo missions have been available online for a long time.

      And in a much more useful format (with illustrations, technical notes, etc...) at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal [nasa.gov]. This 'new' version is nothing but the transcripts run through a bot that adds pretty pictures and stupid 'tweet this' links.

  • My first message would have been "Houston, we are like totally fucked. This space ship? This fucking fucker is fucking fucked!"

    Houston would have replied: "M'kay . . . what exactly is the problem?"

    I guess with my sewer-mouth, I won't need to apply for an astronaut post anywhere.

    • I always figured that there was an element of superstition that made them expect something bad would happen, maybe they just weren't surprised when it did. On the other hand, the first moon landing was less than a year before so it could just have been that their nerves were already shot from navigating relatively uncharted territory.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

        I always figured that there was an element of superstition that made them expect something bad would happen, maybe they just weren't surprised when it did. On the other hand, the first moon landing was less than a year before so it could just have been that their nerves were already shot from navigating relatively uncharted territory.
        I think it was probably a little of both. Apollo 13, taking off on April 13... I haven't read Lost Moon but the superstition was stressed strongly in the movie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cje ( 33931 )

      I guess with my sewer-mouth, I won't need to apply for an astronaut post anywhere.

      Well, you could have always flown with Pete Conrad.

    • AFAIK they didnt know the full extent of the problem right away, if you check the com-logs, the first thing after "we've had a problem" is about a main bus undervolt, not exactly anything to prompt thought about being "fucking fucked", more along on the lines of "those fucking electrical engineers fucked up the fucking main bus wiring, fucking fuckers"

    • Houston, I am sick of these MOTHERFUCKING PROBLEMS on this MOTHERFUCKING SPACESHIP!

    • There were a few incidents of "frank language" during the Apollo program. On Apollo 10, Gene Cernan let fly with a "Son of a Bitch" and a few other expletives when the lunar module veered out of control for a few moments due to an improper guidance system setting. This caused a minor stir back on earth, with religious conservatives and other prudes taking NASA and Cernan to task for allowing such vulgarity to be broadcast into their living rooms.

      On Apollo 16, John Young was caught on VOX while dropping a fe

  • Beatles in Space (Score:5, Interesting)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @09:25AM (#34764576)
    01 00 16 12
    Jim Lovell (CDR)
    Gosh, we had forgotten, but we'd like to hear what the news is.
    01 00 16 15
    Joe Kerwin (CAPCOM)
    Okay. There's not a whole lot to it. Well, let's see, we'll start with the—Let's start with sports, what the heck. The Astros survived 8 to 7, the Braves got five or six runs in the—five runs in the ninth inning, but they just made it; and in the other important game of the day, the Cubs were rained out. I have all the rest of the scores, you can tell me if you want any of them. They had earthquakes in Manila and other areas of the island of Luzon. There were three tremors and they kept the buildings shaking for about a half an hour or so, and it was about a 5 on the Richter scale.
    Okay, let's see. The Beatles have announced they will no longer perform as a group. The quartet is reported to have made in excess of a half billion dollars during their short musical career. However, rumors that they will use this money to start their own space program are false. 01 00 17 24
    Jim Lovell (CDR)
    Maybe we could borrow some.
    01 00 17 26
    Joe Kerwin (CAPCOM)

    (Laughter) Okay. Okay.

  • shortcut to the famous quote (Score:5, Informative)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @09:33AM (#34764654)

    Okay, so the summary points to the root of the web site. If you'd rather not navigate through the different missions and multimedia items to find it, here's a direct link to the "Houston, we've had a problem" [spacelog.org] quote:

    02 07 55 19 Fred Haise (LMP)
    Okay, Houston --

    02 07 55 20 Jack Swigert (CMP)
    I believe we've had a problem here.

    02 07 55 28 Jack Lousma (CAPCOM)
    This is Houston. Say again, please.

    02 07 55 35 Jim Lovell (CDR)
    Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.

    • Just reading that gives me goosebumps.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tokul ( 682258 )

      Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.

      Can we hear uncensored version? :) People under stress don't shout "MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT", they say something that starts with f.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      02 07 55 19 Fred Haise (LMP)
      Okay, Houston --

      02 07 55 20 Jack Swigert (CMP)
      I believe we've had a problem here.

      02 07 55 28 Jack Lousma (CAPCOM)
      This is Houston. Say again, please.

      02 07 55 29 Jack Lousma (CAPCOM)
      Your circuit's dead. There's something wrong. Can you hear me?

      02 07 55 35 Jim Lovell (CDR) .......

  • Forget famous (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MBlueD ( 1464095 )
    This is the quote that sent a shiver down my spine (Mercury 6, John Glenn): http://mercury6.spacelog.org/00:00:05:18/#log-line-318 [spacelog.org]
    • Indeed. Thanks for that link. I can't just imagine what this moment must have been for him. Amongst all the professional status reports, this short, casual, "Oh, that view is tremendous". THAT is why we go to space, folks.

    • I had a 45 (an actual record, for you yutes) of that mission audio [wikipedia.org] when I was a kid. I thought it was the coolest thing. The record, IIRC, was orange in color.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by fishbowl ( 7759 )

        I had that record too; It came with my "Mercury Joe" capsule. I loved playing with it, even though it got me labeled as "a guy who played with dolls at age 6."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vinn01 ( 178295 )

      While it's hard to get great quotes from a monkey. A monkey could have done that mission. In fact, a monkey *did* do that mission. And the monkey did it first. And the monkey did it better - (didn't almost reset the clock at the wrong time).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by MBlueD ( 1464095 )
        I don't think that the monkey *did* this mission as much as it was *done* to him... Kudos to the little (evolutionary) cousin either way.

  • Is this news? (Score:4, Informative)

    by xded ( 1046894 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @09:39AM (#34764716)

    Transcripts and audio files have been available forever at http://history.nasa.gov/afj/ [nasa.gov] (even if they actually miss Apollo 13).

    Also, probably not everyone knows that in that speech Houston is not the city in Texas hosting the JSC, but the CAPCOM (no, not the company [wikipedia.org]) callsign.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's the callsign because it *is* the city in Texas hosting the JSC... That's like saying "when the news talks about Washington doing something, they don't mean the city where most of the US government is located itself did something, that's just the informal name we sometimes call the government." We get it...thanks for assuming we have athe intelligence of a 3rd grader and were introduced to NASA spaceflight by the summary by above.

  • Not directly from NASA (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Mission transcripts have been available from NASA for years as PDFs with very poor OCR. This project is an independent effort to turn them into a computer-friendly format. You can help too (see the bottom of the front page).

  • "NOUN 37" / "VERB 12" - not redactions (Score:4, Informative)

    by thatseattleguy ( 897282 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2011 @12:05PM (#34766354) Homepage

    Just an FYI: reading through the transcript I kept seeing things like "NOUN 37" and "VERB 12" - I thought these might be redactions for national security or censorship of Very Bad Words (ala the Nixon White House tapes and "expletive deleted" - but I'm dating myself to know about that). But they actually seem to be the way the internal shipboard guidance computer was controlled, with two part commands, one being an action (not surprisingly, "VERB yy") and one being an object to be acted upon ("NOUN xx"). Details here:

    http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm [nasa.gov]

    Interestingly, this is not at all unlike how the original Fortran code for ADVENT (the seminal "Collossal Cave Adventure") was architected, even down to the terminology used.

  • This is a non story really - okay - so it's searchable, but the OP makes it sound as though this is the first time these docs are available when that isn't accurate. This project does not seem to have any official relation to NASA (I didn't dox the site or creators so take that with a grain of salt). Anyway - you can find almost all of the transcripts already through NASA.

    I've had Apollo 8 and 13 on my Kindle for months now and requested Apollo 13 in 1999 via FOIA. Received it in a two huge binders.

    NASA Tra [nasa.gov]

  • I realize these guys are quite literally rocket scientists, but it doesn't take that level of sophisticated mind to keep from talking over your conversee. WHY DO MY FAMILY AND COWORKERS HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME GRASPING THIS CONCEPT!?!

    I've nicknamed several people "Interruptus Maximus" because they're incapable of keeping their damn mouth shut while someone else is speaking.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      In there defense, they had already thought of what they where going to say while you where talking~

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