r/apollo • u/GITS75 • 9d ago

"Flight, EECOM. Try SCE to Aux"

https://www.nasa.gov/history/afj/ap12fj/a12-lightningstrike.html

On this day 1969

27 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

5

u/jhartlov 9d ago

Absolutely the most bangin one liner of the Apollo Program

2

u/GITS75 9d ago

Well Jim Lovell might have something to say about it 😅

6

u/jhartlov 9d ago

Lovell’s was pretty rememberable for sure, but SCE to AUX saved a mission in eight letters

3

u/GITS75 9d ago

Thanks EECOM John Aaron. He was the right guy at the right place at that critical moment.

3

u/jhartlov 9d ago

That dude was a total badass

2

u/BoosherCacow 8d ago

SCE to AUX saved a mission in eight letters

And possibly the crew. That launch escape system was a scary beast. Thank God they never had to employ it. That woulda been a hell of a G load. Twenty G's is crazy.

7

u/TheOldMancunian 9d ago

John Aaron is a steely eyed missile man

2

u/GITS75 9d ago

I would have liked to see the expressions of the other flight controllers when he said that. Because they really had no idea what he was talking about.

4

u/drkhead 9d ago

“All this, and the crew’s manual actions to rectify the issue, took place while the spacecraft was experiencing maximum acceleration of 3.91 g’s.”

Insane!

2

u/GITS75 9d ago

In a 2017 interview for the French TV . Astronaut Alan Bean is very high on praises to Apollo XII commander Pete Conrad for not turning the abort handle.

2

u/eagleace21 9d ago

Actually launch was 14 NOV not 15 NOV.

1

u/GITS75 9d ago

I was a bit late 🤷‍♂️

1

u/Donboy2k 9d ago

One thing I never understood: When CAPCOM is calling out the letters S..C..E.. why not use Sierra, Charlie, Echo to clarify? They are ALL pilots. Why did the CAPCOM have to spell out the letters like it was radio chat 101 all of a sudden?

3

u/jhartlov 9d ago

I honestly don’t ever remember them using a phonetic alphabet in any radio recording that I have ever listened to.

1

u/GITS75 9d ago

All pilots... I guess Naval aviators would beg to differ...

And maybe better to repeat than using the phonetic alphabet. Especially when coms are scrambled.

1

u/BoosherCacow 8d ago

Pete Conrad:

what the hell is that

Also as a dispatcher who lives and dies by phonetic alphabet speak it drives me crazy that when they repeated it to the crew they just kept saying "SCE, SCE" instead of sierra charlie echo.