Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 307
McDivitt
This extra force that we are talking about is due to the 0-rings they put in the
pyros that are used for jettisoning the hatch. This is something that they put in
just before the flight -- something that we’d gone out to the spacecraft to feel. We
knew just about what the force was, but it was pretty high.
White
Okay. At this time I had certain things that I had to accom plish. I had to mount
the camera on the back of the adapter and mount the umbilical guard on the edge
of the door. I elected, as I had planned, to go ahead and mount the camera first
and then the umbilical guard. I mounted the camera and it went on without too
much difficulty. The three little lugs on the bottom are a good mounting scheme.
I think I would make a little easier engaging device for working out in a hard suit.
I had familiarity with it, and it did lock up there all right. The umbilical guard for
the umbilical on the side of the door took me a little longer to mount. Back to
opening the hatch -- I had the thermal gloves on when we were opening the hatch,
and because of the fine work I had to do with the little gain and the drive lugs up
there. I had to remove the thermal gloves so that I could actually actuate those
small levers. I couldn’t do them with any precision with my gloved hand. So, I took
the thermal gloves off at this time, and I handed them to Jim. When I got back
out, I didn’t notice any temperature extremes. I felt quite confident that there
wouldn’t be any heat, since we just came out of the dark side, so I decided to do
the actual work in putting this equipment on with my plain pressure suit gloves.
[4-28] I had much more feel with them. Let me get back now to the umbilical
guard on the door. It went on pretty well. It took me a little longer and it took
me four or five tries to get the little pin into the hole that actually snubbed the
guard down on the door. I did something then that I hadn’t planned to do. The
bag floated up and out of the spacecraft and now it was above the point where
the hose was going through the umbilical guard. I had planned to keep it down
inside. I left it there for two reasons: (1) I figured it was there already and I would
have had to take the umbilical cord off again and scooted it back down, and (2)
I also felt that Jim might have had a better view if it wasn’t sitting right in front
of him on the hose coming up from the repress valve. I elected to go ahead and
leave the bag there. I then re ported to Jim that I had everything all mounted and
was ready to go. I had planned to take a short series of pic tures. Since we had
gotten out early, I had a little extra time at this time, so I went ahead and turned
the outside EVA camera on. I took a short sequence of pictures that actually gives
the egress up out of the seat, I kind of went back down and came out again so
they would get an actual picture of it, and then I turned the camera off again. I
mounted the camera and I turned it on while it was on the mount. I took a short
sequence when I asked Jim to hand me my left thermal glove, which he did. I
put the thermal glove on while the camera was running. I turned back around. I
wanted to be sure the camera was off, so I took it off the mount, and I turned the
camera off and actually visually took a look to see if the switch was off.
McDivitt
Did you knock it off one time? I thought you said the camera fell off.