examples of chatter from moon that reference real time events on earth?

[Matt D]

Hi all,

I was in a discussion recently with a conspiracy theorist friend and I said I bet with a little digging I could find examples of chat between the astronauts and Houston that reference real events that would be very difficult to insert into a fake pre-recorded conversation.  I know this is pointless as far as convincing such people of anything, but it's sometimes fun watching them squirm. 

Within about 15 minutes of searching key words on ALSJ I found a quick reference during Apollo 15 where the CAPCOM gives the astronauts a live update on the 1971 College All Star football game:

109:19:47 Allen: Roger, Dave. We're not going to ask exactly for a mark when you ingress the hammocks (that is, Houston doesn't need to know exactly when they go to bed). And, by the way, I think the space program is the only place where a person can "ingress" a hammock. But we would like a status report on the two of you when you get comfortable. And, a final thing, you might be interested, the score of the All-Star Game (football game) at about halftime is the Baltimore Colts (a professional team), 14, College All Stars 7. And we'll be standing by for your status report. Over.

109:20:27 Scott: Okay. That sounds like a pretty good game!

Based on a July 26, 1971 9:34am (EDT) launch and the elapsed time shown, that brings us to the evening of July 30 for the game, which of course checks out.  An archived NYT article on the game that I found states that the half-time score was actually 14-10, not 14-7 but the quote above says "at about halftime." I also found this blog post where the guy says a field goal was scored with just 2 minutes left in the half, which would have made the score 14-10 a the intermission, and provides an explanation for the score stated in the transcript.  https://fs64sports.blogspot.com/2015/07/1971-morrall-tosses-3-td-passes-as.html#:~:text=The%2038th%20annual%20College,eight%20years%20as%20head%20coach.

Seems pretty definitive to me.  I'm wondering if anybody else has other examples of this sort of thing - from sports, news events, or otherwise?  I'd like to have a few examples of this T'ed up if I can, for the next time my delusional buddy wants to go all swivel-eyes on me. 

[Peter B]

G'day Matt

I can't remember which mission it was, but on one of them the breakfast news read up to the crew included live golf scores from some major event. I debated with a diehard Hoaxer whether NASA had the power to compel golfers to achieve the scores the Capcoms had (according to him) pre-recorded in their news items. I mean, just imagine being told by some NASA flunky that you were expected to score 68 today on a par 72 course because that's what they'd pre-recorded for the hoax - no pressure!

However, more generally, if you'd like to find a few more examples, go to the Apollo Flight Journal, and then for each mission, look at the first part of the transcript for each numbered day. Those are the parts that contain the news items read up to the crew by Mission Control. There's any number of news items which can be checked against contemporary records which would have been impossible to predict. Obviously sports events are the best (see especially golf, above) but other miscellaneous news events might work too.

ETA: Here's one from Apollo 11:

173:38:32 Garriott: ...The All Star game currently being played. The present score at the end of the fourth inning has the National League leading the American League by 9 to 3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game shows a score of 9-3 to the National League at the bottom of the fourth inning.

But that could be more reliably verified by finding old newspapers.

[bknight]

IIRC there was shuttle legislation passed during A16 and that news was passed to Young and Duke.

ETA:  It took a few minutes of searching but from ALSJ

120:26:21 England: ...The House passed the space budget yesterday, 277 to 60, which includes the vote for the Shuttle.

120:26:30 LM Crew: Beautiful. Wonderful. Beautiful.

[onebigmonkey]

My obvious first thought was the live TV broadcasts featuring Earth where they described the view!

This has given me an idea though - there are lots of online news and TV archives, and it would be nice to find some of these news quotes and put them with their media counterparts. That's me busy for a while then...

[raven]

"
02 05 56 39 CC
In sports, the Houston Oilers are showing plenty of enthusiasm in their early preseason workouts at Kerrville, and Coach Wally Lemm says he is impressed with the fine group of rookies. National League baseball yesterday, Thursday: St. Louis 11, Philadelphia 3; Montreal 5, over Pittsburg 4; Atlanta 12, Cincinnati 2; San Fransciso 14, and Los Angeles 13. American League: we have Baltimore 3, over Cleveland 2; Detroit 4 to Washington's 3; Minnesota 8 to Chicago 5. Boston at New York was rained out. And in Corby, England, an Irishman, John Coyle has won the world's porridge eating championship by consuming 23 bowls of instant oatmeal in a 10-minute time limit from a field of 35 other competitors. Over.

02 05 57 48 CMP
Roger. I assume Houston didn't play yesterday.

02 05 57 51 CC
That's correct.

02 05 57 55 CMP
I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time. "
" 06 04 26 52 LMP
Look up the Dow Jones Industrials for us.
APOLLO 11 AIR-TO-GROUND VOICE TRANSCRIPTION

(GOSS NET 1) Tape 96/1 Page 526

06 04 38 41 CC
Apollo 11, we've completed the uplink. The computer's yours.

06 04 38 48 CMP
Thank you.

06 04 43 41 CC
Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

06 04 43 47 LMP
Go ahead.

06 04 43 49 CC
Roger. With respect to the Dow Jones industrials, since closing on Tuesday afternoon the 15th up to about 1:05 p.m. Houston time this afternoon, why, the effect has been a net drop; that is, minus 6 points on the industrial average. So far today since opening, the Dow Jones industrial average has gone down by 11.05 after rising 1 1/2 shortly after opening. Today's performance on the utilities is a drop of 1.63, and railroads a drop of 1.58. Over.

06 04 44 36 CMP
Every flight has to have some disadvantages, I guess.

06 04 44 40 CC
Roger. There is some speculation that you all are responsible for that 1 1/2 point rise right after opening.

06 04 44 55 CMP
Well, don't blame the 11 point drop on us, anyway. "
From the Apollo 11 Technical Air-to Ground transcript

[BertieSlack]

Apollo 17 EVA-1 took place during ABC's Monday Night Football and Cernan wanted to know the score:

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17v.1203905.mpg

[Peter B]

"
02 05 56 39 CC
In sports, the Houston Oilers are showing plenty of enthusiasm in their early preseason workouts at Kerrville, and Coach Wally Lemm says he is impressed with the fine group of rookies. National League baseball yesterday, Thursday: St. Louis 11, Philadelphia 3; Montreal 5, over Pittsburg 4; Atlanta 12, Cincinnati 2; San Fransciso 14, and Los Angeles 13. American League: we have Baltimore 3, over Cleveland 2; Detroit 4 to Washington's 3; Minnesota 8 to Chicago 5. Boston at New York was rained out. And in Corby, England, an Irishman, John Coyle has won the world's porridge eating championship by consuming 23 bowls of instant oatmeal in a 10-minute time limit from a field of 35 other competitors. Over.

02 05 57 48 CMP
Roger. I assume Houston didn't play yesterday.

02 05 57 51 CC
That's correct.

02 05 57 55 CMP
I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time. "

[snip]

You missed the funniest bit of that exchange! 

053:57:55 Collins: I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time.

053:58:00 McCandless: Is he pretty good at that?

053:58:04 Collins: He's doing his share up here.

053:58:13 McCandless: Let's see. You all just finished a meal not long ago, too, didn't you? [Pause.]

053:58:20 Aldrin: I'm still eating.

053:58:24 McCandless: Okay. Does that - that...

053:58:27 Collins: He's on his - He's on his 19th bowl.

[raven]

You missed the funniest bit of that exchange! 

053:57:55 Collins: I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time.

053:58:00 McCandless: Is he pretty good at that?

053:58:04 Collins: He's doing his share up here.

053:58:13 McCandless: Let's see. You all just finished a meal not long ago, too, didn't you? [Pause.]

053:58:20 Aldrin: I'm still eating.

053:58:24 McCandless: Okay. Does that - that...

053:58:27 Collins: He's on his - He's on his 19th bowl.

Ha! I love it! Though I think the stock market ones were among the most definitive. If the government could predict or manipulate the stock market to that degree of precision, we wouldn't have the whole Gamestonks kerfuffle.

[smartcooky]

Looking through those Apollo journals, you see a lot of names other than the Apollo astronauts who pop up later in NASA history

The Capcom here is Bruce McCandless, who went on to fly the MMU, becoming the first astronaut to space-walk un-tethered (for me, always brings to mind that famous photo of him a hundred metres away from the shuttle orbiter). He also flew the Shuttle missions to put the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.

[Peter B]

You missed the funniest bit of that exchange! 

053:57:55 Collins: I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time.

053:58:00 McCandless: Is he pretty good at that?

053:58:04 Collins: He's doing his share up here.

053:58:13 McCandless: Let's see. You all just finished a meal not long ago, too, didn't you? [Pause.]

053:58:20 Aldrin: I'm still eating.

053:58:24 McCandless: Okay. Does that - that...

053:58:27 Collins: He's on his - He's on his 19th bowl.

Ha! I love it! Though I think the stock market ones were among the most definitive. If the government could predict or manipulate the stock market to that degree of precision, we wouldn't have the whole Gamestonks kerfuffle.

Yes, I was sort of missing the point there, wasn't I. Collins's line is funny but it's nothing to do with the question in the OP.

[Peter B]

Here's one from Apollo 12:

028:38:48 Weitz: 12, Houston. We've got a half dozen or so scores of all games in progress, if you're interested.
028:38:56 Conrad: Okay. Go ahead.
028:38:58 Weitz: Okay. Final score, Syracuse beat Navy 15 to nothing; in the third quarter, Yale is leading Princeton 14 to 7; in the first quarter, Texas 21, TCU nothing. In the third quarter, Houston's ahead of North Carolina State 34 to 7; in the third quarter, Michigan State is leading Minnesota 7 to nothing; and that big game in the Big 10, in the third quarter, it's now Ohio State 40 and Purdue 7.

The interesting thing here is the number of games in progress which might allow a researcher to tie down the time of the transmission fairly tightly.

ETA: That came shortly after wake-up on day 2 of the mission. I had a quick look at a few wake-ups on the Moon and found no news items being mentioned; instead that time was taken up with discussions of either the preceding moonwalk or the upcoming one - both rather more important than current affairs 380,000km away. I'm guessing news items mentioned to astronauts were during moonwalks as incidental matters.

[Peter B]

And the next wake-up on Apollo 12, this time with detailed information about the scoring plays in the last quarter of a game: no way that could have been pre-recorded.

078:44:29 Gibson: News reports say that Notre Dame may be about to accept a bowl invitation. This would be for the first time since 1925. If it turns out to be the Cotton Bowl, they will undoubtedly play the winner of the Texas-Arkansas Southwest Conference Championship in Fayette on December 6. Notre Dame has a 7-1-1 record, losing only to Purdue at the beginning of its season. Bobby Roseburg took an early lead and held on Sunday to defeat Jimmy Wright by one stroke in the $50,000 PGA Club Championship at the Road Runner Golf resort in Scotsdale. Results of yesterday's ball games: first, in the National League, Los Angeles took Philadelphia, 23 to 17; it was Dallas over Washington, 41 to 28; Minnesota, 9 and Green Bay, 7; Cleveland was over Pittsburgh, 24 to 3; San Francisco, 20 and Baltimore, 17; in a close one, New Orleans, 25, New York, 24; Atlanta took Chicago 48 to 31; and Detroit over St. Louis, 20 to 0. In the American League: Kansas City, 34 and New York, 16; Oakland, 21 and San Diego, 16; Buffalo over Miami, 28 to S; and Boston took Cincinnati, 25 to 14; Houston and Denver played to a 20-20 tie. However, in the - Houston really made a classic comeback in the last 11 minutes. They put 17 points on when they were down 3 to 20 inside of 11 minutes. First of all, right tackle Domres scampered into the end zone after picking up a yun - fumble and running 35 yards. Beathard then got one long bomb to Jerry Levias which was over 80 yards, and in the last - or at the last 3 seconds left, Gerela kicked one field goal. Pete Beathard looked pretty good, and - especially in the last quarter and especially on that one last long bomb. He laid it right into the hands of Levias.

[raven]

Well, there is only one potential explanation, one that answers all questions and explains  . . . everything.

NASA has TIME TRAVEL!!!!!!!
Or, you know, we actually went to the moon, but that's crazy talk.

[apollo16uvc]

They pre-recorded the entire missions but did just those news items and such live, switching between pre-recorded tape and a tape recorded on that date, or to live mics.

[Matt D]

They pre-recorded the entire missions but did just those news items and such live, switching between pre-recorded tape and a tape recorded on that date, or to live mics.

The cranes and wires couldn't be used in many shots, so the need to slow the film down to fake the appearance of lunar gravity made it a bit challenging to sync up the spliced-in live bits with the pre-recorded bits while ensuring that the dialogue provided a good match with the onscreen activities.  I've read that there was actually some dissent in the ranks back then, with some feeling that all of these little cues were highly error-prone and constituted needless complexity, while bringing little benefit in return.  The debate raged on, many mustaches were twirled, and it was ultimately declared that "hey, we've got NASA money here, so I don't ever want to hear the words 'needless complexity' uttered again on this set." 

In all seriousness, thanks folks.  Some great examples here.