Apollo - SpaceCraft Films and Audio delays

[TimberWolfAu]

Hello you fine folk,

So, there's a discussion going on on a Facebook page centralised around a nine second delay in an audio piece from Apollo 15. Apparently, the source for this claim is from the Spacecraft Films Apollo 15 documentary/downlink (although no actual audio has been provided, just a lot of claims, and a picture of a soundwave).

Having pretty much given up on finding any...reasonably priced copies of the Spacecraft Films series, does anyone out there have a copy of Apollo 15 and are they able to snag a small audio snip, say about 15 - 20 seconds, if I provide the timing/transcript for the event?

TW

[Mag40]

https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.html

Has all the surface activity.

https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap15fj/index.html

Has everything related to the flight.

[onebigmonkey]

Odd - the Apollo 15 set is one of the more common ones on eBay, but I guess it depends on where you are.

Anyhow, there are youtube videos of the EVAs that are obviously ripped from the set (I never had much luck with that).

If all else fails I can at least confirm/deny what is being claimed from my own copy even if I can't extract the video

[Allan F]

Hello you fine folk,

So, there's a discussion going on on a Facebook page centralised around a nine second delay in an audio piece from Apollo 15. Apparently, the source for this claim is from the Spacecraft Films Apollo 15 documentary/downlink (although no actual audio has been provided, just a lot of claims, and a picture of a soundwave).

Having pretty much given up on finding any...reasonably priced copies of the Spacecraft Films series, does anyone out there have a copy of Apollo 15 and are they able to snag a small audio snip, say about 15 - 20 seconds, if I provide the timing/transcript for the event?

TW

It's a 0.9 second delay claim, that poster is on about.

EDIT: Jarrah - is that "William Kaysing jr."?

[TimberWolfAu]

It's a 0.9 second delay claim, that poster is on about.

EDIT: Jarrah - is that "William Kaysing jr."?

Yes it is, that's what I get for posting at 2am.

I've got the audio from the Lunar Surface Journal, and I think I've got the actual 0.9s delay in question, so just need to compare to the Spacecraft Films audio.

Just starting work at the moment, but can I attach audio files to these posts? I think I've saved as a MP4.

[beedarko]

I have all the SCF dvd's.  If you can provide time stamps I'll take a look.

[TimberWolfAu]

So some details for those who have offered to help;

Hopefully the file attaches correctly, it's a trim from a larger audio file. As you can hear, Houston initiates contact with the A15 crew (Rover, this is Houston), there's a pause where we can hear the astronauts talking, then we hear, faintly, Houston again (Rover, this is Houston) and then Scott responds (Go ahead, Houston).

As far as I can tell, the second time we hear Houston is essentially an echo, we can hear Houston through the open mic's of the astronauts (after an appropriate delay). For support of this idea, we have how faint the second Houston contact is, and that when Houston first initiated contact it dominated the entire signal, you couldn't hear any background from the astronauts, which is what I would expect as the Houston signal is outbound, so the system needs to stop receiving to send (wasn't this the purpose behind the quindar tones?), and several times during the missions you can hear Houston in the background, repeated.

This occurs around mission time 146:15:18. In the Lunar Surface Journal, it's tagged under the Genesis Rock section. I did see a chapter listing for the Spacecraft Apollo 15 film but can't locate it at the moment, but I do recall a section also tagged with Genesis Rock. Essentially, I'm after 16 seconds of audio, or confirmation that the Spacecraft Film also contains the initial contact from Houston, followed by the fainter contact about 3-4 seconds later, then Scott's response.

For some extra disclosure, the person making this claim of a 0.9s delay between Houston and the A15 crew hasn't confirmed this is the actual audio he's referring to. I've posted the trimmed version, linked to the original and tried to get confirmation however they seem very opposed to providing direct answers that might lock them into a position. The only details we got was "Rover this is Houston...Go ahead Houston" and I can only find this occurring once during Apollo 15 (it also helps there is about a 0.9s gap between the second Rover, this is Houston and Scott's response, so as far as I can tell it's the right section).

Your help is appreciated.

[beedarko]

It's on disc 4A - Genesis Rock segment from EVA 2.  I extracted about 45 secs. for you:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZWIapKds_P9Q3KHRq5cAHt-VLuw965FR/view?usp=sharing

[TimberWolfAu]

It's on disc 4A - Genesis Rock segment from EVA 2.  I extracted about 45 secs. for you:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZWIapKds_P9Q3KHRq5cAHt-VLuw965FR/view?usp=sharing

Awesome-sauce, thankyou.

[beedarko]

No problem.  Felt a little bit like the old days.   

[TippedIceberg]

I think you're possibly chasing the wrong section. The "rover this is Houston" line in question likely occurs later in the transcript at 146:27:21

This conspiracy theory was popularized by the "documentary" American Moon, it contains the Spacecraft Films clip you're looking for and 2 other Apollo 15 clips where the delay seems too short. American Moon holds Spacecraft Films DVD audio as an incontrovertible source. Even going as far as to claim that the correct delays present in Lunar Surface Journal audio files were later inserted artificially(!)

But in reality, the DVD is an outlier compared to everything else:

• The correct LSJ mp3 has the line (and delay) at file timestamp 00:06:18
• A raw audio tape dump of the full mission. File 572-AAA contains the line at file timestamp 01:02:11, again the delay is as expected.
• The Lunar Surface Journal transcript page has timestamps that match the expected delays
• The 1972 Apollo 15 transcript pdf has timestamps that again match expected delays (pdf page 826)

The simple answer is that the DVD has silences in this section removed. It's worth noting that there is no TV sync at this point in the mission, so silences would be dead air on the DVD.

[TimberWolfAu]

I think you're possibly chasing the wrong section. The "rover this is Houston" line in question likely occurs later in the transcript at 146:27:21

I did find that section but there is a clear gap of about 5 seconds between parties, no way it could be mistaken for a 0.9s gap (unless the Spacecraft Film dropped the 5 seconds, but people do claim they are unedited). It would help if this person had of clarified the actual timing/position of the quotes in question, but it's not something they seem big on.

Another point that seems to indicate that I have the right section, as part of their....'evidence' to support their claim, they provided a picture of an audio wave. That's right, to support an audio issue they provided a picture. A second one they provided had actual text over the waves, indicating where each party was speaking. The section attributed to Capcom has a strength well under half that attributed to the A15 crew, so lined up with my thought that they were hearing the 'echo' of Capcom and deciding that was that was the initial transmission, which had actually occurred about 4 seconds earlier. I've attached the picture.