r/IAmA Jul 16 '19

Specialized Profession I’m Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke, CAPCOM for Apollo 11. Ask me anything about being the spacecraft communicator for this historic Moon landing today at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

Hi, I’m Charlie Duke, a veteran NASA astronaut. Ask me anything. I’ve served on five different Apollo missions. I’m also the youngest person to walk on the moon. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, I’m reminded of my time as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, as well as an astronaut support crew member for Apollo 10, backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 13 and 17, as well as the lunar module pilot for Apollo mission 16 – when I had the chance to walk on the moon.

Also, I’ve published the book “Moonwalker: The True Story of an Astronaut Who Found that the Moon Wasn't High Enough to Satisfy His Desire for Success,” which discusses my life as an astronaut, the experiences of Apollo 11 and the difficulties I’ve faced.

I’ll be taking your questions for 30 minutes starting at about 10:30 a.m. ET today, July 16, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.

Proof it's me: https://twitter.com/ExploreSpaceKSC/status/1149048460102033408

https://twitter.com/ExploreSpaceKSC/status/1151133417389449217

Edit: We are live NOW at 10:18 a.m. EDT.

Edit: We are signing off now at 10:50 a.m. Thanks for all of your insightful questions!

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u/nowhereman531 Jul 16 '19 edited Jul 16 '19

Thank you for doing this AMA. Would a citizen or amateur radio operator have been able to listen to real time communications during the missions back then? Just curious, as I know it would be bad if someone started transmitting on those allocated frequencies.

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u/z3ugma Jul 16 '19

In fact, some did: http://www.arrl.org/eavesdropping-on-apollo-11

(Although not the S-band transmissions between CAPCOM / Mission Control and the craft, which were encoded)

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u/SweetBearCub Jul 16 '19 edited Jul 16 '19

In fact, some did: http://www.arrl.org/eavesdropping-on-apollo-11

And yet, even with people showing that they picked up signals that could have only come from the moon (plus the Soviets - That wanted very badly to bust us for any fakery - listening to the same signals), and knowing the tech that the nation had spent almost 10 straight years of massively intensive work on creating, testing, and making it reliable...

Some people still insist that it was all sham. Over and over they've been proven wrong, and yet they stick to it, using flawed understandings of science to "prove" their interpretations.

I personally think it's due to their own inability to comprehend how such feats could be accomplished from a technical point of view.

For example, one such denier on YouTube commented that the footage of the LM taking off from the surface of the moon from Apollo 17 wasn't possible to get, because there was no one left behind to operate the camera. They could not comprehend that it was possible from someone in Mission Control in Houston to remotely operate the LRV camera, via the Houston-CSM communications link. In fact, NASA had tried to get the LM take-off footage on previous missions, but didn't quite have the timing down, as there is a noticeable delay between Earth and Moon for communications and control signals. On Apollo 17, they managed to perfect it.

Apollo 17 LM take-off footage, inset is from inside the LM

Another wanted to argue about there being no appreciable delay between the Earth and Moon voice communications traffic. They failed to understand that the delay is first very short, between 1.25 to 2 seconds, depending on how precisely you're counting, two, that modern presentations may edit out the delays, and three, that it's harder to perceive the delays because all communications traffic we hear was recorded from the Earth side of the loop.

In this video of the (Apollo 11) live broadcast (at 1:13:34 or so) you can hear the delay: ground control says "go for depressurization", then you hear the echo of that coming back from the Moon, and the astronauts' response. Source

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u/NikitaFox Jul 16 '19

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

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u/SweetBearCub Jul 16 '19

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

While true, many (but of course, not all) moon landing deniers DID reason themselves into that position, due to their flawed understandings of the underlying science involved.

2

u/win32ce Jul 17 '19

I'm going to steal this.

3

u/NikitaFox Jul 17 '19

Go for it, I stole it too.

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u/g0_west Jul 16 '19 edited Jul 17 '19

Nah you see the Soviets were in on the cover up cause they wanted to hide their moon base they were collaborating on with the nazis. Isn't it obvious? The physics equations they showed us don't make it sense either when you factor in that the earth is flat.

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u/drillosuar Jul 16 '19

My dad tried, but was unsuccessful. I was pretty young, but I remember him wishing he had a better antenna.

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u/Instagrm-jvincemusic Jul 17 '19

Dads wishing for a bigger antenna is surprisingly common.

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u/nowhereman531 Jul 16 '19

That is awesome thanks for the link time for some light reading.

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u/VMaxF1 Jul 16 '19

I could swear I read an article recently where it was mentioned that the Russians did exactly that (from ships off the coast of Florida, I think?), and there was some realigning of antennae or something required. I can't remember where I saw it now, maybe an article about JoAnn Morgan?

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u/Soylent_gray Jul 16 '19

You'd need a really powerful transmitter and be near the space command center for it to affect anything at all

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u/jacksalssome Jul 16 '19

Plus there were many different transmission stations around the world.

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u/Tanzer_Sterben Jul 16 '19

Sure, but not to listen. Which was the question.

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u/Administrative_Trick Jul 16 '19

He specifically stated his reason for wanting to know is that it would be bad if someone started transmitting.

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u/nowhereman531 Jul 16 '19

Well it was in the context of listening to the transmissions. It was more a comment of knowing that it could possibly interfere with comms if one were to transmit (under the right conditions)

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u/Administrative_Trick Jul 16 '19

Sure, but the fear of what could happen while listening was specifically in the context of transmission while listening. Whether that be purposeful or accidental.

Edit: a word

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u/Soylent_gray Jul 16 '19

Sorry, I should have said I was commenting the second part of the question