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February 11th, 2007 | 
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The below timestamped commentary documents the Apollo 13 accident from about 2 minutes before the accident began to about 5 minutes after the accident. The time sequence is given in Ground elapsed time – the time elapsed from the liftoff of Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970. To help with the time perspective, 55:52:00 G.E.T. is the same as 10:05 PM EST on April 13,1970.
55:52:31 – Master caution and warning triggered by low hydrogen pressure in tank no. 1
55:52:58 – CapCom (Jack Lousma): “13, we’ve got one more item for you, when you get a chance. We’d like you to stir up the cryo tanks. In addition, I have shaft and trunnion …..
55:53:06 – Swigert: “Okay.”
55:53:07 – CapCom: “…. for looking at Comet Bennett, if you need it.”
55:53:12 – Swigert: “Okay. Stand by.”
55:53:18 – Oxygen tank No. 1 fans on.
55:53:19 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure decreases 8 psi.
55:53:20 – Oxygen tank No. 2 fans turned on.
55:53:20 – Stabilization control system electrical disturbance indicates a power transient.
55:53:21 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure decreases 4 psi.
55:53:22.718 – Stabilization control system electrical disturbance indicates a power transient.
55:53:22.757 – 1.2 Volt decrease in ac bus 2 voltage.
55:53:22.772 – 11.1 amp rise in fuel cell 3 current for one sample
55:53:26 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure begins rise lasting for 24 seconds.
55:53:38.057 – 11 volt decrease in ac bus 2 voltage for one sample.
55:53:38.085 – Stabilization control system electrical disturbance indicates a power transient.
55:53:41.172 – 22.9 amp rise in fuel cell 3 current for one sample
55:53:41.192 – Stabilization control system electrical disturbance indicates a power transient.
55:54:00 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure rise ends at a pressure of 953.8 psia.
55:54:15 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure begins to rise.
55:54:30 – Oxygen tank No. 2 quantity drops from full scale for 2 seconds and then reads 75.3 percent.
55:54:31 – Oxygen tank No. 2 temperature begins to rise rapidly.
55:54:43 – Flow rate of oxygen to all three fuel cells begins to decrease.
55:54:45 – Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure reaches maximum value of 1008.3 psia.
55:54:51 – Oxygen tank No. 2 quantity jumps to off-scale high and then begins to drop until the time of telemetry loss, indicating failed sensor.
55:54:52 – Oxygen tank No. 2 temperature sensor reads -151.3 F.
55:54:52.703 – Oxygen tank No. 2 temperature suddenly goes off-scale low, indicating failed sensor.
55:54:52.763 – Last telemetered pressure from oxygen tank No. 2 before telemetry loss is 995.7 psia.
55:54:53.182 – Sudden accelerometer activity on X, Y, Z axes.
55:54:53.220 – Stabilization control system rate changes begin.
55:54:53.323 – Oxygen tank No. 1 pressure drops 4.2 psi.
55:54:53.500 – 2.8 amp rise in total fuel cell current.
55:54:53.542 – X, Y, and Z accelerations in CM indicate 1.17g, 0.65g, and 0.65g.
55:54:53.555 – Master caution and warning triggered by DC main bus B undervoltage. Alarm is turned off in 6 seconds. All indications are that the cryogenic oxygen tank No. 2 lost pressure in this time period and the panel separated.
55:54:54.741 – Nitrogen pressure in fuel cell 1 is off-scale low indicating failed sensor.
55:54:55.350 – Telemetry recovered.
55:54:56 – Service propulsion system engine valve body temperature begins a rise of 1.65 F in 7 seconds. DC main A decreases 0.9 volts to 28.5 volts and DC main bus B 0.9 volts to 29.0 volts. Total fuel cell current is 15 amps higher than the final value before telemetry loss. High current continues for 19 seconds. Oxygen tank No. 2 temperature reads off-scale high after telemetry recovery, probably indicating failed sensors. Oxygen tank No. 2 pressure reads off-scale low following telemetry recovery, indicating a broken supply line, a tank pressure below 19 psi, or a failed sensor. Oxygen tank No. 1 pressure reads 781.9 psia and begins to drop.
55:54:57 – Oxygen tank No. 2 quantity reads off-scale high following telemetry recovery indicating failed sensor.
55:55:01 – Oxygen flow rates to fuel cells 1 and 3 approached zero after decreasing for 7 seconds.
55:55:02 – The surface temperature of the service module oxidizer tank in bay 3 begins a 3.8 F increase in a 15 second period. The service propulsion system helium tank temperature begins a 3.8 F increase in a 32 second period.
55:55:09 – DC main bus A voltage recovers to 29.0 volts, DC main bus B recovers to 28.8.
55:55:20 – Swigert: “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
55:55:28 – Lousma: “This is Houston. Say again please.”
55:55:35 – Lovell: “Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.”
55:55:42 – Lousma: “Roger. Main B undervolt.”
55:55:49 – Oxygen tank No. 2 temperature begins steady drop lasting 59 seconds indicating a failed sensor.
55:56:10 – Haise: “Okay. Right now, Houston, the voltage is–is looking good. And we had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning there. And as I recall, main B was the one that had an amp spike on it once before.
55:56:30 – Lousma: “Roger, Fred.”
55:56:38 – Oxygen tank No. 2 quantity becomes erratic for 69 seconds before assuming an off-scale low state, indicating a failed sensor.
55:56:54 – Haise: “In the interim here, we’re starting to go ahead and button up the tunnel again.”
55:57:04 – Haise: “That jolt must have rocked the sensor on — see now — oxygen quantity 2. It was oscillating down around 20 to 60 percent. Now it’s full-scale high.”
55:57:39 – Master caution and warning triggered by DC main bus B undervoltage. Alarm is turned off in 6 seconds.
55:57:40 – DC main bus B drops below 26.25 volts and continues to fall rapidly.
55:57:44 – Lovell: “Okay. And we’re looking at our service module RCS helium 1. We have — B is barber poled and D is barber poled, helium 2, D is barber pole, and secondary propellants, I have A and C barber pole.” AC bus fails within 2 seconds.
55:57:45 – Fuel cell 3 fails.
55:57:59 – Fuel cell current begins to decrease.
55:58:02 – Master caution and warning caused by AC bus 2 being reset.
55:58:06 – Master caution and warning triggered by DC main bus undervoltage.
55:58:07 – DC main bus A drops below 26.25 volts and in the next few seconds levels off at 25.5 volts.
55:58:07 – Haise: “AC 2 is showing zip.”
55:58:25 – Haise: “Yes, we got a main bus A undervolt now, too, showing. It’s reading about 25 and a half. Main B is reading zip right now.”
56:00:06 – Master caution and warning triggered by high hydrogen flow rate to fuel cell 2.
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While Mardi Gras history is one of those legends that remains unsettled to this day, this is the most common story.
In 1829, several young men returned from a visit to Paris back to their home town of New Orleans, Louisiana. While in Paris, they fell in love with a lively French custom and made efforts to bring this custom to New Orleans. They dressed in costumes and masks and paraded through the narrow streets of the French Quarter of New Orleans. People saw them and became excited by the spectacle. More people joined and followed them until they caught the attention of the ladies of the town, who leaned over their balconies and threw chocolates and kisses to them. From that time on, masked walking parades became fashionable in New Orleans in the springtime.
Over the years, the festivals became more organized and elaborate. In 1857, a group of people calling themselves “The Mystick Krewe of Comus” made their way through the streets on floats pulled by horses. One float was carrying the king of the Krewe on a throne and another carried a devil sitting among flames made from paper and representing hell.
In 1872, a person of true royal blood found his way into the festival. Alexis Alexandrovich Romanov, the brother of the heir to the Russian throne, visited New York and fell in love with an American actress named Lydia Thompson. He followed her to New Orleans, where the Mardi Gras was being planned. When the planners discovered that a royal person was attending the noisy festivities a float was added for a new king, “Rex.” (Thus was born the Krewe of Rex – an important cornerstone of the history of Mardi Gras.)
That year set the pattern for the boisterous fashion in which the Mardi Gras is celebrated today. Purple, green and gold became the official holiday colors. The Grand Duke Alexis was surprised and honored to sit on the float and play the role of Rex. Alexis and Lydia probably never even met, but they began a tradition. Rex and his queen are chosen each year to ride on the largest float. They are masked and in costume. Those around the royalty, called “maskers,” toss “throw-outs” to the crowd in response to the traditional cry, “Throw me something mister!” The “throw-outs” are large tin coins, plastic beads and other trinkets.
The holiday had become a full carnival by the time Alexis participated. The word “carnival” comes from the Latin and means “take away the meat.” It is a time of merry-making and intense fun because “Fat Tuesday” is the last day that Catholics can eat meat before Lent. “Ash Wednesday” officially marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period of fasting before Easter. Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lengten-tid” (a lengthening time).
1945 — Isidor Rabi, a physics professor at Columbia University, suggests a clock could be made from a technique he developed in the 1930’s called atomic beam magnetic resonance.
1949 — Using Rabi’s technique, NIST (then the National Bureau of Standards) announces the world’s first atomic clock using the ammonia molecule as the source of vibrations.
1952 — NIST completes the first accurate measurement of the frequency of the cesium clock resonance. The apparatus for this measurement is named NBS-1.
1955 –The National Physical Laboratory in England builds the first cesium-beam clock used as a calibration source.
1958 — Commercial cesium clocks become available, costing $20,000 each.
1959 — NBS-1 goes into regular service as NIST’s primary frequency standard.
1960 — NBS-2 is inaugurated in Boulder; it can run for long periods unattended and is used to calibrate secondary standards.
1968 — NBS-4, the world’s most stable cesium clock, is completed. This clock was used into the 1990s as part of the NIST time system.
1993 — NIST-7 comes on line; eventually, it achieves an uncertainty of 5 x 10-15, or 20 times more accurate than NBS-6.
The United States has carried on foreign intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis.
Even before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies—particularly the need for the State and War Departments to cooperate better and to adopt a more strategic perspective. He asked New York attorney William J. Donovan to draft a plan for a new intelligence service. In July 1941, Roosevelt appointed Donovan as the Coordinator of Information (COI) to direct the nation’s first peacetime, nondepartmental intelligence organization. America’s entry into World War II in December 1941 prompted new thinking about the place and role of the COI. As a result, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established in June 1942 with a mandate to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies.
During the War, the OSS supplied policymakers with essential facts and intelligence estimates and often played an important role in directly aiding military campaigns. However, the OSS never received complete jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The FBI formally received responsibility for intelligence work in Latin America when its Secret Intelligence Service was established in June 1940, and the military branches conducted intelligence operations in their areas of responsibility.
As World War II drew to a close, Donovan’s civilian and military rivals feared that he might win his campaign to create a peacetime intelligence service modeled on the OSS. President Harry S. Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt in April 1945, felt no obligation to retain OSS after the war. Once victory was won, the nation wanted to demobilize quickly—which included dismantling wartime agencies like the OSS. Although it was abolished in October 1945, however, the OSS’s analytic, collection, and counterintelligence functions were transferred on a smaller scale to the State and War Departments.
President Truman soon recognized the need for a centralized intelligence system. Taking into account the views of the military services, the State Department, and the FBI, he established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946. The CIG had two missions: providing strategic warning and conducting clandestine activities. Unlike the OSS, it had access to all-source intelligence. The CIG functioned under the direction of a National Intelligence Authority composed of a Presidential representative and the Secretaries of State, War and Navy. Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, USNR, who was the Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence, was appointed the first Director of Central Intelligence.
Twenty months later, the National Intelligence Authority and the CIG were disestablished. Under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 (which became effective on 18 December 1947) the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were created. The 1947 Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation’s intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating, and disseminating intelligence which affects national security. In addition, the Agency was to perform other duties and functions related to intelligence as the NSC might direct. The Act defined the DCI’s authority as head of the Intelligence Community, head of the CIA, and principal intelligence adviser to the President, and made him responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods. The act also prohibited the CIA from engaging in law enforcement activity and restricted its internal security functions. The CIA carries out its responsibilities subject to various directives and controls by the President and the NSC.
In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed and supplemented the 1947 Act. The addendum permitted the Agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempted CIA from many of the usual limitations on the expenditure of federal funds. It provided that CIA funds could be included in the budgets of other departments and then transferred to the Agency without regard to the restrictions placed on the initial appropriation. This Act is the statutory authority which allows for the secrecy of the Agency’s budget.
In 1953, Congress amended the National Security Act to provide for the appointment of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. This amendment also provided that commissioned officers of the armed forces, whether active or retired, could not occupy both DCI and DDCI positions at the same time. The DDCI assists the Director by performing such functions as the DCI assigns or delegates. The DDCI acts for and exercises the powers of the Director during his absence or disability, or in the event of a vacancy in the position of the Director.
Congressional oversight has existed to varying degrees throughout the CIA’s existence. Today the CIA reports regularly to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as required by the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 and various Executive Orders. The Agency also reports regularly to the Defense Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees in both Houses of Congress. Moreover, the Agency provides substantive briefings to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Armed Services Committees in both bodies, as well as other committees and individual members.
Espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action have been important tools of US political leaders since the founding of the Republic. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington and patriots such as Benjamin Franklin and John Jay directed a broad range of clandestine operations that helped the colonies win independence. They ran networks of agents and double agents, employed deceptions against the British army, launched sabotage operations and paramilitary raids, used codes and ciphers, and disseminated propaganda and disinformation to influence foreign governments. America’s founders all agreed with General Washington that the “necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged…[U]pon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprises…and for want of it, they are generally defeated…”
Presidents in the early Republic were actively involved in intelligence activities—especially covert actions. In his first State of the Union message, Washington requested that Congress establish a “secret service fund” for clandestine activities. Within two years the fund represented over ten percent of the federal budget. Thomas Jefferson drew on it to finance the United State’s first covert attempt to topple a foreign government, one of the Barbary Pirate States, in 1804-05. It failed. James Madison employed agents of influence and clandestine paramilitary forces in trying to acquire territory in the Florida region from Spain during 1810-12. Several presidents dispatched undercover agents on espionage missions overseas. One spy, disguised as a Turk, obtained a copy of a treaty between the Ottoman Empire and France. Also during this period, Congress first tried to exercise oversight of the secret fund, but President James K. Polk rebuffed the lawmakers, saying, “The experience of every nation on earth has demonstrated that emergencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely necessary…to make expenditures, the very object of which would be defeated by publicity.”
In the Civil War both Union and Confederacy extensively engaged in clandestine activities. They acquired intelligence from clandestine agents, military scouts, captured documents, intercepted mail, decoded telegrams, newspapers, and interrogations of prisoners and deserters. Neither side had a formal, high-level military intelligence service. The North’s principal spymasters were Allen Pinkerton and Lafayette Baker—who both proved most effective at counterespionage—and military officers George Sharpe and Grenville Dodge. The confederacy had a loose array of secret services that collected intelligence and conducted sabotage and other covert actions. Three of the South’s most celebrated agents were women—Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Nancy Hart. In 1864 Confederate operatives tried to organize antiwar elements in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio into a secession movement, and set a rash of fires in New York City in an attempt to burn it down. Northern and Southern agents in Europe engaged in propaganda and secret commercial activities. Overall, the North was more effective at espionage and counterintelligence, while the South had more success at covert action. The hard-won expertise and organization built up during the Civil War was soon demobilized and dispersed.
The United States’ first formal permanent intelligence organizations were formed in the 1880s: the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army’s Military Intelligence Division. They posted attaches in several major European cities principally for open-source collection. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, the attaches switched to espionage. They created informant rings and ran reconnaissance operations to learn about Spanish military intentions and capabilities—most importantly, the location of the Spanish Navy. One U.S. military officer used well-placed sources he had recruited in the Western Union telegraph office in Havana to intercept communications between Madrid and Spanish commanders in Cuba. The US Secret Service—in charge of domestic counterintelligence during the war—broke up a Spanish spy ring based in Montreal that planned to infiltrate the US Army.
When World War I started in 1914, the United States’ ability to collect foreign intelligence had shrunk drastically because of budget cuts and bureaucratic reorganizations. The State Department began small-scale operations against the Central Powers in 1916, but not until the United States declared war on Germany in 1917 did Army and Navy intelligence receive infusions of personnel and money—too late to increase their intelligence output correspondingly. The most significant advance for US intelligence during the war was the establishment of a permanent communications intelligence agency in the Army—the forerunner of the National Security Agency. Meanwhile, the Secret Service and military counterintelligence aggressively interdicted numerous German covert actions inside the United States that included psychological warfare, political and economic operations, and dozens of acts of sabotage against British-owned firms and factories supplying munitions to Britain and Russia. The Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) took on a counterintelligence role in 1916, and Congress passed the first federal espionage law in 1917.
Between the wars, American Intelligence officers concentrated on codebreaking and counterintelligence operations against Germany and Japan. Notwithstanding Secretary of State Henry Simson’s alleged dictum that “gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,” by 1941 the United States had built a world-class signals intelligence capability. The “Black Chamber” under Herbert Yardley, the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service under William Friedman, and Navy cryptanalysts cracked Tokyo’s diplomatic encryption systems. Working backward from intercepts, Friedman’s team figured out what kind of cipher device the Japanese used—the “Purple” machine. During the 1930s, the FBI launched an extremely effective counterintelligence attack on German and Japanese espionage and sabotage operations in the Western Hemisphere, infiltrating many networks and arresting dozens of agents. The Bureau had less success against Soviet efforts to penetrate US governmental and economic institutions.
As American entry into World War II seemed to draw closer in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the country’s first peacetime, civilian intelligence agency—the Office of the Coordinator of Information—to organize the activities of several agencies. Soon after, however, the United States suffered its most costly intelligence disaster ever when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That failure—a result of analytical misconceptions, collection gaps, bureaucratic confusion, and careful Japanese denial and deception measures—led to the establishment of a larger and more diversified intelligence agency in 1942, the Office of Strategic Services.
