At Honeysuckle during the Apollo 7 mission:

Bryan Sullivan (left) checking spacecraft command data received via a teletype tape from mission control while Ron Hicks makes entries in the computer log book.

Bryan writes: “I can still remember the excitement at HSK as we were about hear US voices on the downlink for the first time. The first local SIMS with a GSFC/NASA 421 team was a real hoot but never the less a harrowing experience. It was the first time I got the feeling of the responsibility for the 642B computers and understood the significance of ‘what if it is my piece of equipment that causes the mission to fail or worse still – the loss of the astronauts’.”

In the background is the Telemetry Computer and Magnetic Tape unit.

Items on the console besides an ashtray include a Motorola high speed printer, an intercom control unit and speaker as well as a precision timing device (Smiths cooking timer). The little timer was used during countdowns and mission operations to alert operators of significant events or when to make important keyboard entries into the computers.

Note the Tektronix oscilloscope displaying a circular lissajous figure. Bill Perrin remembers these large trolley mounted oscilloscopes as the Tektronix model 545B which were a common item throughout all the operations sections of the station.

(Notes: Bryan Sullivan. Scan: Colin Mackellar .)