Apollo 17 Transcript, 1972

This NASA document contains excerpts from the Apollo 17 air-to-ground voice transcription from 1972. The crew reports bright, jagged fragments drifting past the spacecraft after S-IVB separation, and later describes a distant flashing, rotating object that Jack thinks is the S-IVB. Gene also describes light flashes he saw with his eyes closed. Other passages cover weather over Hawaii and the Solomon Islands, and a flash seen on the lunar surface north of Grimaldi.

From the source: Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: 1972, Moon. Apollo 17 was the ninth crewed U.S. mission to the Moon, and the sixth to land astronauts on the lunar surface. This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 17 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription, December 1972, highlighting three periods in which astronauts reported observing unidentified phenomenon: a nine minute period on the first day, a three hour period on the second day, and a six minute period on the third day. • Day 00, Hour 03, Minute 34, Second 10 through Day 00, Hour 03, Minute 42, Second 29: o Command Module Pilot (CMP), Ronald Evans, reported observing “very bright particles or fragments” drifting and “tumbling” near the spacecraft as it maneuvered. Lunar Module Pilot (LMP), Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, described the phenomenon as looking “like the Fourth of July.” The astronauts speculated that the phenomenon may be attributable to ice or paint fragments dislodging from a separated component of the spacecraft (S-IVB) but characterized that assessment as a “wild guess.” • Day 02, Hour 18, Minute 42, Second 34 through Day 02, Hour 21, Minute 07, Second 05: o Mission Commander, Eugene A. Cernan, reported difficulty sleeping and described having observed “some sets of the streaks.” He also described an intense light flashing between his eyes, describing its intensity as comparable to that of a train headlight and characterizing it as “imposing.” Over the next three hours, Cernan described observing several flashing, rotating phenomenon that he assessed as corresponding to physical objects in space rather than a purely optical phenomenon. LMP Schmitt also reported observing similar phenomenon, though he again assessed the source of his observation to be a separated rocket stage (S-IVB). At 02:20:55:22, Cernan reported observing two additional distant flashing objects, though he assessed them as Spacecraft/Lunar Module Adapter panels (SLA panel), another separated component of the Saturn V rocket. • Day 03, Hour 15, Minute 33, Second 25 through Day 03, Hour 15, Minute 39, Second 46: o At 03:15:38:09, LMP Schmitt exclaimed that he had observed a flash on the lunar surface north of Grimaldi (crater).

Tape 5/3
CC Roger. They look like fluid of some sort?
CMP Not to me. They look like pieces of something.
CC Roger.
CMP They're very bright.
CC Jack, we'd like OMNI Charlie.
CMP Bob, for the most part, these fragments are not -
or are tumbling at a very slow rate. I tried a
couple of pictures of them - different settings.
You may get an idea of what, at least, the patterns
look like.
CC Roger. I've got you. We're all ears on these frag
ments. Do you think you can figure out what they
might be?
CMP Well, you know I - I don't know. There are a num
ber of possibilities. If you had some kind of a -
I got the impression maybe they were curved a little
bit, as if they might be - off the side of the
S-IVB. And that's a wild guess
CDR Okay. RCS LOGIC is ... - -
CMP - - ice chunks, possibly. Or maybe there's paint
coming off of it.
00 03 37 34 cc Roger. I noticed on one trip up the elevator last
weak near one of the flags. I thought it was on
the S-II, but it might have been on the S-IVB.
Looked like it was peeling. Maybe that's what
you've got.
00 03 37 45 cc And the S-IVB maneuver is complete.
00 03 37 46 LMP in 1 minute.
CDR Okay. We'll set the old clock.
CMP Okay. And the - with the maneuver complete, the
fragment field is essentially static, except for
very slight tumbling within the fragments.