2019/8a.plaintext

   1 harry i put together a team of women from the computing division here at kennedy and we have spent
   2 most of the last eighteen months combing through mission files and computer printouts looking for
   3 more clues to the source of the oxygen tank explosion onboard apollo xiii and i think we have
   4 finally worked out what happened the tank containing the source of the explosion was originally
   5 installed in apollo x but removed for modification during that process it got dropped so it was held
   6 back for further tests and a replacement fitted for that flight once it had passed inspection the
   7 tank was returned to service and earmarked for odyssey further upgrades were carried out to allow it
   8 to runoff ground power during fit out at twice the spaceship voltage and the higher power was used
   9 to boil off excess oxygen during ground tests unfortunately it looks like the thermostatic switches
  10 in the tank were overlooked during the voltage upgrade and our best guess is that they fused closed
  11 during the boil off allowing the temperature to rise to over a thousand degrees you might think the
  12 test engineers would have noticed that but since the tank operating temperature was supposed to be
  13 somewhere well below zero the dial only went as far as plus eighty sono one would have noticed
  14 operating that far out of normal range it is a miracle the tank lasted as long as it did and that
  15 adds to the impression that this was a simple accident a chain of events that could not have been
  16 foreseen but the computer file stella different story we found two versions of the upgrade report
  17 which was written to detail the procedures for modifying the electrical system on the tank the first
  18 gives a comprehensive list of the cabling switchgear and control systems that needed to be hardened
  19 for the ground based voltage it lists every critical component except the thermostatic valves this
  20 document was filed in the service records owe know it was the official record but the chief systems
  21 engineer who signed it off says the signature on it is a badcopy of his own we found identical
  22 copies in several mission files both in the manufacturers records and at kennedy where some of the
  23 tests were carried out so it is clear that this was the official version used in the upgrade the
  24 second version appeared to be the same document but it included the thermostatic valves on the list
  25 of components to be changed and the temperature gauge limits were circled several times with an
  26 exclamation mark next to the eighty degree ceiling it looks like our saboteur deliberately arranged
  27 for the tank to be misconfigured in an effort to cause trouble for the mission although we cant be
  28 sure they realised how dangerous this was when we put it together with all the other accidents it is
  29 pretty clear this was another deliberate attack on the program we found the second version of the
  30 report in a box under the floorboards in mikes place i suppose it is possible that mike had stumbled
  31 across the document himself and was investigating it as part of his campaign to prove that the
  32 russians were behind this string of problems but at the very least he is guilty of a major
  33 misjudgement and if the astronauts had died he would have been tried for manslaughter as it is
  34 together with the leak charges he will be going to prison for a very longtime of course the evidence
  35 is still largely circumstantial we can definitely tie him to the leak to the newspaper forensics
  36 matched the typewriter ribbon and type characteristics on his typewriter with the ink and
  37 impressions on the letter to the editor but we still can not show conclusively that he directed or
  38 carried out any of the sabotage attempts and we have not be enable to find anyone else who had both
  39 motive and opportunity so he is our best suspect i am not sure we can entirely relax but with no
  40 significant incidents on apollo xiv to xvi and with mike in custody i feel slightly less worried
  41 about the remaining apollo flight we are still trying to crack that other enciphered document we
  42 found in mikes place it has a very strange alphabet which i think must be significant but icant
  43 quite see how to break it yet now that the nasa computing experts have more time i am hoping that we
  44 should be able to decipher it and that it will shed some more light on mikes thinking more
  45 importantly it might tell us what elseif anything he had planned meg