When men were traveling to the moon and back on the Apollo spacecraft, how did they keep occupied?

Question

I mean the commaned module look so small. It seems like all they can do is sit down. They can't go into the service module because thats were the oxgen and stuff is. And I don't think they can go into the luner module until they get to moon. But even if they could it seems like its half the size of my living room.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Command_Module_diagram.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lunar_Module_diagram.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Service_Module_diagram.jpg

Answer 1

Probably not much differently than I do when flying my airplane. I keep an eye on the gauges to make sure that everything is working as it is supposed to, and mostly look out the window, watching for other airplanes and seeing the scenery go by. The Apollo spacecraft is far more complex than a Cessna, and there are correspondingly a lot more details to keep track of. Watching out for other space vehicles is not ordinarily one of these.

Answer 2

It may look small, but some Apollo astronauts reported that once they get to climb out of their pressure-suits, it felt like the whole cabin seemed to expand. Plus they had a little additional room between their feet and the lower-equipment bay where the batteries were located. Now if you imagine just floating in there in a freefall environment the place is going to feel much spacious because there is no ceiling or floor. If you were able to float around in your living room, you could freely travel in the third dimension as well and the room would feel much more "roomy".
They were probably occupied with housekeeping details and instrument readings most of the time. They had to follow their flight checklists perfectly and that alone must have occupied them plenty. Besides that, I'm sure they had all kinds of stuff they could have fun with, such as eating and drinking. Now we're used to performing our regular activities in normal gravity but a zero-g environment is a whole different ballgame. Even the simple act of excretion of bodily fluids and solid wastes proved to be dreadful experiences for the astronauts, and at times the whole thing could take hours (including cleaning up the mess & and stowing away the excrement).
And they probably had to get plenty of sleep too. They were supposed to sleep based on a pre-determined schedule. I think I could find good ways to spend three days in there if I was going to the moon.

Answer 3

The ISS is not much bigger than a businessman's Tokyo apartment, yet some of the astronauts have stayed on it for 6 months at a time.

I think a few days in the lunar command module would be luxury in comparison.

perhaps you should watch the movie Apollo 13. Those guys sure kept busy.

Answer 4

At least on Apollo 13 (the disastrous mission that orbited the moon but aborted because of damage to the spacecraft), I have a feeling they were way too occupied with trying to stay alive and get home to feel any boredom!

Answer 5

On Apollo 15, one of the crew members took along a state-of-the-art cassette tape player, and at one point they were halfway to the Moon dancing in zero G to the Archies' bubblegum hit "Sugar Sugar". True story.

Answer 6

See the source for an annotated word for word transcript of all the radio transmissions to and from Apollo 15. They were kept pretty busy.