Munich Dunkel

SCE to AUX is part of our lager series. The word “dunkel” is German for “dark,” and this dark beer style offers balanced flavors of chocolate, bread crust and caramel. Easy drinking like a lighter lager with big malty flavors.

What’s the name mean?

SCE to AUX is named after an obscure system in the Apollo command module, and the story of the launch of Apollo 12.

Thirty-six seconds after liftoff, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning, causing a power surge. Instruments began to malfunction and telemetry data became garbled. Instead of aborting the mission, John Aaron, in mission control, realized that he had previously seen this odd pattern of telemetry.

A year before the flight, Aaron had been observing a test at Kennedy Space Center when he had noticed some unusual telemetry readings. On his own initiative, he traced this anomaly back to the obscure Signal Conditioning Electronics (SCE) system, and became one of the few flight controllers who was familiar with the system and its operations. For the case that first drew his attention to the system, normal readings could be restored by putting the SCE on its auxiliary setting, which meant that it would operate even with low-voltage conditions.

Aaron surmised that this setting would also return the Apollo 12 telemetry to normal. When he made the recommendation to the Flight Director, “Flight, try SCE to AUX”, most of his mission control colleagues had no idea what he was talking about. Both the flight director and the CAPCOM Gerald P. Carr asked him to repeat the recommendation. Aaron repeated himself and Carr responded “What the hell’s that?” Yet relayed the order to the capsule; “Apollo 12, Houston. Try SCE to auxiliary.” Fortunately Alan Bean was familiar with the location of the SCE switch inside the capsule, and flipped it to aux. Telemetry was immediately restored, allowing the mission to continue. This earned Aaron the lasting respect of his colleagues, who declared that he was a “steely-eyed missile man”.

Our Scottish, Steely-eyed Missile Man, is also named for this event.