APOLLO 8 Modern doc Read online

  Frank Borman

  Col. Frank Frederick Borman was the commander of the Apollo 8 mission. He had previously flown on the Gemini 7 mission, setting a fourteen-day space endurance record. Before the Apollo 8 mission he had been a member of the NASA review board investigating the causes of the Apollo 1 disaster and was one of those instrumental in initiating procedures to ensure greater crew safety for the subsequent Apollo missions.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If all goes well, the spacecraft will cross some 230,000 mile of space in 66 hours, making minor course corrections, if needed, along the way.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Sixty-nine hours after launch, Apollo 8 will be just 70 miles from the Moon. At this point, its rocket engine will be fired, slowing the spacecraft for lunar orbit. Just before 9 am next Tuesday morning - a day before Christmas.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  During this critical maneuver, the spacecraft will be behind the Moon. Not in contact with Mission Control here on Earth.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  And so it won’t be known for almost 20 minutes if the engine started, if it fired long enough, and if Apollo 8 is indeed in orbit around the Moon.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If the engine doesn’t fire, or if the astronauts detect something wrong, they will merely swing around the Moon and start back towards the Earth.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If it does work, the astronauts will chart up to 20 hours in Moon orbit, circling the Moon once every 2 hours at 3,700 m.p.h. On the third orbit, they will be just 70 miles above the lunar surface.

  Jim Lovell

  James (Jim) Arthur Lovell Jr. was the command module pilot of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon in 1968. Later he would be the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission in April, 1970 - the mission intended to be the third NASA mission to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon. Prior to the Apollo 8 mission, Lovell had flown on the Gemini 7 and Gemini 12 missions. On completion of the Apollo 8 mission, Lovell had spent more time in space than all the Soviet cosmonauts combined.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The astronauts will take hundreds of photographs and motion pictures of the Moon’s surface, concentrating on areas where future Apollo astronauts plan to land.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Early Christmas morning, the most critical maneuver will take place. Apollo 8’s rocket engine will be restarted in order to take the astronauts out of lunar orbit and start them back towards Earth.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  That maneuver, like the one that put them into lunar orbit, will be done while the spacecraft is behind the far side of the Moon and out of contact with Mission Control on Earth.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  So it won’t be until Apollo 8 races back from around the Moon that we will know if the engine worked perfectly and that the crew is indeed on the way back home.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If that rocket fails, the men will be trapped in Moon orbit as surely as would earlier astronauts would have been trapped in Earth orbit if their retro rockets had failed.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Once started back, the return flight will take 58 hours. During that time, several mid-course corrections may be made to make sure that Apollo 8 enters the Earth’s atmosphere at the correct and critically-correct angle.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If it comes in too steep, the sudden pressure against the atmosphere could crush the astronauts.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If it comes in too shallow, the capsule could skip off the atmosphere, like a stone off water, go back into space and the astronauts would be lost.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  After a hopefully successful entry into the atmosphere, at speeds of up to 25,000 mph, when temperatures of the heat shield will get up to 4,000 degrees, hopefully the spacecraft will drop into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Appropriately enough for this time of year, the nearest spot of land to the point of splashdown will be Christmas Island.

  Bill Anders

  William (Bill) Alison Anders was the lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission and the only ‘rookie’ on the flight having never flown into space before. He joined NASA’s third group of astronauts in 1963 and was the backup pilot for the Gemini 11 mission. He is credited with taking the first iconic photograph of ‘Earthrise’ above the lunar horizon and later served as backup command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to land a man on the Moon.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  We are hoping for no delays in this mission. Even a delay of one month could be serious since there are not that many months left if the United States is to meet President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of this decade.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  That Saturn V standing out there this evening is the biggest rocket that man has ever built. It is 363 feet tall, and is an incredible 5 times as powerful as the Saturn 1 which launched Apollo 7, the last NASA mission.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The first stage of the Saturn V alone produces 7.5 million pounds of thrust and is 24 times more powerful than the Atlas rocket that lifted John Glenn into orbit.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The second stage produces by itself one million pounds of thrust. And the third stage, that should give Apollo 8 its final push out of orbit and on the way to the Moon, will have almost a fifth of a million pounds of thrust itself.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  At launch, the spacecraft will weigh 6 million pounds – as much as a navy destroyer. If something goes wrong on the launch pad, this massive machine could explode with the force of a nuclear bomb – an explosion equivalent to almost two and a half million tons of TNT.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  During this mission, and for the first time, the astronauts will be as much as 3 days away from the Earth. In the past, in low Earth orbit, if certain things went wrong, the crew could return almost immediately. That will not be an option this time.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  This journey, if successful, will prepare the way for man’s first landing on the Moon. And so tonight, three men stand on the threshold of man’s greatest, longest and most dangerous journey.

  The giant Saturn V rocket on the launch pad prior to the launch of the Apollo 8 mission

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  If successful, this mission will also place this country well ahead of the Soviet Union in the race for the Moon. It will be not only a great scientific achievement, but a significant propaganda victory.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The countdown right now is exactly on schedule. If it stays that way, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders will begin their epic journey tomorrow morning at 7.51 am Eastern Time.

  LAUNCH DAY

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  T minus 1 hour 13 minutes and counting. The crew in the retractable white room are now securing the white room area. We need the white room standing close by in case of an emergency.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  In an emergency necessitating the crew escaping the vehicle, we could swing the white room back in from just 3 feet away. It only becomes fully retracted at the 5-minute mark in the countdown.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are now at T minus 1 hour 3 minutes 15 seconds and counting. A few minutes ago, Commander Frank Borman asked how the weather is out there. We were able to tell him it looks real clear at this time.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Just six and a half years ago, John F. Kennedy set this nation on a course for the Moon. This morning, three Americans are on the verge of setting off on that journey. The countdo
wn to lift off is now T minus 50 minutes and counting.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Weather appears fine. Now only a last minute technical failure can prevent the start of the greatest adventure that man has ever embarked on.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  The spacecraft swing arm number 9 is now being retracted from the Apollo 8 spacecraft. Once the arm is retracted, the escape tower is armed in case of a catastrophic condition in which an ABORT would be initiated.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  At T minus 39 minutes and counting, we are GO for our Apollo 8 mission to the Moon. We have now passed another key milestone in our countdown preparations.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We have gone from external power to the flight batteries aboard the Saturn V launch vehicle to ensure that they are all working properly.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Then, in order to conserve these batteries, we return again to external power. The final switch to internal power on the batteries occurs at the 57 second mark in the count. There are some 14 batteries in the Saturn V.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  The crew of Apollo 8 are standing by in the spacecraft as this test is continuing. T minus 38 minutes 6 seconds and counting.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The Saturn V rocket is the world’s most powerful rocket with 8.8 million pounds of thrust in its 3 stages. The best we believe the rockets the Soviets have built up to now have only 2-3 million pounds of thrust.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  So we have far surpassed the Soviets in this area, although there are reports that they may be building a rocket with 10 million pounds of thrust.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  However, we don’t expect to go any larger than the Saturn V - it can do everything we need to do in space for the immediate future.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  The second test flight of the Saturn V (which was unmanned) was 100% percent successful with all 3 stages. The next test flight was not so good. Two of the engines in the second stage failed, and the single engine in the third stage failed.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  They determined that it was a broken fuel line that had shaken loose during lift off. They have improved and replaced that fuel line now with a different kind of fuel line and it is believed that all will go well this time.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Although the last test flight of the rocket was a disappointment, NASA are so confident in their engineering fix of the Saturn V that they have ruled out another unmanned test flight and are committed to launching this next Saturn V with a full crew atop the rocket.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Astronaut Jim Lovell, who sits in the center seat and who is the command module pilot, is now reporting to the spacecraft test conductor on the status of the onboard propellant.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are continuing a top off of the liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen supplies because they must be maintained under extremely cold temperatures.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  As the propellants continue to boil off, we continue to replenish the supplies down to the final minutes of the count. The countdown continues to go extremely well and we remain GO for a launch attempt at 7.51 a.m. eastern standard time.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  This Saturn V rocket weighs 6,219,000 pounds at lift off. No such weight has ever been lifted off the Earth before. It has a thrust equal to 130 million horsepower.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  It uses some 513,000 gallons of fuel, and just in the first two and a half minutes of flight it burns 3,600 gallons per second. You could get a lot of green stamps for that at your corner service station.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Ignition of the rocket engines takes place 9 seconds before the actual lift off—8.9 seconds to be precise. Two large arms will be holding the rocket on the ground until the rocket builds up enough power and those arms come open and release the rocket.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  So there will be 8.9 seconds of fire before we see the actual lift off. And then that slow, majestic rise from the launch pad.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are at T minus 26 minutes and counting. In progress at this time, we are pressurizing the propellant for the spacecraft’s engine systems that will be used in a space environment.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Astronaut Jim Lovell is reporting that all is looking good from where he is sitting.

  Jack King

  Jack King joined NASA in 1960 and was the Public Information and Public Affairs Officer (PAO) during much of the NASA space program, including during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. His dramatic and technically detailed commentary during the countdown to lift off of the Apollo missions has become the stuff of historic folklore of the modern age.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were awakened in their crew quarters this morning at 3.36 am EST. They went down the hall from their crew quarters here at Kennedy Space Center and had a final physical examination.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  All the crew were declared physically fit by the two examining physicians. The astronauts then sat down for breakfast of fillet mignon, scrambled eggs, toast and coffee.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Others at the breakfast were Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations, and two of the backup pilots for the Apollo 8 mission: astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  Following breakfast, the astronauts went to the ‘suit room’ where they donned their spacesuits. The crew departed from the crew quarters at 4.33 a.m. this morning to head out to the launch pad.

  The Apollo 8 crew entering the crew transfer van

  en-route to the launch pad

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  There is great excitement here at the launch site. There are 1,200 newsmen and representatives from nations around the world. There are diplomats, ambassadors and the like.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Two of the Supreme Court justices are here as well as many of this administration’s key cabinet members and more than 3,000 selected VIPs who were invited to watch this historic launch this morning.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  To my mind, the most “V” of all the VIPs sitting in the viewing stand here at Cape Kennedy today is Charles Lindbergh who, in 1927, made that historic first solo flight across the Atlantic.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Lindbergh made that flight in an aircraft that had just 232 horsepower, compared to the 130 million horsepower of that giant vehicle sitting out there on Pad 39-A. How far we have come, indeed, in just a few decades of the era of manned flight.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Last night, Dr. Payne – the head of the space program, told me that despite the prevailing calm inside the crew quarters, everyone here is well aware of how much is riding on this one.

  Thomas Payne (1921-1992)

  Thomas Payne was an American scientist, administrator and manager. He had been tasked with getting the Apollo program back on track after the Apollo 1 disaster and was the most senior NASA administrator during the Apollo 8 mission, the Apollo 11 Moon landing and several other Apollo missions including Apollo 13. He was also involved in preparing plans for the post-Apollo era, including plans for establishing a lunar base and a manned mission to Mars by 1981. However, those plans were never taken up by the political leadership in Washington.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  What is riding on this mission is not only the safety of the mission itself, but also the whole future of the space program and America’s attempt to beat the Sovie
t Union in the space race.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  Up to this point in the history of man, the highest anyone has ever been above the surface of the Earth has been 850 miles. That was during the flight of Gemini 11.

  Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews

  I’d like to show the magnitude of this flight in terms of distance. If we think of that Gemini flight as being ¾ of an inch, the flight of Apollo 8 will take the astronauts 30 feet. That’s how much farther this flight will take us.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are now at T minus 16 minutes and counting. At this time the Apollo 8 space vehicle remains GO for our planned lift off. We have just completed our transfer to full internal power with the fuel cells aboard the spacecraft.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are also synchronizing the clocks in the spacecraft with those in the Mission Control Center in Houston. We will have a final status check of all the spacecraft’s systems at T minus 5 minutes 30 seconds.

  Jack King @JKPAOKennedySC

  We are now at T minus 14 minutes 22 seconds and counting. All aspects of the mission remain GO at this time.