11

Tastes of Triumph

1968: Second Half

 

 

 

 

The interval between the manned flights of Gemini and Apollo was less than two years (November 1966 to October 1968), about the same as that between Mercury and Gemini (May 1963 to March 1965). But before Apollo flew, the days were filled with more trauma, troubleshooting, and toil. Asked by a former college classmate to give an address, Houston Apollo manager George Low replied that he could not—he was already spending so much time with Apollo that his own family hardly saw him. That was only a slight exaggeration. For more than a year, his staff meetings had been crammed full of items that needed his personal attention. Every Friday without fail there were spacecraft configuration control meetings, leaving only Saturdays to visit the Downey and Bethpage plants to check on progress.

Shortly after midyear 1968, the feeling of dashing from one problem to another started to fade. George Mueller, manned space flight chief in Washington, was told at a monthly management council meeting that North American’s command module 103 was moving through checkout operations at such an excellent pace that it would almost certainly be able to make a manned Saturn V mission before the end of the year.1

Now that such a flight seemed probable in 1968, there was sobriety, as well as elation, among Apollo workers. Apollo 7, they knew, would be the last of the Saturn IB missions in mainline Apollo. Saturn IB vehicles 206 through 212 were released to a follow-on Apollo Applications Program, although that project was faring none too well in Congress for fiscal 1969 money. Thus, ironically, even before the first astronauts lifted off the ground in Apollo, a problem in worker morale began to surface.^ce Low commented:

There has been increasing concern by the people in [the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office], as well as others at the center, about what we will do after we land on the moon. In light of recent budget decisions, many of our people are concerned about the future of [the Manned Spacecraft Center].²

But the members of the Apollo team who were working on the lunar module had little time to think about the future. Mueller and his deputy, Samuel Phillips, told Grumman officials in July that the launch vehicle and the command module were in good shape but too many changes were still being made in the lunar module. Unless Grumman speeded up its work considerably, it was going to be far behind everyone else.³

When LM-3, listed as the first to be manned, reached the Cape on 14 June, the receiving inspectors found more than 100 deficiencies. Many were major. After more than a month of inspecting, checking, and testing, George C. White, reliability and quality assurance chief at NASA Headquarters, reported 19 areas—including stress corrosion, window failures, and wire and splice problems—that Mueller’s Certification Review Board would have to consider. Charles Mathews, former Gemini manager in Houston and now working for Mueller in Washington, made a quick trip to Florida. In Mathews’ opinion, the work that Rocco Petrone’s launch operations team at Kennedy Space Center would have to do was far beyond what should have been required.⁴ This lack of a flight-ready lunar module forced Apollo planners to try for some short cuts on the route to the moon.

PROPOSAL FOR A LUNAR-ORBIT MISSION

Almost as soon as NASA adopted an alphabetical stairway for reaching the moon in progressive flights (see Chapter 9, pp. 234—35), with the seventh, or G, step representing the ultimate goal, mission planners had begun looking for ways to omit a letter. In late 1967, when the ABC-scheme evolved, Low and Flight Operations Director Christopher Kraft had pushed for a lunar-orbital mission as soon as possible to learn more about communi-cations, navigation, and thermal control in the deep space environment.

In the spring of 1968, Apollo officials in Houston were trying to upgrade the E mission (operating the command module and the lander in high-earth orbit) into something called E-prime, which would move the mission to the vicinity of the moon. But by August Gilruth and others had concluded that LM-3 would not be ready for flight that year. This finding left NASA with two excellent command modules, 101 and 103, but no lunar module companions. Low had already recognized this likelihood in July, after Kennedy found the many deficiencies in LM-3. If a lunar module could not be manned in 1968, he reasoned that Saturn V 503 and CSM-103 might be used for a circumlunar or lunar-orbit flight. Low kept his own counsel for a while, waiting for the Saturn V pogo problem to be resolved.

On 7 August, Low asked Kraft to work out a flight plan for such a mission during 1968. Then the Houston manager, accompanied by Carroll Bolender, Scott Simpkinson, and Owen Morris, went to the Cape on 8 August to talk with Phillips, Kennedy Director Kurt Debus, Petrone, and Roderick Middleton about the status of Saturn V 503. The Cape contingent believed it could launch the big Saturn in January 1969.5

Back in Houston the next day, 9 August, MSC Director Gilruth had hardly entered his office before Low began telling him his ideas for a lunar-orbit mission. Gilruth, too, was enthusiastic, and he and Low started calling Washington, Huntsville, and the Cape to set up a meeting that same afternoon at Marshall. Low next talked to Kraft, who said the mission was feasible from a ground control and spacecraft computer standpoint. Gilruth, Low, Kraft, and Flight Crew Operations Director Donald Slayton then boarded a plane for Huntsville. At 2:30, they were joined by Debus and Petrone from Kennedy and Phillips and George Hage from Headquarters. Making an even dozen were the Marshall hosts, Wernher von Braun, Eberhard Rees, Ludie G. Richard, and Lee James.

Low said that a lunar-orbit mission, if it could be flown in December, might be the only way to meet the fast-approaching lunar landing deadline. This remark sparked a lively discussion. The talk was mostly about what each of the NASA elements would have to do to make the mission possible in the time remaining. Debus and Petrone considered Kennedy’s workload and concluded that they could be ready by 1 December; von Braun, Rees, James, and Richard reported that they had nearly solved the pogo problem; and Low and Gilruth talked about the differences between command modules 103 and 106 (the first spacecraft originally scheduled to go to the moon) and what to use as a substitute for the lander.

Even as he joined in the discussion, Apollo Program Director Phillips had been taking notes. He said they should keep their plans secret until a decision was made by NASA’s top officials. In the meantime, while gathering whatever information was needed, they would use the code name “Sam’s Budget Exercise” as a cover. The conferees would meet in Washington on 14 August—“Decision Day.” Administrator James Webb and Mueller would be in Vienna attending the United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space at that time. If the Washington meeting decided in favor of the lunar-orbit mission, Phillips would fly to Austria to sell the idea to Webb and Mueller.⁶

In Houston at 8:30 that evening, Low met with spacecraft chiefs Kenneth Kleinknecht and Bolender, technical assistant George Abbey, and North American Apollo manager Dale Myers. Kleinknecht began studying the differences between spacecraft 103 and 106, Bolender left for Bethpage to find a substitute for LM-3, and Myers went back to Downey to make sure that command module 103 was moving along and to oversee any changes Kleinknecht recommended. Joseph Kotanchik, structures expert in Houston, could not see any reason for Bolender’s trip to Bethpage; a simple crossbeam could be used for weight and balance, he said. But Kotanchik found himself alone in this position. The others believed that a true facsimile should be carried, and Low decided on a lunar test article.

Early on Monday morning, 12 August, Kraft told Low that the target date would have to be 20 December if they wanted to launch in daylight. If the flight had to be terminated for any reason shortly after launch, good visibility was necessary for recovering the spacecraft. In the meantime, Slayton had been thinking about which crew to pick for the flight. Frank Borman’s team had been training for a high-altitude mission. Slayton talked with Borman over the weekend and decided to propose that crew at the meeting in Washington.⁷

The 12 men who had gathered in Huntsville were joined by William Schneider and Julian H. Bowman when they met with Deputy Administrator Thomas O. Paine^cf at Headquarters on Wednesday, 14 August. Low reviewed spacecraft status, Kraft discussed flight operations, and Slayton talked about flight crew preparations. Von Braun reported that the Saturn would be ready for the launch, and he and Rees agreed that Low had made a good selection of a stand-in for the lunar module. Debus and Petrone said the Cape could launch the Saturn V by 6 December.⁸

After listening to the plotters, Paine decided to play devil’s advocate. Not too long ago, he said, you people were trying to decide whether it was safe to man the third Saturn V (503) , and now you want to put men on top of it and send them to the moon. The Deputy Administrator then asked for comments. This is what he heard:

Von Braun:	Once you decided to man 503, it did not matter how far you went.
Hage:	There are a number of places in the mission where decisions can be made and risks minimized.
Slayton:	It is the only chance to get to the moon before the end of 1969.
Debus:	I have no technical reservations.
Petrone:	I have no reservations.
Bowman:	It will be a shot in the arm for manned space flight.
James:	Manned safety in this and following flights will be enhanced.
Richard:	Our lunar capability will be advanced by flying this mission.
Schneider:	The plan has my wholehearted endorsement.
Gilruth:	Although this may not be the only way to meet our goal, it does increase the possibility. There is always risk, but this is a path of less risk. In fact, the minimum risk of all Apollo plans.
Kraft:	Flight Operations will have a difficult job here. We need all kinds of priorities—it will not be easy to do, but I have confidence. But it should be a lunar orbit and not a circumlunar flight.
Low:	Assuming Apollo 7 is a success, there is no other choice.9

So ended the round table vote, by the men who managed the day-to-day details of the Apollo program, to commit the first crew to fly to the moon. Paine was impressed, but he was only the first of the three top men who had to be convinced. Webb and Mueller would not be so easy to sell. In fact, when Mueller called Phillips from Vienna during the meeting and learned of the plan, he was not receptive. He urged Phillips not to come to Vienna. By the next day, 15 August, he had warmed to the idea, but he wanted Phillips to keep it quiet until after Apollo 7. Webb was shocked by the audacity of the proposal and was inclined to say no immediately. After talking with Phillips and Paine, however, he asked for more information.

Paine called Willis H. Shapley, Julian Scheer, and Phillips in to draft a text for Webb. Paine’s cable to Vienna on 15 August underlined his complete support and included an item-by-item schedule of necessary actions. The cable also contained a draft of a statement for Webb to make in Vienna and a draft of a press release to be issued in Washington. Altogether, the cablegram covered seven typewritten pages.¹⁰

After discussing the proposal with Mueller, Webb cabled Paine on 16 August that he believed it unwise for any announcement to originate from Vienna. Webb told his deputy to plan for the lunar-orbit flight but to make no public statement about it. In other words, NASA could not talk about anything but an earth-orbital mission. Webb also asked Paine to notify the White House and the President’s scientific advisers about any drastic changes in mission planning. This was not what the planners had asked for, but it was certainly more than Webb had given them the previous day. Now they had to figure out how to stay within the constraints set by the Administrator and still get everything ready for a lunar-orbit mission if approval came later. Phillips called Low, saying he would be in Houston the next day to decide how to handle the situation.¹¹

Phillips and Hage arrived in Houston on 17 August and met with Gilruth, Low, Kraft, and Slayton. The Apollo program leader from Washington said that Webb had given him clear authority to prepare for a 6 December launch, to designate it as a C-prime mission, and to call it Apollo 8. He then ticked off what else had been authorized: they could assign Borman’s crew to the flight, equip and train it to meet the 6 December launch, and speak of the flight as earth-orbital while continuing to plan for a lunar orbit. The plotters were well aware, and Phillips reemphasized it, that a successful command module qualification flight in earth orbit by Apollo 7 was the key to the first lunar flight’s being approved for 1968.¹² Now Houston had to train crews to fly that mission, as well as the others that would follow.

SELECTING AND TRAINING CREWS

Early in 1961, Robert B. Voas at the Manned Spacecraft Center had written a paper on how pilots should train for a lunar mission and what they should do during the flight. Because of the hostile environment and the inability to return quickly to safety, Voas said, crews had to be prepared to stay with their ships and keep the protective systems operating. That made good sense. Moreover, since modifications were made in spacecraft systems almost until time of launch, a crew would have to follow its specific spacecraft through step-by-step testing in the factory and through preparations for flight at the launch site.

Crew tasks in flight included steering the space ship, but this was not a constant duty. Steering was needed mainly during launch, lunar maneuvers, and earth reentry and landing. Navigating the ship from the earth to the moon and back required high-speed automatic computing, during which the crew would choose data fed into the computer and verify the results on the navigation system displays. In addition, the crew would make optical sightings, orient trackers on selected stars, and navigate manually, using prepared tables and a simple computer. The astronauts would maintain a continuous check on subsystems, which meant one crewman keeping watch while the others slept. This chore might include such things as switching to a redundant system if a component failed and keeping the ground informed on mission status. During early flights, scientific activities on the moon would be limited to observing systems (a primary task of a test pilot, anyway) and conducting some medical and biological experiments. Equipment for astronomical and lunar surface studies would consist of whatever could be carried to the moon and set up fairly easily by pressure-suited astronauts. Crew positions were to be commander pilot, navigator copilot, and engineer-scientist. (In June 1967, these titles were changed to commander, command module pilot, and lunar module pilot.)cg¹³

In 1966, before the Apollo 204 fire, a number of astronauts were assigned to crew positions in Apollo. On 21 March, Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee (backed up by James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweickart) were picked to man the first flight. On 29 September, Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham were named for the second flight, with backups Frank Borman, Thomas Stafford, and Michael Collins. Up to that point, keeping track of assignments was not difficult, but it soon changed. If the Grissom group circled the earth for up to 14 days, why should Schirra’s crew do the same thing? So Schirra’s flight was canceled in December, and his team was assigned as backup for Grissom’s. McDivitt’s and Borman’s crews soon had new assignments. The McDivitt trio (backed by Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan) drew the second flight, a complex dual mission with two launch vehicles (Saturn IBs 205 and 208) that entailed putting the command module and lunar module through maneuvers in earth orbit. Borman’s threesome, with William Anders replacing Stafford (who now had a command of his own) and Charles Conrad, Richard Gordon, and Clifton Williams backing them, snared the first manned flight scheduled to be launched by a Saturn V. Borman’s launch vehicle would be 503, the third in the series. At the end of 1966 this was the pilot assignment picture.¹⁴

Immediately after the fire in January 1967, Webb canceled all crew assignments. On 9 May, however, as NASA began to recover from the tragedy, he told the Senate space committee that Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham (with Stafford, Young, and Cernan as backups) would fly the first manned Apollo mission.^ch Schirra’s group, Webb told the senators, was on its way to the Downey plant “to start a detailed, day-by-day, month-by-month association with Block II spacecraft No. 101.”¹⁵

Shortly after the Apollo 4 flight, on 20 November 1967, NASA announced the names of two more crews. McDivitt’s team, with new backups Conrad, Gordon, and Alan Bean,^ci would still fly the earth-orbital command and lunar module mission they had been given the previous year. The support team was Edgar Mitchell, Fred Haise, and Alfred Worden. Borman’s crew again drew the high-altitude maneuvers, but the backups were now Neil Armstrong, James Lovell, and Edwin Aldrin, with a support team of Thomas Mattingly, Gerald Carr, and John Bull.¹⁶

In November 1967, therefore, flight crew appointments seemed to be be set for all of 1968 and part of 1969, but 1968 was an eventful year for men as well as machines. The major change, of course, was the proposal to attempt a lunar-orbit mission on the second manned Apollo flight. NASA planners reasoned that Borman’s crew was already training for operations with the command module as far as 6400 kilometers from the earth. The astronauts would have to stretch that distance to nearly 380 000 kilometers, but they would not have the lunar module to complicate their training. On the other hand, McDivitt’s group appeared to have a tremendous task, training to put the lander through its paces for the first time.

Collins, in his book Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys, said that Slayton asked McDivitt if he wanted to fly the circumlunar (or lunar-orbit) mission, but McDivitt turned it down. He and his crew had spent hundreds of hours learning to handle the lunar module, and he would rather not see that time wasted. The crews would have to exchange command modules, though. Spacecraft 103, on which the McDivitt team had been training, would be ready for a flight in 1968 and 104 would not. Scott complained about that, since as command module pilot he had been living with his machine and knew its characteristics well. Collins, who had been similarly occupied with 104, had other, more personal, worries.¹⁷

In the summer of 1968, two astronauts with flight assignments came up with medical problems that stimulated another rash of changes. Collins, from Borman’s team, needed surgery to remove a bone spur from his spine. Lovell moved from the backup team to take over from Collins, Aldrin switched from lunar module to command module pilot on the backup team to replace Lovell, Haise shifted from the support group on McDivitt’s team to backup lunar module pilot in Borman’s group in place of Aldrin, and Jack Lousma joined McDivitt’s support team as a substitute for Haise. So Collins’ bone spur started a whole round of musical chairs in flight positions. And the game continued when Borman lost a member of his support team. Bull resigned from the corps because of a pulmonary problem, and Vance Brand filled his seat.¹⁸

Schirra’s Apollo 7 group had remained intact. For almost a year, the group had stayed with the spacecraft in California. When the spacecraft moved to Florida in June 1968 for launch preparations, the crew followed. The astronauts had not devoted all their time to CSM-101, however. During the six months before launch in October 1968, they had spent nearly 600 hours in the command module simulator, operating the 725 manual controls and reacting to simulated emergencies and malfunctioning systems. They had also been in the spacecraft during an altitude chamber test, checked out the slide wire for a launch pad emergency escape test, crawled out of a model spacecraft in the Gulf of Mexico to practice recovery, listened to briefings on systems and experiments, visited the Morehead Planetarium in North Carolina and the Griffith Planetarium in California for celestial navigation training, worked with the crew systems people in getting their suits and supporting equipment ready, and studied mission plans and other documentation.¹⁹

Schirra’s team also received the benefit, through briefings or written reports, of the activities of other astronauts who were studying, participating in, or training on specific pieces of the Apollo systems. For example, before CSM-101 left the factory at Downey, it went through a test to make sure that its systems performed properly and in harmony. Astronaut John Young attended this session and noted that, in some instances, the computer, inverters, pumps, fans, and radios were in his opinion operated longer than was either necessary or good for the equipment. He also found that, when deficiencies were uncovered, everything stopped while discrepancy reports were written on the spot. On the positive side, however, Young thought the crew checklist for time-critical sequences was excellent. From there he went on, item by item, finally concluding “that S/C 101 is a pretty clean machine.” Schirra, McDivitt, and Borman all were given copies of his report.²⁰

The Schirra crew had practiced getting out of the spacecraft in the Gulf to simulate recovery, but Lovell, Stuart Roosa, and Charles Duke made a more extensive test to find out how they and the craft would fare if recovery were delayed as much as 48 hours. They especially wanted to see how quickly the spacecraft could right itself if it flipped over in the water with its nose down—the “stable II” position. (“Stable I” was the normal upright position.) So Lovell and the others were tossed into the water upside down. They had no trouble getting to the manual control switch that signaled three air bags to inflate and turn the ship over. During the ensuing hours, the crewmen were cool enough, but water sometimes splashed in through a postlanding air vent. They used the urine-collection hose to vacuum the water from the cabin deck and dump it overboard. All in all, they agreed, the craft was seaworthy enough for a prolonged wait until recovery.²¹

Two days on the water might be a contingency exercise, but a week in the vacuum chamber was not. Except for weightlessness, the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center could reproduce most of the conditions of space. In a test vehicle called “2TV-1” (which, except for some flight-qualified equipment, was identical to Schirra’s CSM-101), Joseph Kerwin, Vance Brand, and Joseph Engle looked for things that might be wrong with the craft. They found the vehicle satisfactory in most respects, but they still managed to fill 14 pages with comments. They noted particularly that the water lines sweated and drops puddled on the cabin deck. Otherwise the environmental system kept them comfortable. The test group went on to discuss communications (some headsets worked fine, others did not) , the rest periods (the men slept well) , the water (they advised not drinking it for two hours after chlorination) , and the food (some of the package seams split) . All the astronauts received copies of this paper.²²

Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham (left to right) practice climbing out of the spacecraft into a life raft, to perfect recovery procedures.

The Apollo command module mission simulator (right) at Manned Spacecraft Center, where Apollo astronauts practiced for their missions. Another simulator was at Kennedy Space Center.

Command and service modules 2TV-1 in the space environment simulation chamber at Manned Spacecraft Center. Hinges for the huge door to close the chamber are at extreme left. Astronauts Kerwin, Brand, and Engle spent a week in this craft under operational space conditions in 1968.

In addition to their flight training, the Apollo 7 crews had to exercise to keep physically fit, to guard themselves against illness, and to fly their T-38 jet aircraft from place to place to maintain proficiency in high-performance machines. Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham had been doing this detailed work, with only an occasional night off to see a soccer match or some other sports event, for more than a year. CSM-101 had spent even longer getting ready for its voyage.

Apollo 7: THE MAGNIFICENT FLYING MACHINE

CSM-101 started through the manufacturing cycle early in 1966. By July, it had been formed, wired, fitted with subsystems, and made ready for testing. After the fire in January 1967, redefinition forced changes, mainly in the wiring, hatch areas, and forward egress tunnel. It was December before the spacecraft came back into testing. CSM-101 passed through a three-phase customer acceptance review; during the third session, held in Downey on 7 May 1968, no items showed up that might be a “constraint to launch.” North American cleared up what few deficiencies there were (13) and shipped the craft to Kennedy on 30 May.23

Low had spent a lot of time thinking about a flight to the moon before 1968 ended, but Apollo 7 still was given his close attention. He probably worried about that flight more than those that followed because the earlier attempt to get a crew skyborne had ended in disaster. After rereading the evaluations of the fourth, fifth, and sixth missions, Low asked Simpkinson, one of his chief troubleshooters, to make up a “worry list” of things that might have been overlooked. He also asked John Hodge’s Crew Safety Review Board to question all the “judgment decisions” that separately had made good sense, making sure that the sum of them still did. Aaron Cohen, who reviewed them for Low, concluded that, individually and collectively, these decisions had been sound. Out at North American, Dale Myers was doing the same soul-searching, looking specifically at the 137 changes that had resulted from the spacecraft 012 fire.²⁴

All this care paid off. At the Flight Readiness Review on 20 September, Myers reported that CSM-101 was “a very good spacecraft.” Walter J. Kapryan of Kennedy said the launch preparations people agreed.²⁵ Now it was up to the flight crew to prove them right.

In October 1968, Schirra, a veteran of both Mercury and Gemini, found himself facing a situation similar to some he had encountered in previous Octobers. In 1962, his Mercury-Atlas 8 mission had been a six-orbit engineering test to see if Mercury’s legs might be stretched to a full day’s flight; three years later his Gemini VI had been an engineering test to attempt the first rendezvous with a second vehicle in space.

The primary objectives for Apollo 7, also an engineering test flight, were simple: “Demonstrate CSM/crew performance; demonstrate crew/ space vehicle/mission support facilities performance during a manned CSM mission; demonstrate CSM rendezvous capability.”

Phillips wrote Webb that these objectives could be met within 3 days but that the mission would be open-ended up to 11 days “to acquire additional data and evaluate the aspects of long duration manned space flight.” This did leave some time for taking pictures of weather and terrain that might be of interest to the scientific community.²⁶

One piece of equipment got aboard Apollo 7 and all subsequent manned flights in spite of the insistence of most engineers that it was not needed and the ambivalence of the test-pilot-oriented crews. This was the television camera. Ever since September 1963, when NASA had first directed North American to install a portable camera in the spacecraft, that device had been going in and out of the craft as though it were caught in a revolving door. Wrestling with the constant problem of overweight, many engineers viewed television cameras only as nice things to have. On occasions when kilograms, and even grams, were being shaved from the command module, the camera was among the first items to go. There were those, however, who persistently argued for the inclusion of television.

NASA personnel in charge of public information activities—Julian Scheer in Washington and Paul P. Haney in Houston—naturally favored the use of television, but there was one management-level engineer in the Houston Apollo office who agreed with them. In the spring of 1964, William A. Lee wrote:

I take typewriter in hand to plead once more for including in-flight TV. ... Since [it] has little or no engineering value, the weight penalty must be assessed against a different set of standards.... One [objective] of the Apollo Program is to impress the world with our space supremacy. It may be assumed that the first attempt to land on the moon will have generated a high degree of interest around the world.... A large portion of the civilized world will be at their TV sets wondering whether the attempt will succeed or fail. The question before the house is whether the public will receive their report of this climactic moment visually or by voice alone.²⁷

Four springs later, following more trips through the revolving door, television became part of Apollo when Phillips told Low to install a camera on CSM-101.²⁸

As the Apollo 7 crew and its guests ate the traditional launch-day breakfast, a few nostalgic thoughts flitted through the minds of at least some present. For at least two members of the morning get-together, the thoughts had to be tinged with sadness. On 16 September, to the surprise of nearly everyone, Webb had announced that he was retiring on 6 October, his 62d birthday. After almost eight years at the helm of NASA, Webb stepped down, apparently to smooth the transition to a new administration in the White House. Paine, his deputy, became acting administrator. Four days after the Webb announcement, Schirra said this would be his last mission, as he, too, planned to retire.²⁹

So feelings of regret mixed with anticipation as more than 600 news media representatives watched the first manned Apollo flight—Apollo 7—speed skyward from Launch Complex 34 a few minutes after 11:00 on the morning of 11 October. Once Saturn IB 205 and CSM-101 (the first Block II CSM) cleared the pad in Florida, a three-shift mission control team—led by flight directors Glynn Lunney, Eugene Kranz, and Gerald D. Griffin—in Houston took over. Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham inside the command module had listened to the sound of propellants rushing into the firing chambers, had noticed the vehicles swaying slightly, and had felt the vibrations at ignition. Ten and a half minutes after launch, with little bumpiness and low g loads during acceleration, Apollo 7 reached the first stage of its journey, an orbital path 227 by 285 kilometers above the earth.

A few hours later, as the spacecraft separated from the S-IVB stage and then turned back in a simulated docking approach, Cunningham described the S-IVB, which would be used for rendezvous target practice the next day. The spacecraft—lunar module adapter panels, he said, had not fully deployed—which naturally reminded Stafford, on the capsule communicator (CapCom) console, of the “angry alligator” target vehicle he had encountered on his Gemini IX mission. This mishap would have been embarrassing on a mission that carried a lunar module, but the panels would be jettisoned explosively on future flights.³⁰

After this niggling problem, service module engine performance was a joy. This was one area where the crew could not switch to a redundant or backup system; at crucial times during a lunar voyage, the engine simply had to work or they would not get back home. On Apollo 7, there were eight nearly perfect firings out of eight attempts. On the first, the crew had a real surprise. In contrast to the smooth liftoff of the Saturn, the blast from the service module engine jolted the astronauts, causing Schirra to yell “Yabada-badoo” like Fred Flintstone in the contemporary video cartoon. Later, Eisele said, “We didn’t quite know what to expect, but we got more than we expected.” He added more graphically that it was a real boot in the rear that just plastered them into their seats. But the engine did what it was supposed to do each time it fired.³¹

With few exceptions, the other systems in the spacecraft operated as they should. Occasionally, one of the three fuel cells supplying electricity to the craft developed some unwanted high temperatures, but load-sharing hookups among the cells prevented any power shortage. The crew complained about noisy fans in the environmental circuits and turned one of them off. That did not help much, so the men switched off the other. The cabin stayed comfortable, although the coolant lines sweated and water collected in little puddles on the deck, which the crew expected after the Kerwin team’s test in the altitude chamber. Schirra’s crew vacuumed the excess water out into space with the urine dump hose.³²

Visibility from the spacecraft windows ranged from poor to good, during the mission. Shortly after the launch escape tower jettisoned, two of the windows had soot deposits and two others had water condensation. Two days later, however, Cunningham reported that most of the windows were in fairly good shape, although moisture was collecting between the inner panes of one window. On the seventh day, Schirra described essentially the same conditions.

Even with these impediments, the windows were adequate. Those used for observations during rendezvous and stationkeeping with the S-IVB remained almost clear. Navigational sighting with a telescope and a sextant on any of the 37 preselected “Apollo” stars was difficult if done too soon after a waste-water dump. Sometimes they had to wait several minutes for the frozen particles to disperse. Eisele reported that unless he could see at least 40 or 50 stars at a time he found it hard to decide what part of the sky he was looking toward. On the whole, however, the windows were satisfactory for general and landmark observations and for out-the-window photography.³³

Most components supported the operations and well-being of the spacecraft and crew as planned, in spite of minor irritations like smudging windows and puddling water. For example, the waste management system for collecting solid body wastes was adequate, though annoying. The defecation bags, containing a germicide to prevent bacteria and gas formation, were easily sealed and stored in empty food containers in the equipment bay. But the bags were certainly not convenient and there were usually unpleasant odors. Each time they were used, it took the crew member from 45 to 60 minutes, causing him to postpone it as long as possible, waiting for a time when there was no work to do. The crew had a total of only 12 defecations over a period of nearly 11 days. Urination was much easier, as the crew did not have to remove clothing. There was a collection service for both the pressure suits and the inflight coveralls. Both devices could be attached to the urine dump hose and emptied into space. They had half expected the hose valve to freeze up in vacuum, but it never did.³⁴

The astronauts finally had a spacecraft large enough to move about in. During Gemini, crewmen had gone outside the craft in an exercise called extravehicular activity, or EVA. In Apollo, quite naturally, the abbreviation became IVA, for intravehicular activity. The crew adapted easily to this new free-floating realm. Schirra said, “All the problems we worried about the spacecraft picking up motions from the crew, no such thing.... You get to be quite a gymnast.” And Cunningham later added, “The work is almost zero, and you can move any place you want to very freely, and you certainly don’t need strong handholds to take care of it.” The crew found exercise was important. At first, when the men slept in the couches their bodies curled up into the fetal position, which gave them lower back and abdominal pains. So they almost raced each other for a workout on a stretching device called an Exer-Genie, which relaxed their cramped and aching muscles.³⁵

The crew slept well enough, but Schirra complained about round-the-clock operations that disrupted the normal, earth-bound routine. Sleep periods might start as early as 4:00 in the afternoon or as late as 4:00 in the morning. Slayton suggested that all three astronauts sleep at the same time, but Schirra said the machine was flying well and he did not want to make any changes. So Eisele kept watch while the others slept, and then he went to bed. Two sleeping bags were underneath the outboard couches (the center couch could be moved out of the way), and the crewmen could zip themselves into them, wearing their flight coveralls. The bags were not popular, because, they said, the restraints were in the wrong places. Cunningham preferred sleeping in the couch, strapping himself down with a shoulder harness and a lap belt. If two crewmen slept in the couches at the same time, however, one of them was always in the way of spacecraft operations. After the third day, the crew had worked out a routine that allowed all of them to get enough sleep.³⁶

Although the astronauts had more than 60 food items to choose from, giving them about 2500 calories a day, they were not happy with their fare. The bite-size food crumbled and stray particles floated around the cabin. They almost came to hate the high-energy sweets and tried to talk each other out of the more satisfactory breakfast items. Following his Gemini flight, Schirra had said that if he flew on Apollo he was going to take some coffee with him. And he did. During flight and later, the crew emphasized that space food was a long way from satisfying their normal table habits.³⁷

The astronauts did use the controversial television camera to show their colleagues in mission control and the public everywhere how they got along in their living quarters, operated the spacecraft, ate, and swam about in the weightlessness of space. When flight plan changes crowded their schedule, Schirra canceled the first of several planned television demonstrations. Slayton tried to change his mind, but the spacecraft commander told him sharply that there would be no show that day. The programs finally began, however, and the crew appeared to enjoy them, using cue cards—“Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming In, Folks” and “Hello from the Lovely Apollo Room High Atop Everything“—supplied by Michael Kapp,^cj who also provided casettes for their musical enjoyment.³⁸

Apollo 7, first manned Apollo flight, 11—22 October 1968. The Saturn IB, like earlier launch vehicles, was assembled at the launch pad. Above left, Saturn 205’s first stage rests on the pedestal at Launch Complex 34 before mating with other stages for launch. After launch and a rendezvous maneuver, the Apollo 7 crew examines the Saturn’s S-IVB stage (above right) that had placed them in orbit. Meeting no problems in the maneuver, the crew concluded that future pilots would have no difficulty docking with the lunar module. Below left, Mission Control watches the first live television beamed by an American spacecraft, as Eisele and Schirra signal, “Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming in, Folks.” At the end of the nearly 11-day mission, flight controllers Gene Kranz, Glynn Lunney, and Gerald Griffin (left to right below with cigars) celebrate splashdown.

A grizzled but happy Apollo 7 crew—Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham (left to right)—greets the crew of recovery ship U.S.S. Essex. Donald Stullken, inventor of the flotation collar attached to the spacecraft during recovery, is at the extreme left.

Some of the crew’s grumpiness during the mission could be attributed to physical discomfort. About 15 hours into the flight, Schirra developed a bad cold, and Cunningham and Eisele soon followed suit. A cold is uncomfortable enough on the ground; in weightless space it presents a different problem. Mucus accumulates, filling the nasal passages, and does not drain from the head. The only relief is to blow hard, which is painful to the ear drums. So the crewmen of Apollo 7 whirled through space suffering from stopped up ears and noses. They took aspirin and decongestant tablets and discussed their symptoms with the doctors.

Several days before the mission ended, they began to worry about wearing their suit helmets during reentry, which would prevent them from blowing their noses. The buildup of pressure might burst their eardrums. Slayton, in mission control, tried to persuade them to wear the helmets, anyway, but Schirra was adamant. They each took a decongestant pill about an hour before reentry and made it through the acceleration zone without any problems with their ears.³⁹

That “magnificent flying machine,” as Cunningham called it, circled the earth for more than 260 hours. On 22 October, the crew brought the ship down in the Atlantic southeast of Bermuda, less than two kilometers from the planned impact point. On landing, the craft turned nose down, but the crew quickly inflated the air bags and the ship righted itself. The tired, but happy, voyagers were picked up by helicopter and deposited on the deck of the U.S.S. Essex.⁴⁰

Apollo 7 accomplished what it set out to do—qualifying the command and service module and clearing the way for the proposed lunar-orbit mission to follow. And its activities were of national interest. A special edition of NASA’s news clipping collection called “Current News” included front page stories from 32 major newspapers scattered over the length and breadth of the nation. Although the postmission celebrations⁴¹ may not have rivaled those for the first orbital flight of an American, John Glenn in 1962, enthusiasm was high—and this fervor would build to even greater heights each time the lunar landing goal drew one step closer.

THE APOLLO 8 DECISION

Perhaps the most significant point about the lunar-orbit flight proposed for Apollo 8 was that the command and service modules would fly the same route to the moon as for the actual lunar landing. NASA officials realized that this was risky, since Apollo 7 had not yet qualified the spacecraft when their tentative decision was made. And data from that launch, using the Saturn IB, would not help them decide whether the Saturn V could make the lunar mission.42

Phillips formally set the plan into motion in a directive issued on 19 August. Because of Webb’s restrictions about waiting until the performance of Apollo 7 was known, earth-orbital objectives were still listed, but crew assignments were shifted and the mission was moved forward one flight. That same day, NASA publicly announced the flight as an expansion of Apollo 7, although agency spokesmen said that the exact content of the mission had not been decided.⁴³

CSM-103 arrived at the Cape in mid-August, and testing began. Some modifications were necessary but, in most cases, no hardware changes that might cause delays were acceptable. Mueller kept Paine informed of the status, noting in detail how many days the work schedule lagged and why. These holdups were usually minor, although Hurricane Gladys did cause an additional two-day delay.⁴⁴

Paine was still concerned about manning the Saturn V, because of the pogo problem. Phillips told him that the Apollo leaders had decided, about two weeks after Apollo 6, to plan for a manned flight but to revert to unmanned, if necessary. Paine also questioned the reliability of the service propulsion module. Mueller reviewed its test history and reported that a complete flight system of the “present configuration” had never failed to fire. Of all configurations, only 4 firings had failed in 3200 attempts, and Mueller assured Paine that none of the problems encountered were characteristic of the present engine.⁴⁵

During a session of Mueller’s Certification Board in Huntsville on 19 September, the Saturn V was given a clean bill of health, and the members agreed that the launch vehicle was no longer a constraint to manned flight. In the meantime, Huntsville and Houston had worked out an agreement on payload weight. The load for Saturn 503 was set at 39 800 kilograms, including 9000 kilograms for the lunar module test article. (A fully fueled production lander, scheduled for subsequent missions, would weigh 14 500 kilograms.)⁴⁶

On 7 November, the Certification Board looked at all parts of Apollo 8—spacecraft, launch vehicle, launch complex, mission control network, and spacesuits. A C-Prime Crew Safety Review Board had already studied these items for Phillips and had “concluded that the Apollo 8 Space Vehicle is safe for manned flight.” Mueller’s board concurred.⁴⁷ Now it was up to Paine and the Apollo executives to decide whether Apollo 8 would fly to the moon.

At the Apollo executives meeting on 10 November, Phillips summarized the lunar-orbit proposal, James discussed launch vehicle status, Low gave spacecraft status, Kraft talked about flight operations, Slayton outlined the flight plan, and Petrone reported that the Cape could be ready by 10 December, although there would not be a lunar launch window until the 21st. Phillips said he recommended that NASA go for lunar-orbit. Mueller then asked Low and Phillips to list the things that were absolutely essential for a safe round trip. The program leaders replied that the service propulsion system had to work, to get the spacecraft out of lunar orbit, and there had to be at least 60 hours of oxygen remaining to get the crew back to earth. Redundancies could support the environmental system, barring a major break of the main structure; and the fuel cells could handle the power demands with only one of the three working—unless, of course, there was a complete electrical short. There were risks, yes, but these risks would be there on all missions; there was no way to ensure perfect safety.

Next, Mueller asked for the views of the attending Apollo executives.

Walter F. Burke (McDonnell Douglas): The S-IVB can do any of the missions described, but I favor circumlunar rather than lunar orbit since there has been only one manned CSM.

Hilliard Paige (General Electric): The checkout equipment is doing the same thing it has done before; there are no reservations from a reliability standpoint; and NASA should go, and is ready to go, into lunar orbit.

B. P. Blasingame (AC Electronics): We have carefully examined the guidance equipment and consider it ready for a lunar orbit mission. It is the right size step.

Stark Draper (MIT): No reservations.

B. O. Evans (IBM): Go.

R. W. Hubner (IBM): The instrument unit is ready.

George M. Bunker (Martin Marietta): The presentation here today makes a persuasive case. Go for lunar orbit.

T. A. Wilson (Boeing): We have confidence in the hardware. It is right to go for lunar orbit.

Leland Atwood (North American): This is what we came to the party for.

Robert E. Hunter (Philco-Ford): We have no reservations about being able to support the complete mission.

Thomas F. Morrow (Chrysler): We have no hardware on this mission and perhaps can be even more objective. I believe we should go for lunar orbit, but the public should be aware that there are risks.

William P. Gwinn (United Aircraft): I am impressed by the pros and cons of risk, but I believe General Phillips’ recommendation is the right one.

Joseph Gavin (Grumman): We also have no hardware on this mission (except a test article) , but the design of the mission makes a lot of sense—it is one we should do.

William Bergen (North American): I agree with Morrow that lunar orbit has more risk. It is questionable if we will get, and can expect, the same high degree of performance from systems as we got on Apollo 7, but a repeat flight is a risk with no gain.

G. H. Stoner (Boeing): I endorse the recommendation without reservation.

Gerald T. Smiley (General Electric): Morale is now high; less than lunar orbit would impact this morale.⁴⁸

Thus on 10 November a second group voted yes on the proposition to send man on his first flight to the vicinity of the moon.

The next day, Mueller told Paine he had discussed the proposal with the Science and Technology Advisory Committee and the President’s Science Advisory Committee and both of these prestigious groups favored the mission. The manned space flight chief said he also agreed “that NASA should undertake a lunar orbit mission as its next step toward manned lunar landing.”

Paine listened to presentations by Phillips, James, Low, Kraft, and Petrone on 11 November. The same day, Paine asked Gerald Truszynski if the tracking network would be ready and Lieutenant General Vincent G. Huston if the Department of Defense could support the mission. He called in key members of his staff and the directors of the three manned space flight centers for their statements. The acting administrator also telephoned Frank Borman and learned that the astronauts supported the mission wholeheartedly. Paine then approved Phillips’ recommendation. Phillips wired the field centers to be ready for a lunar-orbit flight on 21 December.⁴⁹ NASA had crossed another Rubicon in its decision-making—a historic one.

Apollo 8: THE FIRST LUNAR VOYAGE

Invitations had been issued to watch departures before, but not for a trip like this one. For the first time, man would ride atop a Saturn V launch vehicle. And before he returned to the earth, he would travel in a region where the gravitational pull of another celestial body was stronger than that of his home planet—a first in history that would endure no matter where mankind might go in the future.

You are cordially invited to attend
the departure of the
United States Spaceship Apollo VIII
on its voyage around the moon,
departing from Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center,
with the launch window commencing at
seven a.m. on December 21, 1968

 

r.s.v.p. The Apollo VIII Crew

As soon as Borman’s crew learned, on 10 August, that it might fly a lunar mission, the men began to train for the moon flight. On 9 September, sessions on the Cape simulator began. Six weeks before launch, these turned into day-after-day, ten-hour work periods. With the help of the support team—Mattingly, Carr, and Brand, who followed the hardware, coordinated the preparation of checklists, and worked out spacecraft stowage—the crew was ready on time. Shortly after 2:30 on the morning of 21 December, Borman, Lovell, and Anders rose and dressed for the launch day breakfast with, among others, George Low, the man who had hatched this scheme to send them into lunar orbit on Apollo’s second manned flight.50

Many guests were in Florida for the send-off, thousands more than the crew had formally invited. In the chilly predawn, the visitors clogged the roads, their headlights flashing, searching for the best vantage points. Busloads of newsmen trundled through the gates, heading for the press area, and helicopter-borne groups of VIPs landed near the special viewing stand. All attention focused on Apollo 8, bathed in the glare of spotlights that made it visible for many kilometers. Radio announcers, television commentators, and public address spokesmen told millions around the world and the thousands in the Cape area that soon three astronauts would leave this globe to visit another. At 7:51 a.m., Borman, Lovell, and Anders, lying in their couches 100 meters above the launch pad, started on that journey.⁵¹

Riding the huge Saturn V, propelled by more power than man had ever felt pushing him before (33.4 million newtons, or 7.5 million pounds of thrust), the crew had varied impressions. Borman thought it was a lot like riding the Gemini Titan II. Lovell agreed but added that it seemed to slow down after it left the pad. Rookie astronaut Anders likened it to “an old freight train going down a bad track.” The S-IC stage shook the crew up, but not intolerably. Despite all the power, the acceleration reached only four g. At engine cutoff, it dropped to one g. During S-II stage acceleration, pogo stayed within allowable limits and caused no pain to the pilots. They were glad, however, when the engines cut off and the second stage fell away. A dozen minutes after launch, the S-IVB third stage had already fired to drive itself and the spacecraft into earth-orbital flight. Borman, Lovell, Anders, and the flight controllers checked the spacecraft and third stage systems for a revolution and a half, in preparation for the next step in the mission. At 10:17, former crew member Collins—back from his bout with the bone spur and now at the capcom’s console rather than in the center couch of Apollo 8—opened a new era in space flight when he said, “All right, you are go for TLI [translunar injection].” Many watchers in Hawaii, who had seen a launch on live television for the first time, raced outside and looked for the fireworks high above them.⁵²

For five minutes, the S-IVB fired, increasing its speed from 7600 to 10 800 meters per second. Borman, Lovell, and Anders now traveled at a greater speed than any human being ever had, shooting outward fast enough to escape the earth’s gravitational influence. Asked later about impressions at translunar injection, Borman replied:

Psychologically it was a far easier flight than Gemini 7. You adopt a philosophical approach after you burn TLI, and I wasn’t really concerned about anything. When you are in earth orbit you are always aware that if something happens you have to react quickly to get down. Once you burn TLI, ... you really are not concerned with reacting swiftly because it is going to take you [at least] two or three days to get home anyway.

The command and service modules separated from the S-IVB and flipped around so the crew could photograph the adapter, where the lunar module would be housed on future voyages. Borman commented that formation flying was no more difficult with the S-IVB than it had been with the Gemini Agena and that docking with the LM should pose no problems. Since they had no lander on this mission, they chose not to get too close to the S-IVB. The crew used the small reaction control engines on the service module to begin a separation maneuver with a velocity change of less than a meter per second. But Borman soon noted that the S-IVB was getting closer, instead of moving away. Both the crew and the flight controllers were puzzled. Communications crackled back and forth. Kraft and Bill Tindall talked with Carl R. Huss, who was manning the mission planning and analysis desk in the flight support area, demanding to know what to do. Huss held them off until his group had time to figure out that the crew had not made its maneuver exactly as it should. Studying the relative positions of the two vehicles, Huss soon gave the controllers new information to radio to the space ship. The crew fired the small engines again—this time for a change of two meters per second, changing the trajectory and moving away from the too-friendly third stage.⁵³

Early in the flight, the crew was captivated by the view of the earth from space, especially the detail revealed at a single glance. Borman commented, “We see the earth now, almost as a disk.” Then he asked Collins to “tell Conrad he lost his record.” Conrad and Gordon had been the high-flight champions of Gemini. Lovell, looking through the center window, began to call out place names as if he were an announcer in a railway terminal: Florida, Cuba, Gibraltar, Africa (East and West), Central America, and South America. Borman suggested that Collins warn “the people in Tierra del Fuego to put on their rain coats; looks like a storm ... out there.”⁵⁴

A safe distance away from the S-IVB, the three crewmen left their couches to take off their pressure suits and met with a surprise—motion sickness. Rapid body movements brought on nausea. Borman suffered the most. There had been a rash of gastroenteritis cases at the Cape just before launch. This “24-hour intestinal flu” might have caused Borman’s illness, but there was another possibility. Because it had taken longer to get away from the S-IVB than had been planned, he was late getting to his rest period. To make sure he went to sleep quickly, he had taken a Seconal tablet. During preflight testing of the medical supplies Borman had a slight reaction to this sleep-inducing pill, so he blamed the medication for at least part of his distress. When he awakened, after very fitful rest, Borman retched and vomited twice and had a loose bowel movement. The waste management system worked, but just barely. The crew reported their problems to the flight surgeon and, as Collins said later in Carrying the Fire, “the first humans to leave the cradle had called for their pediatrician.” Next day, however, Borman happily told flight control, “Nobody is sick.”⁵⁵

For the first six hours of flight, the round hatch window through which Lovell watched the earth receding had been clear. Then it had clouded over until it was almost useless. The clouding was caused, as it had been during Schirra’s flight, by a gas from the silicone oils used in a sealant compound. The two side windows also fogged over, but to a smaller degree. Only the rendezvous windows remained clear throughout the mission. On one occasion crew members complained that pictures of the sun taken through the side windows would be of little value, and they could not even see the sun through the rendezvous windows. They could not see the moon through any of the windows. Navigator Lovell later recalled that

we never really saw the moon. It was a crescent moon, and most of it was dark. I saw it several times in the optics as I was doing some sightings. By and large the body that we were rendezvousing with, that was coming from one direction as we were going to another, we never saw. And we took it on faith that the moon would be there, which says quite a bit for Ground Control.⁵⁶

At a distance of 223 000 kilometers from the earth, 31 hours after leaving home and 40 before reaching the moon, the crew put on its first television show. Scenes showed the inside of the craft, with Borman as director and narrator, Lovell as actor (preparing a meal), and all three crewmen as cameramen. Anders installed a telephoto lens to get a better view of the earth, but the lens did not work. When the crew switched back to the interior lens, the earth looked like a white blob. Lovell pointed out that the earth was very bright and they were using a low-level lens. Borman added that the camera was pointing through a hazy window. He was disappointed that they could not show their viewers the “beautiful, beautiful view, with [a predominantly] blue background and just huge covers of white clouds.”⁵⁷

A hundred thousand kilometers farther out and a day later, the crew again unstowed the television camera. This time the telephoto lens worked better. Lovell described what the audience was seeing: the Western Hemisphere was clearly in view and again he called out names—the North Pole, South America all the way down to Cape Horn, Baja California, and the southwestern part of the United States. Once, in a thoughtful vein, he turned to his commander:

Frank, what I keep imagining is if I am some lonely traveler from another planet what I would think about the earth at this altitude, whether I think it would be inhabited or not.... I was just curious if I would land on the blue or brown part of the earth.

Anders interjected, “You better hope that we land on the blue part.”⁵⁸

Following the second video presentation, the crew neared a new stage in manned space flight—travel to a place where the pull of earth’s gravity was less than that of another body. At 3:29 in the afternoon on Monday, 23 December, that historic crossing was made. At that point, the spacecraft was 326 400 kilometers from the earth and 62 600 from the moon, and its velocity had slowed to 1218 meters per second. Gradually, as the ship moved farther into the moon’s gravitational field, it picked up speed.⁵⁹

Now the crew prepared for another event—again denoted by one of the abbreviations with which space flight jargon abounds, LOI (lunar-orbit insertion). Since the craft was on a free-return trajectory—a path shaped like a figure eight that would loop the ship around the back of the moon and return it to the earth—Borman wanted “a perfect spacecraft before we can consider the LOI burn.” He would hate to leave that good trajectory and then find out that something was wrong. So far, the big service module engine had worked perfectly every time, but the path to the moon had been so precise that only two of four planned midcourse firings had been necessary. Ground control assured him that everything was in order. At 68 hours 4 minutes into the mission Carr, at the console, told the crew, “You are go for LOI.” He also informed the astronauts that the closest point of their approach should be 119 kilometers above the moon. Minutes before this transmission, when Borman commented that they still had not seen the moon, Carr asked what they could see. Anders replied, “Nothing. It’s like being on the inside of a submarine.” ⁶⁰

During Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo orbital missions, there had been periods of communications silence, especially in the southern hemisphere, because the worldwide tracking network did not cover all areas. Up till now Borman and his crew had been in continuous contact during the translunar voyage, but no communications would be possible when the spacecraft went behind the moon. Just before loss of signal in the early hours of 24 December (at 4:49), Carr wished them a safe journey, and Lovell answered, “We’ll see you on the other side.” Eleven minutes later, traveling at 2600 meters per second with their heads down so they could watch the lunar landscape, they fired the service module engine for four minutes to reduce their speed by 915 meters per second and get into an orbit approximately 111 by 312 kilometers. Although the engine performed flawlessly, Lovell called it the “longest four minutes I ever spent.” While the engine was firing, Lovell and Anders exclaimed about their fantastic view of the moon. Anders added that he had trouble telling the holes from the bumps. Borman called them back to watch their dials.⁶¹

Borman, Lovell, and Anders knew that the engine had fired successfully, but nearly a billion persons in 64 countries (according to TV Guide) did not. If the spacecraft had not gone into orbit, it would come back into communications range 10 minutes earlier than planned. After what seemed an interminable wait, John McLeish, on the public information console in flight control, gleefully announced, “We got it! We’ve got it! Apollo 8 now in lunar orbit.”⁶²

After 15 minutes of describing the first engine firing and getting numbers for the second firing (to circularize the orbit at 112 kilometers above the lunar surface), the crew members told their fellow men what the moon looked like at this close range. Lovell said:

John McLeish,

Okay, Houston, The moon is essentially gray, no color; looks like plaster of Paris or sort of a grayish deep sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn’t stand out as well here as it does back on earth. There’s not as much contrast between that and the surrounding craters. The craters are all rounded off. There’s quite a few of them; some of them are newer. Many of them ...—especially the round ones—look like hits by meteorites or projectiles of some sort.

(Later, during the technical debriefings, Lovell added that

the Lunar Orbiter photographs which we had on board were quite adequate. There was no problem at all in determining objects particularly on the near side of the moon. There are suitable landing sites. They are very easily distinguished. We could pick them up. We could work our way in.... The Lunar Orbiter photos again were helpful ... to check the craters on the back side.)

After looking at the back of the moon on several orbits, Anders was moved to comment:

It certainly looks like we’re picking the more interesting places on the moon to land in. The backside looks like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time. It’s all beat up, no definition. Just a lot of bumps and holes.⁶³

As Apollo 8 whirled around the moon on its ten two-hour circuits, the spacecraft location display seemed odd at first to those watching the map in mission control. In earth orbit, spacecraft had always gone from left to right on the display panels; on the lunar charts, however, this vehicle moved from right to left. And while it traveled the crew continued to talk about the view. Anders expressed the general opinion that the moon was an “unappetizing looking place”; nevertheless, it did have a kind of stark beauty. Astronauts commented on the hues of light and dark caused by earthshine and sunshine. They gave temporary names to some of the craters: names like (Harrison) Schmitt, (George) Low, (Robert) Gilruth, (Joseph) Shea, (Theodore) Freeman, (Gus) Grissom, (Ed) White, (James) Webb, (Thomas) Paine, (Elliot) See, (Alan) Shepard, (Donald) Slayton, (Samuel) Phillips, (Christopher) Kraft, (Roger) Chaffee, (Charles) Bassett, and (Gerald) Carr. Once, when flight controller John W. Aaron was the only one to notice in the general excitement that the environmental system needed an adjustment, Crater Aaron was named on the spot.⁶⁴

NASA had been asked by some to postpone the December lunar-orbiting mission, lest some accident mar Christmas celebrations on earth. But now, as Apollo 8 circled the moon this Christmas Eve, there was additional rejoicing. Early in December, Borman and a friend had selected a prayer for the occasion. During the third lunar revolution, Borman asked, “Is Rod Rose there? I have a message for him,” and sent the following transmission:

To Rod Rose and the people of St. Christopher’s, actually to people everywhere—

 

Give us, O God, the vision which can see thy love in the world in spite of human failure.

 

Give us the faith to trust thy goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness.

 

Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts.

And show us what each one of us can do to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace. Amen.

The crew members had consulted other friends about a possible theme for their mission, something to signify one world, something to tell everyone on earth. One suggestion was that they read the story of the Creation in the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. This they did, during the ninth revolution, closing with “Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you—all of you on the good earth.” ⁶⁵

Borman later admitted that he and his crew had not really wanted to carry a television camera; fortunately the decision had not been left to them. Television from the moon had a wide audience. During the flight the crew was told that its shows were being seen all over Europe, even in Moscow and East Berlin; in Japan; in North, Central, and South America; and perhaps in Africa. Lovell, using his optical devices to get a better look, described what was being photographed. Anders raced from window to window for the best vantage points for photographing the lunar surface, especially the areas being considered for landing sites. By the seventh revolution, both of them were so tired that Borman put a stop to the observations. Soon, he knew, they had to start thinking about transearth injection (TEI, another of those important abbreviations)—entrance on the path for home.⁶⁶

On the tenth lap of the moon, on Christmas morning, 3 days, 17 hours, and 17 seconds after earth launch, the service module engine fired to increase their speed by 1070 meters per second. Rounding the corner from the back of the moon, Lovell told Mattingly, who had taken over as CapCom for that shift, “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.” In mission control, the holiday became a truly festive occasion. A Christmas tree was placed below the flight status board, which again showed an earth map with red and green lights, the traditional colors of the season. Schmitt, who had coached the crew for its geological observations, read a parody on Clement C. Moore’s poem, “T’was the Night before Christmas.” ⁶⁷

After leaving the moon, the crew was worn out. The astronauts rested, letting “Isaac Newton” do most of the driving. Following their naps, CapCom Carr gave them the latest earth news, with emphasis on the impact their voyage had made on the world.⁶⁸ On the whole, Apollo 8’s explorations in December 1968 were acclaimed enthusiastically by the multitudes who looked at their world for the first time from thousands of kilometers in space and at their moon from slightly more than a hundred.

The trip back to the earth was uneventful. During the entire trip, CSM-103 registered only such expected irregularities as fogging windows, puddling water, and clattering cabin fans. Now the space-weary travelers could rest, eat, sleep, show television, and enjoy the ride home. Lovell continued his navigational sightings, and flight control did the tracking. Neither could find more than a minor error in the course hours before the scheduled splashdown in the Pacific; one correction (of less than two meters per second) was made. Early Saturday morning, 14 500 kilometers above the earth, the crew fired the pyrotechnics to separate the command module from the service module, which had worked perfectly whenever it was needed. Fifteen minutes later, the spacecraft crossed into the fringes of the atmosphere, 120 kilometers above the earth. Borman told Mattingly they had a real fireball but were in good shape. Spacecraft speed increased to 9700 meters per second, subjecting the crew to a load of nearly seven g.

Apollo 8 carries the first men beyond the pull of the earth, to circle the moon, 21—27 December 1968. At left, three top Manned Spacecraft Center officials—Christopher Kraft, Robert Gilruth, and George Trimble (left to right)—wait to hear that the spacecraft has been launched.

Earthrise on the lunar horizon greets the Apollo 8 crew coming from behind the moon after lunar orbit insertion.

The crew caught a nearly circular moon in the photo above. The edge of the Sea of Tranquility is on the left, southwest of and close to the circular Sea of Crisis (Mare Crisium). Borman, Lovell, and Anders were the first men to see the back of the moon (left). Among prominent features are Mare Smythii, Mare Crisium, Mare Fecundita-tis, Mare Nectaris, Crater Lang-renus, and several rayed craters.

The craft flew an entry curve to a point over northeast China, slanted to the southeast, and landed on target in the mid-Pacific. So accurate was the landing that it worried one of the chief mission planners and data watchers in Houston. Bill Tindall wrote to Jerome B. Hammack, head of the Landing and Recovery Division:

Jerry, I’ve done a lot of joking about the spacecraft hitting the aircraft carrier, but the more I think about it the less I feel it is a joke. There are reports that the C Prime command module came down right over the aircraft carrier [stationed at 165°02.1’ west longitude and 8°09.3’ north latitude] and drifted on its chutes to land [at 165°01.02’ west and 8°07.5’ north, only 4572 meters] away. This really strikes me as being too close. ... The consequence of the spacecraft hitting the carrier is truly catastrophic.... I seriously recommend relocating the recovery force at least [8 to 16 kilometers] from the target point.

Astronauts Gerald Carr, Donald Slayton, Neil Armstrong (seated left to right in the left photo), and Harrison Schmitt and Edwin Aldrin (standing) compare mosaics of Lunar Orbiter photograPhs with scenes televised from the moon to Mission Control by Apollo 8 crewmen.

At right, three jubilant astronauts—Lovell, Borman, and Anders (left to right)—back on the earth after their Apollo 8 mission, tell what they saw.

The craft came down in darkness on Friday, 27 December (6 days, 3 hours, and 42 seconds after launch) , flipping over on its nose as it landed. Until Borman punched the button that inflated the air bags to upright the spacecraft, its flashing light beacon was lost to the sight of the recovery helicopters. Mission ground rules required a daylight recovery, so Borman and his crew waited 45 minutes for the swimmers to open the hatches. A few minutes later, the helicopter deposited the crew on the deck of the U.S.S. Yorktown for the last lap of—in Borman’s words—“a most fantastic voyage.”⁶⁹

Nineteen hundred and sixty-eight was a banner year for the United States space program, and the celebrations for the latest space explorers were enthusiastic. In Washington on 9 January 1969, Borman, Lovell, and Anders visited the White House, where President Johnson presented them with NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal. Then their motorcade passed through cheering crowds on its way to Capitol Hill, where a joint session of Congress and the Supreme Court heard Borman’s report. The theme of his talk was that Apollo 8 “was a triumph of all mankind.” The three astronauts went to the Department of State auditorium for a press conference, to describe their trip and answer questions from the news media. New York City welcomed them with a ticker-tape parade on the 10th of January, Newark hailed them on the 11th, and Miami greeted them on the 12th during the Super Bowl football game. They returned to Houston on the 13th for a hometown parade. Incoming President Richard M. Nixon sent Borman and his family on an eight-nation goodwill tour of western Europe; they visited London, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, Bonn, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, and Lisbon. Everywhere they went, the moon travelers depicted the earth as a spaceship and stressed international cooperation in space.⁷⁰

Now, 1969—the year President Kennedy had set for meeting his challenge—was here. North American’s command and service modules had proved that they were ready to achieve that goal. It was time for Grumman’s lunar module to be put through some strenuous rehearsals to prepare it for the last—and perhaps the most difficult—100 kilometers of the 380 000-kilometer voyage.