Apollo 8, launched 50 years ago this week

[UPChip]

Oddly enough, the Wright Brothers' first flight was 115 years ago Monday. We went from that to flying to the moon in 65 years' time. And though Apollo 11 was a true achievement for humanity, Apollo 8, which launched 50 years ago Friday morning, was arguably a much bigger risk given the lack of redundancy and the unknowns of traveling literally hundreds of thousands of times farther from the Earth than had ever previously been attempted.

 

[BTExpress]

And it was all because . . . the Lunar Module kept having glitch after glitch and wasn't ready for its first earth-orbit test. So instead of repeating Apollo 7, George Low shocks everyone by proposing a flight to the moon . . . without the Lunar Module.

In one respect it was safer than many missions. No new equipment. No fancy maneuvers or experiments. Just fire the engine to break away from Earth and let Sir Isaac Newton do the rest. Still, that final trip behind the far side of the moon (will the engine fire to get them home?) . . .

A great ending to a truly horrible year.

 

[Starman]

And it was all because . . . the Lunar Module kept having glitch after glitch and wasn't ready for its first earth-orbit test. So instead of repeating Apollo 7, George Low shocks everyone by proposing a flight to the moon . . . without the Lunar Module.

In one respect it was safer than many missions. No new equipment. No fancy maneuvers or experiments. Just fire the engine to break away from Earth and let Sir Isaac Newton do the rest. Still, that final trip behind the far side of the moon (will the engine fire to get them home?) . . .

A great ending to a truly horrible year.

Well, the Saturn V had never been flown with a crew before, and the previous launch (Apollo 6 in April) had been a near-disaster with major "pogo" problems during the second stage burn. So it was quite a risky move.

The No. 1 song on the charts that week:

 

[maumann]

Famous for the "Earthrise" photo, the reading of the creation of the heavens from Genesis on Christmas Eve, and I believe Borman, Lovell and Anders still hold the record for being the furthest distance from the Earth -- because their lunar orbit was significantly more elliptical than the following Apollo missions.

 

[Starman]

Lovell got the record on Apollo 13.

The Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records

 

[cyclingwriter2]

Randomly, Appolonia 6 started recorded their debut album this week in 1983.

 

[maumann]

Neat trivia: Bill Anders, who never flew in space again, named his first two kids "Alan" and "Glen" -- before Alan Shepard and John Glenn were chosen as the Original Seven.

 

[CD Boogie]

Famous for the "Earthrise" photo, the reading of the creation of the heavens from Genesis on Christmas Eve, and I believe Borman, Lovell and Anders still hold the record for being the furthest distance from the Earth -- because their lunar orbit was significantly more elliptical than the following Apollo missions.

Frank Borman once called me on the telephone in like 1982 after my dad bought me some stock in Eastern Airlines. That's all I got.

 

[BTExpress]

Famous for the "Earthrise" photo, the reading of the creation of the heavens from Genesis on Christmas Eve, and I believe Borman, Lovell and Anders still hold the record for being the furthest distance from the Earth -- because their lunar orbit was significantly more elliptical than the following Apollo missions.

Fake!!!

Well, not the photo, but the way it was used.

The photo as originally taken showed the moon on the right, its horizon in the middle, and the earth on the left.

Looked OK . . . but something was missing.

Rotate the photo 90 degrees, and voila! "Earthrise!"

 

[CD Boogie]

BTW, can we all just agree that "cosmonaut" is a slightly cooler name than "astronaut"?

 

[CD Boogie]

Fake!!!

Well, not the photo, but the way it was used.

The photo as originally taken showed the moon on the right, its horizon in the middle, and the earth on the left.

Looked OK . . . but something was missing.

Rotate the photo 90 degrees, and voila! "Earthrise!"

Even back then, straight-laced white dudes didn't know to rotate their iphones to take pictures.

 

[Starman]

Apollo 8 was really a complete all-or-nothing gamble, because in August/September '68, when the decision to go for lunar orbit was really made:

1) NASA was still working furiously to recover from the Apollo 1 tragedy only 20 months before. Apollo 7 had not yet flown; there was no guarantee the largely redesigned capsule would work.

2) The test flight of Apollo 6 (see above) had only been marginally successful in that the vehicle hadn't blown up. Had it been a manned mission they certainly would have had to abort.

3) LBJ, who had been the space program's biggest booster, had dropped out of the presidential race. Hubert Humphrey supported the program, but about 60% less enthusiastically than Johnson. The Republican, Nixon, was the ultimate scheming nemesis of John F. Kennedy and wanted to wipe anything and everything associated with him off the face of history. Nixon would have gleefully canceled the Apollo program, lock, stock and space food sticks, on January 21, 1969, if he had even the slimmest political cover to do so.

NASA had to deal with the reality that the incoming president was either going to be Humphrey, with lukewarm support of the Apollo program, or Nixon, hell bent to wipe it off the books.

So NASA needed an earth-shaking spectacular success to make that impossible. Sending Apollo 8 up into a ho-hum earth orbital mission wouldn't have done it.

But live teevee pictures from the moon on Christmas Eve got it done.

 

[BTExpress]

BTW, can we all just agree that "cosmonaut" is a slightly cooler name than "astronaut"?

It's also more accurate.

Cosmonaut = explorer of space
Astronaut = explorer of stars

But if they use X, we have to use Y.

 

[CD Boogie]

It's also more accurate.

Cosmonaut = explorer of space
Astronaut = explorer of stars

But if they use X, we have to use Y.

Also, Cosmo Kramer >> Astro from the Jetsons.

 

[maumann]

Other than the Tigers winning the World Series -- which was the only thing better than Apollo 8 for a 10-year-old Detroit native -- 1968 was a steaming pile of awful. Hard to believe it could be worse than the current situation, but in reality, we've survived worse.

 

[maumann]

Houston Astros >> New York Cosmos

 

[BTExpress]

NASA originally wanted 12 lunar orbits. Borman thought it unnecessarily ambitious and demanded only 10.

"But that means a splashdown before dawn,'' NASA said. "If the parachutes don't open we won't know where to find you."

Borman: "If the parachutes don't open, we'll be dead."

There were 10 lunar orbits.

 

[Starman]

Other than the Tigers winning the World Series -- which was the only thing better than Apollo 8 for a 10-year-old Detroit native -- 1968 was a steaming pile of awful. Hard to believe it could be worse than the current situation, but in reality, we've survived worse.

The music was better.

 

[Monday Morning Sportswriter]

NASA originally wanted 12 lunar orbits. Borman thought it unnecessarily ambitious and demanded only 10.

"But that means a splashdown before dawn,'' NASA said. "If the parachutes don't open we won't know where to find you."

Borman: "If the parachutes don't open, we'll be dead."

There were 10 lunar orbits.

I enjoyed little moments like that in “From the Earth to the Moon,” like when Al Bean’s character (Dave Foley was great) narrates that after the lighting strike, Houston didn’t know whether they should abort because of potential damage to the parachute release system.

Something like “they decided we’d be just as dead splashing down now or in ten days, so they might as well send us to the moon.”

 

[Pilot]

The Today Show had a great Apollo 8 segment this morning, and even better it featured my favorite museum, the Kansas Cosmosphere. I grew up about 30 minutes away and it really sparked my interest in space exploration as a kid. (The high point of that obsession... ok, my life: winning the Right Stuff Award at Space Camp in Alabama.)

They did a major overhaul in about 1995 that turned the focus very sharply on the space race itself. They have a ton of incredible artifacts but they whole place does an incredible job of telling a story rather than leaning on those stand-out pieces. It starts with real V1 and V2 rockets, then basically builds the story from there, showing how the success of both the Soviets and Americans all stemmed from the V2. It has (out on loan during my last visit) Gus Grissom's once-sunk Liberty Bell 7 capsule, Gemini X and Apollo 13, plus a flown (I think?) first-stage Saturn 5 engine, an SR-71, the Soviet's backup Sputnik 1 probe, plus a ton of great smaller things like actual slide rules used by Sergei Korolev and Werner Von Braun. And, they have the camera used on Apollo 8 to snap the Earth Rise photo.

Anyway, I never miss a chance to babble about the Cosmosphere. I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to appreciate it. If you're ever in Hutchinson, Kansas...