Apollo 8 : Go For TLI

December 21st 1968 the shortest day of the year but insignificance perhaps one of the longest in the flow of History this is Apollo Saturn L control we are still go at this time T minus 15 14 13 12 12 11 10 9 we have ignition sequence start the engines are armed 4 3 2 1 Zer we have Commit we have we have lift off lift off at 7:51 a.m. eastern standard time we have cleared the T clear 13 seconds the United States was undertaking the most distant Voyage ever attempted by man for the first time three Americans rode the Saturn 5 Moon [Applause] rocket understand we hear you loud and clear okay the first stage was very smooth and this one is smoother Apollo Houston your trajectory and guidance are go over thank you Michael yeah you're looking real good Frank Borman Jim lble and Bill Anders were about to leave their cradle Earth and face the infinite Frontier dist you are go for tli over you understand we go for t tli trans lunar insertion this was the commitment Borman Lovel and Anders were ready for the maneuver that would send them to the Moon as the world listened and watched its people were overtaken by a new awareness an awareness that they were perhaps witnessing the Overture to the ultimate Destiny of man LEL confirms ignition and a thrust is okay booster says on board the spacecraft and in Mission Control the men of Apollo 8 watched the readouts velocity buildup in feet per second the numbers snowballing toward the velocity that would allow the spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity and Borman says we've got SEO cut off was right on the second with the cut off of their third stage engine a 8 was traveling faster than had any men before a coasting uphill climb against the pole of their native planet now the third stage the s4b was just useless Mass to them it was jettison then later placed into an orbit around the Sun the crew of Apollo 8 turned around for a look Apollo 8 loud and clear Frank how we're L clear we're taking pictures of the s4b uh the post separation sequence is completed and we seem to have a high gain give us a clue as to what it looks like from way up there I can see the entire Earth now out of the center window I can see Florida Cuba Central America the whole northern half of Central America affect all the way down through Argentina and down through uh Chile hey you picked a good day for us Houston for information I'm looking through the scanning telescope now and I see billi of stars most of them uh the vending from the s4b the crew of Apollo 8 now settle down to the routine of the outward flight systems checks observations navigational star sightings uh Jim uh I just been uh looking at your your marks with respect to accuracy and they figure they're within couple thousands of a degree of the theoretical Optimum lovel's Proficiency in navigating the spacecraft with its onboard Optical instruments would eventually earn him the nickname the man with the golden fingers his speed was such that he would be requested to slow down so that the Earthbound machines recording the data could keep up with him the accuracy of his sightings was virtually Flawless symbolic of the entire Mission a mission so accurate that several of the planned midcourse Corrections would be dropped as unnecessary astronauts spacecraft flight controllers computers the Precision was fantastic then on the second day out the world looked in on the crew via television this transmission is coming to you approximately halfway between the Moon and the Earth and we've been and 31 hours about 20 minutes into the flight we have about uh less than 40 hours left to go to the month so Apollo 8 glided on silently farther from Earth than man had ever before been a microscopic dot of life in the cosmic void around the world in Goldstone California Madrid Spain canbera Australia the gigantic antennas of the deep space Network tracked upon 8 received its communic picked up the voice of its Telemetry only for the 40 minutes of its Transit behind the moon on each orbit would Apollo 8 lose contact with Earth then on the day before Christmas the network zeroed in on the spacecraft television antenna for the second broadcast to Earth all right you're all looking at yourselves to se from 18,000 miles out in space m I keep imagining is if I'm a some lonely traveler from another planet what did I think about the Earth from this altitude whether I think it'd be inhabited or not no see anybody waving is that what you're saying well I'm just kind of curious uh whether I would land on the blue or the brown part of the earth you better hope we land in the blue part shortly after they turned off the television camera Borman Lovel and Anders ended their long climb away from Earth crossing the point where the gravity of Earth and Moon just B they became the first men to fall toward another Celestial body now the time approached for the most immense commitment of the mission lunar orbit insertion Loi a burn of the service module engine would Place Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon up to this time without further major Maneuvers the spacecraft would loop around the moon and return to earth once the burn was made Apollo 8 would be held by the moon's gravity field until a later burn would push it free Apollo 8 this is Houston at 6804 your goal for Loi okay let go you're riding the best bird we can find lunar orbit insertion would take place on the back side of the moon with the moon between the spacecraft and the Earth all contact would be lost until it appeared on the other side in control they anticipated Los loss of signal from Apollo 8 see you on the other side now mission control and the world could only wait wait for the first contact with Apollo 8 as it emerged from behind the moon we've got it uh we've got it Apollo 8 now in in lunar orbit there's a chair in the this room this is Apollo control Houston switching now to the voice of Jim level by 60.5 good to hear your voice voice the burn was as close to perfect as possible later Burns would circularize the orbit and the three astronauts would Circle the moon 10 times in 20 hours sunrise sunset every 2 hours on an alien world and they would take pictures still photographs as well as Motion Picture film here seen at a much faster rate than orbital velocity uh follow 8 Houston uh what does the old moon look like from 60 miles over okay Houston the Moon is essentially gray no color looks like plaster of Paris here or sort of a grayish beach sand you can see quite a bit of detail uh the craters are all rounded off there's quite a few of them some our newer many of them look like especially the round ones look like U hit by meteorites or projecs or some sort angr this is quite a huge crater it's got a central cone to it the walls of the crater are are terrist about six or seven different Terraces on the way down the world saw and heard the first live telecast of the lunar surface he Bill how would you describe the color of the Moon from here uh the color of the Moon looks uh a very whitish gray like dirty beak sand and with lots of footprints in it don't these new crators look like uh pickaxes striking concrete leaving a lot of fine Haz [Music] dust scientist engineer astronaut the world all followed the progress of Apollo 8 for this was preparation an advanced Scout marking the way for those who would follow those who would orbit those who would land navigate track observe record describe there's no trouble picking out uh features that we learned on about looks like we're picking the more interes parts of the Moon to land in the back looks like a Sandile my kids have been playing in for a long time it's all meat up no definition just a lot of bumps and holes the area that we're over right now giv some of possible volcanics though I really can't ey at the moment to that down though there are some craters and buildups definitely suggest volcanic activity then a Christmas Eve message the world could not forget welcome from the Moon thank you the Moon is a different thing to each one of us I know my own impression is that it's a a vast lonely forbidding type existence or expanse of nothing it looks rather like clouds and clouds of P Beyond technology Beyond science Apollo eight was bringing to the world a new awareness an expansion of Mind and Spirit that must forever alter the perspective of humanity physically and philosophically and from the crew of Apollo 8 we close with good night good luck a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you all of you on The Good Earth there was little time for the crew of Apollo 8 to reflect the next job was to make sure that the spacecraft was ready for the most critical maneuver of the mission the firing of the service module engine for Tei transe insertion and the trip home there was no go no-o decision on this one it had to go all systems are go Apollo 8 thank you for the final time Apollo 8 passed behind the moon out of contact with Earth for this most critical of all the burns on the ground men waited Houston Apollo 8 Houston Apollo 8 Houston Apollo 8 Houston hello Apollo 8 loud and clear Roger please Beed there is a Santa Claus the best one to know three very tired astronauts were on their way home and with them rode an army of Engineers scientists technicians programmers flight controllers all those whose dedicated efforts were aollo 8 after catching up on their rest Homeward Bound there was more a mood of elation contrasted with the outbound loneliness I told Michael you guys are up there and uh he said who's driving that's a good question I think Isaac doing most of the driving right now we were enjoying the holiday in the Christian World Christmas and we pause for a moment in our celebrations to watch three Travelers heading home as many of us sat down to our Christmas meal Borman LEL and Anders were enjoying theirs it appears that we did a great Injustice to the food people Santa Claus brought us a a TV dinner eats which is delicious turkey and gravy cranberry sauce grap punch outstanding Jim glad to hear it we're down here eating cold coffee and baloney sandwiches as on the way out there were periods of work the navigational ability of the spacecraft and crew was proving phenomenal and periods of rest a single man on watch okay that just leaves you or I how about you and I anything exciting happened today real quiet down here uh everybody's smiling everything's pretty pretty calm like it should be on Christmas very good mil says we're in a period of relaxed vigilance very good we'll relax you be vigilant the final television transmission 97,000 miles out farther than man had been on any previous Mission but now tantalizingly close to home I uh think I must have the feeling that The Travelers in the old sailing ships used to have you g on a very long Voyage away from home and uh now we're headed back and uh I have that feeling of being proud of the trip but still uh still happy to be going back home and back to our home for every second brought the spacecraft closer to its fiery entry the final plunge to the safety of Earth on the morning of December 27th the word was given to Apollo 8 the pyrotechnic devices that would separate the command and service modules prior to entry were armed Apollo 8 Apollo 8 here go for p arm everything's looking good Roger looking good here again on schedule the Command Module jettisoned the service module to expose the main heat shield aligned itself to entry attitude and slammed into the atmosphere at 25,000 mph faster than man had ever traveled until Apollo [Music] 8 a tracking aircraft took these films of the entry the spacecraft seen as an incandescent Fireball with the temperature on the heat shield reaching 5,000 de the communications were blacked out the men in Mission Control waited once more Ken mattingley just put in a call and just frankly labeled it a radio check he's gotten no responses yet Ken mingly puts in another call and there's Jim level we're real good shape real fine The Landing was right on [Music] target later Frank Borman would report passing over the recovery ship as Apollo 8 drifted down toward the sea on its [Music] parachutes as Borman Lovel and Anders stepped onto the carrier deck a huge and patriotic celebration broke loose in Mission Control a celebration echoed by the hundreds of thousands of men in women who were Apollo 8 again it's Apollo control here I'm not sure how well our voice is getting out but there is a tremendous Roar an undercurrent of Roar in the background and I have never seen uh the degree of this emotional outpouring in any previous Mission including Alan Shepards I've seen uh rallies in locker rooms after Championship Games I've seen happy politicians after elections but I none of them do justice to the spirit pervading this room but the Triumph of Apollo 8 was beyond the bounds of nationalism it was a fruition of the ages of humanity the first Chinese setting off a gunpowder rocket the Englishman Newton the German Kepler the Russian silovsky the American GED for one moment in history the nations of Earth were United in The Eternity of deep space in Havana in Washington in London in Moscow in Tokyo all of mankind joined three Americans orbiting 60 Mi above a star lifeless world in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth Earth and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness the vast liness up here on the moon is uh all inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth yourest from here is a grand alance in the big fastness of space give us oh God the vision which can see thy love in the world in spite of human failure give us the faith to trust the goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding heart and show us what each one of us do to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace [Music] amen