Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (19 page)

Read Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 Online

Authors: Robert Zimmerman

Tags: #History, #United States, #20th Century, #test

 

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have brought disaster to her and her five little children. His concern touched her, and Valerie tried to case his mind by being bright and cheery and talking about how well everything was going. She had faith in George Low, and she wanted to show him that.
After a few minutes she heard Bill tell Mike Collins that he was passing the controls to Borman so that he could "take a little snooze for a while." Quickly Valerie passed a message to Collins. She wanted him to tell Frank to tell Bill that she wished him "a happy nap." In the spacecraft, Borman grinned at Anders, now floating in the small space below the couches and trying (but failing) to sleep. "Okay," he said to Collins. "Tell her that he makes us tired sometimes too."
About this time Jim Lovell finally woke up, having slept for almost seven hours. As the mission's navigator, he now began a long discussion with the ground on what stars to look at and where he should sight. He reiterated his problems with fuel and light glare, noting that unless he allowed his eyes to completely adapt to the darkness of space he could not see the stars.
Despite these difficulties, however, on Sunday Lovell had managed to make his own estimate of the spacecraft's course and position. When Houston compared calculations, they found that his numbers were "within a couple of a thousandths of a degree of the theoretical optimum." Mattingly had added jokingly, "Well, I am getting a lot of confidence in your ability to run that mystery show now."
Anders had responded, "Hey, we have to spend four more days up here with him, will you take it easy? [Jim] is already talking about going back to M.I.T. as a professor."
The ground had discovered another interesting navigational phenomenon. When the astronauts dumped their waste urine overboard, it actually acted as a propellant and changed their course slightly. This unexpected power source eventually required them to do a small additional mid-course correction.
Time passed. The astronauts dozed, or did other routine maintenance.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Finally, at 12:30 PM, Ken Mattingly, now at communications, asked Frank Borman about their second planned television show. "Are you planning to show us TV pictures of the earth today?"

 

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"Well, that is what we wanted to do," Borman answered. "It seems that would be the most interesting thing we can show you, but we, you know, had trouble with the lens."
Mattingly then began describing to Borman the solution proposed by the video technicians on the ground. First the astronauts needed to take one of the filters from the film cameras and duct tape it to the front of the video lens. Then, with the camera mounted in its bracket, the men could aim the camera by reorienting the spacecraft. "Do not touch the body of the lens while televising," Mattingly told Borman. "Apparently if you put your hands on the [telephoto] lens itself, it causes electrical interference." They were also warned to give the lens's automatic light meter from ten to twenty seconds to warm up. The technicians suspected that the previous day the lens hadn't had time to adjust to the high contrast of light coming from a bright earth surrounded by a black sky. For more than an hour Mattingly and Borman went over these steps, with Mattingly noting that "the show as scheduled is just out the window at the earth only."
Borman agreed, though he had his doubts about the lens. "I bet the TV doesn't work."
Mattingly hedged, "Well, we won't take that bet, but anyway, we are standing by for a nice lurid description [of the earth]."
At 2 PM, they turned on the camera. With Borman as pilot and Anders as cameraman, Lovell became the narrator. Because the camera had no eyepiece, the astronauts could only aim it using instructions from earth or, as Anders noted, by "looking down the side or putting some chewing gum on top." Borman and Anders struggled to keep the earth centered in the camera frame, with Borman maneuvering the capsule to make the major adjustments and Anders fine-tuning the picture by tweaking the camera's mounting.
This time the camera lens worked. The astronauts successfully transmitted to earth the first live televised pictures of the home planet as a globe.
In many ways, this telecast foreshadowed today's news coverage, where every major event is televised live, and every citizen can watch it happen merely by pressing a button. Yet, because this type of newscast was unprecedented, there were no announcers, no talking heads "analyzing" what everyone was watching. The moment had a freshness and impact gone from much of modern news broadcasting.

 

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By now Valerie had returned from mission control to find an almost party-like atmosphere at her home. Many of Valerie's friends had come by, and she, her children, Bill's aunt and uncle from Texas, and others crowded around her new color television to watch the telecast. Not surprisingly, Valerie found that her children were more interested in watching cartoons or going outside to play with friends. However, she insisted that they stay and watch.
Susan Borman was also pinned to the television. But her two sons had had enough of the crowds of people and the mob of reporters. That morning they had both decided to go duck hunting in an effort to get away from all the hoopla. They got into their hunting coveralls and loaded their gear into Fred's car, planning to drive out to the country farm of a family friend.
The photographer from
Life
magazine noticed what they were doing and decided it would make a great picture to see them arm-in-arm with their mother holding their shotguns. Susan hated these posed shots, but she went outside in her backyard to do her job. The boys simply wanted to get away as quickly as possible, so they obliged as well.
Then they climbed into Fred's car and headed out. Not surprisingly, a handful of journalists jumped into cars to follow, and for a few minutes the boys led the world's press corps on a merry chase through El Lago and Timber Cove. To get away Fred turned into the front entrance of NASA to cut through the Manned Spaceflight Center and exit its back gate. While the Bormans could pass through quickly, their shadowers were left at the main gate, trying to get clearance. Fred and Ed then disappeared into the country for a few hours' relief from the constant stream of visitors at their home.
At the Lovell house the situation was similar. While most of her family and friends gathered in front of the television, Marilyn almost had to drag Jay in from the backyard. He wasn't interested in seeing a grainy, black-and-white picture of the earth when he could be out with friends on this Christmas vacation day.
On the television Jim Lovell began by noting how the earth's observable size was quite small: ''About as big as the end of my thumb" when held at arm's length. He then described the visible continents, from the North Pole on top to the southern tip of South America at the bottom. "For colors, waters are all sort

 

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The earth, December 23, 1968. This televised view matches the 
70mm still photo in the color section.
of a royal blue; clouds, of course, are bright white . . . the land areas are generally a brownish sort of dark brownish to light brown in texture."
Everyone, in space as well as earth, could see that there was absolutely no visible evidence that a civilization of more than three billion people existed on that small planet.
Lovell in particular was struck by the scale of the cosmos. His navigation work, sighting off the moon, the earth, the sun, and the stars, had given him a real sense of where he was in that vastness. And though he had at that moment spent more time in space than any other human (having

 

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flown two weeks with Borman in 1965 and four days with Buzz Aldrin in 1966), he found himself awed at the smallness of earth in that black sky. As he told his earthbound audience, "What I keep imagining is, if I were a traveler from another planet, what would I think about the earth at this altitude would I think it was inhabited?"
To Bill Anders, that tiny blue-white earth suddenly reminded him of the Christmas tree ornaments he and Valerie had hung only three weeks before. The planet was round, it glittered, and its surface seemed delicate and easily destroyed.
While they didn't say so, and none of them would have even admitted it to themselves, the three men were truly staggered by the immensity of the emptiness around them, and the jewel-like splendor of the shimmering sphere floating within it.
Nor were they alone in their impression. On earth one could feel it in their words, and see it in the televised image of the earth. As Anders noted during the broadcast, "You are looking at yourselves at [200,000] miles out in space."
Valerie Anders, focusing her mind on the excitement and joy of the space flight, gazed at the television with utter elation. She had trouble imagining how far away the astronauts were.
That's the earth
, she thought incredulously,
with all its billions of people on it
.
Susan Borman looked at this vision of the earth and felt only disbelief
How could this be?
, she thought. She found herself struggling to imagine Frank actually in space so far from home. To Susan, the television image actually made it all seem less real, like a science fiction television show. So, rather than watch, she dosed her eyes and listened to Frank's voice. When she did, she found that she could imagine him in the capsule, surrounded by infinite space.
It wasn't enough. She couldn't put herself there with him. Nor could her fantasizing help get him home.
For Marilyn Lovell, the vastness of space and the danger that surrounded her husband finally hit her. Jim unwittingly helped pound the point home when, still amazed at how little of human civilization he could identify from this distance, he wondered aloud if a visitor from the stars would know to "land on the blue or the brown part of the earth."

 

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Bill Anders joked, "You better hope that we land on the blue part."
As the telecast ended, Marilyn's children scattered, and suddenly Marilyn felt a compelling need to get closer to her husband. She decided to make a quick trip to mission control to watch the action and reassure herself that all would be fine. The NASA liaison officer quickly arranged for a ride, and in less than ten minutes she was in the V.I.P section of the control room.
Her timing couldn't have been worse. Almost as soon as she arrived the Apollo 8 spacecraft passed the point in which the moon's and earth's gravity balanced. Up until that moment the earth had been pulling at them, slowing them down until their ship's speed had dropped to only 2,223 miles per hour. Now they had crossed into what the engineers called "the moon's sphere of influence," its gravity pulling at them and drawing them in. Jerry Carr, at capcom, made a point of letting Borman know. "By the way, welcome to the moon's sphere."
At first Borman didn't understand. "The moon's fair?" he asked, puzzled.
"The moon's sphere," Carr said, more slowly. "You're in the influence."
Borman joked, "That's better than being under the influence."
Marilyn left less reassured than when she arrived, and returned to a strangely quiet house. Her kids were off playing somewhere, and the crowds of friends had drifted away when she had gone to mission control. Marilyn was completely alone for the first time since the launch.
She stood in her empty home, listening to the hollow sound of the squawk box quietly hissing its never-ending stream of technical jargon.
Carr: Apollo 8, Houston. We're dumping at this time.
Anders: Roger. Tape voice is probable. We ought to get a check on it as low bit rate for D.S.E. voice.
Carr: Apollo 8, are you saying that everything that's on there now is in high bit?
Anders: That's where my switch was.
Carr: Okay. We'll take a look at it then . . .
Then Paul Haney, the public voice of NASA, noted that the spacecraft's speed was increasing. The capsule was now more than 205,000 miles from earth, traveling at over 2,700 miles per hour.

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