Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (27 page)

Read Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 Online

Authors: Robert Zimmerman

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

 

The earth progressively shrinks. The top left picture was taken mere minutes after the 
photograph on the previous page. Florida and the Bahamas can still be seen in the upper center 
of the globe, under the same cloud formations. Now, however, all of South America has come 
into view, with Chile and the continent's southerly regions pointing off the earth's left edge. 
Africa can be seen on the lower right. The top right picture was taken sometime late Saturday, 
and the bottom left picture sometime on Sunday. The bottom right picture was taken during 
Monday afternoon's television broadcast, and matches the televised view shown the 
earth on page 99.

 

Anders: ''Looks like a sandpile my kids have been playing in for a long time. It's all 
beat up, no definition. Just a lot of bumps and holes." The only color, a very slight 
bluish hue, comes entirely front sunlight.

 

Earthrise. Compare to Frank Borman's photograph, page 173, taken a 
few minutes earlier.

 

December 27, 1968. After splashdown Frank Borman addresses the crew of the 
U.S.S. Yorktown,
 with Bill Anders and Jim Lovell standing beside him.

 

Page 145
Looking into the hatch of Apollo 1 on January 28, 1967, one day after the fire. 
All that remains of the center couch, where Ed White had sat, is its metal frame.
walking distance, would be called as well to keep her company until the astronaut arrived.
2
Now Bill Anders, who happened to be home at the time, was the astronaut assigned to give the news, and Jan Armstrong was the astronaut's wife assigned to keep her company.
When the Bormans arrived shortly thereafter Susan was shocked by what she saw. She and Pat had both seen their share of death: after all, their husbands were military test pilots, and both had witnessed the death of many other women's husbands.
Yet things were different that night. Three decades later Susan can still remember how the feeling of disbelief and catastrophe that permeated that house "unnerved me and unglued me like I had never been unnerved or unglued before."
That the men had died on the ground certainly made their death harder to take. Test pilots died while in the air, which was what all the

 

Page 146
astronauts and their families braced themselves for. No one at NASA had prepared them for an accident on the ground.
That one of the dead men was Ed White also made it more difficult. To many of the NASA community, including Susan, Ed was the astronaut's astronaut. He was strong, clearheaded, and able to solve any problem. Yet he had been killed in mere seconds, on the ground.
The grief was further amplified because some government official in Washington was already telling Pat White how to run the funeral. Ed had always told Pat that he wanted to be buried at West Point. Yet, try as she might, she was unable to make anyone understand that. The officials in Washington had immediately called to tell her that the government wanted all three men buried together, to make a "statement." They insisted that Ed would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Frank stepped in. Almost as soon as he walked in the door he called the bureaucrats and told them in no uncertain terms that Ed White was going to be buried at West Point, just as he and his family had wanted.
3
Then Frank was gone. Deke Slayton wanted him to represent the astronauts on the investigation committee NASA was forming, and before the evening was over he was piloting a plane to Florida. The board was going to inspect the Apollo 1 capsule that next morning.
In the weeks that followed, Susan and Pat spent a great deal of time together. The two women were very much alike, and had become friends almost as soon as they had met. They both loved their husbands and would have done anything for them. And they both were gladly and completely dependent on them for leadership.
Each evening Susan would go to Pat's home, trying to comfort her. But Pat was inconsolable. She had not anticipated Ed's death. He had been her pillar and her strength and, as Susan had with Frank, she had built her life around him. Now he was gone, and over and over again she asked Susan, "Who am I? What do I do now?"
Susan walked home across the suburban lawns and found herself asking the same questions.
Who am I?
she asked.
What would
I
do if Frank died?
She had no answer. A test pilot's wife simply never thinks about the possibility that her husband could die. To think about the negatives only defeats you.

 

Page 147
Borman testifying before Congress, April 17, 1967. Sitting next to him, from left to 
right, are astronauts Jim McDivitt, Deke Slayton, Wally Schirra, and Alan Shepard.
Yet, from this moment on Susan Borman began thinking about the risks Frank was taking. She began thinking that he could be next, and that she would be sitting where Pat White was now. Her faith in NASA and the space program was shattered. She resolved to keep this doubt secret, however. She told no one, including her husband.
For the next three months, as the review board investigated the fire, Frank practically lived in Florida. The three astronaut couches were carefully removed from the capsule and replaced with a wooden platform to allow panel members to get inside the capsule without disturbing the evidence. Borman sat in the command module, surrounded by what he subsequently described as a fire-blackened charnel house,"
4
carefully studying every detail in order to discover the cause of the fire. Later, Borman repeatedly played the

 

Page 148
communication tapes of the accident, listening to the anguished scream of Roger Chaffee crying, "We're burning up!" in an effort to find out what happened.
The astronauts' deaths destroyed the lives and careers of several people at NASA. One man had a nervous breakdown. Borman, however, saw it no differently than the many other deaths he had witnessed while he was a test pilot. This was risky work, and people sometimes died doing it.
Nonetheless, Borman felt himself getting increasingly angry. Everywhere he and the rest of the investigation committees looked, they found sloppy workmanship by both the contractor and by NASA.
When Borman had been a freshman at West Point, something had happened that would define the rest of his life. The plebe's life was brutal: up at dawn, working sixteen hours a day, little time off, and little sympathy from anyone. One day the cadets had been running the plebes around all day, doing twenty-mile hikes, endless drills, and continuous workouts.
The day ended with bayonet drills on the West Point grounds. The plebes made repeated forward thrusts with their bayoneted rifle, holding it out at full stretch as if they had just stuck it in the gut of an enemy soldier. Never a big man, Borman only weighed one hundred forty pounds when he was eighteen. Now he was literally trembling with exhaustion. He couldn't hold the rifle steady.
Observing the plebe with contempt was a small, wiry lieutenant colonel who was actually a bit shorter than Borman. The officer came up to Frank and began screaming at him, telling him that he couldn't back it, that he wasn't good enough.
Borman stopped trembling. He grew both calm and angry and looked that "little weasel" in the eye. No bastard was going to tell him he couldn't do something. He might be a naïve, country boy suddenly thrust into the hard, competitive world of West Point, but they'd have to kill him to get him out of the Academy. It was the same determination and strength of will that allowed him to bring every plane he ever flew safely back to earth.
Now, twenty years later, it was the same thing. Borman decided that he was going to do whatever it took to make sure the Apollo spacecraft flew again. And when it did, it would be the safest spacecraft ever built.

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