Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (3 page)

Read Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 Online

Authors: Robert Zimmerman

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

Notes
267
Editorial Minutiae and Glossary
277
Bibliography
281
Index
291

 

 

Page ix
Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside, is available, we shall, in an emotional sense acquire an additional dimension . . . Let the sheer isolation of the Earth become plain to every man whatever his nationality or creed, and a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.
Sir Frederick Hoyle, astronomer, 1948
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Page xi
Introduction
In a space barely large enough for the three man crew, the astronaut opened the flight plan and began to read. ''In the beginning," he said, "God created the heaven and earth . . ." Sweeping past him in the window was a stark black-and-white terrain, cold and forbidding. Unseen but listening intently was an audience of more than a billion people.
It was Christmas Eve, 1968. In what was probably the most profound Christmas prayer ever given by any member of the human race, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders read the first twelve lines of the Bible to a listening world as they orbited the moon, beaming homeward the first live television pictures of the lunar surface.
Though the flight of Apollo 8 was the first human journey beyond earth orbit and to another world, it has largely been forgotten in the ensuing decades amid the glory and excitement of the actual lunar landing in July of 1969. Yet this earlier mission probably exerted a much greater influence on human history. Not only did it signal the very first time human beings completely escaped the earth's gravity, but the astronauts used their bully pulpit in space to advocate the American vision of moral individuality, religious tolerance and mutual respect, while simultaneously giving us our first vision of the precious and unique lifegiving blue planet we live on.
To the people who participated in the 1960s space program, this flight is consistently referred to as the most important. Jim Lovell says, "I would rather have been on 8 than 11 . . . [Apollo 8] was the highpoint of my space career." Apollo astronaut Ken Mattingly told me "I consider Apollo 8 the most significant event . . . Compared to 8, [Apollo] 11 was anti-climactic."

 

Page xii
And Neil Armstrong wrote that "Apollo 8 was the spirit of Apollo leaving the shackles of earth and being able to return."
1
For many like myself who watched from a distance, cheering these hardworking explorers on as they risked life and limb to reach another world, nothing compared with this first journey. As one magazine editor once told me, "Apollo 8 was my favorite mission." Anyone who followed the space program closely in the 1960's remembers the significance of Apollo 8.
This significance resonates in many ways. The power of television and the media was demonstrated more clearly than ever before. Almost two decades before the arrival of CNN, the television camera aboard Apollo 8 put nearly every person on the face of the earth in orbit around the moon. No longer was history made from a distance. Now every event would be seen, as it happened.
Apollo 8 also delineated the differences between the Soviet vision of society and the freely religious American system. Yuri Gagarin proclaimed he saw no god in space.
2
Borman, Lovell, and Anders saw Him everywhere, and said so. Whether one believes in God or not, the cynical desire of the now-collapsed Soviet empire to deny the spiritual magnificence of the universe could only have contributed to its fall. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The decision to read from the Bible was also not a governmental choice, but one that the astronauts, under Frank Borman's leadership, made entirely on their own. Their freedom to speak contrasted starkly with the Soviet Union and its state-run press and secret police.
The flight also demonstrated what today has become an almost blasphemous thought: that the peaceful competition between nations spurs achievement. We have forgotten the daring nature of this mission. It was the first (the very first!) use of the Saturn rocket to propel an object outside earth orbit. Yet, because NASA had heard of Soviet plans to fly two men around the moon before the end of 1968, the space agency decided to forgo any further tests and send humans to the moon as soon as possible.
Nor did this competition increase risks: neither nation could afford sloppiness if it wished to win the race. Though disasters happened, they did not occur often or with any greater frequency. Compared to today's leisurely

 

Page xiii
but cooperative atmosphere, more was achieved successfully in a shorter time for less money.
This short weeklong journey to the moon also marked a crucial moment in both American and world history. In America, Apollo 8 put a positive, life-affirming exclamation point on what had been an ugly, violent year, with its political assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy as well as numerous urban riots and racial tension. In many ways, this mission signalled the actual end of the cultural sixties.
Worldwide, the experience of Borman, Lovell, and Anders illustrated for the first time how priceless the earth is to the human race. We have forgotten that before Apollo 8, no human had ever seen the earth as a globe. Now, suddenly, the human vision of the earth changed, and our mother planet became like all the others, a very small, lonely object in space.
Other cultural consequences, from a surge in environmentalism to the end of the Cold War, can be traced back to that single moment when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders read the opening words of the Bible.
For these reasons, I felt compelled to write this book. Hopefully I will not only succeed in giving these explorers their long overdue credit, but will also remind people of why we went to the moon in the first place. As Frank Borman said, "The Apollo program was just another battle in the Cold War." And, as writer Eric Hoffer noted, "It was done by ordinary Americans."
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Page xv
Timeline
194849:
Berlin Airlift.
1950:
Frank Borman graduates from West Point, marries Susan Bugbee.
1952:
Jim Lovell graduates from Annapolis, marries Marilyn Gerlach.
1955:
Anders graduates from Annapolis, marries Valerie Hoard.
1957:
Sputnik launched.
1961
April:
Failed Big of Pigs invasion of Cuba; Gagarin becomes first human in space.
May:
Shepard becomes first American in space; Kennedy proposes landing a man on the moon by 1970.
August:
Berlin Wall built.
September:
Borman and Lovell join astronaut corps.
1962
August:
Soviet group flight of Vostoks 3 and 4; Peter Fechter killed trying to escape East Berlin.
October:
Cuban missile crisis.
1963
October:
Anders joins astronaut corps
November:
President John Kennedy assassinated. Vice-President Lyndon Johnson becomes President.
1964
August:
Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed. United States enters Vietnam War.
October:
Three man Voskhod 1 mission; Khrushchev ousted.

 

 

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1965
March:
Leonov performs first spacewalk from Voskhod 2.
December:
Borman and Lovell fly two week Gemini 7 mission, rendezvousing with Gemini 6.
1967
January:
Apollo 1 launchpad fire.
April:
Soyuz 1 crash.
1968
January:
Tet Offensive in Vietnam.
March:
Martin Luther King murdered; Apollo 6 test launch.
April:
President Johnson withdraws as Presidential candidate; Columbia University protests; George Low first proposes sending Apollo 8 to the moon.
June:
Robert Kennedy murdered.
August:
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; Democratic Party convention in Chicago; Apollo 8 lunar mission is given its first serious review and planning.
October:
Apollo 7 manned mission; Soyuz 2 manned mission.
November:
Nixon elected President; final decision made to send Apollo 8 to the moon.
December:
Apollo 8 launched Saturday, December 21st, for arrival in lunar orbit on Tuesday, December 24th, Christmas Eve.

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