Operation Moonglow
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NASA not only faced a tragedy; it also faced the challenge of experiencing this loss in full view of the public. NASA’s policy of “openness” meant that news of the accident spread around the globe in the following days. The State Department programming highlighted the astronauts’ courage, their confidence in the scientific and technical personnel working at NASA, and included a quoted statement from Grissom: “It is worth it to risk one’s life for the sake of space exploration.”90 The international press responded with support and goodwill. The USIA reported that “the accident at the Cape has brought us no problems—only sympathy and compassion.”91 The Greek newspaper Kathimerini stated that the astronauts’ names would become part of “the legend of a new era.” Ceylon’s independent newspaper Dinapathi praised the policy of openness, noting that “similar accidents might have occurred in the Soviet Union. But the world has never had the opportunity of knowing the results.”92
President Johnson later said that “the shock [of the accident] hit me like a physical blow.” He found comfort in the “outpouring of sympathy from all over the world.”93 Many foreign leaders sent condolence letters. Thanking them for their support, President Johnson conveyed a universalist message in reply: “These men were truly envoys of mankind. In their memory we rededicate ourselves to the task of achieving, together with all nations, an understanding of our common space environment and its successful exploration for the mutual benefit of all peoples of earth.”94
Johnson “grieved [not only] for the men and their families but [also]… for the space organization. I felt very sad and sorry for Jim Webb and all his loyal employees.”95 Over the coming months a NASA review board exposed the circumstances that led to the accident. Congressional investigations and hearings left NASA with technical recommendations as well as the go-ahead to pursue its lunar landing goal. Over the next year and a half, NASA postponed launches, instated major redesign modifications, and revised testing procedures, the manufacturing process, and quality control procedures. Meanwhile, the State Department and the USIA amplified their message of “openness” and the unifying effects of the US space program. When the time came to send astronauts into space in 1968, the images they took of the Earth, the broadcasts from missions, and an array of public programming offered American diplomats an opportunity to enhance this message once again.96
7
“RIDERS ON THE EARTH TOGETHER,” 1968–1969
We were all with them during those five days.
—ŻYCIE WARSZAWY, 1968
The year 1968 began with a women’s antiwar march in Washington on January 15. Two weeks later came a major turning point in the Vietnam War: the Tet Offensive. In a series of surprise attacks during the lunar new year, or Tet, North Vietnamese forces infiltrated deep within South Vietnam, reaching the US Embassy in Saigon, the Long Binh US Army Base, and other sites thought to be part of a US stronghold. Washington Post journalist Don Oberdorfer called Vietnam “American’s first television war.” The Tet Offensive, he figured, was “America’s first television superbattle.”1 As millions of people around the world watched this “superbattle” unfold on television sets in their homes, confidence in US leadership eroded. The war started looking unwinnable. After assessing the situation firsthand in Vietnam, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite warned of the potential loss of “American lives, prestige, and morale.”2 After Tet, polls showed that the majority of Americans now thought it was time to end the war. Fighting in Vietnam was not only driving a wedge between American politicians and the public; it also called the moral character of the country into question for many observers around the world, damaging the status of American global leadership.3
Throughout 1968 the stability of American democracy would be called into question again and again. When Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in April, riots erupted throughout the United States. USIA Director Leonard Marks told President Johnson that the “confidence of America’s allies and friends around the world” had been shaken. “We have suffered a blow from which it will take a long time to recover.”4 Two months later, on the other side of the country, presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy was shot shortly after he made his California Democratic primary victory speech. Then, in late August, violent clashes between protestors and police at the Democratic National Convention broke out in Chicago, casting more doubt on the US political system. Parallels were quickly drawn between the Chicago riots and the Soviet Union’s suppression of the Prague Spring that same month.5 At the end of the year the USIA concluded that the Vietnam War, protests, assassinations, and upheaval throughout the country led “many persons abroad to question whether the vaunted American system might be on the verge of decay and disintegration.”6
Tear gas, body counts, protests, and riots all appeared on television sets around the globe and in international newspapers. By the end of the year, the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee observed that “the mental picture that many foreigners have of our nation is increasingly that of a violent, lawless, overbearing, even sick society.”7
Then, in late December, at the tail end of the year, the Apollo 8 crew traveled farther and faster than any humans in history. They saw what no other eyes had seen: the far side of the moon, and the Earth from a great distance, blue and white and shining. They became the first humans to ride the mighty Saturn V rocket, break the bonds of Earth’s physical pull, and enter the gravitational field of another celestial body. But the mission, and the program more generally, “did much more than just advance the country scientifically and technically,” its commander, Frank Borman, argued. “It advanced it—in my opinion—diplomatically just as much. It cast the country in a favorable light, at a time when there were many things that cast it in an unfavorable light.”8
Apollo 8 offered an antidote: an image of a nation striving for grand goals, inclusive and focused on peace and unity. The crew’s broadcasts from the moon captured the attention of a billion people worldwide. Inclusive language during the broadcasts, as well as the soon-to-be-iconic photo Earthrise, amplified the USIA and State Department messaging that the American space program was “for all humankind.” When the world felt divided—between democracy and Communism, among generations, races, and gender—Apollo 8 offered a moment of unity and a sense of connection.
From the start, Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman understood his flight and then later promotion of the space program abroad as part of his service to the country, not as a purely scientific pursuit: “If you think I would’ve devoted that much of my life simply to exploration or science, I wouldn’t have, I’m not built that way, that’s not my thing.”9 The cold war threatened the security of the United States, and his role as an astronaut was part of confronting that threat, lessening Soviet influence on the geopolitical landscape.
Borman joined the astronaut corps in September 1962. Along with James Lovell Jr., who would fly on Apollo 8 as well, Borman was selected for Gemini’s long-duration mission: Gemini 7. The two astronauts spent nearly two weeks together in space, confined to a capsule smaller than a compact car. After 206 Earth orbits, a rendezvous with Gemini 6A, and logging medical data, the crew returned with information that NASA needed for upcoming moon missions.10 Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut and Apollo 8 CAPCOM (capsule communicator), noted that at times Borman could annoy others with “the crisp and arbitrary military precision with which he ran the operation, and the merciless ribbing he applied to any who might disagree with him.”11
On a Sunday afternoon in August 1968, Frank Borman was hard at work at the North American plant a few miles southeast of Los Angeles. He had spent much of 1967 and 1968 at the plant, working seven days a week to ensure that the new and improved command module—the block II—was safe to fly. Few were as intimately aware of the hardware flaws and political and cultural shortcomings that contributed to the Apollo 1 disaster in January 1967 as Borman. After serving on the accident investigation committee, he headed the spacecraft redefinition tea
m. The hatch needed a major redesign, which added weight. In turn, the command module required a new parachute system. Within the spacecraft, engineers improved wiring, removed combustible materials, and filled the atmosphere on the launchpad with a mix of oxygen and nitrogen. In early August Borman was back at the plant, running checks, when Deke Slayton, chief of the astronaut office, called him on the phone. NASA needed Borman in Houston, immediately.12
NASA had flown three crewless missions, Apollo 4, 5, and 6, to test hardware between the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968. Next, according to NASA’s plan, Apollo 7, the first crewed flight, would assess the command and service module (CSM) in orbit. Then a flight would test the lunar module and CSM in high orbit. Only then, after both crewed missions proved successful, would humans venture beyond the Earth’s gravitational pull toward the moon. But in the summer of 1968, NASA officials worried that lunar module delays could push the lunar landing into the 1970s, past the goal Kennedy had set in 1961. So as Borman learned once he arrived in Houston, George Low, manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, found an audacious solution: send an Apollo mission to the moon without a lunar module. The CSM was ready, the Saturn V was ready, and if Borman and his crewmates Lovell and William Anders agreed, they would be moved up to the Apollo 8 mission. If Apollo 7 succeeded in October, Apollo 8 would become a lunar orbital flight.13
NASA leadership was not only facing the pressure of making Kennedy’s deadline; it also faced the threat of a Soviet victory in the space race. Throughout the 1960s the US spy satellites Corona and Gambit captured photographic evidence of Soviet rocket development, while ground stations in Turkey and Iran listened for telemetry signals.14 In early April 1968 the CIA produced a top-secret report suggesting that the Soviet Union might send a crewed spacecraft around the moon by the end of 1968, in part “to lessen the psychological impact of the Apollo program.”15 Then in mid-September, from the steppes of south-central Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union launched Zond 5 on a loop around the moon. Built to carry a human crew, this spacecraft instead ferried turtles and insects. It captured photographs of the moon and the Earth at a great distance. During Zond 5’s return to Earth, a failure with altitude control set the spacecraft on a course for ballistic reentry, which humans could not have survived. Even so, the mission suggested that the moon was likely within reach of the Soviet space program.16
Shortly before his launch, as Borman engrossed himself in training for the new mission time line, his phone rang again. It was Julian Scheer, NASA’s deputy administrator for public affairs. “Look, Frank,” Borman recalled Scheer explaining. “We’ve determined that you’ll be circling the Moon on Christmas Eve and we’ve scheduled one of the television broadcasts from Apollo 8 around that time.” He pointed out that more people would hear the crew’s voices than had heard any voice in history. NASA estimated that a billion people around the world would be following the flight. He then added the simple but imposing instruction: “So, we want you to say something appropriate.”17
Borman turned to his friend Simon Bourgin, the USIA science advisor, for help. The two had become close during the Gemini 7 diplomatic tour of Asia. When Borman prepared for interviews, he would ask Bourgin for advice. “He came to trust me,” Bourgin recalled, “and I dined at his and Susan’s home on a number of occasions.”18 A week before the flight, Bourgin wrote that “I think it would be a mistake for me to write a script… what you say has to be all Frank Borman.” He encouraged him to avoid reflections on the “transcendental significance of all of it.”19 And added that it would be a “mistake to do the Christmas tree thing. It would degrade the image of the mission.”20
Instead, Bourgin suggested a simple and short broadcast. “With six television transmissions, you are overexposed… and with that much time you could be tempted to pad, ham it up, or try to entertain. Avoid all of these.” In other words, he explained, “Keep your audience hungry.” For the Christmas Eve broadcast, start with a description of what you see, he suggested: “I have a feeling that any direct message that you might compose reflecting on Christmas eve, conditions on Earth, and the way you feel about it at the moon, could get awfully sticky; it would be difficult not to sound pretentious or patronizing.”21 In its place, end with a quotation.22
Bourgin had called his friend Joe Laitin, assistant to the director of the Bureau of the Budget, and his wife, Christine, for advice. Christine came up with the idea of reading Genesis. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?” she asked. The first ten verses of Genesis from the Old Testament would have “universal appeal and a sense of reverence that is called for,” agreed Bourgin. As he told Borman, “About the only thing I can think of to match the majesty of the occasion, and the evening, is to read the opening lines of Genesis.”23 When Borman shared the idea with Lovell and Anders, they agreed. The passage, typed on fireproof paper, was inserted into the Apollo 8 flight plan.
“Don’t forget,” Bourgin reminded Borman, that “to use ‘one world’ or ‘peace’ more than once is to begin to lose credibility, and beginning of being political, which you wouldn’t want.” He added that “the astronauts are respected for being non-political and having no axe to grind, and it’s terribly important to observe that… so, don’t be preachy, say it in your own way, say what has universal appeal, and say what you think needs to be said and no more (above all, don’t pad).”24
Watching the early-morning launch of Apollo 8 was the first thing on the president’s agenda on December 21, like much of the nation.25 At 7:51 a.m. EST, Borman, Lovell, and Anders became the first humans to ride the huge Saturn V rocket into space, one of countless firsts that the astronauts would claim on the mission. Susan Borman, Frank’s wife, found it “awesome… like watching the Empire State Building taking off.”26 A little over ten minutes later, the Apollo 8 crew was orbiting Earth. Then, at 10:42, the third stage burned again, sending the astronauts on their way to the moon.
As the spacecraft glided out toward the stars, the astronauts departed the Earth and stopped experiencing sunrises and sunsets. Another first. On the second day of the flight, the crew took a live television audience around the interior of the CSM and treated them to a view of Earth from 140,000 miles away. Back on Earth, Julie Nixon married David Eisenhower. The next day, now more than 200,000 miles out, they aimed the camera toward the window again, capturing the Western Hemisphere, at once luminous and familiar. The crew pointed out Baja California, Cape Horn, the North Pole, and clouds dotted over the eastern coast of the United States.27
The mission proved a boon for American ambassadors and other officials, who were invited by local media for interviews on the flight. “An excellent opportunity to get positive exposure through a variety of media in many countries,” the USIA assessed. USIS posts recorded the heaviest placement of agency media material in memory, providing hundreds of photos, thousands of feet of TV film, and “reams of copy” to local newspaper, radio, and television outlets around the world. The Voice of America provided live coverage of each stage of the mission, from launch to splashdown, in English, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.28 American embassies in Eastern Europe assembled exhibits in their windows with pictorial explanations and a step-by-step schedule of the flight. As the crew completed stages of the mission, embassy staff would post announcements. The US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, reported that the window display “drew exceptionally large crowds, despite cold and snow.”29 In warmer climes, inhabitants of Martinique followed radio coverage of the flight so carefully that consulate personnel reported walking down the street and hearing status updates from shopkeepers and acquaintances.30
After three days, Apollo 8 reached the moon. The crew fired the service module engine, slowing the spacecraft down just enough to put it into orbit around another celestial body, another first. On the fourth orbit, Borman rotated the CSM, tilting the nose of the capsule back toward Earth. The spacecraft’s small windows framed the Earth seemingly rising above the lunar horizon. The view caught the
crew by surprise, even though mission planners had anticipated that the moment would come.31
“Look at that picture over there!” Anders called out. “Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”32 With a Hasselblad camera in hand, Anders snapped a photo. Most of the photography scheduled for the flight focused on the moon. NASA needed detailed images of potential landing sites for future missions. As Anders watched the Earth rise above the lunar horizon, the black-and-white film magazine mounted to the camera’s boxy body would not do. Only color film could capture the contrast of the gray moon and the bright-blue Earth that Borman called “the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life.”33 Anders called out, “You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, will you… hurry up!” After a swift swap of film magazines, Anders started snapping again.34
He caught the Earth above the gray-chalky lunar horizon, the sun illuminating parts of Africa and South America. Eddying clouds suggested an alive, dynamic planet. Earthrise, as the photograph would come to be known, amplified the beauty—and rarity—of humans’ home planet. Shortly after the crew splashed down a few days later, this photograph would grace the front page of newspapers around the world and become one of the most iconic images of the Space Age.35