by Acer
At exactly 9 hours into the flight of Apollo 8, the spacecraft has now covered almost 43,000 miles of the some 200,000 miles separating the Earth and the Moon.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Apollo 8’s velocity has now reduced to 9,200 feet per second or about a mere 6,200 miles per hour, and the spacecraft continues to perform nominally in all respects.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
I’ve been looking out to see if I could see stars at various Sun angles. At this particular altitude, it’s very difficult. In the scanning telescope, the Earth is very bright, as is the Sun. If I look at the Earth and then the stars, I lose my dark adaptation very quickly.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
The assessment here in Mission Control, Houston, is that there is no problem associated with the minor anomalies and difficulties Jim Lovell mentioned. Everyone is delighted that he has been able to do most of the optical sightings that have been required for guidance and navigation.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
At 10 hours into the flight, activity here in Mission Control is beginning to pick up as we prepare for the first operation of the spacecraft service propulsion engine.
Ken Mattingly
Astronaut Thomas Kenneth Mattingly (Ken) was the capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for the ‘Maroon Team’ shifts during the Apollo 8 mission. He was later scheduled to fly on the Apollo 13 mission as command module pilot but was removed from the crew just two days before launch due to possibly being exposed to the measles virus. He later flew on the Apollo 16 mission as command module pilot and remains one of only 24 people who have flown to the Moon.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Matching that heightened activity here on the ground is heightened activity aboard the spacecraft. The crew is now involved in making preparations for the mid-course correction burn, expected to be at around 11 hours ground elapsed time.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
The crew is now entering into the onboard computer a whole host of technical data regarding length of the burn and time of ignition, and during the next hour the crew will be involved in maneuvering the spacecraft into the correct alignment and attitude for the burn.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
We are working hard on establishing our correct alignment for the burn, but we doubt it will be possible to use the stars to get our backup alignment. We’re not able to get any stars through the scanning telescope right now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
In all, 45 previous attempts to reach the Moon have been made, 27 American, and 18 have been Soviet attempts. The first American attempt to reach the Moon in August, 1958 was a failure.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We are now going to correspondent Terry Drinkwater who is at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for some background on NASA’s attempts at understanding the Moon up to the point of this amazing mission.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
Unmanned exploration of the Moon began nearly 10 years ago with a small vehicle named Pioneer 4 which came within 37,000 miles of the lunar surface. For the United States, that was historic.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
After Pioneer, came Ranger which sent back the first close up pictures of the Moon’s surface. Pictures which revealed details never seen before through telescopes. For the first time, we could see tiny craters as small as 10 inches across.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
The next unmanned craft, Surveyor, was equipped for a soft landing. It settled gently on the lunar surface, photographing and probing with its shovel.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
One purpose of Surveyor was to scout out possible Apollo landing sites. In addition, Surveyor demonstrated the feasibility of landing men on the Moon.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
Next was the Lunar Orbiter series starting in 1966. Five Lunar Orbiters went around and around the Moon, photo-mapping almost all of the lunar surface, including the far side of the Moon.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
In all, Pioneer, Ranger, Surveyor and the Lunar Orbiters have shown that it should be possible and safe to go to the Moon and around the Moon and later attempt an actual manned landing on the Moon.
Terry Drinkwater @TDCBSNews
More than 100,000 close up images have now been taken of the Moon by all of these vehicles, and soon, if all continues to go well, those three Apollo 8 astronauts will get the first ever personal, close up view of the Moon.
FIRST MID-COURSE CORRECTION BURN
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Flight Director Milton Windler has just gone around the room here at Mission Control, viewed every aspect of the status of the spacecraft and issued a GO for the first mid-course correction burn in about 15 minutes from now.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
The burn will be a very short one – about 2.4 seconds and will add 24 or 25 feet per second of velocity to the spacecraft. We need a cryo fan cycle before the burn. About one minute on each tank will be fine.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I’m cycling the cryo fans. Are we maneuvering right now?
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
Are we ever maneuvering?! We’re rolling left and yawing right. Main thrust is normal. I have armed the translational hand controller.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
We are just about ready for the mid-course correction burn. All the batteries are now fully charged up and will be brought online just prior to the burn to assist in carrying the electrical load at that time.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
The burn is scheduled for 3 minutes from now. We will continue to monitor for any conversation and requests from the Apollo 8 crew.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
This upcoming burn maneuver is primarily to control the altitude of the spacecraft as it goes behind the Moon at its perigee. Perigee being the closest point they will be to the lunar surface – which should be about 60 miles high.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
Ten seconds to the burn. 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… burning now! Two point four seconds… engine shutdown!
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
The burn looked good from down here. Right on the 2.4 seconds mark! We’ve now taken the batteries offline as they have done their job of carrying the heavier than normal electrical load during a maneuver of this kind.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Initial indications are that the SMS, which all previous testing has shown to be an extremely reliable engine, appears to have demonstrated its reliability once again during this ignition.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
That engine is, of course, the one that will be required to insert Apollo 8 into lunar orbit and later take it out of lunar orbit and set it on a course back to Earth. It has to work perfectly every time – there is only one engine to perform those tasks. No backup procedures are available.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
So another critical milestone passed in the historic voyage of Apollo 8 – the burn to set them on a course around the Moon. There is a total of 4 mid-course correction burns that can occur as they approach the Moon, and they may, or may not, elect to use all of them.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Looking at the data coming in from this first mid-course correction burn, the consensus here is that any further burns, if any, will only need to be quite small. The crew and that SMS engine did a great job there!
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Commander Frank Borman, after a very long day, is now scheduled to have a 7-hour sleep period. Following Borman’s sleep cycle, Lovell and Anders will be bedding down themselves.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Sixteen of the attempts to reach the Moon so far have failed, or they have bypassed it, se
ven of them have done that and gone out into solar orbit. Ten of the 45 attempts have impacted the Moon. Four Soviet and 6 American.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
One of the Pioneer spaceships even failed to get off the ground. Four of the crafts that impacted the Moon were successful in beaming information back before they crashed into the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The Russians achieved the first impact with the Moon with their Luna-2 spacecraft in September, 1959. Several other unmanned spacecrafts, from both programs, have accidently crashed into the Moon’s surface.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Only seven vehicles have so far soft-landed on the Moon - two of them Soviet and five American. So far, only three spacecraft have gone around the Moon and returned to Earth. Unlike Apollo 8 of course, those were unmanned spacecrafts.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We are now 20 hours and 41 minutes into the flight of Apollo 8. The spacecraft is now 90,465 nautical miles in altitude with velocity now down to 5,807 feet per second.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
Windows 1 and 5 still have marred haze on them. Satisfactory for visual observation, but possibly not for photography. Window 3 is almost opaque now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The astronauts will be rotating their spacecraft to equalize the 450 degrees of heat coming from the Sun. They must equalize that heat so that it isn’t on one side of the spacecraft while the other side is 450 degrees below zero.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
That rotation will take place about once every hour. The astronauts have a daily routine of 17 hours on duty and 7 hours of sleep on the two and a half day flight out to the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Two of the astronauts will be up at one time. The commander will sleep alone and will be up alone. They will all be awake all through the principal maneuvers yet to come.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
Based on the tracking during the last 12 hours, we see only a need for a mid-course correction on the order of 0.7 feet per second – too small, within our ground rules, to bother with.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffaisNASA
We are starting to get some TV pictures coming down now. Commander Borman says they are doing much of the filming while standing on their heads. I guess we all have our problems.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
It’s a very blurry picture we’re seeing right from inside the cabin now… can’t really make out much detail at all. I think we could make out Jim Lovell and Bill Anders in their long johns just for a moment there.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
These pictures are being taken right now with a four-and-a-half-pound camera using just 20 watts of power. Unfortunately, no more of the pictures are coming down right now from the spacecraft 140,000 miles out in space.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The receivers down here on Earth are two huge antennas, 85 feet across, installed specifically to receive signals from the Apollo 8 spacecraft. Right now, they are having trouble with that long lens to get a view of the Earth. Nothing is coming down at all.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We’re just getting some TV pictures coming through. They do not look good. Commander Borman is maneuvering the spacecraft around so they can send us a good view of the Earth out of one of the windows that is still OK for photography.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
We’re coming up on the view that we want the people back home to see. That’s the view of the receding Earth, but we need to break for a minute while Bill puts the big lens on the camera.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
Okay, the big lens is on and I’m sending down what should be some great shots of Earth.
Frank Renolds @FRABCNews
We’re not seeing any pictures at all now.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Still no pictures. Maybe Bill Anders forgot to remove the lens cap.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Picture is coming in now, but it’s coming in as just a real bright blub on the screen. It’s hard to tell what we’re looking at.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I’m filming through quite a bit of haze on the windows unfortunately, and the Earth is very bright besides which doesn’t help matters. I’ll take off the telephoto and try again using the regular lens.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Okay, we have a fairly good picture now that they are filming inside the cabin. That’s the best one we’ve had. Pity the telephoto lens didn’t work – we’ll have to figure that one out, hopefully well before the end of the mission.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
One of the problems might be that the telephoto lens is a low-light lens. We’re afraid they might burn it out by pointing it at something too bright.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
The Earth is indeed very bright, but there’s really nothing in the lens that can burn out. We’re continuing to film inside the cabin.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We can see Jim Lovell fixing some dessert. They tell us it’s some chocolate pudding. We can see a variety of objects floating around the cabin. Good stuff!
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffaisNASA
We have an image of the Earth now, but it’s not at all clear. We could make out a fuzzy glowing globe for a few seconds there. Some objects moved across the screen at the same time.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
There is so much haze on the windows and some ice coming off the command module. Have to say, I’m not feeling too great right now. Maybe something I ate.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffaisNASA
The image looking outside the spacecraft is extremely bright and it’s very difficult to make out what we’re looking at. For now, the crew will just film inside the cabin until we can figure out what we can do about photography out of the windows of the spacecraft.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffaisNASA
These pictures are coming from about halfway between the Moon and the Earth… we are 32 hours and 20 minutes into the flight. We have about 40 hours left to go to the Moon.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
I sure wish we could have shown people some good Earth pictures. It’s a beautiful, beautiful view with a predominantly blue background with a large covering of white clouds. Very, very beautiful.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
You can be sure that the optics experts on the ground have their heads together right now to figure out how to fix this and get good TV pictures out of the spacecraft’s windows - so crucial for when Apollo 8 makes its passes around the Moon.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We’ve ended the TV transmission and the crew are getting some rest right now. During the transmission, we got some very enthusiastic comments from the crew on the view some 120,000 miles out from Earth.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Frank Borman described the Earth as a wonderful blue partially covered with fluffy white clouds. We are now at 31 hours 24 minutes into the first manned mission to the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
This is quite a disappointment not only for the controllers in Houston, but also for laymen and the worldwide TV audience who would have liked to see what the Earth looks like from 120,000 miles out in space.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We do hope that they can get the TV transmission system working for when the astronauts arrive at the Moon on Christmas Eve 230,000 miles away from the receiving antennas of Earth.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
Frank has been asking me about any progress on the optics workaround. He feels really bad about not being able to show us live pictures of the Earth from way out in space.
Ken Mattingly @TMCAPCOMApollo8
I was able to tell Frank that we have a bunch of guys down here looking at the cameras, lenses and filters. They think they just might be able to figure out how to make it work before the scheduled TV time tomorrow.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
I sure hope they do figure out the camera problem. TV pictures of a tiny blue Earth from way out here would be images to behold for the ages. Inspirational even.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
Photography is not the only problem we’re having up here. I didn’t feel real good pretty soon after lift off. I’m feeling worse now and experiencing some pretty bad diarrhea.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
We’re hoping Frank gets better real soon. Having a sick commander as we prepare for some very intensive maneuvers could threaten the entire mission.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
Luckily the medics ensured we have a supply of Lomotil tablets aboard and Frank has taken at least one. Let’s hope they do the trick – a lot rides on having a fully alert commander up here.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We have our first of several scheduled news bulletins to read up to the crew of Apollo 8 so they can remain in touch with Earthly events.