APOLLO 8 Modern doc
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Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
One would think that the bombardment of the entire surface of the Moon by meteorites and micro-meteorites would tend to threaten future astronauts when they are on the surface of the Moon.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
Most of the bombardment is in the form of extremely small particles, perhaps a few millionths of an inch in diameter. They are coming in at such high speed that each one drills into a tiny gap and pulverizes just a little bit of lunar material.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
But those micro-meteorites would not, we thnk, get through the spacesuits the astronauts will be wearing on the lunar surface. The probability of a micro-meteorite puncturing a spacesuit we believe is very small – it’s one of the lesser dangers, I believe, in this great adventure.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Dr. Jastrow is speaking not only about the current or future Apollo missions, but also about what he sees as the crucial need for space exploration in the much longer term.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
There is indeed a long range aspect to the lunar landing. The human species has been on this planet for perhaps 200,000 years, coming at the end of the history of life that stretches back to the first billion years of the Earth’s history.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
We have another 4 or 5 billion years to go on this planet before the Sun becomes a red giant and vaporizes the Earth. Long before then, we will have ventured out beyond the Solar System in order to survive.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
We will have begun to explore other Earth-like planets of which there are perhaps billions in our galaxy alone. And of course, there are billions of other galaxies, each one holding billions of its own stars and likely many more billions of planets.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
Mankind is on the watershed; we are crossing into a region of our development in which we can move off the face of our planet for the first time. And the trip to the Moon is the first step in a wonderful journey ahead for mankind.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
Voice quality on the high gain antenna is again excellent right now. I have informed the crew that we have polled the room and Apollo 8 is a GO for its next trip around the far side of the Moon..
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
I have the latest edition of ‘the Interstellar Times’ ready to read up to the Apollo 8 astronauts. It says: “The broadcasts from the Moon have been a big hit, now having been seen and heard throughout much of the world, including even Moscow and East Berlin.”
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
The crew of the USS Pueblo were welcomed home today in San Diego in a big ceremony. Apparently, they had a pretty hard time of it while in a North Korean prison.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
A Christmas ceasefire is in effect in Vietnam with only sporadic outbreaks of fighting, and a couple of Oilers (Webster and Farr) have made the All Star team.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
We are now one minute away from loss of signal as Apollo 8 and its crew passes behind the Moon for the 6th time.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Everything seems to be going exceedingly well in the spacecraft and that, of course, is very good news in Houston, Texas. Not only for the men in the Manned Space Center there, but also in the residential district of Houston where most of the astronauts and their families live.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The astronauts’ wives and families of the three men now circling the Moon this Christmas Eve live very close to one another.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
It would be very interesting to know what their wives are doing as their husbands’ names enter the history books alongside Magellan, Columbus and all the other great explorers.
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
The astronauts’ families are able to gather in their homes around the home speakers which NASA provides which allows the families to listen to the communications between the astronauts and Mission Control in real time throughout the entirety of the mission.
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
The families listened to the lunar insertion procedures, and we are told that Mrs. Borman was very concerned about her husband’s health and had asked NASA very pointedly if it was wise for them to allow him to go into lunar orbit in that condition.
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
We are told Mrs. Borman was quite a bit apprehensive until Apollo 8 appeared from around the Moon for the first time and there was again radio contact with the astronauts.
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
Mrs. Borman’s first reaction was a big smile and she said she wished she could see the elation on the faces of the flight controllers at Mission Control. We hear that she plans to stay up late tonight to follow the progress of that planned Earth insertion burn.
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
We understand that at the home of command module pilot Jim Lovell, Mrs. Lovell has friends around and they started following the mission again at around 2 a.m. Houston time this morning
Nelson Benton @NBCBSNews
Mrs. Lovell’s comment when communications with the astronauts were re-established was a simple “Fantastic!”
77 hours 50 minutes mission time
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
We have acquired Apollo 8 again and are looking forward to some pretty interesting TV transmissions coming up soon.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
It looks like 10 degrees pitch up is the best attitude to obtain the horizon so that we can follow the landmarks down through the scanning telescope. If we pitch down any more, we will not gather the horizon.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Uh oh… we’re getting a PROGRAM ALARM!
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
We are looking into the PROGRAM ALARM down here. Hoping it turns out to be nothing threatening to the mission.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
PROGRAM ALARM turned out to be nothing much. We’re indicating 50 degrees in pitch and yaw. Oh, this is a piece of cake. It’s a real piece of cake!
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
We’re coming up on the possible landing site. It’s very easy to distinguish even though it’s still about 60 degrees trunnion. I’m going to roll us to the right a little to get a better view.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
As we continue to watch the incredible progress of these three brave men circling the Moon, we are reminded that very few men alive have participated in adventures as great as this Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We think of young Charles Lindbergh and his solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. We think of Sir Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Mount Everest.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Also, Sir Francis Chichester’s 28,000 mile voyage around the world alone in his vessel the Gypsy Moth. Those men are perhaps the only ones who can fully understand what the Apollo 8 astronauts have achieved during this historic flight to the Moon.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
I think it’s very exciting to be the first to do anything. You don’t know what’s going to happen and how things are going to turn out. And the more risky it is… the more exciting it is.
Sir Francis Chichester (1901–1972)
Sir Francis Chichester aboard the Gypsy Moth
In 1966, Francis Chichester sailed his yacht Gypsy Mouth around the world in 226 days having circumnavigated the globe and becoming the first person to achieve a solo navigation of the world from west to east via the Great Capes. Following his achievement, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II using the same sword her predecessor, Queen Elizabeth I, had used to knight Sir Francis Drake – the first
Englishman with a crew to complete a circumnavigation of the globe.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
During his incredibly long solo voyage, Sir Francis was isolated for far longer than most people ever are. In many ways, similar to what the three Apollo 8 astronauts are experiencing at this very moment.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
When you are thousands of miles away from home and your survival depends on your one small vehicle, one becomes very sensitive – you feel everything much more than you do normally and one has much deeper kinds of thoughts.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
One works things out more truly and one’s thoughts become more pure, more spiritual in a way.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
One also develops a strong emotional feeling towards one’s vehicle upon whose performance one’s survival depends. And it is not always love. I would expect that these three astronauts will have a pretty big love or a pretty big hate for their space vehicle by the time they get back.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
When these men get back, they may find that their reception on the world stage provides even tougher challenges than they faced during their voyage.
Sir Francis Chichester @FCGypsyMoth
My advice to the Apollo 8 astronauts, from my own experience, would be to avoid all that publicity altogether and set off immediately on another voyage.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Setting off immediately on another voyage may be a little bit more difficult for astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders. When they do come back on Friday morning and land in the mid-Pacific, they will go into intensive de-briefing.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
There are going to be a lot of technical people who are going to want to know a lot of detail about this flight. After the astronauts’ intensive de-briefing, there’s going to be, certainly, a lot of demands on their time for the public to show their appreciation for these three great explorers.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Bill has plenty of film left and I’m still landmark tracking.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I can’t take pictures when Jim is tracking because these side windows are still shot.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
What we need to capture are the big areas around the potential landing site – what the landing crew will see in terms of craters and mountains and things. It can all be figured out in detail later.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
All those scientists back on Earth are now saying, “Oh..oh, if only we had a geologist aboard that spacecraft.”
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
Damn! We can’t do anything with these side windows. Nothing much more than a big blur out there. The guys carrying out the descent and landing would see enough to make it interesting, but not enough to be able to do anything useful… like successfully landing on the Moon!
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
I’d like to hear more about the formation and composition of the Moon from our experts, especially about that ‘green cheese’ it is supposed to be made of.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
But more seriously, my understanding is that we don’t yet know how the Moon got there. I know some have speculated that it was once a piece of the Earth that was somehow thrown out into space.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
There is one theory that the Moon came out of the Pacific Ocean, but there is good evidence against that theory. It is more likely that both the Earth and the Moon condensed under the action of their own gravity – out of cold gas and dust in space.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
How those masses of cold material coalesced into molten balls of rock surrounded by steam and vapor that gradually cooled to form a solid crust we don’t know. But we do hope to find out through these explorations we are now undertaking.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
At this stage, we don’t know if the Earth and the Moon were formed hot or cold. We’d like to know these things because they relate to how life itself evolved on this planet.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
I have also heard it postulated that since it is so cold in some of the rills and sub-surfaces of the Moon that there is a possibility of frozen air and frozen water – ice in those areas, and that we might actually be able to drill into the ice and frozen air.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
The average yearly temperature just below the lunar surface is thought to be, I think, about 10 degrees below zero… so fairly cold. There might indeed be ice in some locations near to the Moon’s surface. Frozen air? I don’t think so, although it could certainly prove useful.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
This is what manned exploration of the Moon is all about, isn’t it? We can’t yet program a machine to go out and find these things – we’ve got to go out there and dig for it.
Dr Robert Jastrow @RJGoddardInstitute
Remote controlled vehicles can only do so much, and it’s more expensive to program an elaborate, flexible remote-controlled spacecraft than to use the manned capability we will use to bring back samples of the lunar surface.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Sunrise is at 79 hours 8 minutes mission time. We’re about 3 minutes away. There’s a bit of a glow and we can see the Sun coming round a little bit.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
I can see the Sun come up before it comes up. Like zodiacal light.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
They call this strange sunrise effect ‘rim brightening’. It’s a real bright glow right in one spot and it fans out all over the horizon.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Then the brightness fans out and up into space. It’s an even light. Quite beautiful! And not a little startling. Now the Sun itself is peeking out.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I got a shock right there with that sunburst. I thought it was a star whirling by. I’m going to roll us a little left and put the camera back on as soon as we get out of the Sun.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Okay. AUTO OPTICS is doing the whole thing for us. Now to get this camera going again.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Oh, my gosh! Fantastic pictures out of the good window! Maybe we should wake Frank up.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
What was that? We just heard a strange noise. No word on what it was.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
I’m on AUTO OPTICS on the landing site and it is tracking perfectly. It would just warm up old Professor Jack Schmitt’s heart to see that. It’s a grand view!
Professor Harrison “Jack” Schmitt
Jack Schmitt was an American university professor, NASA astronaut and later a U.S. Senator for the state of New Mexico. During the Apollo program, he played a major role in training NASA astronauts to conduct accurate geologic surveys of the Moon’s surface both while they were in lunar orbit and while conducting explorations on the lunar surface. After each lunar landing, he was heavily involved in analyzing the samples brought back from the surface of the Moon. In 1970, he became the first scientist-astronaut to be assigned to a space mission, flying on the Apollo 17 mission – the last mission of the Apollo program.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
For Jack’s information, the Sun angles that we see right now are just right, I think, for landing conditions. The shadows aren’t too deep to be confusing. The land has texture to it, and there are just enough shadows to make everything stand out.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
The latest data display on one of our main walls here in Mission Control has been modified to reflect the season. It now reads: “Merry Christmas Apollo 8!” Merry is in red letters. Christmas is in white letters and Apollo 8 is in blue lett
er… Looks great!
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We are waiting once again to re-acquire signal from Apollo 8 as it comes around again from the far side of the Moon. Mike Collins has put out two calls already. No response so far.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Mike has put out another call to the spacecraft. No response. It appears we may have a ground antenna problem.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Still no answer from Apollo 8. We are checking all our ground stations now.
Mike Collins @MCCAPCOMApollo 8
Okay, the problem seems to have been fixed and we are once more in contact with the crew of Apollo 8. Jim Lovell and Bill Anders have given us some interesting technical details on their use of the optics tracking system.
Jim Lovell @JLCMPApollo8
There are an awful lot of objects down around the designated landing sites. It’s just as the formidable Professor Schmitt marked. All of the objects are tracking perfectly on target as he and his team predicted.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
Both Lovell and Anders have been singing the praises of Professor Jack Schmitt for the work he and the other members of the Lunar Mapping Science Laboratory have done in picking out lunar landmarks and possible landing sites for future missions.