Their words also expressed their deep humility and abiding good will. They had been given this glorious opportunity to brag, and instead chose to pray, finding words that would include as many people as possible in the message.
Their voices, beamed across hundreds of thousands of miles by technology inconceivable ten years earlier, resonated with their country’s roots as well. The Pilgrims had not merely gone to explore a new land--they had emigrated as families in order to build in that new land a human society.225
And so, like the Pilgrims, wherever the three men in Apollo 8 had gone they had brought their families, their religion, and their way of life. In Houston they had found empty fields and built a community. Their lives had echoed the words of John Winthrop, leader of the first Puritan expedition, who as he and his fellow settlers first approached Massachusetts Bay in 1630 had urged them
to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. . . We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.
[If we do this,] the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us. ... He shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations ... we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.226
The community the three men in Apollo 8 wished to bring into the empty reaches of space was an American one, filled with a belief that given two strong arms, a willing heart, and the freedom to follow one’s dreams, anything was possible. They, like the Puritans, had put their lives on the line to express this ideal.
Now the men orbited another world, farther away from home than any human had ever been, surrounded by airless space with only a week’s worth of oxygen in their tanks. To put the final explanation point on their powerful message, they had to get home, to their waiting families. And everyone knew that was not as easy a task as the astronauts and the engineers had so far made it seem.
12. “AMERICAN CHEESE”
William Anders stared out his window. “Look at that, look at that, Frank. Look at the earth!”
Frank Borman looked. “Yes,” he said softly. This time they were watching the earth slowly set behind the moon. After a few seconds the blue- white globe slipped behind that sharp gray lunar horizon, and was gone. For the eleventh time, the astronauts were utterly alone.
It was now 11:40 PM. In Houston communications went silent, and a hush settled throughout the control room. Once again there was little anyone could do but wait. In thirty minutes, while still out of touch with the earth, the astronauts would fire the S.P.S. engine one more time for two minutes and eighteen seconds. If there was such a thing as a Santa Claus, no one would know until 12:34 AM on Christmas morning. If that S.P.S. engine performed as intended, Apollo 8 would then reappear from behind the moon, on course for home. If it failed, the men would be left trapped in orbit around the moon. The three astronauts would be condemned to die, unable to return and with enough oxygen for only a few short days.
To Susan Borman, T.E.I. was the worst moment of the mission. After dinner with the Elkins she and the boys had driven back to her home in El Lago. For an important event like T.E.I. she was obliged as the wife of the mission’s commander to be home and accessible.
Valerie Anders joined her there. Earlier that week, the two women had decided that they would wait together at the Borman house during T.E.I. Valerie, exuberant and as fearless as the astronauts, had seen how worn Susan looked, and had offered to be with her at this crucial moment.
Together they now waited in Susan’s kitchen, the house around them filled with friends and relatives, the squawk box hissing its dry litany of jargon. Susan sat with her eyes closed and her fists clenched. She still couldn’t believe that all the engineering would work, that the S.P.S. engine would actually function perfectly on this first mission to the moon.
Valerie waited coolly, refusing to think negative thoughts. Instead she anticipated the moment the astronauts would reappear from behind the moon, on their way back to earth.
At the Lovell home, Marilyn also waited. After her walk with her children, she had come home to put her youngest ones to bed and join her relatives, friends, and neighbors in the family room. Like Valerie, she pushed the negative thoughts from her mind. All she thought about was that soon she would hear the voice of her husband, on his way home.
* * *
On the spacecraft, the astronauts waited for the engine to fire in quiet suspense. As soon as Borman finished the Christmas Eve press conference they began the long preparation for this last S.P.S. burn. For two and a half hours they worked. Sometimes they listened as Ken Mattingly dictated long sequences of numbers and data for them to enter into the on-board computer. Sometimes they scrambled about the cabin, trying to figure out where to cram the last pieces of equipment and garbage. Sometimes Borman and Anders went through another long checklist, making sure that everything on that complex instrument panel was set correctly. Sometimes Lovell floated in front of his sextant and tried to get navigational data, once again singing aloud as he worked.
And sometimes, they just joked and chatted about the events of the last few days. Once Borman speculated to Anders that it was the sleeping pill that made him sick on Saturday. Anders suggested that he might simply have had the flu, or an upset stomach. “Yes, I know,” Borman answered, “But I never had it before, not even in the zero-g airplane.”
Once Lovell wondered if the moon was made out of the same material as the earth. When Anders speculated that it probably was, both Borman and Lovell immediately needled him about his geological training. “Anders is going to tell you when he alights from the first LM,” Borman kidded. “Pick up all the gold!”
“He knows it all, right now,” Lovell added. “Didn’t you hear him? ‘Ye geologists of the world: I see a few grabens, a few slipped disks.’”
Once all three compared the real experience with the simulators in Houston. They were surprised when each admitted that the last week seemed more like being in the simulators than actually being in space.
As they slipped behind the moon, Anders took another picture of the earth. “We’ve got an earthset picture for Life magazine,” he proclaimed as he snapped the picture.
And they each noted how amazing the last four days had been. “It’s been a pretty fantastic week, hasn’t it?” Borman said in wonder.
As they did these last chores, the clock moved past midnight and into Christmas Day. In mission control men stood silent with arms folded, waiting nervously. George Low sat in mission control in the V.I.P. lounge. This was by far his most fearful moment during the whole race to the moon. He hadn’t been able to hide his worry in his conversation with Valerie Anders on Monday, and everyone knew that it was with his encouragement that NASA had hurried the program to send Apollo 8 moonward. As confident as he had been that everything would work, he was about to find out whether he had been right, or whether his decision had caused the death of three brave men.
Once again mission control sat in silence. Men whose shifts had ended hours earlier milled about near their consoles, unable to go home. Once again the man at capcom, this time astronaut Ken Mattingly, intoned a prayer-like litany into the microphone.
“Apollo 8, Houston. . .” An eighteen second pause.
“Apollo 8, Houston. . .” A twenty-eight second pause.
“Apollo 8, Houston. . .” A fifty-two second pause.
Now any delay in their reacquisition of the astronaut’s radio signal would mean something was wrong.
In the Borman home, Susan Borman and Valerie Anders waited silently. At Marilyn Lovell’s house, the room was hushed. The squawk box was silent. And then, as he had twenty hours
earlier, Jim Lovell announced from the darkness that all was fine. “Houston, Apollo 8. Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.”
Amid cheers and a wave of almost audible relief, Mattingly sighed and responded, “That’s affirmative. You are the best ones to know.”
* * *
Christmas Day 1968 held a very special meaning for many people. In the Lovell home, Wednesday started with four young children swarming under the Christmas tree, tearing open the gifts that Santa had left them the day before. Twelve-year-old Jay was thrilled to get the race car set he had been wanting. Two-year-old Jeffrey was especially pleased with his toy helicopter.
As Marilyn Lovell watched her kids open their presents, her NASA press liaison came up to say that there was someone at the front door for her. Unsure if this was just another newsman wanting some meaningless comment, Marilyn opened the door slowly. Outside stood a man, dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. He handed her a large box, and calmly climbed back into his Rolls Royce “delivery truck” and drove away. Attached to the box was a card that said “Merry Christmas and love from the Man in the Moon.” The box was wrapped with royal blue foil paper on which a tiny model spacecraft orbited a styrofoam moon. Inside was a mink jacket. One last gift had made a late arrival.
When Marilyn went to church at 10:30, she wore the mink coat over her Sunday best, telling reporters that this was “her happiest Christmas ever.”227 When asked where the mink coat had come from, she said with a happy twinkle that it “came from the Man on the Moon, whoever that is. That’s what it said on the package.”
Leaving the moon behind.
In church Father Raish stood up before his congregation of astronaut wives and NASA employees and said, “Oh, eternal God, we commend to thy almighty protection thy servants James, Frank, and William, for whose preservation in space our prayers are offered.”228
Valerie Anders had already received her Christmas present, the brand new color television set that she had been watching the mission on for the last five days. At 11:30 she took her five children to the Catholic church on Ellington Air Force Base where Father Vermillion led the congregation in prayer for the astronauts.
After church, Valerie took her kids to mission control so that she could send Bill her Christmas wishes. He answered her with his own blessing, promising her that he’d be home shortly.
In Susan Borman’s home it seemed that she finally could eat and sleep. At 7 AM she went to church where she couldn’t help expressing her relief to reporters. “This is truly a blessed Christmas,” she said. Other than the oversized dress she had opened at the Elkins’s, her Christmas presents remained wrapped under the Christmas tree, awaiting Frank’s return.
Several hours later. The window frame is visible in the lower right.
Not that these gifts mattered that much. To her, the only gift that counted was seeing her husband back on earth. She told reporters that “we’ll be each other’s big present.”229
At St. Christopher’s she played a tape of Frank reading Rod Rose’s prayer, as well as of the three astronauts reading Genesis. Then Reverend Buckner, as Father Raish had done for Marilyn, delivered his own special prayer for the astronauts. “O eternal God, in whose dominion are all the planets, stars, and galaxies and all the reaches of time and space, from infinity to infinity, watch over and protect, we pray, the astronauts of our country.”230
After services Susan went to mission control, taking her sons and Frank’s parents. She didn’t intend to pass any messages to Frank, knowing that would distract him. By now, however, things were going too well. When Mike Collins told Borman that he had a family of smiling Borman faces less than ten feet away, Frank Borman couldn’t help grinning. He joked about how proud of him they’d be because he was exercising on the Exer-Genie, the device in the command module that simulated an exercise machine.
By now the astronauts had discovered that their Christmas hadn’t been forgotten either. While weight considerations had limited each man’s personal items to under seven ounces, they each found several small and very special gifts tucked away for them. Valerie had given Anders a tietack, a moonstone set in a gold number “8,” while Marilyn Lovell had given Jim both a tie tack and cuff links, both set with moonstones.
Susan Borman had done something a little different. Just before Frank had left for Florida, the elderly mother of Margaret Elkins had given him a St. Christopher’s boot tack worn by her deceased husband during World War I. This tiny medallion, about the size of a dime, had been pushed into the heel of his boot for good luck whenever he went into combat. The old woman had wanted Frank to have the same good luck her husband had had. Susan had secretly placed it in Frank’s gift pack. While Frank might have felt distracted by any gifts from her, a heartfelt good luck charm from a faithful friend couldn’t hurt.
Like Valerie and Susan, Marilyn made a quick trip to mission control so that she could send her Christmas greetings to Jim. She didn’t stay long, however. Except for her kids and one or two close friends, her house was empty for the first time in days, and with the astronauts on their way home, she actually relished a quiet house in which to play with her children, listen to the squawk box, and anticipate the pending return of her husband. For her, the relief of their coming home seemed almost tangible .
As the day passed, communications between the ground and spacecraft became almost giddy at times. At one point astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmidt read aloud a silly adaptation of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” “Frank Borman was nestled all snug in his bed, while visions of REFSMMATs danced in his head; and Jim Lovell, in his couch, and Anders, in the bay, were racking their brains over a computer display.”
At another point Ken Mattingly, for no apparent reason, suddenly yelled “Eureka!” into the mike. Nor did anyone seem inclined to disagree with him.
All three astronauts slept. Jerry Carr gave the astronauts a very long and relaxed news report, much of which described how the astronauts’ families had celebrated Christmas.
Borman and Lovell actually spent some time talking about football and whether the Houston Oilers could win their division the next year. The team had finished second behind Joe Namath’s New York Jets, who in a few short weeks would be playing Johnny Unitas’s heavily favored Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl.
They did a mid-course correction, just to make absolutely sure they would hit the earth on target.
They did a television show. Held late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, this was a casual, hearty tour of the spacecraft, lasting over twenty minutes. Jim Lovell showed everyone how the Exer-Genie worked, Bill Anders ate a meal of cookies, orange juice, chowder and chicken, and Frank Borman described the computer and navigational system. As Borman later wrote, for this show they “hammed it up.”231
After the telecast the astronauts discovered another surprise waiting for them inside the command module food locker. The Whirlpool Corporation, which held the contract for manufacturing the bland dehydrated meals that the astronauts had been eating for four days, had decided to produce a special meal for Christmas Day. The foil packages had “Merry Christmas” labels on them and were wrapped by the women in the Whirlpool mail room with green and red fireproof ribbons. Inside was real turkey meat and gravy. “It was the best meal of the trip,” Borman wrote years later.232
Ironically, NASA had planned to use these more advanced food packages on Apollo 8. Borman had vetoed the idea, however, in his effort to eliminate as many risks as possible. He did not see any reason to try out new methods of food preservation when he and his crew were taking so many other first-time risks. Hence, for seven days the astronauts had endured the same unpleasant dehydrated food that Borman had eaten on Gemini 7.
Also part of this Christmas meal were three small bottles of Coronet V.S.Q. brandy, sealed in fireproof containers. Borman, still the unwavering no- nonsense commander, ordered the astronauts to put these back unopened. He was fearful that if anything should go wrong the liquor would be blamed
.
And then, something did go wrong. After eating their Christmas dinner Borman decided to take a nap. He left Anders in the pilot’s seat and slipped below the couches to rest. Lovell meanwhile slid over to his navigational station and began doing some more navigational sightings.
Jim, the navigational “concert pianist,” started pressing buttons on the computer keyboard. He would sight a star in his telescope and tell the computer to align the spacecraft with it. The computer would then fire the thrusters to turn the capsule so that the chosen star was visible in Lovell’s sextant. Lovell got so into this that he had the capsule swinging this way and that as he made star sighting after star sighting.
Suddenly Jim went “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
Mike Collins heard this and wondered what was going on. “Okay. Whoa, whoa. Standing by.”
Lovell had accidently erased the navigational data from the computer. The inertial measuring unit, which Borman had insisted they leave on for the entire trip so that a manual realignment would not be necessary, no longer knew which way was up, and thought the spacecraft was instead back on launchpad 39A on Cape Kennedy. The computer, sensing that Apollo 8 was not oriented correctly, began firing thrusters. Anders, watching the systems, became alarmed as he saw the eight ball move more than he thought it should. The spacecraft was shifting drastically into a different position. He remembered Neil Armstrong’s struggle to regain control of Gemini 8 when its thrusters had suddenly fired uncontrollably, and now wondered if this was happening to them. Anders fired a thruster to counteract.
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