“Okay, Apollo 8,” Mattingly radioed to the crew. “We have reviewed all your systems. You have a Go for TEI.”
The maneuver was now just one hour and fifteen minutes away. The crew began its final preparatory procedures, running down checklists while straining to keep the bright Sun from their eyes. Much of the exchange between the men was technical and rote, indecipherable to a lay listener, but comforting in the way its call-and-response rhythms sounded like a preacher and his congregation:
Anders: Okay, let’s go to P40: P30, complete; CMC, On.
Borman: CMC is On.
Anders: ISS, On; spacecraft SCS, operating.
Borman: Right.
Anders: Test the Caution/Warning lamp; EMS mode, Standby.
Borman: Yes.
Anders: Function, delta-v set.
Borman: Right.
Anders: And have you set 1586.8?
Borman: Right.
Anders: Okay, EMS mode, Standby; delta-v set; set delta-vc.
Borman: 3501.8.
Lovell: I’ll check: 3501.8.
Borman: Okay.
Anders: EMS Function, delta -V; Nonessential Bus, Main B; cycling cryo fans—good a time to do it as any.
Anders: BMAG Mode, three, Rate two.
Borman: Rate two.
Lovell: Delta-vcg CSM.
It was now past eleven o’clock in Houston. Less than an hour remained until TEI. If all went according to plan, the SPS engine would fire at 12:11 A.M. Houston time, in the earliest minutes of Christmas morning.
At the Borman home, Susan and her sons would listen to the squawk box in front of a Life magazine reporter and photographer, and where NASA would know where to find them if something went wrong. After Valerie Anders put her children to bed, she drove over to the Borman house and joined Susan in the kitchen. Valerie and Susan liked each other, but they might have preferred to be alone at a time like this. NASA public affairs, however, had arranged this photo op, and the women went along with it. Marilyn had a touch of the flu and didn’t attend.
As their lives in the public eye demanded of them, both women were dressed beautifully. Susan wore an ice-blue dress, a beige cardigan draped over her shoulders, a bangle bracelet on her wrist, and pearls around her neck. Valerie was in a robin’s-egg-blue dress with scalloped rickrack at the neckline, a white cardigan embroidered with colorful flowers on her shoulders, and an elegant watch. Each had her hair done in a beauty shop set. A giant lunar map lay spread over Susan’s table, a pack of cigarettes on top of that. At her own home, Marilyn stayed close to her squawk box and her friends, trying to stay as optimistic as Jim had seemed when he’d told her in August that everything would be okay.
As the wives settled in, Mission Control began to fill up with off-duty controllers, media, and others, until the place was again packed shoulder to shoulder, just as it had been when Apollo 8 first disappeared behind the Moon. Everyone there knew what to expect next.
At 11:42 P.M., Apollo 8 would begin its final scheduled pass behind the Moon, losing contact with Houston. Twenty-nine minutes later, while still out of communications, the SPS engine would fire, increasing the spacecraft’s speed enough to leave its orbit and set course for Earth and its splashdown point in the Pacific Ocean. It would have been easier for the flight controllers had TEI occurred on the near side, where they could monitor the ship and talk to the crew, but orbital mechanics dictated that the break for home occur while Apollo 8 was on the far side. By design, the rocket would burn for about three minutes and eighteen seconds. If all went well, Houston could expect the spacecraft to emerge around the near side at about 12:19 A.M. If the rocket had malfunctioned, or had failed to fire, it would come out later than that, perhaps by as much as eight minutes. NASA possessed some of the world’s most powerful computers, but it would be a simple clock that first told them whether their men were coming home.
Ten minutes now remained until Apollo 8 would disappear behind the lunar far side. Kraft and Low stood together in silence. If something happened to the astronauts—if the ship blew up or crashed into the Moon or flung itself off on an unrecoverable trajectory—NASA couldn’t do anything about it, and they wouldn’t even know about it until after it happened.
In 1961, Kraft had been the flight controller on Mercury-Redstone 2, the first planned launch of a hominid into space. The passenger was a chimpanzee named Ham, and Kraft had become attached to him. By the time the rocket launched, Kraft regarded Ham as crew, and he celebrated Ham’s safe return.
In the seven years since, Kraft had felt a personal responsibility to every man who risked his life aboard a NASA spacecraft. But all of them had been just a few hours from home in case of emergency. Now Kraft was about to say goodbye to three extraordinary men he both liked and admired, powerless to help them when they were days away from Earth, when they might need help most.
The countdown to loss of signal went under a minute. Susan chewed on her pearls while Valerie took several deep breaths.
At 11:42 P.M. Houston time, Apollo 8 slipped behind the Moon, and radio contact with Earth went dead.
* * *
—
Each of the astronauts was ready to come home. For Borman, America’s mission to beat the Soviets to the Moon wouldn’t be complete until the crew had returned safely. For Lovell, making it back meant a chance to return to the Moon, not just to see it but to walk on it. Anders, who’d been so interested in lunar geology, had seen all there was to see of Earth’s satellite and didn’t think he’d overlooked anything during his ten times around. All three of them missed their families.
“It’s been a pretty fantastic week, hasn’t it?” Borman asked his crewmates.
“It’s going to get better,” Lovell said.
“I hope this baby holds out for another two and a half days,” Anders said. “It sure has performed admirably, hasn’t it?”
None of the men had dwelled on what awaited them if the SPS engine didn’t perform. If test pilots and fighter pilots thought like that, they would never climb into a cockpit. But none of the men could say he hadn’t thought about being marooned in lunar orbit, or how he’d spend his remaining time—perhaps four days—before dying. In fact, Borman had been asked about it before launch.
“I don’t know how I’d want to spend my last days,” he’d told reporters. “I think that’s something you decide when it happens. If the engine doesn’t work, we’ve had a bad day.”
NASA had considered a plan for a lunar rescue mission should something catastrophic happen. It involved sending a single astronaut to the Moon in his own command and service module, atop his own Saturn V, which would stand ready to launch at Cape Kennedy. Once in lunar orbit, rendezvous and rescue would involve complex maneuvers that would also place the rescuing astronaut at risk. Such a contingency would add significantly to the agency’s already massive budget. In the end, the idea was scrapped.
NASA hadn’t bothered training the astronauts on how to handle being stranded at the Moon, or being flung off irretrievably toward the Sun, or any other hopeless scenario. It hadn’t supplied them with a suicide pill or any other means of putting an end to their lives. But the crew knew how things would end for them. About a week after TEI failed, the canisters of lithium hydroxide used to purge exhaled carbon dioxide from the cabin would run out, causing the men to grow drowsy, fall asleep, and suffocate.
None of them intended to waste that week, though they did not discuss the matter aloud. Almost certainly, they would have continued to make observations of the Moon, providing as much detail as possible for Houston. They would also have continued to wear a biomedical harness, to give NASA and its doctors information about what happens as one meets his end in space. And they would have radioed home to say goodbye to their parents, wives, and children, and told them how much they loved them.
But they
might not have waited to suffocate.
Satisfied that their work had been done, the crew likely would have decided together to shut down their communications, then vent the spacecraft by opening a pressure relief valve. Doing so would cause an immediate loss of oxygen in the cabin, a fast loss of consciousness, and a painless death.
For now, the astronauts could only hope that that wouldn’t be necessary.
* * *
—
Twenty minutes remained until the SPS engine was scheduled to fire for TEI. Ordinary people might use this time to say something profound, or perhaps to bid their companions goodbye in case things went bad. But NASA had selected Borman, Lovell, and Anders for a reason: This rare breed of man could, at once, love his wife and children and life with all his heart, yet still climb atop an unproven rocket and fly to the Moon. So as the clock counted down to ignition, it wasn’t mortality and love these men were discussing.
“Tell you one thing these flights are good for,” Borman said. “An old fatty like me, I bet I’ve lost a lot of weight. I didn’t eat much those first two days, and I didn’t—didn’t even get much to eat today.”
“Pretty sunrise,” Anders remarked.
Inside Mission Control, there was little anyone could do but wait. Soon, people began talking and milling about.
That made Kraft furious. He got on his intercom and told anyone who could hear him to shut up so that he could pray or do whatever the hell else he could dream up to make sure Apollo 8 came out on the other side of the Moon when it was supposed to.
A few minutes later, the clocks in Mission Control read midnight. It was now Christmas Day in Houston, much of America, and the world. No one had ever been farther from home on this important family day than Borman, Lovell, and Anders.
From their windows, which faced toward the lunar surface, it appeared to the astronauts as if they would be headed for trouble when the rocket lit.
“It looks to me like I’m going to burn right into the ground,” Borman said.
But the men didn’t have time to worry about that. They’d long since maneuvered the spacecraft to the attitude NASA had calculated. They had faith that the agency had gotten it right.
Just thirty seconds remained until TEI.
“Flight recorder going to record,” Anders called.
He’d made this flight believing he had a one-third chance of dying. Trans Earth Injection had been a major part of that calculus.
“Stand by to start ullage,” Lovell called.
Lovell believed that at certain points in life, a person just had to have faith.
“Two valves,” Borman called.
Borman had come for America, because he believed it was the greatest country on Earth and he would have died in order to protect it.
In Mission Control, people could barely breathe.
It was this moment that had so shaken James Webb when he heard of Low’s plan. It wasn’t just that the mission allowed only four months’ preparation rather than the usual year and a half, or that it required manning a rocket that had flown only twice (and experienced myriad problems the second time), or that the crew would have no backup if the SPS engine failed, or that so much would have to be done for the very first time. What had shaken Webb most deeply was the idea that if the crew of Apollo 8 were stranded in lunar orbit on December 25, no one would ever look at Christmas, or the Moon, the same way again.
Five seconds remained until Trans Earth Injection.
Inside the spacecraft, the number 99 flashed on a display, asking the crew for the go-ahead to light the SPS engine and begin the burn. If no one pressed the Proceed key, ignition would not occur.
Lovell looked to Borman, and Borman nodded.
Lovell reached forward.
He pressed Proceed.
And then there was only silence.
SUSAN BORMAN, VALERIE ANDERS, AND MARILYN Lovell had been told that if all went well, their husbands would regain contact with Houston at about 12:19 A.M., the moment their spacecraft came around the lunar far side. That was still five minutes away. Seconds had never passed so slowly.
It wasn’t much easier for those at Mission Control, and especially for Chris Kraft. All he could do now was wait.
Now, just one minute remained until Apollo 8 was due to regain contact with Earth. Any longer than that, and it meant something had not gone according to plan.
In Australia, technicians at the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station made certain their antenna was pointed accurately. (NASA needed a station in Australia, and elsewhere around the world, to ensure that the spacecraft could be “seen” at all times no matter where the Earth was in its rotation.) At just the moment Mission Control expected to acquire a signal, Australia reported receiving one. A wave of excitement washed over the room, but Houston still had to confirm it.
CapCom Ken Mattingly called to the spacecraft.
“Apollo 8, Houston.”
There was no answer.
Mattingly waited a full eighteen seconds, then called again.
“Apollo 8, Houston.”
Still no answer.
Susan Borman and Valerie Anders were silent. There was no sound in the Borman home but for the squawk box, and their husbands’ voices were not coming out of it. Everyone there—Susan, her boys, the visitors—were just waiting to hear an astronaut’s voice, which was now overdue.
Twenty-eight seconds later, Mattingly tried again.
“Apollo 8, Houston.”
There was only silence.
At her home, Marilyn Lovell told herself that Jim had said everything would be okay.
This time, Mattingly allowed nearly a minute to pass before making his next call.
“Apollo 8, Houston.”
Again, nothing came back from the spacecraft. Mattingly tried a fifth time, forty-eight seconds later.
Still no answer.
Almost four minutes had passed since the ground station in Australia had picked up a signal from Apollo 8 from behind the Moon—an unthinkable delay.
Then, over the static and hiss of the radio connection, a voice came through to Mission Control.
“Houston, Apollo 8, over.”
The voice was Lovell’s.
“Hello, Apollo 8,” Mattingly answered. “Loud and clear.”
“Roger,” Lovell said. “Please be informed—there is a Santa Claus.”
“That’s affirmative,” Mattingly said. “You’re the best ones to know.”
At the Borman home, Susan and Valerie threw up their arms and shouted with happiness. A Life magazine photographer captured the moment—the purest expression of simultaneous joy and relief one might ever hope to see. At the Lovell home, Marilyn squealed with delight and laughed out loud. What a perfect thing to say, she thought. What a perfect thing to say today.
It was twenty-five minutes past midnight in Houston, Christmas morning.
Lovell’s words had been inspired by an article he’d once read, originally penned in the New York Sun in 1897. It told of an eight-year-old girl named Virginia who had asked the newspaper, “Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?” A longtime editor there, Francis Pharcellus Church, answered the girl’s question. Church had been a Civil War correspondent for The New York Times; standing on the front lines with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, he’d seen the terrible things men could do to each other, how a country could lose its heart and its soul when it did battle with itself. But for several paragraphs, Church talked about the realness of love, generosity, devotion, and beauty, even if one couldn’t always see them, and how that proved that Santa, too, was real. And so he replied to the girl: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
Leaving the Moon, Lovell echoed Church’s words, and sentiments, even if he hadn’t intended to.
Planners at Mission Control wer
e so thrilled—and relieved—to have Apollo 8 back in contact that no one asked the obvious question: Why had the crew taken so long to respond to Mattingly’s calls? In fact, the explanation was simple: Anders had been so busy confirming shutdown of the SPS engine, and grabbing cameras to shoot photographs, that he had forgotten to activate the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna, which broadcast their signal back to Earth. Once Anders pushed the button, Lovell was clear to reconnect with the world.
For all the confusion, the SPS engine had performed flawlessly. The silence the astronauts experienced after Lovell pressed the button to light the engine was due to the time the computer took to digest information and send instructions to open the valves. Though the silence lasted only a moment, it felt like years to Lovell.
Once the engine fired, the crew was treated to a singular view, one that even Stanley Kubrick couldn’t have equaled with all the special effects in Hollywood. Outside their windows, as Apollo 8 picked up speed and moved out of its circular orbit, the men could see the Moon receding, growing smaller before their eyes.
For most of human existence, people’s ideas about the Moon derived from their imaginations, religious beliefs, and unaided eyes. In 1609, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei peered through his homemade telescope and observed distinct features on the lunar surface, an ancient place that, with the aid of this wondrous new instrument, had suddenly become new to man’s eye.
Galileo wrote, “We certainly see the surface of the Moon to be not smooth, even, and perfectly spherical, as the great crowd of philosophers have believed about this and other heavenly bodies, but, on the contrary, to be uneven, rough, and crowded with depressions and bulges. And it is like the face of Earth itself, which is marked here and there with chains of mountains and depths of valleys.” He made beautiful sketches of what he saw, using shadows near the Moon’s terminator—the line that divides dark from light on the lunar surface—to pick out features undetectable to the naked eye, including craters. The dark parts of the Moon, Galileo theorized, were low-lying plains or dry seas, the bright parts mountains and highlands.
Rocket Men Page 27