Apollo 8

21 – 28 December 1968

by Hamish Lindsay

 

The Apollo 8 crew: Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell.

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Apollo 8 marked the beginning of a new era in man’s exploration of space and, indeed, in the history of mankind, grabbing a swag of space firsts:

The first time humans had left the planet Earth.
The first time a human saw the whole planet Earth from space.
The first time humans had not experienced a night, with sunrises and sunsets.
The first time humans were exposed to raw solar radiation beyond the Earth’s magnetic field.
The first time astronauts had experienced the full 3.4 million kilogram thrust of the big Saturn V rocket.
The first time humans had entered another gravitational field.
The first time humans orbited the Moon.
The first time humans had occulted behind the Moon.
The first to see the backside of the Moon.
The first to see Earthrise at the Moon.
The first to reenter into the Earth’s atmosphere from the Moon.
The first to travel so far and so fast.

Apollo 8 also ended the American’s race with the Russians. The Russians had been leading the race in the early era of space exploration, and the Americans were constantly looking for ways of catching up. The Russians were pursuing the assembly of an Earth orbital platform from which to launch the lunar landing mission, while by 1962 the Americans had moved on to the lunar orbit rendezvous concept, which is estimated to have sliced a year off their Apollo development program.

In October 1968 the Russians were still trying to perfect their docking techniques. They launched Soyuz 3 to rendezvous with Soyuz 2 and transfer crew members between the two spacecraft, but ran into problems and had to abort the docking exercise. In November an unmanned Zond 6 flew around the Moon but the cabin depressurised on the way back and the spacecraft slammed into the Earth at a speed that would have killed a human crew. A Zond 7 flight with two cosmonauts was planned for December, but due to a number of technical problems the flight was scrubbed and the Russian cosmonauts had to stand by and watch Apollo 8 go for the Moon.

Of all the Apollo missions Apollo 8 was the most exciting to me. Most people I have spoken to who were involved in Apollo, including Houston flight controllers, agree. Nobody knew what would happen to humans so far out in space – for the first time we were really going to leave the Earth and head off into the void.

Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick explained the view from the Trench in Mission Control,

“From a trajectory viewpoint, it meant we had to accelerate some of the software in the Mission Control Center and the spacecraft and the world-wide tracking network. Now management had decided to go into lunar orbit it required very accurate calculations. I have told people that shooting for the Moon is a bit like duck hunting – you don’t shoot at the duck, you shoot at a spot in front of it and let it fly into the shot. So we have to aim at a spot in front of the Moon equivalent to the thickness of a sheet of paper when viewed from Earth.

We had confidence in being able to do this, but were a little nervous about doing it for the first time and much earlier than planned.”

Just the navigation required to accomplish this feat was mind-bending. Every object involved in this voyage was moving and the spacecraft had to arrive exactly 128.7 kilometres ahead of the Moon, itself moving at 3,219 kilometres per hour. Just an error of 1.6 kilometres per hour in the spacecraft’s speed would mean missing the Moon by 1,600 kilometres. As for going into orbit around the Moon – that really grabs one’s stomach.

Put yourself in the crew’s place; how would you feel about going into orbit around the Moon for the first time ever? Locked up in a spacecraft not much bigger than a phone box with two other people? If anything went wrong it was days to get back to the Earth, and there was every chance of being stuck in permanent lunar orbit, or being the first human bodies buried alive in moondust, or shooting off into solar orbit, three sitting skeletons forever circling the sun.

There was only one cheerful option – returning safely to Earth.

Originally Apollo 8 had been planned as an Earth orbit mission to check out the spacecraft. Flight Director Chris Kraft felt the CSM was in the best shape of any spacecraft ever. It was passing all its tough tests with flying colours. It was the LM development that was lagging with a number of problems still to be resolved. It didn’t help to receive American CIA reports inferring the Russians might be working on a lunar flight with a new Soyuz spacecraft.

In early August 1968 George Low, the Apollo Program manager, had this crazy idea of just going to the Moon with no LM on the first manned flight of the mighty Saturn V. The Russian’s spectacular fireballs had shown what it was like when things went wrong during a launch of these big rockets. At this point Low only saw a circumlunar flight. He bounced the idea off Chris Kraft and Bob Gilruth. “His idea was a shocker,” said Kraft, “but if we could pull it off it would be absolutely pivotal to landing men on the Moon,” and proposed they go into lunar orbit as well.

After consulting Deke Slayton and von Braun and getting the go ahead from a surprised NASA hierarchy and President Johnson, NASA decided to officially go for orbits around the Moon with a CSM flight only, subject to a successful Apollo 7 manned flight. It was decided to make the first attempt on 21 December with a liftoff time of 1251 GMT (0751 USEST or 2251 AEST) Choosing this day and time would allow the crew to observe the first planned landing site at the ideal Sun elevation of 6.7°. At least it would make sure of beating the Russians and confirm that a manned lunar flight in orbit was possible.

This dramatic change of flight plan disrupted Deke Slayton’s carefully planned crew schedules. The original Apollo 8 crew of McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart had been training hard for an Earth orbit mission to check out the Lunar Module. Slayton decided to keep them with their LM mission, and to swap McDivitt’s crew with Borman, Lovell and Anders from Apollo 9, with their backups of Armstrong, Aldrin and Haise.

Slayton: “I thought that this crew could be ready in four months, no problem,” and on 10 August 1968 called Jim McDivitt into his office to tell him he was rescheduled for Apollo 9. McDivitt could see, “...NASA didn’t want to throw away our training... I think it was that Rusty (Schweickart) and I knew more about this particular lunar module than anybody else,” and agreed to the swap.

Two days later Slayton called Frank Borman and told him Apollo 8 was his if he wanted it. Frank said “yes” without any hesitation and the new crew for 8 was announced on 19 August 1968 – but not the flight plan. These plans were kept secret from the media until Apollo 7 was safely back home.

By 11 November 1968 all the ground work for a lunar mission was complete and the message officially advising the President was laid on Lyndon Johnson’s desk just as he was handing the Presidency over to Richard Nixon.

The next day NASA’s new Acting Administrator, Thomas Paine, announced, “After a careful and thorough examination of all the systems and risks involved we have concluded that we are now ready to fly the most advanced mission for our Apollo 8 launch in December, the orbit around the Moon.”

President Johnson backed up Paine’s announcement with a message to the astronauts, “I am confident that the world’s finest equipment will strive to match the courage of our astronauts. If it does that, a successful mission is assured.”

Apollo 8 was the first time the steerable four-dish Unified S-Band High Gain antenna was used and the three big 26 metre stations of the MSFN were called on for what they were designed for, tracking manned spacecraft at the Moon.

On Friday 15 November 1968 the Goddard Simulation Team in the Super Constellation NASA 421 flew up from their temporary base in Sydney to put us through a series of lunar passes peppered with typical faults and problems they had dreamed up. Although we were now familiar with their antics, after they left we felt confident we were ready for Apollo 8.

For this mission we had two 12½ hour shifts from 0600AEST to 1830 throughout the mission. Apollo 8 was our first experience of tracking a manned (talking) spacecraft for more than 12 minutes. We had to sit and keep alert and on the ball for up to 11 hours. With an hour and a half travelling to work and back home it meant we did little else outside our job while the missions were on. It was my good fortune to draw the night shift where most of the action was, because that was daytime in Houston, the time the astronauts used on the spacecraft for their day. Once on their way to the Moon they had no night and day so could choose any time zone on Earth for their local spacecraft time.

Day one of the mission for us was Saturday 21 December 1968. From my arrival at the station at 1800 I had to wait 4 hours 15 minutes for the launch and about another 40 minutes before we saw the spacecraft come over the horizon. We began our H-30 countdown to station acquisition shortly after launch. My position was USB Tracking 1, responsible for the Timing, Ranging, Antenna Position Programmer (APP), Tracking Data Processor (TDP) and the System Monitor chart recorder. Frank Campbell was Tracking 1 on the Day Shift. We had parallel positions at the Wing site at Tidbinbilla.

Honeysuckle Creek was the prime two-way station, transmitting to the spacecraft when the mission began, but this was to change for a while, as we shall see.

At 0235 USEST on 21 December 1968 Deke Slayton roused up the Apollo 8 crew for their traditional breakfast of steak and eggs.

The Apollo 8 astronauts (from left: Anders, Lovell, Borman) walk out to the crew transfer van for the drive to the pad.

At 0500 the three astronauts eased themselves into their cramped spacecraft, to be their home for the next 6 days. On the left, Borman had the instruments to monitor the Saturn V rocket’s performance, Lovell in the middle operated the Command Module’s computer and kept an eye on their trajectory and navigation, while Anders in the right seat was in control of the spacecraft’s electrical and communications systems.

Borman and Lovell were Gemini veterans, suffering 14 days together in space with Gemini VII. Lovell then joined Buzz Aldrin for the last Gemini flight, so was the most experienced of the three. Anders was the rookie.

The day before the Apollo 8 launch the director of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Dr Robert Gilruth, sent a Christmas message to all the staff at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. This is part of that address:

“Tomorow’s launch of Apollo 8 marks man’s first attempt to leave the space that surrounds our familiar planet and venture out into the depths of space towards another celestial body. Perhaps the ancient mariners had the same feeling of anticipation as they set sail through the Straits of Gibraltar past the limits of the known world.

Our technology gives us an advantage over those iron men in wooden ships as we push outward into a different kind of ocean. And coming as it does during the Christmas season, the Apollo 8 mission epitomises the effort that this center has put forth during the last several years to reach the national goal of a manned lunar landing.

Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman said a few weeks ago that he hoped the mission would be ‘the type of experience that might lead to at least some basic understanding among the peoples of the Earth.’ He was speaking of viewing the entire sphere of the Earth for the first time from deep space when indeed our planet would appear as one world where hopefully peace will come to all men of good will. What better time is there for such sentiment than now in this Christmas season.”

 

Apollo 8 on Pad 39A with the Mobile Service Structure (MSS) preparing the Stack for flight. NASA image S69-15528.

LAUNCH
The weather on launch day was fine with some feathery cirrus clouds covering about 40% of the sky while on the ground an 11 knot northerly breeze kept the temperature down to a cool 15ºC. Relative humidity was 88%.

Apollo 8 was launched from Pad 39A at 0751USEST (2251 AEST) on 21 December. Although noisy, Borman and Lovell found the ride much smoother than their Gemini launches, apart from being thrown from side to side as the giant rocket continuously corrected its trajectory. After two minutes 34 seconds of powerful acceleration the five main F1 engines cut at an altitude of 66.7 kilometres.

Apollo 8 on its way to the Moon. NASA image S68-56050. Courtesy of the Apollo Image Gallery.

Apollo 8 on its way to the Moon. NASA image ap8-KSC-68PC-315. Courtesy of the Apollo Image Gallery.

The astronauts, locked in their harnesses, were flung forward then thrown violently back when the second (S-II) stage ignited for 6 minutes and increased their speed to over 24,140 kilometres per hour. Rookie Anders felt he was going to be thrown into the instrument panel, but the two Gemini veterans were exhilarated by the ride.

At a height of 173.8 kilometres the third stage, the Saturn IVB, burned for two and a half minutes and pushed them into earth orbit at 2302:35 AEST. Eleven minutes 34 seconds after leaving the launch pad they were travelling at 28,054.2 kilometres per hour in an orbit of 185.2 x 184.4 kilometres with a period of 89.2 minutes.

Initial orbital tracking was by Carnarvon, their C-Band FPQ6 radar and S-Band system confirming the spacecraft was in a proper parking orbit for the final checks.

Honeysuckle was next. I had a brief tense moment when I had to change to 30 minute APP tapes while the antenna was still in Program Mode, but it all went smoothly and we had no trouble finding the strong signal right on time. Peter Cohn, a new kid on the block, had no trouble locking the ranging system up. By the way, if any crackpot says we never really went to the Moon, we were measuring the distance to the spacecraft the whole time, so we know they went to the Moon.

Away round on the other side of Earth at Goldstone, Bill Wood remembers, “An hour and twenty minutes after launch we tracked the CSM as it made its first orbit of Earth. Ninety minutes later we tracked it during most of its TLI burn, which started over the Hawaiian tracking station.”

Everything was looking good.

In Houston the Flight Director called the roll around the consoles for a unanimous ‘Go,’ so Capcom Michael Collins announced the fateful words, “Apollo 8 – you’re Go for TLI (Trans Lunar Injection).”

After eight years of preparation, at last Apollo 8 was on its way to the Moon.

At Honeysuckle Creek, from left, Jim (Dutchy) Holland, Ron Hicks and Clive Cross mark the first time humans have ventured beyond Earth orbit. The fine print reads: “In space: Borman, Lovell, Anders. On the ground: Hicks, Cross, Holland.” Photo from Ron Hicks. Click image for a larger version.

Bill Wood, “We were poised to track it during most of its Translunar Injection Burn, which started over Hawaii, slightly before our acquisition. A chill ran down my spine after Borman reported the Saturn IVB had been ignited for the long burn that would accelerate Apollo 8 out of Earth orbit towards the Moon.

Both the Saturn IVB and CSM stayed in view of Goldstone for what seemed to be all day. The spacecraft rose in the west and travelled nearly all the way over to the east and then came back and set in the west in the evening. This was repeated on 22 and 23 December.”

Looking back to the Earth as they begin the journey to the Moon. The Florida Peninsula and Cape Canaveral are in the lower left. The Caribbean chain of islands can be seen. See this computer-generated image (from Google Earth) for orientation. AS08-16-2581

At 01:41:37 AEST on 22 December, the S-IVB stage burned for 5 minutes 17.7 seconds to boost the spacecraft’s velocity by 7,451.2 kilometres per hour, and Apollo 8 left Earth orbit and headed for the Moon at 38,959.4 kilometres per hour.

At Honeysuckle Creek we were out of range for the second orbit so didn’t see the burn, but the tracking station at Hawaii reported it had no trouble seeing the red glow of the S-IVB. Thirty minutes after the TLI burn the S-IVB separated from the CSM with a bone-jarring shock, and Borman aligned the CSM to look back at it, now following them about 150 metres behind. The three astronauts stared in awe at the sight of the Earth shrinking into the distance behind the third stage. Lovell felt he was driving a car into a dark tunnel and was watching the entrance dwindle into a distant speck. Borman thought this must be how God sees the Earth.

Bill Anders tried to put it into words: “How finite the Earth looks. Unlike photographs people see there’s no frame around it. It’s hanging there, the only colour in the black vastness of space, like a dustmote in infinity.” They were the first living creatures in the history of the planet to have ever seen the whole Earth at a glance. It was a really awesome thought at the time, though we are used to seeing pictures of it now.

The first time humans saw their whole planet at a glance. Taken not long after the previous picture, Florida and the Bahamas can still be seen at upper left, but now all of South America has come into view with Chile and the Cape Horn area pointing off the Earth’s bottom edge. Africa is on the upper right. AS08-16-2593

At 8 hours 10 minutes after TLI there was a 2.4 second SPS burn for a slight course correction, then the first television pictures we received from a distance of 267,000 kilometres did not give a clear picture of Earth at all; it was just a fuzzy whitish ball with no detail.

The third stage following Apollo 8. JSC scan courtesy of apolloarchive.com

The third stage as Apollo 8 backs away. JSC scan courtesy of apolloarchive.com

I can still remember listening to Net 1 (the astronauts’ communication channel) in my headset with the astronauts describing the weather around Tierra del Fuego, sounding as though they were discussing a tourist’s view of the Florida Everglades. Lovell offered some advice, “Tell the people in Tierra del Fuego to put on their raincoats – it looks like a storm down there.”

By the time we next picked up the signal from the spacecraft it was already on its way to the Moon.

Ron Hicks in the Honeysuckle Computer area works through the Apollo 8 Flight Plan. Click image for a larger version.

As the earth turned we would pick up the spacecraft signal with Goldstone in California transmitting to the spacecraft, then as it set over the horizon at Goldstone we would take over transmitting the signal from the ground. The Deep Space 26 metre dish at Tidbinbilla, DSS42, and the 9 metre dish at Carnarvon were backing us up, receiving one way only. The 64 metre dish at Tidbinbilla had yet to be built, and the 64 metre dish at Parkes wasn’t called up for this mission.

This did not last long.

At Honeysuckle we had been suffering a problem in the antenna feedcone that we called the ‘Search for the Spurs.’ Bill Kempees, the Chief Engineer, and Jim Kirkpatrick, the Facilities Engineer, and their teams were trying to track down random bursts of noise, or spurs, appearing on each side of the uplink when the transmitter was on. It was visible on a spectrum analyser we had sitting in the USB area. Although we could see it, there wasn’t a simple explanation for its source.

The theory was it was arcing in the flanges of the waveguide – but how do you find it and stop it? Nobody could be observing in the feedcone when the transmitter was on. Before the mission they had asked me to try and photograph any arcing inside the feedcone, so one night I slung a Polaroid camera over the window looking down straight into the guts of the feedcone. A moonless night was chosen and all the floodlights were turned off and the camera was set with the shutter open all through the night so if an arc occurred it should cause a spark, be recorded on the film, confirm it was arcing and identify where the fault was located. Unfortunately the film didn’t like the transmitter’s 20 kilowatt signal beamed straight at it, just showing a mysterious white circle, so the idea had to be abandoned.

As soon as Apollo 8 was on its way the spurs were back so there was a high level decision to pull the feedcone apart and smooth and coat all the flanges, as we didn’t want to compromise the mission, so this day, Sunday, Honeysuckle USB went “Red cannot support” for a couple of days. Technical specialist Dick Albert was flown out from Goddard to help with the exercise.

About to remove the feed cone on the antenna. We had to remove the feed cone during the Apollo 8 mission. The crane and one of the cherry pickers was borrowed from Tidbinbilla. Luckily with no Lunar Module, Tidbinbilla was able to keep tracking with no interruption to the signals and data while we pulled our antenna down. Photo and caption: Hamish Lindsay.

John Saxon writes, “One Cherry picker occupant was probably Jim Kirkpatrick and the other Ted Burt.” Photo: Alan Foster.

No tracking by Honeysuckle USB today, the Wing at Tidbinbilla carried the day, going two-way with Apollo 8. However all their data was being sent to us over the microwave link to be processed and sent to Houston. Luckily there was no LM to need two stations for a simultaneous track.

Our feedcone was taken off using a crane and two cherry pickers and the waveguide flanges were honed and filled with very expensive silver-filled epoxy, and after purging the nitrogen for the maser we were operational again before Apollo 8 reached the Moon. After the feedcone was reassembled the spurs were still there, though not as bad. As they didn’t seem to degrade our signal to noise ratio we decided to live with them.

At 8 hours 10 minutes after TLI there was a 2.4 second SPS burn for a slight course correction, then at 0601 AEST 23 December the first television pictures we received from a distance of 267,000 kilometres did not give a clear picture of Earth at all; it was just a fuzzy whitish ball with no detail.

On the way to the Moon the spacecraft was set up for the PTC (Passive Thermal Control) mode, also known as barbecue mode, slowly turning to keep temperatures evenly distributed over the surface. In this mode the glowing blue and white Earth would pass by their windows every so often, and they were aware it was getting steadily smaller, until eventually they could cover the whole planet with a thumb.

During the three day TLC, Borman, and to a lesser extent Lovell and Anders, went down with motion sickness (technically called SAS, or space adaption syndrome) but we never heard this on the loop as it was passed down through one of the tracking stations (it could have been us) on a voice tape dump to be heard in private in Houston. We were advised down Net 2 (the tracking station’s communication line from Houston) that Borman had a stomach upset and Lovell was feeling a bit sick too – and it was a mild threat to the mission for a while when Dr Charles Berry thought Borman might have a virus. The astronauts’ description of the gut-wrenching smells and errant pulsing balls of vomit floating around the cabin sounded revolting, but after taking the prescribed medication everything settled down before reaching the Moon.

The astronauts were disappointed to find their view of the approaching Moon was washed out by the Sun’s powerful glare. It should have been a spectacular sight to see the huge bulk of the Moon getting bigger and bigger as they closed in, but they never really saw the Moon on the way out. They also never felt any physical change when the spacecraft slowed down to 3,578 kilometres per hour and crossed over into the Moon’s gravity field.

For the first of two mid-course corrections some of the flight controllers wanted to use Apollo 8’s smaller thrusters in case the big SPS engine might disrupt the free-return trajectory and make it difficult to return to Earth in an emergency, but Kraft told them, “We need that SPS engine to get into lunar orbit and I want to see it work before they go behind the Moon. Stick to the plan.”

This is how Canberra residents read about the Apollo 8 Mission on the morning of Christmas Eve 1968. An optimistic end to what had been a tumultuous year. Click image for a larger version of The Canberra Times front page. With thanks to Mike Dinn. Scan: Colin Mackellar.

The Canberra Times’ front page also reported Mike Dinn’s brief conversation with the Apollo 8 astronauts when there was a comms problem between Houston and Honeysuckle. Doubtless Bernard Scrivener, the station’s admin and public relations officer would have alerted the newspaper to this local story. Scan and notes: Colin Mackellar.

John Saxon (background) and Mike Dinn at the Ops Console, almost certainly during Apollo 8. Photo: Ron Hicks.

At 1249AEST, about 1 hour 37 minutes after our AOS, Honeysuckle Creek had a rare mention on Net 1, the astronaut’s communications loop with Mission Control.

Capcom Mattingly: Okay. And you can anticipate a handover between stations here on the hour, and you might get a slight glitch as we go through. I’ll give you a call when we get back.
Borman: Thank you, Ken. What station are we going to be going to, Ken?
Mattingly: Okay. We’ll be going to Honeysuckle.
Borman: Thank you.

Borman wanted to do a urine dump but checked with Houston, as even such a minor liquid ejection caused the spacecraft to change its trajectory slightly, so Houston advised Borman to go ahead, but it would be the last “gas station stop,” or urine dump, before going into lunar orbit so as to minimise any trajectory perturbations.

Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston through Honeysuckle.
Anders: Roger. Houston through Honeysuckle. We read you loud and clear.
Mattingly: Okay. Good morning.
Anders: Good morning.
Mattingly: Thought you went to sleep.
Anders: You got off over to Australia – you got over to Australia pretty fast.
Mattingly: Rog................. that gas station call wake you up?
Anders: Man, I’ve been all eyeballs and elbows here for the last several hours.

INTO LUNAR ORBIT AND GOING BEHIND THE MOON.

Then came the moment to go behind the Moon – and the decision to loop around the back and return, or to go into orbit around the Moon.

“Apollo 8 this is Houston,” Capcom Gerry Carr called at 1855 AEST, “at 68 hours 4 minutes you are Go for LOI.”
“Okay,” replied Borman, “Apollo 8 is Go.”
Just as they were going behind the Moon’s rim Carr called, “Apollo 8 Houston. One minute to LOS. All systems go. Safe journey, guys.”
“Thanks a lot, troops,” Anders responded.
“We’ll see you on the other side,” Lovell added.

“You’re go all the way,” Carr finished the conversation.

At 0349:20 Houston (USCST) time (early, early morning for the Yanks, but 1949:20 AEST on Christmas Eve for us), Apollo 8 slipped behind the Moon’s rim and all our signals dropped out. It was now a wait and hope and pray all went well with the burn to put them into lunar orbit.

Subconsciously I felt they would be all right, but was there something unexpected behind the Moon that was a threat to the astronauts or the spacecraft? Someone jokingly said, what about the mountain we didn’t know about that was higher than the spacecraft they would smash into? What was certain was the whole fate of the mission and the astronauts now hung on the SPS motor.


Nobody had ever seen behind the Moon; up to this point we had only sent satellites round. So we all waited, and waited for what seemed hours, but was really only 32 minutes. Behind the Moon the astronauts suddenly felt alone. The radio was quiet; there was no Houston, no Goldstone, Madrid or Honeysuckle to talk to; in fact there was nobody to talk to – they were the first people in history to be completely isolated from Earth, unable to even see it. Lovell decided he felt no different – he was weightless before, he was weightless now – there was blackness outside the window before, there was the same blackness now. The black bulk of the Moon beside them was blotting out the Earth and stars on that side. Only now the radio was silent.

The astronauts looked at each other. Borman then broke into their thoughts with, “So, are we go for this thing?”

“We’re go as far as I am concerned,” Lovell was checking his instruments.
“Go on this side,” agreed Anders.

Lovell typed the instructions into the computer and looked for the response. The code to say everything was Go, “99:40” appeared in the readout. Lovell took a deep breath and pressed the “Proceed” button. At 1959:20 AEST they felt the pressure on their backs as the spacecraft slowed in response to the 4 minute 6.9 second burn that put them into a 312.1 by 111.1 kilometre orbit around the Moon.

“Longest four minutes I’ve ever spent,” murmured Lovell, and stuck his thumbs in the air at Borman.

They were now in lunar orbit after a Trans-Lunar Coast of 66 hours 16 minutes and 22 seconds.

Borman swung the spacecraft around to view the lunar surface and the three astronauts were gob smacked to see the crater-pitted moonscape gliding past beneath. As far as the eye could see it was a plaster-like black and white lunarscape of countless thousands of all types of craters, a tortured terrain of craters on craters on craters, craters obliterating craters, rising mountains of craters, deep valleys of craters, plus rilles, rifts, landslides and mares. For a brief moment the mission was forgotten as the men pressed their faces against the windows to soak up the sight.

When back in sight of the Earth the astronauts were hardly poetic in their descriptions. Borman described the scene as: “It looked like the burned-out ashes of a barbecue,” Lovell: “It’s like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time. It’s all beat up with no definition. Just a lot of bumps and holes,” and Anders: “It looks whitish-grey, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.”

The kids’ sand pile.

IN LUNAR ORBIT

We had been given the exact time they should appear from behind the Moon for the first time, calculated by those brilliant boffins and their computers in the Trench at Mission Control. We were carrying the responsibility of being the Prime Station for this part of the mission.

In the USB area I could see our antenna focussed on the trailing edge of the crescent Moon on our boresight television, the crosshair sitting steadily on the rim – waiting. My APP (Antenna Position Programmer) steadily nudged the antenna along to keep pace with the Moon. Just above the television screen was one of my large digital clock displays, silently flicking the seconds away, counting down to a monumental success or a tragic failure. Had they aborted the burn to give us an early acquisition and a direct ride home? If not, had the burn gone to plan and put them in the planned lunar orbit? Or had it failed?

The Honeysuckle Creek USB area during Apollo 8. Hamish Lindsay (over-exposed) is in the foreground, at the USB 1 (“SB1”) desk. Behind him are Rod Lindrea, and Graham Fraser. Alan Foster is at the console farthest from the camera. Peter Cohn (Ranging) is on the far right. Photo: Ron Hicks. Click for a larger version.

Alan Foster – Receivers

I had a quick look around – everyone one was quiet, Alan Foster and the receiver operators were glued to their consoles, spring-loaded to grab the first signs of any signal from the spacecraft. When the AOS time of 69:33 Ground Elapsed Time, the time we always used, or 2024 AEST, appeared on our station clock displays we held our breath, but at that exact moment the signal hit our antenna and flooded through the station, kicking all the meters up (analog meters in those days) and filled all our equipment with information about the spacecraft and what had happened while they were out of contact behind the Moon.

On the receivers Alan Foster remembered,

“I just made a normal acquisition as they came over the lunar horizon – it was a good signal, clean and sharp, no fading at all – one of the easiest acquisitions I had ever done because there was no antenna searching around as we could see the crescent Moon on the boresight TV.

I was relieved, I can tell you. I have always remembered Network saying on the loop, ‘That was a beautiful acquisition, Honeysuckle’.”

Once the receivers were locked up we had no trouble acquiring the range, but down at the back of the station there was a lot of tension as there was telemetry data but no voice.

John Saxon:

“Because we weren’t tracking the LM we had all our equipment configured onto the CM. There was a planned mode and an unplanned, or back-up mode. We decided we should cover the back-up mode just as carefully as the prime mode. Unfortunately there were so many ways to configure this – we ended up locking up all the telemetry and sending it back to Houston all right – but there was a degree of confusion about where the voice was actually coming from.

I remember hearing the Public Affairs loop saying we have data but no voice, and here I was frantically pushing buttons trying to find where they had put this voice, and Kevin Gallegos (on SDDS) was pushing buttons as well – and no doubt Houston was also pushing buttons. I had my fingers poised ready to call the astronauts and tell them that we did have communications with Houston, but somehow we can’t get you through.

We managed to sort it out in the end – I was very close to being the first guy to speak to someone in Lunar orbit.”

The public affairs commentator in Houston, Paul Haney, excitedly shouted into his microphone, “We got it! We got it!! Apollo 8 is now in lunar orbit.”

There was a relieved cheer from the Flight Controllers in Mission Control while Bob Gilruth and Chris Kraft, the two leaders, were choked up with emotion as they shook hands.

Then we heard astronaut Lovell’s prosaic voice answering Mission Control in Houston, “Go ahead Houston, this is Apollo 8. Burn complete. Our orbit is 169.1 by 60.5 miles,” and we all knew everything was all right. They were safely in a 312 x 111.1 kilometre Lunar orbit – at least for the moment.

The astronauts were still mulling over the accurate timing of the signal LOS, “Are you sure you didn’t turn off the transmitters at that time?” Anders queried.

“Honest injun’, we didn’t,” Capcom Gerry Carr was indignant.

We had LOS not long after as the Moon sank below our western horizon, and Madrid took over the tracking. We left Apollo 8 safely going in circles around the Moon.

One of the mission’s sublime moments was the sight of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon – Earthrise! Borman had been keeping the spacecraft pointing down to look at the Moon’s surface, but had to roll it around for a navigation sighting by Lovell. As the lunar horizon hove into view Borman was startled to see a glowing blue and white ball swim into view – the Earth. “Oh, my God – look at that picture over there; here’s the Earth coming up... wow, is that pretty.”

This is Frank Borman’s first black and white picture of the famous Earthrise scene. Click for a larger version.

They scrambled to get pictures of the sight with their Hasselblads, Borman first with black and white film and Anders with colour. As the Earth climbed above the horizon into the jet black sky they gazed in silence, spellbound at the wondrous sight. The resulting colour picture, to become one of the most famous images ever recorded, was the first time the people of Earth really became aware of how fragile and insignificant our planet suddenly looked in the infinite cosmos.

Bill Anders took this colour picture of the Earth rising above the lunar surface a few moments later. This is the picture that first showed Earthlings their fragile but beautiful planet alone in the Cosmos, and changed their perception of their place in the Universe for the rest of time. Click for a larger version.

I used to wonder which way was up in the spacecraft. Pictures usually show the lunar horizon across the bottom of the frame, but actually the lunar horizon should be on the right side to me, lunar north being ‘up.’ One day I asked Dave Scott (Apollo 15) which way was up to the astronauts in the spacecraft, and his answer was it was always straight above their instrument panel, whatever was happening outside. I feel that the pictures of the Earth with the lunar surface should have the horizon on the right side if they are orbiting clockwise around the Moon’s equator to give a more natural alignment to the scene.

Looking from the moon back to the Earth suspended in the absolute black, infinite void of space, the astronauts now saw the whole planet Earth as “home”. In fact, a running joke among the Apollo 8 crew was that looking at the Earth from space the question arises, “Is it inhabited? Is there life on Earth?”

Back on Earth in the darkness of the Australian bush at Honeysuckle Creek, I felt I should get a photograph of this historic moment of us tracking Apollo 8 in lunar orbit and set up my Linhof camera to record the moment.

I had to wait for a gap as some clouds drifted across the face of the Moon. As it was night and there were only the antenna floodlights, it had to be a long tripod exposure for the 100 ASA Kodacolor 4 x 5 inch sheet film, but the result, shown here, was successful, and recorded the historical moment. So we took our pictures back to back – me looking at the Moon (and the spacecraft) while they were looking at us on Earth.

Hamish Lindsay writes, “The HSK antenna tracking the trailblazing Apollo 8 mission. I took this picture about the same time as the famous Earthrise picture was taken by the astronauts.” Taken at around 9:00pm AEST on Christmas Eve. Click the image for a larger version – or click here for the full-size 1.2MB scan.

By the sixth orbit the crew were so weary Borman called Houston with: "I'm going to scrub all the other experiments, we're getting too tired."

Ten minutes later he reported that Lovell was already asleep and snoring. "Yeah, we can hear him down here," Houston replied.
Houston commented, "There's a beautiful Moon out there tonight," to which Borman replied, "Now, we were just saying that there's a beautiful Earth out there!"

In Houston excitement spread through the computer centre as the realtime measurements they were getting from our ranging systems gave them the precise, accurate measurements of the spacecraft’s real orbit around the Moon they needed for all the upcoming Apollo missions – their maths models were now corrected with live data.

Also, for the first time the crater-scarred surface of the Moon appeared on the 3 by 6 metre screen stretched across the front of the control room. Up to then it had always been the lands and seas of the Earth as the spacecraft orbited the planet.

On Christmas morning an Australian News Press Release was sent to the media proudly announcing that television pictures of the Moon had just been received at Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla tracking stations as the spacecraft was passing over the Sea of Crises as it began its ninth orbit.

During the ninth orbit as they approached lunar sunrise and the shadows on the moon beneath shortened, the astronauts celebrated Christmas by taking turns reading four lines each from the Bible during the fourth television transmission.

At lunch time, 1258 AEST on 25 December, Anders read first with a sombre voice from the First Chapter of Genesis:

“In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth...” followed by Lovell with,

“…and God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night...,”

and Borman finished the reading with “...and God saw that it was good.”

He then added, “And from the crew of Apollo 8 we close with Goodnight, Good Luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.”

 

All the television screens around the world blacked out when Anders switched the camera off at 1301 AEST.

An estimated one billion people in 64 countries heard the live reading, and delayed broadcasts reached another 30 countries.

TRANS EARTH COAST (TEC)

Twenty hours ten minutes and 13 seconds after entering lunar orbit and 10 times around the Moon, it was Christmas day and it was all on again for the ride home – they had to have a rocket burn to bring them back to Earth, and it had to happen out of contact behind the Moon.

Borman cancelled all further activites during the final four hours in lunar orbit to allow the crew some time to rest. A 3 minute 23.7 second SPS burn at 1610:16 AEST, 111.5 kilometres above the lunar surface behind the Moon boosted their speed from 5,861.7 to 9,702.1 kilometres per hour, and they were safely on their way home.

So again we were hanging in suspense waiting for them to come from behind the Moon. What if the SPS engine hadn’t fired, or fired incorrectly, they would be doomed to die when their consumables would run out within a week. They would then be condemned to circle the lonely reaches of the Moon for thousands of years. There was no rescue mission standing by, or anybody around to help them.

In all the tracking stations and Mission Control everyone went quiet. This was the last unknown. “Swallow the frights one at a time as they appear in the Flight Plan,” astronaut Michael Collins once said. George Low, the man responsible for this crazy trip to the Moon, sat hunched in the VIP lounge in Mission Control. He admitted this was his most feared moment. Chris Kraft, the director of Flight Operations in Mission Control in Houston, who knew more than anybody about the missions, said to me later, “If you weren’t shaking at that point you didn’t understand the problems.”

“Apollo 8 ....... Houston,” called Capcom Ken Mattingly into the ether.
“Apollo 8 ....... Houston,” he called again, listening to the hash coming down the line.
“Apollo 8 ....... Houston.” Everyone on the loops around the world were straining to hear a voice. Nearly a hundred seconds of hash had ticked by, then...

“Houston, Apollo 8. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus,” we heard Lovell’s voice say and knew they were heading safely for home.

It was 1625 in the afternoon on Christmas Day at Honeysuckle Creek. Apollo 8 was a success and our Moon landing missions could go ahead – well, that was providing they re-entered safely, but there were no unknowns there. We could now enjoy a late but happy Christmas.

Australian Prime Minister John Gorton called the station requesting to speak to the astronauts, but was politely refused. Then he wanted to send a message, but that was also turned down.

This poem was read up to the Apollo 8 crew by astronaut Harrison Schmitt in Houston:

(DSKY is the computer keyboard and REFSMMAT is Reference to Stable Member Matrix or a mathematical means of determining angles using the stars as a reference.)

Once, for a moment there was a flurry of excitement when the spacecraft signal dropped out, and Houston switched antennas but there was still no voice from Apollo 8. Then it was discovered Borman had inadvertently unplugged his headset.

This TWX (Network message) was sent from HMSC (Houston Manned Spacecraft Center) to the Network on Christmas Day at 0837GMT. While such messages were routine, they served to encourage the troops at the various facilities. Re some of the addresses at the top, John Saxon offers – DSCC (All supporting Apollo facilities), DSSW (all NASCOM switching centres), GCEN (Goddard operations), HMOC (Houston Operations – Flight controllers?), HNET (Houston Network – ISP), etc. Click the images for larger versions. With thanks to Bruce Withey.

The return journey was quiet except for one moment. At 0917 AEST on 26 December Michael Collins was sitting relaxed in the Capcom’s chair in Mission Control when he heard Lovell call, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

“Okay, whoa, whoa. Standing by,” he replied, wondering what was coming next.

Lovell had accidentally erased all the navigational data from their computer. The IMU (Inertial Measuring Unit) which Borman had insisted they leave running the whole trip so they would not have to do a tedious manual realignment, suddenly did not know which way was up. It reconfigured back to the beginning of the mission and thought it was back on the launch pad, so the attitude computer began firing the thrusters to realign the spacecraft to the new ‘up.’ Anders noticed with alarm that the eight ball indicator was moving more than it should and tried to counteract the movement, but the spacecraft only corrected his instruction. He wondered if they had a stuck thruster. When he figured the thrusters were okay, he let the spacecraft stabilise to what it thought was ‘up’ on the launch pad. This condition couldn’t continue because during reentry the spacecraft’s heatshield wouldn’t be properly aligned to face the direction of travel.

Lovell had to reset the IMU manually by aligning the spacecraft to the stars Rigel and Sirius and transfer the settings to the computer.

During the quiet periods Houston played a lot of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass on the uplink from Honeysuckle Creek to the astronauts.

When we picked up Apollo 8 for the last time there was a peculiar twist due to the Earth turning under the slowing spacecraft.

We lost Apollo 8 in the west with a handover to Carnarvon who then handed over to Madrid who handed over to Guam for the final minutes of flight and the fall to Earth.

While the tracking stations were busy following the spacecraft in the darkness below, the astronauts were getting ready for their spectacular reentry. They had cast off the Service Module (SM) at 0119:48 AEST 28 December and were settling in their couches preparing for a rough ride.

“It’s getting hazy out there,” Anders spoke thoughtfully as he saw a strange glow outside the window, “Every time you fire a thruster.”

Their first thought was sunrise, but it was the spacecraft entering the initial wisps of the Earth’s atmosphere at 39,744.7 kilometres per hour and a glowing ionised plasma began to wrap itself around the Command Module as it dipped into the thickening air at 0137 AEST. Moments later the communications blackout began. The spacecraft then skimmed out of the atmosphere to cool off for a few moments, before plunging back for the final descent to the ocean below. They were still weightless.

Borman was watching his instrument panel, “Got it – O five G – Hang on.”

They were now biting into the atmosphere and the G forces were climbing rapidly until they were groaning with the unaccustomed weight of 6.8 g’s feeling like a ton of bricks pressing on them. A white neon-like light filled the cabin, bathing them in an eerie glow. Outside the window they could see small flaming objects whipping past, mixed with some quite large chunks of burning material. Hurtling through the air at 305 metres per second, the heat shield was shedding its honeycombed epoxy at a temperature of 5,000 degrees C, while inside the cabin the astronauts were feeling a comfortable room temperature.

North American Rockwell Artist’s impression of the CM during reentry. Travelling at 39,635 kilometres per hour it had to enter the Earth’s atmosphere at an angle of 6.5 degrees from the local horizon, with a safe corridor only 42 kilometres wide, this only allowed an error of 1 degree either way.

Apollo 8 Re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. This image was taken from an Apollo Range Instrumented Aircraft along the re-entry corridor. The bright object at top is either the Command Module or the Service Module. Read about the mission to photograph the re-entry – in the ARIA section. NASA image: S69-15592.

At 9,000 metres, around the height of Mount Everest, the parachute canister cover blew off and three small drogues popped out to whip madly in the slipstream. A loud hiss told the astronauts the air vent had opened to allow fresh air to enter the cabin and equalise the pressures. At 0146:38 AEST at a height of 3,000 metres the three main parachutes burst out to slow the spacecraft to about 30 kilometres per hour, and the first voyage to the Moon was over as Apollo 8 now drifted steadily down to the sea.

The return was a triumph for the trajectory boys – in the pre-dawn darkness 1,800 kilometres south west of Hawaii Apollo 8 flew right over the recovery aircraft carrier Yorktown and landed a mere 4.2 kilometres beyond at 01:51:42 AEST on 28 December. The weather was good with 1.8 metre waves from the east south east and a 19 knot breeze from the north east.

A Pan-Am commercial jet flying to Sydney was witness to the fiery re-entry of the Command Module. The return journey had taken 57 hours 23 minutes and 32 seconds.

The Apollo 8 mission took 147 hours and 42 seconds to cover a distance of 933,419.1 kilometres.

The Apollo 8 crew on the USS Yorktown. Frank Borman speaks into the microphone while William Anders and James Lovell watch. Image courtesy of the Apollo Image Archive.

John Saxon: “In Apollo 8 at Honeysuckle Creek, we were the prime station in view when they first disappeared behind the Moon, and when they appeared from behind the Moon. We were also the prime station when they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.”

At Mission Control the trajectory specialists and computer whizz kids were ecstatic as they now had accurate measurements of the real orbit around the Moon and their math models were all corrected with live data.

In the MSFN Postmission Report the tracking network results were excellent. Operator errors were minimal, with only one station reporting four errors. Two recurring equipment failures were reported, one involved a printed circuit board and the other pen failures on chart recorders. There were no Telemetry or Command losses during the TransLunar Coast, Lunar Orbit, and Trans earth Coast at HSK. The only computer problems were in the 29-point Acq messages with checksum errors, garbled messages, line errors and late arrival of messages on station.

After the successful return to Earth of Apollo 8, as a gesture of thanks for our disrupted Christmas the American Ambassador in Australia, Mr Edward Crook, threw a big party at the American Embassy in Canberra for all the station staff and their families on Saturday 8 February 1969.


There were so many firsts for Apollo 8 –

It was the first time astronauts were to experience the full 3.4 million kilogram thrust of the Saturn V – the first time humans left the Earth and headed off into space – the first time anyone had ever seen the whole Earth suspended in black space – the first time humans had experienced endless sunlight with no sunsets or sunrises – the first humans to go into orbit around the Moon – the first time humans experienced another gravitational field - the first time humans had experienced occultations out of contact with Earth – the first time humans had experienced raw solar radiation beyond the Earth’s magnetic field -the first humans to see the other side of the Moon – the first humans to see an Earthrise – and the first re-entry back to Earth from another world.

With a successful Apollo 8 now behind us, all the Apollo team’s energies were directed to getting onto the Moon’s surface. But first the LM had to be checked out in Earth orbit. That was to be our next Apollo mission.

Chris Kraft, “From Apollo 8 we really knew what we were doing. It was the boldest decision we made in the whole space program – period.”

Flight Director Glynn Lunney probably summed it up best with, “Apollo 8 was the decision which opened the gate and let us slide down the hill to the Apollo 11 landing.”

Plan of the track to the Moon followed by Apollo 8. Source: Hamish Lindsay.

Apollo 8 postage stamp. This US postage stamp was released to commemorate the Apollo 8 mission. Scan: Hamish Lindsay.

Acknowlegements: Apollo 8 mission images from the Apollo Image Atlas and the Apollo Image Gallery – with thanks to NASA.