12-24-18 Apollo 8 Remembrance

Fifty years ago tonight, three brave American astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were in the midst of our first journey beyond low Earth orbit, our first journey to the moon.

This occurred in 1968, a very turbulent year, remembered for assassinations, war, and strife.

Our country and the world were divided in every respect.

But when they gazed, they reached the moon and they gazed back to the earth, our island home, they saw no divisions, no borders or barriers that they um that we are accustomed to seeing on maps.

They were struck by the beauty of this blue marble, we God's children call home.

It inspired them to read an excerpt from the Bible from the book of Genesis in a broadcast to our nation and the world on Christmas Eve 1968.

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament, and it was so.

And God called the firmament firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning was the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.

And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas, and God saw that it was good.

They closed the broadcast with the following.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.

When Father Stone asked me to speak, I had no idea what he wanted me to do.

He said he'd like to have you read from Genesis.

I assume that was what the astronauts had read in their writing on the moon.

I would remind you that tonight, 50 years ago, exactly at this time, three men from Earth circled the moon for the first time.

Quite a feat.

Believe me.

Now, I'm going to speak a long time.

Is that okay?

In uh about the end of July in uh 1968, I got a call from the program manager of Apollo at the Johnson Space Center, and he said he'd like to speak to me because he had a proposal to make.

So I went to his office and uh he said, we're having trouble with the lunar module, we can't get it ready.

So that uh the flight we have planned for Apollo 9 cannot be done either.

Nor can Apollo 8 be done at all.

And I've been trying to think about what we might do to at least keep the program going, and maybe if we did it right, we might make a giant step.

I was somewhat surprised what he had to say, but he said he said, uh, what do you think about going to the moon on Apollo 8?

That was consternation on my part.

I had no idea that's what he had in his mind.

Uh so I was overcome, as uh you would expect I would be.

Nevertheless, he said, uh what I'd like to do is uh send the uh Apollo 8 command and service module around the Earth in a circumlunar flight because I think we could do that, and I think it would be a step forward.

What do you think of that?

I said, I don't think.

I haven't the slightest idea.

I've been working on the schedule we had of uh doing a number of flights before we got to that point, and so give me a few days or a few hours at least, and I'll come back to you.

So I I went away and thought about it a while and uh met with him and uh Dr.

Gilruth and Dick Slayton in Dr.

Lilruth's office, and we talked it over for a while, and uh we said, well, we got a chance.

I don't think we've got the software to do it, I don't think we've got the equations to do it, I don't think we get the training to do it, but that isn't to say we can't.

Deke said the same thing.

I don't know whether I could get astronauts who are trained for one thing and go someplace else.

Anyway, I went back to my office and I called a number of my great lieutenants that worked for me.

Really wonderful people.

And I told them that uh George Lowe wanted to go around the moon in a circumlunar flight.

And uh, what did they think?

Do you think he'd get to get it ready?

Our control center, the software, the training for the crews, the training for the flight controllers.

They say, we don't know, but give us a day.

The next morning at 7 a.m., which is when I usually got to my office, uh, all the lights are flashing on my telephone from everywhere.

We want to come see you.

Great.

So they came, and uh we're you're not gonna be happy with us, but we want to do something you don't want to do.

What's that?

Well, since we're gonna go, we've been having trouble computing the trajectories around the moon because we don't understand the lunar geology and the mass of the moon, and so we'd like to go in orbit around the moon because that would give us an opportunity to determine the true uh character of the moon from a mathematical point of view.

Now that took me back because going around the moon and going into orbit around the moon is several orders of magnitude of risk.

I said, give me a chance to think about it.

So I did.

The more I thought about it, I said, that's a hell of a good idea.

Sorry about my language.

And I said, well, I guess I won't talk to my bosses about that.

So we got together again, and I told George Lowe and Bob Guru that's what my guys wanted to do.

Sounded like a good idea to me.

What did they think?

They thought the same thing I did, thought I was crazy.

Because it is a difference in risk.

But nevertheless, we talked it over for a while, and he said, Well, let's think about that for a day or so.

We did.

We went away, my guys came up with some ideas about how we would do the computers, how they would run the world that we lived in.

And uh said, Well, it gets to be a pretty good idea the more we think about it.

And we will be able to go in exactly the same orbit as we will the command and service module uh when we go, and uh the one in which we would use to land on the moon, and that would give us a perfect uh example of what the trajectory was.

Now, what they had been doing is that they had been computing uh measurements from the lunar orbiter, which was the photographic device for for the moon we're looking at landing sites, and they had been unable to predict where we were gonna be when we came from the back side of the moon to the front side of the moon, and that was a very important place to know about because if you didn't know that, you didn't know where you were gonna land.

So it's very important to compute that point.

So that was the big uh reason for doing what we were doing.

So we started down that road.

Now, in that at that point in time, the Saturn V, which is the familiar vehicle we had to use to go to the moon with the command and service module, was uh had flown two flights.

On the first flight, it wasn't too bad, but the second flight, the first stage failed, not entirely, but it wasn't too good.

The second stage had a tremendous vibration and shut the engine down.

The third stage wouldn't restart.

That's what was ready for us to have to use on uh this flight we were planning.

Uh, nevertheless, Bob Gilrood liked the idea.

He turned around back to his cell phone and got on the telephone.

He said, now we're gonna have to get Werner in on this.

Hmm, that's good.

So he called Werner and uh got his secretary, and he said, she said, I'm sorry he's in a big meeting right now and he can't be disturbed.

And Bob Gilroo said, Get him out.

So Werner came to the phone and he said, Werner, we got a proposition for you.

We'd like to talk to you about.

We need your help.

We'd like to come over and talk to you.

Okay, he said, I probably can fit you in in a couple of days.

And Bob Gilrew said, I mean right now.

So we got in our Gulf Stream, flew to uh flew to Cottsville, Alabama, and our bosses from the Cape, General Phillips came up from the from the Cape to the same meeting, and we met there.

So George Lowe explained the situation to them about the vehicles and what our problems were, but what we thought he thought would be a good step forward.

And he explained the system and he looked at me and said, Chris, tell him what we're gonna do.

I didn't know what we were gonna do.

But a challenge is a challenge, isn't it?

And so we talked it over for a while, and we knew that our bosses in Washington would not like us at all for coming up with this idea, and they said so but vehemently.

Nevertheless, they said we'll give you the chance to try it.

So for the next couple of weeks in secrecy, we planned Apollo 8.

Now, Deke Slayton said, Well, I'll have to get the astronauts ready, and Borman, Lovell, and Anders were on the West Coast checking out the shape of the vehicle they were going to fly, and Deke called him and said, I want you to come back to Houston right away.

What do you mean right away?

Right now.

You could see we were in a hurry.

So Borman got in his airplane, the other two stayed and came back, and Deke told him what he wanted him to do.

Again, and of course, Borman said you lost your mind.

We can't get ready to do it in that length of time to fly to the moon.

We don't know anything about flying to the moon.

And Deke said, Go see Chris.

So Borman came in and I got all of my same lieutenants together, and we talked to them for maybe 30 minutes, and we convinced Frank it was a good idea.

I'm sure he didn't think so, but he knew it was really up to him.

So from then on, we worked our butts off.

Trying to get the training ready, trying to get the computers ready, trying to train the flight controllers, and trying to convince all the people in Washington, including the President of the United States, that we hadn't lost our minds.

Now, the one thing that stood in our way was Apollo 7, which, remembering that we had not flown man at all in the command service module of Apollo.

And so we said to ourselves, that has to be a perfect flight before we can fly on Apollo 8.

And here we are tonight, 50 years ago, remembering that on this particular night, three astronauts came around the moon for the eighth time.

And I read from this book.

I could go further on the all the battles of Apollo eight, but I must I'm so sure you might get tired of it.

Ah fine this place.

Ninety-four, you don't have very good memory.

Says we are now approaching lunar sunrise.

This was Bill Anders.

And for all the people back on earth, and the crew of from the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send to you.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the earth light days, and the darkness he called night.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide and the waters from the waters, and God made the firmament and divided the waters which were firmament and heaven.

And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the earth, under the heavens, be gathered together unto one place.

And let the dry land appear, and it was so.

And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas.

And God was saw that it was good.

And you got me in the right place, Father?

I don't think so.

I got it in here somewhere.

Have patience.

Now Lovell continued the passage.

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

And the evening and the morning were the first day, and the God said, I've already read that, haven't I?

And then Gormans continued, and God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place.

And let the dry land appear.

And it was so.

And God called the day land, dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas.

And God saw that it was good.

Borman paused.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with a good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and a God bless you all on earth, all of you on the good earth.

And the moment that he said that, the screen went dark from the spacecraft.

Inside the mission control, no one moved.

Then one after the other, their scientists scientists and engineers in the Houston area began to cry.

And that is true.

I cried with them.

And the agency had allowed the crew to choose whatever they wanted to say on this Christmas Eve.

No oversight, no committees, not even a quick glance on the day of the day before they departed.

It comes in as a complete surprise to them.

Now, I want to finish my discussion, Father, by saying another link of peace for you.

In my time at NASA, which ended in 1982, I felt like everybody in that place gave me 110%.

And that's the reason we were successful.

That's the reason we were able to overcome the fire where we killed three men.

That was the reason we were able to go to the moon on Apollo 8.

That was the reason we were able to land on the moon on Apollo 11.

And that's the reason we were so successful in Apollo.

I say today, you can't tell me that you're doing your best when you're off on Friday.

And so I believe that we can do it again.

But it's going to take some work, some commitment.

And how about going back to work on Friday?

Thank you.