 This is Carbon Mike. You're listening to Good Words, a podcast series where members of the Foundationist Society read from works of literature that we love. In this episode, James Blott reads from the book Rocket Men by Robert Kerson. I'll let James set the background himself. Thanks for listening. Enjoy. The reading that follows is taken from Rocket Men, written by Robert Kerson and published by Random House in 2018, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, whose story it tells. I've chosen this passage for several reasons, not least because I feel that it has a great deal to say to our age and time. The story of Apollo 8 is far less well known than that of Apollo 11 or Apollo 13. But without Apollo 8, there would have been no moon landing, as it was a dry run for the lunar landing by Apollo 11, which took place less than seven months later. Apollo 8's mission was brought forward when NASA became aware that the Russians were perhaps in danger of reaching the moon before them. Several corners were cut, and one of the astronauts' wives asked NASA what the chances were of her husband coming back alive. The answer was 50-50. It's probably there for a mission that couldn't be flown now in our safety-conscious age. The story of Rocket Men isn't just a dry story of the first space mission to leave Earth's gravitational orbit, but it is above all the human story of the three astronauts and their wives and families. The commander of Apollo 8 was Frank Borman. The command module pilot was Jim Lovell, and the lunar module pilot was Bill Anders, who was also the main cameraman. His photos became internationally famous and symbolic of all the moon missions. One of his pictures, described in the passage that follows, remains one of the most iconic photos ever taken. The astronauts' wives were Susan Borman, Marilyn Lovell, and Valerie Anders. When I first read this book during the lockdown summer of 2020, it had a huge emotional impact on me. It seemed to underline just how much things have changed in the last 54 years. But it also serves to remind us of how much mankind can achieve, given sufficient determination. I wish that we could relearn the ability to demonstrate the bravery and confidence of this age. I hope you enjoy the story, which covers the immediate period of Apollo 8's arrival at the moon. Its orbits around the moon, and their famous broadcast to the world made on Christmas Eve 1968, just before the astronauts left the moon to return safely to Earth. For those who want to know more, the book cannot be recommended too highly. The story is beautifully told by Robert Curson. Finally, for those listening to this in the United States, please forgive my very British accent when reading the actual statements by the crew. For months, Borman had been fixated on a particular moment in the flight plan, the instant when Apollo 8 would lose radio contact with Earth as it slipped behind the moon. This would not be the first time a space mission lost contact with Earth. In fact, every Earth orbital flight, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo 7, as well as the Soviet flights, had long periods when the spacecraft was out of touch with all the ground stations due to the Earth's curvature. Since the planet was not covered with ground stations, the crews on those missions spent most of their time in radio silence. But that was far different from losing contact with the home planet because another world got in the way, which was just about to happen with Apollo 8. NASA had calculated to the second when it expected its communications with Apollo 8 to go dead. If the planners were correct, it meant the ship was on its proper trajectory and was where it should be. If radio contact lasted too long, however, it likely meant that Apollo 8 had been travelling too fast and had arrived at its rendezvous point with the moon before the moon had a chance to get there and block the transmissions. If the arrival was just a little early, the spacecraft might still be whipped around the moon by lunar gravity, but at a much higher orbit than desired. If the arrival was earlier than that, Apollo 8 might head off in a trajectory away from the moon, and it couldn't reverse for lack of sufficient onboard propellant. If, on the other hand, radio contact ended prematurely, it likely meant that Apollo 8 had taken too long to reach the rendezvous point with the moon. If the lateness of arrival was slight, the spacecraft would zoom past the lunar surface at an altitude lower than NASA had planned or deemed safe for the mission. If it arrived much later, Apollo 8 would smash into the moon. So it was with great anticipation and some dread that the astronauts focused on the clock as the spacecraft flew backward its cone-shaped nose and windows facing away from the direction of travel into blackness. At the Anders residence, Valerie listened with friends, her living room dark except for the glow of a Christmas tree and a crackling fire. At her home, Susan Borman huddled in the breakfast nook and put her ear to the squawk box. With just one second to go, before predicted loss of signal, Apollo 8 was still in contact with Houston. Borman's stomach tightened. Lovell and Anders stared at the clock. The view out of the windows became even darker. The astronauts' headsets went silent. Borman looked at the clock. Cheese, he said. Radio contact had been lost at precisely the second NASA had calculated. Borman could hardly believe it. Anders joked. Chris Kraft probably said, no matter what happens, turn it off. Anders had seen how concerned, obsessed Borman had been about this moment during training. It took a second for Borman to realize Anders was kidding. After that, Borman couldn't help stop smiling. Another critical hurdle in the Apollo 8 mission had been cleared. In Houston, controllers looked at each other with a sense of wonder and relief, shaking their heads and then shaking hands. Orbital mechanics, the way the universe ordered and moved itself, worked. And man had figured it out to the split second. The relief at mission control was short-lived. In 10 minutes, Apollo 8 would fire its service propulsion system engine in order to slow itself enough to achieve lunar orbit. The SPS had to work perfectly. And everyone remembered how the engine had fallen short of optimal performance during its brief test firing on the way to the moon. Ordinarily, controllers in Houston could rely on their consoles and readouts to provide reassurance that all was well with the spacecraft. But that wasn't possible with Apollo 8 behind the moon. No one on Earth would know how well the SPS engine had performed or even if it had ignited, until Apollo 8 came around and reappeared on the near side of the moon. If all went well, that would happen in 36 minutes. Okay, this is a good time to take a break, flight director Glyn Lunney said. He wanted everyone back in 20 minutes. Glyn, you idiot, Jerry Bostic thought. We've got Americans behind the moon and you want us to take a break? But in a moment he realized that Lunney was right. There was nothing anyone could do to help Apollo 8 while it was behind the moon. So it was a good time, indeed the only time, to visit the bathroom, grab a cup of coffee and come back prepared. Head sets were removed and placed on consoles and a pilgrimage made to the men's room. There were no women's restrooms at Mission Control in 1968 simply because there were no women. Standing in line, the 28-year-old Bostic had never felt more helpless. Did we give them the right data, he wondered? Is everything okay? Engineer Aaron Cohen, who'd worked with Borman on the redesign of the command module, felt his body tense up. Dick Koos, one of the SIMS-ups who'd constructed the nightmare scenarios to train the astronauts and controllers during simulations, felt faint and feared he might pass out. On board the spacecraft, Anders had a realization. Given the ship's orientation, he had become the first man ever to reach the moon, beating his crewmates by a few centimeters, and then it hit all of them. They had reached the moon. Since humans first walked earth, the moon had been their siren. Lighted their way in darkness, remained their companion in the night. It hung at an eternal distance, yet pulled on men and women as it pulled on the oceans, calling to a primal instinct to journey beyond one's home and explore the unknown. But the moon had always been too far, always beyond reach. Today, Borman, Lovell and Anders had changed that. Today, on December the 24th 1968, when humankind opened their eyes, three of their own had arrived. Before firing the SPS engine, the crew had to run through their checklist and position the spacecraft so that the burn would put them into a proper orbit. Even now, they were just 400 miles or so above the lunar surface, yet they couldn't see anything in the blackness because the light of the sun and its reflected shine from earth were blocked by the moon. A few minutes later, the spacecraft emerged into sunlight at just the moment NASA planners had predicted. With less than two and a half minutes to go before SPS ignition, Lovell called out, hey, I got the moon, right below us. Anders pushed for a closer look, but all he could see were streaks of oil rolling down his window. Then it hit him. Those streaks weren't oil, they were lunar mountains. Look at that, Anders said. See it. Fantastic. It was the first time that human beings had laid eyes on the far side of the moon. Borman's commander instincts kicked in. All right, all right, come on. You're going to look at that for a long time. He needed to keep the mission focused. They had a rocket to fire soon, one that had to work. Twenty hours, is that it? Anders asked, sounding as though he could look forever. Inside, he could only say to himself, that's the moon. Lovell prepared for the firing of the SPS engine, looking for an indicator from the display panel that signalled that all was ready. Five seconds before ignition, he got it. The number 9-9 began flashing, the computer asking for the go-ahead to proceed. Lovell pushed the button. The astronauts felt a vibration, then the weight of their bodies pressed against their restraints as the spacecraft began to decelerate. The engine had lit, that much was certain. Now it had to burn against the direction of travel for just over four minutes to slow the ship's speed from around 5,100 miles per hour to less than 3,700 miles per hour, which would allow the moon's gravity to capture the spacecraft for orbit. Inside the cabin, the men could hear the external thrusters firing as the computer worked to keep the craft straight. Borman checked the instruments, which indicated the engine looked good, but no one on board seemed reassured. Jesus, four minutes? Borman asked two minutes into the burn. Longest four minutes I ever spent, Lovell said. The burn seemed never to end. The rocket just kept firing. The crew hyper-aware of the fact that if it lasted even a little longer than necessary, it could smash the spacecraft and its crew into the moon. Forty seconds left in the burn, Lovell called. Anders picked up the countdown. Five, four, three, two, one. The computer was ready to shut down the engine. Borman beat the machine to it. Shut down, he announced, pushing the button. The spacecraft and the men settled back into weightlessness. In Houston, the controllers weren't due back at their consoles for another seven minutes, but most of them had already returned and affixed their headsets. On board the spacecraft, the crew checked the Delta V, changing velocity, and could see that they'd been captured by lunar gravity. Apollo 8 now belonged to the moon. On-board readouts indicated that the spacecraft was in an elliptical orbit, ranging from a low point of 69.6 miles at its perigree to a high point of 195 miles at its apogee. Borman was astonished by the accuracy of the specialists who planned the flight. They predicted radio cut off perfectly, and now they'd nailed the dimensions of the orbit to within a fraction of a mile. Knowing their engine had made good, the astronauts were free to take a look out their windows. Below, they got their first clear view of the lunar surface. At the site, each man forgot his flight plan, even Borman. They lent forward, pressing their faces against the spacecraft glass. To level, the three of them looked like kids staring through a candy store window. It looks like a big, looks like a big beach down there," Anders said. Despite his training in lunar geology, the far side of the moon startled Anders. Long, oblique shadows showed the terrain to be much rougher than he expected, and with many more mountains, an impressive sight. He thought to himself that Stanley Kubrick hadn't got it right in his film 2001, A Space Odyssey, in which he showed the moon's surfaces to be sharp, angular and scratchy. In real life, they looked sandblasted. The size and number of craters were staggering. There were countless numbers of them, some as small as the eye could discern, others as wide as European countries. For years, scientists had argued about the cause of these impressions. Volcanic activity, or meteorite embanks. Most experts had come to the conclusion that craters were caused by meteorites. Anders scanned the surface of the far side, but found no lava flows or any other evidence of volcanic activity. He felt pleased to add his first-hand opinion to the debate. The craters had been made by meteorites four billion years worth and endless bombardment from the solar system. To level, the surface looked like a concrete sidewalk that had been attacked by a man wielding a pickaxe, each wound rippling sand and particles around the impact point, so many craters they could never be counted. There was a harshness to the terrain and no colour, just grays and whites that went on forever. It wasn't beautiful exactly, but to level the scene was awe-inspiring in its vastness and the story it told. A tale as old and as new as Earth and the Sun, and for that alone it was beautiful to his eyes. To Bormann, spacecraft, rockets and computers were the products of science, the logical advance of mankind. The lunar far side, however, seemed a dreamscape straight out of science fiction. Nothing was like that on Earth, or even in one's imagination. Nothing was ever that alone, and yet he saw splendour in all of it, in the epochs of violence gone perfectly still. The men could have watched the moon for hours, but there was work to do. Bormann would fly the ship, making certain the windows stayed in position for Lovell and Anders to perform their tasks. Lovell would take navigation sightings, confirm lunar landmarks, and assess potential landing sites on the near side for future missions. Anders would pull heavy photography duty while monitoring the spacecraft and its systems. Apollo 8 had 10 revolutions to get all its work done, 20 hours total. In Houston, the controllers were back at their desks, but they still didn't know that Apollo 8's SPS engine had performed well, or even whether it had fired at all. All they knew was that if it had failed to light, the spacecraft would appear just two minutes from now. For once, the controllers rooted for their consoles to remain frozen. If any jumped to life now, it would mean that Apollo 8 had come out too soon. Kraft, Bostick and others watched a clock that was counting down to the time the spacecraft would reappear if the burn had not taken place. It seemed antithetical at NASA to hope for nothing to happen when the countdown reached zero, but that was exactly the prayer in the church quiet room. When Apollo 8 failed to appear, waves of relief washed over mission control. Now Houston had to jujitsu its mindset. In 10 minutes, Apollo 8 had to appear right on time, or it likely meant disaster. A new countdown began, one that could be heard not just at mission control, but also on the squawk boxes inside the homes of the three astronauts. While Marilyn Lovell remained surrounded by family and friends, and her priest, Susan Borman sat alone in her kitchen, her lips pursed, trying to divine good or bad in the radio silence. Valerie Anders, teetering on the edge of sleep, as it was not quite 4.30 in the morning, believed the crew would appear right on time, a confidence that her nervous friends, who'd gathered to support her this pre-dawn morning, must have appreciated. As the countdown to predicted signal reacquisition reached one minute, mission control fell silent. Capcom, Jerry Carr began to call to the spacecraft, broadcasting into a silent vacuum. Apollo 8, Houston, over. Apollo 8, Houston, over. Apollo 8, Houston, over. Finally a voice came through the headsets at mission control. Go ahead Houston, Apollo 8, it was Lovell. Burn complete, he told his colleagues on earth. Mission control exploded in cheers and applause. Apollo 8 had come round to the near side of the moon. The contact had occurred within one second of NASA's estimate. Chris Kraft's eyes began to mist over. He could see Bob Gilruth, the director of NASA's manned spacecraft center, wiping away his own tears, hoping no one would see him cry. The two men embraced, but couldn't speak. Their throats were too swollen with emotion to talk. Cheers also erupted in the astronauts' homes. Marilyn Lovell felt proud of her husband. His voice had been the first one broadcast from the moon. To Valerie Anders, Lovell's simple statement, burn complete, sounded like an ebullient, we're still here. Susan Baldwin was happy that her sons were happy, but she felt no sense of relief. She'd seen this movie a thousand times in her head, and it always ended the same way. 16 minutes after appearing on the lunar near side, Apollo 8 passed over the Sea of Fertility. An expanse roughly the size of France, visible with the naked eye to observers on Earth, as one of the prominent dark patches on the moon's eastern limb. What does the old moon look like from 60 miles, Carr asked the astronauts. Lovell fielded the question. For the first time, man was about to hear man describe the moon, not as a distant observer, but as an eye witness. OK, Houston, Lovell said. The moon is essentially grey, no colour. Looks like plaster of Paris, sort of greyish beach sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn't stand out as well here as it does back on Earth. There's not as much contrast between that and the surrounding craters. He paused for a moment, taking in more of the expanse beneath him. The craters are all rounded off. There's quite a few of them. Some of them are newer. Many of them look like, especially the round ones, look like they were hit by meteorites or projectiles of some sort. Langreenus is quite a huge crater. It's got a central cone to it. The walls of the crater are terraced, about six or seven different terraces on the way down. A few minutes later, the spacecraft passed over one of the sites NASA had identified as a potential landing area for future missions. It's very easy to spot, Lovell said. You can see the entire rims of the craters from here, with of course the white crescent on the far side where the sun is shining on it. A few seconds later, Borman jumped in. He still couldn't believe the accuracy with which planners had calculated the flight. Houston, for your information, we lost radio contact at the exact second you predicted. Are you sure you didn't turn off the transmitters at that time? Honest engine, we didn't, Carr replied. While these other guys are all looking at the moon, I want to make sure we get a good SPS, Borman said. Without the properly functioning SPS engine, Borman knew Apollo 8 could never leave lunar orbit. And we want to go for every rev, please, Borman added, otherwise we'll burn in TEI-1 at your discretion. It was the request of a conservative commander. Before every new orbit, Borman wanted Houston to confirm that everything, the spacecraft, its systems, its computers, was working well. If not, he was prepared to fire his engine, leave lunar orbit, and head home, Trans-Earth Injection, or TEI, at the first opportunity. In Borman's voice, even from a distance of a quarter million miles, Kraft could hear that he had the right commander on board. Apollo 8 continued flying, more and more nose first, over the near side of the moon. Inside, Anders kept his still and movie cameras firing, trying to record as much of the lunar surface as possible, all according to the photographic plan provided by Houston. Aiming and focusing weren't easy. The centre window had been fogged by sealant fumes. Framing panoramas from the small rendezvous window was like trying to look out over the Grand Canyon through a welder's helmet. And when Anders did lock onto something good, he might have to interrupt the moment to change lenses or swap out film magazines. Still, as the moon moved under the spacecraft, Anders began to capture spectacular shots, hundreds of close-up answers to questions that had endured for millennia. Lighting conditions stayed good for another few minutes before Apollo 8 flew into darkness. Generally, the crew would have about an hour of good lighting for photography during each two-hour orbit. Forty minutes later, the ship slipped around to the lunar far side, where it again lost contact with Earth. Apollo 8 had made its first full revolution. When they next came around, they would be making their first TV broadcast from the moon. It would be an early morning telecast in the United States, but millions would be watching and listening, there and all over the world. At home, the astronauts' wives gathered their children in front of their television sets. None of the women had been able to sleep. At around 7.30am on December 24, test patterns flickered on TV screens, and a grayish blob wobbled into the picture. When the camera steadied, the blob settled into a perfect sphere, with faint, almost invisible circles etched onto its surface. Or maybe they were just lines, or the viewer's imagination. But when Anders pointed the camera out the window with better visibility, even the youngest viewers knew what had come into their homes. This was the moon. Say Bill, Lovell said, playing MC for the broadcast, how would you describe the colour of the moon from here? Much of the world might have expected a poetic description, but as Anders looked down, the lunar surface reminded him of the sea wall at La Jolla Shores in San Diego, where he and Valerie used to roast marshmallows and play volleyball when they were younger. So that's precisely how he described it. The colour of the moon looks a very whitish grey, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it. Flying past various landmarks, Anders worked the camera for a clearer view. After a time, the picture became sharp. One after another, Anders not only described the craters he was seeing, but referred to them by names that he himself had bestowed. He reported that Apollo 8 had passed over Miller, Bassett, Sea. Bassett and Sea were two astronauts who died in an airplane crash in 1966. Boorman, Lovell, Anders, Collins, and others. In Moscow, when the news emerged that Apollo 8 had made its lunar orbit, the reality of the moment struck cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was training to command a Soviet circumlunar mission. Watching the astronauts, he felt his life's work crumble, his dreams evaporate. He worried that with news of Apollo 8, the Soviet Union might scrap its entire manned circumlunar program. Yet he could not but help respect the Americans, not just for what they'd done, but how they'd done it. To him, the aggressive last-minute upgrade of Apollo 8 was nothing short of inspired. Twelve minutes into the broadcast, Apollo 8 signed off and television screens went dark. Even with the cameras off, the astronauts couldn't help describing the moon. The view at this altitude, Houston, is tremendous, Lovell told Capcom Jerry Carr. There's no trouble picking out features that we learned on the map. Moments later, Lovell arrived at a place he'd long been waiting to reach. I can see the old second initial point here very well, Mount Marilyn. Roger Carr confirmed. On Earth, Lovell had promised his wife that he would name a mountain for her. Now, from the moon, he'd delivered. An hour after passing Mount Marilyn, Apollo 8 disappeared again behind the western limb of the moon to complete its second revolution. The astronauts now had to prepare to fire their SPS engine again, this time for just a few seconds, to circularise their orbit. Until now, they'd been flying in eclipse, one ranging from about 69 miles to about 195 miles above the lunar surface. A successful burn would put them at a constant altitude of 69 miles. As before, a display flashed 9.9, the crew pushed a button to proceed and the engine lit. Eleven seconds later, it stopped. By the calculations of the onboard computer, Apollo 8 was now in a circular orbit about 69 miles above the moon. And it would stay there long after the astronauts were dead unless the SPS engine fired again. An event scheduled in 16 hours and about which Borman was growing increasingly apprehensive. As Apollo 8 orbited the moon, Borman was in charge of piloting the craft. In an airplane on Earth, that meant steering, turning, changing altitudes and a host of other operations. At the moon, it meant keeping the spacecraft oriented so that his crewmates could carry out their duties. Until now, the ship had been flying backward, necessary in order for the SPS engine to slow the craft enough to put it into lunar orbit and then to circularise that orbit. But now, following the flight plan, Borman began to pitch the spacecraft downward until Apollo 8 pointed nose down and vertical to the moon. With the new view, Anders could begin shooting a series of vertical, stereo photographs. Two photos of the same object from slightly different positions that would aid NASA in constructing detailed topographic maps of the lunar surface, including the approach path for future landing missions. He continued to concentrate on photography whenever there was a light to shoot, as well as on monitoring the spacecraft and its systems. Lovell continued to study the lunar terrain and take sightings and photos of lunar landmarks. After entering an important place or feature, many of which NASA had pre-selected, in the optics of his sextant, he would push a button on the control panel in front of him that recorded the spacecraft's location and the exact angle to the landmark. Collecting the precise coordinates of these places would help NASA build more detailed maps of the moon, refine their knowledge of its shape, and chart variations in its gravity field that might draw future missions off course. By now, the flight was just over three days old and none of the crew had found much rest, another problem in Borman's file cabinet of concerns. Apollo 8 was scheduled for just ten orbits, and the third one had already started, and that was the rub. How could a man come to the moon for just twenty hours and spend any of it snoring in his hammock? And yet Borman believed that if the crew didn't rest, mistakes would be made, some of them potentially catastrophic. But when he looked around the cabin, all he could see was Lovell and Anders busy at work. Anders was immersed in his cameras when Apollo 8 came around for its third pass across the lunar nearside. It was difficult for the astronauts to estimate the dimensions of the craters and mountains they were seeing, or even gauge that the spacecraft was at an altitude of 69 miles. When flying in an airplane, an observer sees familiar reference points. A city block, a river, an automobile that helped determine altitude, distance, even speed. Flying over the moon, the astronauts saw only craters and more craters and mountains in between. Without their knowing the size of those craters and mountains, any sense of distance or altitude was short circuited. By reasoning, the men knew they weren't, say, one mile above the moon, because the surface wasn't whizzing by beneath them. But much beyond that it was hard for them to be certain of anything by means of the naked eye. Two hours and a full revolution later, Borman still had the spacecraft pointed nose down. The position gave the astronauts their clearest view yet of the lunar surface. To each of them the moon appeared a place of sameness and loneliness, an expanse of blacks and whites and greys. With four minutes remaining until Apollo 8 emerged from the eastern limb and re-established contact with Earth, Borman fired his thrusters and put the ship into a 180-degree roll to the right, just as the flight plan dictated, so that Lovell could take sightings of lunar landmarks. The spacecraft was still pointed nose down, but for the first time since arriving at the moon, the windows faced forward in the direction of travel. In the distance, the astronauts could see the arc of the lunar horizon and beyond it the pitch black infinity of space. As Apollo 8 continued to roll, Anders saw something appear in his window just over the moon's western horizon. Oh my god, he called out. Look at that picture over there. Here's the Earth coming up. Wow, he's that pretty. A shining sphere of royal blues, swirling whites and dabs of sun-baked browns, rose over the rough, all-gray moon. And now Borman and Lovell saw it too. Anders reached for his camera. Hey, don't take that. It's not schedule, Borman joked. But no one could take his eyes off the scene. How may that roll of colour quick, will you, Anders said? Oh man, that's great, Lovell said. Hurry quick, Anders said, as Earth continued to rise above the horizon. In a few moments he knew it would be gone. Then Earth disappeared. Well, I think we missed it, Anders said. His voice soft, his disappointment palpable. Hey, Lovell cried several seconds later, looking through the hatch window. I got it right here. The spacecraft was still rolling. The scene had shifted windows. Earth was still rising, and it looked brighter than ever. Let me get it out this window, Anders said, looking through his rendezvous window. It's a lot clearer. By now Anders had swapped out his black and white film for colour. Armed with his Hasselblad 500 EL still camera and Zeiss Sonnard 250mm telephoto lens, he fired off the first colour shot of Earth, now clearly above the lunar horizon. You got it, Lovell asked? Anders confirmed it. Well, take several of them, Borman said. Lovell could hardly contain himself. Earth was retreating from him as the spacecraft continued to move. Take several of them. Here, give it to me. Wait a minute, Anders said. Let's get the right setting here now. Calm down, Lovell. Well, I got it right. Oh, that's a beautiful shot, Lovell's side. Anders adjusted the exposure on his camera, then took another colour picture. You sure we got it now, Lovell asked? He could still not quite process what he'd seen. Yes, Anders replied, smiling. Well, it'll come up again, I think. A moment later, the spacecraft rolled so far that Earth finally vanished from its windows. The men were due to re-establish contact with Houston in just one minute. For now, no one said a word. Earthrise was the most beautiful sight Borman had ever seen. The only colour visible in all the cosmos. The planet just hung there, a jewel on black velvet, and it struck him that everything he loved, Susan, the boys, his parents, his friends, his country, was on that tiny sphere. A brilliant blue and white interruption in a never-ending darkness, the only place he or anyone else had to call home. Lovell was overwhelmed by the smallness of Earth, home to three and a half billion people who from this vantage point all wanted the same things. A family to love, food to eat, a roof over their heads, children to kiss. From this distance, he scarcely comprehended the fragility of Earth's atmosphere. A layer no thicker than the skin on an apple and the only thing that protected those lives and life itself. To Anders, Earth appeared as a Christmas tree ornament, hung radiant blue and swirling white in an endless black night. From here it was no longer possible to pick out countries or even continents. All a person could see was Earth. And it occurred to Anders in this last week of 1968, this terrible year for America and the world, that once you couldn't see boundaries, you started to see something different. You saw how small the planet is, how close all of us are to one another, how the only thing any of us really has in an otherwise empty universe is each other. As Apollo 8 came around the limb of the moon and ready to reconnect with home, it seemed to Anders so strange. The astronauts had come all this way to discover the moon, and yet here they had discovered the Earth. As Apollo 8 moved through its fourth pass over the nearside, NASA's Public Affairs Officer provided sundry statistics for the media, as he did periodically. The spacecraft was travelling at 3,560 miles per hour. Anders' recent average heart rate had been 68 beats per minute, with a high of 69 and a low of 67. Cabin temperature was 79 degrees Fahrenheit, 2 degrees warmer than an hour ago. Cabin pressure was 4.9 pounds per square inch. All of this looked normal to mission control. One statistic that did concern Houston was sleep. When Capcom Mike Collins radioed for a status report, Borman acknowledged that the crew had managed only a couple of hours rest over the last 16 hours or so. In fact no one had gotten much sleep during the entire flight, which had now lasted 3 days, 4 hours and change. As long as no one was resting, Collins radioed the latest news from Earth. We got the Interstellar Times here, the December 24th edition, your TV program was a big success. It was viewed this morning by most of the nations of your neighbouring planet, the Earth. It was carried live all over Europe, including even Moscow and East Berlin, also in Japan and all of North and Central America and parts of South America. We don't know yet how extensive the coverage was in Africa. Are you copying me all right? Over. You are loud and clear, Borman answered. Good, Collins continued. San Diego welcomed home today the Pueblo crew in a big ceremony. They had a pretty tough time of it in the Korean prison. Christmas ceasefire is in effect in Vietnam, with only sporadic outbreaks of fighting. And if you haven't done your Christmas shopping by now, you better forget it. As Apollo 8 streaked over the lunar surface, newspaper reporters on Earth moved just as fast to feed the public's insatiable appetite for astronaut stories. One article in The New York Times focused solely on the fact that each crewman was an only child. Another noted that Pan American World Airways had been inundated with requests from customers who wanted to reserve a seat on the first commercial flight to the moon. So far, the airline had about a hundred names on the waiting list. Apollo 8 passed behind the moon in total darkness, just as it had when it arrived. When it came back around to the near side for its fifth revolution, Lovell suggested that Borman get some sleep. The commander was due for three hours of rest, and he tried to take it, though he wouldn't risk another sleeping pill. Lovell and Anders continued their work, but grew frustrated with a limited visibility on account of hazing caused by the sun. It didn't stop them, however, from continuing to watch the moon. It doesn't seem like we've hardly been here that long, does it? Anders said. Lovell recalled his childhood when he dreamt of an opportunity like this. It seems like I'd been here forever, he said. You know Anders remarked, it really isn't all that, anywhere near as interesting as I thought it was going to be. It's all beat up. The things that I saw that were interesting were the new craters, Lovell said. He liked the idea that the moon remained alive in the heavens, and that it was still changing, still becoming. A few minutes later, the spacecraft slid again behind the lunar far side. Apollo 8 had now been at the moon for about 10 hours and was halfway through its 10 orbits. Just 10 more hours remained until trans-Earth injection, or TEI. The maneuver designed to get Apollo 8 out of lunar orbit are on its way back home. Nothing worried Kraft and many others at NASA, more than TEI. So much could go wrong, and with such dire consequences. The men back in Houston tried to remain optimistic. Around the time Apollo 8 disappeared behind the moon, about 3 o'clock in Houston, a message lit up on one of the mission control's large data panels, in red, white and blue letters it read, Merry Christmas Apollo 8. By the time Apollo 8 launched, NASA was considering just two possible sites for a future landing mission. Both were located in the Sea of Tranquility, to the right side of the full moon, as seen from America and other places in Earth's northern hemisphere. NASA wanted to land during the lunar morning, when temperatures were moderate and low sun angle would create long shadows that would help a commander discern a smooth spot on which to set down. But those conditions shifted every day on the moon. By choosing two sites, 12 degrees apart, NASA ensured that if it had to delay launch by a day, the lunar module would still have an optimal landing site when it arrived. Both sites also satisfied other important NASA criteria for the first lunar landing. They were accessible to a spacecraft flying a free return trajectory, a NASA safety requirement, and they existed in areas with ample level terrain, which meant a lunar model wouldn't have to expand an undue amount of propellant, hovering and maneuvering to avoid boulders and slopes before setting down. Among Apollo 8's tasks were to confirm that its own trajectory could be used by future spacecraft to reach these landing sites and to get a close-up view of the areas under the same lighting conditions as the future landing mission would encounter. As Apollo 8 coasted over the first of these sites, during its sixth pass over the near side, Lovell described it for Houston. Even the shadows, a critical element to judging shape, depth and distances, looked excellent to him. I have a beautiful view of it. The first landing site is just barely beneath the vertical now and the second one is coming up. It's just a grand view. As the spacecraft moved over the second landing site, Lovell yearned to set down there. It seemed as close as the aircraft carriers he'd landed on so many times. He told himself he would come back here, not just to observe the moon, but to walk on it. Just before Apollo 8 slipped behind the moon for its seventh pass over the far side, Lovell began singing to himself, as was his habit, and then turned to his crewmates. Did you guys ever think that one Christmas you'd be orbiting the moon? Just hope we're not doing it on New Years, Anders replied, his wit growing drier with each orbit. There was a dark truth behind Anders' humour. If Apollo 8 was still here in a week, it meant the crew were never coming home. Susan Ballman knew it too. She cleared her kitchen table, sat, and started to compose Frank's eulogy. She needed to be ready, not like her friend Pat White, who'd be taken by surprise by the death of her husband in the Apollo 1 fire and by the swiftness with which government officials moved in to orchestrate funeral arrangements. This time Susan would be in charge. She would do it the way she and Frank wanted it, and the way that was right for their sons. It seemed to her a better fate for a man like Frank to die in space than to burn up on the launch pad while training, and a better fate for her knowing Frank was in a place he'd be forever. A beautiful moon she could see in the night. A place where she could always find him. Just eight and a half hours remained before trans-earth injection. On board Apollo 8, Anders secretly hoped something would go wrong. Nothing catastrophic, of course. Just enough that he could show Houston and his crewmates how beautifully he'd mastered the spacecraft and its systems. But the ship was proving to be a jewel. As the spacecraft readied to reconnect with Houston and begin its seventh pass across the lunar nearside, Borman called out to his crewmates. Oh, brother, look at that. What was it, Lovell asked? Guess, Borman said. Lovell did some quick computations. The ship was above the far side at around 120 degrees east longitude, and at the most southerly part of its orbit. For Borman to react like that, he must have seen Siolofsky, one of the far side's most impressive craters, 115 miles wide with a peak rising two miles out of its sunken centre, and 80 foot boulders strewn about. So that's what Lovell guessed. No, Borman said. It's the earth coming up. Through his window, Borman had caught another earthrise. This one as stunning as the first, not just for its beauty, but for how it came to him. Unexpected, ascendant, a call from home. In Houston, Maronin Lovell felt the need to go to church. Late night Christmas Eve services weren't scheduled to start for several hours, but Father Raich told her to drop by anyway. When she arrived late that afternoon, the church was decorated with flowers and Christmas trimmings and burning candles. Maronin was the only parishioner there. While the church organist played, Maronin took a private communion, then joined Father Raich in prayer. For Jim, for his crewmates, for the mission. In just a few hours they knew Apollo 8 would face perhaps its most dangerous and critical test, and it would all happen just a few minutes after midnight on Christmas morning. Only seven hours remained until trans-earth injection, but before the crew could get ready for that, they had to prepare for their second television broadcast from the moon. It would occur in less than four hours at around 8.30pm Houston time on Christmas Eve before children's bedtime in America. By NASA's estimates, more people around the world would be watching and listening than had ever tuned into a human voice at once. These last few hours demanded the best of the crew. The Apollo spacecraft was incredibly complex to operate, and the SPS engine was no exception. For trans-earth injection, there were five pages of switch settings, equipment checks and adjustments, each of which had to be verified by a second crewman in the knowledge that one tiny mistake could prove fatal. But as Bulman looked around the cabin, he doubted that he'd be getting the best from the crew. None of them had slept for the past 18 hours. Each were starting to get sloppy, miss things, make mistakes. And mistakes, Bulman knew, had a way of spiraling into catastrophe. Bulman told Houston he was scrubbing most of the flight plan for the next orbit. We're a little bit tired, he told Collins. I want to use that last bit to really make sure we're right for TEI. On board he made it clear to the others what he wanted. You're too tired, you need some sleep, and I want everybody sharp for TEI, he said. Bulman seemed exasperated with everybody, even the flight planners who had loaded up the final orbits with tasks for the astronauts. Unbelievable, Bulman said. The detail these guys study up. A very good try, but just completely unrealistic. Stuff like that. I should have, I'm willing to try it. And as said, offering to perform some of the duties that Bulman wanted scrubbed. But Bulman wouldn't hear of it. I want you to get your ass in bed right now. No, get to bed, go to bed, hurry up, I'm not kidding you, get to bed. It was a conversation many would be having in their own households this night, Christmas Eve. Lovell and Anders kept talking about cameras and lenses instead of immediately obeying their commander. A few minutes later, Apollo 8 disappeared behind the lunar far side and lost contact with the Earth. Lovell had finally gone to his hammock but Anders was still on duty. God damn it, go to bed, Bulman told him. Anders offered a counter and Bulman exploded. Get going. This is a closed issue, get to bed. No, you get to bed, get your ass to bed. You quit wasting one, I don't want to talk about it. Shut up, go to sleep. Both you guys, you should see your eyes, get to bed. Don't worry about the camera exposure business, God damn it, Anders, get to bed, right now. Come on, you've only got a couple of hours, Bill, before we're going to have to be fresh again. Bulman clenched his teeth. In six hours, everything had to work perfectly, but all of them were getting groggy and sloppy. In his hammock, Lovell began to fear that the strain of command had finally overcome Bulman. But Bulman never wavered in his insistence that the crew go to sleep. A few minutes later, Lovell and Anders had gone quiet and were finally resting. It was a military chain of command, even at the moon. When Apollo 8 regained contact with Houston, there were just two hours, one revolution remaining, before the big television broadcast. Capcom Ken Mattingly asked for an update on the crew's sleep. Bulman reported that Lovell and Anders were currently resting and that he'd had about three or four hours earlier today. In fact, Bulman had managed only 80 minutes rest since arriving at the moon. During this coast over the nearside, Bulman radio for a weather report on Earth. Mattingly reported that all looked well, including in the Pacific, where Apollo 8 would have to splash down. They told us that there's a beautiful moon out there, Mattingly said. Now, I was just saying that there's a beautiful Earth out there, Bulman replied. A few minutes later, Bulman asked, Hey Ken, how do you pull a duty on Christmas Eve? You know, it happens to bachelors every time, doesn't it? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else tonight, Mattingly replied. The astronauts' wives had settled in a historic television broadcast scheduled for 8.30 that evening. The astronauts' children seemed calmer than their mothers and the family friends and more focused on Christmas presents than on Christmas orbits. Two of the wives chose to be home with family and friends. Marilyn, who'd never before been apart from her husband for Christmas, was asking the crowd inside her family room, Why is everyone here? You should be home with your families. But even though it was Christmas Eve, not a single person would leave. At her home, Valerie, who'd been apart from Bill only once during Christmas in 1957 when he was stationed in Iceland and she was home with two babies, was bringing donuts and coffee to the journalists and state troopers masked on the front lawn and getting her kids ready to listen to their dad. Only, Susan Bormann was not at home. To find respite from reporters and the commotion, she'd taken her sons to a friend's house in Houston to eat dinner and watch the telecast in peace. There she thought back to 1951, the only time she and Frank had ever been separated at Christmas. Frank had been ordered to the Philippines for fighter pilot training. On Christmas Eve, his transport ship stopped in Hawaii. He'd never missed Susan more than on that night. Nor she him. Susan presumed she wouldn't hear from Frank for days, but he resolved to find a phone. Only the Royal Hawaiian Hotel had one in the vicinity, so Frank went into the phone booth in the lobby, dialed the operator, and asked to place a call to Arizona. I'm sorry all the phone lines have been booked for months, the operator told him. Years later, Frank would remember this as the lowest moment of his life to that point. A well-dressed gentleman must have noticed the expression on his face. What's wrong, Lieutenant? he asked. Bormann explained. The man introduced himself as the hotel manager, then gave Frank a key and told him to use the phone in one of the rooms. Talk as long as you want, he said. Frank offered money, but the man refused. Soon, Frank and Susan were talking and saying, I love you, and wishing each other a merry Christmas. Their call lasted for more than an hour. Now, 17 years later to the day, Susan remembered that call and how close she'd felt to Frank, despite their distance, and from outer space, Frank remembered it too. One of Apollo 8's objectives was to investigate the effects of mass concentrations, or mass-cons, on a spacecraft's orbit. These areas of increased density in the Moon's crust, primarily caused by massive asteroid impacts, subtly altered the ship's trajectory by changing the gravity field, and if not compensated for, would eventually cause it to crash into the lunar surface. As it looked now to mission control, the mass-cons were detectable, but their effect on Apollo 8 was slight. Future lunar modules, however, would be flying much lower and be more subject to their influence. As the spacecraft travelled yet again behind the Moon, one hour remained until the broadcast. Even now, the astronauts weren't sure how they wanted to run it. I don't think we ought to screw around with this, Bournemouth told his crewmates. We've got to do it up right, because there would be more people listening to this than ever listen to any other single person in history. They had long known that they would need words worthy of the moment. The astronauts had tossed around ideas in the weeks leading up to the flight, but none had seemed appropriate. They considered telling a Christmas story, but the flight was important not just to Christmas, but to all faiths, and to humanity. They thought about invoking Santa Claus, but that didn't seem serious enough for such a historic occasion. Changing the words to jingle bells was just silly, but they'd had no better ideas and time was running out. In early December, with just two weeks remaining until launch, Bournemouth had asked a friend, a sensitive and intellectual man named Sy Borgin, for help. Borgin put his mind to the problem, but wasn't happy with his ideas. In turn, he approached Joe Layton, a former war correspondent, and gave him 24 hours to find the right words. Layton worked deep into the night, also to no avail. At 3.30am, Layton's wife Christine made a suggestion. It was her idea that was forwarded to Bournemouth, who showed it to his crewmates. All three astronauts agreed that they'd found the right message. From that point forward, the men spoke about it to no one, not even to their wives. Inside mission control, every square foot was packed with NASA personnel. At their homes in Houston, the astronauts' wives gathered around television sets with children, friends and family, gifts for their husbands wrapped and placed under twinkling Christmas trees awaiting their return. In 64 countries, a billion people, more than one quarter of the world's population, joined them, pushing close to their own televisions and radios, waiting to hear what the first men at the moon would say on Christmas Eve. At 8.30pm Houston time, CBS cut away from the Doris Day show to Walter Cronkite, and other American television networks also interrupted their normal programming. Four minutes later, dark horizontal lines wobbled on viewers' screens. A small bright orb shone in the upper left part of the picture, likely Earth, but no one could tell for sure. This is Apollo 8 coming to you live from the moon, Bournemouth said. He explained to viewers how the crew had spent Christmas Eve doing experiments, taking photographs, firing their thrusters, and promised to show everyone a lunar sunset. But first, he wanted to talk about the place he and his crewmates had been circling for the past 16 hours. The moon is a different thing to each one of us. I think that each one carries his own impression of what he's seen today. I know my own impression is that it's a vast, lonely, forbidding type existence or expanse of nothing. It looks rather like clouds and clouds a pumice stone, and it certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work. Jim, what have you thought most about? Well, Frank, my thoughts are very similar, Lovell said. The vast loneliness up here of the moon is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realise just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space. And as chimed in, I think the thing that impressed me the most was the lunar sunrises and sunsets. These in particular bring out the stark nature of the terrain, and the long shadows really bring out the relief that is here, and hard to see in this very bright surface that we're going over right now. Suddenly, NASA lost the picture from Apollo 8, and so did the rest of the world, but the audio remained clear, and Anders continued to describe some of the landmarks he was seeing as mission controls struggled to regain the visual. Soon the picture returned, this time a view out of a different window, one that showed the clear arc of the grayish-white moon against the pitch-black lunar horizon. Anders described the various craters he could see as the spacecraft glided overhead. Actually, I think the best way to describe this area is a vastness of black and white, absolutely no colour, Lovell said. The sky up here is also a rather forbidding, foreboding expanse of blackness with no stars visible when we're flying over the moon in daylight, Anders added. For the next several minutes, the astronauts continued to describe what they were seeing, mountains, craters, landmarks, the brilliance of the sun's reflection. At one point, Anders became so enthused about describing the evolution of craters that Borman had to remind him off-air, hey Bill, you're not talking to geologists. Anders changed windows for a better view, only to have the audio nearly overcome by static as the aircraft flew over the Sea of Crises. Soon, however, things cleared up near the Sea of Fertility. How's your picture quality, Houston? Anders asked. This is phenomenal, Capcom mattingly replied. We're now going over approaching one of our future landing sites, Anders said, selected in this smooth region so-called the Sea of Tranquility, smooth in order to make it easy for the initial landing attempts in order to preclude having to dodge mountains. Now you can see the long shadows of the lunar sunrise. The scheduled television time was winding down and there was one important thing left to do. As the spacecraft moved across the Sea of Tranquility, Borman motioned to Anders. We are now approaching lunar sunrise, Anders said, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. No one at mission control or anyone else had any idea what these men were about to say. The astronauts' wives and children and friends lent forward. While the moon continued to move across television screens, Anders began. At 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. Anders was reading the first words from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. 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 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 under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so and God called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were the second day. Bournemouth 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 dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas and God saw that it was good Bournemouth paused and from the crew of Apollo 8 we close with good night, good luck and merry Christmas and God bless all of you all of you on the good Earth and moment later television screens around the world went dark inside mission controlled no one moved then one after another those scientists and engineers in Houston began to cry the agency had allowed Bournemouth to choose what to say to the world on Christmas Eve no oversight no committees not even a quick glance on the day before the flight departed it had come as a complete surprise to them in his studio at CBS Walter Cronkite fought back tears as he came back on the air at a house party in Connecticut novelist William Styron told himself to remember the scene he had had to persuade his host the composer Leonard Bernstein to watch the broadcast Bernstein considered the space program an overhyped waste of vast American treasure but he bent to the wishes of his guest as the astronauts read from Genesis the raucous party went still Styron would never forget the emotion on Bernstein's face during Bournemouth's parting words a look he would describe years later as depthless and inexpressible watching in Houston Susan Bournemouth wept Marilyn Lovell gathered up her kids and they walked not drove past the holiday lights in Timber Cove slow enough to remember them all Valerie Anders told her children that was for the whole world across much of the globe people streamed outside and looked up trying to pick out the three men who'd just spoken to them knowing it was impossible but trying all the same