Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Earthrise! The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 8

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

This is the 50th anniversary of the most audacious space mission in history. Apollo 8 blazed a path for the first moon landing seven months later, and gave a troubled nation reason for hope and pride.  Author Robert Kurson has written Rocket Men as a tribute to--and chronicle of—the mission and the people who made it happen. The new edition of The Planetary Report is now available to all, according to Senior editor Emily Lakdawalla.  Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts also celebrates Apollo 8 in this week’s What’s Up.  Learn more at:  http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/1219-2018-robert-kurson-apollo-8.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 50th anniversary of Earthrise, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome, I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. Our guest believes Apollo 8's harrowing and triumphant 1968 journey to the Moon was the greatest space journey ever made by humans. He's not alone. Robert Kirson will share stories from his terrific book, Rocket Men, and he'll tell us about the three explorers who made the trip.

Bruce Betts braves a bad cold to share the night sky with us, along with a new space trivia contest and much more. And in moments, we'll get a report from Emily Lakdawalla about the brand new edition of the Planetary Report that is available to everyone online. Here's something I'm very grateful for and rather proud of. Our associate producer, Mary Liz Bender, has written a blog post that collects 16 of the very best episodes of Planetary Radio, one for each year we've been doing the show. You'll find it at planetary.org. Emily, we continue in this new era of the Planetary Report,

for which you serve as Editor-in-Chief, where, of course, the members of the Society are getting the wonderful paper copy of the magazine, but you've just posted everything to planetary.org. Tell us about this issue. This issue is titled Where Life Began. And on the cover of the issue is the historic Apollo 8 Earthrise portrait, because it's now the 50th anniversary of the capturing and publication of that image that really

changed our perspective on Earth as a fragile blue world floating in the blackness of space. For the cover, I had it reprocessed by an amateur who did a really nice job with it, Sean Doran. Using that image for the cover really suggested the contents of the interior, where I decided to invite Michael Wong to write an article about how life may have started on Earth and what that teaches us about how and where we might find it on other worlds. And then there's an article by Vicki Hamilton about OSIRIS-REx turning all of its space science instruments onto Earth as it flew past, as many spacecraft do when they do an Earth flyby. So you'll learn about why spacecraft do that during

Earth flybys and what they may have learned. Vicki Hamilton will be my guest here on the show on our January 2nd episode with Michael Wong following a little bit into the new year. So we'll be talking with them about what they've written for you. I have read these. They are terrific. And these are just the main two features in this magazine. Of course, there's a bunch of other stuff that shows up on a regular basis. That's right. Casey Dreyer wrote a really nice article about the acquisition of the Earthrise image. I've got my Where We Are spacecraft locator in the very back pages.

We have updates on LightSail 2 and information from Bill on how we're going to be celebrating the Apollo anniversaries in the upcoming years. And that where we are, Paige, with those terrific graphics, that is just, I've seen things that approach it, but nothing that really captures our presence in the solar system. It's something to be proud of. It absolutely is. And the main thing that I think that's unique about it is that it's international. It's not just NASA missions in space, not just ESA, It's everybody's missions all over the solar system. And there are dozens. And one of the missions, of course, that you show off out in the outer reaches of the solar system,

you've also just written about an update on New Horizons. And there has been news, even in the minutes and hours since you published this on December 17th. Yeah. So this is a look ahead at New Horizons flyby of the tiny object 2014 MU69. So I answer all your questions about what's happening during the flyby. And more importantly, I think to those of us on earth, when we'll hear that if it was successful and when we'll get the first images to see. The news this morning was that they have selected their prime flyby trajectory going only 3,500 kilometers past this incredibly distant world on January 1st. Like I said, a December 17 blog post at planetary.org. Thank you also for mentioning that I am going to be one of the thrilled observers at

the Applied Physics Lab in Maryland as all of this takes place. It's going to be great fun to participate in that. Yeah, it will. So Emily, thanks as always, and congratulations on this brand new issue of the Planetary Report that people can also find at planetary.org. We'll talk to you again soon. Looking forward to it, Matt. That's Emily Lakdawalla, Senior Editor for the Planetary Society, our planetary evangelist. She leads our creation of the Planetary Report.

The celebration of Apollo 8's fantastic voyage to the moon and back begins the countdown to this coming July's 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. That landing probably would not have happened if it hadn't been for an audacious decision made by NASA in the summer of 1968, decision made by NASA in the summer of 1968, a troubled year for the United States that could easily have ended with the failure of the first attempt to send humans to another celestial body. Fifty years later, I can think of no better way to celebrate the glorious success of that mission than reading Robert Curson's book, Rocket Men. In the process of writing it, Robert spent hours with Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Bill Anders, along with many of the NASA engineers and leaders who sent these pioneers toward their destinies. Curson recently joined me for a conversation about Apollo 8 and its legacy. Robert Curson, thank you very much for joining us here on Planetary Radio

to talk about a book that I enjoyed tremendously. This may be a silly question for an author who wants to sell books, but it's pretty clear that you believe this is a very special story. Why? I mean, Apollo 11 was less than seven months later. Yes. Well, the foundational reason I think it's a special story and why I really think it's the greatest and most important space mission of them all was Apollo 8 represented the first time human beings ever left home and the first time we ever arrived at a new world, our most ancient companion, the moon. the mission itself is truly Homeric. It is a space odyssey. But I'm not the only one who thinks this way about Apollo 8. If you talk to all kinds of Apollo era astronauts, they all speak in reverential tones almost about Apollo 8, and they'll all tell you the same thing. This was about the first time humans ever left home. And the risk and the danger involved in doing it, and the suddenness of the planet all combines to form a very special

and singular story. That's before we even consider when the flight went, and what year, and at what time. So every element that makes a great story seems to be encompassed in the story of Apollo 8. Yeah, and I think that is certainly borne out by my reading of the book, which I read quite a while ago because the book came out last spring and then was reviewing it over the last couple of days, knowing that we would be talking and was reminded about what a great story this is and how well you tell it. This book has 4.9 out of five stars from reviewers on Amazon. And I couldn't agree more with those hundreds of other reviewers. Let's go to chapter one. There are so many heroes in this book, but you begin that chapter with someone that most

people will never have heard of. Why did you start with this engineer named George Lowe sitting on a beach? Well, George Lowe was a brilliant mind and a very humble and beautiful person. He was a quiet man whose subjects and verbs always agreed even when he gave dictation. He was the kind of person to bring his briefcase to the beach when he went suntanning. It was George Lowe's idea. He was in charge of the Apollo spacecraft at NASA. He had a very important position there, but it was George Lowe's idea. It was really more of an epiphany even than just a basic

idea that changed the original plan for Apollo 8, which was a test flight in low Earth orbit to the first lunar mission ever flown by human beings. It took such audacity and insight and creativity. It was inspired how he came up with this, when he came up with it. And it was really a breathtaking kind of leap of imagination that he had. If it weren't for George Lowe, Apollo 8 would not have flown when it did. So you have to start the story with him. And really, the story started on a beach in the Caribbean of all places, which is where he really finalized this great idea. Did he have trouble selling this idea? Well, you would think that he would have, because the risks, and I'm sure we'll talk about them, were so great. They spun your head around.

Any one of them would have spun your head around. But when he got back to Houston and pitched the idea to Chris Kraft, who was the mastermind of mission control, one of the most important people in the history of the American space program, Kraft nearly fell out of his chair. It was such an audacious leap in thinking and leap in mission that Kraft almost couldn't imagine how it could be done. But when he began to understand what Lowe was suggesting, and he more so understood the benefits that could be obtained by NASA for doing it, it took them a very short time, a matter of minutes really, to come around to Lowe's way of thinking. That meant though that they still had to convince Jim Webb, the head of NASA. But as far as Chris Kraft was concerned and

George Lowe was concerned, if NASA could somehow, some way pull this off, miracles could be done at NASA at a time when they really needed them. How much of this was driven by the fear that the US would lose the race to the Soviets? That was a huge part of it. We had been engaged in an existential level space race with the Soviets really since Sputnik flew. The first artificial satellite was launched by the Soviets in 1957. And I say existential because both sides believed very seriously that the superpower that could win the space race and can control space had a huge advantage in war and in military. And the side that could put humans in space could put

soldiers in space. The side that could build a moon base could build a military base on the moon. So this was, in the minds of many, a matter of survival. And a large measure of who was going to win the space race was going to be the side that delivered the first humans to the moon. And so it was very important to beat the Soviets. It was also important to keep John F. Kennedy's promise that he made to the country in 1961 alive, the promise being to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely by the end of the decade. That was very important also. But by mid 1968, that promise looked to be in grave jeopardy. And because that promise became in grave jeopardy, so did the chance to beat the Soviets to the moon. So this is all what's going on at NASA in mid-1968, the summer of 1968,

when George Lowe starts to think about how to overcome all these problems. You know, we have a weekly space trivia contest on the show. And just recently, that contest, part of the answer had to do with this Soviet mission called Zond 5, which you write about in the book. And it actually gave more reason to this US team to think, wow, the Soviets are coming really close. They were coming very close. In fact, the Zond missions in 1968 made it clear to many world experts that the Soviets had already won, basically. Zond had delivered spacecraft around the moon capable of carrying cosmonauts. And in fact, the world's leading astronomer at the time, Sir Bernard Lovell, no relation to Jim Lovell, saw Zond and just begged

NASA, don't go on Apollo 8. The Soviets have essentially already won. All you're doing now is risking the lives of three brave men. It was viewed as a lost cause. And he wasn't the only one begging NASA. There were newspaper editorials saying Apollo 8 was crazy. Even Buzz Aldrin's father himself, a legendary aviator, implored NASA not to do this with Apollo 8 because it was thought that it wasn't worth all the risk just to beat the Soviets to the moon. But George Lowe and Chris Kraft and others understood

the beauty of the plan and the potential it had if somehow they could make it work. So they were committed. But even Chris Kraft knew that the odds were not great. In fact, you've got a chapter devoted to, well, it's titled because of the odds that he gave this mission in speaking to one of the astronauts' wives. Right. Even Bill Anders, one of the crew of Apollo 8, when he was asked by his wife, what are the chances for this sudden mission? He thought it over and he knew his wife wanted a straight answer. He never BS'd with her.

He thought it over and he considered very carefully. He told her, I think there's a one-third chance of a successful mission. I think there's a one-third chance of a successful mission. I think there's a one-third chance of an unsuccessful mission in which somehow we make it back home. I think there's a one-third chance we never come home. His wife, Valerie, exhaled in relief. To her, those were very good odds given what was being proposed here. Everybody knew this was risky. The risks were a myriad and they were epic. Any one of them could have been the end of Apollo 8. I'll just give you one off the top of my head here. For Apollo 8 to go to the moon, to deliver humans to the moon, it needed to use the Saturn

5 rocket. The Saturn 5 was the only rocket powerful enough to deliver humans to the moon. But think about this. As you and I talk here at the end of 2018, the Saturn V remains the most powerful machine ever built. That's in a day and age when technology is obsolete in a matter of months. 50 years later, it remains the most powerful machine ever built. But when George Lowe had the idea to fly Apollo 8 to the moon on the Saturn V, to fly Apollo 8 to the moon on the Saturn V. That rocket had only flown twice before, both times in unmanned test missions, the second of which had failed catastrophically. So now the proposition is that in the Saturn V's third flight ever, they're going to put three men who have wives and children aboard, and they're not going to send them just 100 miles above the Earth's surface into Earth orbit, or even 853 miles above the Earth, which was the

world altitude record at the time, but 240,000 miles away to the moon. That alone was almost unthinkable. But remember this, George Lowe's plan called for Apollo 8 to be trained for, planned, conceived, rehearsed, worked out, and launched in 16 weeks. Just four months they had to do this and to correct all the problems and everything. Normally, a mission at NASA took a year to a year and a half of planning, training, simulating everything. Here, in order to do this the way Lowe and Kraft wanted to do it, they have to go in four months. It's almost unthinkable.

So the pressure to get this done correctly, to get the Saturn V ready, and to take care of so many myriad other issues, the software hadn't been fully written yet. The trajectories hadn't been finalized. The deep space communication network wasn't built. The simulators they needed to rely on so desperately to train for the mission weren't yet ready to be stood in. None of this was ready when this plan came. Only 16 weeks to prepare it. There wasn't even a crew yet. That's what NASA was up against in the summer of 1968, when George Lowe came home from vacation. You know, it gives new meaning or new depth to the term audacious. I'm kind of glad that as a little kid following the space program very carefully, that I wasn't aware of all of

these risks. Let's talk about that crew that had to ride this biggest rocket ever before or since. I envy so many of my guests, and now I deeply envy you because of the relationships that you built while writing this book, especially with Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, all of whom are still with us amazingly, somewhat amazingly, and very happily. Tell me about these guys. What do they have in common? How do they differ? Were they the right guys for the job? known, but they were very, very different. Borman had joined NASA for a single purpose, and that was to defeat the Soviet Union on the most important battlefield anywhere, outer space. He cared nothing about picking up rocks. He cared nothing about exploring the cosmos.

He only wanted to defeat the Soviet Union to help the greatest country on earth, America, prosper and survive. That was it. Jim Lovell, in many ways, was his opposite. Lovell had grown up very poor in Milwaukee. His father had died when Jim was just a little boy. And Jim had fallen in love with the idea of rockets and rocket travel and space travel when he was in high school. And ever since high school, he had dreamed of exploring the cosmos and even more important, pushing into the unknown, finding and arriving at places no one had ever been in the cosmos. He was a romantic about space. Even his thesis, his graduate thesis at the Naval Academy, while others were writing about ancient naval battles and sea tactics, he wrote about rocket travel.

So they were very, very different, those two. And yet they had flown together for two weeks. Imagine that, two weeks on Gemini 7 in 1965 in a spacecraft no larger than the front half of a Volkswagen Beetle. Two very, very different guys stuck together like that you might imagine would make for disastrous consequences. Instead, they got along beautifully. They sang together. They laughed together. In fact, when they splashed down after 14 days and got on the recovery ship, Lovell announced to the press, we'd like to announce our engagement. So they flew together beautifully, even though they were very different kinds of people. Bill Anders, who was going to be making his first space flight aboard Apollo 8,

seemed this beautiful combination of the two. He also was very intent on defeating the Soviet Union in space, but also was a scientist and an explorer at heart. He loved geology. He was a nuclear engineer, and he loved the idea of exploration and arriving first. So he's kind of a combination of the two. So you get this really perfect, somehow perfect crew poised to make in just 16 weeks mankind's first journey to the moon. Was Jim Lovell the explorer that he was? Did it bother him that he was one of very few people who made two trips to the moon and never got to set foot on it? Because, of course, he was the commander of Apollo 13, which barely made it back alive. That's right.

And, you know, in the book, I explain how learning during Apollo 8, when things went wrong on Apollo 8, helped him learn to survive on Apollo 13. So the flights are connected in ways a lot of people don't know about. But Jim Lovell is not the kind of person to walk around the world feeling disappointed or dejected. He always seems to me to see the bright side and the beautiful side of things. He'll tell you he just felt lucky to go twice to the moon. And that's how he thinks about not just his two Apollo missions, but about life in general. Were these guys anxious about riding that biggest ever Roman candle up into space and around the moon? I think they had great trust in Wernher von Braun and his crew of rocket engineers to fix whatever problems had gone wrong in April aboard Apollo 6, the second unmanned test of the Saturn V. And they were so busy cramming and just trying to make this mission work in those 16 weeks of

training that I don't think they had the time or mind space to worry. I think they believed von Braun and his people were the best in the world. And if von Braun believed he could fix the problems and make the Saturn V ready, then they were ready to believe him. There are so many wonderful little episodes, unexpected players in this story that you tell so well. I could mention 10, but I'm thinking in particular at this moment of an earlier aviation pioneer named Charles Lindbergh, who plays a small role. Yes. Lindbergh was fascinated with space flight and wanted to be present for Apollo 8. He knew what this meant to the history of human beings, that this was the first time we were ever leaving home. And he wanted to be there and he wanted to be near the people who were going to do it.

And in fact, he visited with the crew of Apollo 8 just the day before they left. And he was talking about his flight. They wanted to know about his flight in 1927, and they were telling him all kinds of details. And then he asked them about the amount of fuel that the Saturn V was going to expend. And when the astronauts explained to him just how much fuel was going to burn, Lindbergh could hardly process it. In fact, he had to pull a napkin out of his pocket and he made calculations. And I think he calculated that in the first second of the flight, they were going to burn more fuel than he had burned all the way from New York to Paris in 1927. So he's launched himself into a different world just in the presence of these three astronauts and remained just transfixed

by the whole idea of what Apollo 8 represented. What a charming story. So December is approaching, progress toward the launch of Apollo 8 is underway. And we were also progressing toward the end of one of the most troubling years in American history. It's such an interesting contrast. You make this a big part of the story that this was a time of disillusionment for many in the United States. And yet, here was this heroic mission about to be attempted. Yes. It's impossible to fully understand the story and the impact and the meaning of Apollo 8 without understanding the year in which it occurred. 1968, save for the Civil War years, perhaps, was the single worst year in American history. You have the assassinations of two civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

We're on our way to 15,000 dead in Vietnam. There's violence in the streets every week, including here in my hometown of Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. You have a president who says he will not run again for reelection, who has lost the trust of the American people. And maybe worst of all, everybody in the country seems divided and torn against everyone else. You know, there's echoes, by the way, from 1968 to 2018. But it is a year of terrible divisiveness and fracture. And yet, here this space mission is

being planned, not just for the very end of this terrible year, but George Lowe's plan calls for Apollo 8 to be in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1968. Now, when they took that plan to Jim Webb, the head of NASA, requesting permission for a green light for Apollo 8, Webb recited all the dangers, some of which you and I have reviewed today. But then he reminded them of something they'd never considered. He said, and this is a quote, if anything happens to these three men, no one, poets, lovers, no one will ever look at the moon the same again. But that was also true of Christmas. If something went wrong with Apollo 8 at the moon, no one would ever look at Christmas or the moon the same again. I found a letter written by a school teacher in Connecticut to

NASA begging them not to go. And he makes this point. He said, this is the single worst year any of us has ever lived through or ever will live through. But Christmas is that one day, those few hours we all get where we can forget our differences, exhale, and just relax and enjoy the day. Please don't send them. Wait a month. It's not worth it to kill them on Christmas. And yet NASA is committed to go. So to understand the context of what was being proposed at the very end of this very, very terrible year in this country's history is essential for understanding the flight itself. So there they were on that fateful day in December, sitting at the very tip of that, as you said, most powerful machine ever built during the countdown. We all know what happened. They made it. They launched for the moon.

They launched for the moon. Although I'll tell you that in the first moments of the launch, Bill Anders wasn't sure that they were still alive or going to be alive. The violence of the launch, the power of the Saturn V could not be anywhere near approximated by the cutting edge world-class simulators they had trained in for the last couple months. No simulators were supposed to be able to reproduce anything, but the violence and the power of the Saturn V was so far, so many magnitudes beyond anything they were expecting that Anders wondered, am I still alive here? He believed that the rocket's fins were being shorn off by the launch tower. Their limbs were rendered unusable. The violence caused them to be unable to see or read their instruments. They couldn't hear mission control or each other. Nothing worked. They just had to hope and pray that somehow this thing wasn't being torn apart

as it felt like it was being. Remember, Apollo 8 represents firsts of so many kinds and this is the first manned flight of the Saturn V. So no one was there before them to tell them this is what it would be like. But somehow 10 or 12 seconds after launch, Anders looks around and he hears a sound in his ear saying tower cleared and he knows they're flying. And so from that point, they're pretty much okay. I distinctly remember watching on my parents' black and white television at home, Walter Cronkite, during this launch, everything starts to shake. The cameras are shaking. The windows, the giant picture windows behind Walter Cronkite start to vibrate so badly that they really thought they were going to shatter just from the power of this enormous rocket that was,

what, a couple of miles away, I think. So yeah, it certainly made an impression on everybody who was not just there within earshot in Florida, but all of us around the world. You go on from there to trace this mission almost moment by moment. And of course, we don't have time to go through all of that, but I highly recommend that people read it just to, in addition to everything else we've talked about. I'll just bring up a couple of episodes, and I'm thinking of one that you write about that comes at exactly 55 hours and 38 minutes into the flight of Apollo 8. They're still tens of thousands of miles away from the moon.

Do you know the one I'm talking about? It was one of these many firsts of this mission. Oh, remind me. It was when they stopped slowing down. Oh, yes. And started speeding up again. Yes, yes. There's a point in space, and it changes depending on the location

of Earth and the Moon and even the Sun, called the equigravosphere. And that is the point in space where the gravitational pull of the Earth gives way to the gravitational pull of the Moon. And again, as you mentioned, of all the firsts that Apollo 8 is going to experience, this is yet another one. And people are taking bets in mission control. When will that happen? What's the precise moment that that's going to happen? Because it was a very complicated calculation. Because the spacecraft, as you say, is slowing down as it draws further and further away from Earth. But once it crosses the equigravosphere, it's going to start picking up speed as the moon's gravity starts to pull it in. it's going to start picking up speed as the moon's gravity starts to pull it in. And that's another world first, a human first, that this is the capture of human beings by another celestial

body. So it's a very dramatic moment in addition to a very wonderful scientific moment. So then there was, of course, the greatest first, at least in the minds of most of us in the public who were traveling along with these astronauts to the degree that we were able. And that was when they fired the engine on their spacecraft and went into orbit around the moon. Didn't just loop around it, a free return trajectory, but actually went into orbit, which put them at greater risk as well, right? Right. And think about how amazing NASA is. All they really had to do to beat the Soviets was to send them around the moon in a circumlunar free return trajectory, as you note, because that was what the Soviets were planning according to a top secret memo that

had come in from the CIA in 1968. Instead, Lohan Kraft said, especially Kraft, let's go for everything. Let's go into lunar orbit, not just once, but 10 times over 20 hours. Magnitude's more complicated. But as you say, they need the single engine that they have to get them in to lunar orbit, to slow them down enough to be captured by the moon. And that brings up another one of the great, great dangers that Apollo 8 undertook. They were flying without a lunar module. That's the whole reason this mission came about. The lunar module was troubled and had production and design problems that was keeping it behind. So they went without the lunar module, but that lunar module served a very

critical secondary function, and that was as a backup engine. Well, Apollo 8 goes without that, and that's one of the primary dangers because now they are reduced to one engine with no redundancy whatsoever. They need that engine, as you said, to get into lunar orbit. But more importantly, even they needed to get out. So think about that. If that engine doesn't work or if it misfires or fails in its duties, they have a smorgasbord of terrible consequences looking at them.

have a smorgasbord of terrible consequences looking at them. So yes, they use the single SPS engine to slow down enough, get captured by lunar gravity, and now they are in lunar orbit. They are the first human beings ever to arrive at a new world. They're the first human beings ever to lay eyes on the far side of the moon. You remind me, of course, that it was the lunar module that did save Jim Lovell and his teammates lives on the Apollo 13 mission. That's exactly right. And here Apollo 8 goes without it. So when you hear others at NASA and other Apollo astronauts talk about the beauty of Apollo 8 and the importance of it and the impact, part of what they're thinking of is they had no backup. This engine, the single engine had to work or they were never

coming home. As a kid, there may have been a lot about this mission I did not understand, but even as a kid, I understood that when we turned on the television and suddenly we were watching live TV coming from three guys circling the moon, that that was historic. Talk about that. Apollo 8 made four live television broadcasts on this journey. Two of them were on the way to the moon, but the most important by far was the third, which was scheduled for Christmas Eve of 1968 and would occur on the ninth of 10 revolutions around the moon. They told Frank Borman, who was the commander of Apollo 8, that more people would be listening

and watching this broadcast than had ever tuned into a human voice at once in history. They expected- No pressure. No pressure. They expected nearly a third of the world's population to tune in. And under those great, great circumstances, they gave him this instruction, say something appropriate. And they left it at that.

And Borman laughs to this day. He's got the best laugh in the world. He says, can you imagine getting those instructions today? He said, if it was today and so much was on the line, there'd be 14 focus groups and 15 committees, and it would go through the White House and marketing agencies. They just left it to Borman. He struggled. The other astronauts struggled. But finally, when they left, they had something that was suggested actually by the wife of a literary man that they knew, but they didn't tell anyone what they were going to say. They didn't tell NASA. They didn't tell their wives. Only they and a couple other people knew what was going to be said. But here, and you can watch this on YouTube, it is thrilling to see a television screen flicker to life from 50 years ago and be told, these astronauts are coming to you live from the moon. It's unbelievable. And they did a pretty good job with what they decided to do during that broadcast. I mean, other than showing us the moon and earth.

Well, they gave a tour of the moon. They said what their experience had been like, where they'd been, what their feelings were. But then with about a minute to go before the signal went dark, Bill Anders said that they have a message to deliver to everybody who's listening and watching. And in mission control, you talk to all the people in mission control, they'll tell you their legs were shaking, their knees were wobbling. They had no idea what was coming. But that was true also in the homes of the astronauts and around the world.

Nobody had any idea. And hearts are pounding. And Bill Anders starts to read from the book of Genesis. He says, in the beginning, God created. And even before he had the first sentence out, people around the world broke into tears. In mission control, these men, these hardened engineers and managers, many of them had tears streaming down their faces. The wives of the astronauts were sobbing. Anders was reading a creation story. It was a story that was devoid of borders or of tribes or of conflict. It was about so many of us. It spoke to so many of us. And it was about

all of us, about how we got here and who we were. He read his few lines and then Lovell took over and read his few lines. And finally, Borman read the final few lines. And just with a few seconds to go before the spacecraft lost transmission signal to Earth, Borman wished everybody a Merry Christmas. God bless, he said, a Merry Christmas to everyone on the good earth, the good earth, he said. And then the transmission went dark. And around the world, people streamed out from schools, from homes, from apartments, from taverns, from under bridges, looking skyward, hoping to catch a glimpse of the spacecraft. And these three men who had spoken to

this world as one, knowing full well that they could never see the spacecraft and these three men who had spoken to this world as one, knowing full well that they could never see the spacecraft or the men, but looking all the same. That's what that broadcast meant to America and the world. The reading of Genesis on Christmas Eve. Robert, just your telling of that story has me welling up a little bit. And I'm so proud of the fact that I was actually on this planet and able to experience it. But of course, you can find video of this

and much of the rest of the mission. Okay, so they finish their orbit to the moon. They have another hairy moment when they fire that engine to send them back to Earth, trans-Earth injection. And it works, of course, and they're on their way back. There was another very frightening episode as the astronauts were on that trip home, which I wasn't even aware of until I read your book.

And you documented in a chapter called Help from an Old Friend. Tell us about this. Well, they're cruising back to Earth and things look very good for them now. And Jim Lovell, who is the navigator on board, is working out star sightings through his telescope. And he is so great at it and so adept at it that his fingers are flying. He was actually given the name Golden Fingers. He was so good at the machine and the computer and entering in locations just for location in the universe. But accidentally, he pushed the wrong numbers, entered the wrong numbers into the system. And suddenly, the spacecraft believed that it was back on the launch pad back home. And it threw the entire orientation of the spacecraft out of whack. out of whack. And it was extremely concerning to Anders and to Borman, because if you don't have the orientation, you don't know where you are exactly in space, and you don't know how the

spacecraft should be oriented for the return and for re-entry. So this is a very, very serious problem, and it has to be worked out. The way that NASA and the astronauts and Lovell especially figured out how to work it out is breathtaking. I think the whole story is worth it just to see how they figured this out, because it was quite a harrowing time. But part of what helped save Lovell was finding the moon from the spacecraft, help from an old friend. Now, it's so interesting to talk to Jim Lovell because he'll tell you that part of learning to reorient themselves during that issue on the way back from Apollo 8 also helped them during the return of Apollo 13. And that's what I meant earlier when I said Apollo 13 owes a lot to Apollo 8. So this is just another one of many,

many thrilling moments as the astronauts make their journey to and from the moon. So they obviously make it back. They're treated as the heroes that they obviously had earned that status, along with the thousands of other people on the Apollo and Saturn V teams at NASA and all the contractors who had made this happen and set the stage for the great successes to follow culminating in Apollo 11. If we ever forget Apollo 8, which I hope will never happen, I trust will never happen, there's got to be one thing in its legacy which will never be forgotten because it is such a striking image. And I wonder if you agree with me about that Earthrise image. I do. The astronauts returned with a lot of film that they shot at the moon. But in my mind, the most important shot they took also is, to my way of thinking, the single most important and powerful photograph ever taken. It was taken by Bill Anders on the fourth revolution at the moon of the Earth rising over the lunar landscape.

They had never trained to see the earth, to photograph the earth. They never expected it. They were so consumed with training for the flight itself that the earth was kind of an afterthought. But when it started to rise over this vast and all gray lunar landscape against this pitch black infinity of space, when they saw that first splash of color, that beautiful, brilliant blue come up over the horizon, you can hear their excitement. You can also watch that on YouTube and you can hear their excitement. This is something miraculous. It's something transcended to them. And they shoot pictures. Anders is the principal photographer on the mission. And he has a long lens and color film. And maybe most important, he has an artist's eye and he captures that Earthrise image. Whether people know it or not,

everyone is familiar with Apollo 8 because everyone knows that image. Again, I think it is the single most important and powerful photograph ever taken. It became the inspiration for the environmental movement, but even more important, it was our first look back at ourselves as a whole. It changed the astronauts and how they felt about the world and about the things they loved. And it's almost impossible to view that photograph without having a real reckoning with how beautiful the earth is and how lucky we are to live on it. No argument from me. It remains as stunning as it was when we first saw it not long after they returned from the moon. Is there another event or maybe little known dusty

corner of this great tale that stands out in your mind that you'd want to share with us? It was amazing to see what happened when the astronauts returned from Apollo 8. Time magazine had originally named the dissenter as its man of the year, the dissenter. But by the time Apollo 8 returned, they had changed their mind to the crew of Apollo 8. That's an honor that time didn't even bestow on Apollo 11, which made the first lunar landing, of course. But maybe even more important, as we said, it came at the end of this year. And when they came home, they were greeted as conquering heroes. They had ticker tape parades in various cities. Millions of people came out.

Tens of thousands of cards and letters and telegrams came in. Of course, the astronauts couldn't read them all, but one of them stood out in their minds. And all three of them will tell you they'll never forget it. It said simply, thanks, you saved 1968. And it really was true. It was a year that needed saving and it couldn't have been done in any other way by any other people at any other time in history. And I think that really lives with us. And I think we could use heroes like that and another Apollo 8 again for our time. And how. Frank Borman and James Lovell, they're both going to turn 91 this coming March. William Anders is about five years younger. You've partially answered this,

but how has the legacy, the experience of Apollo 8 affected their lives in all these years since? I think they're very proud to have been the first humans ever to arrive at the moon. But I think they've viewed it as their duty to the country and a privilege to go been the first humans ever to arrive at the moon. But I think they've viewed it as their duty to the country and a privilege to go for the country. And now all three tell you that while they were taking a tremendous risk by flying this, it was nothing compared to the risk being undertaken by so many people in the military every day in that very terrible year we had in Vietnam. And so while they are happy to be recognized for it, I think they hope that the other people

who died in the line of duty for this country are recognized also. Robert, it has been a thrill to be able to talk about this story with you. It is a story you tell so well. Thank you for doing that. And thank you for joining us on Planetary Radio. It's totally my privilege and honor. I can't thank you enough for having me.

That's Robert Kirson. He is the author of Rocket Men, The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon. And it's available from Random House and of course, all the other, well, that's the publisher, but it's available from all the places you would expect to be able to find a terrific book like this and I recommend it highly. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. We wrap up with Bruce Betts. He is the chief scientist for the Planetary Society and hey, Emily mentioned that there is this light sail update in the new edition of the Planetary Report, which, as we talked with her about, is available online at planetary.org. And you provide that update, don't you?

I did. I wrote it and everything. Anyway, that's waiting for you there on the website. What's waiting for us in the night sky? Not light sail 2. Not yet. It's chilling hard, waiting for a launch. But in the night sky? Not light sail two, not yet. It's chilling hard, waiting for a launch. But in the night sky, you know what?

I'm not a fan of the pre-dawn, but even I might get up for the pre-dawn. Maybe not. But if you're up in the pre-dawn, go out and look in the east. We've got Mercury and Jupiter and Venus. Mercury and Jupiter are switching places. So they'll be particularly close together shortly after this episode comes out on the 21st of December, and then Jupiter will be getting higher and Mercury lower. Jupiter is much brighter than Mercury, and then follow the line up to the

upper right, and you won't be able to miss Venus up higher looking super, super bright. So they make this spectacular planetary lineup. And if that weren't enough for New Year's, I have arranged for you, Matt, when you're back partying with New Horizons, if you're awake in the pre-dawn, you look in the east, going from upper right to lower left, we'll have the Venus and the Moon hanging out near each other, Crescent Moon, and to its lower left, Jupiter, lower left, Mercury. It'll be cool. I suspect I will be awake hanging out at APL, although probably with a roof over my head. If I can, I'll go outside and check out that gift. There you go.

No. And also for those who aren't up in the pre-dawn, or if you are in the early evening in the southwest, you can see Mars still looking reddish and bright. So we move on to this week in space history. And as you and the listeners may be aware, 50 year anniversary of Apollo 8 orbiting the moon. Yeah, yeah. We had an inkling of that. But it's worth repeating. And let's move on to random space fact. Boy, that was straightforward. That's the new attempt to not make myself go into a coughing fit when I'm sick. You probably covered some of this in the show, but there are just so many firsts for the three astronaut crew of Apollo 8, Borman, Lovell, and Anders. They became, you ready for this? They became the first humans to

travel beyond low Earth orbit, first humans to see the Earth as a whole planet, first to enter the gravity well of another celestial body, first to orbit another celestial body, first to see the far side of the moon, first to witness and photograph an Earth rise for humans, first to escape the gravity of another celestial body, and first to reenter Earth's gravitational well. I could have made that into like 10 weeks of random space facts. Damn it. That was a great list. And no, we didn't cover all of those.

So thank you for that addition. We move on to the trivia contest. So thank you for that addition. We move on to the trivia contest. And I asked what spacecraft was, being the operative word, was going to visit comet 46P? Were it, you know, that comet that was just kind of visible with binoculars in the sky? How'd we do? What a response to this. A huge response.

What a response to this. A huge response. And thank you to all of you who sent nice holiday greetings and just very nice messages about the show. Of course, we only have time to go through a few of these, beginning with someone who the would-be visitor to that comet, later diverted to someplace else where it gained justified fame, was Rosetta and her little friend, as he puts it, Philae. That is correct. Congratulations, Dustin. You are going to get, among other things, that beautiful second edition of the National Geographic Space Atlas, Mapping the Universe and Beyond, and National Geographic's Almanac 2019, those beautiful books. And we're going to give away another set of those in next week's contest. Also, of course,

a Planetary Radio t-shirt and a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account. More about those in a moment. Of course, we got some other entries as well. Naharari Rao in Sugar Land, Texas. I don't know if that's a neighbor of Dustin's. He says that it was named after Kar Alvar Vrtanen, discovered in 1948, discovered a total of five comets and three asteroids. Did you know all that? I imagine maybe you were going to tell us that stuff.

Sure. Gee, I've saved you the trouble. Paul Moulton in London, merry old London. He says he's looking forward to being in the Italian Alps to see 46P on December 16th. He says he'll get his group out in the evening snow to see it. Well, we're past that now. I hope you were able to spy it up there in the sky, Paul. And finally, from our poet laureate, Dave Fairchild in Shawnee, Kansas.

When Issa dressed Rosetta for her commentary dance, they had another suitor, one that failed to romance. An arianne exploded, and with launching window missed, they went to 67P, and Vertanen got dissed. Wow, that was impressive. All right, we're ready to go on. This may just be a test of whether you were listening earlier in the show, or maybe not. But how many orbits did Apollo 8 complete of the moon? How many times around the moon did Apollo 8 go? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. You have until the 26th.

That would be December 26th, Wednesday at 8 a.m. in the morning Pacific time to get your answer in. And I bet you won't be surprised to hear that the winner this time around is chosen by Random.org, if you have the right answer, is going to get a copy of Robert Curson's Rocket Men, the daring odyssey of Apollo 8 and the astronauts who made man's first journey to the moon. But not just that. Also a Planetary Radio t-shirt,

which you can check out at chopshopstore.com and the Planetary Society store. And a 200-point itelescope.net astronomy account from that worldwide network of telescopes. That's worth a couple hundred bucks. You can take a look at Mars, take a look at 67P if you're quick. Although, I guess binoculars might do a better job. quick. Although I guess binoculars might do a better job. Finally, one other message that I wanted to read from Dylan Borenpole, who says, my dog ate my rubber asteroid. Any chance of getting a new one? Well, stay tuned because guess what? They may be making a comeback. Enough said, and we're done. All right, everybody go out there, look up the night sky,

and think about how you can have a happy holidays. Thank you, and good night. I get a happy holiday every time I get to talk to Bruce Betts, the chief scientist of the Planetary Society. Hey, get well, guy, and have a great holiday. Thank you. You as well. He joins us every week here for What's Up.

Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its Shoot the Moon members. Mary Liz Bender is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Matt Kaplan, Ad Astra.