Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Monday 24 deceMber 2018

NASA’s 1st flight to moon, Apollo 8, marks 50th anniversary

By MARCIA DUNN credible six-day journey
AP Aerospace Writer to a close. Time magazine
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) named the three astro-
— Fifty years ago on Christ- nauts “Men of the Year.”
mas Eve, a tumultuous year It wasn’t until after the as-
of assassinations, riots and tronauts were back that
war drew to a close in he- the significance of their
roic and hopeful fashion Earth pictures sank in.
with the three Apollo 8 as- Anders snapped the iconic
tronauts reading from the Earthrise photo during the
Book of Genesis on live TV crew’s fourth orbit of the
as they orbited the moon. moon, frantically switch-
To this day, that 1968 mission ing from black-and-white
is considered to be NASA’s to color film to capture the
boldest and perhaps most planet’s exquisite, fragile
dangerous undertaking. beauty.
That first voyage by hu- “Oh my God, look at that
mans to another world set picture over there!” An-
the stage for the still grand- ders said. “There’s the Earth
er Apollo 11 moon landing coming up. Wow, is that
seven months later. pretty!”
There was unprecedented This April 5, 2018 photo provided by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago shows Apollo Before the flight, no one
and unfathomable risk to 8 astronauts, from left, William Anders, James Lovell, Frank Borman at the museum. had thought about photo-
putting three men atop graphing Earth, according
a monstrous new rocket vided an uplifting cap for of this,” Bridenstine noted ate” to say for what was to Anders. The astronauts
for the first time and send- Americans to a painful, earlier this month, Apollo 8 expected to be the big- were under orders to get
ing them all the way to contentious year marked would be in orbit around gest broadcast audience pictures for potential lunar
the moon. The mission by the assassinations of the moon on Christmas to date. landing sites while orbiting
was whipped together Martin Luther King Jr. and Eve and Christmas Day. “We all tried for quite a 70 miles (112 kilometers)
in just four months in or- Robert Kennedy, nation- “In other words, if there while to figure out some- above the moon.
der to reach the moon by wide riots and protests of was a failure here, it would thing, and it all came up “We came to explore the
year’s end, before the So- the Vietnam War. wreck Christmas not only trite or foolish,” Borman re- moon and what we discov-
viet Union. There was the The mission’s impact was for everybody in the United called. Finally, the wife of a ered was the Earth,” An-
Old Testament reading by perhaps best summed up States, but for everybody in friend of a friend came up ders is fond of saying.
commander Frank Borman, in a four-word telegram the world.” with the idea of Genesis. His Earthrise photo is a pil-
Jim Lovell and Bill Anders. received by Borman. As that first moon shot “In the beginning,” Anders lar of today’s environmen-
Lastly, there was the photo “Thanks, you saved 1968.” neared, Borman’s wife, Su- read, “God created the tal movement. It remains
named “Earthrise,” show- NASA Administrator Jim san, demanded to know heaven and the Earth ...” a legacy of Apollo and
ing our blue and white Bridenstine — who at age the crew’s chances. A Borman ended the broad- humanity’s achievement,
ball — humanity’s home 43 missed Apollo — marvels NASA director answered: cast with, “And from the said professor emeritus
— rising above the bleak, over the gutsy decision in 50-50. crew of Apollo 8, we close John Logsdon of George
gray lunar landscape and August that year to launch Borman wanted to get to with good night, good luck, Washington University’s
240,000 miles (386 million astronauts to the moon the moon and get back a Merry Christmas, and Space Policy Institute, for-
kilometers) in the distance. in four months’ time. He’s fast. In his mind, a single lap God bless all of you — all of ever underscoring the ab-
Humans had never set eyes pushing for a return to the around the moon would you on the good Earth.” sence of political borders
on the far side of the moon, moon, but with real sustain- suffice. His bosses insisted On Christmas morning, their as seen from space.
or on our planet as a cos- ability this next go-around. on more. spacecraft went around Anders wondered then —
mic oasis, surrounded com- The space agency flipped “My main concern in this the moon for the final time. and now — “This is not a
pletely by the black void of missions and decided that whole flight was to get The engine firing needed to very big place, why can’t
space. A half-century later, instead of orbiting Earth, there ahead of the Rus- shoot them back to Earth we get along?”
only 24 U.S. astronauts who Borman and his crew sians and get home. That occurred while the capsule Lovell remains awestruck by
flew to the moon have wit- would fly to the moon was a significant achieve- was out of communica- the fact he could hide all of
nessed these wondrous to beat the Soviets and ment in my eyes,” Borman tion with Mission Control in Earth behind his thumb.
sights in person.The Apollo pave the way for the lu- explained at the Chicago Houston. Lovell broke the “Over 3 billion people,
8 crew is still around: Bor- nar landings to come. launch of the book “Rock- nervous silence as the ship mountains, oceans, des-
man and Lovell are 90, An- And that was despite on et Men” last spring. reappeared: “Please be erts, everything I ever knew
ders is 85. its previous test flight, the Everyone eventually informed there is a Santa was behind my thumb,” he
To Lovell, the journey had Saturn V rocket lost parts agreed: Ten orbits it would Claus.” recalled at a recent an-
the thrill and romance of and engines failed. “Even be. Back in Houston, mean- niversary celebration at
true exploration, and pro- more worrisome than all Liftoff of the Saturn V oc- while, a limousine driver Washington’s National Ca-
curred on the morning of knocked on Marilyn Lovell’s thedral.
Saturday, Dec. 21, 1968. door and handed her a Astronaut-artist Nicole Stott
On Christmas Eve, the gift-wrapped mink stole said the golden anniversa-
spaceship successfully with a card that read: “To ry provides an opportunity
slipped into orbit around Marilyn, Merry Christmas to reintroduce the world
the moon. Before bedtime, from the man in the moon.” to Earthrise. She and three
the first envoys to another Lovell bought the coat for other former space travel-
world took turns reading his wife and arranged its ers are holding a celebra-
the first 10 verses from Gen- fancy delivery before liftoff. tion at NASA’s Kennedy
esis. It had been left to Bor- Splashdown occurred in Space Center on Friday, 50
man, before the flight, to the pre-dawn darkness on years to the day Apollo 8
find “something appropri- Dec. 27, bringing the in- launched.q