by Acer
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
The astronauts have confirmed that they are about to start their first breakfast in lunar orbit, and they are about to pass again around the far side of the Moon again. LOS (loss of signal) will come in just about 10 minutes from now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The first television transmission from the Moon is expected to come on this next pass around the face of the Moon as we see it from Earth. At that point, they will be around 150 miles above the surface of the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The spacecraft is now in an egg-shaped orbit around the Moon. The highest point of the orbit is on this side of the Moon and called the ‘apossesium’, what we call the apogee when in Earth orbit. The ‘perissium’ (or perigee when referring to Earth) is the lowest point in the lunar orbit.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
However, we are seeing that the NASA people and the astronauts themselves tend to use those terms interchangeably.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The lowest point in the current orbit of Apollo 8 is around 69 miles; the highest point is around 170 miles.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The astronauts are now having breakfast. Today’s breakfast consists of a fruit cocktail, bacon squares on cinnamon toast and orange juice. Not a bad breakfast. Better perhaps than what we have here in our CBS News center.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Their food is dehydrated (water is added when they are ready to eat) and bite-sized. The food is made that way to prevent any crumbs flying around in the micro gravity of their capsule.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
10 seconds to LOS (loss of signal) on our first revolution… all systems are GO, including a GO from the flight surgeon’s console. We are GO for the next pass of Apollo 8 around the far side of the Moon.
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
At 2 days, 22 hours and 56 minutes into the flight of Apollo 8, we now have LOS with Apollo 8 as it passes behind the Moon once more.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
We now have loss of signal as we pass for the second time around the far side of the Moon as viewed from Earth. Bill is preparing to get some photos of the features on the far side.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
I think Bill’s making a big mistake using that 250 millimeter lens. But we’ll see.
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
The medics have been keeping a close eye of Frank’s condition and there was some extended discussion, given his condition, as to whether it was prudent to put the astronauts into lunar orbit or bring them back home on a free return trajectory.
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
Now the discussion is whether Frank’s physical condition can hold up for the full 10 orbits we had planned, or to de-orbit the spacecraft and bring him back home after the next pass.
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
The Flight Surgeon is reporting that Frank Borman’s peak heart rate during the lunar orbit insertion burn was 130 – the same reading he had during the stress of lift off.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I’m checking the fan out. We may have a problem here.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
We need to get this fan and evaporator problem squared away or we won’t be going anywhere.
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
There’s no resolution at the moment. No shadows on the craters. Is that Tsiolkovsky I can see down there? Wow!
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
Okay. I’m about to put us upside down. We really ought to get a picture of the Tsiolkovsky crater formation, but I’m going to need to use another window.
Tsiolkovsky Crater
Paul Haney @PHPublicAffairsNASA
We can now confirm that the orbital burn was on time. Duration 4 minutes 6.1/2 seconds. We are seeing high cabin temperature from down here. The crew need to look into it.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
I just snapped a still photo of Capella. Now that we have Earthshine, we can’t see as much detail as we do in direct sunlight but we can see the large craters quite distinctly.
Capella Crater
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
We’re getting a good three-dimensional view of the rims of those larger craters. I think our high-speed film will be able to pick up some of this stuff quite well and will be a great help to future missions when the pictures are developed and viewed back on Earth.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
Houston needs to know that with the red-blue filter technique it’s not possible to slide them out with them taped into the TV cameras this way.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
Typical! As usual in the real world, the flight plan looks a lot fuller than it did back in Florida.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
When the spacecraft was launched on Saturday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Moon was in a very different position relative to the Earth.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The planners at Mission Control had to calculate exactly where the Moon would be relative to the Earth in order to ensure that the spacecraft could enter a lunar orbit.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Their calculations were so accurate that only two of the anticipated mid-course correction burns had to be employed. In fact, that last one was so small that it only needed to slow down the spacecraft a mile or two per hour to get it in the right attitude and location.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Apparently, communication with the spacecraft was lost a little earlier than anticipated on this, its second pass around the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Communications with the spacecraft is established though the four antenna which deployed when the service module separated from the third stage of the Saturn V rocket after launch.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
That was one of the first critical moments of this flight – whether those four antenna would pop open as planned.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
And so, Apollo 8 is now on what will probably be another 35 to 40-minute silent passage around the far side of the Moon, out of touch for the moment with any of the receiving stations here on Earth.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We are now going over to England to hear once more from Sir Bernard Lovell, the head of that great Jodrell Bank radio telescope they have over there, who has been following the epic journey of Apollo 8 with great interest.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
I must confess, this is one of the great moments! It’s very hard to believe that human beings have actually flown around the Moon and given us their description of what they’ve seen.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
As a scientist and astronomer, I’ve seen photographs of the Moon so often, and more recently, marvelous photographs sent back from lunar orbiters and landers.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
But it is still almost impossible to comprehend that now, at this moment, we are getting descriptions from human beings of what the lunar surface looks like on both the near side and far side of the Moon.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
The far side being, of course, the side we never see from Earth. When one sees and hears the sheer beauty and immensity of the whole thing – it really is a tremendous moment.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
I can’t say that the appearance of the Earth as seen from the cameras on Apollo 8 surprised me since that is what one expected. Nevertheless, when one actually sees it and realizes that it is an actuality, one feels the same sense of amazement as everybody else does.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Our reporter over in England is now asking Sir Bernard about the possibility of intellig
ent life on other planets and moons apart from Earth and our moon. If anyone has good insight into this important question, it would be Sir Bernard.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Hopefully, Sir Bernard will not regard the question as too silly a question.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
I don’t think it is a silly question at all. For me as a scientist, it is one of the most important questions. I think the Apollo missions will eventually reveal the first billion years of history of the Moon and then of the Solar System.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
I suspect that future research will confirm, what we astronomers believe to be the case, that most of the stars in the Universe (and there are over 100 billion of them in our galaxy alone) have planetary systems much like our own Sun.
Sir Bernard Lovell @BLJodrellBank
And there may be well over 100 billion galaxies out there. So the number of possible planetary systems in the Universe is, to all intents and purposes, practically infinite.
Frank Borman @CDRApollo8
While we are on the far side of the Moon and out of radio contact with Earth, our conversations in the cabin are still being recorded on the tape recorder. They will be ‘dumped’ down to Earth after they acquire our signal again.
71 hours 5 minutes mission time
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
We are passing over the crater America and coming up on the crater von Braun. Is this von Braun right here?
Jim Lovell @CMPApollo8
That’s not von Braun. We’re right in the middle of crater America right now.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
The rim of America is very hard to see. Here’s von Braun. This must be von Braun. Jim is about to rotate the spacecraft.
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
The von Braun crater has an interesting little ridge down the middle of it. I’m about to get a picture of a fresh impact crater down there. It looks extremely fresh and seems to be up on the top of a hill.
Crater von Braun
Bill Anders @LMPApollo8
There was one dark hole near the middle of that fresh crater. I couldn’t get a long enough look at it to see if it might be anything volcanic.
Jerry Carr @JCCAPCOMApollo8
We are expecting to re-acquire the signal from the spacecraft 7 minutes 10 seconds from now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Back here at our CBS News Center we are waiting, and in the next couple of minutes we should hear the word from the astronauts in Apollo 8 that they have emerged from the back side of the Moon again.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Earlier, Jim Lovell, the navigator on this flight, reported back to all of us Earthlings that amazing sight as man looked down on the Moon for the first time from only about a hundred miles above the lunar surface.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Lovell reported the sight of the craters, and the mountains, and the rills and the ridges, and just exactly what it looked like. Gray and a bit like plaster of paris he said.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
At 6.48 Eastern Time this morning, that would be… oh, 33 minutes ago, Apollo 8 went around the far side of the Moon again and, if all has gone well, will emerge on this side of the Moon again in about 3 minutes from now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
At that time, if they have their television cameras going, we will expect to see the first pictures of the lunar surface from a manned orbit of the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Even the Russians who had so hoped to be the first to the Moon have been forced to congratulate the United States, although there were a few sour grapes expressed yesterday from their leading scientists as Apollo 8 approached the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
With Borman, Lovell and Anders now in orbit around the Moon, the United States is assured not only of technological triumph, but a major propaganda victory over the Soviets.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
In the past, the Soviets have beaten us in most aspects of the Space Race. They put the first satellite into space, sent the first man into space and successfully navigated the first unmanned spacecraft to land on the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
The flight of Apollo 8, though, gives the United States the greatest first of them all so far – the first country to send men on the epic quarter-of-a-million mile journey from the Earth to the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
There have been some dramatic words spoken this morning between Apollo 8 and the ground. Earlier today, was the concern that has been expressed by the spacecraft commander, Frank Borman, regarding the engine that must put them into orbit around the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
That is the same engine that must later take them out of orbit and into a return trajectory back to Earth.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
When they went through the last checklist before going behind the Moon for the first firing of that engine, Mission Control told them, to give them confidence: “You are riding the best bird we can find!”
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
That statement meaning that in all the many steps they have taken to check out that engine, they have decided that in every aspect of its functions, it is as good as any engine ever built.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
One surprising thing… something that was quite startling to all of us in the studio here and perhaps even those in Mission Control is that Jim Lovell noted earlier today: “You know, we still haven’t seen the Moon.”
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
They had been out there for nearly 3 days and at that point, when they were hurtling down towards the Moon at 5,000 mph and just 300 miles away from it, they had still not, in all of that time, seen the Moon at all.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
It seems unbelievable, but the position and attitude of the spacecraft had not been so arranged and tilted that they could take a look at the Moon. Curiosity must have been great among the crew.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We can only guess and surmise that perhaps the crew deliberately held off, thinking, “Let’s make it a great big surprise and look at it for the first time as we actually go around the Moon.”
Jerry Carr @JCCAPCOMApollo8
Re-acquisition of signal should be 2 minutes and 10 seconds from now.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
When the spaceship was about to disappear around the far side of the Moon for the first time, the voice of Bill Anders – the youngest member of this crew and the only one who has not flown in space before – said: “Thanks a lot, Houston! We’ll see you on the other side.”
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
And then Apollo 8 went behind the Moon. What a moment that was!
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
We expect to hear from Apollo 8 within the next 60 seconds. The spacecraft should now be yawing at 45 degrees in order to establish a proper attitude for TV sighting. We are continuing to monitor.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Mankind has gawked at the face of the Moon for millennia without any real idea of what was up there. Now those three men are observing it at close quarters from only a few miles above its surface. Incredible!
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We expect to get our first television transmission shortly. We are waiting to hear from Mission Control.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We are not hearing anything from Mission Control at the moment. Their mikes are open and we are waiting to hear if the astronauts have made it safely around on their second pass.
2 days 23 hours 39 minutes mission time
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
On the first pass, there was some overheating of the radiator flui
d that keeps the instruments cool. It didn’t turn out to be a serious problem and was solved quickly.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
North American Co. engineers think that problem was possibly because of the extreme heat on the far side of the Moon plus cool reflections on that side of the Moon.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
We are still waiting for some word from Mission Control, Houston.
Glynn Lunney @GLFlightApollo8
Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) Jerry Carr is making a call to the spacecraft. No response yet.
Jerry Carr @JCCAPCOMApollo8
We are not getting a voice signal from Apollo 8 but are receiving telemetry data. We are continuing to monitor and make calls.
Jerry Carr @JCCAPCOMApollo8
Oh, boy! We have a TV picture coming in. We now have both TV and voice. Voice signal is loud and clear. TV picture – not so good.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
Okay, we are now seeing some of the first grainy live pictures of the lunar surface being shot and beamed down to us by the astronauts of Apollo 8.
Walter Cronkite @WCCBSNews
