American Experience (1988) s31e07 Episode Script

1
♪♪
♪♪
REPORTER:
Now, ladies and gentlemen,
the President
of the United States.
LYNDON JOHNSON:
Our American dream
for outer space
is a dream of peace and
a dream of friendly cooperation
among all the nations
of the earth.
We intend to live up
to our agreement
not to orbit weapons
of mass destruction.
And we will continue to hold out
to all nations,
including the Soviet Union,
a hand of cooperation
in the exciting years
of space exploration
which lie ahead for all of us.
♪♪
(camera clicking,
audience cheering)
JOHN LOGSDON:
In the immediate aftermath of
John Kennedy's assassination,
there was a question put
to the new President Johnson,
"What do you want to do
about the Kennedy initiative
to do joint missions to the moon
with the Soviet Union?"
Johnson was skeptical,
but NASA didn't want
to cooperate.
And so the decision was,
"Let's not bother."
(applause)
NASA and the Apollo program had
literally
the highest national priority.
REPORTER:
Do we have any knowledge
how we're doing
in this race to the moon
with the Soviet Union?
Well, all we know is that
the Russians have demonstrated,
repeatedly, a great competence
in, in
their manned-space operations.
I think we should not believe
that they are suddenly
giving up
giving up in this race.
I'm convinced that
they will make an all-out effort
to land on the moon ahead of us.
We stop racing,
they will undoubtedly win.
♪♪
NEIL ARMSTRONG:
That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
(rocket firing)
♪♪
LOGSDON:
People didn't know for sure
at the time,
but the reality was
that the Soviet Union
didn't have a moon program.
Turned out the Soviets were
still debating
whether to go to the moon
or not.
♪♪
SERGEI KHRUSHCHEV:
My father was pragmatic.
So when Korolev came
to my father
and told, "We have to work now
on the new N1 launcher
to send the men to the moon,"
my father told, "No.
First, give me the cost
of the project."
And Korolev could not answer.
And he told,
"I have different priorities.
"We have to improve life
of our people.
"We need to invest
in the housing,
"in the producing
of the consumer goods.
"Americans spend their money,
I spend my people's money,
and I am responsible for them."
So he at last he approved
the preliminary design
of this lunar program
only in August 1964.
But the real lunar race started
only after my father was ousted
of power.
♪♪
After that his successor
Brezhnev didn't count money,
and he told, "Go ahead,
I will give you
everything what you want."
♪♪
GEORGE ALEXANDER:
From the very beginning,
the Russian manned space flight
program
compiled a very proud list
of firsts
The first woman into orbit
around the earth,
the first multiple crew,
the first spacewalk.
(cosmonauts speaking Russian)
♪♪
These were all
very impressive achievements.
It may have been
a little bit crude
and rough around the edges,
but they did it.
(beep)
However, the Russians hadn't
At that time
Mastered the problem
of rendezvous and docking,
a critical part of
the total lunar landing process.
All the steps involved
in Apollo,
those were all things that had
to happen pretty much perfectly,
some 230,000 miles away
on the moon.
And you didn't want to try to do
all those things
for the first time
so far away from home.
Gemini was going to prove
the lunar-orbit rendezvous.
♪♪
WALTER CRONKITE:
This is the equipment
that will be the first computer
ever put into space
in a manned spacecraft
A ingenious device
which will enable these
astronauts to do the thing
which Gemini is designed to do,
and that's for the first time
to maneuver in outer space
so that they can link up
with another vehicle out there
and build space platforms
for future space exploration.
What they will be doing
on this GT3,
this first manned Gemini flight,
the first maneuver will be
to change the orbit, actually
JOEL BANOW:
I don't think there was anybody
like Walter Cronkite.
He was like a kid.
He loved imparting the wonder
of space
and what man was doing.
He made the average viewer
really connect,
as he really connected,
to the whole subject
of man going into space.
Their target vehicle is
in a perfect orbit
circling the earth.
It's now midway over Australia.
It'll be back over the Cape here
in 38 minutes.
ALEXANDER:
I was excited,
I thought, "Here we are
in the new frontier."
And there was support for the
cost and the risks initially,
but as time went on,
that began to erode.
MARK BLOOM:
We had mixed obligations,
I always felt.
We had the obligation
to present the enthusiasm
historically,
man going to the moon.
That was an amazing thing.
The second part of the story is,
we are covering
a government agency, NASA,
which is spending $24 billion,
which, in those days,
was a huge amount of money.
So we had to cover
that element to it.
(clanking)
I don't think
I covered it properly.
If anything, I erred on the
side of covering the adventure.
The space program is costing us
about $5 billion a year,
and if there is anyone left
anywhere
who still cares about money,
he might reasonably ask
what we are getting
for all of it.
If it is simply a matter of
keeping ahead of the Russians
in a procession of high-altitude
tricks and stunts,
it probably isn't worth it.
It is doubtful that a few points
on the international Gallup poll
in Asia and Africa,
a little increased national
prestige in Asia and Africa,
it's doubtful that's worth more
than maybe 35 cents.
If it is simply a matter
of displaying
our technical expertise
by orbiting around the earth
a series of metal tanks
carrying men, radios,
switches, nobs,
and chicken salad
in squeeze tubes
That probably
isn't worth the money either.
(crowd cheering)
But there is another element.
It is said that
by exploring space,
we will increase the sum
of human knowledge
and perhaps make
some basic discoveries,
learn some dimensions and
insights previously unknown.
♪♪
BILL ANDERS:
NASA was always trying to sell
the program.
(crowd cheering)
And we'd go out
and talk to kids in schools,
and, and we called it
the Week in the Barrel.
NASA EMPLOYEE:
I think those already
that know me
ANDERS:
In the old days, in sailing
ships, they'd stick one guy
in the barrel, and he'd have to
put his rear end by the hole,
and everybody would take
their turn.
REPORTER:
Flight of yours is
ANDERS:
So we had our week
in the barrel.
(reporter talking indistinctly)
ED BUCKBEE:
"Astronaut in a Barrel"
One astronaut per week
would be selected,
and that astronaut,
for one week, they were ours,
for speaking engagements,
television appearances,
whatever.
You know, we managed them.
Astronauts hated it.
(crowd applauding)
FRANK BORMAN:
The astronauts were used
as a PR tool by NASA
very effectively.
And I have been on more parades
and spoken to
more chambers of commerce
You know, this was more
than just PR.
This was, was
ingratiating congressmen
to get their support.
Unless a $141 million was
restored in the supplemental
and the five billion,
304 million dollars approved,
we are near the position
where we simply will have
to say,
"We're not going to do it
in this decade."
BORMAN:
Mr. Webb used it very,
very effectively.
Webb understood you had to have
the support of the Congress
to get this thing done.
You're not supposed to be
a Texan.
Jim, you should have seen him
with his Texas boots on.
I had my boots a minute ago
BORMAN:
He understood
how democracy works.
♪♪
ANDERS:
There was a lot of
apple-polishing
with congressmen,
and so if a congressman wanted
to have some astronaut appear
with him,
he just snapped his fingers.
(phone ringing)
Congressman Teague of Texas
office.
ANDERS:
I became buddies with
Congressman, Chairman Teague
of the House Space Committee.
"Tiger" Teague was
from a district
where I had lived in Texas.
I was one of his favorites.
George, would additional money
to any degree improve
or change the Gemini program?
If I may have the first slide,
I thought
you might be interested
in the rendezvous operation.
I think Gemini's in good shape,
but I think the Apollo program
is going to have to have
more money.
I understand
that NASA is hesitant
about pestering the Bureau
of the Budget for more money,
but if NASA's going to tell us
that we're not going to get
to the moon by '70
because of money,
I think that the Committee
should certainly be aware of it,
and that NASA doesn't come back
here later
and say, "We didn't succeed
because the Committee didn't get
the money for them."
BUCKBEE:
I remember being there one day,
and as we were breaking up,
this congressman stood up
and said, "Dr. von Braun,
do you need any more money?"
And I thought, "I've never heard
that comment made."
(birds squawking)
CRONKITE:
In these final days before the
launch of this Gemini flight,
now scheduled for next Tuesday,
dozens of contractors
in dozens of buildings
all over Cape Kennedy are going
through the final tests
of their pieces of equipment
that will be in this
complex booster and spacecraft
when they blast off from Pad 19.
LOGSDON:
The start
of the Gemini launches,
I mean, there were ten launches
in 12 months.
There was lots of stuff
going on,
lots of public interest,
and all of it clearly leading up
to the Apollo landing.
CRONKITE:
1:40 and counting
at Cape Kennedy
under cloudless skies.
Astronauts McDivitt and White,
preparing for four days in space
and America's first walk
in space.
JACK KING:
T minus 90 seconds and counting.
The launch vehicle has gone
to internal power.
The launch vehicle is now
on its own battery power.
CRONKITE:
Everything is go
for this mission
from all the tracking stations
around the world.
KING:
Three, two, one, zero.
(rocket firing)
Liftoff.
♪♪
(indistinct talking on radio)
♪♪
CHET HUNTLEY:
Space pilots McDivitt and White
are at this moment
in their 18th orbit
of the earth.
They've been aloft 27 hours,
44 minutes.
They are currently
over western Australia.
The two pilots have flown
about 430,000 miles,
nearly the distance
of the round trip to the moon.
MISSION CONTROL (on radio):
your heat exchanger
to four
Gemini 4, Gemini 4.
ANDERS:
A major element of Gemini
was getting outside
of the spacecraft.
And we called it E.V.A.,
or Extra-Vehicular Activity.
MISSION CONTROL:
Gemini 4, copy,
(inaudible) lowered.
MICHAEL COLLINS:
The first E.V.A.s, of course,
were on the Gemini 4, Ed White.
Ed White was just to get out
and see what it was like
and then to come back in.
WHITE (on radio):
Okay, I'm out.
JIM McDlVlTT (on radio):
Okay, he's out, oh-three.
♪♪
WHITE:
This is the greatest experience
I've
it's just tremendous.
Right now I'm standing
on my head,
and I'm looking right down,
and it looks like
we're coming up
on the coast of California.
Okay, I'm dipping down
underneath the spacecraft.
What I'd like to do is get
all the way out, Jim,
and get a picture
of the whole spaceship,
I don't seem to be doing it.
McDlVlTT:
Yeah, I noticed that,
you can't seem to get
far enough away.
WHITE:
No.
COLLINS:
He was cartwheeling,
ass-over-teakettle,
up and around and about.
He had a dorky little handheld
maneuvering device,
which in itself was
very difficult.
WHITE:
Listen, it's all the difference
in the world with this gun.
When that gun was working,
I was maneuvering all around.
COLLINS:
We should have paid maybe
a little more attention
and said, "You know,
we need some help
in terms of tethers, lanyards,
handholds, footholds,"
but those were the things
that we didn't really think of.
McDlVlTT:
The flight director says
get back in.
WHITE:
Okay.
♪♪
ALEXANDER:
Ed White found it exhilarating.
(chuckling):
He had more fun floating
in space.
WHITE:
I feel like a million dollars.
ALEXANDER:
And so when NASA controllers
in Houston said, "Okay,
"we've met all the objectives
of this test,
get back in the spacecraft,"
and Ed White said, basically,
"No."
WHITE:
What are we over now, Jim?
McDlVlTT:
I don't know, we're coming
over the (inaudible).
They want you to come back in
now.
WHITE:
Back in?
McDlVlTT:
Back in.
GUS GRISSOM:
Roger, we've been trying
to talk to you for a while here.
(beep)
♪♪
ALEXANDER:
He stood up to Mission Control.
He became a hero
to his fellow astronauts,
because so much of their life,
by being in the program,
was circumscribed.
Mrs. White, to you,
what was the highlight
of your husband's 20-minute
excursion in space today
outside the space vehicle?
Oh, just the whole thing,
just knowing he was out there,
I knew how thrilled he was
to, to do it.
I'm glad he was able to do it.
♪♪
REPORTER 3:
And the Whites were greeted
by neighbors and reporters
at their home.
Very nice here,
I certainly appreciate it.
PAT WHITE:
Hi.
How are you?
Thanks, Marty,
Come on in later on,
I'll tell you some stories.
(laughing)
REPORTER 3:
Soon after returning home,
the Whites went swimming
in a neighbor's pool.
(children shrieking happily)
ED DWIGHT:
This confusion about the name
with Ed White, Ed Dwight,
about the black community
getting him mixed up with me,
all came to a head
when, when Ed walked in space.
♪♪
Ed showed up one day, because
he was a very, very nice guy,
and he brought me two boxes
of mail.
He said to me,
"I got two boxes of mail
"that are really addressed
to you,
"and they're congratulating you,
Ed Dwight,
"as the first African American
to walk in space,
"confusing you with me.
"Now I understand
why it's important
for you to go into space."
♪♪
It was 20 years from
the time I went into training
to the time the first black
astronaut was sent into space.
Now, 20 years is a long time.
America had to adjust
to allow nonwhite people to go
into space
Women as well.
♪♪
ANDERS:
The primary purpose
with regard to Gemini
was to demonstrate
earth-orbit rendezvous.
♪♪
And, of course,
docking was important.
♪♪
And all of those things met
with a lot of problems.
Even though I had studied
orbital mechanics in college,
it still is perplexing to me.
There's so many
counterintuitive things.
You slow down,
which drops your orbit,
which means
you go around the earth faster,
and pretty soon the thing
that was in front of you
is now above and behind you,
and then you can speed up
and catch him.
♪♪
The orbital rendezvous was
so counterintuitive
that you really had to use
the onboard computer in Gemini
in order to implement it.
The expert in the group was
Buzz Aldrin.
I wouldn't be surprised if
Buzz couldn't do it in his head.
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT:
Roll 23, scene three,
take one.
I'm Lieutenant Aldrin,
I just got down
off my 56th mission.
I'm stationed here
at a advance base in Korea,
flying with the
51st Fighter Interceptor Wing.
We were closing rather rapidly
on the MiGs.
I opened up fire on them
while they were
in this gradual turn.
(voiceover):
Two MiGs were flying,
and they never saw us.
We just snuck up from behind,
and as I was coming closer,
why, a canopy came off,
and then there was a flash,
and the ejection seat went,
and that was the first time
a gun-camera film had ever seen
an ejection.
So that made Life magazine.
Later, while I was at MIT,
I wrote a thesis called,
"Line-of-Sight
Guidance Techniques
for Manned Orbital Rendezvous."
That came from
fighter-pilot experience,
translating
fighter-pilot intercepts
to spacecraft rendezvous.
♪♪
♪♪
(beep)
ARMSTRONG (on radio):
Hello, Houston,
this is Gemini 8,
we're stationed keeping
on the Agena at about 150 feet.
BLOOM:
Gemini 8, of course, was
the Neil Armstrong flight
where they, they had
the first emergency in space.
PAUL HANEY:
Roger, do you have solid
radar lock on with the Agena?
Over.
ARMSTRONG:
That's affirmative.
We have solid radar lock.
HANEY:
Neil Armstrong called in,
and he was able to confirm
at that time
that radar lock had been
ALEXANDER:
The Gemini spacecraft did hook
up with an Agena.
That was the stand-in
for what became
the lunar landing module.
(loud clank)
MISSION CONTROL:
Let me know
what you get out of that.
(clanking)
BLOOM:
This emergency occurred
when a thruster got stuck open,
and they were spinning wildly,
and they were in trouble.
ARMSTRONG:
MISSION CONTROL:
Say again?
ARMSTRONG:
MISSION CONTROL:
Copy that.
(alarms blaring)
BLOOM:
When the emergency occurred,
I was in Houston,
and you could hear everything.
MISSION CONTROL (on radio):
We can't seem to get
any valid data here.
It seems to be in a
pretty violent tumble right now.
ALEXANDER:
They were
into a really horrific spin,
so much so that the astronauts
were beginning to feel
disoriented.
MISSION CONTROL:
We've lost considerable
ARMSTRONG:
MISSION CONTROL:
Roger, copy.
BLOOM:
They were going to abort,
and that was critical.
They had to splash down early.
♪♪
(water splashes)
ALEXANDER:
It demonstrated that
Neil Armstrong was
a superb pilot,
a superb judge
of mechanical systems.
God had given it to him
with both hands,
and he knew how to use
that skill.
He was decisive.
♪♪
♪♪
ALDRIN:
Lovell and I flew on
the last mission of Gemini,
Gemini 12.
If I hadn't flown on Gemini,
I never would have gotten
a choice assignment in Apollo.
JIM LOVELL (on radio):
You get in a good position
for photography now.
ALDRIN:
Well, the space walking
in the Gemini program
was not very successful
as it proceeded along.
COLLINS:
We had not in our designs
really thought through
what happens to objects that
bang together in weightlessness.
If I touch that table,
I go off in some totally
three-dimensional,
random direction,
and very soon you're,
you're just out of control.
ALDRIN:
They didn't want
a partial success or failure
on the last flight.
A lot of things can go wrong.
And I said, "Well, look,
I've been a scuba diver,
"and you, you don't work
against the current,
"you slowly kind of maneuver,
"and it's delicate,
how you move around.
You need to do them delicately,
not muscle."
Some of the astronauts said,
"No, no,
"that's not going to be
any good.
There's a big difference
between water and space."
But everything I did do
worked out so well
that neutral-buoyancy has ever
since been the way you train.
ANDERS:
Gemini 12 with Aldrin and Lovell
was exceptionally successful.
ALDRIN (on radio):
It is November 11, Vets Day.
ANDERS:
And I hand it to Buzz Aldrin.
He really made advancements
on working in space,
to try to do things.
ALDRIN (on radio):
This is a little bit harder
than it was underwater.
ANDERS:
That was the good news.
The bad news was
they did such a good job
that they canceled Gemini 13,
which Neil
and I were going to fly on.
GAME SHOW HOST:
Well, Mr. Armstrong,
your son is one of
the two civilians chosen.
How long has he been flying,
sir?
Since before he was
16 years of age.
Before 16?
This would mean
that he had his wings
before he had
his driver's license.
Right?
That's right.
Now, how would you feel,
Mrs. Armstrong,
if it turned out,
of course nobody knows,
but if it's your
if it turns out that your son
is the first man to land
on the moon,
what, how
how will you feel?
Well, I guess I'd just say
God bless him,
and I wish him the best
of all good luck.
♪♪
PAUL HANEY:
Well, gentlemen,
the occasion of course
is the naming of
the first Apollo flight crew.
The crewmen will be Lieutenant
Colonel Virgil "Gus" Grissom,
Lieutenant Colonel
Edward H. White,
and Lieutenant Roger B. Chaffee.
Gus Grissom was the first
of the astronauts
to make two space flights,
and now he will be the commander
of the first Apollo
flight mission.
Of course you know, Ed White,
he's become a pretty famous man
in the last year,
and I believe this will be
Roger Chaffee's
first space flight.
And, of course, we wish
all these men extremely well.
Could you philosophize
on just why you think
we should go to the moon?
I think there are
so many questions
so many reasons why we should.
And if we don't try to expand
ourself and expand our horizons,
which I think the space program
is the biggest example
of expanding your horizons
that man has ever undertaken,
we're not going to progress
as a nation.
From all standpoints,
it's a good program.
And why we want to go
to the moon specifically,
well, it's the closest thing,
that we haven't explored,
to our earth,
and it's the first step
into understanding
the, the whole universe.
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT 2:
39X3, Take One.
DIRECTOR:
Background, action!
Doris.
Now, this is called
the clean room.
It's completely sterilized,
so that no dust or dirt will
contaminate the critical parts.
Workers entering the clean room
must first stand
on this crate,
which shakes all the dirt loose
from the shoes and
the clothing, like this.
(crate rumbling)
Um, I think
we better move on now.
We'll go in that direction.
DIRECTOR:
Cut, that's it.
Well, we had a little trouble
with that one, didn't we?
As you've just seen,
when we make a motion picture,
we can shoot a scene over
and over until we get it right.
Now, Saturn and Apollo must be
successful the very first time,
because the astronauts' lives
depend upon it.
And from the caliber of people
I have met
in the aerospace business,
and from the quality of the work
I saw being done there,
I'm certain
that it will be successful
And on the very first take.
So, please, all of you,
be extra careful.
Be extra, extra careful.
Won't you?
♪♪
COLLINS:
We spent a lot of time out
in North American Rockwell.
Spent a lot of time
at the factory with the people
out in Downey, California,
who assembled
the actual spacecraft.
There was a we-know-better kind
of an arrogant attitude
on the part of
some of the managers,
and it was a, a laid-back,
"Well, we'll get done one way
or the other sometime, somehow,"
attitude
on the part
of some of the workers.
I think there was not
the dedication
to the, the extremely strong
work ethic.
Things like building a,
building a good spacecraft
instead of worrying about
whether you were going
to get your camper up
into the High Sierras
for the weekend.
REPORTER 5:
You flew on, on Mercury,
you flew on Gemini,
now you're flying on, on Apollo.
Does the law of averages
so far as the possibility
of a catastrophic failure
bother you at all, sir?
No, you sort of have to put that
out of your mind.
There's always a possibility
that you can have a
catastrophic failure, of course.
This can happen on any flight,
it can happen
on, on the last one
as well as the first one.
So you just plan as best you can
to take care of
all of these eventualities,
and you get a well-trained crew,
and you go fly.
This spacecraft
you're going to ride on
is, to a certain extent,
untried.
You're taking
the shakedown crew.
Do you approach it
with any apprehension
as compared to the Gemini,
which had been flown before?
WHITE:
No, I don't think so.
I think you have to understand
the feeling that a pilot has
and that a test pilot has
that
I, I look forward a great deal
to the first flight.
There's a great deal of pride
involved
in making a first flight.
So I'm looking forward
to the flight
with a great deal
of anticipation.
REPORTER 4:
Is anything scary about
a first space flight,
even though
you've flown many hours
in conventional aircraft,
jet aircraft?
Oh, I don't like to say
anything's scary about it.
There's a lot of unknowns,
of course,
and a lot of problems
that could develop
or might develop,
and they'll have to be solved,
and that's what we're there for.
This is our business,
to find out
if this thing will work for us.
Um, um
But I don't think anybody is
You know, I don't like to use
the word scared.
I definitely think
you're apprehensive,
and you're considering
what's involved there,
you're thinking about it.
But you know how to handle it
and take care of it
and do the job.
♪♪
GRISSOM (on radio):
♪♪
LAUNCH CONTROL (on radio):
One, two.
(Launch Control audio
cutting in and out)
Three, four, seven.
GRISSOM:
GRISSOM:
LAUNCH CONTROL:
GRISSOM:
(static hissing)
CHAFFEE (on radio):
(audio cutting out)
(static crackling)
(screaming):
(static popping on radio)
(static ends)
LAUNCH CONTROL:
(no audio)
(audio cutting in and out)
(audio cutting in and out)
(radio squawking choppily)
(radio squawking choppily)
♪♪
ANDERS:
I was working in the yard,
and I got a call from Alan Bean.
And he said, "We've had a fire,
"and the three astronauts
were killed,
and would you go over
and tell Pat White?"
So I quickly jumped out
of my lawn-mowing clothes
and drove over there.
It took me maybe ten minutes.
♪♪
VALERIE ANDERS:
It was very difficult, because
Bill had to tell Pat White,
and Janet was next door,
Janet Armstrong,
so she went over there.
We didn't know how to divide
ourselves right away,
because of the three wives
having to be told about it.
So it was, it was just a time
when we were in shock.
ANDERS:
I arrived, and
I walked up to her,
and I, I think
she sensed something.
And I told her,
and she broke down.
America's first three
Apollo astronauts
were trapped and killed
by a flash fire
that swept their moon ship
early tonight
during a launchpad test
at Cape Kennedy in Florida.
They died at T minus ten minutes
into a simulated
launch countdown,
(voice breaking):
helplessly trapped
inside their spacecraft.
REPORTER:
And this is
a hard phrase to say,
but I think
it's a necessary one.
It would be an instantaneous
death, would it not?
I think that's
a fair assumption.
Apparently, they died
absolutely instantly.
ALEXANDER:
I went to the NASA news center,
and Jack King told me
that the print media wanted me
to be the pool reporter
to go up and look
into the spacecraft.
♪♪
And when I rode the elevator up
to the top of the gantry
to where the,
the burned-out spacecraft was,
there were only two
or three people up there,
and there was a photographer.
♪♪
The hatch was open,
and the smell of burned paper
and foam not flesh
Was very pronounced.
♪♪
There were
some anomalous things.
For example,
one side of the spacecraft
just was a pile of ashes,
but over on the other side,
here were manuals and,
and, and other flammable stuff,
untouched.
ALEXANDER (archival):
The bottom of the spacecraft,
below the frame,
was littered
with clumps of debris,
which were unrecognizable.
There were I counted
At least,
at least 12 fire extinguishers,
some obviously had been used.
Oh, by the way,
there were several gas masks
on the floor, just dropped.
ALEXANDER (voiceover):
When the ground crew was able
to open the hatch,
they found the three bodies
piled on top of one another.
♪♪
The hatch opened inward,
so it had to be pulled
from inside,
pushed from the outside.
And as the combustion process
inside the spacecraft proceeded,
it produced an enormous amount
of, of gas.
But the pressure was so high
that the three of them
Three very young, vigorous,
well-trained,
well-conditioned men,
could not pull that damn hatch
back into the capsule
and escape.
MIKE WALLACE:
Walter, I'm sure this hits you
particularly hard,
because these men were friends
of yours.
You knew Gus Grissom
from the beginning
down at Cape Kennedy.
CRONKITE:
Yes, indeed, Mike,
that's of course true,
and it does hit me hard.
Uh, I think that
I think one thing should be
said.
It's this is a time
for great sadness,
national sadness and
certainly the personal sadness
of the people
in the space program,
but it's also a time
for courage.
And if that sounds trite,
I'll change the words to guts.
That this is a test program.
We knew it was a test program,
and these guys who went into it
knew it was a test program,
a test program
with equipment of this nature,
as with anything
where you're operating
in a hostile environment,
which space is,
and this was
a hostile environment,
even if they were on the ground.
This program is bound to claim
its victims.
♪♪
ALEXANDER:
Initially, NASA tried to hide
the gruesome facts
of their death.
Did the three astronauts die
instantaneously?
Absolutely not.
They lived for at least a minute
before they died
of smoke inhalation.
"Dead is dead,"
the space agency felt,
"let's respect these men
and their families
and let it go with that."
(jets roaring)
OFFICER:
Firing squad,
fire three volleys.
(drumroll, bugle playing "Taps")
VALERIE ANDERS:
There was one funeral
at West Point for Ed White,
and we had another flight going
to Arlington,
so some of us went there.
Some people managed to go
to all the funerals,
but it was, it was
pretty chaotic, the whole thing.
(horns playing
"God Bless America")
BORMAN:
Well, that was the beginning
of a
of a very, very traumatic year
for me and my family.
I had a hard time.
You know, I felt very hard
for Ed White,
and I felt very hard
for Gus and Roger.
We were
we were close.
Our closest friends were
Pat and Ed White.
And his death devastated Pat.
It was just a tough time.
ANDERS:
It was really tough for her,
and then eventually
she committed suicide.
(water lapping)
REPORTER 6:
No one knows when
the program will be resumed,
but there's a feeling here
that Friday's tragedy will only
slow down the program
for a short time.
The big questions remain:
how did the fire start?
Why did it start?
Did a spark come
from an overloaded circuit?
Was the spacecraft
on internal or exterior power
at the time of the flash?
♪♪
BORMAN:
After the fire at the Cape,
some people, they couldn't
handle it very well,
and there were a lot of drinking
and staying out
and a lot of pill taking,
and some of us got drunk,
some of us went nuts.
♪♪
My anguish and my concern lasted
about three days.
Then, "What's next?
Let's get on with the job."
♪♪
REPORTER 7:
The service tower on Pad 34 will
be rolled back today,
and the painstaking work of
removing the Apollo spacecraft
from its Saturn booster
will get underway.
Then the spacecraft itself
will be lifted off,
and the remains of it
will be taken apart,
bit by bit,
to see what went wrong.
♪♪
BORMAN:
That was
the most thorough examination
up to that time of any accident.
I'd climb in and say, "Okay,
this switch is
in the on position,"
and then we,
we just went through.
A wrench was found,
a discarded wrench was found
in the spacecraft,
and it was just clear
that things had not been going
as well as they should have.
The absolute determination
of what started the fire
was never discovered.
We believe we knew
what happened.
We believe that
it was a frayed wire
down around the
environmental control system,
but it was impossible to say
with certainty,
"Well, this failed,
or that failed."
ANDERS:
There were so many things wrong
with the initial Apollo 1
spacecraft
that I don't think it would have
survived a trip to the moon.
Pressurizing the spacecraft
with 100% oxygen,
anything will burn,
an asbestos fire blanket
will burn.
So why NASA, in all
their otherwise brilliance,
allowed this test to happen,
it amazes me.
But they did,
and a spark ignited that thing.
KHRUSHCHEV:
Before the American disaster,
we have the same fire,
like it was in the Apollo,
because both countries tried
to build the spacecrafts
as light as possible.
And at first they thought,
"Let's use the pure oxygen
in the capsule,"
and one of these testing,
the person who was there,
he burned alive.
He died,
but Soviets kept it secret,
they don't want to publicize
their disasters.
♪♪
MARGARET CHASE SMITH:
Why wasn't the seriousness
of the situation
regarding the
multi-billion-dollar contracts
at North American made known
to the Committee?
Would you not feel
that the chairman and other
members of the Committee
should have been briefed
on the situation?
The facts are, are they not,
that this committee has
a responsibility
to pursue the matter
to determine, uh, uh
whether there was negligence
on the part of
BLOOM:
Most of those congressmen
and the senators
didn't have a clue
what they were asking.
They would ask questions and
didn't know how to follow up.
HOWARD CANNON:
Mr. Webb,
I'd like to ask you first,
whether or not that was a change
and if it was a change,
what was the specific change
and what was the necessity
for it?
Referring to flammable materials
and the, and
then the recommendation that
BLOOM:
There were senators
and congressmen
trying to get publicity
for themselves,
so, no, I don't think
those hearings
were all that important,
except politically speaking,
and I don't think
there was ever a thought
that they wouldn't continue
on to the moon.
GEORGE MUELLER:
One has always
to balance
the risks in this
in, in one of these programs.
There is no way of guaranteeing
that every risk can be avoided,
and I don't I don't think
that we, we have eliminated risk
from the program.
JAMES WEBB:
The difficulties are related
to the, the problems of going
to the moon and coming back.
And we right now have a number
of extremely serious situations,
but we also believe we know
that we can overcome them
and fly.
They are no more difficult
than those we faced
over the last five or six years,
maybe less difficult.
And the problems
of, of this week
are never the problems
of next week.
It's a constant series
of a large number of problems
with each one being solved,
and another one emerges.
And in the end
you get to the point
that you have enough confidence
to launch the equipment.
BORMAN:
I testified for both the House
and the Senate.
When you sit up
before this committee,
and you've got reporters handing
these guys questions to ask you,
because the people there,
they don't know their butt
from third base.
Basically I think I said, "Why
don't you stop this witch hunt
and let us get on with the job?"
♪♪
ANDERS:
Frank Borman, he led the review,
and many changes resulted
in a lot better spacecraft.
The first hatches were designed
as any sensible hatch guy
would do, you know,
so it wouldn't blow out
in space.
And it turned out,
in retrospect,
that it was just one
of a series of mistakes.
♪♪
The replacement hatch,
I mean, it looked like
a hatch engineer's wet dream,
with all these gears and latches
and whatnot.
I kept looking at it, thinking,
"Jeez, don't touch it."
BORMAN:
The subsequent actions
instituted some very,
very sweeping changes.
Management changes,
technical changes were made,
that gave us a vehicle
that was far superior
to the one that they died in.
♪♪
The lunar module,
it was also lagging behind,
it had never flown.
They realized that
there were all kinds of problems
in that too.
♪♪
REPORTER 8:
It looks like
the world's fanciest cocoon.
Inside is a lunar module,
one of the series of spacecraft
designed to land Americans
on the moon before 1970.
But the elaborate cocoon hides
a troubled butterfly
An Apollo program substantially
over budget
and so drastically
behind schedule
that the goal of a manned
lunar landing in the 1960s
may already be lost.
BORMAN:
The fire shook the confidence,
the public confidence, in NASA.
I think NASA had
a really almost golden image,
and then all of a sudden
that was shattered.
The space program, up to now,
has been a crash program.
In other words, we've said,
"We're going to the moon
no matter what."
Well, I think that we've got
to abandon that emphasis.
This doesn't mean
we abandon space,
we can't, we're not likely to.
Man has reached this threshold,
he's not going to back off.
And so we're going to continue
our effort
to probe ever deeper in space,
but it's got to be at
in accordance
with a different order
of priorities.
There are some things here
on earth that we should now do,
no matter what.
♪♪
LAUNIUS:
Everybody at NASA
who worked on the Apollo program
will tell you,
is that in 1961 when they got
the mission to go to the moon,
they sort of put their heads
down to work on this problem.
So the, the desperation
of the civil rights crusade,
the desire to have more
inclusiveness
Women's rights and so on
All of the issues that were
transformed during that era
They sort of got left behind,
and these guys sort
of missed the '60s.
(jet engine roaring, explosion)
(gunfire, more explosions)
MARTIN LUTHER KING:
If our nation can spend
$35 billion a year
to fight an unjust evil war
in Vietnam,
and $20 billion to put a man
on the moon,
it can spend billions of dollars
to put God's children
on their own two feet,
right here on earth.
♪♪
BORMAN:
You know 1968 wasn't
a very good year,
from the standpoint
of Americans,
with the assassinations
and, and the war in Vietnam.
(crowd clamoring)
I, I was aware
of what was going on
(gun firing, whistle blowing,
crowd clamoring)
(gun fires)
but I was not part
of that scene.
I was totally engrossed
in trying to get to the moon
and back.
So it was almost as if
I was living
on another planet then.
♪♪
VON BRAUN:
There are many other things
competing for public interest.
There's an election coming up,
and there's a war going on
in Vietnam,
and there are problems
in the cities,
and quite a few people seem
to believe
that we have taken money away
from the public purse.
We prefer to see
our space program
in a somewhat different light.
We believe that we are
actually producing values
and we are producing values
at a faster rate
than we are taking money
out of the Treasury.
ANDERS:
Early on we were
all trotted around
to Huntsville and other places
where they were building parts
of the Saturn V.
The Saturn V is taller
than the Statue of Liberty.
It can carry a payload
of 280,000 pounds
into low-earth orbit,
which is the equivalent
of about 35 Gemini spacecraft.
With this vehicle,
the flight to the moon
will be accomplished.
ANDERS:
It was basically
an analog rocket.
We had less intelligence
in its guidance system
than I have in a Casio watch.
It probably was the most
complicated pile of technology
that anybody had built.
(rockets firing)
BUCKBEE:
Von Braun believed in testing.
I cannot emphasize
that term enough.
(rockets fire)
Test, test, test.
Test to the point it breaks.
(thrusters roaring)
His idea was
you test the first booster.
Once you're satisfied that
the first stage is successful,
then you put
the live second stage on,
you test that
until you're satisfied
that those two stages are
correct,
and finally you put
the third stage on,
and you test it.
We ground-tested
all of those stages
before they ever shipped
to the Cape for launch.
(loud rumbling, hissing)
Well, that was the concept.
(metallic clanking)
When George Mueller became
involved
He was Von Braun's boss
You know, Mueller says,
"If we're going to beat
the Russians,
"and we're going to do it
within this decade,
"we've got to jump-start
this program.
"So why not go all-up,
un-manned,
"with all three stages hot,
and look at everything
carefully?"
He came up with the idea
of the all-up test.
♪♪
Von Braun did not believe
in all-up.
He was not comfortable
with that at all,
because they had never followed
that process.
BLOOM:
This was the first unmanned test
of the Saturn V,
the rocket that was going
to take men to the moon.
So everyone was there.
And it was the first launching
after the Apollo fire.
If that failed,
then NASA was not going to get
to the moon
during the decade.
♪♪
ALEXANDER:
Just this enormous,
enormous structure,
and you knew
that once it was filled
with kerosene and liquid oxygen,
you were dealing
with a very massive,
tremendous amount of energy,
just mind-boggling.
BLOOM:
I mean, it was everybody was
this seven-and-a-half-million
pounds of thrust
in the first stage,
and what does that mean, really?
I mean, it sounds impressive,
but what would it really mean
when they launched?
♪♪
(indistinct talking)
By that time, the networks had
all built trailers at the Cape,
and they had large windows that
looked out on the launch site,
three-and-a-half miles away.
MAN (on radio):
Check the generators
for power transfer.
BLOOM:
And nobody quite knew what
the Saturn V was going to do.
(indistinct talking on radio)
MISSION CONTROL:
Flight control
KING (archival):
One, two, three, four
KING (voiceover):
On the first Saturn V launch,
you know when I say,
"ignition sequence start"
KING (archival):
nine,
ignition sequence start.
You've got
those five giant engines,
and they ignite.
(engines ignite)
And it takes the remainder
of the countdown
for them build up that
seven-and-a-half million pounds
of thrust.
KING (archival):
Five, four, we have ignition.
All engines are running.
♪♪
(engines roaring)
And there it was, sitting
in a bed of flames.
It seemed like an eternity.
♪♪
And there was still
five giant swing arms
attached to that rocket.
And then all of a sudden
it would slowly lift off.
KING (archival):
We have liftoff,
we have liftoff at 7:00 a.m.
(rocket roaring)
♪♪
(rocket roaring)
BLOOM:
We were three-and-a-half miles
away,
so you could see it,
but the sound and shock wave
took several seconds
to get to us.
(sound booms, rocket roaring)
♪♪
KING:
I thought the whole damn roof
was going to come down
on top of us.
Walter Cronkite was knocked
off his chair
in his trailer
over at the press site.
CRONKITE:
Oh, it's terrific!
The building's shaking!
This big glass window
was shaking
and we're holding it
with our hands.
Look at that rocket go!
♪♪
(indistinct talking on radio)
♪♪
MAN (on radio):
How's it looking?
MAN 2 (on radio):
Pretty good.
♪♪
BUCKBEE:
Everyone just looked around
and said, you know,
"It really did work,
I mean it's fantastic.
It's working, working!"
(applause)
(cheers, whistling)
REPORTER 9:
Dr. Von Braun,
whenever there's a space
accomplishment,
the question inevitably arises:
"Are we ahead,
or are we behind?"
How about this?
Well, I would say
the Soviet program has
definitely more momentum
than ours.
Their relative commitment
as a nation
to the space program is
estimated to be
about twice as high as ours.
REPORTER 9:
There's a lot of talk again
about what the Russians may be
doing or are about to do.
Could you please give us
your assessment
of the talk about
their big booster, about Zond 5,
and when they may try
circumlunar flights
or lunar landings?
VON BRAUN:
Well, my assessment of Zond 5,
that was the Soviet spacecraft
that looped the moon
and re-entered
over the Indian Ocean
and was successfully recovered
by Soviet ships
in the Indian Ocean,
was a dress-rehearsal
for a manned flight.
BORMAN:
I was out at Downey, California,
doing a test
on the Apollo 8 spacecraft.
I got a call from Deke Slayton,
said, "Get back here right away,
I need to talk to you."
So I got in an airplane
and went back,
and I walked in the door.
(chuckles):
I remember Deke said,
"Close the door."
And he said
that the C.I.A. had information
that the Russians were going
to try to go to the moon,
and that they
he wanted to know
if we could move our mission
from a, a February
or March launch
to a December launch
and go to the moon,
if we could retrain ourselves
This was in August.
And I said yes, we could.
♪♪
ANDERS:
We had been told that
the Soviets were going to try
to launch
the first manned-flight
up and around the moon.
It was proven that they, indeed,
tried it unmanned,
they had selected crew to fly
a manned flight.
(rocket firing)
Many of the earlier flights were
unsuccessful
for various reasons.
(explosion)
So unbeknownst to us,
the Russians got cold feet.
But NASA, under the threat
of having the Soviets scoop them
yet again,
decided to shuffle
the Apollo flights,
take Apollo 8,
whose lunar module was
behind schedule anyway,
give us the first Saturn V,
and on that we would just go
around the moon
without a lunar module.
♪♪
BORMAN:
My odds for mission success
were 100%.
If I didn't think
I was coming back,
I wasn't going to go.
Bill Anders,
I think had figured out,
think he said, 30%
for mission success.
But he was more analytical
than I am.
♪♪
ANDERS:
Well, it was a big rocket,
full of very explosive stuff.
We went through the drill
of escaping,
which was riding a wire and
then jumping down to a shoot,
and then jumping down there
and landing in a room on springs
and padded chairs,
and I thought,
"We'll never get that far."
♪♪
And so the chance
of beating the Russians
with this mere threat
of the Saturn V blowing up
was not a big factor,
at least in my concern.
The last thing we want to do
is screw up.
We'd rather die
than screw up in public.
Standard fighter-pilot view.
♪♪
POPPY NORTHCUTT:
They accelerated the schedule
on Apollo 8 so much,
the, the flight controllers had
not had time to train
on the return-to-earth
capability,
which was really
the big new thing
on that mission.
Well, I was on
the return-to-earth program.
I was a return-to-earth
specialist,
by the time
we were flying Apollo 8.
So we went in to help them learn
how to use
the return-to-earth program.
Poppy, what do you actually do
during space flights
here in Mission Control?
Well, my job is to get
the astronauts safely
back to earth from the moon.
What does that mean, exactly?
Well, it means determining what
their position is,
the present position,
feeding the information
into a computer program,
and getting back
their maneuver angles
and how much thrust
they have to have
to get back to the earth.
So you're computing
their trajectory
for the return to earth?
That's right.
NORTHCUTT (voiceover):
It was a complete peculiarity
to have a woman
in an operational role
in Mission Control.
I was the first one.
For quite a while,
I was the only woman
in a technical role in Houston.
There were some
computer programmers,
a few of those,
but in terms of working
on the engineering side,
I was the only one.
So I did interviews
with all kinds of people.
REPORTER 10:
But how did a girl
of only 25 get into this job
at such an early age?
Well,
I studied mathematics
in college,
and I came to work here
right out of school.
I've been working
on this particular project
ever since I came to work here.
Aren't the men jealous of you?
No, I don't think so.
NORTHCUTT (voiceover):
It was a very sexist society
at that time,
which informed my becoming
a feminist.
(typewriter keys clacking)
I started off working
as a computress.
I don't know why they called
them computresses.
We weren't necessarily doing
computer work.
It was sort of like Mad Men.
That was
a fairly accurate depiction
of the world for women.
But I was really fascinated.
I wanted to know
what I was doing
and why I was doing it.
And I had a math degree,
and I'd taken
a celestial mechanics course,
so I just worked my butt off.
They guys that I was working
around could tell
that I was working really hard.
I was working
as hard as they were,
or even harder, to be honest.
I mean, it was a boys' club,
no doubt about it.
I was sort of the trophy.
I was blonde, I was young,
I was thin,
I wore, you know,
the latest fashion clothes.
♪♪
How much attention do men
in Mission Control pay
to a pretty girl wearing
miniskirts?
Well, I think the first time
a girl in a miniskirt comes
into the MOCR,
they pay you quite
a lot of attention,
but after a while they become
a little bit more accustomed
to you and pay more attention
to the consoles.
It's been charged
that when you walk
into the Mission Operations
Control Room,
the mission grinds
to a screeching halt.
(chuckling):
That's not true.
NORTHCUTT (voiceover):
Well, of course
I was being used.
My feeling was,
"You can play this both ways."
The mere fact
that a lot of women found out
for the first time
that there was a woman
in Mission Control
was a very big deal.
♪♪
I thought it was important
that people understand
that women can do these jobs
Going into science,
going into technology,
going into you know,
doing something
that's not stereotypical.
(dramatic movie soundtrack
playing)
ANNOUNCER:
Coverage
of the Apollo 8 mission,
a presentation of ABC News,
is brought to you by Tang,
the instant breakfast drink.
FRANK REYNOLDS:
Apollo 8 is the next
necessary step
in realizing the goal outlined
by President Kennedy in 1961.
No astronaut will set foot
on the surface of the
BORMAN:
NASA wanted me to allow
a film crew
to come into the house
while we were up
on our way to the moon.
JULES BERGMAN:
They are
in their Command Module.
BORMAN:
I mentioned this to Susan,
and she was opposed to it.
(beeping)
She didn't want it,
but I said, "Susan, look,
this is going to be important
for the space program."
BERGMAN:
And there on Pad 39
we can see liquid oxygen fumes
coming from the first stage
VALERIE ANDERS:
When there was a flight,
all the wives would usually go
to the home of the wife
whose husband was up there,
and bring food
and take care of children
and do whatever was necessary
Run errands.
And so there was a support there
that, that was interconnected,
and the children felt that too.
You know, it was, "Oh
whose dad is going up next?"
BERGMAN:
22 minutes and 38 seconds
before liftoff,
all still going well.
Colonel Frank Borman,
the 40-year-old command pilot
of Apollo 8
is a veteran astronaut
for these past six years.
How risky is this flight
compared to Gemini 7,
your 14-day flight?
BORMAN:
It's more risky than Gemini 7,
there's no question about that.
We have the
BORMAN (voiceover):
The fire shattered
my wife's confidence
in, in NASA
and in the Apollo program.
She had always thought
that the
somehow that it, it always
happens to the other guy.
Well, when it happened
to Ed White,
that resonated with Susan,
and she began to, to fantasize
that I might be
in the same situation.
♪♪
And the subsequent interaction
with Pat White
had left Susan shaken
and drinking too much.
REYNOLDS:
Well, all seems to be going
very well at Cape Kennedy.
We are 12 minutes and 48 seconds
away from launch time.
CRONKITE:
Man is about to leave his planet
for the first time.
Odds are against
a major systems failure,
but if one occurred,
the men could be lost.
♪♪
NORTHCUTT:
We were fixing errors
very close to flight time,
which you're not supposed
to be doing,
you're supposed to have,
you know, sealed the system,
and we were still fixing errors.
My feeling was they were flying
with baling wire
and rubber bands.
Everybody here
at Cape Kennedy knows
how much is riding on this one.
And here's
how the mission will be flown.
This is the earth;
the launch takes place
from the Cape here,
goes into orbit, earth orbit,
makes two loops around the earth
as the spacecraft systems are
being checked out by the pilots.
When they decide they are going
to commit to lunar flight,
they will fire off
their third-stage engine,
200,000 pounds of it, here,
and that will take them out
into what's called
the trans-lunar trajectory.
They will drop that third stage
and then be on their own
for the two-and-a-half day
flight to the moon.
KING:
T minus 50 seconds and counting,
we have the power transferred,
and we're now
on the flight batteries
within the launch vehicle.
45 seconds, final reports coming
from Frank Borman at this time,
final look at the switch list
aboard the spacecraft.
35 seconds and counting.
We'll lead up to
an, an ignition sequence start
at 8.9 seconds.
This will lead up,
as we build up the thrust
to a liftoff,
if all goes well, at zero.
We just passed
the 25-second mark in the count.
20 seconds, all aspects,
we are still go at this time.
T minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 11,
ten, nine
We have ignition sequence start,
the engines are armed.
Four, three, two, one, zero.
We have commit,
we have we have liftoff.
Liftoff at 7:51 a.m.
Eastern Standard Time.
(rocket roaring)
We have cleared the tower.
(rocket continues roaring)
♪♪
ANDERS:
We trained for almost everything
for an Apollo flight.
Emergencies after emergencies
in the simulators.
The one thing
that we didn't train for
was the dynamics
of the Saturn V liftoff.
♪♪
The first 20 seconds were
violent.
We were literally slammed
back and forth in the seats.
I felt like a rat in the jaws
of a giant terrier.
You couldn't hear
yourself think.
BERGMAN:
Now from 42,000 feet,
a speed of almost 2,000 miles
an hour
at this instant.
♪♪
(indistinct talking on radio)
♪♪
There's that majestic plume
of flame behind the Saturn V
as she thunders into the sky
gathering speed.
HANEY (on P.A.):
to the mission,
and Frank Borman has confirmed
each event
with Mike Collins at this point.
(indistinct talking on radio)
BERGMAN:
There it is,
staging and the burnout
of the first stage engines,
right on the money.
HANEY:
We can see
the first-stage cutoff.
BERGMAN:
6,000 miles an hour.
More than 225,000 feet high,
burning beautifully,
Borman, Lovell, and Anders
off perfectly
HANEY:
has been relieved
at the Cape.
Three minutes into the flight,
we're 50 miles high.
BERGMAN:
There's the escape tower
separating.
HANEY:
And about ten miles downrange.
♪♪
"We have SECO,"
says Frank Borman.
SECO, and I would call it
11 minutes, 30 seconds.
BERGMAN:
And they are in orbit,
that's Frank Borman's voice
in the background,
saying we have SECO.
In two hours and 33 minutes
from now, over Australia,
Borman, Lovell, and Anders will
fire up that S-IVB engine again,
or attempt to fire it up again,
to propel themselves
to escape velocity,
25,000 miles an hour.
The first men in history
to leave the gravitational field
of the earth
and head out toward
another planet, the moon.
♪♪
ANDERS:
We only had an orbit and a half
to make sure it was working,
because once you lit
that third stage,
there wasn't any coming back.
COLLINS (on radio):
Apollo 8, Houston.
BORMAN (on radio):
Go ahead, Houston.
COLLINS:
Apollo 8,
you are a go for TLI, over.
BORMAN:
Roger, understand,
we're a go for TLI.
♪♪
BUCKBEE:
Mission Control told
the astronauts,
"You are go for TLI,"
and everybody in the pressroom,
"What is TLI?"
COLLINS:
You got a situation
where a guy with
a radio transmitter in his hand
is going to tell
the first three human beings
they can leave the
gravitational field of earth.
I can remember at the time
thinking, "Jesus, you know,
there's got to be a better way
of saying this,"
but we had our technical jargon.
So I said, you know,
"Apollo 8, you're go for TLI."
BUCKBEE:
Trans-Lunar Insertion.
That's the first time
we'd ever heard that call
to the crew.
It means, "You're going
to launch out of earth orbit
on an escape velocity,
25,000 miles an hour."
♪♪
COLLINS:
Apollo 8, coming up
on 20 seconds to ignition,
mark it,
and you're looking very good.
BORMAN:
Roger.
ANDERS:
I mean, we'd trained,
and "Go for TLI,"
we'd heard it 30 times
in the simulator.
And, yeah,
it was a little different.
BORMAN:
Ignition.
COLLINS:
Roger, ignition.
♪♪
ANDERS:
Particularly
when that rocket cut in,
and unlike the simulator,
you could feel this push
for quite a few minutes.
♪♪
COLLINS:
Apollo 8, Houston,
trajectory and guidance
look good, over.
BORMAN:
Roger, Apollo 8, good here.
ANDERS:
So we knew we were going
like scalded dogs there
by the time that engine cut out,
and that's when we set
the world speed record.
Seven miles a second,
25,000 miles an hour.
♪♪
(indistinct talking,
dog barking)
REPORTER 11:
Mrs. Borman,
what did your husband have
to say
when you last saw him?
You mean when we said goodbye?
Yes, ma'am.
Now, that's very personal,
you know that.
But he all through the week
on our phone conversations
VALERIE ANDERS:
It was daunting to go outside,
because
the reporters never left.
I didn't go out there myself,
because it was,
it was too overwhelming.
MAN:
Come on, say it for the picture.
SUSAN BORMAN:
Really, I'd love
I'd love nothing better
than to make a beautiful,
profound statement for you
that would be earth-shaking
for everyone,
but I'm, I'm just speechless.
I this hasn't sunk in yet.
REPORTER 12:
Which stage was most
did you feel the most
intense about?
SUSAN BORMAN:
Well, I think both the launch,
and, uh then the burn into
what do they call it?
The
TLI?
TLI, thank you very much.
I think both of those would
pretty much go hand in hand
emotionally.
ADVERTISEMENT NARRATOR:
This is a typical meal served
to astronauts
aboard Apollo space flights.
Oatmeal, sausage,
toast, applesauce,
and in a special
zero-gravity pouch, Tang
The energy breakfast drink.
Tang, with rich
ANDERS:
Before flight, they wanted us
to basically try the
personal items, like the food.
They wanted to make sure
we weren't allergic.
One of the things was
the Fecal Containment Device.
Sounds pretty high-faluting,
Fecal Containment Device.
The Fecal Containment Device
looked
like a, a plastic top hat,
with a sticky rim,
stick it to your bottom,
and it had a built-in glove.
So I tested this thing
and resolved
that I would see
if I could avoid using it.
I went the whole flight
without taking a crap.
♪♪
COLLINS:
Apollo 8, this is Houston, over.
BORMAN:
Go ahead Houston,
how do you read?
COLLINS:
Roger, we're reading you loud
and clear.
We're on a private loop now,
and we'd like to get
some amplifying details
on your medical problem.
Could you go back
to the beginning
and give us a brief recap,
please?
ANDERS:
Poor Frank got sick.
Frank had thrown up,
and not only threw up,
but he was what us engineers
call a balanced couple
Both ends, you know?
It was a mess.
Just imagine a bunch of diarrhea
and vomit
floating around
right in front of you.
I grabbed a, an oxygen mask
that was only supposed to be
worn during fire.
I put the mask on, because
it didn't smell good at all.
We didn't announce that
to the earth,
and because we had
a special channel
that I knew about,
being a communications guy,
where we could put it on tape,
that didn't go through
NASA Public Affairs.
BORMAN (on radio):
Mike, this is Frank,
I'm feeling a lot better now.
I think I got a case of the
24-hour flu, intestinal flu.
COLLINS:
Roger, understand.
And when did
you first notice it?
Or could you go back to P00
and start us out
with the beginning
of your problem?
ANDERS:
Wasn't much they could do
about it anyway.
We certainly
weren't coming back.
We finally got the place
cleaned up,
but it, it's amazing
how you can learn to live
in a filthy environment.
After a while
you kind of get used to it.
(rumbling)
If all those great big antennas
and that little four-and-a-half
pound camera works
as everybody expects it to,
we're due for some very
exciting pictures
Possibly even more exciting
than the ones
that were sent back
by the crew of Apollo 7.
BORMAN:
Do you have a picture now?
KEN MATTINGLY:
That's a negative.
EECOM, are you
the television expert?
Or F.A.O., who knows the most
about that camera?
Got any suggestions?
BORMAN:
Do you have anything, Houston?
We have it on the earth.
MAN:
I don't have anything.
MATTINGLY:
Okay, we're having no joy.
BORMAN (voiceover):
What I wanted to do
more than anything else
was to go to the moon
and come back,
and I didn't want anything
that might deter that mission.
And somehow I figured that
the television might do that.
MATTINGLY:
Apollo 8, we have a picture now.
ANDERS (on radio):
He's on candid camera.
ANDERS (voiceover):
Frank was strictly
mission-oriented,
he didn't want to have anything
that would detract
from the success of the mission.
So he balked at the TV camera.
We didn't need it.
We were there to show that
we could go around the moon,
and we'd beat the Russians
in going around the moon,
and so who needed a TV camera?
Well, I thought
we ought to have it,
just to be able to show
the people on earth,
you know, what we were doing.
♪♪
BORMAN:
I was overruled, rightfully so,
because after all,
the American people deserved
to see
what they were getting
for their money.
BORMAN:
We're rolling around
to a good view of the earth,
and as soon as we get
to the good view of the earth,
we'll stop and
let you look out the window
at the scene we see.
♪♪
CRONKITE:
I assume that shortly
we'll get some explanation
of the picture we're seeing.
Doesn't make a great deal
of sense to me,
here at the moment.
HANEY:
We're theorizing here;
that bright spot in top left
center of your picture
is the earth.
COLLINS:
That's the best centering
we've had, Apollo 8,
if you could just hold that,
that's perfect.
BORMAN:
Well, I hope that
everyone enjoys the picture
that we're taking of themselves.
How far away from earth, now,
Jim, about?
COLLINS:
We have you about 180,000.
BORMAN:
All right, well, you're all
looking at yourselves
as seen from 180,000 miles.
♪♪
(car horn honks)
ANDERS:
You know, Jules Verne would
portray astronauts, cosmonauts
as peering out the window,
watching the moon get bigger
and bigger.
As a matter of fact,
we never saw the moon
until we got there.
One of the reasons why is that
NASA, rightly, was worried
that since we went
during a very new moon,
that meant that the
sun was almost behind the moon.
So anybody looking at it
would be looking right
at an unfiltered sun,
and they worried
that it would hurt our eyes.
JERRY CARR:
Apollo 8, Houston,
one minute to L.O.S.,
all systems go.
BORMAN:
Roger,
go to Command reset,
tape recorder forward,
low bit rate.
CARR:
Roger, safe journey, guys.
ANDERS:
Thanks a lot, troops.
LOVELL:
We'll see you on the other side.
♪♪
ANDERS:
It wasn't until
we actually were getting ready
to go into lunar orbit,
when we turned the spacecraft
backwards
and were preparing to reignite
the service propulsion engine
to slow us down.
And we went
into the shadow of the moon.
There was this huge black void,
and that was the moon.
And I must say
that the hair went up
on the back of my neck
when I saw that.
♪♪
CARR:
Apollo 8, Houston, over.
NORTHCUTT:
When they went behind the moon
the first time,
we had what you call
loss of signal.
So no radio contact.
And then you have a predicted
time for acquisition of signal
as they come back around.
But they do their maneuver
on the back side of the moon.
That maneuver behind the moon
is very critical,
because if they come out
too early, it's not good,
if they come out too late,
it's not good.
They really need to be
coming out
when you think
they're going to come out,
or they may be running
into the moon.
CARR:
Apollo 8, Houston, over.
Apollo Control, Houston,
we've heard nothing yet,
but we're standing by.
NORTHCUTT:
Well, they didn't come out
on time.
CARR:
Apollo 8, Houston, over.
NORTHCUTT:
During the mission itself,
I sat in the staff support room,
not the room that you, you would
see on TV at that time.
In the room where I was,
I don't think anybody was
breathing the whole time.
I mean, you were just watching
that clock,
and you were hearing
the CapCom calling out,
and nobody was answering.
CARR:
Apollo 8, Houston, over.
And I've never had such
a small amount of time
seem so long.
CARR:
Apollo 8, Apollo 8,
this is Houston, Houston, over.
BORMAN:
Roger, Houston,
we read you loud and clear.
How you read us?
CARR:
Apollo 8, this is Houston
reading you loud and clear now.
We've got it, we've got it.
Apollo 8 now in, in lunar orbit,
there's a cheer in this room.
This is Apollo Control Houston,
switching now
to the voice of Jim Lovell.
VALERIE ANDERS:
The three wives had a squawk box
in the house,
to see what was going on
on the flight.
LOVELL:
169.1 by 60.5.
CARR:
Apollo 8, this is Houston,
roger, 169.1 by 60.5.
Good to hear your voice
VALERIE ANDERS:
When they came out
from behind the moon,
Marilyn and, and Susan
and I got together,
at, at Susan Borman's house,
and we all just rejoiced.
It was one of those things where
there were so many untried,
unknown parts of that flight,
that each step, you'd think,
"Well, can we,
can this be successful again?"
CARR:
Roger.
LOVELL:
We don't know whether you can
see it from the TV screen,
but the moon is nothing
but a milky white,
completely void.
We're changing the cameras
to the other window now.
CRONKITE:
They've got two windows
from which they can get
good, clear pictures
uh, from the spacecraft.
BORMAN:
We're switching so
that we can show you the moon,
that we've been flying over
at 60 miles altitude,
for the last 16 hours.
Bill Anders, Jim Lovell,
and myself
have spent the, the day
before Christmas up here,
doing experiments,
taking pictures,
and firing
our spacecraft engines
to maneuver around.
What we'll do now is
follow the trail
that we've been following
all day
and take you on
to, to a lunar sunset.
ANDERS:
Backside of the moon,
for reasons that still are
in debate,
is much rougher, no mare,
a lot of craters
Uh looked like a battlefield.
All torn up.
BORMAN (on radio):
I know my own impression is that
it's a, a vast, lonely,
forbidding-type existence,
or expanse of nothing.
It looks really like clouds
and clouds of pumice stone,
and it certainly
would not appear to be
a very inviting place
to, to live or work.
Jim, what have you thought?
ANDERS (voiceover):
We were busy, you know,
looking at the surface,
and curious,
but I must say,
it got boring fast.
I mean, you look at a crater,
and they all look alike.
BORMAN (on radio):
There is a fresh, bright,
impact crater
ANDERS:
And Lovell had the same reaction
through
the navigation telescope.
It all looked the same.
The closer you looked,
the more holes there were.
BORMAN (on radio):
I hope that all of you
back on earth
can see what we mean when we say
it's a rather
foreboding horizon,
rather, rather dark
and unappetizing.
Is that our landing site
over there?
LOVELL:
Yeah, this is our landing site,
right down here.
BORMAN:
We're now going over,
LOVELL:
Approaching one landing site.
BORMAN:
Approaching
one of our future landing sites,
selected in this smooth region
to
LOVELL:
The Sea of Tranquility.
BORMAN:
It's called
the Sea of Tranquility,
smooth in order to make it easy
for the initial landing attempt,
in order to preclude having
to dodge mountains.
♪♪
ANDERS:
So by the time we got around
the third revolution,
by this time, we'd sort of
saturated on the moon.
♪♪
ANDERS (on radio):
Oh, my God, look at that picture
over there.
That is the earth coming up.
Wow, isn't that pretty.
BORMAN:
Hey, don't take that,
it's not scheduled.
(chuckles)
♪♪
ANDERS:
You got a color film, Jim?
Hand me a roll of color quick,
would you?
Oh, man, that's great
Where is it?
ANDERS:
Quick!
ANDERS (voiceover):
And so here was something
that was different.
Absolutely not briefed on,
nobody had told us on the ground
that the earth was going
to come up.
We had no photographic
instructions,
no light meter.
LOVELL:
Down here?
ANDERS:
Just grab me a color,
a color exterior.
LOVELL:
Exterior?
ANDERS:
Anything, quick.
Here.
Okay.
(inaudible)
Here, give it to me.
Just let me get
the right setting.
Calm down, Lovell.
Oh, I got it, right.
Oh, that's a beautiful shot.
You're sure we got it now?
Yeah, it'll come up again.
ANDERS (voiceover):
And suddenly here was
this beautiful shot,
only color in the universe.
♪♪
(shutter clicks)
It would become
the top-ten photograph
of the 20th century.
♪♪
But, of course,
I'm the guy that took it,
what else would I say?
♪♪
BORMAN:
Well, let's talk about that,
that's what I want to
Why don't we do this?
Why don't you hold it
out the window like you did,
and I'll say a couple words
and then we'll say
something about
how this kind of reminds you
how it might have started.
Hey, wait,
we got to do it up right,
because there'll be more people
listening to this
than ever listened to any
other single person in history.
BORMAN (voiceover):
We'd been told
before the flight,
"When you're televising
from the moon on Christmas Eve,
"you'll have
the largest audience
that's ever listened
to a human voice."
I said, "That's nice,
what do you want us to do?
"Do something appropriate."
We thought,
"What's appropriate?"
ANDERS:
Frank Borman went
and asked a friend of his,
who asked his wife.
And she said,
"Well, why don't you tell them
just to read
from the first book of Genesis?"
Which, you know,
the creation myth,
or the creation story,
is pretty fundamental.
♪♪
BORMAN:
And we looked at it,
and we thought, all of us,
"This is perfect."
♪♪
ANDERS (on radio):
And for all the people back
on earth,
the crew of Apollo 8 has
a message
that we would like to send
to you.
"In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth.
"And the earth was without form,
and void,
"and darkness was upon
the face of the deep,
"and the spirit of God moved
upon the face of the water.
"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 (voiceover):
I can't speak
for the other guys,
but to me,
it was not a religious thing.
So much of it was a kind
of a hard hit
to the psychological
solar plexus
that would help mark
to humankind
the gravity, so to speak,
of man's first departure
from his home planet.
BORMAN (on radio):
"And the gathering together
of the waters called He seas;
And God saw that it was good."
And from the crew of Apollo 8,
we close with good night,
good luck,
a Merry Christmas,
and God bless all of you,
all of you on the good earth.
♪♪
(static hisses)
WOMAN:
Merry Christmas.
How's your day been?
The day's been hectic.
We tried to sleep in,
because we'd been up so late.
Christmas got a little bit late
this morning.
So I think we're late to church.
Thank you.
(indistinct talking)
(chuckles)
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Thanks for being so patient.
How was this morning?
It's been actually a very
lonesome Christmas this morning.
I miss Jim, but
it's one of
the happiest Christmases
I think I'll ever have.
ANDERS:
All religions are based
on the fact
that the earth is the focus
of the universe,
and God sits up there
with His supercomputer
and keeps track
of all the rights and wrongs.
Orbiting earth
and then going to the moon,
it's given me
a different outlook.
The earth is really nowhere near
as special
as we'd like to think it is.
Though it is our home planet
for humans,
and it's the only one we got
right now,
and there's none in, you know,
in easy sight to get to,
so therefore
we ought to take care of it.
But we shouldn't think
that this is the
designated center of everything.
♪♪
(beep)
MISSION CONTROL PERSONNEL:
We show a loss of signal
with the spacecraft.
We are now
about 28 minutes prior
to our Trans-Earth Injection
maneuver.
(beep)
♪♪
NORTHCUTT:
You're going to fire your engine
basically one time,
and that's got to take you
all the way home.
A small miss, at the beginning,
when you fire the engine,
can represent a heck
of a large miss at the end,
like missing the whole planet.
LOVELL:
Houston, Apollo 8, over.
MATTINGLY:
Hello, Apollo 8.
Loud and clear.
LOVELL:
Roger, please be informed,
there is a Santa Claus.
MATTINGLY:
Apollo 8, can you confirm
your burn time, please?
LOVELL:
Roger, we have three minutes,
23 seconds.
Thank you.
ANDERS:
We were much faster
on the way home.
And we came in at night.
(helicopter rotors droning)
We were in pitch darkness,
and the parachutes,
all we could feel was the jerk.
When the sun finally came up,
I remember getting
out on the carrier
and walking across the deck,
thinking, "If I don't get
to a toilet,
I'm going to be embarrassed
right in front of everybody."
That's my unrecorded
world record,
three quarters
of a million miles
without taking a crap.
♪♪
REPORTER 12:
Come right up here.
CAMERA OPERATOR:
Right there.
I'm still speechless.
Just tremendous relief,
and just truly the happiest day.
I, I just can't explain.
I couldn't believe
it was going so perfectly,
and I couldn't believe that
they actually sighted that thing
from the ship in the dark.
And I am so proud
for our country
that we could accomplish,
our husbands could accomplish
this mission.
JOHNSON (on phone):
There's just no other comparison
that we can make
that's equal to what you've done
or to what we feel.
Because you've seen
what man has really never seen
before.
You've taken us,
taken all of us.
All over the world
into a new era.
And my thoughts this morning
went back
to more than ten years ago
in the Pedernales Valley.
When we saw Sputnik racing
through the skies,
and we realized that America had
a big job ahead of it.
It gave me so much pleasure
to know
that you men have done
a large part of that job.
So we rejoice that you're well,
and we send you congratulations
from all
of your fellow countrymen,
and from all peace-loving people
in the world.
Well done.
(marching band playing)
CRONKITE:
Today a great new chapter
has been added
to the story of creation
and of growth.
Man literally has wrenched
himself away
from the earth that bound him
down through the millennia.
A year of trouble
and turbulence,
anger and assassination,
is now coming to an end
in incandescent triumph.
(cheers and applause)
VALERIE ANDERS:
I don't know
that I was prepared for that.
My mother kept saying,
"Do you only have one dress?"
(chuckling):
But, you know,
we didn't have any money,
so I only did have one dress.
So we went to New York,
and New York was
the ticker-tape parade.
And then we went to Houston,
and, and all, all
of the children were with us
in the Houston parade.
It was
it was an interesting time.
NORTHCUTT:
Afterwards, I got letters
from all around the world.
I got tons of letters
from African countries,
all over the world, addressed to
"Poppy, Space Program, U.S.A."
I got marriage proposals.
I got letters from little girls
all around the world too.
You know, I got tons
of recognition
that women could do a job that
they never had thought before.
So was it sexist?
Yes.
But you got to start somewhere.
(cheers and applause)
BORMAN:
We had thousands of letters
and telegrams and so on,
after we got back from Apollo 8.
But the one that really caught
my attention
was a lady that said,
"Thank you, you saved 1968."
(jet engines roaring overhead)
♪♪
ALEXANDER:
Well, now that you're back
on earth,
and you had a sample of
these receptions and parades,
I guess you're aware of the fact
that your lives will,
will never be free again
of the moon's influence.
Were you prepared to, to deal
with this
before the flight, and
how do you feel about it now?
I feel that, right now, we are
merely symbols of a program
of which I think
all Americans should be proud.
But shortly we are going to have
more flights,
and shortly we're going to have
people who actually land
and walk
and explore the lunar surface.
And I think these new symbols
will far overshadow,
perhaps, what we've done.
Colonel Borman, that old master
of rocketry,
Wernher von Braun,
has said that a circumlunar
A flight around the moon
Gives you 80% of the credit
with only 20% of the risk.
Does that mean that 80% of
the risk of landing on the moon
is still ahead of you all?
I haven't tried to asses it
in percentage points,
but I would say definitely
that the extremely risky part
of the flight
will be the actual touchdown
on the lunar surface.
♪♪
♪♪
(birds chirping)
♪♪
(birds chirping continues)
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♪♪