HT This Day: Dec 26, 1968 - Spacemen Racing Back Home
For the astronauts, who became the first men to see the moon at close range, the rocket firing was crucial. Had there been a malfunction, they might have been stranded in space to die when their oxygen ran out.
Apollo-8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were set to celebrate a comparatively relaxed Christmas Day in space after success fully breaking free from the grip of lunar gravity following their spectacular whirl around the moon.
With a Christmas Eve message of good will to the world, “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus,” the spacemen started the return journey of their 480,000-mile round trip by successfully firing a blast from their main rocket engine. There were six frightening minutes while Apollo control tried repeatedly to get voice contact with the spacecraft.
For the astronauts, who became the first men to see the moon at close range, the rocket firing was crucial. Had there been a malfunction, they might have been stranded in space to die when their oxygen ran out.
The rocket firing came at 11-40 a.m. IST and minutes later Apollo wheeled out from behind the moon homebound at about 6.000 miles per hour.
“We have signal and there’s a little bit of a cheer going up from the flight controllers here,” mission control reported.
The three-minute 18-second burn added enough speed to the 3.600 miles per hour Apollo-8 was travelling to carry it away from the moon’s primary gravitational influence, and send it into the pull of the earth.
“This gives you the sensation that you’re climbing.” Apillo-8 reported when confirmation of a good rocket burn was passed up to the spaceship.
If all goes well, they will splash down in the Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii at 9.21 p.m. IST on Friday.
As communications with the spacecraft were resumed and word was received of the successful firing, tension which had been building up in the flight control room in Houston was broken with a cheer.
At the time the astronauts started their journey back, the moon was about 232,000 statute miles from the earth.
However, the spacecraft will cover more than that distance, as it does not travel in a straight line.
When voice contact with the spacecraft was re-established, there was a great deal of noise on the circuits which came through the Honeysuckle, Australia, receiving station.
However, space officials said everything had been “very close to normal” and scientists at the centre were pleased with the burn.
The first words uttered by the astronauts when they emerged from the communications blackout were: “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.”
Automatic telemetry contact was made just after the spacecraft cleared the dark side, but there were several minutes before the astronauts’ voices reported the results of the rocket burn.
Flight controllers said they were satisfied the rocket firing would successfully bring the Apollo spacecraft back to earth on Friday as scheduled.
If the crucial firing of the spacecraft engine as the craft sped above the dark side of the moon worried the astronauts, they showed no sign of concern.
After a slight delay in restoring voice communications when the Apollo emerged from the moon’s far side, the first words, apparently Lovell’s, were not about the engine burn at all, but about Santa Claus.
The Houston Space Centre said it seemed only two slight trajectory corrections would be necessary midway between the moon and the earth.
The first is planned for 20.51 GMT (02.21 IST Thursday). This correction was to have been made at 09.09 GMT (14.39 IST) but was found not to be necessary at that stage.
At 16.00 GMT (21.30 IST) today Apollo-8 was flying at 4,000 feet a second, 179,000 nautical miles from the earth.
Some time after 18.00 GMT (23.30 IST) the spacecraft was expected to reach the noint where the earth’s pull will increase its speed.
After his stint at the controls on the way back to earth, Anders -tired out from his extra work as the Apollo’s cameraman-took a sleeping pill and slept as his companions took over.
Before he went to sleep one of the ground controllers radioed up to ask Barman to check whether Anders had hung up his socks for Father Christmas.
Anders himself radioed back-to tell the ground control that he had put them beside his teddy bear.
While he slept, Borman and Lovell received Christmas messages from their families.
Mrs Borman sent a message to space to tell her husband that his two sons and the rest of the family were waiting eagerly for the Apollo’s return.
Mrs Lovell reassured her husband that his presents were still round the Christmas Tree and that there was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding waiting for him when he returned to the house.
From the spaceship, Lovell told the space centre that he and the others had not been able to find a chimney in the spacecraft and so they had not seen Father Christmas.
Christmas message
Earlier today as they prepared to return home, the astronauts sent a Christmas message to earth in which they quoted from the Book of Genesis and added: “And from the crew of the Apollo-8, we pause with good night, good luck, and Merry Christmas and God bless all of you-all of you on the good earth.”
Mission controllers said that they were examining the taped record of the rocket burn before giving their final evaluation of its results.
Conversations between ground and the Apollo crew were limited to exchanges of figures and technical information.
Officials said preliminary estimates were that the burn lasted three minutes and 23 seconds, about six seconds longer than had been planned.
One of the astronauts reported that it had been “a very, very nice ride,” and he expressed the crewmen’s thanks to everyone on the ground.
Communications improved considerably as the spacecraft started back towards the earth.
Observers at first thought they heard one of the astronauts saying the burn had lasted only two minutes, 23 seconds, but space officials said later that it actually had lasted three minutes, 23 seconds.
A burn that was too short might have pushed the spacecraft into what is officially described as “an unstable orbit” and might have left them stranded.
Borman, Lovell and Anders circled the moon 10 times in 20 hours and gazed down upon a bleak. colourless landscape of rugged mountains, crater-pitted plains and rugged highlands.
Twice they shared their view with earthlings by beaming to earth dramatic pictures of the desolation as Apollo-8 flew just 112 km above the surface. They opened the telecast with a blurred picture looking across the lunar horizon at the earth.
“The moon is a different thing to each of us.” commander Borman told the television audience. “My own impression is that it is a vast, forbidding expanse of nothing. It’s not a very inviting place to live or work.”
Lovell said, “It makes you realize what you have back on earth,” which he termed “a grand oasis in the vastness of space.”
Anders said he was impressed most by “lunar sunrises and sunsets.”
Lot of bumbs
While they reported the visible face of the moon to have areas which looked suitable for landing, Lovell described the back side as being “ all beat up -just a lot of bumps and holes.”
The astronauts pointed out several craters near the Sea of Crisis, which they described as made of a “ dark level material with fresh bright impact areas toward the edge.”
The camera showed the moon through the window of the spaceship as it passed its ninth and next-to-last orbit of the moon. The orbit had an apogee (high point) of 663 miles (about 95 km.) and a perigee (low point) of 58-9 miles (89 km.) above the lunar surface.
At one point William Anders said he saw a dark area which “could possibly be an old lava flow.
He described the moon as looking like “miles and miles of pumice stone.”
The astronauts said the intensity of the sun’s reflection on the surface made it difficult to pick out features. But they approached the “terminator,” the line between dark and light on the moon where long shadows made the terrain easier to see.
Borman. Lovell and Anders at 3-29 p.m. IST yesterday became the first human beings ever to see the moon at close range when their spacecraft swung into an orbit only some 60 nautical miles from the lunar surface.
At that time the moon was more than 231.000 statute miles (nearly 370,000 kilometres) from earth.
They gazed in astonishment at a sight never before seen by man - the backside of the moon that constantly hides itself from earth. The astronauts then zipped around to the front side to beam to earth dramatic pictures.
During the 10 moon orbits Apollo-8 spacecraft astronauts were kept busy doing an almost non-stop series of navigational experiments, especially landmark tracking, taking photographs and carrying out the routine but necessary chores about the spacecraft.
Air Force Col. Frank Borman remarked at one point that “as usual in the real world, the flight plan looks a lot fuller than it did in Florida.”
Air Force Major William Anders particularly was kept on the hop taking photographs, “He is moving from one couch to another, he is using several kinds of cameras, changing lenses, and he is as busy as one man-one astronaut-could be,” space officials said.
By it’s sixth revolution around the moon, the Apollo-8’s orbit had changed slightly to 62.3 by 59.8 nautical miles from the lunar surface, with a speed of 5,337 feet (1,626 metres) per second.
Yesterday afternoon, Anders complained that the spacecraft’s side windows were so hazy “that when the sun shines on them…. they are real poor for any visual observation or photography.”
Public Affairs Officer Paul Haney said that one of the few problems encountered on the Apollo.8 flight so far had been the fogging up of three of the spacecraft’s five windows.
Ground tests conducted during the past few days had shown that a rubbery material used in the caulking of the fogged-up windows produced a certain amount of “outgassing” under simulated lunar orbital conditions.
“A differently treated material used in the caulking of the other two windows did not produce any vapour,” he said.
“Some changes will be made in subsequent spacecraft,” Mr Haney added.
All spacecraft systems continued to be in good order.
The three tired Apollo astronauts were given permission to modify their flight plan and take well-earned rest as they whirled towards the end of their 20-hour orbit of the moon.
During the Apollo’s seventh revolution, Borman reported that he had a “tired crew” aboard after 14 hours of hectic activity as they circled the moon at a height of some 60 nautical miles.
Borman asked for the flight plan to be modified so that Lovell and Anders, who have been kept on the hop peering through fogged-up windows to take sights and photographs, could get some extra sleep.
Lovell’s voice had -earlier sounded tired as he talked to ground controllers. A few moments after being told he could stop work to take a rest, Borman reported “Lovell’s snoring already.”
Meanwhile, the astronauts yesterday gave the world a final television close-up of the “vast, forbidding expanse of nothing” that is the moon and showed a shining earth, which they called “a grand oasis in the vastness of space,” a quarter-million miles away.
The second and last telecast from Apollo-8’s lunar orbit opened with a view of the moon’s horizon, with a glowing disc-the earth-rising like a small sun.
Frank Borman said the camera showed “the view of earth as we’ve been watching it for the past 15 hours.”
Like guides taking an entire world on a celestial bus tour. the astronauts pointed out the colourfully-named lunar surface features.
Sand pile
William Anders also told ground controllers that the moon’s sunset would be the best time for a lunar touch down.
And he advised against attempting a landing on the moon’s hidden face after spotting a crater which looked to have a volcanic origin.
In one of the first descriptions of the dark side of the moon, Lovell told ground controllers: “It certainly looks like we picked a more interesting place on the moon to land in. The back side looks like a sand pile my kids have been playing in for a long time. It’s all beat up, no definition, just a lot of bumps and holes.”
“The area we’re over right now gives some hint of possible volcanic action though I can’t eyeball it (see it clearly enough) at the moment to pin that down. There are some craters and build-ups that just definitely suggest volcanic activity.”
Lovell added that planned landing triangles were “just right. I think, for landing conditions. The shadows aren’t too deep for you to get confused, the land has texture to it and enough shadows there should make everything stand out.”
When told that London’s Flat Earth Society pooh-poohed the voyage, Borman said “the earth doesn’t look too flat from here.”
The Apollo-8 crew will bring with them spectacular photographs of the moon-far better than any taken earlier by unmanned lunar probes, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman said today.
The spokesman said the three Apollo astronauts will be bringing sharper, clearer pictures back with them, taken from better angles and of incomparably higher quality.
The men’s direct statement on their own visual observations are expected to make a big contribution to scientists’ study of photographs and films taken during man’s first trip round the moon.
The Apollo crewmen, who have seen the hidden side of the moon for the first time, may help scientists work out the beginnings of an answer to countless lunar mysteries, such as the existence of the craters which pit the surface, and the apparent formation of seas of dust despite the fact that no atmosphere exists on the moon.
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