Marking the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic firsts

Apollo 8 Poised For Moon Trip

But Bad Weather Could Cancel Flight

By JIM STROTHMAN

AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. ─ With a wary eye on cloudy skies, launch crews Friday overcame a fuel contamination problem and got the go-ahead to launch three astronauts Saturday on a risky yuletide venture around the moon.

"We are go for the Apollo 8 mission, aiming for a liftoff at 7:51 a.m. EST," a National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman said after laboratory tests showed oxygen in Apollo 8's main electrical generator was no longer contaminated by nitrogen gas.

(Tucson's network television stations will carry the Apollo flight beginning at 5 a.m. local time.

KVOA (NBC) will carry the event live until 9 a.m. KOLD (CBS) telecast will run until 6:30 a.m. KGUN (ABC) will telecast the liftoff until 6 a.m.

All three stations will interrupt regular schedules throughout the day with progress bulletins.)

Weather "appears satisfactory" to launch astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr. and William C. Schneider.

However, Schneider said, "The weatherman is holding his final judgment until he gets better information" whether clouds in the launch area will prevent adequate visibility during liftoff.

Safety personnel want to be able to track the vehicle for the first 2,000 feet to assure it is on a safe course away from land, and weathermen predicted clouds would be at about the 2,-000-foot level Saturday.

Air Force Col. Borman, Navy Capt. Lovell and Air Force Maj. Anders set aside time to relax in crew quarters. The only official activity scheduled for the crew was reviewing the flight plan, but Anders was to attend a private Mass Friday evening administered by his personal priest, the Rev. Denis J. Barry, pastor of St. Martin's Catholic church in La Mesa, Calif., where the astronaut's parents reside.

Packing a television camera to bring the historic venture live to home television screens, the American flag and personal mementoes including St. Christopher medals, the Apollo 8 astronauts are to become the first men to ride atop a 363-foot-tall Saturn 5.

Space age counterparts to explorers like Columbus and Magellan, the three are to become the first men to ever travel a quarter-million-miles deep in space the distance between earth and the moon.

The current high-altitude record is held by America's Gemini 11 astronauts, who rocketed to an altitude of 851 miles in earth orbit.

Project officials agree their history-making mission is the riskiest manned space flight yet attempted.

"We have got elements of danger all along the way," Borman agreed, "but I can't help thinking when I see that booster and the spacecraft, that we are looking at the best that American technology can produce. And I have confidence that it will be good enough."

After orbiting earth nearly two times, about three hours, the Saturn 5's upper stage must propel the crew with such accuracy that Apollo 8 leads the onrushing mass of the moon by only 69 miles.

"It's like running in front of a locomotive close enough to knock a fly off the cow catcher without getting hurt," one engineer said.

After a 69-hour trip to the moon, the pilots are to trigger their main spaceship engine to kick into an egg-shaped lunar orbit ranging from 69 to 196 miles above the lunar surface. After twice circling the moon, the engine is to be triggered again to adjust the path to the 69-mile-high circular orbit.

The astronauts said they had no objection to attempting the flight at Christmastime, on a religious holiday.

"I can't think of a better religious aspect to the flight than to further explore the heavens," said Lovell. "I feel also that, as a Christmas present, I think it would be a very good one for the country."

If successful, the pilots will have proved that the Saturn 5 is capable of safely launching men to the moon and the manned space flight tracking network is capable of finding targets at lunar distances.

In Historic Moon Trek

ASTRONAUTS ON COURSE

Arizonan In Charge

By John Noble Wilford

1968 New York Times News Service

CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. ─ The three daring astronauts of Apollo 8 soared through the black emptiness of space Saturday night on their way to man's first rendezvous with the moon.

Flying higher and faster than man has ever traveled, looking back on the receding earth as a greenish-blue sphere, the astronauts were told by ground controllers that they were on a true course for their planned orbit of the moon on Christmas Eve.

Col. Frank Borman of the Air Force, Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy and Maj. William A. Anders of the Air Force set out from here at 7:51 a.m. (EST) on the fiery strength of the mammoth Saturn 5 rocket, the most powerful rocket ever launched.

The thunderous, earth-shaking launching was described as flawless. The three-stage rocket, rising out of billowing flames into the blue sky, slowly at first, then like a streaking comet, took 1 1/2 minutes to boost the astronauts into an orbit of the earth.

After they completed nearly two orbits to ensure that the spacecraft was working properly, the rocket's third stage, still attached to the spacecraft, was refired at 10:41 a.m. for about five minutes. This overcame the earth's gravitational grip and sent Apollo 8 toward the moon at an initial speed of 24,200 miles an hour.

It was the first time man had ever broken out of earth orbit and headed toward another body in the solar system.

"You're on your way," Christopher C. Kraft, director of flight operations, radioed from the Houston control center. "You're really on your way now."

"Roger, we look good here," replied Borman, the commander. (Borman is a former Tucsonan).

As planned, it will take the astronauts 66 hours to reach the moon's vicinity from earth orbit. They hope to slow and drop into an orbit of the moon, circling the ancient, crater-pocked satellite of the earth 10 times in 20 hours.

After photographing the moon from an altitude of 69 miles, testing spacecraft navigation and communications, the astronauts plan to head for home early Christmas morning. The splashdown is scheduled to take place in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 27.

Lieut. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, the Apollo program director, said at a post-launching news conference:

"I have every confidence that the mission will be a success."

Dr. Wernher von Braun, who headed development of the Saturn 5 rocket, said the flight would be recorded as "man's first step away from this abode to another heavenly body."

As such, Phillips added, Apollo 8 was "a tremendously important step in our progress toward a manned lunar landing which we hope and expect to carry out sometime next year."

When American astronauts do set foot on the moon it will be the dramatic climax of the $24 billion Apollo project, begun in 1961 by President Kennedy as a challenge to mobilize the nation's resources and develop a superior spacefaring capability.

Apollo 8 was considered an important forerunner of the lunar-landing flight because it demonstrated the power and reliability of the Saturn 5 rocket, which had never before launched men into space.

The flight also was expected to test communications and navigation systems at lunar distances and bring back close-up pictures of a potential landing site on the broad plain known as the Sea of Tranquility.

As Apollo 8 sped toward the moon, 40-year-old Borman manned the controls from his couch in the left side of the cabin. In the middle sat Lovell, also 40, whose primary duties are to navigate. On his right side was the 35-year-old Anders, who will handle most of the photographic chores.

Their crew compartment is a cone-shaped capsule 12 feet long and nearly 13 feet wide. The 12,392-pound capsule, called the command module, has an aluminum alloy inner structure encased by a brazed stainless steel heat shield coated with plastic.

Attached behind their command module was a service module, a 22-foot-long cylindrical compartment housing the electricity-producing fuel cells, oxygen supply and the 20,500-pound-thrust rocket the astronauts will depend on to get into and out of a lunar orbit.

About 30 minutes after the astronauts left earth orbit, the Saturn's third stage was separated from the spacecraft by the firing of explosive bolts. With it was also jettisoned a dummy lunar-landing craft carried along just for the weight.

After the separation, the astronauts carefully fired the spacecraft's small maneuvering rockets to increase the distance between them and the rocket to 3,000 feet. Then, on a command from the ground, the old rocket stage was boosted into what should be a wide solar orbit.

During these maneuvers, the astronauts turned their space craft so that they could see the earth they had just left. By this time they had already surpassed the previous altitude record of 850 miles set by Gemini II.

"We see the earth now," Borman reported. "It's almost a disc."

"We have a beautiful view of Florida now," Lovell interjected, "We can see the cape (Kennedy), just the point."

Lovell went on to give a brief travelogue: "At the same time, we can see Africa. West Africa is beautiful. I can also see Gibraltar at the same time I'm looking at Florida ... I can see Florida, Cuba, Central America, the whole northern half of South America. In fact, all the way down to Argentina and down through Chile."

At one point an impressed ground controller interrupted the astronauts: "Good grief, that must be quite a view." "Tell the people in Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America, to put on their raincoats, Borman said. "Looks like a storm out there."

By this time flight controllers had analyzed tracking data channeled into their computers through the 85-foot deep-dish antenna at Goldstone, Calif., one of three that will be following Apollo 8 to and from the moon.

The other antennas are located in Madrid, Spain, and Canberra, Australia.

The data indicated that the Saturn 5's aim had been so good that the spacecraft would require only a slight midcourse correction in its flight path. The astronauts were ordered later in the day to fire the main rocket engine for 2 to 3 seconds ─ a "tweaking burn," as the engineers call it.

As the spaceship drew further from earth, it gradually slowed. Because earth's gravity was still exerting a slight pull, the spacecraft's speed was expected to slacken to 10,000 miles an hour at a distance of 20,000 miles from earth and reach a minimum of about 2,700 miles an hour at a point about five-sixths of the way to the moon.

At the launching, the moon was 220,000 miles from earth, but by the time Apollo 8 arrives there the moon will move to a distance of 231,000 miles.

Approaching the moon the spacecraft will speed up to 5,600 miles an hour, being drawn in by the moon's gravity.

As the three space-age explorers settled down for their first sleep of the mission, the months of training and hours of tension leading up to their launching were far behind them.

Unlike the simple fishing port of Palos, from which Columbus set sail, the Apollo 8 astronauts embarked from a $1 billion moonport where the rocket assembly building covers eight acres, the control room is filled with banks of electronic computers and the steel-trussed launching tower stands 40 stories high.

But, ironically, their rocket has stood on a sandy finger of land a bare 100 miles across Florida from the place, near Tampa, where Jules Verne's three fictional heroes took off in a cannon-fired capsule for their imaginary flight around the moon a century ago.

Away From VIP Crowd

'Lone Eagle' Watches Shyly

By John Barbour

CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. (AP) ─ The tall, stark-white rocket held all their eyes. The loudspeaker paced out the words, "Sixty seconds and counting as we come up on a flight to the moon."

In a protected bunker, Charles A. Lindbergh 66, waited the long minute as he had through other shots, and kept his private thoughts of his own pioneer solo flight across the Atlantic 41 years ago.

Lindbergh, a frequent but shy observer of rocket shots, was allowed the seclusion of the bunker away from the other VIPs.

But Friday night he ventured briefly into the public eye.

Tall, lean, gray, balding at the temples, wearing a rumpled light gray suit, the man they called "The Lone Eagle," arrived at a dinner party late, his small dark-haired wife on his arm. He scanned the guests.

He recognized no one, and was unrecognized himself for several minutes before a woman guest realized who he was. She rushed over to shake his hand, and the concern left his face. He smiled.

At the same party were astronaut Wally Schirra, who flew the Apollo 7 mission, and astronaut Tom Stafford, slated to fly the Apollo 10 that may land men on the moon next summer.

Lindbergh spoke to the guests briefly of his own flight experiences, the importance of manned space flight, and the early days when he aided rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. But his remarks were made behind closed doors. The man who made up his mind in 1927 to fly the Atlantic alone in a single-engined plane, some 15 years ago had decided to pull out of the public arena, to refuse to "open the flood gates" of public inquiry and curiosity again.

After the dinner, in the privacy of night and the company of a friend, Charles Lindbergh made a late trip out to the moonport. He stood there at Pad 39A, looking up at Saturn 5 and the puny Apollo 8 spaceship above, bleached by the beams of a dozen searchlights.

Apollo Flight Continuing Despite Illness

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ Sick and short of sleep, the Apollo 8 astronauts streaked through a boundless, void Sunday, ever farther from earth and toward a glowing crescent moon looming larger and larger before them.

Air Force Col. Frank Borman, Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. and Air Force Maj. William A. Anders reshuffled their mission schedule Sunday night to take turns sleeping, trying to catch up from a restless first night in space that ended with Borman racked by illness.

Borman said he vomited, had diarrhea, chills and headaches during the early Sunday morning hours. He gamely kept the news of his illness from ground controllers.

When Borman did report he was ailing, the Air Force colonel shrugged off the illness as a "24-hour flu, intestinal flu," and was feeling better.

Officials said the illness wasn't serious enough to end man's first voyage around the moon, but Dr. Charles Berry, chief of medical flight operations, somberly reported that "the chances are" the illness will spread to Lovell and Anders.

Both Lovell and Anders said they had been slightly ill earlier. All three astronauts took pills to control diarrhea.

Despite their illness, the Apollo 8 astronauts beamed a television show from their high-flying stage on schedule.

The short transmission showed the crew at work in their space cabin as they flashed through space at 3,174 miles an hour.

"This program is coming to you from about halfway to the moon," said Borman, smiling and looking chipper even though he had been violently ill only hours before. "We're about 31 hours, 21 minutes on the way and less than 40 hours from the moon."

Anders, operating the TV camera, caught Lovell busy at spacecraft KP duty, preparing the crew's lunch and a dessert of chocolate pudding.

The Navy captain leaned into the camera and said, "Happy Birthday, Mother." His mother, Mrs. Blanche Lovell of Edge-water, Fla., was 73 Sunday.

Anders tried to give earthlings the first live view of their home planet, but a telephoto lens failed to work. Normal lens on the camera showed the earth only as a white, shining round blob.

After Anders tried repeatedly with the telephoto lens, a ground controller asked: "You don't have a lens cover on there, do you?"

"No," Anders said. "We checked that, as a matter of fact."

A second television transmission is scheduled for 2:06 p.m. EST Monday. Space officials said they were trying to solve the telephoto lens problem for the Monday telecast.

While the astronauts fought their illnesses, people around the world paused in the holiest of Christian seasons to offer prayers for their safety.

Pope Paul VI praised the Apollo 8 flight as a "fearless and courageous adventure."

"Our gaze moves to the sky, unable to escape this marvelous fascination." he said. The Pope asked 10,000 gathered in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City to pray for the astronauts.

In the space community around the Manned Spacecraft Center here, special prayer services were held Sunday. A recorded prayer by Borman, a lay reader at an Episcopal church here, was to be delivered at services Christmas Eve or Christmas Day at his church.

Several hours after his illness, Borman asked to adjust the flight schedule to give the crew shorter, but more frequent, sleep periods. The three took turns sleeping Sunday night and reported they were feeling better.

At one point, the spacecraft commander told the ground:

"Remember, the most important part of the trip occurs in two days (actually on Wednesday) when we start back. So you all get better rested too."

"We'll do that," a ground controller reported.

Although the illness among the crew seemed to abate by Sunday night Berry warned that it could come again and again.

The symptoms were apparently those of an intestinal virus, he said, which, in the closed environment of the spacecraft, could bounce from crewman to crewman and back again.

"They play ping pong with that sort of thing," he said, adding that if "two or three" of them come down with the illness, "it could conceivably" end the mission.

But even if the crew does have to return to earth, it will take them at least two days, because they are so far out from earth. They could, in essence, turn their spacecraft around up to about. 6:51 a.m. Monday. After that, the shortest route home will be a loop around the moon.

The spacecraft since it left earth orbit has been the prize in a celestial tug of war between the gravitational pull of the earth and the moon. The spacecraft's speed has slowly declined since it was launched toward the moon as the earth tries to pull it back. The speed will continue to decline until 3:29 p.m. EST when it reaches a low of 2,300 miles per hour. Then the moon wins the battle and grasps Apollo 8 in its gravitational embrace. The spacecraft will pick up speed until it again is traveling more than 5,000 miles an hour.

At about 69 miles above the moon's surface, the spacecraft will arc around behind the moon and out of sight of earth. The crew will fire the powerful service propulsion rocket and Apollo 8 will be captured by the moon's gravity.

It'll remain trapped there, orbiting at 3,600 miles an hour, for 20 hours, or 10 orbits. The crew will then fire the rocket again and return home. Should the rocket not fire, Apollo 8 would become an orbiting tomb for the astronaut trio.

Apollo 8 Leaves Earth Gravity, Enters Moon's

Astronauts Are First Men To Be Free From Realm Of This Planet's Attraction

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

1968 New York Times News Service

HOUSTON ─ Apollo 8 sped across the great celestial divide Into the moon's sphere of gravitational influence and closed in Monday night for man's first voyage around earth's only natural satellite.

The three astronauts thus became the first men to depart the realm of space where earth gravity dominates.

From nearly as far out, the astronauts again focused their television camera on earth, showing the half of it in bright reflected sunlight a sort of large misshapen basketball that kept bouncing around and sometimes off the television screens of millions of earthbound viewers.

The astronauts reported they could make out the royal blue of earth's oceans, dark brown land and certain landmarks, such as Lower California and the mouth of the Mississippi River. Never before had live television pictures been taken of earth at such a distance.

Speaking to his commander, Col. Frank Borman of the Air Force, Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy raised the question:

"Frank, what I keep imagining is if I am some lonely traveler from another planet what I would think about the earth at this altitude. Whether I think it would be inhabited or not."

Overhearing this at the control center, Lt. Col. Michael Collins, the capsule communicator, quipped: "Don't see anybody waving, is that what you're saying?"

Then as they began falling faster and faster toward the moon, Borman, Lovell and the third crewman, Maj. William A. Anders of the Air Force, were assured by ground controllers here that all spacecraft systems were "go" for an attempt to maneuver into lunar orbit at 4:59 a.m. Tuesday.

Clifford E. Charlesworlh, the flight director, reported at a news conference :

"The spacecraft is performing beautifully. The crew are all feeling fairly well. We are hopeful for lunar orbit insertion." Earlier, Borman, known as a perfectionist, radioed to the flight controllers: "I hope you'r looking us over carefully. The one thing we want is a perfect spacecraft before we consider the LOI (lunar orbit injection) burn."

If all goes well, Apollo 8 is set to orbit the moon 10 times in 20 hours. During 45 minutes of each 2-hour orbit, the spacecraft will be out of range on the moon's far side and no radio communications will be possible.

To accomplish this Apollo 8 would fire its main rocket engine for about four minutes of braking. The pull of lunar gravity will have accelerated the vehicle to about 5,700 miles an hour, and to enter the desired lunar orbit it must slow down to 3,720 miles an hour.

For the first two orbits the astronauts plan to fly a path dipping as low as about 69 miles from the ancient lunar surface and out as far as 196 miles. Then an additional rocket firing is scheduled to place them in a 69-mile circular orbit.

From there the astronauts expect to photograph what Samuel Butler said were the "lands and seas Columbus and could never compass."

If their circumnavigation of the moon goes as planned, this is what the astronauts should see:

On the moon's far side, where they first begin orbiting, the sun is now shining with noontime intensity. Far to their left, south of the lunar equator, is a large crater named after Jules Verne, who a century ago wrote a prophetic account of an imaginary flight around the moon by three men.

Minutes later, the crater Tsiolkovsky with its very dark floor should come into view. It was discovered during the space age by the Russians and named for the late Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, their philosophical father of rocketry, who once remarked: "The earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot live forever in a cradle."

By then the spacecraft will round the right side of the moon and soar over the face that is always presented to earth viewers. There will be the crater Langrenus, one of the many they will see with distinctive peaks rising from the floor.

Next the astronauts will pass over the Sea of Fertility, then the broader Sea of Tranquility. The sun will be low on the horizon and behind the astronauts' backs, affording them good conditions for photographing this plain as a likely spot for future manned landings.

Unfolding below them, as they enter the lunar nighttime, will be the famous terraced walls of the crater Copernicus and, off to the right, the crater Aristarchus whose periodic red flares intrigue scientists. Earth shine will enable the astronauts to take some pictures of the darkened parts of the moon. No attempt will be made to provide artificial illumination.

Apollo 8 Is scheduled to begin its return trip to earth early Christmas morning. The splashdown is set to take place in the Pacific Ocean Dec. 27.

There were no medical problems standing in the way of orbiting ─ the primary purpose of the six-day mission.

Doctors reported here that Col. Borman, who was struck earlier with a virus-like illness, was "considerably improved." There had been no recurrences, they said, among any of the crewmen.

The condition or the spacecraft windows caused some concern. Lovell reported that the center window was almost "opaque" as a result of fogging over.

Two other of the five windows also were a little hazy, but the two side windows remained clear. These are the windows through which the astronauts had planned to take most of their television, movie and still pictures of the lunar surface.

Scientists here said that the still and movie pictures, many of them in color, would be the most useful scientifically of the mission. They will be brought back with the astronauts and processed a few days after splashdown.

But the television pictures were expected to convey initially the drama of the historic voyage. At least two transmission periods were planned during the 20 hours of orbiting.

Since the moon has no distorting atmosphere and will be only 69 miles or so away, the television pictures were expected to be much sharper and more detailed than the astronauts' earth pictures.

For Apollo's second telecast of earth, the astronauts stabilized the spacecraft's slow rolling motion. On the trip the spacecraft generally makes one complete rotation each hour to keep any one part of the vehicle from getting too hot from the sun's rays. Borman then maneuvered the spacecraft so that it was flying broadside to earth and the astronauts could point their 4.5-pound television camera back at their native planet. The pictures were taken out of Borman's left window.

The telecast began at 2:58 p.m. and ran about 25 minutes.

Because of the spacecraft's motion and some mounting problems with a bracket, the astronauts often had trouble keeping the bright "half-earth" on target.

Transmission over such distances reduces the quality of the pictures, but it was still possible to pick out swirling clouds and some dark areas that were land and sea. The spacecraft was almost directly over South America.

Astronauts Plan Busy Day In Space

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ Here are the major events scheduled today for the flight of Apollo 8 (all times Eastern Standard):

4:59 a.m. ─ Main spacecraft engine fired to inject spacecraft into initial egg-shaped lunar orbit ranging from about 70 to 200 miles above moon's surface. Crew photographs lunar terrain below.

7:30 a.m. ─ Live television transmission, expected to last 15 minutes showing moon from Apollo 8's window.

8:10 a.m. ─ Another burst of spacecraft engine changes orbit to circular path about 70 miles high. Navy Capt. James A. Lovell begins series of navigation experiments using lunar landmarks as reference points.

11 a.m. ─ While Air Force Col. Frank Borman points Apollo 8's nose toward the lunar ground, Air Force Maj. William Anders begins taking "stereo" pictures of moon Clicking the shutter every 20 seconds to get a continuous "strip" picture of landscape in sunlight.

1:10 a.m. ─ (Christmas day) Vital re-start of main spacecraft engine to propel Apollo 8 out of lunar orbit and back toward earth.

New Lingo Created For Moon Flight

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ Apollo 8's around-the-moon journey Tuesday spotlights new space-age terms. Here is a glossary of lunar lingo expected to be heard in spaceship-to-earth conversations:

Apocynthion: Point at which an object in lunar orbit launched from a body other than the moon, such as earth Is farthest from the moon's surface.

Cislunar Space: Area of space between earth and the moon.

Impact craters: Moon craters created by meteor hits.

Penumbra: Semi-dark portion of a shadow in which light is partly cut off, yet still partly visible. See "umbra."

Pericinthion: Point at which an object in lunar orbit launched from a body other than the moon, such as earth Is nearest the moon's surface. Opposition of apocynthion.

Rills: Trench-like fault zones on the lunar surface.

Selenographic: Adjective meaning "related to physical geography of the moon."

Selenocentric: Adjective referring to orbit having moon as center.

Umbra: Darkest part of a shadow in which light is completely absent.

Apollo 8 Crew Starts Journey Back To Earth

Astronauts Will Land Friday

By PAUL RECER

AP Aerospace Writer

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ The Apollo 8 spaceship and its crew blasted away from the neighborhood of the moon Christmas Day and began the 235,000-mile trip home.

"Roger," said Apollo 8. "We've just been informed there is a Santa Claus."

There were six frightening minutes while Apollo Control tried repeatedly to get voice contact with the spacecraft.

Then it was there.

The rocket firing came at 11:00 a.m. Tucson time, and 10 minutes later Apollo wheeled out from behind the moon homeward bound at about 6,000 miles per hour.

The three-minute 18-second burn added enough speed to the 3,600 m.p.h. Apollo 8 was traveling 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," Apollo 8 reported when confirmation of a good rocket burn was passed up to the spaceship.

Earlier, the "very tired crew" of the Apollo 8, with the first flush of their space victory behind them, cut down their Christmas Eve flight plan ─ but kept a television transmission in their moon-orbiting schedule.

Asked about a computer problem, spacecraft commander Frank Borman said his co-pilot, James A. Lovell Jr., "got screwed up on one of those programs. So he's getting kinda tired here."

Before that turn of events, Borman had offered a Christmas Eve prayer Tuesday for peace "to people everywhere."

Apollo 8 commander, Air Force Col. Frank Borman, said the prayer as the spacecraft whipped around the glimmering moon's surface for the third time.

Borman and his crewmates, Air Force Maj. William A. Anders and Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr., had injected themselves into moon orbit at 4:59 a.m. EST Tuesday, becoming the first men to ever explore another celestial body from close range.

They sped over the surface In an orbit of 70 by 196 miles and then fired the powerful service propulsion rocket engine to circularize their path over the moon at 70 by 70. The crew stunned the world with a television transmission during their second orbit. A second television transmission, scheduled for 9:28 p.m. EST, was expanded from the scheduled 11 minutes to 37 minutes.

The crew fired service propulsion engine the first time to slow their spacecraft enough for it to settle into moon orbit some 69 hours after their Saturday launch at Cape Kennedy.

The firing came as the space craft whipped around the back side and passed from contact with the earth. Mission controllers waited a chilling 22 minutes before Apollo 8 reappeared from behind the moon and reported all was well.

The crew described the lunar surface, took pictures to help later Apollo crews who will land there, and named previously unnamed craters for each other.

"It looks like plaster of paris, or sort of a grayish beach sand," said Lovell of the barren moonscape.

Anders called the surface "whitish-gray, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it."

The trio beamed back to earth ─ a shimmering blue broad crescent 220,000 miles away ─ their first 12-minute telecast of the moon.

It showed a desert of peaks and craters and millions of miles of pocked wasteland.

Like an ancient mapmaker gazing on unknown landmarks, Anders tried to put a name on them.

"We're passing over crater Borman right now. Lovell's right next to it and Anders right next to it," the 35-year-old Air Force major said.

Lovell brought laughter from his crewmate when he observed, "don't those two craters look like a pickax striking concrete and leaving a lot of fine space dust."

Lovell said small impact craters contained centered dark spots where it appeared meteorites hit and "buried in and hit some new material below that's got a lot of fine, white dust."

The 40-year-old Navy captain picked out landmarks leading up to the first prime landing site for later missions and said he found it easy to navigate over the surface of the moon.

"It's almost impossible to miss," he said. "Very easy to pick out. I can see very clearly the five-cratered star formation which we had on our lunar chart."

He also said he easily found a triangular mountain which was one of the primary guiding marks of his navigation exercise. He had said before the flight he would name the lunar peak "Mt. Marilyn" for his wife.

The navigation points Lovell looked for were just to the right of the line where dark and light collide on the moon's surface as earthly viewers would look at it. The points are located in an area called the Sea of Tranquility.

Maintaining their calm military precision throughout the awesome first minutes of lunar orbit, the crew gave a technical readout on the health of their spacecraft before giving the eagerly waiting world a description of the moon's surface.

Lovell observed that the lunar craters are "all rounded off ─ there's quite a few of them."

He said many "look like they've been hit by meteorites or projectiles of some sort . . . The walls of the crater are terraced, about six or seven terraces on the way down."

Moon Mission At A Glance

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ Here are the major events scheduled Wednesday, Christmas Day, for the flight of Apollo 8 (all times Tucson time):

11:10 p.m. ─ Air Force Col. Frank Borman fires spacecraft engine to increase Apollo 8's speed from about 3.600 to 5,800 miles an hour, taking it out of lunar orbit and starting it on 58-hour return trip to earth.

11:15 p.m. ─ Borman sleeps for 4½ hours.

12 a.m. ─ Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. and Air Force A. Anders make navigation checks, sighting on stars

3:51 a.m. ─ Lovell and Anders sleep for five hours.

8:51 a.m. ─ All three eat Christmas turkey dinner, made of special space food.

9:21 a.m. ─ Lovell makes navigation checks.

1:51 p.m. ─ Borman fires Jet thrusters for midcourse correction, zeroing in on earth.

2:06 p.m. ─ Television show from Apollo 8, about 15 minutes.

2:51 p.m. ─ Borman sleeps for seven hours.

3:15 p.m. ─ Lovell makes navigation checks.

8:51 p.m. ─ Lovell and Anders eat and then sleep tor seven hours.

Good Old Earth Is Far Away

Spacemen Face Loneliest Yule

By JOHN BARBOUR

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ Locked in a circle around a plaster of paris moon, three men from earth looked back at the blue planet called home and spent the loneliest, most distant Christmas Eve ever.

Before them like an endless front lawn covered with dirty, foot printed snow, the lunar landscape stretched on and on, blinding in the sunlight, forbidding and secret in shadow.

Beyond, like a warm promise, the world they'd left behind four days ago glowed royal blue, burnished with browns, wrapped with the soft white of clouds, a world of warm fires and tables spread for Christmas, and trees laden with snow, a haven of families and children playing, all of it at least three days and a risky voyage away.

Their world now was the tight little cabin of their Apollo 8 spaceship, the ordered world of circuit breakers and display keyboards, control panels and warning lights, checklists and schedules, cold metal bulkheads and meals squeezed from plastic bags.

A small compromise was a Christmas dinner ration ─ a metal foil wrapped portion of sliced turkey, the only unfrozen, un-dehydrated food carried officially into space, not counting a corned beef sandwich smuggled aboard an early spaceship four short years ago.

The three astronauts, Air Force Col. Frank Borman, Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. and Air Force Maj. William A. Anders, were linked to home and by the crisp voices of fellow astronauts 235,000 miles away, and the memories of Christmases past.

The Apollo 8 voices were coming in so clear, said one astronaut, that people said it "was like sitting in your living room listening to good hi-fi."

"Sounds like a good idea," answered a weary voice from space.

"If you haven't done your Christmas shopping yet, you might as well forget it," Apollo control said. It drew no comment from the distant spaceship.

"Give us, O God, the vision which can see thy love in the world in spite of human failure," said the quick, sincere voice of Frank Borman reading a Christmas prayer he wrote for the members of his church. "Give us the faith to trust the goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness. Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts, and show us what each one of us can do to set forward the coming of the day in universal peace. Amen."

Climax Of First Manned Moon Voyage

Apollo 8 Speeding Toward Splashdown

Astronauts Eager For Return

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

1968 New York Times News Service

HOUSTON ─ Apollo 8 sped earthward Thursday night toward a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean this morning and the climax of man's first voyage around the moon.

The spacecraft carrying Col. Frank Borman of the Air Force, Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy and Maj. William A. Anders of the Air Force was scheduled to plunge through the earth's atmosphere and parachute to the water at 10:51 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

When the Apollo enters the atmosphere it will be traveling 24,500 miles an hour, faster than men have ever returned from space. Guided and controlled by an onboard computer, it will come in at a slant angle so as to reduce the jarring impact from hitting earth's thick air.

In the recovery area, about 1,000 miles southwest of Hawaii, it will be about an hour before dawn, making this the first space return in darkness. The astronauts were expected to remain in their floating capsule until daybreak before recovery teams drop into the water from hovering helicopters.

The carrier USS Yorktown was standing by to pick up the moon explorers. Weather in the area was expected to be satisfactory ─ cloudy skies, scattered showers, four-foot waves and 10-knot winds.

The astronauts spent most of Thursday carefully checking out their maneuvering rockets, charging batteries, stowing equipment and dumping waste water in preparation for their return plunge considered one of the riskiest phases of the mission.

They planned to fire their maneuvering rockets early to adjust slightly their aim on the landing target. But Glynn S. Lunney, one of the flight directors, said that both the spacecraft's condition and its aim were "nearly perfect."

"Even If we didn't make that (aim adjusting) maneuver," Lunney said, "we would still be comfortably in the corridor."

The corridor he referred to is the 30-mile-wide spot they must penetrate as their spacecraft encounters the first traces of earth atmosphere at an altitude of about 400,000 feet.

The three astronauts, the first circumnavigators of the moon, planned to get a long night's sleep before beginning these critical maneuvers.

They were reported to be in good health, and in their farewell television broadcast Thursday afternoon they seemed to be eager to get back to their native planet.

Anders said during the telecast:

"I think I must have the feeling that the travelers in the old sailing ships used to have, going on a very long voyage away from home and now we're headed back. I have that feeling of being proud of the trip, but still happy to be going back home. That's richer than being right here."

The Apollo 8 commander, Borman, came on the air and spoke of flights to come. "We'd like you to stay tuned in in the future," the colonel said, "because there'll be flights and rendezvous and earth orbit and then, of course, there'll be television from the lunar surface itself, in the not too distant future."

NASA's plan is to fly men to the first landing on the moon as early as next summer, fulfilling President Kennedy's pledge in 1961 when he initiated the $24-billion Apollo project.

"Until then," Borman added, "this is the Apollo 8 crew signing off and we'll see you back on that good earth very soon."

During the telecast, the astronauts kept the camera focused all the time on earth, which showed up covered with clouds and only half lighted by the reflected sunlight. The astronauts pointed out storm clouds over South America and the waters of the West Indies.

Lovell said that through his binoculars he could make out land masses in South America and the southern part of the United States.

The four-minute telecast, the sixth of the mission, began at 3:52 p.m. The spacecraft at the time was 111,550 miles from earth and traveling at a speed of 4,100 miles an hour.

The astronauts' return to earth, as scheduled, would come 147 hours after their launching last Saturday at Cape Kennedy, Fla. On their half-million-mile journey, they orbited the desolate moon 10 times, beginning Tuesday morning and ending early Wednesday.

When Apollo 8 was about halfway home this morning 125,000 miles away the spacecraft passed the point where it would have been possible to shift the landing to secondary zones in the Atlantic or Indian Oceans. If necessary, this would have been accomplished by firing the spacecraft's 20,500-pound thrust rocket to change course.

Flight controllers decided that conditions were good enough in the primary Pacific Ocean area to proceed as planned. They also canceled a midcourse aiming maneuver, using the smaller thruster rockets. The aim, they said, was about as precise as they could get it.

The midcourse correction today is scheduled to come two hours before splashdown. The firing of the small maneuvering rockets is supposed to change the spacecraft's speed ever slightly ─ by two feet per second.

As the next step before entering earth's atmosphere, an automatic signal is to trigger explosive bolts to separate, the 22- foot-long service module, the cone-shaped crew compartment, the command module.

At this point the astronauts, braced in their couches, will be parting with their main rocket, a set of 16 maneuvering rockets, the electricity-generating fuel cells and most of their oxygen reserves ─ all of which were carried in the service module.

For the rest of the way they must rely on the 12 maneuvering rockets on the command module to point the heavily shielded blunt end into the line of flight. These rockets also are to keep the capsule rolling slowly to prevent any side from getting too hot.

During re-entry the temperatures reach a fiery 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat gets so intense, in fact, that for three minutes it blacks out all communications between the spacecraft and the ground controllers.

Also during the entry phase the command module systems will be run on battery power, and the astronauts will be breathing oxygen from a small tank in their cabin.

Re-Entry Will Be Dangerous

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) ─ The Apollo 8 pilots blaze out of the night sky high over Asia Friday in the hottest, scariest U.S. manned re-entry yet, then a landing that will leave them bobbing on the dark Pacific waiting for sunrise.

The splashdown will be the first ever made by U.S. astronauts at night.

They will zip into the earth's blanket of air at 24,500 miles an hour ─ faster than any manned spaceship yet.

They will build up air friction temperatures up to 5,000 degrees ─ hotter than any manned spaceship yet.

And they will drive into the earth's atmosphere with less margin for error in speed, flight angle and altitude than any manned spaceship yet.

If they come in at too slight an angle, they could skip out of the atmosphere and into a wild, dangerous orbit that could be fatal.

If they come in at too steep an angle, they would smash into the atmosphere and slow so rapidly that gravity forces could tear the spacecraft apart.

But the flight officials are confident that these extreme cases will not occur. Apollo 8 is right on a perfect flight path now, they say, and heading for a perfect re-entry.

This is the first manned flight in which the astronauts will not fire braking rockets to bring their spacecraft home. Their flight path is aimed at letting the earth's atmosphere and gravity do the work.

Romantic Moon Lost To Crew Of Apollo 8

By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL

SPACE CENTER. Houston (AP) ─ The poets' "gentle moon, the lesser light, the lover's lamp, the swain's delight" may never seem as romantic again. Thank the men who are returning from there.

They say it looks like "plaster of Paris, a sort of grayish beach sand."

Plaster of paris indeed.

Was Shakespeare wrong when he called it "a silver bow, new-bent in heaven"? Or James Barron Hope with his "golden sickle reaping darkness down"? Or Madison Cawain's "pearly barge"?

Or George Croly, an Englishman bom in 1780, who wrote:

"How like a queen comes forth the lonely moon

"From the slow opening curtains of the clouds;

"Walking in beauty to her midnight throne."

When Air Force Col. Frank Borman looked down from 70 miles and described the surface as "a great expanse of nothing" couldn't he have put it more like Sir Richard Burton, an English explorer born in 1821:

"That gentle moon, the lesser light, the lover's lamp, the swain's delight,

"A ruined world, a globe burnt out, a corpse upon the road of night."

Navy Capt. James A. Lovell didn't do badly by the poetically minded with his comparison of the "vast loneliness" of the moon and the earth "a grand oasis in the vastness of space."

But did Joaquin Miller, an American, not put it just as well in the 19th Century when he wrote "the bent and broken moon, batter'd and black, as from a thousand battles, hangs silent on the purple walls of heaven"

Air Force Maj. William A. Anders was impressed by the lunar sunrises and sunsets which "in particular bring out the stark nature of the terrain." And he spoke of the blinding reflection from the sun that washed out the moon's features.

Shakespeare, however, said "the moon's an arrant thief and her pale fire she snatches from the sun." And Butler wrote "the moon pulled off her veil of light that hides her face by day from sight ... and in the lantern of the night, with shining horns hung out her light."

It can be said, after all, that earthbound poets might have been wrong and that they couldn't see Borman's "coluds and clouds of pumice stone." And as such, maybe it wasn't worthy of such romantic pleas as Scott's "I prithee, dear moon, now show to me the form and the features, the speech and degree, of the man that true lover of mine shall be."

Okay, Apollo 8, you've seen the moon. You know what it's like. But your more romantic brothers, who look upon it from nearly a quarter million miles away, still are blessed with Emerson's dictum:

"The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world."

You can't ruin it for lovers, for as Shelley put it:

"Bright wanderer, fair coquette of heaven,

"To whom alone it has been given

"To change and be adored forever."

EVERYTHING OK WITH SPACEMEN

MDs Find 3 Healthy

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

New York Times News Service

HOUSTON ─ The first circumnavigators of the moon brought the epic flight of Apollo 8 to a safe and successful climax Friday morning with a pinpoint splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

They had flown farther out in space than men had ever ventured, beyond the sphere of earth gravity.

They had circled the crater-scarred moon 10 times in 20 hours, seeing and photographing its desolate, airless surface from as close as 70 miles.

They had plunged back into the thick atmosphere of their native planet at the incredible speed of 24,530 miles an hour, about seven miles a second and faster than any human beings had ever traveled.

And, at 10:51 a.m. (EST) Friday, the Apollo 8 astronauts ─ Col. Frank Borman of the Air Force, Capt. James A Lovell Jr. of the Navy and Major William A. Anders of the Air Force ─ rode their spacecraft into gently rolling waters with the same precision that had characterized the entire six-day flight.

The cone-shaped moonship, slowed by the braking friction of air and a cluster of parachutes, dropped into the ocean within only 5,000 yards of the Carrier U.S.S. Yorktown. The ship was situated about 1,000 miles southwest of Hawaii.

In 90 minutes a helicopter shuttled the returning moon explorers from their spacecraft to the deck of the Yorktown. Emerging from the helicopter, the astronauts smiled and waved and stepped briskly across the deck.

"We're very proud to be part of this great achievement," said Borman, the Apollo commander. "We're proud of it."

From President Johnson at the White House they soon received a telephoned message of "Well done."

"You made us feel kin to those Europeans five centuries ago who first learned news of the new world," the President told them.

The three men underwent a preliminary medical examination on the carrier and were pronounced in good health. More detailed examinations and debriefings are scheduled when the astronauts return here Sunday.

Their half-million-mile voyage of exploration charged the atmosphere at the Manned Spacecraft Center her with an air of jubilant excitement and heady optimism.

Dr. Thomas O. Paine, acting administrator of the Natio0nal Aeronautics and Space Administration, said at a post-splashdown news conference:

"This flight is one of the great pioneering efforts of mankind. We fell very humble that we were the ones that were given this opportunity to perform this historic feat."

Keynoting the new spirit of self-confidence that swept the center, Paine said firmly:

"This is not the end but the beginning. We are here this morning at the onset of a program of space flight that will extend through many generations."

Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, the Apollo program director, hailed Apollo 8 as a "major step toward the manned landing" on the moon, which could come next summer in time to fulfill the pledge made by President Kennedy in 1961.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things," Kennedy declared, "not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills . . ."

Apollo 8 was the second manned flight of the $24 billion Apollo project, and the 18th launched by the United States since the space age began. Two or more additional test flights are expected before astronauts are launched toward a lunar landing.

Apollo 8's primary purpose was to demonstrated that the spacecraft could fly lunar distances, go into and out of lunar orbit and return to earth at unprecedented speeds. The spacecraft orbited the moon Christmas Eve and began its return to earth early Christmas morning.

"The whole vehicle just behaved perfectly," George M. Low, the Apollo spacecraft manager, said at the news conference, "as did the guys who flew the mission."

While orbiting the moon, the astronauts accomplished another objective by photographing an area on the moon's relatively smooth Sea of Tranquility, a possible site for the manned landing. Lovell reported that "You can't miss it."

But as the astronauts and the flight controllers here were only too well aware, the flight was no success until the spacecraft was safely back. The 14-minute plunge back through earth atmosphere, called re-entry, was one of the riskiest moments of the mission.

Since early morning the three astronauts had been preparing for it. At 4:31 a.m. Borman radioed, "Everybody has gotten real good rest last night and everybody is in good shape."

The astronauts then set about to stow loose gear in the cabin, check all spacecraft systems and wait for ground trackers to radio updated information for the onboard computer that would guide and control re-entry.

It was decided that no further firings of the spacecraft's small thruster rockets would be needed to adjust the flight course. One had been scheduled but the aim was already about for two hours prior to re-entry, as accurate as possible.

The astronauts were told that weather conditions in the landing area were good ─ visibility 10 miles, scattered clouds and four-foot waves.

But the area would be dark when they landed, for it would then be 4:51 a.m. there. A pre-dawn splashdown was dictated by the time and duration of the rocket firing that boosted the spacecraft out of lunar orbit. To achieve a daylight landing would have required a less powerful rocket firing and would have meant taking an extra day getting back.

'Victory For All Mankind'

Amazed World Greets Moon Voyagers' Return

ABOARD THE USS YORKTOWN (AP) ─ Grinning but tired, the men of Apollo 8 came home Friday by the dawn's early light, the heroic explorers of the moon on mother earth once again.

They were greeted by an amazed world and a proud nation.

Their tiny, battered spaceship bobbed on the dark Pacific after an on-target splashdown, caught in the spotlights of hovering helicopters.

Then as the sun rose, the seas turned a deep blue under the brightening coral clouds and skies of dawn, framing the spacecraft and its crew as they boarded a rubber raft.

Helicopters whisked the astronauts to the deck of this aircraft carrier an hour and a half after splashdown. It was a leisurely return. Air Force Col. Frank Borman even borrowed an electric razor and stepped from the helicopter shorn of his week's growth of beard.

The crew of this ship, turned out in short-sleeved whites, broke into wild cheers when the astronauts descended the ladder to the red carpet.

Borman and his co-pilots, Navy Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. and Air Force Major William A. Anders, appeared a trifle wobbly, gripping the handrail and walking carefully over the rolling deck of the ship.

Borman thanked the crew. "We're very happy to be here with you," he said. "We appreciate your efforts. We know you had to stay out here over Christmas. It seems like Jim Lovell and I always seem to fly in December." (They were the 1965 crew of Gemini 7).

They walked from the microphones wearing Navy blue baseball caps, given them by the crew and inscribed with the nickname of the ship, "The Fighting Lady."

Then they went below decks to the sick bay for showers, breakfast, shaves and a medical checkup. They had been thinking of breakfast for some time. One of them had radioed on the way down to order up "steak and eggs and an Alka Seltzer."

In Mission Control at Houston, the controllers broke into wild cheers and Paul Haney, the voice of Apollo 8, said the scene rivaled any dressing room after a winning football game or a winning election.

The console filled room broke out in small American flags, and a 15-by-10 foot American flag covered the electronic wall may that had charted the course of Apollo 8. The Star Spangled Banner played in the background, and the nerve center filled with smoke from dozens of the traditional cigars. Even those who don't smoke cigars puffed on the pantellas and smiled happily.

The wives emerged from their homes in the Houston area to smile brightly for photographers. Two-year-old Jeffrey Lovell wore a space helmet as he stood with his family.

The astronauts received a shipboard message from President Johnson who said, "You made us feel kin to those Europeans five centuries ago who first learned news of the New World. You've seen what man has never seen before."

Even the Russians, he said, had asked to be kept informed on Apollo 8 and its crew via the Washington-Moscow hotline.