“Apollo 8.”
“We hear you loud and clear, Apollo 8.”
“OK, the first stage was very smooth and
this one is smoother…”
“This transmission is coming to you approximately
half way between the Moon and the Earth,
“and we’re about 31 hours and about 20
minutes into the flight, we have about, less
than 40 hours left to go to the Moon.”
So Apollo 8 glided on silently, farther from
Earth than man had ever before been, a microscopic
dot of life in the cosmic void.
Sunrise, sunset, every two hours on an alien
world, and they would take pictures,
still photographs as well as motion picture
film, here seen at a much faster rate than
orbital velocity.
Scientist, Engineer, Astronaut, the world
— all followed the progress of Apollo 8,
for this was preparation —
an advanced scout marking the way for those
who would follow, those who would orbit, those
who would land.
Navigate, track, observe, record, describe….
“This is Apollo 8 coming to you live from
the Moon, — we’ve been flying over at
60 miles altitude for the last 16 hours”.
“… and from the crew of Apollo 8 we close
with goodnight, good luck, a Merry Christmas
and God bless all of you, all of you on the
good Earth…”
Odyssey and Aquarius moved away from Earth,
toward the Moon…
“Okay Houston — we’ve had a problem
here.”
“Go again.”
“Go Guidance.”
“We’ve had a hardware restart, I don’t
know what it was.”
“Houston we’ve had a problem — we’ve
had a main B bus undervolt.”
“You see an AC bus undervolt there Guidance,
or, Ecom?”
“Negative flight.”
“I believe the crew reported ‘we got a
main B undervolt.’”
“We may have had a instrumentation problem
there flight.”
“Roge, and we had a pretty large bang associated
with the caution and warning.”
“It looks to me, looking out the window,
we are venting something — we are venting
something out into space.”
The accident had occurred 200,000 miles from
Earth.
Lovell, Swigert and Haise, rode in the lunar
module attached to a lifeless command module.
Apollo 13 had started as a mission of scientific
exploration, it was now a matter of survival…
One of the big problems was consumables, there
would be enough to eat and drink, but in space
there are other factors…
— oxygen to breath, electrical power to
keep the space craft alive, water to cool
the equipment and keep it operating.
To conserve the electric power and cooling
water, the crew shutdown all but the vital
life sustaining systems of the LEM.
“Command module just kept slowly going down
in temperature until I think just prior to
re-entry it was down to about 38 degrees [F].”
“And along with that there was sort of a
chilling coldness, the walls were perspiring,
the windows were completely wet — and it
wasn’t too healthy.
“I recall that we went in there to get some
hot dogs one day and it was like reaching
into the freezer for the food.”
On April 17th they prepared for re-entry.
After a small course correction burn they
jettisoned the damaged service module.
“Jettison.”
“Copy that.”
“And there’s one whole side of that spacecraft
missing!”
“Is that right?”
“The whole panel is blown out, almost from
the base to the engine.
It’s really a mess, man that’s unbelievable…”
Next they got back into Odyssey to jettison
Aquarius prior to entry into the atmosphere.
“Jettison.”
“Okay, copy that.”
“Farewell Aquarius, we thank you…”
Five miles above the Moon, Dave Scott and
Jim Irwin looked out the window of their lunar
module…
— down toward Al Worden in the command module,
which had completed its separation manoeuvre.
Beneath them, the 15,000 foot peaks of the
lunar Apennine mountains.
Soon they would fly low over those peaks on
their way to a landing in a little valley
in the mountains of the Moon.
“Coming up on pitch over…two sixty four
Dave, man LPD…
LPD… coming right…”
Out their window they could see the sinuous
meanderings of the lunar canyon know as Hadley
Rille
— as they brought their lunar module — call
sign Falcon — toward it’s landing…
— and the beginning of what would be the
most significant chapters in the history of
scientific exploration.
Scott and Irwin were located on an undulating
plain situated between the Apennines and Hadley
Rille.
— an area selected by the scientists as
being one of the most geologically significant
sites on the Moon.
“Okay open the hatch and open the latch.”
Two hours after touchdown, Dave Scott stood
up in Falcon’s upper hatch to survey their
landing area.
“Oh boy, what a view…I can see Pluton
and Icarus [craters].”
As Scott stood describing the craters and
mountains, we on Earth perhaps did not yet
realise the scope and extent of the coming
mission.
Aboard the lunar module was a small dune buggy-like
car called the “Lunar Roving Vehicle”
or just plain Rover.
The astronauts would travel miles in it, collecting
samples and placing and conducting experiments.
“There are no sharp jagged peaks and no
large boulders apparent anywhere...”
They would observe the layering of the lunar
terrain most clearly seen in the formation
14 miles to the south called “Silver Spur”.
This layering — later to be observed in
the mountains and the Rille — gives scientists
a direct look at the structure of the Moon…
— and a deeper insight as to the significance
of the collected samples.
July 31st — after a night’s rest, Dave
Scott descended into the lunar morning.
Scott was then joined by Jim Irwin.
“Oh boy it’s beautiful out here, reminds
me of Sun Valley…”
Their first job was the get the Lunar Roving
Vehicle out of its storage bay.
“Looks like she’s coming down okay…”
Next the astronauts tried out the Rover.
“Okay, we’re moving forward, Joe.”
“Roger.”
They were headed towards St George crater,
located on a mountain slope above Hadley Rille,
to the south of the landing site.
“Woo hang on, man this is really a rock
and roller ride.”
“I can’t believe we came over those mountains.”
“We did.”
“It’s just a beautiful little valley.”
“Yeah those are pretty big mountains to
fly over aren’t they?”
“The crater is big enough so that you do
get some at least optical impressions of the
central peak being higher than the ridges,
but I think it’s just because of the base
is....”
60 miles above the Moon, Al Worden orbited
in the command module Endeavour, operating
experiments.
His observations adding to the wealth of scientific
data already accumulated.
“Okay I’m looking right down on Littrow
now and a very interesting thing.
It looks like a whole field of small cinder
cones down there.”
The detection of cinder cones — clearly
of volcanic origin — helped solve another
element of the controversy
about how much of the Moon was formed by volcanoes
and how much by meteoroid impact.
“It’s a nice little crater isn’t it?”
“It sure is.”
“Okay, Jimmy lets go to work.”
“Roger.”
“Look at that!”
“Wow” “I see twinning in there” “Guess
what we just found?”
“I think we found what we came for — Crystal
in rock — yes sir, you’d better believe
it!”
To the untrained eye, it looked like just
another rock…
But it’s large crystals formed in pairs
called “twinning” showed it to be a section
of primal lunar crust formed during the earliest
history of the solar system.
Not obliterated by billions of years of impacts
and lava flows, it was a key to many mysteries.
Was the early lunar crust molten?
Why differences in colour and density between
the highlands and lowlands?
Nicknamed “the Genesis rock”, it stands
as a major clue in unravelling the formative
processes of the Moon, the Earth and the planets.
Then a demonstration of a classic experiment…“Well,
in my left hand I have a feather and in my
right hand a hammer…
“I guess one of the reasons we got here
today was because of a gentleman named Galileo…
— a long time ago, who made a rather significant
discovery about falling objects in gravity
fields.
“And we thought that where would be a better
place to confirm his findings than on the
Moon and so we thought we’d try it here
for you.
“The feather happens to be appropriately
a Falcon feather — for our Falcon.
“And I’ll drop the two of them here and
hopefully they’ll hit the ground at the
same time.
How about that?
“How about that?
Mr Galileo was correct in his findings”
With the command module in the distance, they
passed over their landing place — a Valley
in an area of the Moon called Taurus Littrow.
Here they hoped to find the youngest material
yet sampled, and direct evidence of lunar
volcanoes…
“Okay stand by for pitch over…Boy are
we coming in.”
“Pitch over…there it is!
Proceeded…”
“And there it is, Houston, there’s Camelot
[crater] wow — Right on target!”
“I see it — we got em all” “42 degrees,
37 degrees to 5500” “53 degrees…”
“Okay, I've got Barjea; I've got Poppie;
I've got the Triangle”.
“At 2500 feet 52 degrees.
H-dot is good.
At 2000 H-dot is good.
Fuel is good.
Going down at ten…”
“Cut the H-dot.”
“20 feet, going down at two…10 feet…10
feet….”
“contact…Stop push… engine stop”
“Okay Houston the Challenger has landed”
“Roger Challenger that’s super”
“Houston you can tell America the Challenger
is at Taurus Littrow.”
“Okay Bob I’m on the pad and it’s about
4:30 Wednesday afternoon” .
“Oh what a nice day, funny there’s not
a cloud in the sky, except on the Earth!”
“We’re right where we wanted to be for
station 2, and looks like a great place ..... it
looks like quite a bit of variety from here,
different colours anyway.”
“Pretty hard isn’t it?”
“That boulder’s gonna roll.”
“Man, that is hard.”
“Just don’t stub your toe.”
“Oh hey, there is orange soil!”
“Well don’t move it until I see it.”
“It’s all over — orange.”
“Don’t move it till I see it.”
“I’ve stirred it up with my feet.”
“Hey it is, I can see it from here, it’s
orange.”
“Fantastic, sports fans… it’s trench
time!”
“Yeah that is really orange…”
“[singing] Hippety hoppety, Hippety hoppety,
Hippety hoppin’ over hill and dale.. da,
da, da, da, da, dada da…
Hippety hopping along…”
[singing] “I was strolling on the Moon one
day in a merry, merry month of December, No
— May, May that’s right…May is the year
of the month.”
“99 proceeded 3, 2, 1, ignition… we’re
on our way Houston”
“Vector good… that should do it…5…pitch
over…I’ve got thrust… [crackling]
“Okay 30 seconds…308’s your number…taking
it up to 1500 feet… and H-dot looks good.”
On the descent stage of the Challenger, forever
on the Moon, they left a plaque reading:
“Here man completed his first explorations
of the Moon, December 1972 AD.
May the spirit of peace in which we came be
reflected in the lives of all mankind.”
“Apollo Houston I got two messages for you,
Moscow is go for docking and Houston is go
for docking, it’s up to you guys — have
fun.”
“Alright it sounds good.”
“Soyuz docking system is ready.”
“Good show, Alexey, looking fine…”
“I am approaching Soyuz.”
“Tom, please don’t forget about your engine,
ha ha ha…”
“Less than 5 metres distance…3 metres…1
metre…
“Contact….
Capture!”
“Thank you for a good show, Tom!
Aha!, this is Alexey…Donald”
“Very, very happy to see you - this is Soyuz
and United States.”
