Page 16 - Apollo 8 News Today

>> youre seeing the atmosphere, i can see the southwestern part of the united states and it appears now that the east coast is cloudy. >> apollo 8 around christmas of 1968 showed us the craters of the moon and then showed us the earth at the same time. and spoke to us. they read the book of genesis. >> god said let the waters of the heaven be gathered together into one place. and let the dry land appear. and it was so. and god called the dry land earth. and the gathering together of the waters c...

Three astronauts entered apollos maiden craft to conduct a pre-flight test. as test conductors were about to pick up the count, the instruments showed an unexplained rise in the oxygen flow into the capsule. six seconds letter the frantic voice of ed white came over the intercom. >> theres a fire in the cockpit. >> a fire in the cockpit. >> they were inside a spacecraft in pure oxygen. thats a recipe for disaster. all they needed was a spark and unfortunately they got one. >> reporter: from a pi...

Not long after neil armstrong maids giant leap for mankind a new expression entered the lexicon. if we cant put a -- if we can put a man on the moon why cant we -- sticking gum to our shoes, a joke, yes, but but showed how americans viewed apollo as a human achievement up to that point or will it be for all time? >> i have been asked a million times how does it feel to make that first step on the moon? i knew that when i made that first step it was mine. nobody could ever take it away from me. >...

It was months behind schedule. instead of falling further behind the soviets nasa officials had a bold idea. >> the lunar module unfortunately was delayed considerably. and so nasa again in one of the, i think one of the great strokes of management substituted apollo 8 from an earth orbital flight to a lunar orbital flight. >> reporter: if it worked, america would actually leapfrog the soviets in the space race an astronaut, not a cosmonaut, would be the first to fly around the moon. >> it was o...

Titles on the winter watchlist, only with xfinity from comcast. 1968 was a year of chaos and conflict in the united states. martin luther king jr. and robert f. kennedy assassinated. riots engulfed our cities. the escalating war in vietnam, alienating millions of americans. against a turbulent back drop, nasa resumed its manned flights and aimed to test in space the craft that had hoped to land on the moon before years end. a sudden change of plans turned apollo viii into another make or break...

Vehicles before we would go to the moon. >> reporter: apollo viii was a big step forward. america would still be trailing the russians in the race to the moon. >> they sent spacecraft around the moon with animals to test them for cosmonauts. and they were fairly successful. but then in the soviet hierarchy, they had a been controversy, should we send the cosmo mauts, and people said, no we should send them one more time before the cia began getting signals that maybe the soviets were going to tr...

Our interest was the earth. >> reporter: with the world engrossed in apollo 8s epic journey, they took turns reading from the old testament. >> god said let the waters of the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. and god called the dry land earth. >> the old testament is the basis of the worlds religions, not just christians. so we thought that was very appropriate. >> reporter: they relayed a sighting that delighted children worldwide. >> there is a san...

Could just tell by the look on her face that she knew something was wrong. >> reporter: the three were given heros funerals. and in their honor, mission af-204 was redesignated apollo i. it could well have been the last apollo. >> that put the apollo program on hold. frank gorman became very instrumental in reviewing the hold issue. >> nasa, especially investigators themselves, that kept the outside without the slightest idea was going on. that was one of the hallmarks of the confidence that the...

Took one small step back to the future the unmanned orion space capsule to wait orbited the earth before splashing down in the pacific ocean. orion may land astronauts on meteor or surface of mars. but spending on nasa is near historic lows that is literally and figuratively a long ways away. >> maybe by spending a little time looking back we can at least learn anew the lesson that apollo showed us. if we as americans set ourv=;z øhg]e#jy=c/3/lj3 sights on a goal and some will to achieve it, ev...

Mission. >> i was called back, will you volunteer to take apollo 8 to the moon? i said, yes, we would be happy to. >> we were sort of at the last minute, several months before we were scheduled to launch. but thats what we were being asked to do. so ours was not the reason why, it was to do or die. >> reporter: do or die not just for the three astronauts. it was 1968, ending with a disaster it could end americas lunar quest for good. >> it certainly occurred to me that if the flight wasnt succes...