Then and Now in Space
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VOLUME 18 ISSUE 4 An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Then and Now in Space AGATE BY JONATHAN BARTLETT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST ■ Post Reprint: “Apollo 8: NASA’s first moonshot was a bold and terrifying improvisation” ■ KidsPost Reprint: “A new era in spaceflight: Back to the moon on the way to Mars” ■ KidsPost Graphic Reprint: “The Journey to Space” ■ Student Activity: Where We Have Been, Where We Will Go ■ Student Activity: What Colors? What Shape? What Marvels! January 14, 2019 ©2019 THE WASHINGTON POST VOLUME 18 ISSUE 5 An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Retropolis Apollo 8: NASA’s first moonshot was a bold and terrifying improvisation BY JOEL ACHENbaCH • Originally Published December 21, 2018 Walter Cronkite held a tiny model of the Apollo 8 spacecraft and strode across a darkened studio where two dangling spheres represented Earth and the moon. This was the CBS Evening News, Dec. 20, 1968, and three Apollo 8 astronauts were scheduled to blast off the following morning on a huge Saturn V rocket. Cronkite explained that the astronauts would fly for three days to the vicinity AP of the moon, fire an engine to slow Apollo 8 lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 21, 1968. the spacecraft and enter lunar orbit, circle the moon 10 times, then fire the wrong: “Just how do we tell Susan astronauts said, according to Morrow engine a final time to return to Earth Borman, ‘Frank is stranded in orbit Lindbergh’s subsequent article in and enter the atmosphere at 25,000 around the moon’?” LIFE magazine. miles per hour. Apollo 8 was the first moonshot. No What’s more, Apollo 8 was “They must come in at JUST the human being had ever been beyond improvisational. It wasn’t even right angle. If they come in too low Earth orbit. Even the Apollo supposed to be a mission to the moon. steeply, they will be CRUSHED in 8 astronauts — Frank Borman, “It was an extraordinarily bold the Earth’s atmosphere. If they come James Lovell Jr. and Bill Anders — decision,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, in too shallow, they will SKIP OUT struggled to wrap their heads around curator of Apollo Spacecraft at the and go into Earth orbit and not be what they were about to do. National Air and Space Museum. able to return,” Cronkite said. “One of the most risky decisions Fifty years later, it’s hard to A historic launch in the history of spaceflight” is the remember how mind-blowing Apollo They shared their final prelaunch verdict of historian Asif Siddiqi of 8 was, and how scary. No space lunch with Charles Lindbergh and Fordham University. mission had ever presented so many his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, NASA had a clear goal, established exotic ways to kill astronauts. Before at Cape Kennedy. “Think, it’s hard to by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the launch, a NASA official was believe, this time tomorrow we’ll be of landing an astronaut on the moon overheard imagining what might go on our way to the moon,” one of the before the end of the decade. 2 January 14, 2019 ©2019 THE WASHINGTON POST VOLUME 18 ISSUE 5 An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program The agency carried out a sequence of would also stay in Earth orbit and test Administrator James Webb and missions that incrementally advanced the lunar lander. Associate Administrator for Human its expertise in human spaceflight. But the lunar lander wasn’t ready Spaceflight George Mueller, were Rather than sending astronauts to f ly. uncomfortable with what appeared to directly from Earth to the moon’s Meanwhile, the Soviets were be a mad dash to the moon. Mueller surface, NASA’s engineers decided building a giant moon rocket, the N1. feared “irresponsible scheduling” and that the Apollo program should build The CIA circulated a report in the the impact on Apollo were there to be a separate lunar lander, which greatly spring of 1968 saying that the Soviets a “catastrophic failure,” according to reduced the size of the rocket needed could potentially send a human being Low’s private notes. But the Apollo for the mission. on a mission around the moon before engineers persuaded Webb and This relatively lightweight vehicle the end of the year. (And in September Mueller. would separate from the command 1968, a pressurized spacecraft named The designer of the Saturn V, module in lunar orbit and two Zond 5 zoomed around the moon with Wernher von Braun, who as a Nazi astronauts would descend to the turtles aboard, clearly a precursor to a scientist had built the V-2 rockets moon’s surface. They would then human mission.) launched against Britain in World blast off and dock with the orbiting George Low, the manager of the War II, also signed on to the plan. vehicle. Katherine Johnson, one of Apollo spacecraft program office According to Low’s notes, von the NASA human “computers” made in Houston, knew that his Apollo Braun said that “it doesn’t matter to famous decades later by the movie schedule was a mess. So he tore it the launch vehicle how far we go.” Hidden Figures, said her greatest up. He decided Apollo 8 should be a (As the satirist Tom Lehrer sang: “ contribution to the space program moonshot. ‘Once the rockets are up, who cares was her calculations for the Apollo His logic was simple: We have the where they come down? That’s not program, according to NASA. hardware to fly around the moon. We my department,’ says Wernher von By early 1967, the United States have the Saturn V rocket, the Apollo Braun.”) appeared to be winning the race to the command module and the service moon. Then came disaster. During a module. The one missing piece is the ‘See you on the other side’ test of the command module on a lunar lander, and we don’t need that The refashioned Apollo 8 mission launchpad at Cape Kennedy, during for a mission that doesn’t try to land. required NASA to send the spacecraft which the cabin was filled with pure On Aug. 7, Low presented the idea on an exquisitely precise trajectory oxygen, a fire broke out and killed the to Chris Kraft, the director of flight that would enter the moon’s gravity three Apollo 1 astronauts — Virgil operations in Houston, and asked him well, loop around the far side and “Gus” Grissom, Roger Chaffee and to study whether it was technically come within 60 miles of the surface. Ed White. feasible. On Aug. 9, Low pitched the That’s where the service module The tragedy threatened to ruin any plan to the head of the Houston center, engine would fire, slowing the chance of putting boots on the moon Bob Gilruth, who embraced it right spaceship. If it didn’t fire for some by the decade’s end. By late summer away, and Kraft reported that there reason, that wouldn’t be a disaster, 1968, NASA was desperate to get were no showstoppers. They phoned because the trajectory was designed back on schedule. The refashioned a number of top NASA officials at to fling Apollo 8 right back toward NASA schedule called for Apollo other centers and asked them to fly Earth, a “free return” courtesy of 7 to be an Earth-orbital flight that to Huntsville, Ala., immediately for gravity. would test the re-engineered Apollo a 2:30 p.m. meeting. The Apollo But if the engine burned too long, command module. Apollo 8, the first program pivoted in a matter of Apollo 8 could crash on the lunar crewed flight of the Saturn V rocket, hours. The top officials at NASA, surface. If it burned too briefly, the 3 January 14, 2019 ©2019 THE WASHINGTON POST VOLUME 18 ISSUE 5 An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program spacecraft would neither enter lunar colleagues in space, said, “Apollo you on the other side,” Lovell said orbit nor return to Earth, but would 8, you are go for T.L.I.” That meant just before the spaceship disappeared fly off into the void of space. Trans Lunar Injection. (These people behind the moon. The plan called for a second burn, were not poets.) The third stage of People had never seen that side to circularize the remaining orbits. the Saturn V ignited, and they were of the moon with their own eyes. Then would come the most anxiety- off for the moon. Nor had they ever been so cut off inducing burn, the one that would Frank Borman got sick en route from their fellow humans. They send the spacecraft back to Earth. with vomiting and diarrhea. Bill had no way to communicate with If that didn’t work for some reason, Anders meticulously described Mission Control. In Houston, there the astronauts would circle the moon how a floating bolus of vomit split was nothing to do but wait. The place until their oxygen ran out. That would apart in zero gravity and confirmed was silent. take about nine days. Newtonian physics. Engineers wandered outside for a All this would happen over the Jim Lovell peered into the smoke. Christmas holiday. eyepieces of the Apollo Guidance Then Apollo 8 could be heard On the morning of the launch, all and Navigation System, which again, popping from behind the eyes were focused on the towering featured a telescope and a sextant, moon in exactly the right place at the Saturn V.