The Men of Apollo 8 Cites God’s Word in Space
On the Day December 24 1968
Khen Lim
(L-R) Frank Borman, William A Anders and James A Lovell Jr (Image source: spacefacts.de)
With the year of 1968 coming to a close, many Americans would
be forgiven for breathing a huge sigh of relief. The social turbulences that
have raged through the population like a wildfire had divided the country. Not
only did the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy rock
society to the hilt but so did the Vietnam War and the escalating race riots
that had set many cities alit.
But when it came time for the giant Saturn V to launch the
Apollo 8 crew into space on December 21 1968, all eyes throughout the world
were focused on what America could do. Tens of thousands of Americans including
two Supreme Court justices as well as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh turned
out at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre (present-day Cape Canaveral, Florida) on the
morning of the launch to witness an event so mesmerising that no newspapers
anywhere in the world could ignore.
As a preamble to the
epochal moon landing due the following year, Apollo 8’s mission was to attain
vital operating experience, equipment evaluation and a careful survey of
potential landing sites. All of this was in the hope that NASA could deliver on
what the late President John F. Kennedy had challenged them to achieve before
the decade came to an end.
Apollo 8's Saturn V rocket on its way to Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre (Image source: Finley Quality Network)
Launch was pretty straightforward. The three astronauts of
Apollo 8 – Air Force Colonel Frank Borman (mission commander), Navy Captain
James A. Lovell Jr (command module pilot) and Air Force Major William A. Anders
(lunar module pilot) – had safely checked their way into Earth’s orbit.
Once
that was done, they checked their spacecraft for any potential damage resulting
from the launch. With everything cleared, they steered the mission into fresh
and uncharted territory with three days to venture into a deep and vastly
unknown space.
William Anders' Earthrise photo (Image source: Finley Quality Network)
By that point, no man, Russian or American, had ever stepped
foot beyond Earth’s gravitational pull but on December 24, they not only had
left the Earth’s orbit but they became the first men to witness the dark side
of the moon, the first to achieve orbit around the moon and the first to
encircle it ten times. In doing so, they were also the first to visually record
the whole geoid Earth, famously referred to later as Anders’ ‘Earthrise’ photo.
Through the space mission, the crew carried out six live
broadcasts using their TV camera with the first two occurring en route to the
Moon, one in which Lovell used to wish his mother a happy birthday, two more on
the way home and another while orbiting the Moon during the morn of Christmas
Eve. Of them all, it was the fourth broadcast that aired on Christmas Eve that
drew a worldwide audience of around one billion viewers.
As Apollo 8 encircled the Moon for the second-last time,
Commander Borman began the Christmas Eve broadcast by taking the viewers on a
tour of the lunar sunset. He called the Moon “vast” and “lovely,” yet “forbidding.”
Lovell added, saying that the “vast loneliness of the Moon is awe inspiring and
it makes you realise just what you have back there on Earth.”
According to his
autobiography, ‘Countdown,’ Borman recalled that it was towards the conclusion
of the broadcast that the lasting impression was finally made. He said, “There
was one more impression we wanted to transmit: our feeling of closeness to the
Creator of all things. This was Christmas Eve, December 24 1968 and I handed
Jim and Bill their lines from the Holy Scriptures.”
Remembering the message
A graphically simulated impression of what the astronauts saw to mark the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8's 'Earthrise' photo (Image source: NASA)
Borman tells the story of how a NASA official had called him
with six weeks to go before launch with an idea of what the crew could do
whilst orbiting Earth on Christmas Eve. He said, “We figure more people will be
listening to your voice than that of any man in history. So we want you to say
something appropriate.”
Seeing that this was a rather tall order but realising he
didn’t have the luxury of time to deeply research the matter, Borman called on
his friend Simon Bourgin who was working with the USIA, someone he had
developed a close friendship with following NASA’s Gemini 7 space mission.
“Frank turned to me a number of times when he was about to be
interviewed, and he would ask me how to answer certain questions. He came to
trust me and I dined at his and (his wife) Susan’s home on a number of
occasions,” he recalled.
On the subject of Borman seeking his assistance, Bourgin said,
“I tried writing something out but it just didn’t sound right. So I called Joe
Laitin, told him what was going on and asked if he could help come up with
something. Then I said, ‘By the way, Frank needs it in twenty-four hours.’”
Being a former UPI (United Press International) reporter,
something like this, he thought, was “a piece of cake” but he was soon proved
wrong.
“I had someone do a drawing for me of what they thought the Earth and Moon would look
like to the astronauts that night. H**, nobody knew!” Laitin said. “It was a
back-and-white rendering. The Moon was large and the Earth was small. Looking now
at pictures taken by the astronauts, the artist had darn near everything
right.”
“So after dinner, we put the kids to bed. Christine went
upstairs to read. I propped up my portable typewriter on the kitchen table and
I put this drawing in front of me. I looked at the sketch of the Earth, which
was about the size of a tennis ball. And I thought, ‘Everything I love is on
that tennis ball. What would I feel like saying to it on Christmas Eve?’
“Pretty soon, I saw the problem. Everything I wrote was about peace
on Earth and here we were in a war in Vietnam! Writing about peace on Earth at
that time would have made us all look stupid. By now, the floor was littered
with balls of paper and I was beginning to get a little frustrated because I
considered myself a professional.
“So I decided to back up a little bit. I asked myself again,
‘What am I looking for?’ And the answer was something that would go with
Wurlitzer organ music. Something Biblical. So I finally went upstairs and got
my Bible. Now I felt like I was onto something.
“They would be orbiting the
Earth on Christmas Eve, the day before Christ’s birthday. I turned to the New
Testament and the story of Christmas… but I soon realised this wasn’t what I
was looking for either. So here I (was) at 3:30 in the morning, crumpled paper
all over the floor, reading the New Testament and really becoming frustrated.
“Suddenly my wife (came) downstairs (and saw) her husband
reading the Bible in the middle of the night. She said, ‘My goodness, Joe, what
have you done?’ I explained to her what I was trying to do and she said, ‘Well,
if you’re looking for that kind of language, you’re in the wrong part of the
Bible. You need to go to the Old Testament; that’s the kind of writing you’re
looking for.’
“So I got very irritated with her. I said, ‘It’s 3:30 in the
morning. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.’ She said, ‘Why not begin at the
beginning?’ So I flipped over to the first chapter of Genesis, read the first
verse, and said, ‘Christine, here it is!’”
And with that idea, Laitin despatched a typed message complete
with a cover note to Bourgin the following morning. It read: “Si, I think this
is what I would feel like saying to the Earth. But tell Borman if he and his
crew don’t feel the same way, throw it away.”
“Then I forgot about it. I didn’t realise I was writing what
would become a footnote in history.”
Bourgin sent it onwards to Borman who was pleased with
Laitin’s idea. After not hearing any response from Borman, Bourgin called the
mission commander to find out what was going on. Bourgin recollected the phone
call, “Frank said, ‘Oh, I meant to call you. I just took what you sent,
scissored it out, had it put on fireproof paper and stuck it in the back of the
flight plan.’ That’s the last I thought about it.”
The beginning of time
The wives of Apollo 8 astronauts jubilant on hearing their husbands' voices in flight for the first time (Image source: Reddit)
It was around 4:00am Houston time when the Apollo 8 crew was
in the midst of its first of ten lunar orbits and the world was hungering for
details and latching on to every word that came from the astronauts. With many
errands to run – landmark tracking, photo assignments, landing site recognition
and filming – it wasn’t until 8:11pm that the three astronauts decided to power
up their TV camera to show the one billion odd viewers throughout sixty-four
countries the Moon in its splendour and then the “beautiful blue ball” that was
intermittently popping in and out of the command module’s viewing port.
“This is Apollo 8 coming to you live from the Moon,” Borman
began. “Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and myself have spent the day before Christmas
up here, doing experiments, taking pictures, and firing our spacecraft engines
to manoeuvre around. What we’ll do now is follow the trail that we’ve been
following all day.”
Out in an airport lounge somewhere in Houston awaiting a
flight out to Washington, Bourgin and his wife, Mariada, was watching the
overhead television with about forty other people in stunned silence. Over in
Bethesda, Maryland, Joe and Christine Laitin were doing pretty much the same
thing except they were at home, seated at their lounge, hanging on to every word
that came from the Apollo crew some 250,000 miles away.
After some brief remarks of what each thought of what they saw
of the Moon, the live broadcast was now nearing its end. Anders was now holding
on to that piece of fireproof paper that Laitin had typed out the message.
Under dimly lit conditions, Lovell held out a small torchlight to illuminate
the texts while the thirty-five-year-old Anders said, “We are now approaching,
uh, lunar sunrise. And, uh, for all the people back on earth the crew of Apollo
8 has a message that we would like to send to you.”
The view of the Western Hemisphere as seen and photographed from the Apollo 8 spacecraft (Image source: NASA)
The TV camera maintained its focus on the Moon as the
spacecraft continued its orbiting. Anders then began:
“In the beginning, God
created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the
darkness.” (Gen 1:1-4)
Passing on the piece of paper, it was now Lovell’s turn to
continue. Now Borman held on to the torchlight:
“And God called the
light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God called the
firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
(Gen 1:5-8)
Lovell now passed the paper finally to Borman who took an
eight-second pause before he began reading:
“And God said, ‘Let the
waters under the heavens be gathered together unto 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 called He Seas; and God saw that it was good.”
(Gen 1:9-10)
In closing, Borman ended it saying, “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.” And with that, the last broadcast
ended. The screen went blank and millions of views a quarter of a million miles
away were left to reflect on the verses of the Bible.
Never again will this happen
(L-R) Journalist Nick Clooney, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders in a Newseum event to commemorate NASA's 50th anniversary (Image source: NASA)
Many years after all of that, Bourgin recalled in an interview
with Billy Watkins for his book entitled, ‘Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung
Heroes,’ saying, “Looking back, two things really stand out about that mission
and the reading of Genesis. First of all, the reading could never take place today. Liberal (and)
right-wing religious groups would be all over it. Our climate has changed so
dramatically.”
“And the other is that it’s very difficult to explain to
generations today what that mission and television broadcast meant. If you live
long enough, things sort of lose their currency, after about twenty or thirty
years, because the up-and-coming generation has no capacity to understand it.
“Just look at America today; people talking on cell phones as
they’re walking down the street, as they’re riding in buses. There’s so much
noise, we can’t hear ourselves anymore. That night in the airport lounge, as
the astronauts read from Genesis, there wasn’t a single word spoken. Not one.
I’m not sure that would be the case today.”
Apollo 8's command module being hoisted up onboard the U.S.S. Yorktown (Image source: This Day in Aviation)
A little past midnight on the morning of Christmas Day, Apollo
8 finally made their way home. There was no sure guarantee that they could
actually do that and so when Lovell relayed to mission control that the engine
burn was successful, the relief would have been palpable.
On December 27, at
more than 24,000 miles per hour, the crew re-entered Earth’s atmosphere before
touching down with a splash into the North Pacific Ocean. They were met by the
aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown not too far south of Hawaii.
Hardly seven months later, with invaluable knowledge gained
from the Apollo 8 experience, the late Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made
history by being the first to walk on the Moon.
Reading sources:
Borman, Frank with Serling, Robert J (October 1988) Countdown: An Autobiography (New York:
Silver Arrow) Available at https://www.amazon.ca/Countdown-Autobiography-Frank-Borman/dp/0688079296
Watkins, Billy (December 2007) Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung Heroes (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison
Books, University of Nebraska Press) Available to read at https://books.google.com.my/books?id=zc-k7Dm91eMC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=who+is+Si+Bourgin&source=bl&ots=0htttiYrZ2&sig=Mk1XxUPExlcCtAAke22OBLSIewQ&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=who%20is%20Si%20Bourgin&f=false
Available to purchase at https://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Moon-Missions-Unsung-Heroes/dp/0803260415
NASA (Mar 24 2008) Greetings
from Apollo 8. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (Nov 14 2008) Celebrating
Apollo 8. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (May 6 2009) Western
Hemisphere. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (Dec 31 2011) Welcome
Home Apollo 8. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (June 25 2013) Earthrise.
Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (Dec 20 2013) NASA
Releases New Earthrise Simulation Video. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
NASA (Dec 19 2014) Apollo
8: Christmas at the Moon. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
Greenspan, Jesse (Nov 23 2015) Remembering the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve Broadcast (History in the
Headlines) Available at http://www.history.com/news/remembering-the-apollo-8-christmas-eve-broadcast
NASA (Dec 22 2016) This
Week in NASA History: First Crewed Saturn V Mission Launches -- Dec 21, 1968.
Available at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/apollo_8.html
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