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[b]Space Cover #455: Apollo 8 goes to the Moon![/b] It was NASA Associate Administrator Tom Paine's idea, and his plan was incredible. NASA had not even flown a manned Apollo space flight, yet, but Paine's plan went something like this. If the Apollo 7 flight went as planned, the next Apollo flight should go to the moon! His boss, George Low, at a conference in Vienna, Austria, yells at him over the telephone, "Are you out of your mind? It was 7:51 am, Eastern Standard Time on December 21, 1968, as Apollo 8 blasted off from Pad A at LC-39, Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was a picture perfect launch of NASA's first manned mission to the Moon. Borman yells over the thundering five rocket engines of the S-IC stage, "Liftoff; the clock is running!" It takes a long 13 seconds for the Saturn V rocket to clear the tower. The huge Saturn V pulls away from the tower and swiftly accelerates to mach 15 taking the Apollo 8 crew of Lunar Module Pilot Bill Anders, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Commander Frank Borman into their trajectory and Earth orbit. The first and second rocket stages fall away as the giant rocket speeds along its track and the Saturn rocket's third stage, the S-IVB rocket engine, powerfully ignites its 80 tons of liquid hydrogen propellant. The single engine fires for five minutes to achieve its final velocity of 17,500 miles per hour, propelling Apollo 8 into orbit 114 miles above the Earth. The official NASA cachet for the Apollo 8 flight, as for the Apollo 7 flight, is a NASA provided adhesive label, used on the cover pictured above and signed by the crew of commander, Frank Borman, command module pilot Jim Lovell, and lunar module pilot, Bill Anders, on the Apollo 8 launch date of December 21, 1968. This key launch date is also the first manned space flight of the huge Saturn V rocket and the crew going to the Moon. It is an important critical flight for future NASA lunar missions. Mission commander Frank Borman later writes, "The launch time — the predetermined time for lift-off based on the relative positions of the Earth and the moon and synchronized to the precise second... was 7:51 am, EST." Frank Borman later comments during post flight debriefing, "The sensation of speed increased as we picked up momentum, and so did the noise generated by 3,000 tons of metal pushing through the atmosphere. But when we passed the speed of sound, everything grew quiet, as if we were in a powerless glider. The only sound was a humming noise that came from the electronic equipment in the cockpit. The ride was incredibly smooth... I kept my hands on the controls, alert to any malfunction, but the automatic controls were working perfectly. Borman continues, "Houston was receiving telemetry data from its worldwide network of tracking stations even as we began testing every major system in the command and service modules. Every reading, every check, every button pushed, and every figure that appeared on a computer screen were all aimed at the ultimate decision: when to go for translunar injection (TLI) — the second and final firing of the third-stage rocket which would launch us toward the Moon. [IMG]http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4714/40310642461_a61a206453_o.jpg[/IMG] A Cover Craft cover is signed by the Apollo 8 crew and mailed to Congressman Bob Wilson of California on their launch date, December 21, 1968, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. As cited in the cachet, this is the first manned Saturn Apollo lunar mission. The flight also is designated as AS-503. This crew signed cover mailed to Congressman Bob Wilson of California is a special cover, as he is a strong advocate of NASA's space program, and he supports significant space related industries in California. [IMG]http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4628/40265293712_6c489c29f5_o.jpg[/IMG] On the return journey around the Moon and now on a trajectory that would take it back to Earth, the crew is in awe of a final Earthrise as they start their epic journey home. Astronaut Bill Anders quickly grabs his camera and takes this iconic photo of the Earth rising over the Moon. His incredible photo caught on the way home becomes an epic photo for Apollo 8 and its successful first human journey to the Moon.
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