Space News
space history and artifacts articles

Messages
space history discussion forums

Sightings
worldwide astronaut appearances

Resources
selected space history documents

Forum:Mercury - Gemini - Apollo
Topic:[Video] Apollo 8 launch, ABC News, Dec. 21, 1968
Want to register?
Who Can Post? Any registered users may post a reply.
About Registration You must be registered in order to post a topic or reply in this forum.
Your UserName:
Your Password:   Forget your password?
Your Reply:


*HTML is ON
*UBB Code is ON

Smilies Legend

Options Disable Smilies in This Post.
Show Signature: include your profile signature. Only registered users may have signatures.
*If HTML and/or UBB Code are enabled, this means you can use HTML and/or UBB Code in your message.

If you have previously registered, but forgotten your password, click here.

GonzoExcellent video. Brought back some very fond memories of when I was a kid watching these things live on TV. Thanks for the find!
HeadshotAhh ... the wonders of modern world! I remember sitting in front of our television with my 35mm camera on a little tripod, back in the late sixties and early seventies, snapping High Speed Ektachrome color slides off the screen during the Apollo, Skylab and ASTP missions.

Now, we can find those same video clips on the internet.

APG85Love watching those old films of the Saturn V launches. Takes me back to sitting in my parents living room in New Jersey when I was a kid...
LM-12That on-screen countdown clock brings it all back.
BlackarrowBrings back many happy memories, although I was watching BBC coverage. The Saturn V countdowns were much more dramatic than the later shuttle launches. Similar explosive forces about to be unleashed, but a more distant destination and a far greater sense of rising drama as the numbers dropped.
MattJLWatching old footage like this makes me wish that I had been around back in the sixties and seventies. What a find, indeed!
jiffyq58I was 10 years old when Apollo 8 went up, and it was the first flight I followed closely. I read about it beforehand (probably in Weekly Reader) and decided to get up early on Saturday morning (about 6 AM Central Time) to watch the liftoff. This clip just happens to be of my favorite of the TV space announcing teams, Frank Reynolds and Jules Bergman. I always thought they were the best. Cronkite used to talk right over the astronauts. Anyway, the clip does indeed bring back many fond memories.
GACspaceguy
quote:
Originally posted by Headshot:
...my 35mm camera on a little tripod, back in the late sixties and early seventies, snapping High Speed Ektachrome color slides off the screen during the Apollo, Skylab and ASTP missions.
Hey, I thought I was the only one to do that! Except I used an old Brownie camera, then saved all of my allowance for processing the B&W film. I still have the albums I made.

For Skylab I switched to my Dad's 35mm and knew nothing about shutter speeds. Learned about TV's lines of resolution and shutter speeds, when my first try came back with black bars across the pictures in various places.

HeadshotI learned about taking pics off the TV screen, along with focal plane shutters etc. when Star Trek was in its full swing.

By the time I graduated to a 35mm camera for Apollo, I had a routine going. I knew the shutter exposures and exactly where to put the camera and tripod. I also recorded the audio on an old, monstrous Webcor reel-to-reel tape recoder.

Fortunately my parents did not care about manned spaceflight, except for Apollo 11. With all that stuff by the television, it was almost impossible for anyone except me to see the screen. It was cute that, whenever I would start setting up all this paraphenalia, my mother would ask, "Are the launching another one?"

ilbassoWow, this is like a confessional...I just this week came across boxes of slides that I took off the TV screen during Apollo and Star Trek.
Lasv3What a fantastic piece of history, simply beautiful!

And Jack King introduced himself twice (in this video) as "Apollo 7 Launch Control". Small slip coming obviously from the tension surrounding this historical journey. The Christmas of 1968 were a very special one indeed.

ilbassoHe's saying "Apollo-Saturn Launch Control," which he clearly says in other launches. I misheard him at first, too, but I think it's a trick of the period accent and the audio.
fredtravBrings back a lot of memories.
HeadshotI believe these posts illustrate the fact that we, as space exploration enthusiasts, were more perceptive than most, even though we were viewed as "odd." We were interested in something to which the average American at the time could not fully appreciate. Face it, most Americans, then and now, would not understand the differences between the, say, Gemini X and XI missions, even if you patiently explained it to them until you were blue in the face. Nor would they care.

Apollo VIII changed all that. Sending a manned spacecraft to the moon WAS something John Q. Public could understand and appreciate. Also remember that 1968 was one of the worst years in memory and Apollo VIII allowed us the finish it off on a very upbeat note. There was a quote that ran in Time magazine when they named the Apollo VIII crew Man of the Year than ran something like, "You saved 1968 for us."

Even today we still hold Apollo VIII as a truly historical event, not just another space shot. I tossed out my Star Trek slides long ago. But I have kept my "space" slides. To me, they represent my committment to space exploration. A couple of rolls of HS Ekatachrome plus developing was a substantial financial investment for a teenager back then. The DVD sets now available have all that coverage, in better definition than my slides, but they lack one thing - those little words at the bottom of the screen that ABC, NBC and CBS added ... "Live From the Moon."

Lasv3
quote:
Originally posted by ilbasso:
He's saying "Apollo-Saturn Launch Control," which he clearly says in other launches.
Thanks for correcting me. I listened to it more carefully and yes, you are right, it's "Apollo-Saturn..."

My wife complains I'm not hearing as good as years ago, so she is obviously right.

Captain ApolloIn other footage of the launch on YouTube, we see on monitors the helmeted faces of the three crew, with a TV camera apparently devoted to each. Was this really the case or it is filmic licence?
J.LMonitors while in the centrifuge at MSC...
Jay ChladekConsidering the footage is from "When We Left Earth" it is most certainly artistic license (how much you want to bet several bits of the Apollo launch footage shown there are not from Apollo 8?).

Yes, the face shots are from the centrifuge runs. To my knowledge, the only time before recent shuttle flights when we got cabin footage of the astronauts during launch and ascent was Apollo Soyuz with one camera looking in on Slayton, Stafford and Brand (and the footage aired live). They certainly didn't put the camera right in the instrument panel since there was not any room (too many switches and readouts there).

DwightThe idea for in cabin TV was bandied about since 1963. In the preliminary contract pitches, one requirement was that the TV camera be able to withstand the vibrations of launch. Size and safety concerns put the idea on the backbench until the flight of ASTP. The Soyuz craft was supposed to also have launch-cabin footage, but the camera played up and so that was nixed. Prior to ASTP _NO_ live TV ever came from the cabin during launch.
Lou ChinalYeah Dwight, that's how I remember it.

Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts

Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.





advertisement