   |
   |
  |
Posted on 12/24/2018 5:09:44 AM PST by Ciaphas Cain
"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."
Today NASA would read from the Koran so that Muslims aren’t offended. Probably some passage that has to do with cutting the head off of infidels. How far we’ve fallen.
The first mission out of Earth’s gravity well. Reading the history you realize how very perilous these missions were. I remember the Genesis reading very well, will that feeling ever return?
I watched several segments of the old CBS coverage of the flight. Say what we want about Uncle Walter, he was pretty good when it came to covering Apollo.
He made the point about how far they were going to fly. He had a globe and moon about three feet from each other and said “Up until now, humans have flown about this high relative to the earth, and showed a model of the SM a tiny fraction of the height above the globe. We were told of course the moon is ~240,000 miles away. And there was the moon about three feet away. And then he started walking across the studio. And walking. And walking till he was like 30 yards away or something. THAT’s how far away they were. It was a really bold move by NASA, and the astronauts.
If the Apollo 13 type failure had occurred on Apollo 8 they’d have been hosed. There was no LM, if their service module engine failed or didn’t burn long enough, or burned too long, etc, they could have slammed directly into the moon, or ended up orbiting the sun etc. It really was an amazing feat.
If bammy were president it would have been from the koooran.
The protocol would be that Nixon would telephone his condolences to the "widows to be", would then give the news to the country via television and radio, and then NASA would shut off communication with the doomed astronauts. What they would do with the time left to them, would forever remain known only to God. A military chaplain would then conduct a committal ceremony commending the souls of the two men "to the deep", similar to the Navy tradition of burial at sea.
Of course, none of that happened. Still, the thought that every time we would look at the moon, and know that some of us would remain there forever...
Why don’t they go back to the moon?
I’ve heard that before, the part about “shut off communications with the doomed crew” doesn’t sound quite right to me, though.
“Houston, Tranquility Base...”
Gene Kranz to CAPCOM: “Don’t talk to them! Shut up!!”
Respect to God’s Word.
Ping.
I remember that! I also remember atheist Madalyne Murray O’Hair threw a waul-eyed fit demanding equal time.
So they said she could have equal time, from the same location in space, if she could get there.
So beautiful, so powerful. Thank you. On a side note, my Dad worked for Keystone Engineering in Los Angeles in 1968. He machined parts for that big Saturn 5 rocket and he actually took us to the Rockwell Plant in Downey CA and I saw that very capsule there. The Apollo 8. I also remember seeing a parking space with the name Walter Cronkite on it.
Thank you.
It was a high point of my childhood. I was and am still tremendously impressed. Well done, Apollo VIII.
How far we have fallen. I am so glad that we grew up in America in the 50’s and 60’s.
Ping.
Ping.
A couple of months later, man walked on the moon. But hearing the reading from Genisis that Christmas eve as the image of the moon’s surfaced passed the observation port moved me far more than witnessing the later act.
>Ping<.
Because they've already been there, and there's nothing there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.