Ed Driscoll reviews a new documentary about Apollo 8.
That event, not Apollo 11, is when we won the race, because the Soviets quietly threw in the towel at that point, pretending that they’d never been racing.
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Was thinking just yesterday how curious it is that of all Apollo missions Apollo 8 is one of (the only?) crews which has all the members still alive.
That event, not Apollo 11, is when we won the race, because the Soviets quietly threw in the towel at that point, pretending that they’d never been racing.
This is quite true, and I am glad to hear someone say it!
By 1968, the Soviets well understood that they were well behind the Americans in the effort to reach the lunar surface – principally, because their super heavy lifter, the N1, was well behind the Saturn V in its development, and none of their possible alternatives was in a position to offer a viable solution any time sooner. They really needed NASA to have a multi-year stumble…and it had become increasingly clear that the Apollo 1 fire was not going to fit the bill.
What they *did* have a chance of doing, however, was to beat NASA to circumlunar space. This was the Zond program, which relied on a (still rather buggy) Proton-K. Small animals were sent on uncrewed flights in free return trajectories around the Moon no less than twice in the second half of 1968, and it was these successes that (along with Kennedy’s rapidly approaching 1970 deadline) apparently helped push George Low into proposing the enormous gamble of making Apollo 8 a lunar orbit mission with only the CSM and pushing it up to Christmas.
And there is evidence that the Soviets were trying very hard to launch a crewed mission at Baikonur during their December 8-12 1968 lunar launch window, right up to the end. (See the two part series by Peter Pesavento and Charles Vick in the space journal Quest (2004 issues Volume 11, numbers 1 and 2)). But they never got off the pad. Apollo 8, on the other hand, did. And with that went the last opportunity the Soviets had to beat the United States to a “lunar first,” barring Great Cthulhu or William Proxmire crawling up out of the Atlantic Ocean to utterly destroy the Kennedy Space Center.
After that, the Soviets were forced to concentrate their efforts on beating the now-inevitable American moon landing with a mere robotic sample return mission. That, of course, came to naught as well with the disastrous Luna 15 mission, which crashed into Mare Crisium as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were finishing their EVA…
Apollo 11 consummated Apollo. But it really was Apollo 8 that was the decisive mission. I’m glad it’s getting another documentary.
It was Apollo 12 that contributed most to the downfall of the Soviet Union. One of the mission objectives was to land near the Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had been on the Moon since April 20, 1967. First we had to find out where it was, a task accomplished by the unclassified Lunar Orbiter reconnaissance spacecraft – which naturally suggested the existence of the then top secret Talent Keyhole spy satellites, but without anyone mentioning such a thing. Then we sent a spacecraft 250,000 miles, and landed it 600 feet away from Surveyor 3 – automatically, I might add. Conrad and Bean didn’t see the Surveyor until they were actually standing on the lunar surface. That was the most dramatic public demonstration of our targeting and special delivery service capability ever, and it set off a frantic, futile Soviet arms buildup that bankrupted them.
But, yes, Apollo 8 was the real space race victory. I’ll never forget watching the Christmas broadcast, and listening to the Bible readings. I’m an athirst, but I still find that broadcast beautiful, and very, very moving.
As a side note, when I was running the flight operations for the 2006 XPRIZE Cup at Las Cruces “International” Airport, I happened to spot Frank Borman in the airport’s cafeteria (whose name I forget, and it’s probably now closed). Borman had an entire hangar of his own on the airport, filled with mint-condition vintage aircraft. He was having breakfast with a friend, and though I didn’t want to intrude, I really wanted to meet him. So I approached and apologetically introduced myself, and handed him my XPRIZE business card. I told him what an inspiration he had been to me, and how much I had admired his space flights, then returned to my breakfast with Dan Pallotta, the event producer. I glanced back at Borman, and to my amused astonishment saw him showing my card to his friend and excitedly saying “That guy is running the XPRIZE!” Like I was the significant one in that meeting! That’s a very fond memory.