Read Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 Online

Authors: Robert Zimmerman

Tags: #History, #United States, #20th Century, #test

Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (33 page)

BOOK: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8
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Page 177
As soon as Father Raish hung up the phone he ran to find the church organist, asking her to play the musical program planned for that evening's midnight mass service. Raish then went throughout the church and lit all the candles, making the place look like it would for that night's mass. He knew that the astronauts would be leaving lunar orbit just after midnight, which meant that Marilyn couldn't attend services. Nonetheless, he wanted her to have the experience.
When Marilyn entered the church a few minutes later she gasped. "It was one of the most beautiful sights that I can remember. And it was all for
me
."
She and Father Raish went up to the altar together, kneeled down, and prayed. For Marilyn, this was a profound moment in her life. "It meant so much to me that he did this." Even today it brings tears to her eyes to think of it.
After a short while it was time to leave. By now the sun had set, and as Marilyn drove home the sky was dark.
Because the Houston sky had been cloudy since the launch on Saturday, the astronaut wives had still not seen the moon. Even now Marilyn could see that the evening sky was mostly covered with clouds.
Then, just before she turned the car into Timber Cove, the clouds separated and she found herself staring at the faint arc of the crescent moon, gleaming in the evening sky. It was Christmas Eve, and around that distant globe circled three humans, one of whom was her husband. A shiver ran through her body.
She pulled up in front of her house and rejoined her children and friends for the last lunar telecast and the hoped-for exit from lunar orbit.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Susan Borman had no religious outlet. Though she believed in God, her faith in NASA had disappeared the night Ed White died.
Remembering how Pat fought with NASA over Ed's funeral, Susan now decided that she wasn't going to be caught unprepared. Sometime that afternoon, even as she listened to Frank's voice on the squawk box, she sat down at the kitchen table and began to write out the memorial service she wanted for him.
6

 

Page 178
She wondered how she was going to live with his death. She then rationalized,
What a magnificent place to die!
She began to write the words, about how no one should be sad, that everyone should be comforted because Frank is still there, in orbit, for ever and ever.
That would be what Frank would want,
she thought.
The words she scribbled onto that piece of paper seemed to express for her how Frank's death in orbit would complete both their missions. He would have made the greatest possible sacrifice for his country, and she would stand before the world and tell them so.
Fifteen-year-old Ed wandered into the kitchen and saw her writing feverishly. He asked her what she was doing.
She explained, "Your father's memorial service. He might not come back."
From Ed's young perspective, this simply wasn't possible. He took the pen from her. "Just remember, Mom, Dad gets to choose the way he goes you and I don't have that privilege."
Susan nodded. But she took the sheet with her words and carefully hid it under some clothes in a bureau drawer. She was convinced she would need it.
Shortly thereafter they got into their car, picked up Frank's parents, and drove into Houston for Christmas dinner with Jim and Margaret Elkins and their children. Here she would have a few quiet hours free from the zoo of journalists and television cameras. Here she would watch their last press conference from lunar orbit. And here she would find out what Frank and the others had decided to say to the world on Christmas Eve. Though she knew they had planned a special message for this telecast, she didn't know what it was.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Borman stared out the window and was pleasantly surprised to see his second earthrise. He felt strangely detached from that tiny blue-white planet. Somehow, his entire existence in the blackness of space was now contained in their tiny capsule and its "environment of winking amber and red instrument lights."
7
What those lights indicated, however, meant the difference between life and death, and the lack of sleep was finally beginning to interfere with how the

 

Page 179
three men were reading those dials. Even as Borman contemplated that slowly rising earth, both Anders and Lovell made separate errors inputing data into the computer. Borman listened, and suggested that it was "time to take a rest."
Lovell nodded, "Okay, just a minute." Neither he nor Anders wanted to go to sleep. There was too much to do, and how could the first humans orbiting the moon waste time sleeping?
Yet, as they regained contact with the earth on this seventh orbit, all three men were clearly slowing down. Sometimes they had to ask questions twice, and sometimes they didn't understand the answers.
Lovell to Borman: "How do you feel?"
"Fine. Why?"
"I was just curious."
"You tired?"
"Oh, I'm a little tired," Lovell nodded. "I guess we all are."
And yet, neither he nor Anders could bring themselves to take a break.
At 5:40 PM Borman told Houston that he wanted to scrub some of Lovell's duties on the next revolution, so he could get some rest. Then he asked Anders if he wanted to get some sleep as well. Anders said no.
Borman wasn't satisfied. He knew that on orbits nine and ten, leading up to the T.E.I. burn, they all had to be sharp and on the money. Their lives depended on getting that burn right.
While Lovell was already getting ready for bed, Bill Anders resisted. He didn't feel tired, and he still had a great deal of unfinished photography on his flight plan. "Hey, Frank, how about on this next pass you just point [the camera] down and turn the goddamn cameras on. Let them run automatically."
"Yes, we can do that." Borman really didn't want to prevent Anders from finishing his job.
At that same moment, Borman suddenly realized he had ruined a roll of film. He cursed, and then his instinct to make fast decisions kicked in. He was no longer going to negotiate. He knew Lovell and Anders needed rest, and as commander of the mission it was his responsibility to make sure they got it.
Also at that moment, Ken Mattingly radioed to confirm the tasks that Borman had scrubbed from Lovell's flight plan. Borman instantly responded,

 

Page 180
"We're scrubbing everything. I'll stay up and point, keep the spacecraft vertical, and take some automatic pictures, but I want Jim and Bill to get some rest." He looked at the flight plan. "Unbelievable the detail these guys study up. A very good try, but just completely unrealistic."
Anders still resisted. "I'm willing to try."
"No. You try it, and then we'll make another mistake, like entering instead of proceeding or screwing up like I did. I want you to get your ass in bed. Right now." Borman had had enough of this conversation. "Go to bed! Hurry up! I'm not kidding you, get to bed!"
Anders didn't move. For the next five minutes he hung there, gently offering suggestions to Borman about how to set the camera up. He knew that as commander Borman had the right and authority to order him to bed. Anders just didn't want to go to sleep. How often would he get a chance to orbit the moon?
At 6 PM they slipped behind the moon for the eighth time. Just before, Ken Mattingly radioed NASA's support of Borman. "We agree with all your flight plan changes. And have a beautiful backside. We'll see you the next time around."
Still Anders resisted. He kept trying to find a way around Borman's order. While he didn't directly disobey it, he also didn't follow it immediately either.
Borman understood this. He figured he could just wait Anders out. He answered his questions by telling him to go to sleep. "I think this is a closed issue . . . I don't want to talk about it . . . Shut up, go to sleep, both of you guys . . . You should see your eyes get to bed . . . Don't worry about the exposure business, goddamn it, Anders, get to bed. Right now! Come on!"
Finally Anders began to lose the battle, not so much with Borman but with his own body. He had hardly slept since launch, and next to him Lovell was already sleeping. Anders started to doze, but fought it. He asked Borman if the cabin was cold. Borman said, more gently this time, "Well, you're tired. It's not cold."
Soon Borman sat in silence in the command seat, staring out at the stark lunar surface. Despite knowing that Anders especially resented this forced nap, Borman had never shirked from making the hard decision when he knew it was the right thing to do. And he wasn't going to start now.

 

Page 181
For the next few hours, he sat and observed the lunar surface, periodically taking pictures. Below him passed what for eons humans had called the dark side of the moon, that unseen hemisphere whose face was always turned away. Now a human being was not only able to study it, he was flying a mere seventy miles above its surface.
At 7:30 PM he asked Ken Mattingly, "How is the weather doing down there, Ken?"
"Entirely beautiful. Loud and clear, and just right in temperature."
Borman wasn't really interested in the weather in Houston. "How about the recovery area?" he asked. He knew that once they fired the S.P.S. engine to send them back to earth, it would be very difficult to change their arrival time. If the weather in the Pacific turned bad, they would have to land anyway.
"That's looking real good."
"Very good," Borman said. He looked at the tiny cloud-covered planet in his window. It would be very nice to be back there.
Ken Mattingly felt he had to say more about the good weather in the recovery area. "Yes, they told us that there's a beautiful moon out there."
"Yes," said Borman. "I was just [thinking] there's a beautiful earth out there."
In two hours they would give their last lunar press conference. Of the three astronauts, Borman had worried most about this moment. For weeks he had fretted about what they would say.
On that beautiful earth lived three billion people. Many had doubts about why his country had sent him here. Others wished that, instead of three Americans, two Russians had gotten there first. At least one third were about to celebrate one of the most holy religious holidays of the entire year.
Borman looked at the barren moon below him, and the distant earth beyond. For all he knew, he could be looking at a primeval universe immediately after its birth. The moon looked like a skull, bleached white by the hot sun. And though he knew there was life on earth, he could not see it.
And yet, on that distant orb people still lived, loved, fought, and survived. Looking at the three-quarters-full earth hanging in blackness, Borman sincerely wanted to tell everyone there what this journey had meant to him.
He hoped that he and his crewmates had found the way to do it.

 

Page 183
Chapter Ten
"Why Don't You Begin at the Beginning?"
C-Prime
In Berlin the wall still stood. On its seventh anniversary, August 13, 1968, few demonstrated against its presence. Four thousand East German guards patrolled that grim border, and in the seven years since its construction over a hundred people were known to have been killed trying to burrow under or climb over it. During that time thousands more had fled successfully, including more than five hundred East German guards.
1
Holiday passes between East and West Berlin had ceased. Except for emergency hardship passes, issued in the event of a death in the family, no West Berliners had been permitted to visit their East Berlin relatives in more than two years, since Easter 1966.
2
The East German government marked the wall's anniversary by praising its construction, noting how the outgoing tide of skilled and educated workers had stopped, and how this had benefited the East German economy.
3
BOOK: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8
8.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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