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CRONKITE (off screen): It's 3 hours and 32 minutes until man begins the greatest
adventure in his history.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Five minutes, Gino, and you're go down here,
you're looking great.
Comm Manager and Attitude.
MAN (over radio): Comm Manager...
CRONKITE (off screen): Man is about to launch himself on a trip to the Moon with the
expectation of landing there.
KENNEDY: 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston...
KENNEDY (off screen): A giant rocket more than 300 feet tall,
reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour.
HYDE (off screen): You well may be the first man on the Moon.
How do you personally feel about it?
LOVELL (off screen): Well I have the same desire as all the astronauts.
We'd all like to make that trip.
MAN (over radio): Verified, go for launch.
PA OFFICER (over radio): All still, "go" at this time.
MAN (over radio): Four, three, two, one.
Roger T minus zero.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Liftoff. Liftoff.
Roger liftoff.
REPORTER (over radio): And we have liftoff!
She's lifting up, we have, "Tower Clear."
PA OFFICER (over radio): Tower clear!
REPORTER (over radio): We have tower clear.
We're beginning to feel the first thunderous roar!
BERGMAN (off screen): You claim that morale hasn't sagged here with the cutbacks
in the space program.
Are you concerned that some step in check out may be missed that might
cause a mechanical failure?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Seventy.
ALDRIN (over radio): Thirty feet, two and a half down.
ALDRIN (over radio): 20 feet, down a half.
Moving forward just a little bit, all right.
Right.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay, T1 stay, no stay, Retro?
MAN (over radio): Stay.
KRANZ (over radio): Fido? MAN (over radio): Stay.
KRANZ (over radio): Guidance? GUIDANCE (over radio): Stay.
KRANZ (over radio): Control? CONTROL (over radio): Stay.
CAPCOM (over radio): No PDI plus 12.
LOVELL (over radio): Ah, Houston we've had a problem.
MAN (over radio): We've got more than a problem.
LUNNEY (over radio): Okay, listen, listen you guys.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We lost O2 tank 2 pressure. GNC, Flight.
LUNNEY (over radio): What do you want on the heater circuit breaker?
AARON (over radio): We ought to get off entry battery and do it with a
flashlight through the LM.
PA OFFICER (over radio): Less than seven minutes now from time of entry into
the Earth's atmosphere.
REPORTER (over radio): There it is, it's coming out of the cloud level now.
1,000 feet to go!
♪ ♪
LOVELL (over radio): Welcome from the Moon, Houston.
DISNEY: At Disneyland Park,
the ground devoted to things of the future is called, "Tomorrowland."
DISNEY (off screen): One of the popular attractions here is our simulated rocket trip
around the Moon.
After entering the Disneyland Spaceport, visitors may experience the thrills that
space travelers of the future will encounter when rocket trips to the Moon
become a daily routine.
KIMBALL: When we hear the exciting news of how the rocket scientists of today are
preparing for tomorrow's trip to the Moon, we must remember that such a trip
has long been the dream of many men since history began.
KIMBALL (off screen): Roll the moon sequence, please.
BRAUN (off screen): Since ancient times, since the beginning of man's
ability to think,
he has gazed at the heavens and dreamed that
someday he would travel through space,
to explore the Moon and planets,
which have eternally captivated his imagination.
DISNEY (off screen): However, scientists tell us it will be many years before space
travel becomes a reality.
REPORTER (off screen): President Eisenhower and other spokesmen of the
administration have been attempting to relieve the
fears and anxieties caused by Russia's spectacular
breakthrough in the Earth satellite and intercontinental ballistic missile field.
REPORTER 2 (off screen): The rise of Sputnik-1 and the traumatic reaction
of the world's peoples.
Thrust before all Americans, problems wholly new.
REPORTER 3 (off screen): The space age has become the new frontier in the Cold War.
GLENNAN: We have one of the most challenging assignments that has ever
been given to modern man.
Expansion of human knowledge about space,
development and operation of vehicles capable of
carrying instruments and man through space, preservation of the role of
the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology.
REPORTER (off screen): It was expected for months the first man in space
would be a Russian.
But still, the news was not welcome in Washington.
REPORTER 2 (off screen): The United States man in space program is at least
eight months behind that of the Soviet Union.
KENNEDY: Now it is time to take longer strides.
Time for a great new American enterprise.
Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement,
which in many ways, may hold the key to our future on Earth.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal
before this decade is out
of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
REPORTER (over TV): America's team of astronauts was increased
to 16 today with the addition of nine new members.
It was specified that they will be trained for trips to the Moon.
♪ ♪
REPORTER (over TV): As more and more scientific instruments marked,
"Made in America"
begin to show up in the space around the Earth,
a wave of business-like optimism is being felt among
American space officials.
In both the House and Senate Space Committees, the committee men have been
pleading with an official of the space administration to tell them that he needs more
money, and he's been saying "No, he doesn't.
His space work has been going fine on its current budget."
That official is Wernher Von Braun,
head of the famous Army rocket team which is now in the process of being
transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
known from its initials as NASA.
BRAUN: I'm often asked just what reason there is for man's going into space.
It seems the notion is popular in this age of electronic and
mechanical miracles that man is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Men in space, some people say is a liability and a nuisance.
Equipment can be designed to react to many known and fewer anticipated
situations or events.
But men can observe and correlate facts and respond to the unexpected.
MAN (off screen): This spacecraft built by American Industry for the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
will be launched into space from Cape Kennedy in a few days.
It will carry no astronauts,
yet this mission is one of the most important space flights
to date for this is Apollo,
the first of a family of spacecraft designed to
transport Americans to the Moon before 1970.
Many of its complex systems will fly in space for the first time
aboard this spacecraft.
SHEA: After the launch vehicle has placed us at the proper velocity,
the Command Module and the Service Module separate from the launch vehicle.
They've been pitched down at an attitude roughly like this.
This engine, which we will ultimately use to return the astronauts from Earth's orbit
to the Earth's surface and also in later missions to put the astronauts into lunar
orbit and bring them back home from lunar orbit,
will then have its first flight test.
MAN (off screen): From the Mission Control Center in Houston,
Glynn Lunney will direct the flight.
LUNNEY: We are conducting the first Apollo spacecraft test,
Apollo-Saturn 201, from this control center
in the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.
From now on, the Apollo flights after liftoff will be directed from
this Control Center.
We've been exercising the Control Center for the last couple of months,
and we are ready to start flying.
REPORTER (over radio): Astronauts preparing for America's first lunar mission
follow a complex training program.
Designed to provide them with knowledge about the conditions they will face
during their mission to the Moon.
BURKE (over TV): There's one way on Earth that you can
reproduce the weightlessness experienced in space,
and that's in this plane.
I don't know if I'm talking clearly,
but pretty soon we'll go up over the top and when we
do I'm supposed to float, and, and,
I'm going. I'm going.
It's fantastic.
It's unbelievable!
It's the most extraordinary feeling.
I can't, I can't really control myself.
All the dust is flying with me.
I'm up, I can't control myself at all.
CRONKITE (over TV): Two years, really,
of day and night work and months away from home.
It's a big job these men have.
There's nothing simple about it.
REPORTER (over TV): The question everybody wants to ask,
what do the wives and children of
these men think of their ambitions to go into space?
GLENN: My wife's attitude towards this has been the same as it has been all along
through all my flying that if it's what I want to do and she's behind it
and the kids are too, 100%.
GRISSOM: Well, my wife feels the same way or of course I couldn't be here.
She's with me all the way, and the boys are too little to realize what's going on yet,
but I'm sure they feel the same way.
REPORTER (off screen): Mrs. Grissom, do you hope that he is the fellow who makes it?
BETTY: Well, I don't know.
How would you feel if your wife,
I still want one of you guys to answer that for me.
REPORTER (off screen): Answer what?
BETTY: Just how would you feel it was vice versa,
if it was your wife going to outer space.
Now, just how would you feel about it?
MAN (off screen): The Moon is a necessary first step for exploration of the planets.
To fly men there and return them safely in this decade is the goal
of NASA's project Apollo.
The early missions of Mercury and the experience from Gemini have brought
this country to
the next major milestone, the first Apollo three-man space flight.
These are the men to fly that mission.
Command pilot Virgil Grissom.
Mercury, Gemini, and now Apollo.
His third time into space.
One of the original seven astronauts.
The senior pilot, Edward White.
He will be remembered for his spacewalk during Gemini four.
White has been specializing in the computers and training for the upcoming mission.
Astronaut Roger Chaffee will man the third Apollo seat.
He has been concentrating on the flight plan and experiments.
CHAFFEE: I think everybody in the space program has been asked this 50 times and
it's probably the toughest question to answer and not sound, shall we say corny,
with the answer.
It's a new phase of exploration.
It's, you might say and sound a little trite, it's there.
We'd be neglecting our duties as people, as human beings if we
didn't try to investigate it.
CHAFFEE (off screen): We're improving our engineering capability.
We're building new equipment that has an untold number of uses in fields that
we can't even conceive of today.
The scientific aspect, I don't think anybody can predict what it's going to be.
Things that we'll find there, some of the basic geologic things that we might find
there that have long since been destroyed by weather on Earth, might give us more
insight into the birth of our universe, or birth of our solar system.
REPORTER (off screen): You flew on Mercury, you flew on Gemini,
now you're flying on Apollo.
Is the law of averages so far as the possibility of a catastrophic failure bother
you at all, sir?
GRISSOM: No, you sort of have to put that out of your mind.
There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic
failure of course.
It's going to happen on any flight.
It can happen on the last one as well as the first one,
so you just plan as best you can
to take care of all of these eventualities.
And you get a well-trained crew and you go fly.
♪ ♪
MAN (over radio): Go ahead...
CONTROL (over radio): Okay, have we got all three astronauts patched
S-Band into Black 3?
MAN (over radio): Ah, yep.
CONTROL (over radio): Say again?
CREW (over radio): How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk
between three buildings?
MAN (over radio): They can't hear a thing you're saying.
CREW (over radio): Again, this is the Command Pilot.
One, two, three, four, five. Five, four, three, two, one.
CONTROL (over radio): Can we get a verification that all three of you are
in the S-Band mode?
(radio static)
CREW (over radio): Flames!
CREW (over radio): We're having a bad fire! We're burning up!
CONTROL (over radio): Hey, crew, can you egress at this time?
Confirm it?
Pad leader, get in there and help them.
Pad leader, were you able to hear them?
All right, crew, we get verification?
Gus, can you read us?
CONTROL (over radio): Pad leader?
REPORTER (over radio): 7:12.
Just handed to us from WCCO Radio News now.
An accidental fire has broken out on the Apollo launch pad at Cape Kennedy,
killing at least one person.
Now, here's more news on that.
RYAN: Good evening.
Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee have been killed
in a flash fire during a rehearsal of the countdown and launch of the Apollo flight
they were to have made on the 21st of next month.
EDWARDS (over radio): Details are sparse,
but killed were Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
Virgil Grissom, who was one of the seven original Mercury astronauts.
Very well known, indeed.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Edward White II,
who was the first American to walk in space,
and Navy Lieutenant Commander Roger Chaffee, a rookie awaiting his first
flight in space.
REPORTER (over radio): The spacecraft was located 218 feet above the launch
pad and was mated to the uprated Saturn 1B launch vehicle.
Hatches on the spacecraft were closed.
Emergency crews were hampered by dense smoke in removing the hatches.
HARTZ (off screen): Within a few hours, an official investigation was underway.
Tapes containing telemetry records were impounded.
Photographs showing the position of every switch and valve inside
the cabin were made.
Eyewitnesses were asked to tell their story while it was fresh and then,
shortly before 2:00 this morning,
the bodies of Grissom, White, and Chaffee were removed and brought down.
BROOKS (over radio): With the Moon visible overhead and a blue sky traced with clouds,
the same Moon he had hoped someday to land on,
the stage is set for the burial of
Virgil Gus Grissom here at Arlington National Cemetery this morning.
The mourners taking their place.
The families, still off on the side.
Mrs. Grissom and the two sons.
CLAPPER (over radio): President Johnson said in a statement, "Three valiant
young men have given their lives in the nation's service.
We mourn this great loss and our hearts go out to their families."
Space officials say that because of the tragedy,
the Apollo 1 flight has now been postponed indefinitely.
GUIDE (over speaker): The national space program began in 1958 under
President Dwight Eisenhower.
NASA's primary purpose is to acquire new knowledge about the universe in which we live.
We're now approaching the industrial area of the Kennedy Space Center.
That first large building over there is known as the CIF,
which means Central Instrumentation Facility.
♪ ♪
CRONKITE (off screen): Good evening, tonight we're on the eve of the resumption of this
country's push to the Moon.
A push halted by that disaster on Pad 34 almost two years ago.
CRONKITE (off screen): The entire Apollo program has been reexamined;
the spacecraft re-designed.
With the work done, the attempt to reach the Moon, and to get there before the
Russians resumes tomorrow morning with the launch of Apollo 7.
MAN (over radio): Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start.
Five, four, we have ignition we have liftoff, we have liftoff.
CRONKITE (off screen): The flight will be exotic only in that it is a
first test flight.
It is planned as an endurance test.
Ten days and nineteen hours in orbit during which the crew will test Apollo 7.
Wring it out as thoroughly as possible to make sure it is ready for the
more demanding flights to come.
REPORTER (off screen): I understand, Mr. Tinnen, that among the sophisticated
equipment on board the craft will be live TV cameras.
Will you tell us about that?
TINNEN: Yes, this will be a first.
There will be a small, portable camera on board.
And about five or six times during the mission at the discretion of Captain Schirra,
it will be used to view the astronauts at work, in the spacecraft.
CAPCOM (over radio): Here comes a picture, and it's white.
We look at Eisele.
Uh, a nice shot, it looks straight up and he's moving and he's really quite clear.
Let's all have a look at it.
REPORTER (off screen): That's Donn Eisele talking, now he's holding up a sign.
CAPCOM (over radio): I can read it, now just a minute.
CAPCOM (over radio): The lovely Apollo room high atop everything.
SCHIRRA (over radio): That's right.
EISELE (over radio): And there we have him.
You can see he has been working very hard.
Wally has been drilling his troops.
SCHIRRA (over radio): As you can see, we have our lighter moments.
You may note from this that we even have our ups and downs.
SCHIRRA (over radio): Next time, we will have to get better material
or better writers.
HOPE: Gentlemen, you all know why we're here.
NASA wasn't too happy with your TV shows from space.
SCHIRRA: I thought we were pretty funny.
HOPE: Are you kidding?
You're lucky you weren't canceled in mid-flight.
EISELE: But sir, we accomplished our mission.
It was successful.
HOPE: Successful? Did you see your ratings?
It won't do gentlemen.
You've gotta give the people a show, excitement, laughs.
Believe me, I know.
Why do you think I've been a star for 25 years?
SCHIRRA: Luck?
(laughter and applause)
HOPE: Watch it, nobody likes a smart astronaut.
REPORTER: Mr. Schneider, will you detail the milestones of the Apollo 8 mission?
SCHNEIDER: Well, on December 21st,
the Saturn Five will place the spacecraft into a
100-mile orbit around the Earth.
Roughly two orbits later, that is about two hours and fifty minutes later,
the last stage of the Saturn Five will re-ignite,
placing the spacecraft on a trajectory
that will lead it out to the Moon.
SCHNEIDER (off screen): At the back side of the moon, if things are as we expect,
the crew will ignite the
Service Propulsion System on the spacecraft and place themselves into
an elliptical 60-mile by 170-mile orbit around the Moon.
LOVELL: You know we've been planning this flight for years and years, and sometimes,
when you read about it or hear it for so long you think that the
goal is academic, you know.
You don't really, finally understand that you're really gonna try something like this
and now it's getting closer,
and we're not just talking about something in the future,
we're talking about something right now.
HYDE: You well may be the first man on the moon.
How do you personally feel about it?
LOVELL (off screen): Well I have the same desire as all the astronauts.
We'd all like to make that trip.
But I think that the way the trip will be accomplished is by teamwork.
Whether we're back here on Earth, or we're in the capsule, or actually getting
off on the, onto the Moon's surface.
Teamwork is the most important part.
JIM: Frank, the Russians have indicated that some lifeforms they had aboard
Zond 5 underwent some major changes, and I was wondering if because of this
you're going to take any extra precautions in radiation detection?
BORMAN: Well Jim, we have fortunately, I have, Jim has liver trouble,
and Bill Anders is a radiation expert so I can pass the question off to them.
ANDERS: Well, I haven't heard about what the Russians are flying.
REPORTER: Turtles.
ANDERS: Well, we've had trouble with turtles in flight, too.
REPORTER (off screen): We had them there first, too.
ANDERS: Our, the analysis that I'm familiar with about radiation in and around the
moon, to my knowledge, will present a negligible problem.
MURPHY (off screen): There is a feeling of self-assuredness here,
a feeling that everything's going to go all right.
But beneath the calm exterior, there is concern.
Few here would agree with an official who said yesterday that this mission
had no special significance.
It does.
Man is about to leave his planet for the first time.
Odds are against a major systems failure, but if one occurred, the men could be
lost, and that would be a disaster for the American space program.
On the other hand, if the mission is successful, it would be dramatic proof that
we are ahead of the Russians in the race to put a man on the Moon.
It could mean a lot more money for the space program.
Everyone here knows that, but as I said everyone is calm, cool, and confident,
also concerned.
♪ ♪
MICHELMORE (off screen): In 1961, President John F. Kennedy committed,
as far as anyone could commit, the Americans to having a
man on the Moon by 1970.
Today, from Cape Kennedy, a vital step is being made to the realization of that goal.
The plan today is to put three men in orbit around the Moon 10 times.
They will see that 40% of the Moon that man has never set eyes on before.
LOVELL: Once you're in the spacecraft, once the hatch is closed and the engines
start up and those retaining arms go down,
then it's either gonna go, or it's not gonna go.
KING (over radio): T-Minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.
9, we have ignition sequence start.
The engines are armed.
Four, three, two, one, zero.
CRIM: And there's the flames from those five first stage engines.
What a tremendous sight, there's brilliant orange flames blowing out in all
directions from underneath that rocket, and we have liftoff.
Moving very, very slowly now as the base of that rocket burning brilliantly against
the Florida sky moves up past the tower.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Liftoff. The clock is running.
CRIM (off screen): The rocket has cleared the tower and
there she goes on her way to the Moon.
There goes the Saturn V rocket taking man on his first visit to the vicinity of the Moon.
Roll 6 program.
REPORTER (off screen): Mrs. Lovell, after watching the last two launches involving
your husband from your home in Houston,
why did you decide this time to come to the Cape?
MARILYN: Well, I just felt like it was an experience that we should share as a family,
and Jim wanted us down here.
REPORTER (off screen): Was it different than the first time?
MARILYN: Yes. It was.
REPORTER (off screen): In what way?
MARILYN: Well, I, I don't know how to explain it.
I guess because I was here to see it with a naked eye, maybe that's the reason
why I feel that it was different.
REPORTER (off screen): Are the children gonna wait for their presents until he gets back?
MARILYN (off screen): No. We're going to have a normal Christmas with the children
on Christmas day.
BURKE: This mission is loaded with what's called
"Life Critical Points."
Those are the points during the mission when if anything goes wrong,
a rocket fires, or fails to fire,
or misfires, then the life of the astronauts is put in danger.
The first one of course is on launch.
The second one is after two orbits of the Earth, round here over the Pacific,
when they decide to go for what's called Translunar Insertion,
that is to begin the trip to the Moon.
When Saturn IV B, that's the third stage of the giant booster, fires for a second
time to put them into space.
Now that Saturn IV B rocket has never fired twice in space before with men on board.
If it over-fires, it will put them into a wild trajectory out here,
from which they could possibly not return.
REPORTER (off screen): Do they understand anything about what's going on,
the youngest ones?
VALERIE (off screen): A surprising amount.
In fact, my four-year-old said to me, "Is he going around the Moon ten times,"
which nearly floored me.
I had no idea that he, that he really grasped that much.
And then yesterday, he heard a newscast and he said,
"Mommy, is it dangerous?"
REPORTER (off screen): What'd you tell him?
VALERIE: I said, "No, daddy's gonna be fine, Eric."
What else?
REPORTER (over radio): The manned Spacecraft Center in Houston says all is ready
for a translunar injection of Apollo 8.
In a matter of a few minutes,
near the end of the second revolution,
the J2 engine of the third stage of the mighty Saturn V will be reignited
for about five minutes.
This will inject the vehicle and spacecraft into a translunar trajectory.
COLLINS (over radio): Apollo 8. Houston. Over.
HANEY (over radio): Apollo 8 has been advised once again that they look
good for the burn.
COLLINS (over radio): Roger, we are gonna rewind your tape recorder and we have the TLI.
HANEY (over radio): About every minute, the flight director has pulsed,
the booster man, in this control center, to get his status.
MAN (over radio): Um, the weight will be.
HANEY (over radio): Thirty seconds to TLI.
COLLINS (over radio): Apollo 8, coming up on 20 seconds to ignition.
Mark it and you're looking very good.
HANEY (over radio): And Mike Collins gives them a mark, 20 seconds to ignition.
BORMAN (over radio): Roger.
HANEY (over radio): And he's counting, four, two...
LOVELL (over radio): Ignition.
COLLINS (over radio): Roger, ignition.
HANEY (over radio): We see ignition.
COLLINS (over radio): Apollo 8, Houston. You're looking good.
PA OFFICER (over radio): This climb translates out to approximately
150 miles a minute.
HANEY (over radio): These three crew members are traveling faster than
man has ever flown before.
COLLINS (over radio): Apollo 8, Houston.
Trajectory and guidance look good, over.
REPORTER (off screen): Hold your breath just a little bit longer.
This rocket has just a little longer to go.
The rocket's obviously riding very smoothly for them and thrusting at full value.
HANEY (over radio): Flight dynamics says we're exactly nominal.
REPORTER (off screen): Right on the button.
HANEY (over radio): Flight dynamics says we look good, flight.
They're watching the thrust build.
COLLINS (over radio): Apollo 8, Houston, you're looking good here,
right down the centerline.
BORMAN (over radio): Roger. Apollo 8.
HANEY (over radio): Trajectory, guidance, flight dynamics.
Everybody in the front trench of this control center, says they're happy.
That includes the Booster.
REPORTER (off screen): There you have it.
They are on their way to the Moon.
One of the most critical points on this flight is now over.
SCHOUMACHER (over TV): The spacecraft is well over 70,000 miles right on course
to the Moon.
It is rolling very slowly to distribute the heat of the Sun over the skin of the capsule.
Ground computers calculate that Apollo 8 will arrive in the vicinity of the Moon
within 3 minutes of the pre-launch schedule.
REPORTER (over radio): You've just been listening to a broadcast of history.
We have men on their way to the Moon solidly, and at this point, very safely.
MUELLER (over radio): Apollo 8 will be doing only about 2,700 miles an hour
when the Moon's gravity grabs it on Christmas Eve and draws Apollo 8
toward mankind's first historic rendezvous with another celestial body.
BORMAN: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there.
Here's the Earth coming up. Wow is that pretty.
ANDERS: Hand me that roll of color quick, will you?
LOVELL (over radio): Oh man, that's great. Where is it?
ANDERS: Quick.
ANDERS: Just grab me a color. That color exterior.
LOVELL (over radio): Mike, what I keep imagining is, if I'm a-
some lonely traveler from another planet,
what I would think about the Earth at this altitude
whether I think it'd be inhabited or not.
CAPCOM (over radio): Don't see anybody waving, is that what you're saying?
LOVELL (over radio): I was just kind of curious whether I would land on the blue or the
brown part of the Earth.
ANDERS (over radio): You better hope that we land on the blue part.
DOWNS (over TV): We're back now 30 minutes after the hour on this Today,
December 24th, and
it's a rather unusual Christmas Eve, I think, for the,
for the nation and the world.
It's the first, not only Christmas Eve, but the first day at all
that we've had human beings circling the Moon.
REYNOLDS (over TV): And tonight, the crew of Apollo 8 presents a
Christmas Eve program from the heavens.
CAPCOM (over radio): Apollo 8, Houston, Over.
ANDERS (over radio): Houston, this is Apollo 8 with the TV going. Over.
LOVELL (over radio): Welcome from the Moon, Houston.
LOVELL (over radio): What we've noticed especially that
you cannot see from Earth, are the small bright impact craters
that dominate the lunar surface.
(camera shutter clicking)
BORMAN (over radio): The Moon is a different thing to each one of us.
BORMAN (over radio): I know my own impression is that it's a vast,
lonely, forbidding-type existence.
ANDERS (over radio): We are now approaching lunar sunrise
and for all the people back on Earth,
the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
ANDERS (over radio): In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.
And God said, "Let there be light."
And there was light.
And God divided the light from the darkness
LOVELL (over radio): And God called the light Day
and the darkness he called Night.
BORMAN (over radio): And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place.
And let the dry land appear."
And it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth.
BORMAN (over radio): 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.
LAZAR: This is Sidney Lazar in the Rockefeller Center New York.
We stopped some passersby on their way home this Christmas Eve to ask them how they felt
about America's most recent accomplishment in space.
Sir, how did you feel when you first learned that we had men circling the Moon?
MAN: Well I thought it was a wonderful accomplishment.
I don't think there was any alternative to our attempting to do it before the Russians
did both from a propaganda purpose and also to prevent them from using it
as a power base in the future.
LAZAR: A lot of people sir, say that this effort has cost too much.
That the money would have been better spent here on Earth.
What do you think about that?
MAN: Definitely not.
I think it's the greatest accomplishment that man has ever reached so far.
CRONKITE: There is one positive result already from the flight of Apollo 8, and we
should report it to you, I think, to keep all of history recorded this morning.
In London, Britain's Flat Earth society admits now that it's going to have to take a
new look at things.
BUNCHE (over TV): The epic flight of Apollo 8 in cracking the Moon barrier
demonstrates that man now has the capability to soar as high and as far as
his dreams may project.
♪ ♪
CRONKITE (over TV): In space, Apollo 9 and 10 tested the manned operation of the
entire Apollo spacecraft.
Nine, an Earth orbital flight,
and ten in lunar orbit, with the LEM descending to within
10 miles of the lunar surface.
We are now ready to challenge our own technology and land a man on the Moon.
ROGGE: Would you like to live on the Moon?
BOY: Yes, I would.
ROGGE: You would, you'd like to be one of the first people to go?
BOY: Yes.
ROGGE: How about Wade over there, what are your comments?
WADE: Well, I'd like to be one of the first ones to go too.
ROGGE: Mrs. Hubbard, I'd like to ask you, uh, do you think many people will be
interested, you know, in, being on the first colony?
HUBBARD: I'm sure of it.
In fact I read in the paper today that 90,000 people have signed up with Pan Am for the
first flight to the Moon whenever it comes and it's going to cost
$28,000 a flight.
And 90,000 people unsolicited have signed up.
♪ ♪
REPORTER (off screen: Dr. Wernher Von Braun says the Russians will land
their Luna 15 on the Moon by tomorrow.
He also says it's a good bet that there's nobody inside the Luna 15.
He says it could have the ability to bring back some Moon soil to Earth, but nobody
knows anything about it.
CLARK (of screen): If the Russians scoop some of this up automatically
and brought it back,
so that they retrieved the first samples of the Moon,
would you feel a disappointment?
ALDRIN: I'm sure that all of us would.
We'd like to return with everything that we've set out to do on this flight.
SHURKIN: This is for Mr. Armstrong.
There's been speculation about what the first man on the Moon will say
when he gets there.
Will you prepare something ahead of time, or will it be prepared for you,
or can we expect a spontaneous exclamation?
ARMSTRONG: Our attention during the training period and up until now has been focused
on how to do the job and how to do it best,
and not so much with what might be the
emotions of the moment.
ARMSTRONG (off screen): I think that would be impossible to predict.
REYNOLDS: The American space engineers and scientists designed the lunar
module for the most delicate part of this or any mission:
setting men down safely on another planet.
REYNOLDS( off screen): It's just under 23 feet tall and it is beautifully
constructed for its purpose:
to land softly on the Moon.
ARMSTRONG (off screen): The question was how does the machine fly?
And I think it does an excellent job of actually capturing the handling
characteristics of the lunar module in landing maneuver.
LOY: If you've been considering coming to the Kennedy Space Center to watch
the historic flight of Apollo 11, you might think twice before you leave your
comfortable living room and your nice television set.
Soon hundreds of thousands of people will jam the Titusville, Cocoa Beach area
to watch this historic flight.
CRONKITE (off screen): Good morning!
It's three hours and thirty-two minutes till man begins the greatest adventure
in his history.
All of that long billion years or so.
CRONKITE (off screen): Because at 9:32am,
three hours and thirty-two minutes from now, here, in Florida,
the Kennedy Space Center,
man is about to launch himself on a trip to the Moon with the expectation of landing there.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Comm Manager and Attitude.
MAN (over radio): Comm Manager.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We got your Auto-patterns.
MAN (over radio): Roger, thank you.
Have you got both computers operating?
Verify, go for launch. FRO verify, go for launch? FRO verify, go for launch.
KING (off screen): The estimate is more than a million persons are in the
immediate area in Brevard County to watch the launch.
All still go at this time.
Neil Armstrong reported back when he received the good wishes,
"Thank you very much. We know it will be a good flight."
MAN (over radio): Verify, go for launch.
Verify, go for launch.
SRO verified, go for launch.
FRO verified, go for launch?
LOM verified, go for launch.
REPORTER (over radio): We're down to 12, 11, 10, 9, ignition sequence start,
we should see fire.
Four, three, two, one.
MAN (over radio): Roger, team liftoff.
Liftoff. Roger liftoff.
REPORTER (over radio): And we have liftoff!
Now the huge tail is passing the tower!
She's rising!
She's yawing now to clear the tower, that slight yaw.
She's lifting up.
We have tower clear. We have tower clear.
We're beginning to feel the first thunderous roar!
I can see her rising now, as she's going up straight into the roll program,
which she should be completing.
We should expect to hear from the astronauts as this spit of land is beginning
to shake with the power of it.
The power of it as it goes and splits the clouds.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): We've got skirt SEP.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Roger, we confirm skirt SEP.
REPORTER (over radio): Those are the men in space, bound for the Moon.
COLLINS (over radio): Houston. Apollo 11.
The Saturn gave us a magnificent ride.
CAPCOM (over radio): Roger, 11.
We'll pass that on and certainly looks like you're well on your way now.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Well, we didn't have much time,
Houston, to talk to you about our views out
the window when we were preparing for LEM injection.
But up to that time, we had the entire northern part of the lighted hemisphere
visible, including North America, North Atlantic, and Europe and Northern Africa.
Most of the United States was clear.
REPORTER: Now, I understand that Neil, umpteen miles away, predicted that our showers
here would end in just a short while.
What'd you think of that?
JAN: I'd say that was about normal for him.
REPORTER (off screen): Normal?
JAN: That's correct.
REPORTER (off screen): You mean, he always does something like this?
JAN: Yes. He usually wins.
REPORTER (off screen): What kind of plans do you have for Neil when he gets back?
A quiet outing or what?
JAN: We haven't made any plans yet.
JAN (off screen): They have to get back.
CAPCOM (over radio): Apollo 11, this is Houston.
If you're interested in the morning news, I've got a summary here.
Britain's big Jordel Bank radio telescope
stopped receiving signals from the Soviet Union's
unmanned Moon shot at 5:49 EDT today.
A spokesman said that it appeared that the
Luna 15 space ship, quote, "has gone beyond the Moon," unquote.
PARK: Tell me. What do you think about the space program?
GIRL: Well, I'm real excited about it and I think I can speak for most teenagers
in saying that we are all excited about it, 'cause just about everyone
I've talked to is excited.
Just the other day, Judy and I were talking to two boys, and they said what did
they think we'd probably do when we actually saw someone walking on the moon?
And I said, "I don't know.
Maybe I, maybe we'll get up and just scream or maybe just it'll be so exciting,
or maybe we'll just cry."
PA OFFICER (over radio): This is Apollo control.
We're now six minutes, eight seconds from ignition.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Houston,
you're looking good for separation.
You're a go for separation, Columbia. Over.
COLLINS (over radio): You cats take it easy on the lunar surface
If I hear you huffing and puffing I'm going to start bitching at you.
ALDRIN (over radio): Okay Mike.
WARD (over radio): It's grown quite quiet here in mission control.
A few moments ago,
flight director Gene Kranz requested that everyone sit down,
get prepared for events that are coming, and he closed with the remark,
"Good luck to all of you."
DUKE (over radio): 4-0-0-0-0-0-1.
0-7-1-1-3-0-0-0.
No PDI plus 12.
ALDRIN (over radio): Got the Earth straight out our front window.
(alarm)
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Program alarm.
Houston, you're looking at our Delta-H.
1202; 1202.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): 12, 1202 alarm.
1202. Standby.
1202, 1202 alarm.
Looks like it's converging.
1202. What's that? 12, 1202 alarm.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.
HOUSTON (over radio): It's executive overflow.
If it does not occur again, we're fine.
MAN (over radio): Yeah, it's the same thing we had.
It had not occurred again. Okay. We're go.
REID (off screen): They got a momentary alarm on their system.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We're go on that alarm.
We're go. Same type. We're go.
We're go on that, Flight.
KRANZ (over radio): We're go on that alarm?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): It's, if it doesn't reoccur we'll be go.
He's taking it to Delta-H now.
DUKE (over radio): Eagle, Houston you are Go for landing, over.
ALDRIN (over radio): Roger, understand. Go for landing. 3,000 feet.
ROWAN (off screen): Coming up on a point,
which is called appropriately enough "last ridge,"
a 300-foot high ridge directly beneath them.
BERGMAN (over TV): There are reasons to be conservative
there are many, very many new things that are happening in this flight.
Very many new things that have never been attempted before.
The descent, the landing.
There are big dangers involved despite the best our technology can do and our
technology does do very well.
ROWAN: They have 70 seconds in which to re-designate the landing site.
So, take a good look at it now if they want to change it.
ALDRIN (over radio): Alpha says we're go. Altitude 9,200 feet.
MISSION CONTROL 8-30. You're looking great.
ALDRIN (over radio): We're now in the approach phase.
Everything looking good.
REPORTER (off screen): Just a little more than 100 miles per hour descent rate.
They should be within five miles of their landing point.
They should be getting a good look at it now.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We're descending at
27 feet per second, 25 feet per second.
ALDRIN (over radio): 2,000 feet. Into the AGS. 47 degrees.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Roger.
ALDRIN (over radio): 2,000 feet, 47 degrees.
ALDRIN (over radio): 13 forward.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Ten minutes, thirty seconds,
we are down to 9 feet per second.
Vertical velocity, 359 feet.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay. The only caveat from now on will be fuel.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Low level.
KRANZ (over radio): Low level.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): And on for 60.
KRANZ (over radio): Rog.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): 60.
KRANZ (over radio): 60 seconds.
ALDRIN (over radio): 11 forward, coming down nicely. 200 feet.
4 1/2 down. 5 1/2 down.
ALDRIN (over radio): 160 feet. 6 1/2 down.
5 1/2 down. 9 forward.
KRANZ (over radio):75 feet looking good down a half.
KRANZ (over radio): How's our margin looking, Bob?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): It looks okay, we've got 4-1/2.
KRANZ (over radio): Rog.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): 285 feet descending at one foot per second.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Okay, how's the fuel?
ALDRIN (over radio): Wait just a minute.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Okay. Here's a... Looks like a good area here.
ALDRIN (over radio): I got the shadow out there.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Standby for 30.
ALDRIN (over radio): Forward. Forward.
KRANZ (over radio): 30, 30 seconds.
ALDRIN (over radio): Good.
40 feet down, 2 1/2. Picking up some dust.
30 feet, 2 1/2 down. Faint shadow.
ALDRIN (over radio): 4 forward. 4 forward.
Drifting to the right a little.
20 feet, down a half;
Drifting forward just a little bit.
That's good. Okay.
ALDRIN (over radio): Contact light.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Shutdown.
ALDRIN (over radio): Okay. Engine stop.
ACA out of Detent.
ALDRIN (over radio): Mode control, both auto.
Descent Engine Command Override, off.
Engine arm, off. 413 is in.
DUKE (over radio): We've had shut down.
We copy you down, Eagle.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Okay, keep the chatter down in this room!
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Houston. Tranquility Base here.
The eagle has landed.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground.
You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.
We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.
ALDRIN(over radio): Thank you.
(applause)
CRONKITE (off screen): Wally, say something. I'm speechless.
SCHIRRA (off screen): I'm just trying to hold on to my breath.
That is really something.
CRONKITE: Phew, boy.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Okay, we're going to be busy for a minute.
(radio chatter)
BERGMAN (off screen): Everyone wondered what Neil Armstrong's
first words would be: "This is Tranquility Base."
ALDRIN( over radio): Very smooth touchdown.
REPORTER (off screen): Very smooth touchdown. I don't believe it yet.
Tranquility base. And the Eagle has landed.
ALDRIN (over radio): Master arm. On. Take care of the descent vent.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Master arm coming on.
ALDRIN (over radio): I'll get the pressure check.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Okay.
REPORTER (off screen): They have just a very few seconds here to decide whether
they want to stay or whether they want to leave right away.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay, T-1. Stay, no stay. Retro.
MAN (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Fido. MAN (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Guidance. GUIDANCE (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Control. CONTROL (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Tel-com. MAN (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Gen-C. MAN (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): E-Com. MAN (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Surgeon. SURGEON (over radio): Stay!
KRANZ (over radio): Capcom, we're stay for T-1.
STRAWSER (off screen): We are now 106 hours, 27 minutes into the mission of Apollo 11.
And some 15 minutes ago from Tranquility Base,
the lunar module resting on the Moon's surface,
Commander Neil Armstrong radioed he was beginning
preparations for EVA.
EVA standing for Extravehicular Activity, or to put it more simply,
the moonwalk.
REPORTER (off screen): Southern Californians do just about everything in their
automobiles, even go to church,
park in the parking lot, and listen to the sermon
sitting in their car.
This is Southern California's first drive-in church.
MINISTER: This is a very special day for you and for all of mankind.
For you are permitting man to conquer space and on this very day, to plant
his footsteps on the Moon.
REYNOLDS (over TV): Just about everybody in the world you might think is
watching this event on television.
It is believed that half a billion have watched the touchdown of the men on the
Moon, and at least that many of course will be around to see this moonwalk.
Here is Central Park in New York where it's raining on the people who
have assembled for,
well, I guess you would call it a Moon-in.
Everybody gathers there and just looks up at the moon.
And in perhaps less than an hour or so, they might actually see
the men walking on the Moon they're looking at.
REPORTER (off screen): Strange.
All of this, this lack of sound is almost dramatic, too, Steve.
MAN (over radio): Cabin pressure at point two.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): The hatch is coming open.
ALDRIN (over radio): Okay, you're not quite squared away.
Hold her. Pull right a little.
CRONKITE (off screen): Now, Aldrin's directing him through the hatch opening.
He can't see where he's going. He's backing out of the hatch.
BURKE (over TV): Armstrong is out on the porch.
Any minute now, he should release the controls that turns on the television.
BURKE (over TV): Any minute now, we should see pictures.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Did you get some...
ALDRIN (over radio): I'm going to pull it now.
BURKE (over TV): Here it goes. Here goes the mission with the television camera on it.
ALDRIN (over radio): Roger.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We're getting a picture on the TV.
(cheering and applause)
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): There's a great deal of contrast in it and
currently it's upside down on our monitor,
but we can make out a fair amount of detail.
BURKE (off screen): There is Armstrong. You can see him moving.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Okay, Neil.
We can see you coming down the ladder now.
SCHIRRA (off screen): There's a foot going down.
CRONKITE (off screen): There he is. There's a foot coming down the steps.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Okay, I just checked
getting back up to that first step Buzz. It's...
The strut isn't collapsed too far, but
it's adequate to get back up.
I'm going to step off the LM now.
♪ ♪
ARMSTRONG (over radio): That's one small step for man...
one giant leap for mankind.
CRONKITE (off screen): Armstrong is standing on the surface of the moon.
38-year-old American
on this July 20th, 1969.
(cheering and applause)
WOMAN (off screen): He's on the Moon!
Look at him walking around.
PA OFFICER (over radio): Unofficial time on the first step: 1:09:24:20.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): There seems to be no difficulty in moving around
as we suspected.
It's even perhaps easier than the simulations of one-sixth G
that we performed in the various simulations on the ground.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): I'll step out and take some of my first pictures here.
It has a stark beauty all its own.
It's like much of the high desert of the United States.
It's different, but it's very pretty out here.
ALDRIN (over radio): Oh, that looks beautiful from here, Neil.
ALDRIN (over radio): Okay. Are you ready for me to come out?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): He's running about 1400-BTU. Clear?
ALDRIN (over radio): Are you ready?
ARMSTRONG (over radio): All set.
Your toes are about to come over the sill.
Okay. Now drop your PLSS down.
There you go; you're clear.
You've got three more steps and then a long one.
ALDRIN (over radio): Okay. I'm going to leave the one foot up there and...
both hands down to about the fourth rung up.
♪ ♪
ALDRIN (over radio): Beautiful view!
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Isn't that something? Magnificent sight out here.
ALDRIN (over radio): Magnificent desolation.
Neil is now unveiling the plaque.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Tell me if you've got a picture Houston.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We've got a beautiful picture, Neil, beautiful.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): Underneath it says:
"Here men from planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon,
July 1969, A.D.
We came in peace for all mankind."
It has the crew members' signatures and the signature of the
President of the United States.
CAPCOM (over radio): Tranquility Base, this is Houston.
Could we get both of you on the camera for a minute, please?
SECRETARY (over phone): Hello?
They're on there now?
MAN (over phone): They're on the line right now.
SECRETARY (over phone): Okay, I'll put the President right on.
MAN (over phone): Alright. Gentlemen, he's coming on the line.
CAPCOM (over radio): Neil and Buzz...
The President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few
words to you. Over.
ARMSTRONG (over radio): That would bean honor.
(ringing)
NIXON (over phone): Hello?
SECRETARY (over phone): We're ready with the astronauts, sir.
NIXON (over phone): Yes.
SECRETARY (over phone): There you are.
NIXON (over phone): Hello, Neil and Buzz.
I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House.
I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you, for every American
this has to be the proudest day of our lives.
For one priceless moment,
in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one,
one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will
return safely to Earth.
♪ ♪
DRUMMOND (over radio): Earlier this afternoon here in Chicago,
the astronauts were made honorary citizens of Chicago.
There's no question about it, Chicago went all out for the Apollo 11 astronauts.
Veterans here in the city have seen many parades, many occasions.
They say that the enthusiasm that was shown by the public on this occasion was by far
the most that they have seen in years.
DANCY (over TV): The Moon rocks, the most valuable cargo in history,
arrived under heavy guard.
NASA officials were hard pressed to put a price on them and finally just
said they were priceless.
For three months, 142 investigators all over the world will study the rocks.
There has never been another event like it in the history of science.
BEUTEL (over TV): Like so many people around the world,
there is enthusiasm for the most important feat
of exploration in the history of the world.
A feat of exploration that even five years ago was almost inconceivable.
On the other hand, there's the question that everyone asks and nobody, so far,
is able to answer.
Is it worth it all?
Could it all have been spent a little bit better here on Earth?
ROGGE: This is Bette Rogge recording for Channel 7's total news at the Apollo news
center in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
I'd like for you to meet one of the ladies involved in the space program,
Mrs. Mary Driver.
She's in personnel.
Mary tell us, how important are the women in this program?
DRIVER: I think the women are very important in the space program.
They're involved in almost all phases from the clerical,
professional administrative.
We even have quite a few women engineers.
NORTHCUTT: I think the first mission that I worked on, Apollo 8,
I got a little nervous. Mainly it was being keyed up. You were excited.
And everyone was very excited.
But I think that, uh, you are capable of functioning,
we practice so much, so many times that the real missions
almost seem easy compared to some of the simulations.
REPORTER (off screen): How does it feel to work among so many men in a world
that is dominated by men, isn't it?
NORTHCUTT: Well, it's actually dominated by computers,
and by machinery as a whole.
KING (off screen): 10, 9, 8 ignition sequence start,
6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
All engines running. Commence liftoff. We have liftoff.
11:22 AM Eastern Standard Time.
REPORTER (over radio): It's all happened before,
so why get excited this time?
For Apollo 11, everything stopped.
Apollo 12, far less interest.
So easily does the human mind accept the impossible, a man on the Moon.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): TV's starting to come in.
BURKE (over TV): The flight plan calls for Al Bean to actually start
getting the camera away,
pulling it out to a point where we can see better pictures.
And there, there he goes he's doing it now.
CONRAD (over radio): Where, oh where, is Earth?
Pointing toward the Sun. That's bad.
Point it here a minute.
CAPCOM (over radio): Al, we have a pretty bright image on that TV.
Could you either move or stop it down?
BEAN (over radio): That may do it right there, Houston.
CAPCOM (over radio): Al, we haven't seen any change at all.
Why don't you go ahead and take and put your glove in front of the lens,
but not over it,
to see whether we can get any change at all?
REPORTER: But for how well things went this morning, there are a few too-bads.
Too bad, for instance, that the television camera wasn't working, particularly since
the engineers have now figured out a way that it could have been repaired,
at least partially.
HOPE: It's too bad, really, about that TV camera conking out on the Moon,
but it's going to work out alright.
It's still under warranty.
And there was nothing NASA could do about it, that time at night it's
hard to find a TV repairman who makes house calls.
BRINKLEY (over TV): Unemployment rose in March faster than any time in
10 years, and now 4.4% of the country's workforce is out of work.
Some of the new unemployment is in the automobile industry, because the cars aren't
selling too well and in the space industries,
because after the first Moon landing,
the money was cut back.
GUIDE: Over towards your left you'll notice two of these.
REPORTER (off screen): Guided tours of the Michoud rocket assembly plant in New Orleans
may soon come to an end.
Because of the big cutback in the space program,
the plant is almost out of business.
GUIDE (off screen): During 1965, our total employment was 12,000.
We are presently working with 2,600.
CHANCELLOR (off screen): You've now been in the space program for some time.
Do you think that there's as much popular support for the space program in the country
today as there was, say, just a few years ago?
LOVELL: Certainly, with the goal of landing on the Moon being so prominent in people's
minds, they tended to focus the Space program towards that area, but right now I think
that the country is realizing the broad implications of what can really be accomplished by
a diversified, well-organized space program.
WOMAN: I think it's ridiculous!
REPORTER (off screen): Why's that?
WOMAN: Spending all that money.
Here are all these poor people out of jobs, don't have enough to feed their children.
They're sending someone to the moon instead of helping the people here get jobs and
live like human beings.
REPORTER (off screen): The public interest in space flight seems to have waned and
proving that out is CBS news correspondent Bruce Morton in Houston.
MORTON (over TV): The space agency's budget has shrunk,
the number of people employed here has shrunk,
the number of contractors with people here has shrunk and public interest,
at least as reflected in news media attention has shrunk, too.
♪ ♪
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay 13, we've got Freddo on TV.
HAISE (over radio): Right under Jim, now he's actually standing on a
what looks to be a can here.
Housed inside this can is the LM ascent engine.
Here, hopefully you can see my hand resting on top of right now...
the engine that we use to get off of the Moon.
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay, it's been a real good TV show,
we think we ought to conclude it from here now.
What do you think?
LOVELL (over radio): Roger, sounds good.
This is the crew of Apollo 13 wishing everybody there a nice evening,
and we're just about ready to close out our inspection
of Aquarius and get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey.
Good night.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay, GNC, you got any configuration items now?
MAN (over radio): Negative, flight.
KRANZ (over radio): Capcom, it looks like the last item we need here is a
stir on the H2 and O2 at their convenience.
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay.
13, we've got one more item for you, when you get a chance.
We'd like you to stir up your cryo-tanks.
SWIGERT (over radio): Okay. Stand by.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): You guys, look at your O2 quantities to see if you
see a big change.
(explosion)
SWIGERT (over radio): Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.
CAPCOM (over radio): This is Houston. Say again, please.
LOVELL (over radio): Uh, Houston, we've had a problem.
We've had a Main B Bus Undervolt.
LIEBERGOT (over radio): We've got more than a problem here.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Okay, listen, listen, you guys.
We've lost fuel cell 1, N2 pressure.
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay, standby, 13. We're looking at it.
HAISE (over radio): We had a pretty large bang associated with the
Caution and Warning there.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We got a Main B Undervolt.
Okay, listen, listen you guys.
We've lost fuel cell 1 N2 pressure.
ECS, what do you got?
MAN (over radio): He's flipping the fuel cells around.
MAN 2 (over radio): O2 tank one is fluctuating.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Okay, is that pressure coming down?
MAN (over radio): 373, it hasn't moved.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Is that reflected anywhere?
MAN 2 (over radio): Negative. Negative.
I want to site job with those fuel cells.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Yeah, if you believe that N2 pressure we blew a.
MAN (over radio): Okay. Go ahead.
We're short low engine pressure on fuel cell one.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): EPS, EECOMM.
Why don't we just try fuel cell 1 on Main B by itself?
CAPCOM (over radio): 13, Houston.
We'd like you to open circuit fuel cell one.
Leave two and three as is.
HAISE (over radio): Okay, I'll get to work on that.
LOVELL (over radio): And Jack our O2 quantity number 2 tank is reading zero.
Did you get that?
CAPCOM (over radio): O2 quantity number two is zero.
LOVELL (over radio): Yes. That's good AC
and it looks to me, looking out the hatch,
that we are venting something.
We are venting something out into the-
into space.
CAPCOM (over radio): Roger, we copy you're venting.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Crew thinks they're venting.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay, let's everybody think of the kind of things
we'd be venting.
GNC, you got anything that looks abnormal in your system?
LOVELL (over radio): It's a gas of some sort.
PA OFFICER (over radio): This is Apollo Control at
57 hours, 46 minutes ground elapsed time.
The Black team of flight controllers is looking at possible alternate missions.
As we have an apparent serious oxygen leak in the cryogenic oxygen in the
Service Module.
KRANZ (over radio): Look I'd prefer not make any unnecessary maneuvers
until we nail down what our problem is.
ANNOUNCER (over TV): Here is a special report on Apollo 13.
Here is ABC science editor, Jules Bergman.
BERGMAN: The Apollo 13 spacecraft has suffered a major electrical failure.
Seconds after inspecting the Aquarius lunar module, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise
had crawled back into their Command Module, and then reported hearing a loud bang
followed by a power loss in two of their three fuel cells.
They also reported seeing fuel, apparently oxygen and nitrogen, leaking from the
spacecraft and reported the gauges for those gasses were reading zero.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): The pressure in O2 tank one is all the way down to 297,
we better think about getting in the LM.
Or using the LM systems.
SWIGERT (over radio): Okay, Jack.
It looks like O2 tank one pressure is just a hair over 200.
CAPCOM (over radio): We confirm that here and the temperature also confirms it.
SWIGERT (over radio): Okay, does it look like it's still going down?
CAPCOM (over radio): It's slowly going to zero, and we're starting to think
about the LM lifeboat.
STANLEY (over TV): The word is from the technicians at North American Aircraft,
who manufacture the command module,
that using only one of the three available fuel cells,
insufficient power would be available to fire the booster aboard the command
module to make that switch in trajectory.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): We're thinking about using
the LM as a lifeboat.
We have some procedures here.
REPORTER (over radio): So, now a procedure called LM lifeboat using the booster
engine aboard the LM is being contemplated.
CAPCOM (over radio): We figure we've got about 15 minutes worth of power
left in the Command Module,
so we want you to start getting over in the LM and getting
some power on that.
BERGMAN: Without all three fuel cells, any lunar landing is ruled out,
and the problem then becomes
getting enough electrical power to fire up the spacecraft onboard engine
to get them back to Earth.
SCHIRRA: One of the things that we've seen,
of course now and it's become almost traditional,
is to show mission control that control center room,
where the flight controllers themselves are.
But there are, oh I'd say 10 times that many people around that room
in support rooms.
Probably about, yeah,
I would guess, probably 1,000 people working directly, right now,
on each facet of this mission.
AARON (over radio): We ought to get off entry battery and do it through with voice line,
through the LM.
COMM.
It's going to kill COMM and everything.
LUNNEY (over radio): Yeah, you're ready to do that.
Is everybody ready to kill COMM in the CSM, GNC?
NEAL (off screen): The center of activity is the flight director's position,
where at the moment
Glynn Lunney and two other flight directors, Gerry Griffin and Milton Windler,
are running the operation, checking all the points to see what can be done to best
advantage to correct situations as they develop.
BURKE (off screen): At this moment,
about 30,000 miles out from the Moon and accelerating fast in
towards it, the crew are aiming to curve in behind the Moon and out of contact with
Earth, fire the only engine they have left, the Lunar Module's descent engine.
The situation is extremely critical and we're monitoring it at all times.
REPORTER (off screen): The question is, "What happened?"
What was the big bang which blew out the fuel cells and wrecked the
command ship's Service Module?
And will we ever find out?
The Service Module is to be jettisoned and will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
BERGMAN (off screen): Lovell and Haise had just crawled back from the Lunar Module.
As they got back in they heard a loud bang.
It was an explosion.
It happened back here in the Service Module which contains their breathing oxygen,
it contains the hydrogen,
the oxygen, for the fuel cells, the electrical supply that
powers up this engine that give them radios, lighting, everything else they
need to live with inside the Command Module.
LUNNEY: Let me start off by saying that we in the business have probably had
the longest night we've had in the space program in a while.
Uh, my team came on duty last night, we got to the, we're supposed to come on
about 10 pm, and we got to the control center as usual, about an hour ahead of time.
And we had just finished the television show when we found out we had a problem.
Now, I wasn't on the console nor did I hear the air to ground when we exactly
had the problem.
And let me say that since that time, my team has been primarily concerned with not
what happened back there, but what it is we were going to do about it.
We're looking to do a burn at 79 plus 30, in order to accomplish
a faster return to Earth with the Lunar Module engine.
REPORTER (off screen): Apollo 13 has swung around the back of the Moon,
hitting its fastest clip since the disaster aboard the Service Module last night.
It's back in contact with Houston getting ready for the next big step:
A firing of the descent propulsion engine once again.
This one, a four minute and twenty second burn designed to speed the
returning astronauts to a Friday, midday landing in the South Pacific
southeast of Samoa.
KRANZ (over radio): Guidance from Flight.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Go ahead, Flight.
KRANZ (over radio): Roger, when during this activation checklist do we want to
collapse D bend to 1.4 degrees?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Just prior to the maneuver.
Yeah, we'd like to probably see it a good time frame before flight,
let's say 20 minutes or so.
BURKE: Uh, can I borrow that?
Geoffrey, you sit there.
I'll start with the model and I'll pass it to you for the theory.
Pass me the model, mate. That model.
WOMAN (off screen): 30 seconds!
BURKE: Quick, quick.
KRANZ (over radio): Okay, all Flight Controllers, we're on page 12 of the activation.
BURKE: Let's look at why they have to burn the engine that they have to.
First of all, the only engine that is working onboard this entire spacecraft at the
moment is that one there.
The Lunar Module Descent Engine.
They're only going to burn this engine for four minutes and 24 seconds.
That's the engine they have to use.
This engine here is absolutely unusable.
They cannot now risk using this engine, because they don't know what condition the
controls in here are in.
CAPCOM (over radio): Jim you are a go for the burn.
LOVELL (over radio): Roger, I understand. Go for the burn.
THORSON (over radio): We have ignition.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Rog. Ground confirms ignition.
BURKE (off screen): Engines on.
LOVELL (over radio): We're burning forty percent.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): CO2 is on low bit rate.
How about all the other data?
All the ECS parameters are on low bit rate.
Oxygen, water, and CO2.
BURKE (off screen): Under three minutes to go.
KRANZ (over radio): How you looking, Guidance?
GUIDANCE (over radio): Looking good.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Rog, Capcom. Looking good here.
KRANZ (over radio): How you looking, Control?
Is it stable, Control?
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Looks good now, Flight.
Descent reg 1 off in 10 seconds.
KRANZ (over radio): Capcom, reminder descent reg 1 off.
BURKE: 10 seconds to go.
LOVELL (over radio): Shutdown.
CAPCOM (over radio): Roger, shutdown.
MISSION CONTROL (over radio): Engine off.
KRANZ (over radio): Rog, engine off.
PA OFFICER (over radio): That was Commander Jim Lovell,
reporting shutdown, engine is off.
LOVELL (over radio): I'd say that was a good burn.
MOORE: All I can say at the moment is thank goodness for that,
and I think it bares on what we said earlier on,
that if anyone can get back, it's going to be these three.
I think the main danger now is if something else goes wrong.
HUNTLEY (off screen): The House and Senate passed resolutions calling
on the American people to pray tonight for the astronauts.
REID (off screen): Earlier in the day the men got rid of the unnecessary equipment.
They jettisoned the damaged Service Module, photographed the damage to that.
Then just a short time ago they got rid of the Aquarius, the thing that had given them
life through all those long days and nights coming down from that disaster
aloft Monday night.
CHANCELLOR (off screen): While the men in the spacecraft are still alright and the
ship is on its way home, Apollo 13 is still walking a tightrope far out in space.
CRONKITE (off screen): The Command Module they believe to be intact,
but there must be some concern as to
whether that explosion could have done any damage to the heat shield in which they
must depend to get through the 5,000 degree heat of re-entry.
BURKE (off screen): And we'll only known whether or not that heat shield was damaged by the
explosion three days ago when they come out of radio blackout in just
over two minutes.
After a trip that has included a number of technical miracles, throwing the flight
book out of the window, relying totally on the men on the ground,
flying in a sense blind up there.
They've come to within the last few minutes of being alive and well on
the surface of the Earth.
And they face ahead of them those last few vital tests.
We tend to get wrapped up in listening to the crew, listening to the fact that
these men at certain points throughout the mission, have come very close to death.
Now as they come down to this re-entry back into the Earth's atmosphere,
it doesn't matter how many people have done it before you.
When you're in the capsule and you're coming down it only matters to you whether
you come out alive.
PA OFFICER (over radio): One minute to go now from time of end of blackout.
REID (off screen): This is Reid Collins,
CBS News Space Headquarters in New York,
where within the next 30 seconds we should
restore communications with the returning Apollo 13,
as it races down through the Earth's atmosphere,
hopefully slowing down in the proper fashion.
PA OFFICER (over radio): Apollo 13 should be out of blackout at this time.
We're standing by for any reports of Orion acquisition.
BURKE (off screen): And they are coming in faster than predicted.
They're coming in just about as fast as any spacecraft has returned from space before.
REID (off screen): They should just be dipping into the atmosphere now.
MICHELMORE (off screen): We're now coming to the moment, the last moments of Apollo 13
as it comes in, as it begins its re-entry.
The best thing we can do now is just to listen and hope.
♪ ♪
CAPCOM (over radio): Odyssey, Houston. Standing by, over.
SWIGERT (over radio): Okay Joe.
(cheering)
PA OFFICER (over radio): A report of two good drogues.
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay, we read you Jack.
PA OFFICER (over radio): Coming up now for main chutes.
BURKE (off screen): There they are!
MICHELMORE (off screen): There they are. They've made it.
REPORTER (off screen): Now the three chutes have opened up.
And gliding ever so quietly down.
Just a beautiful site to see.
RECOVERY (over radio): Apollo 13 and recovery passing through 1,000 feet.
Passing 500 feet.
Photo 1 observes splashdown at this time.
WOMAN: All I can say is that I'm very relieved that they're home safe and sound.
Because I know people all over the world were very worried about them being
up there and they're all just as happy as I am, I'm sure.
MAN: I think it's one of the most thrilling sites I have ever seen watching
these men come down after the experience they went through.
RECOVERY (over radio): The dumbwaiter is at the crew access hatch.
Appears to be getting ready to open the access hatch.
The first astronaut is climbing out of the Command Module and
is in the egress raft.
The first astronaut is climbing aboard.
Ready for lift.
The first astronaut is on his way up.
PAINE (over radio): This is Doctor Paine speaking.
I'd like to pass a message to all hands in mission control,
which has just come in to me,
from the President of the United States.
He wishes to tell all of you tremendous appreciation that he has,
and the entire nation has
for the wonderful teamwork that you have shown here in Mission Control,
and to give you a hearty well done.
(applause)
♪ ♪
REPORTER (over radio): Today is the first anniversary of man's
landing on the Moon and the space program has slowed considerably since then.
REPORTER (over radio): There is concern among some astronauts that
Americans have taken space travel for granted now.
Recent cutbacks of NASA personnel has left the feeling here that perhaps
Congress is taking space travel for granted, too.
CHANCELLOR: The Apollo 15 astronauts spent more than six hours
riding and walking on the moon today in the most exciting excursion
in the history of Earth's involvement in space.
When they got there, they had trouble with the front wheels of their car,
but the back wheels worked,
and they bumped and swooped over five miles on the Moon's surface.
The views were breathtaking.
IRWIN (over radio): Boy, I can't get over those lineations,
that layering at Mount Hadley.
SCOTT (over radio): Boy, I can't either. that's really spectacular.
IRWIN (over radio): That's really beautiful. Talk about organization!
SCOTT (over radio): Yeah, man.
IRWIN (over radio): That's the most organized mountain I've ever seen.
CHANCELLOR (off screen): Gene Cernan the Commander of Apollo 17,
the last of the manned Moon flights, said recently,
"This is not the end of space flight.
We're just beginning to understand and accept the challenge that
the universe has for us."
Yet, even Cernan admits that his is perhaps the last Moon flight
of this century.
CERNAN (over radio): Okay, LRV equipment check. Blankets are open 100 percent.
TGE - I've got three measurements complete;
I've got the drill, the bag, and the neutron flux.
The TV camera - I'm taking it away from you.
CAPCOM (over radio): Okay, Roger.
SCHMITT (over radio): Watch it, Gene. This is the other chip.
SCHMITT (over radio): Right.
Got it.
SCHMITT (over radio): Oh, hey! There is orange soil!
CERNAN (over radio): Well, don't move it until I see it.
SCHMITT (over radio): It's all over!
CERNAN (over radio): Hey, it is! I can see it from here!
SCHMITT (over radio): It's orange!
CERNAN (over radio): How can there be orange soil on the Moon?
MAN (over radio): I'll tell you how there can be, we've got oxidation.
CERNAN (over radio): It's been oxidized.
Tell Ron to get the lunar sounder over here.
SCHMITT (over radio): It looks just like a...
...an oxidized desert soil, that's exactly right.
CERNAN (over radio): I'd just like to say that any part of Apollo 17, or...
any part of Apollo that has been a success thus far is probably,
for the most part, due to the thousands of
people in the aerospace industry who have given a great deal,
besides dedication and besides effort and besides professionalism
to make it all a reality.
CERNAN (over radio): Well, we're just two little,
two little sets of twinkle toes here.
There's a lot that goes to getting this rover running out here that we
don't have much to do with.
KRAFT: Like all of us in the Apollo program, I'm sure we're very nostalgic
about this being the last flight to the Moon.
We, I think most of us realize that it'll probably be out of our lifetime
before we land on the Moon again.
CERNAN (over radio): And as I take man's last steps from the surface,
we leave as we came and God willing as we shall return.
With peace and hope for all mankind.
Engine arm is in.
SCHMITT (over radio): Okay, I'm going to get the probe.
99, proceeded.
3, 2, 1. Ignition.
CERNAN: We're on our way, Houston.
KENNEDY (off camera): But in a very real sense,
it will not be one man going to the Moon.
If we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation.
BRAUN (off screen): It is no longer a dream, but a reality.
For at last, man has in his possession a rocket powerful enough to
carry him into deep space.
In the near future, an giant Apollo Saturn V rockets will thunder from
the Earth to carry men to the Moon.
CRIM (off screen): There's the flame from those five first stage engines.
What a tremendous sight.
The brilliant orange flame blowing out in all directions from under.
CHAFFEE: It's a stepping stone to deeper space, man has always been plagued with an
intense curiosity and I think we have to go up there and look and see what it is.
We need to gather this information before we can go any further.
CRONKITE (off screen): Through all times, the Moon has endured out there.
Pale and distant, determining the tides, tugging of the heart.
A symbol, a beacon, a goal.
ANDERS (off screen): As we departed from the Earth on our way to the Moon,
I was particularly impressed by the relative
insignificance of this planet that we live on.
We all tend to think that it is a mammoth place, that it goes on forever, and here is
this one very small, colorful body against this black backdrop that goes on forever.
I think that it impressed me with the thought that man should strive very hard to
learn to live with his brothers, and learn how to take care of this very small
and fragile planet that he lives on.
BRINKLEY (off screen): With this last Moon landing, the primary job given the
national space agency is done, and done well.
And now, it has dreamed up a multi-million dollar plan for a space shuttle.
A sort of flying truck to be put in orbit around the Earth and
kept there for long periods.
♪ ♪
BRADBURY (off screen): At the center of all our religions,
all of our sciences all of our thinking over a good period
of years has been the question of death.
And if we stay here on Earth we are all of us doomed,
because someday the Sun will either explode or go out.
So in order to ensure the entire race existing a million years from today,
a billion years from today,
we're going to take our seed out into space and we're going to plant
it on other worlds.
CERNAN: This isn't the end.
This is, you know, we've just begun to crawl with the Apollo program.
We're just now hoping that we can learn to begin to walk and press on to the future.
It's not just the end.
We're not putting our rockets in a barn and closing the doors.
We're just beginning to understand and accept the challenges that this
universe has for us.
It's not the end but it truly is a beginning.
Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.