1961.
At the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, Cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.
Just weeks later, the United States launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepherd.
‘All systems are go!’
He was welcomed home as a hero, but President John F Kennedy knew that if the United States
was to overtake the Soviet space programme, it needed a bolder mission.
“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.”
As Kennedy addressed congress, the United States had just fifteen minutes of human spaceflight
experience.
No one knew if a moon landing was even possible, let alone in just nine years.
It would be an unprecedented engineering and scientific undertaking, marked by heroism...
and tragedy.
The incredible task of landing an astronaut on the Moon would be known as the Apollo Program.
Before NASA could start designing a spacecraft for its lunar mission, it faced some fundamental
questions about how it would send astronauts to the Moon.
Perhaps the man best placed to provide answers was NASA’s top rocket scientist, Werner
Von Braun.
Von Braun had spearheaded development of Nazi Germany’s deadly V2 rocket during World
War 2.
It was the world’s first long-range guided missile.
After the war, he’d been recruited by the US military to assist their own rocket program.
He joined NASA as the first director of its Marshall Space Flight Centre in 1960.
The most obvious way to complete a lunar landing
was to send a single spacecraft from Earth to the Moon and back again.
But a spacecraft large enough to carry all the necessary supplies, equipment and fuel
for the journey would need an impossibly huge rocket to launch into space.
Von Braun wanted to solve this problem by launching the spacecraft in pieces aboard
smaller rockets, and assembling it in orbit around Earth.
But there was still the problem of landing such a massive spacecraft on the Moon’s
surface.
NASA engineer John Houbolt suggested another option - one initially considered far too
dangerous by NASA’s most senior engineers.
Not one but two spacecraft would travel to the Moon, joined together.
The first was a command and service module or ‘CSM’.
It would provide fuel, power, supplies and living space for three astronauts as they
travelled to and from the moon.
The second spacecraft, the lunar excursion module or ‘lem’ - would land on the moon.
It would be piloted by two astronauts whilst the third stayed behind to fly the CSM.
Because the lem only needed equipment and fuel for a lunar landing, it could be small
and light.
The huge savings in weight meant this spacecraft could be launched on one smaller rocket.
Von Braun endorsed Houbolt’s proposal, but the plan was high-risk.
To dock and undock the two spacecraft, NASA would need to invent new piloting techniques,
and execute them flawlessly... because if anything went wrong, the astronauts would
have no hope of rescue.
NASA embarked on years of pioneering research and development.
The space flights of Project Mercury and Project Gemini paved the way for Apollo.
Over 16 crewed missions in just five years, American astronauts learned how to eat, sleep,
work and walk in space.
But President Kennedy didn’t live to see these achievements.
He was assassinated in 1963.
Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest,
was asked why did he want to climb it.
He said ‘because it is there’.
Well space is there, and we’re going to climb it.
And the Moon and the planets are there.
And new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.
And therefore as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing, on the most hazardous and dangerous
and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
But before the Apollo Program launched its first astronauts, it would face its darkest
hour.
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“How are we going to get to the Moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?”
“They can’t hear a thing you’re saying.”
“ Jesus Christ…”
The Apollo 1 crew were sealed inside their Command Module, conducting a dress-rehearsal
of the launch countdown.
The test had been halted by constant communications problems, and Command Pilot Gus Grissom was
becoming frustrated.
Grissom was one of America’s most experienced astronauts: he was a member of NASA’s first
astronaut group - the Mercury Seven - who launched into space aboard tiny one-person
capsules.
His senior pilot was Ed White, the first American to walk in space.
With them was rookie astronaut Roger Chaffee, a former spy-plane pilot who flew reconnaissance
missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Under enormous pressure to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, NASA
and its contractors had rushed the design of the complex Apollo spacecraft.
Even after 5 years of development and testing, it was still riddled with defects.
During ground tests, astronauts struggled with coolant leaks, problems with the plumbing
in the environmental system, and short circuits in the 20 miles of electrical wiring that
filled the spacecraft.
The crew were getting ready to resume the countdown.
‘Hey!’
‘We’ve got a fire in the cockpit!’
‘Can you get them out of there?’
‘Gus can you read us?’
Within moments, flames ripped through the capsule, killing all three astronauts.
Precisely how the fire started was never determined: but it was most likely a spark from damaged
wiring, somewhere in the lower equipment bay.
The atmosphere inside the command module was pure oxygen, and in this environment, even
materials that were normally fire-resistant burst into flame.
Within seconds, the spacecraft became an incinerator.
The design of the spacecraft’s heavy, multi-piece hatch made escape impossible.
The inner hatch was fixed in place with 6 large bolts, which had to be manually unscrewed
with a wrench.
Even if the bolts could have been removed in time, the hatch opened inwards, and so
it was sealed shut by the high pressure inside the capsule.
The risks of spaceflight were well understood at NASA, but Grissom, White and Chaffee did
not die during a rocket launch or in orbit.
They died on the ground, during a routine test, with help close at hand.
The tragedy of Apollo 1 left NASA’s public image in tatters.
If the Apollo Program was to survive, the next mission had to be a success.
After a series of uncrewed test flights, the next mission to carry astronauts would be
Apollo 7.
Learning from the failures that caused the Apollo 1 fire, NASA redesigned the Apollo
spacecraft.
The new ‘Block II’ model had fireproof wiring and spacesuits made with non-flammable
cloth.
At launch, the capsule was pressurised with a safer oxygen-nitrogen mix.
And its new single-piece hatch could be opened in just seven seconds.
The lunar module was still in the design phase, and would be tested on later flights.
The Apollo 7 crew had been the Apollo 1 backups.
Like Gus Grissom, mission commander Wally Schirra had been part of the original Mercury
7 astronaut corps.
Their mission was to give the new Apollo spacecraft a thorough shakedown.
5, 4, 3, 2, we have ignition.
Commit, liftoff, we have liftoff!
Schirra and his crew put the Apollo spacecraft through its paces for the first time.
They performed navigation exercises and practised docking manoeuvres using their spent rocket
booster as a target.
Apollo 7 accomplished all it’s objectives.
The mission was a success.
The Apollo program was back on track, and its next step would truly be a giant leap.
In April 1968, a CIA report suggested that the Soviet Union was about to send Cosmonauts
around the Moon.
To stop the Soviets beating America to another first, Apollo 8 - originally intended as a
test of the lunar module in Earth orbit - would instead be sent on a mission to orbit the
Moon.
The furthest any human had travelled from the surface of the Earth was 850 miles.
Apollo 8’s crew would travel 240,000 miles from home, with no hope of rescue if their
spacecraft failed.
The mission commander was Frank Borman – an Air Force Colonel, test pilot and aeronautical
engineer.
His Command Module Pilot was Jim Lovell, who knew Borman better than most - On Gemini 7,
the two men spent a record-breaking, and gruelling, 14 days orbiting the Earth in a tiny spacecraft.
Joining them was Bill Anders.
His job would be to survey the Moon’s surface for future landing sites.
Travelling to the moon required the largest rocket NASA had ever designed.
Borman, Lovell and Anders would be the first astronauts to ride the mighty Saturn V.
We have commit, we have liftoff.
At over 110m tall, it dwarfed all previous American rockets.
Its five enormous F1 engines burned through half a million gallons of kerosene and liquid
oxygen in just two and a half minutes, delivering a combined thrust of seven and a half million
pounds.
The second and third stages carried the spacecraft to Earth orbit, and onwards to the moon.
It took the Apollo 8 crew three days to travel to the Moon, but they did not fly alone.
Like all Apollo missions, Apollo 8 was carefully managed from the Mission Operations Control
Room, in Houston, Texas.
Popularly known as Mission Control.
Teams of flight controllers operated round-the-clock, overseeing the spacecraft’s trajectory and
every one of its on-board systems.
All voice communications to the spacecraft passed through the capsule communicator or
‘capcom’, a position always filled by a fellow astronaut.
The Flight Director had overall responsibility for the mission, and the final say in every
decision.
When Apollo 8 reached the moon, the crew had to fire their large SPS engine, to slow down
and be captured by the Moon’s gravity.
If the engine didn’t fire for precisely the correct amount of time, Apollo 8 could
crash into the moon, or be hurled into deep space.
It was impossible to communicate with the crew whilst they were behind the Moon.
The staff at Mission Control waited nervously for news.
Borman, Lovell and Anders were the first humans to view the lunar surface close-up.
But the most incredible thing they saw was their home planet.
On the third orbit, Anders captured one of history’s most remarkable photos.
Earthrise.
The image was peaceful, but 1968 had been a difficult year for the United States.
The nation was bitterly divided over the war in Vietnam, Black Americans were still fighting
for their civil rights.
Martin Luther King was assassinated in April, and Bobby Kennedy in June.
But for NASA at least, the success of Apollo 8 brought hope.
For the first time it seemed possible they might meet President Kennedy’s goal, and
land an astronaut on the moon before the end of the decade.
But the lunar module was still untested, and landing on the moon held many unknowns.
There would be no room for error.
Say again please?
Houston we’ve had a problem.
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