Apollo 8

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Apollo 8 was the second manned mission in the U.S. Apollo program, and the first manned mission to leave Earth's orbit, reaching the Earth's Moon and return safely to the Earth. The crew members were the first ever to leave the low Earth orbit. They also for the first time saw Earth as the whole planet. The most popular picture of Earth comes from this mission, see below.



Commander of the flight was Frank F. Borman, Comand Module Pilot was James A. "Jim" Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot was William A. Anders. Another adventure for Jim Lovell :-). The backup crew was generally rotation of future Apollo 11, except the order (commander N.A. Armstrong and Comand Module Pilot E.E. "Buzz" Aldrin) and Lunar Module Pilot Fred W. Haise, who was put on the back up of Apollo 11.
Crew members from the left to the right: Lovell, Anders, Borman.

Originally the aim of the mission was Lunar Module/Command Module test flight in the elliptical medium Earth orbit. The mission plan has been change later for Command Module lunar orbital flight, which was more challenging.

Apollo 8 was launched on December 21, 1968 and it took 68 hours to get from Earth to the Moon. It orbited the Moon 10 times for about 20 hours. The crew made TV broadcast on Christmas Eve reading from the Book of Genesis. And of course the success of the mission was important step for achieving the planned Apollo 11 mission.

Mission plan:
Apollo 8 has used the three stages of Saturn V to get to the Earth's orbit. Apollo 6 had some troubles, failures, but all was solved and manned missions were allowed. 
The crew members of Apollo 8 were the first human being to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts. Each member crew wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth and also dosimeter which showed cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. The overall average radiation dose on the mission was 1.6 mGy. For comparison, the average dose of the average human is about 2 to 3 mGy during the year.   

The first trip towards the Moon wasn't without troubles. Crew had troubles to sleep, Borman tried sleeping pill, which was a mistake because later he started to vomit and got diarrhoea, which could be quite interesting in zero gravity. Other crew members were also vomiting. 

Early on the Christmas Eve they have reached the Moon. They fired the spacecraft's Service Propulsion System to slow down as it swept past the Moon and slipped into the lunar orbit. The have filmed Earth for the first time from "another world". Lovell was describing the terrain they were passing. The major task of the mission was exploration of the possible landing spots for future Apollo missions, especially the one what was planned for the Apollo 11 mission, Mare Tranquillitatis.  

 Apollo 8 view of Earthrise over the Moon on December 24, 1968

After orbiting the Moon 10 times, they have prepared for the journey back home. After two days they started to prepare for the reentry. The computer took control of the reentry. In case of failure, Borman would take control. 

When they hit the thin outer atmosphere the flowing plasma surrounded the spacecraft. As the spacecraft started to slow down the deceleration peaked at 6g. At 9 km parachute stabilized the spacecraft and three main parachutes were opened at 3 km and the spacecraft then splashed down into the Pacific Ocean. 


Location: Helsinki, Finland

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