Airline Pilot Central Forums - Apollo 8: 40th Anniversary

Airline Pilot Central Forums (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/)

- Hangar Talk (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/hangar-talk/)

- - Apollo 8: 40th Anniversary (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/hangar-talk/34874-apollo-8-40th-anniversary.html)

Apollo 8: 40th Anniversary

I have a friend (much older than I am of course) who likes to say that he hasn't been happy since 1968 ...... but for Apollo 8.

Quote:

From CNN:
Forty years ago this week, three men in a tiny spacecraft slipped their earthly bonds and traveled where no one else had before, circling the moon 10 times and bringing back an iconic image of a blue-and-white Earth in the distance, solitary but bound as one against the black vastness beyond.

The voyage of Apollo 8 from December 21-27, 1968, marked humans' first venture to another heavenly body.

Apollo 8 astronauts remember historic voyage - CNN.com

I was 8 that year and followed that flight very closely. I can still remember the crews names. The only other crew I remember entirely is Apollo 11. I remember thinking how cool it was that Frank Borman later became the CEO of Eastern. I guess that didn't work out so well.

Less famous, but more successful

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike734 (Post 524062)

I remember thinking how cool it was that Frank Borman later became the CEO of Eastern. I guess that didn't work out so well.

Borman's fellow crewmember William Anders later became CEO of General Dynamics, and that worked out very well indeed.

1968 was a very bad year:

Quote:

The Tet offensive in January 1968 had left many Americans shocked and doubting that victory in Vietnam was possible. In April, the Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated, and streets throughout the nation erupted in fire and fury. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down two months later.

That summer, the nation watched in horror as police and anti-war protesters battled in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.

Besides the quoted events, additional bad news was tons of events related to Viet Nam such the U.S. sends an additional 10,500 soliders over there, the massacre of +400 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai and the infamous photo of Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head is publicized, France detonates a hydrogen bomb and becomes a nuclear power thereby extending nuclear proliferation, the USSR invades Czechoslovakia, hijackers murdered 21 Pan Am passengers in Pakistan and Vince Lombardi resigns as coach of the Green Bay Packers. Sorry, the last one is true, but not catastrophic. It really was a very bad year with one notable exception.

Astronaut Frank Borman's favorite telegram after the mission said "Thank you, Apollo 8. You saved 1968."

It was the Apollo 8 mission which took one of the most famous photos of the entire Apollo program: Earth rise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike734 (Post 524062)

I remember thinking how cool it was that Frank Borman later became the CEO of Eastern. I guess that didn't work out so well.

The world's greatest fighter pilot doesn't necessarily make them the world's greatest flight instructor and vice versa. Same goes for great astronauts, test pilots and airline managers.

I remember it vividly, and as a Cocoa Beach NASA brat, a lot of what was extraordinary was lost on us. We didn't have the proper perspective at the time. I have always given Frank Borman a pass for his time at Eastern. He did such a terrific job after the Apollo 1 fire, chairing the investigation, it could be easily argued that he saved the Apollo program. Merry Christmas All!

I also have vivid - and good - memories of their reading from Genesis. Soon after I went into the hospital for knee surgery. The show was a comfort to a fourteen-year-old with a lot on his mind. Whatever ups and downs each crewmember has had since, that night they shown as brightly as the ... earth.