Apollo 8 Quotes

“There was no established way for a man to tell his wife he was going to the moon. A man could tell his wife he was going to sea or going to war; men had been doing that for millennia. But the moon? It was a whole new conversation.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Too often in the previous months, he told the silent controllers, potential problems had been dismissed with a casual “that can’t happen” wave. Maybe the ship had a balky breaker, but it would never cause a fuel cell to fail in flight. Maybe those new pyrotechnics were a little temperamental, but they could never make a parachute fail to deploy. And as for pumping pure oxygen into the cockpit, it had never caused any problems before, had it? But what if it did? What would you do then? That was the critical question no one had been raising. It was not good enough to ask what you would accept. Instead, you had to ask what action you would take today to prevent the failure from ever happening. The answer you gave should always satisfy one final question: What is the very best thing to do in this situation?”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“But Borman does remember one telegram—from a sender he didn’t know—and he still likes to talk about it. The telegram said, simply, “Thank you, Apollo 8. You saved 1968.” That, Borman realized, made him feel happier than gazing up at the moon ever did.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Before long, Commander Lovell—the man who had orbited the moon in a spacecraft that had done everything right—would learn what happens when a ship does everything wrong.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Значення історичних подій складно усвідомити відразу ж, — сказала вона, — так само як неможливо описати належним чином вплив і розмах події, коли вона щойно відбулася. Хоча сьогодні твориться історія, всім нам треба збагнути, що за цим стоять роки зусиль багатьох людей, причетних до майбутнього приземлення на Місяць.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“⁃ «Джеміні-7», ви в польоті! - долинуло від оператора зв'язку з екіпажем з Гʼюстона.
⁃ Прийнято, — відповів Борман. — Дякую вам.
⁃ Це найкращий симулятор, який у нас є, — пожартував оператор.
Борман і Ловел, які віднині й назавжди офіційно приєдналися до братства людей, що побували в космосі, на ці слова просто ще раз широко всміхнулися.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“… якщо не знаєш, що робити, не роби нічого.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“«Пілотів від природи» не існує, — казав він хлопцям, які вірили, що саме вони природжені льотчики. - Якщо після приземлення ви можете йти на своїх двох, це хороше приземлення. А якщо наступного дня на літаку ще й можна літати — це видатне приземлення. Не ускладнюйте, — казав їм Єґер, — і, можливо, виживете.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“And the three astronauts now orbiting the moon were the only people on or off the Earth who knew they had succeeded.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“The length of the blackout was not absolutely fixed. If all went well, it would last about thirty-five minutes—a bit longer if the engine fired successfully and the ship slowed to 3,700 miles per hour and settled into orbit, a bit shorter if the engine failed to fire and the ship continued to speed along at 5,800 miles per hour. If something worse happened, the radio silence would last forever.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“As the long minutes of radio silence began, the three astronauts were disconnected from the rest of humanity in a way that no one ever had been before.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Then, suddenly, all thoughts of the troublesome third stage fell away, because in that moment he saw something much, much grander. He saw the Earth. It was a view that American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts had seen from space many times before, but in those cases, the planet had been a broad arc, too big to fit into the aperture of a window because it was too close. Now, however, Borman, Lovell, and Anders could see the planet floating alone, unsupported, in space. The Earth was no longer the soil beneath their feet or the horizon below their spacecraft. It was an almost complete disk of light suspended in front of them, a delicate Christmas tree ornament made of swirls of blue and white glass. It looked impossibly beautiful—and impossibly breakable. What Borman said aloud was: “What a view!”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“So no eye chart would be carried aboard. Instead, on a vacant plot of land forty miles north of Laredo, Texas, NASA groundsmen would flatten and rake eight squares of terrain—two thousand feet long to a side each—and cover portions of the squares with either white Styrofoam or dark turf. The astronauts would have to describe the pattern of the alternating dark-light squares as they flew overhead, a pattern that could be switched up every time the spacecraft passed over Laredo. Let the flyboys try to cheat on that one.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Kraft—making his presence felt at NASA in much the same way he had at NACA—had established one of the most important of the space agency’s growing list of flight rules: If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything at all.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“As far as the people in NASA’s public affairs office were concerned, there was entirely too much conversation about balls and urine going on between the Apollo 8 astronauts and Mission Control.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“So the first-man-on-the-moon profiles of Stafford were shelved, to be replaced by stories about Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong—and those were the stories that ultimately ran.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Commenting on the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis, he looked down at the justices of the Supreme Court—a court barely seven years removed from having ruled prayer in the classroom unconstitutional—and said, “But now that I see the gentlemen in the front row, I’m not sure we should have read from the Bible at all.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Though history is being made today, we all need to try and comprehend the years of effort by many people involved in the eventual lunar landing.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“If the Apollo 8 controllers were showing the strain, however, today none of that mattered. Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz, Bob Gilruth, George Mueller, and the other members of the space agency brass barely left the Mission Control auditorium except to go home for a shower, a change of clothes, and, if absolutely necessary, a brief nap.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“So the words Joe Laitin’s wife had suggested were then typed onto a piece of fireproof paper—since Apollo 1, the only kind of paper allowed in a spacecraft—and the page was inserted at the back of the flight plan. There it would remain until Christmas Eve, when the mission to the moon would be nearly done.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“He then farmed the problem out to Joe Laitin, a former wire service reporter who had later become a public affairs officer for President Kennedy and currently worked for President Johnson.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“The television show from inside the spacecraft would be even worse, with the happy, cocky Americans showing off for their countrymen back home—and showing up the people of Russia.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“There would be no moon maps in Frank Borman’s house, however”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Fortunately, the complex separation maneuver would be made somewhat easier because part of the procedure was preloaded, which meant the computer had all of the nouns memorized. All Lovell needed to provide were the verbs.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“Numbers had no rhymes that could cause problems, so it was fine to call out one, two, and three by their proper names. But zero, which was even less likely to create rhyming difficulties, proved to be an irresistible target, and so aviators referred to zeros as “balls.” Wally Schirra, more than most astronauts, could barely contain himself. Throughout the eleven days of the Apollo 7 mission, Wally had taken special pleasure in calling down, “First off, we’ll read off balls,” or “Star difference angle was four balls,” or “Two balls twenty-two, plus four balls six, plus four balls one.” Inevitably, the capcom would follow that lead, since he could hardly say zero when Wally was talking balls. So the voice from the ground would answer the commander: “Okay, all balls minus twenty-six eighty-seven.” Then, finally, a female reporter at a NASA press conference during Apollo 7’s mission raised her hand and said, “I don’t understand about the balls.” All of the male reporters laughed until they cried.”
― Jeffrey Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon