Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon

In the summer of 1968, the American space program faced a crisis. Design problems with the lunar module, the craft intended to land astronauts on the Moon, threatened to stall the Apollo program and jeopardize President Kennedy's 1961 pledge to achieve a manned lunar landing by decade's end. Every day of delay gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to reach the Moon first. George Low, a top NASA manager, conceived a radical plan: send Apollo 8 to the Moon in December without the lunar module, using only the command module (the crew cabin) and the service module (which provided propulsion and life support). Chris Kraft, NASA's director of flight operations, pushed the idea further, proposing that the spacecraft enter lunar orbit rather than simply loop around the Moon.

The plan was extraordinarily risky. The Saturn V rocket, the only booster powerful enough to reach the Moon, had never carried a crew and had suffered severe problems on its most recent unmanned test. Going without the lunar module meant no backup engine. When administrators reached NASA chief James Webb by secure telephone in Vienna, he erupted, warning that if the crew died in lunar orbit, no one would ever look at the Moon the same way again. He did not say no, however, and gave conditional approval pending a successful Apollo 7 test flight.

Deke Slayton, the NASA official who assigned crews, summoned astronaut Frank Borman to Houston and asked if he wanted to fly to the Moon in four months. Borman, a former test pilot who had joined NASA to fight the Soviet Union on the frontier of space rather than for exploration, answered immediately. Jim Lovell, an astronaut fascinated by rocketry since boyhood, was thrilled. Bill Anders, the crew's youngest member and a former fighter pilot with a master's in nuclear engineering, was initially disappointed because the mission eliminated his chance to walk on the Moon, though he came to see the historic significance of being among the first humans to reach it.

None of the men consulted their wives. Susan Borman told Frank she was proud but privately believed he was going to die; the Apollo 1 fire in January 1967 had killed astronaut Ed White, whose wife Pat White was Susan's close friend. Valerie Anders steeled herself after Bill gave her his honest odds: one-third chance of full success, one-third of a failed mission that returned home, one-third that the crew would not return. Marilyn Lovell canceled the family's first vacation in six years.

Over 16 weeks, the crew trained relentlessly in command module simulators, where instructors unleashed cascading emergencies to prepare them for every conceivable failure. Borman fought to minimize risk but relented on Kraft's insistence that television cameras be carried so the world could witness the journey. Meanwhile, the Soviets launched Zond 5, an uncrewed test spacecraft, around the Moon with living organisms aboard, proving a round-trip was survivable. Apollo 7 launched in October and achieved all objectives, clearing the way for Apollo 8.

Apollo 8 launched at 7:51 A.M. on December 21, 1968, against the backdrop of a devastating year marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and violent clashes at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Saturn V shook the astronauts so violently that Anders believed the rocket's fins were being torn away. The rocket shed its stages and placed the spacecraft into Earth orbit. After two orbits, Mission Control authorized Trans Lunar Injection (TLI), the engine burn toward the Moon. The third-stage engine reignited, pushing the crew to 24,208 miles per hour. For the first time, human beings were leaving their home planet.

The outbound journey lasted roughly 66 hours. A test firing of the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine revealed worrying thrust problems; engineers suspected a helium bubble and decided to continue. Hours later, Borman became violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea. He refused to report his condition, fearing doctors would abort the mission, but Anders persuaded him to send a private recording to Houston. Managers debated before concluding the illness had passed.

On Christmas Eve morning, Apollo 8 reached the Moon, disappearing behind the far side exactly when NASA had predicted. The crew fired the SPS engine for just over four minutes, slowing the spacecraft enough for the Moon's gravity to capture it into orbit. When Apollo 8 reappeared, Lovell confirmed contact and reported the burn complete. At Mission Control, Kraft's eyes misted over.

During the fourth orbit, Anders spotted a brilliant blue-and-white sphere rising over the gray lunar horizon and scrambled for his Hasselblad camera, capturing the Earthrise photograph, one of history's most influential images. Each astronaut was profoundly moved. Borman saw everything he loved on that tiny sphere. Lovell was struck by Earth's fragility. Anders realized that from this distance, national boundaries vanished. It seemed strange: They had come to discover the Moon, yet they had discovered the Earth.

That evening, before an estimated one billion viewers in 64 countries, the crew broadcast live from lunar orbit, reading the first 10 verses of Genesis. Borman closed: "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." At Mission Control, engineers wept. At home, Susan sat composing Frank's eulogy, wanting to be prepared.

The most dreaded moment came just after midnight on Christmas morning. Behind the Moon, the SPS engine had to fire to break the spacecraft free of lunar orbit. If it failed, the crew would be trapped with roughly a week of life support. The engine fired perfectly, but Anders forgot to activate the high-gain antenna, causing four terrifying minutes of silence before Lovell's voice broke through: "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus."

On the return journey, Lovell accidentally reset the guidance computer, erasing the system's knowledge of the spacecraft's orientation. Using the Moon and Earth as reference points to identify stars, the crew restored the guidance platform, the inertial system tracking the spacecraft's position, after about 30 minutes. On December 27, the command module reentered Earth's atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour, enduring temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Parachutes deployed in darkness, and the capsule crashed into the Pacific, flipping upside down before inflatable balloons righted it. The crew was helicoptered to the USS Yorktown.

The mission's impact was immediate. Time magazine changed its Man of the Year from THE DISSENTER to the three astronauts. Among thousands of congratulatory messages, one anonymous telegram captured the flight's meaning: "THANKS. YOU SAVED 1968."

Anders's Earthrise photograph became a symbol of the environmental movement. Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in July 1969 at a site scouted by Apollo 8. Lovell commanded Apollo 13, whose crew survived an in-flight explosion partly because the lunar module served as a lifeboat. Borman became chairman of Eastern Airlines. Susan experienced a nervous breakdown, was treated for alcohol addiction, and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease; Frank, even at 90, rose each morning to exercise so he could remain healthy enough to care for her. Anders served as U.S. ambassador to Norway and CEO of General Dynamics. Apollo 8 remains the only crew from the Gemini or Apollo programs whose marriages all survived.