THE VOYAGE: POETRY AND PERFECTION

A SCANT decade ago, man was making his first tentative probes into near space. Now, his eye fixed on the moon, that cold and lifeless globe with its borrowed light, he was poised to soar beyond earth's atmosphere, beyond the 40,000-mile-deep magnetosphere and into a vast and trackless void. The moon flight was man's first great extraterrestrial venture.

The flight began flawlessly. On Pad 39A at Cape Kennedy, Fla., Borman, Lovell and Anders lay strapped in the 11-ft. command module that was perched atop a 363-ft. Saturn 5 rocket. With a deafening bellow, the rocket inched upward on a rising pillar of smoke and flame, then spurted off into earth orbit. During its second turn around the planet, it accelerated from 17,400 m.p.h. to 24,200 m.p.h., enough to escape earth's gravitational embrace and send Apollo 8 on the road of night that would lead to the moon. Almost 69 hours after liftoff, the three astronauts made their historic rendezvous.

Below them, less than 70 miles away, lay a desolate, pock-marked landscape. In the black sky above hung a half-disk --the earth--its blue and brown surface mottled by large patches of white. Thus, incredibly, they were there, precisely where the mission planners had predicted, finally living the dreams of untold generations of their ancestors. In orbit around the moon and 230,000 miles farther away from home than any humans had ever before traveled, the Apollo 8 astronauts conveyed impressions of their pioneering adventure with words that at times were poetic. Their telecasts gave earthbound viewers an unforgettable astronaut's-eye view of the moon.

"The moon is essentially grey, no color," Astronaut Lovell reported. "Looks like plaster of paris, or sort of a greyish deep sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn't stand out as well here as it does on earth. There's not as much contrast between that and the surrounding craters. The craters are all rounded off. The round ones look like they've been hit by meteorites or projectiles of some sort. Langrenus is quite a huge crater. It's got a central cone to it. The walls of the crater are terraced, about six or seven terraces on the way down."

From their descriptions, it was obvious that the Apollo crew had diligently learned its lessons. The astronauts casually called out names of lunar craters and other landmarks as if they were old friends. The Sea of Fertility. Messier. Pickering. The Pyrenees Mountains. The craters of Colombo and Gutenberg. The long parallel cracks or faults of Gaudibert.

What They Saw

On Christmas Eve, during their ninth revolution of the moon, the astronauts presented their best description of the moon in the longest and most impressive of the mission's six telecasts. "This is Apollo 8 coming to you live from the moon," reported Borman, focusing the TV camera on the lunar surface drifting by below. "The moon is a different thing to each of us," said Borman. "My own impression is that it's a vast, lonely, forbidding-type existence--great expanse of nothing that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone. It certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work."

"My thoughts are very similar," agreed Lovell. "The vast loneliness up here is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on earth. The earth from here is a grand ovation to the big vastness of space."

As Borman pointed the TV camera at the lunar surface unfolding below, Lovell and Anders continued their guided tour of the moon.

Lovell: What we've noted especially that you cannot see from the earth are the small bright impact craters that dominate the lunar surface.

Anders: The horizon is very, very stark. The sky is pitch-black and the moon is quite light. The contrast between the sky and the moon is a vivid dark line.

Lovell: Actually, I think the best way to describe this area is a vastness of black and white, absolutely no color.

Anders: The sky up here is also rather forbidding--expanses of blackness with no stars when we're flying over the moon in daylight. You can see by the numerous craters that this planet has been bombarded through the aeons with numerous small asteroids and meteoroids pockmarking the surface every square inch.

Lovell: One of the most amazing features of the surface is the roundness that most of the craters have instead of sharp, jagged rocks. Only the newest features have any sharp definitions to them, and eventually they get eroded down by the constant bombardment of small meteoroids.

In the Beginning

As the Apollo spacecraft sped toward the terminator (the continually moving line that divides the day and night hemispheres of the moon), the sun dropped from directly overhead toward the horizon, lengthening shadows and bringing out more surface detail. Anders described a new crater with a well-defined ray of powdery material emanating from it. He observed that the Sea of Crises was "amazingly smooth as far as the horizon," which was visible on TV screens as a curved line about 325 miles from Apollo's route. One crater in the area, said Anders, "has strange circular cracks patterned around the middle of it." He also called attention to a mare, or sea, with a series of faults across its middle. "They drop down in about three steps to the south."

"This is phenomenal," gasped a ground controller.

Now Apollo was nearing the terminator, which showed as a sharply defined front of darkness on the moonscape traveling from the left of the television screen. To conclude their Christmas Eve telecast before the view below was blotted out, the astronauts took turns solemnly reading the first ten verses of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth ..." Accompanying the final views of the primordial lunar landscape below, their rendition was impressive.

The entire presentation was appropriate for the men of the Apollo 8 crew. Flying in the wake of Apollo 7, with the irrepressible Walter Schirra and his rollicking "Wally, Walt and Donn Show," they seemed as staid and businesslike as a group of corporate executives. Borman, Lovell and Anders are deadly serious men, cool under pressure and addicted to speech filled with space jargon. Borman, 40, is a lay reader of the Episcopal Church, and during the Apollo 8 mission read a prayer addressed to "the people of St. Christopher's [his church], actually to people everywhere." He also inspired the Christmas Eve reading of Genesis from deep space. Lovell, also 40, whom Borman converted to the Episcopal faith, minds his civic responsibilities too. He is Special Consultant to the President for Physical Fitness. Anders, 35, a Roman Catholic, is secretary-treasurer of his neighborhood property owners' association.

Stark Contrast

Finally, each of the Apollo 8 men has an intense sense of mission and purpose, and has demonstrated courageous stubbornness. When the engine of an F-104 that Borman was piloting blew up in flight, instead of bailing out, Borman, flying at twice the speed of sound, stayed in the plane, got the explosive engine started again, and coaxed enough thrust to make a safe landing.

Lovell was rejected the first time he applied for the astronaut program. But he tried again and was one of the nine men out of more than 200 to become a member of the second group of astronauts. Rookie Anders allows his two senior crewmates to do most of the talking, but was aroused enough when British Astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell criticized the concept of Apollo 8 to speak for all the astronauts in a vigorous rebuttal of Lovell.

The relaxed manner and cheerfulness of the astronauts during lunar orbit was in stark contrast to their mood early Tuesday morning when Apollo was approaching the moon. As time neared for the mission's most important decision--whether to allow the spacecraft simply to whip around the moon and head back toward earth or to fire the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine and place the craft in orbit--both the astronauts and their Houston controllers fell strangely silent. Only essential voice communications were exchanged, and these were monosyllabic and tension-filled.

Riding the Best Bird

Finally, as Apollo raced unerringly on a course that would send it 70.7 miles ahead of the leading edge of the moon, ground controllers decided that all spacecraft systems were in perfect working order. Astronaut Jerry Carr, a communicator on duty in Houston, radioed a terse message: "This is Houston at 68:04 [68 hours and four minutes after launch]. You are go for LOI [lunar orbit insertion]."

Spacecraft Commander Borman acknowledged in equally unmemorable style: "O.K., Apollo 8 is go."

"You are riding the best bird we can find," Carr assured the astronauts.

"Two minutes and 50 seconds away from time of loss of signal," Commentator John McLeaish reported, as Apollo began to curve around the back side of the moon, where its radio communication with earth would be blocked. "Here in mission control we're standing by with certainly a great deal of anxiety at this moment."

"We'll see you on the other side," Carr called to the astronauts. "One minute until LOS [loss of signal]. All systems go. Roger. Safe journey, guys."

"Thanks a lot, troops," replied Anders. "We'll see you on the other side."

Then, after a terse "Roger" from Borman, all was silent. Apollo would be behind the moon and out of contact for 45 minutes. Until it emerged, no one on earth would know if the SPS engine had fired on schedule (25 minutes after LOS) or fired long enough to place the craft in orbit. Too short a burn, the controllers knew, could send Apollo smashing into the moon. But there was another problem that caused concern on the ground. Apollo's third-stage S-4B rocket, jettisoned shortly after it pushed the spacecraft out of earth orbit and toward the moon, was scheduled to pass the trailing edge of the moon about the same time that Apollo emerged from behind it. Although scientists had calculated that the spent stage would miss the spacecraft by some 2,000 miles, there remained a remote possibility of collision.

Finally, from Houston came the message that everyone had awaited: "We've acquired a signal but no voice contact yet. We are looking at engine data and it looks good. Tank pressures look good. We got it! We've got it! Apollo 8 is in lunar orbit."

"Good to hear your voice," said Astronaut Lovell, breaking the long silence after Apollo had emerged from behind the moon. Wild cheering filled the control room. Says Flight Director Glynn Lunney: "It certainly wasn't a faint reaction. There was quite a bit of racket. I'm sure it can be described as one of the happiest Christmas Eves just about anyone there had seen."

Once safely in orbit, the astronauts had their work cut out for them. During their second revolution of the moon, they briefly fired their SPS engine to change their orbit from a 70-by-194-mile-high ellipse to a near-perfect 70-mile circle. Using an assortment of cameras, they shot color and black-and-white movie and still pictures of the lunar landscape and of the distant earth. Firing their 100-lb.-thrust control jets, they continually changed the attitude of the spacecraft so that its four-dish, high-gain TV and radio antenna remained pointed directly at the earth.

Using a sextant, they took star sightings and pinpointed lunar landmarks.

Navigational data that the astronauts gathered will help NASA scientists plot Apollo's orbit more precisely than they could by tracking it from earth. Once the rises and dips in Apollo's orbital path have been identified, the scientists will be able to map their cause: variations in the lunar gravitational field believed to be caused by concentrations of massive material beneath some craters and seas. With better knowledge of the gravitational field, NASA will be able to plan more accurately the paths of future landing missions, on which errors of only a few feet could be dangerous. The landmark data will also enable navigators on future flights to find their landing sites more easily.

Landing Sites

The astronauts also surveyed a prime lunar landing site (one of five picked by NASA on the basis of Lunar Orbiter photographs) and discovered that it was somewhat less than ideal. "There are an awful lot of objects down on the site," reported Lovell. "I'm looking at 2P2 [the site] right now, Houston," said Lovell sarcastically, "and it's a great spot." Added Anders: "That's relatively speaking, of course."

Lovell later reported a lunar phenomenon that piqued Houston's curiosity. "Before the sun came above the limb [horizon]," he said, "definite rays could be seen coming from it. It was a uniform haze apparently where the sun was going to rise." To ground controllers, Lovell's observation suggested that the moon might have a slight atmosphere after all, a possibility that will undoubtedly be investigated further in future flights.

By Apollo's sixth revolution, the program had taken its toll on the crew. "I'm going to scrub all the other experiments," Borman announced, "we're getting too tired." Ten minutes later, he reported that Lovell was already asleep and snoring. "Yeah," replied the Houston communicator, "we can hear him down here." Later, when Borman inquired about the weather in Houston, a communicator reported that there was "a beautiful moon out there tonight." Replied Borman: "Now, we were just saying that there's a beautiful earth out there."

As Apollo began its tenth revolution, tension had risen again both aboard the spacecraft and in Houston. During their final pass behind the moon, the astronauts were scheduled to restart the SPS engine again, this time to increase their velocity from 3,625 m.p.h. to 5,980 m.p.h., enough to propel them out of lunar orbit and back toward the earth. Failure of the engine to fire would leave them stranded in lunar orbit.

This time, there were no final bon voyages, no quips and no sentiment. "All systems are go, Apollo 8," the controller reported. From Borman came back only a terse "Roger." As the spacecraft passed into radio silence, the Houston communicator reported: "Flight controllers here in mission control, as with the rest of the world, are waiting." Although it was now more than half an hour into Christmas Day in Houston, the controllers avoided any exchange of greetings, awaiting word that Apollo 8 was safely on its way home.

That word came 37 minutes later in a transmission by Jim Lovell as Apollo reemerged. "Please be informed," he said, "that there is a Santa Claus."

Going Out and Coming Back Compared with the drama of flight near the moon, the outward-bound and return trips were uneventful. One problem that occurred shortly after Apollo was propelled toward the moon was quickly corrected. Instead of falling far behind the Apollo spacecraft after it was jettisoned, the third-stage S-4B rocket followed less than 1,000 feet behind. Ground controllers ordered Borman to fire Apollo's 100-lb. thrust reaction control rockets, moving the craft to a safe distance ahead of the S-4B.

But one problem in the early part of the flight went unreported for several hours. Although the astronauts had been inoculated against the Hong Kong flu, Borman soon became ill with another variety that caused him to vomit and suffer diarrhea. Borman elected not to discuss his illness over the public communications channel. As a result, NASA's medical staff did not hear about his problem until Houston technicians finally played the tape.

When NASA's Dr. Charles Berry got on the radio to treat his patients, Berry's tentative diagnosis, at 120,000 miles, the most distant ever made: the 24-hour flu for Borman and milder versions for Lovell and Anders. His prescription: one antidiarrhea pill and one anti-nausea pill for each crew member.

The View from 207,000 Miles During the second of the two telecasts on their outward journey, the as tronauts managed to send back some spectacular views of the earth -- from a distance of 207,000 miles. Jim Lovell acted as commentator of the show. "In the center," he explained, "is South America -- all the way down to Cape Horn. I can see Baja California and the Southwestern part of the U.S. There is a big cloud bank going northeast of the U.S. It appears now that the East Coast is cloudy. I can see clouds over parts of Mexico, and parts of Central America are clear."

Lovell reported that the earth's waters were different shades of deep blue, the land areas different tones of brown, the clouds white, and the total reflection of light much greater than from the moon. "What I keep imagining is that I am some lonely traveler from an other planet. What would I think about the earth at this altitude? Whether I think it would be inhabited or not."

The astronauts were entertained during dull periods of the flight by programs concocted by ground controllers.

They were treated to selections from Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass, weekend football scores and lengthy newscasts. The diversion was especially welcome on the return trip, which turned out to be the least eventful part of the journey. Two more live telecasts were presented from the spacecraft, and more star navigation checks were made, but the last two mid-course corrections were canceled: Apollo 8 was dead on target.

Toward Splashdown

Accelerated by the earth's own gravity, the spacecraft hurtled at increasing speeds toward its last great challenge--re-entry of earth's atmosphere. Jettisoning the service module and its trusty SPS engine, the astronauts yawed their cone-shaped command module until its blunt end was forward and then plunged into the outer atmosphere at a speed of 24,629 m.p.h.--some 7,000 m.p.h. faster than re-entry speeds of orbital missions. Roaring down into the thickening atmosphere within a sliver of the planned angle of 6.43DEG, Apollo passed over Peking and Tokyo, the temperature of its heat shield rising to 5,000DEGF.

Flying over the Pacific, the pilot of a Pan American jet liner reported seeing the spacecraft's fiery track; it was an astonishing five miles wide and 100 miles long.

As re-entry heat built up, it ionized the surrounding atmosphere, which formed a sheath around Apollo and temporarily blacked out its radio communications. But after a tense three-minute silence, there was a reassuring message from Jim Lovell: "We are looking good." Apollo had stood the stresses of reentry. On schedule, the spacecraft's drogue parachutes deployed, followed closely by the three main chutes.

The parachutes floated Apollo to a splashdown in the Pacific about 7,000 yards away from the carrier Yorktown, where recovery helicopters spotted the capsule's beacon flashing in the predawn darkness. It was 10:51 a.m. (E.S.T.), just eleven seconds earlier than the mission's predicted splashdown time, and precisely 147 hours after Apollo 8's spectacular launch from its Cape Kennedy launching pad.

Still aboard the spacecraft, Borman engaged in small talk by radio with the pilot of a helicopter, reporting that the moon was not made of green cheese after all: "It's made out of American cheese." Standing happily on the deck of the Yorktown, Borman posed a quickly solved mystery: although Lovell and Anders had full growths of beards, the Apollo 8 commander was clean-shaven, On the short flight from Apollo to the carrier, he had used an electric razor provided by the helicopter pilot.

Aboard the carrier the astronauts received a telephoned message direct from Lyndon Johnson. "You have made us feel kin to those Europeans five centuries ago who first heard news of the New World," the President said. "You've seen what man has never seen before." The next day, Johnson fulfilled a tradition by promoting Bill Anders to lieutenant colonel after his first space flight.

In the Future

Apollo 8's unblemished success and its safe return prompted Air Force Lieut. General Samuel Phillips, the Apollo program director, to announce that Apollo 9 had been scheduled for a Feb. 28 launch date. On that flight, a three-man team headed by Astronaut James Mc-Divitt will orbit the earth and practice rendezvous and docking with the problem-plagued Lunar Module (LM), which has not yet been tested in manned flight.

If Apollo 9 is successful, Apollo 10 will attempt another moon-orbiting mission in May. On this flight, two astronauts will climb into the LM and fly down to within 50,000 ft. of the lunar surface, while a third astronaut remains in the orbiting Apollo spacecraft. But Phillips spiked rumors that the Apollo 10 LM might go all the way down for a landing; the craft is not equipped to land. Instead, Apollo 11 is now scheduled for the landing mission with a fully equipped LM in July or August.

Dr. Thomas Paine, acting administrator of NASA, took advantage of the Apollo 8 success to remind the U.S. that a manned lunar landing is not the ultimate space goal. "This is not the end but the beginning," he said. "We are at the onset of a program of space flights that will extend through many generations. We're looking forward to the days when we will be manning space stations in the sky, conducting lunar exploration and, in the distant future, blazing a new trail out to the planets."

Beyond question, Apollo 8 started blazing that trail, and within the predictable future, man will indeed be heading for other planets. Yet the fact remains that at even the relatively short distance of the moon, man can be homesick. Said Astronaut Borman on Christmas Eve: "God bless all of you--all of you on the good earth."

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