NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with James "Jim" Lovell, Frank Borman, and William "Bill" Anders, astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, part 1 of 2

You We Frank lost his toothbrush So we figured what the heck we're so close anyway we'll share a toothbrush and that pure oxygen probably kept us alive Kill all the bacteria

Okay, let me get a tail slate on that Tail slate? Okay You want to start off, Frank? No, go ahead Well, Charles Lindbergh and his wife Ann Morrow Lindbergh Who had known the area around Cape Canaveral quite a bit because he used to go down there as conservationists We're invited I think we invited him to lunch the day before our take-off and we discussed We discussed navigation and we discussed the fuel that was required and he told us how he had determined the amount of fuel by a friend of his and himself going to a library and taking a string and putting one One one part of the string on New York and the other part on Paris and measuring the size of the string and then going out from that computing the fuel they needed for this airplane that they were planning to build it was a very you know quite a entertained time It really was he stayed they stayed the whole afternoon Stayed the whole afternoon and of course now there's just recently some books have come out rewritten books on Lindbergh's life And after seeing him personally and then I was with him on Apollo 11 I was on the beach you know watching him or watching the flight go up and I

And I said I said to him I said you know general this is a very auspicious moment those people are going to be the first ones to land on the moon as the rocket took off And he looked at me he says you know he says you might be right but he said I thought Apollo 8 was the real milestone of the entire space program Which coming from him I thought was very nice he was fascinated by the program and I know about these guys but I've got several handwritten letters from him about the flight I did too one at least What did he say about the fuel consumption and the navigation I mean what did I recall he said something about he the fuel that they use or that he was going to Paris wouldn't even light the thing up Remember he made some kind of a comparison a person like that how far we go yeah we were burning fuel at great at 20 tons a second He was we first lifted off the Saturn in five at one end but he was still fascinated by the program because on Apollo 13 when I got back he had written a letter

In the Philippines he was studying some tribe and man and wrote and wrote me a handwritten letter saying that he was gradually He was forgetting his spacecraft back safely the funny thing is I met the author of a recent book called Lindbergh just a few months ago and Lindbergh had saved every single piece of correspondence that he had written And he had a copy of everything so if you handwritten and wrote a letter he had a copy of it and the fellow remembered the letters that he had sent to Frank and to Bill of myself Because as he went through the archives because the Lindbergh failed to go through the archives now you guys witnessed that first Saturn 5 together and to the first time you saw a Saturn 5 go off Must have been a fairly impressive site I mean that was a different I don't remember did we add on I don't think we did it I don't know I saw an unmanned one I don't know I was the first one and I was I was yes that was it was the only yeah I mean rattle I remember rattle the windows and I couldn't believe the sound that really came from this thing

As we did see it yeah yeah because I think we were all like was that at night? No it was daytime it was a daytime flight and I was working Yeah we kept Frank working we went out of party to go to bed early Well I mean you you've been on a Titan in the Gemini in the Gemini compared to the Titan what was that Saturn 5 like? I thought the Saturn was pretty much an all man's booster it was slow and didn't get a lot of jaze it The staging was more I think the staging was right the staging was the roughest part of it Yeah I agree with Frank and initially with the big engines gambling we couldn't hear each other talking about it They had a lot of noise and threw us around sideways a lot in the spacecraft I have to keep thinking about Frank's hand on the aboard hand You know it would pull it inadvertently but I guess you had to twist it and push it and twist it

But the Titan of course was initially an ICBM and so writing one of those things was like writing inside a warhead It goes someplace you know it had more acceleration to begin with Now I have you all together asked you this question individually How did Frank break the news to you guys that you weren't going to be doing an earth orbit? You know it flew back until the end person yeah that's exactly right Yeah we were going to sit standing in a hall in Rockwell in the American rock and down he and I don't know whether Jim was there or not I don't think you were Yeah I think because we were both working yes I was there Because I flew back I flew back with Frank after we spent a weekend after Frank came back from Houston and said that the mission had changed Because he was flying and I was just sitting in the back seat and that's when I drew the basic design for the Apollo 8 patch Back there thinking hey we're changing the whole mission you know what can we look at and it was natural because it was an 8 a figure 8 around the moon And that's what we were going to be doing

This was all super secret they wouldn't even discuss it or allow us to discuss it over the telephone Yeah and that's why they're even had to fly back to Houston and get told in person And then even though we had changed our mission Didn't you know before you actually got an airplane that there was going to be a change? I did not know I did not have any idea until I walked into Slayton's office honest to God Well let me ask you what did he did he give you an option or did he say the mission has been changed No he said that the Russians at the CIA had heard that the Russians were going to launch before the end of the year And the low was coming up with this plan to send Apollo 8 to the moon and what did I think about it? I think it's a hell of a good plan And take me 30 seconds I committed you guys He said hey, Dylan Jim would really love to do that Well I mean it sure would be going around everything Yeah we were looking forward to another 11 day flight like that He's not together anymore

No I mean anyway that was a tough time You feel the way Frank does about it I mean Frank said you know exploration all that was a nice side benefit But this was a cold war battle Well you have to put yourself in the context back that time when Kennedy made that bold announcement in 1961 Just a few weeks after L Shepherd had just gone into suborbital flight we didn't put anybody in orbit yet He was behind the eight ball and a lot of things and the space was one of them and the technology and the image of the US and the world So he had to make a very bold statement and he went to the advisers to see what's a bold statement he could make Well we could land a man on the moon but whether he really met that or not or whether he was putting out a bold statement That in a few years would die out and people would forget about it if we actually did something else or at least got par with the Soviets We will never know because you know he had died but it was also a case where once that statement was made And we were given the go ahead was the ability to actually accomplish that

A lot of yes politics evolved certainly It was a technical achievement by the United States not a scientific until until 13 And then when 13 came the scientific community came out of the woodwork and they said look we have landed in the Maury, the flat areas Which says the greatest chance of survival We got plenty of material from that already We want the hills of the Highlands and so that's why 13 was changed to Fraumaro Because they wanted to get more of a scientific nature out of it Or at least justify the reason why we did it in the first place by having a scientific aspect to it Which I think eventually led to on 17 to have a bona fide geologist on board to do a final look see But Jim if indeed there had not been a political or a co-war imperative there would have never been an apocalypse I agree with you I agree with you 100% that's absolutely the initial cause was a statement by Kennedy A idea that we had to do something that there was either there was a competition

And some of the recent books because of what we're learning more about the Russians And what they're actually doing and they're all starting to talk about it, you know, be part of history Indicates that they were very more they were very much interested in the moon more than they were putting by putting up reconnaissance satellites A lot of the stuff we thought went up were satellites as some sort of military But they really wanted to go to the moon and they were very close to beating Frank and Bill and myself For getting there if they had a little greater leadership and did the bullet on their proton vehicles And their Zon vehicles they could probably not orbit it like we did But they could have done a circumnavigating flight and of course once eight did it They said hey, we weren't interested we're doing something else When I left the program was asked to go to Washington was to run a little thing called the Aerotics and Space Council And this is a group of the senior cabinet, the State Department, NASA, the Vice President ran it This was Spiro Agnan that day

But in the early days of NASA and the National Arts and Space Act, which formed NASA For this council, Lyndon Johnson was running it And in looking into the records, it was clear that the Apollo program came together from Jim Webb from Lyndon Johnson And then was handed to Kennedy as the answer was back for the side of the moon And that's how it got started because he had a reasonable chance of success Frank, did you think that they were trying to load eight up with too much science at first? Oh, they always do that For me, it's one of the things they wanted to do Which just drove me nuts, they wanted to have an EVA on the way to the moon But that didn't last long, we knew it was great There were a lot of people that understandably had their own particular deal with their own pet project and wanted to tag it on But also, guys like Kraft protected us I mean, we'd say that's stupid

I mean, you've got an EVA on the way to the moon with that, it's going to contribute to the going around the moon I don't know, but we got it all killed I think we had a reasonable flight plan when we ended up Don't you? Oh yeah, of course, I remember Frank that you didn't want to change the food I don't want to do anything, I just wanted to get to the moon about The Army had developed a set of a wet pack where you opened it up and it wasn't freeze-dry Why stuff like we have on Germany, which Frank was used to And so they suggested that for Christmas dinner, that day that we had that And Frank says, hey, we're not changing anything You know, this is it, I don't even want to change the food I don't know, Frank, but it worked good It worked good, okay Well, in addition to the scientists, the doctors, now Frank, you got ill on the way out there I didn't even know what happened, but I know you got ill on the way out I think now is probably motion sickness, although I also had diarrhea I don't know if it was motion sickness or what, but I got over it I don't believe this I think he took the picture But I got ill, which was strange, because I hadn't had any illness at all

14 days on Gemini 7, but it went away in a hurry And Carson, that's what it is That's what it is, he got over it in a hurry and didn't go away in a hurry It only went away when level and I were going around mop it at all It was an aerospace first Speaking of aerospace first, the irony of that was that we thought, well, is he really sick or what? And I felt that we at least ought to let the ground know about this Because he was down here with a few kids, puking on his own, you know, oh, and we were not saying anything And they kind of wondered why the pressure was going down in the emergency Actually the bottles, and so I thought, well, we have this tape recorder That every now and then they dumped it Because we didn't want to just board out on the radio The commanders throwing up

And so I got the idea, well, we'll put it on the tape recorder And when they dump it off line, it won't be the press won't hear it Then they can think about it and call us back So I finally talked for Hagen to put it on the tape recorder Why were you reluctant? Well, but guys, you know, yeah, those eat it Those foolish doctors with all of a sudden have a position of supreme importance And, you know, they weren't there, we were, we were at 100,000 miles away from by now But they had it for a Gemini settlement, wouldn't let us take our suits off of it Yeah, well, yeah, remember that That's right, it was a balance about, you know, at least giving him a little bit Because maybe he had a collar or something, I didn't know Well, so I thought, okay, this is really slick, this is a great way I mean, Frank agreed that this was a good way to do it I think we waited eight hours, nothing, you know We'd, every now and then I'd say, have you checked the tape recorder? No, I mean, I just had to keep priming them Oh, well by then, I mean, I was just dating for about 20 minutes

So by eight hours later, suddenly, oh, man, they were all getting glued down there By this time, Frank was flying Well, we had an experience like that on Gemini 7 We had agreed that we were going to, and NASA was very cooperative They built a spacesuits that you could take off And then some person got the idea that they didn't want both people without spacesuits at one time Even though we'd been flying for what, four or five days So we sat up there and sweltered It was very difficult, like, well, they got a committee on the ground Remember that? Of course, I steeped out of my space Yeah, we were sitting there with everything off But we never got it back on again So we had had prior experience with the doctors That was probably one of the weaker points of the whole Apollo program It was the medical anthem, and it was stupid Of course, the Russians had three fatalities Where the guys were out of their suits And they re-entered after they'd flown six or seven times in a valve fail

Did the calderon reantre fail doing reantre? They had them dead You know, Frank's pretty much of a take charge commander One of the biggest shocks that he got in the entire Apollo 8 mission was on Christmas Day, we were coming back We finally got through the meal that he didn't want to have on the first place Really a minute, it was pretty good as we ate the whole thing And then we were told to look at a certain compartment And we went down there, and there were three bottles of brandy There's one of them out there now There's one out there right now in this museum Three bottles of brandy for a Christmas little Christmas drink Well, of course You know, liquor on board a spacecraft I mean, we were up against the ball kit, you know Well, you know, very well If the thing would have blown up through no fault of ours But we'd had a drink of brandy It would have been the crew's fault Of course, in fact, I didn't drink it, Frank didn't drink, made it easy We just had to eat the cereal

Who says it, whose bottle is that out there? I kept buying it all the time, it's not here in the museum right now I drank there too I don't know what happened to mine Do you have ears in them? Somewhere That's undoubtedly a very valuable brandy Now, Frank is a commander, I understand he's a pretty soft touch Do you have any luck in you guys who go to sleep? As Lucy said, sleep, we went to sleep He is a rubble, he went to a damn thing I said Look, I'm like a cat, I guess we've been working with him I had to do it, level it Right, he was always up there pulling at the switches Level was punching the wrong switch, and it was over here like this A stagger, and he was so tired You couldn't see his eyes there was a bloodshot Oh, I lost, leave me It all worked out, these are good guys, we really had a good try Why were you concerned about them getting to sleep? Because I wanted to get back alive And we were very tired The excitement, the adrenaline, and we'd stayed awake I don't think you slept very well going out either, did you bill?

They were around the moon for 20 hours That was a long day in itself, and we were awake long before we got there My problem was that I was on watch by myself in Jim and Frank We're together And so they talk We got to know each other in general And Frank was in his death, half death So Jim had to yell at him So I'm right underneath the seat And we yell him back and forth about the ballstores And all this stuff, and periodically we'll home it with pot The switches, you know, and... 30 years, he doesn't remember We did get a little over his health, didn't you Jim, with some of the switches at one point? Well, that was the infamous time when I put the wrong program into the computer Which was merely knew that I was going to have problems on 13, so I thought I'd test them out That was a pretty good twist way The first thing he did was pop his Maywest

Life has popped Felt the oxygen was CO2, he almost died You know, there's a... I don't know if you'd be interested in this, but there is a twist in the flight that I have never heard anybody talk about And that is that we were going to be the first to go around the back of the moon And there were some very crude photographs Taken initially by a zon spacecraft, a Russian spacecraft, and then later I think by a U.S. orbiting spacecraft So we had this map that was actually... You could just follow along and it would never end, it would just follow along and hear all these craters And there was like one or two of them named with Russian names So I got the idea with that checking with these guys that since I had to... We had all the photography angles that I would name the craters You know, why not? We were the first ones there

So I picked out a nice one for myself And it was just below the horizon so that I could talk about it But they couldn't see it, otherwise it would have been named And I got some big, a nice big kind of botchy one for Frank And a little bigger but not well defined one for Jim And then I named him for all the guys on the ground, Chris Kraft, and the president, and Houston And it was a pretty good set of names And so, and then we were using these in the simulation And Frank, it never really sunk in, I guess, or gaggy, it managed to stomach it So we flew with this app in these craters, which were now part of the simulator lingo Came over the horizon the first time, where are you? Well, I'm over Houston approaching Fred Hayes, you know And it never really got, I'm a surprise, and it didn't get much attention But anyway, I thought, well, this is right of first discovery And this will go down as the official names of that swath of craters around the moon A little while later, we were informed that the International Geophysical Union

Had done us a great honor, they had elected to name six craters, 12 craters on the moon For living or for people, okay They picked the us, the three of us, and the three on Apollo 11 The only people who were alive who had craters named after them And they, in order to be politically correct, they picked the names of six Russians Who had been killed and hadn't been any closer to the moon than people drive around on the street Well, all right, and I was going to see, finally I got my crater in Franks and Jim's official eyes And I had one for buzz and kneel Where did they pick them? There was only one spot on the moon under an orbit that we couldn't see And it was in that area of the double umbra, where it was no sunshine, no earth shine And Mara Oriental, and they picked three craters that had never been seen by us or anybody since To name after us

And I've been in a battle with those guys ever since I wrote them a letter So, you know, what a right of you to change these names, you know How Magersky was the head, and he was just embarrassed He said, well, you know, we didn't think about that That was Magersky, I don't remember. He was the geologist. He was one of the geologists, yeah Actually, we should have done was named mountains, because although... Where did you guys get in the simulator when that the joke and the simulators You guys are going to get to the dark side of the moon and there's going to be these 700 foot mountains on the other side waiting for you Well, of course the dark side is not the dark side of the moon Right It's the far side or the back side, because actually when we went around the moon I think part of the back side was actually at noontime, because everything got wiped off when you see it Looks like looking at a billiard ball, and you see this bright light coming back at it Back at you, but you don't see the detail It's 1,35 We also like to announce the addition to our collection I don't know if it's based on where we have a mission control console From the mission operations control room in Houston

A particular console is used to verify the computer equipment aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft And in mission control works properly It's a wonderful feeling to know that when millions of school children visit our museum They are able to see for themselves real treasures of living history And they can truly appreciate our science and technology have revolutionized the world they live in At other piece of news I'd like to share with you today Is that the Museum of Science and Industry has just signed on as a partner in Star Station 1 program As many of you already know, an international space station is being assembled in orbit Peace by peace with the help from 16 nations And we have an exhibit here at the museum just over behind you to the right The Star Station 1 program is designed to let the American public know about this amazing space station And the Museum of Science and Industry will serve as the only Illinois site for exhibitions, workshops, models, and outreach programs to promote the space station So from Apollo 8 to the space station it's all right here at the museum

Now before we introduce our special guest today I'd like to ask Larry Weiss Who's our coordinator of the Star Station 1 project to say a few things Larry Thank you, Dan Good afternoon everybody The Star Station 1 is an educational program designed to inform the American public about the next step in space exploration The International Space Station Now thanks to the heroic efforts of astronauts like Major General Anders, Colonel Borman, and Captain Lovell We are ready to move into the next phase of space exploration Conducting long-term studies of humans, plants, and animals in the six labs on board the International Space Station which will be orbiting the Earth for up to 15 years The International Space Station is the largest and most complex peacetime project ever embarked upon in the history of the human race 16 countries are contributing funds and technology to the space station through five different space agencies The Star Station 1 program is a collaborative effort by Space Center Houston, the Boeing company, and the Bishop Museum of Hawaii

NASA's book Johnson Space Center is providing technical guidance and developing educational materials As the exclusive Illinois representative in the group of 60 science centers, museums, and planetariums that make up the Star Station 1 partners MSI will be the state's source for up to date information on the progress of the International Space Station as it is constructed over the next five years The first module of the space station, named Zarya, was launched into orbit in November 20th from Russia aboard a proton rocket The next module, Unity, which will be taken up in this space shuttle Endeavor on December 3rd from Kennedy Space Center in Florida In its orbit, 220 miles above Earth, the space station will be visible in the night sky as a star while it circles the planet every 90 minutes Truly a new star on our horizon of space exploration MSI has a model of the completed space station on permanent display and in mid-December will begin presenting timely educational and entertaining demonstrations explaining the technologies used to build the space station

and the sciences explored throughout the 45 different Russian rocket and U.S. Space Shuttle launches involved Also MSI will host educational workshops through the Star Station 1 program and be a resource where educators may obtain hands-on materials that they can use in their classrooms. We will keep the general public informed of the progress of the space station through MSI's website and provide links to other Star Station 1 partners across the United States MSI is proud who have been chosen as the exclusive Star Station 1 partner for Illinois and will strive to continue to educate and inform our visitors about the space station which is truly an international endeavor and a project that is our next step onto the frontier of space Thank you Thank you very much Larry 30 years ago, three unbelievably courageous men embarked on a journey that most of us cannot even fathom a journey that changed our country It is my great honor to introduce these decades ago when it wasn't quite so well kept

So we really appreciate this and hopefully we'll be around for the 50th and maybe even the 100th reunion What was it you wanted me to talk about? Well you say Bill was disappointed because he was the Lunar Module He took the second Lunar Module and tested in higher Earth orbit simulating a lunar flight but nonetheless staying in Earth orbit And I had figured that God willing if we were successful here that maybe a couple of cycles later I'd actually get to land on the moon which was my big dream So when the Lunar Module...