Unifying view of Earth ends year of turmoil
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In the grip of the upheaval and loss that defined 1968, from war in Vietnam to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to riots in U.S. streets, Americans were aching for moments of unity and triumph. ❚ The race to the moon helped provide those moments and, ultimately, filled not only Americans but humans across the globe with a rare feeling of solidarity when, for the first time, man escaped the bonds of Earth. ❚ As those turbulent 12 months of 1968 drew down, it was from a sandy strip of land on Florida’s east coast that the country felt a jolt of hope and inspiration.
But while the year would end with a stunning view of Earth from Apollo 8 and a Christmas Eve reading from the book of Genesis by a trio of astronauts orbiting the moon, it began somberly.
In January 1968, only one year had passed since a devastating fire ripped through the Apollo spacecraft where three astronauts – Roger Chafee, Ed White II and Virgil “Gus” Grissom – were buckled in and training at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34.
Morale was still low in Brevard County, recalled John Tribe, former chief engineer for Boeing at Kennedy Space Center.
“We’d just lost three of our friends, which should never have happened,” said Tribe, whose career spanned from the Mercury years through the shuttle program. “But we kept working.”
In some ways the tragedy of Apollo 1 galvanized NASA and the space community to fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Achieving that goal would not only give America a much-needed boost against the Soviets but also give more Americans an education in the benefits, here on Earth, of space flight.
The effort to meet Kennedy’s moon call became one of the largest, most complex and expensive engineering endeavors ever, involving 390,000 Americans and $25 billion.
The first tangible success came 22 months after the Apollo 1 fire when Apollo 7 launched on Oct. 11, 1968, from Cape Kennedy. That first crewed Apollo space mission, carrying NASA astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham, offered the first live TV broadcast of Americans from space, drawing a worldwide audience.
“Apollo 7 was a great success, and that flowed over to us,” Tribe said. “The program was moving again.”
And for those working it, the moon effort required almost full immersion.
By anyone’s count, the work hours leading up to Apollo 8, a mission that launched Dec. 21, 1968, were grueling. Fifty-, 60-plus hour weeks were not unusual, said Charlie Mars, a NASA power and sequential systems engineer when hired in 1965.
“We really didn’t complain. Now, the wives did,” he said – and the county’s divorce rate was high.
“The wives, the families took the brunt of it. … And there were times we just didn’t come home. Spend the night. Sleep on a desk. Bring a pillow; sleep somewhere where maybe you could find a couch in a boss’s office.”
Mars said he and others were so focused on the mission, they were “almost ignorant to what was going on in the rest of the world,” he said.
John Tribe was 32 that year, married, with two children. Getting home in time to help a child with a bath or tuck them into bed was a rarity, he said.
The Vietnam War? The fight for gender and racial equality and equal pay for equal work? Unrest in the street?
“Those of us working on Apollo didn’t see a lot of it. … We were very focused, concentrating on our jobs,” said Tribe, whose first marriage crumbled during the pressure of the Apollo years. “This was our life, married to the Apollo program. You’d catch the evening news and be like, ‘Oh my god. What started that?’ and you’d play catch up.”
The Apollo 8 mission, with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders, was defining in that it proved that landing on the moon was within reach. The six-day, three-hour and 42-second mission saw astronauts orbit the moon 10 times. For the first time, astronauts viewed the dark side of the moon.
Just over six months later, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the Eagle and made his “one giant leap for mankind.”
Apollo 8, like the other Apollo missions and the Gemini and Mercury before that, helped get America there.
But Apollo 8 also gave all humans, not just Americans, a new view of Planet Earth – and perhaps, our shared humanity, in the waning days of a year torn by man-made tensions.
The iconic “Earthrise” photo, taken by astronaut Bill Anders, showed the “blue marble” in the distance, with the moon’s surface in the foreground. Stark and stunning, it gave humanity a look at their fragile planet as seen from space.
It’s still a significant photograph, said Hazel Banks, who worked with NASA from December 1965 through Apollo 15.
“‘Earthrise’ … that was like going back to Michelangelo or something,” she said.
“Speechless, priceless, breathless … (like) we really are part of a universe that’s much different to us and maybe this will help us realize it, too.