Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon(11)

First, the Saturn V rocket—the only one powerful enough to     reach the Moon—had never flown with men aboard. It had been tested only     twice, the second time in April, when it had suffered near-catastrophic problems. If     Apollo 8 was to go to the Moon in December, there wouldn’t be time to test the     rocket again. The next time the Saturn V rocket flew, it would be with the crew of     Apollo 8 aboard.

Second, the lunar module also served as a backup engine—a     lifeboat of sorts. Going without it meant that if Apollo 8’s single engine failed or     malfunctioned at the Moon, the crew could smash into the lunar surface or be     stranded in lunar orbit or fly off toward the Sun.

And yet Kraft couldn’t bring himself to say no. He asked for a day to     study the problem, then met with several experts. He returned to Low’s office the     next morning with startling news.

Kraft thought Apollo 8 should do more than just go to the Moon in     December. He thought Apollo 8 should orbit the Moon.

That nearly knocked Low from his chair.

A lunar fly-by, as Low had proposed (and the Soviets planned),     required only that a spacecraft be pointed at the Moon. If aimed precisely, it would     be pulled in by the Moon’s gravity, whipped around its far side, and slingshotted     back toward Earth, all without relying on the complex engine burns and calculations     that were required to enter and exit a lunar orbit. That made things simpler by an     order of magnitude, because it put gravity in charge, not engineers and rockets. In     essence, Low had wanted Apollo 8 to fly a classic figure eight from Earth around the     Moon and back again. Engineers had worked on this so-called free return trajectory     for years, and NASA was certain it was sound.

Now Kraft was suggesting Apollo 8 do something much more difficult.     Entering and exiting lunar orbit—whereby the spacecraft would slow itself     enough to become captured by the Moon’s gravity, then speed up again to     leave—required intervention. Engines had to be fired, altitudes changed,     speeds modified, navigation altered, and countless other adjustments made. All of it     required complex calculations, software, training, and planning far beyond what was     required for a free-return flight, and little of which NASA had in its current     arsenal.

Yet the benefits of orbiting the Moon could be immense.

Putting Apollo 8 into lunar orbit would provide NASA with all kinds of     experience it needed for the upcoming landing mission. Everything from deep space     maneuvers to rocket firings to navigation to communications to propellant     consumption to life support systems could be tested under the same conditions NASA     would face when landing men on the Moon. New mission rules and procedures could be     put through their paces, simulations appraised, training revised. And once the     spacecraft arrived, the crew of Apollo 8 could photograph the Moon from up close,     scouting potential landing sites for the lucky successors who would be the first to     step onto its surface.

Low saw the beauty in Kraft’s upgrade to his plan. The two men hurried     to the offices of other top managers at NASA’s Houston buildings, who quickly agreed     that sending Apollo 8 to the Moon in December might be the boldest and riskiest and     most important mission NASA ever attempted. Now they needed to know whether their     NASA counterparts—in Washington, D.C., at the Marshall Space Flight Center in     Huntsville, Alabama, and at the Launch Control Center at Cape Kennedy in     Florida—would agree.

On that very same morning, Friday, August 9, Low, Kraft, and other top     brass in Houston scheduled a meeting with leaders from all the primary NASA centers.     Ordinarily, it would have taken a week or more to get all these men together. On     this day, they were given until 2:30 P.M. to pack a sandwich, find an airplane, and     get to Huntsville, where the meeting would take place.

Everyone arrived on time.

Gathered around a conference table, the twelve men in the room     represented a murderers’ row of NASA brass. Among them was Wernher von Braun, the     world’s most renowned rocket designer and the director of the Marshall Space Flight     Center. Von Braun had been a member of the Nazi Party and was instrumental in     developing rockets, including the infamous V-2 that Hitler launched against targets     in Europe. Von Braun surrendered to the Americans in 1945 and went to work for the     United States Army, designing rockets. But it was in 1960 that he was charged with     one of the most important tasks in the history of space     exploration—developing the Saturn super booster that would take men to the     Moon. He became the chief architect of the Saturn V—the most powerful machine     ever built—and the only vehicle in the world capable of making George Low’s     vision for Apollo 8 come true.