NASA’s New Space Agenda – The Weekly Standard

In the months following John F. Kennedy's 1961 pledge to put men on the moon, NASA conceived a plan wherein an Apollo capsule and its three crewmen would descend to the lunar surface atop a giant, multi-stage rocket; when it was time to go home, the rocket would be powerful enough to blast the capsule, its service module and its astronauts back to Earth. This "direct ascent" plan required an enormously heavy landing vehicle andconsequentlya launch vehicle substantially larger than the immense Saturn V moon rocket. It was too ambitious for the end-of-the-decade deadline, so a new solution was proposed: an independent "Lunar Module" would carry only two men down to the Moon's surface. The third crewman would remain in lunar orbit in the Apollo capsule, along with all of the heavy sundries needed for the trip home: the service module, heat shield, fuels cells, food, and so forth. This way, only the bare essentials would make the journey to the surface, drastically reducing landing weight and simplifying the lunar touch-down. When it was time to go, the Lunar Module would rejoin the Apollo capsule in orbit.

In July, 1962, eleven aerospace companies entered bids to build the lunar module; in August, the contract was awarded to Grumman Aircraft, desirnger of fighter-planes and light bombers. The LM contract was for 350 million dollars; development ended up costing 2.2 billion. The LM's weight was paramount; in places, its skin was less than 3 hundredths of an inch thick. NASA offered a bounty of $50,000 to Grumman for every pound the lander shed. A helicopter-style cockpit, with a pilot and copilot seated next to each other, was dropped in favor of having the Astronauts stand for the duration of the flight. Giant glass windows were dropped in favor of tiny triangular port-holes that would give the standing astronauts an adequate field of view. No one knew precisely what sort of terrain the LM would land on, so its legs and feet had to be simultaneously very flexible, very strong and very light. The LM would have four legs, so if one came down on a soft spot, a tripod would remain. Originally, Grumman wanted five legs, but five were too heavy. There would be only one landing engine, and only one take-off engine: there was no space for backups. If either engine failed, the moonwalkers would die. Happily, the LM's service record was perfect. Not nearly enough credit is given to its chief designer, Thomas Kellyone of the real, unheralded geniuses of the space race.

However, in late 1968, after 6 years of relentless designing, testing, redesigning and retesting, the LM still wasn't done. Per NASA's plan, its first manned flight would be the Apollo 8 mission; Apollo 8 would have to be delayed. Then NASA engineer George Low had an idea.

George Low is another tragically unheralded geniuses of the space race. He was a Jew born in Austria who fled Nazism in the 30s and became an American soldier in the 40s. In 1958, he was one of the founding members of NASA, and is credited by many NASA-men with having saved the moon program after the fatal Apollo 1 fire, in 1967. After the fire, he was made manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program; a year later, in 1968, he heard about the LM delay, and suggested something else for Apollo 8:

What if, instead of postponing the mission until the LM was ready, a new mission was designed? A flight around the moon, essentially for its own sake. No new hardware would be tested, no prep done for the moon landing that wasn't already planned for Apollo 9later bumped to Apollo 10which would fly to the moon and do a complete landing dress rehearsal. The point of Apollo 8 would be inspiration, a singular moment in the history of mankind. Three Americans would become the first men in history to travel beyond Earth-orbit into deep space. They would be the first men in history to see the moon up close. They would be the first to see the Moon's far side. They would be the first to see an earth-rise. The entire world would watch as men zoomed past the old altitude record of 850 miles above the earth, and set a new one of 250 thousand miles above the earth.

On Christmas Eve, 1968, Apollo 8 entered a lunar orbit. On Christmas Day, Apollo 8's crew broadcast closeup video of the Moon's surface on live TV. They accompanied the footage with a message. Astronaut Bill Anders spoke first:

"We are now approaching the lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you:

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

Astronaut Jim Lovell spoke next:

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Commander Frank Borman spoke last:

"And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas: and God that saw it was good.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmasand God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

It has since been estimated that a quarter of everyone then alive on the Earth saw that broadcast, either as it happened or afterward. The Soviet propaganda newspaper Pravda quoted the head of the Soviet "Interkosmos" space program as calling Apollo 8 an "outstanding achievement of American space sciences and technology." Apollo 8's broadcast won an Emmy, and crew were named Time Men of the Year. And an atheist sued them for reading from the bible on government property.

Apollo 8 was one of the defining moments in human history: the first voyage to Moon. The last voyage to the Moon was four years later in December of 1972. In the 45 years since, no one has gone further than Low Earth Orbit. NASA plans to send its new Orion space capsulethe successor to the Apolloon a flight to the moon in September of 2018. "Exploration Mission 1" won't land; like Apollo 8, it will stay in orbit. Unlike Apollo 8, it will be unmanned.

This week, NASA announced President Trump wants to add astronauts to the EM-1 flight, and make it the profoundly inspiring trip back to the Moon we've waited half a century for. It's a phenomenal idea, and NASA is currently doing a feasibility study.

What a thing that would be!