Apollo 8 Changed Space History In Only 4 Months

Apollo 8 was a monumental occasion for space travel, but the entire thing was a patchwork plan that researchers weren't sure would even work.

[jimoberg]

I remember exactly where I was when I first learned that such an epochal mission was being contemplated. It was mid-September, 1968, my summer student travels through the USSR, then through eastern Europe [dodging the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia] to Greece, were ending at the home of a college friend’s family on an Aegean island, Mytilene. My last night on the island we had dinner at an outdoor restaurant, now mostly empty with the end of the tourist season.

A single bright bulb hung from a pole near our table, nearly outshone by the moon setting in the southwest over the dark bay. BBC radio was playing, and the lead news story was that the Apollo-8 mission was being considered for a lunar orbit in three months time. What lay behind that option, including the threat of an impending Soviet manned lunar fly-by, had been easy to guess, but its boldness was striking.


By the magical moonlight of the timeless Aegean it was an unforgettable evening. And I had begun to formulate my own bold plan in response. But that’s another story.