Apollo 8

The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

An article about Apollo 8 40th Anniversary in the Houston AIAA Section
newsletter:

http://www.aiaa-houston.org/

"Al" wrote in message
...
The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

I would have thought the landing was more important.

On Dec 21, 4:49*pm, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
"Al" wrote in message

...

The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

I would have thought the landing was more important.

By coincidence, I was at the Kennedy Space Center Jupiter V
installation on Thursday morning, and saw the son et lumiere they've
turned the original firing control consoles into. Very impressive, but
I was rather miffed at being shepherded out of the room before I'd had
a chance to take a few properly lit and composed shots of the
machinery.

R

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:49:43 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Alan
Erskine" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

"Al" wrote in message
...
The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

I would have thought the landing was more important.

It became a lunar flyby because there was some concern that the
Soviets would beat us to doing so. Apollo VIII essentially won the
space race, by persuading the Soviets to drop out, and pretend they
hadn't been racing at all.

On Dec 21, 10:49*am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
"Al" wrote in message

...

The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

I would have thought the landing was more important.

They were all important , of course, 11 best remembered, but what was
done for Apollo 8 in four months takes one's breath away.

Apollo 8 took more chances and courage than 11.

The Soviets gave up manned Lunar flight after Apollo 8.

Al wrote in news:

On Dec 21, 10:49*am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:

I would have thought the landing was more important.

They were all important , of course, 11 best remembered, but what was
done for Apollo 8 in four months takes one's breath away.

Apollo 8 took more chances and courage than 11.

Especially since (and this was pointed out after Apollo 13) they had no
lunar module to rescue them in the event of a failure.

On the whole, Apollo 8 was a nice way to end what had been a very
tumultuous year for the nation.

The Soviets gave up manned Lunar flight after Apollo 8.

No, they only gave up in 1972 after the last N-1 launch failed.

The Booster people, especially, felt that this was the most important
mission. A8 proved that their rocket could get men to the men. It
also proved to the "Mission Techniques" people that the trajectories
worked out.

To me there wasn't a nicer way to celebrate man reaching the moon
than to have the reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve.


On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:49:43 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:

"Al" wrote in message
...
The most important Apollo mission of them all launched 40 years ago
today.

I would have thought the landing was more important.

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:16:57 -0500, Ry Alford
wrote:

The Booster people, especially, felt that this was the most important
mission. A8 proved that their rocket could get men to the men. It
also proved to the "Mission Techniques" people that the trajectories
worked out.

....What history is eventually going to adopt is the viewpoint that
both A8 and A11 were equal in terms of importance, and the latter
probably could not have happened had the former not been at least
attempted. Granted, that opine would make A9 and A10 appear
unnecessary - both were just as important insofar as A11's even being
attempted was concerned - but that's how history tends to work. There
were quite a few test flights of the Bell X-1 before Yeager took it
through the Sound Barrier the first time, but the way the picture's
been painted on that one most people think that was the first time it
was flown.

To me there wasn't a nicer way to celebrate man reaching the moon
than to have the reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve.

....As one who lived through 1968, it was a pretty ****ty year that
needed something like the Genesis Reading to restore hope to the
millions of viewers. For me, it was an affirmation of my own beliefs
in the necessity of space exploration, as well as a major "**** YOU,
YOU PATHETIC BITCH!" to this luddite skank I had my first 2nd grade
teacher. Thankfully by the time A8 had been launched, I'd moved to
another school and didn't have to put up with her retarded need to
bash NASA's efforts whenever I brought up the subject. I always wish I
had looked up her phone number, called her up after the broadcast, and
laughed at her being proven wrong again.

OM
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On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 14:28:46 -0600, ablo ablo@spamaway wrote:

The Soviets gave up manned Lunar flight after Apollo 8.

No, they only gave up in 1972 after the last N-1 launch failed.

....Been a lot of debate on this one over the years since the Evil
Soviet Empire collapsed and the floodgates of information began to
open up. The general consensus was that the Soviets did abandon their
manned lunar program for the most part after A11, not A8, but
continued on with N-1 development for launching larger manned military
stations with the small possibility of a manned lunar program being
revived. After the last N-1 failure, both the heavy "all-in-one"
stations and the manned lunar programs were pretty much a dead issue,
hence the shift to modular station designs such as the later Salyuts
and, of course, Mir.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[