TO THE MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND

Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

With a view from beyond the moon, an astronaut talks religion, politics and possibilities


Viktor Toth posted on Google+ and Facebook this clip.  It references a very infomative article in the Seattle Times (see below).
- LRK -
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Viktor Toth

 7:55 AM  -  
 Google Reader
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Atheist Moon »
One of my favorite photographs ever, in fact one that I even use on my Facebook timeline page as a background image, was taken by a certain Bill Anders when he was flying almost 400,000 km from the Earth. Anders was one of the first three members of our species who flew to another celestial body (albeit without landing on its surface; that came a bit later.) Yesterday, I read a very interesting article about Anders, both his trip on board Apollo ...
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And the article.
- LRK -

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The Seattle Times -  Pacific NW Magazine
Originally published December 7, 2012 at 12:01 PM | Page modified December 7, 2012 at 7:59 PM

With a view from beyond the moon, an astronaut talks religion, politics and possibilities

When you are one of the first three of your species to leave your planet and travel to another, certain things tend to stick with you, even a half-century later. Just ask Bill Anders.
Pacific NW staff writer
THE PASSAGE of time has rounded the sharp edges of some details. But on certain nights, Maj. Gen. William A. Anders, USAF, Ret., stands outside his Orcas Island home, gazes across the ink-black night sky over San Juan Channel and feels a brilliant new moon pull his mind all the way back into its orbit.
When you are one of the first three of your species to leave your planet and travel to another, certain things tend to stick with you, even a half-century later. For Anders, the brightest highlights of his historic flight on Apollo 8, from the Earth to the moon, 44 years ago this month, are more vivid than the most recent mooring of his boat, Apogee, at Deer Harbor.
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[See 12 image clips at article site. - LRK -]
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See related Apollo 8 article.  Much information an d more links.
- LRK -

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Originally published December 7, 2012 at 6:27 PM | Page modified December 7, 2012 at 7:53 PM

See the Apollo 8 mission and learn more from the astronaut who lived it

Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders shares views on his historic trip around the moon, his famous "Earthrise" photo, NASA and the politics of space, religion and the possibility of intelligent life in outer space.
A lot of great information about Bill Anders' Apollo 8 mission, as described in the Dec. 9 Pacific NW Magazine is available, and much of it couldn't be shoehorned into a single story. But some of his thoughts from our interviews, given their candor and historical value, were too good not to repeat. So here is a collection of supplementary material, ranging from multimedia links to Anders' own thoughts.
— Ron Judd
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More on the Apollo 8 mission.
- LRK -

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Apollo 8, the first flight to take men to the vicinity of the Moon, was a bold step forward in the development of a lunar landing capability. With only minor problems, all spacecraft systems operated as intended, and all primary mission objectives were successfully accomplished. Crew performance was admirable throughout the mission. The navigation techniques developed for translunar and lunar orbital flight proved to be more than adequate to maintain required accuracies for lunar orbit insertion and trans-Earth injection. Communications and tracking at lunar distances were excellent in all modes.
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Youtube video of Apollo 8 launch.
- LRK -

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Apollo 8 Launch


Uploaded on Jul 28, 2007
Edited footage of the Apollo 8 launch, several camera views compiled. Runs from T-00:25 through T+03:25.
See the mighty Saturn V launch vehicle in action, carrying humans for the first time. Watch out for an excellent shot of the staging sequence at the 3 minute mark in the video.

For information on how to obtain high quality footage like this visit www.spacecraftfilms.com
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Here is to looking up, maybe near, maybe far, maybe even a star.
Apollo 8, the second manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968 and became the first manned space craft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — CommanderFrank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, and then the first to directly see the far side of the Moon. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and the first manned launch of the Saturn V, was also the first manned launch from the John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral.
Originally planned as a second Lunar Module/Command Module test in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious Command Module-only lunar orbital flight to be flown in December, because the Lunar Module was not yet ready to make its first flight. This meant Borman's crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline.
Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their space craft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
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In 1968, the crew of Apollo 8, for the first time in the history of humanity, disappeared behind another celestial body. When they re-emerged on the other side and saw the Earth rise over the lunar landscape, on much of the Earth it was Christmas Day.

And this is when they sent us Earthlings a Christmas message, which ended with the words, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
You don’t need to be religious to find this moment awe-inspiring.
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Apollo 8 lifts off from Cape Canaveral on December 21, 1968.
NASA
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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