This is CBS I on the World with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

It is a late winter 1968.

Ross Cosmos, Bikenard Cosmodrome, the launch of a vehicle called Zond 4.

Zond 4 to March 1968, the idea was to prep a moon landing. I welcome Bob Zimmerman. He's the author of

Genesis, the story of Apollo 8, the first man flight to another world.

Bob, a very good evening to you.

Russ Cosmos, the Soviet program, and NASA, the American program, were in a moon race. At this point both had recovered

from catastrophes and they were preparing for their march to moon landing.

What was Zahn for, What was the Zahn series that's so

fascinated, worried, and made NASA hurry up its plans? Good evening to you Bob. Good evening John. It was a moon race. It was actually

it was a neck-and-neck moon race in many ways. What the Russian Soviets were doing was they had

they had

gotten into orbit and successfully started to use manned

their saw use capsule the very first iteration of it

and what they did with the Zand program was they

revised it so that it would be sent on a circumn lunar mission around the moon and back to Earth. It would not go into orbit around

the moon, but it would suckle around it would zoom around the moon and the moon's gravity would

slingshot it back to Earth and then it would come back to earth and then it would come back to earth and then it would

hit the atmosphere, bounce off the atmosphere and come down and land safely. And the

idea was to put two astronauts on this and get to around the moon before we could get to the moon and that would

win the space race. They wouldn't land but they've gotten people to the moon and

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