Book Title: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, the First Manned Flight to Another World Author: Bob Zimmerman Segment 8: Perilous Return: Navigation Glitch, Double Skip, and Ocean Landing
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 7 September 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Book Title: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, the First Manned Flight to Another World Author: Bob Zimmerman
Segment 8: Perilous Return: Navigation Glitch, Double Skip, and Ocean Landing
Following the Christmas broadcast, the critical Trans Earth Injection (TEI) burn occurred behind the moon, relying solely on the SPS engine for their return. Jim Lovell famously announced, "I want to report that there is a Santa Claus," confirming the successful burn. However, Lovell later accidentally "cleared the gimbal," resetting the navigation. He expertly used a sextant and stars like Rigel and Sirius to reorient the craft, showcasing the astronauts' remarkable ability to correct errors. The return also involved a risky "double skip trajectory" re-entry into Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 mph, a maneuver only successfully performed twice before. They landed within three miles of recovery ships, though the capsule was top-heavy and flipped upside down upon splashdown. The mission was a testament to the risks taken, with NASA having been chastened by the Apollo 1 fire that killed Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee in 1967, and the Soviets by Vladimir Komarov's death on Soyuz 1.
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| 0:20.5 | I'm John Batchel with Bob Zimmerman. |
| 0:22.2 | His book is Genesis, The Story of Apollo 8, the first man flight to another world. |
| 0:27.2 | Two and a half hours after the TV broadcast reading from Genesis is the trans-Earth injection. |
| 0:35.0 | What is that, Bob? This is where we get to the lack of redundancy on the SPS engine. |
| 0:40.3 | This is the moment Susan Borman dreaded the most. |
| 0:44.0 | They're in lunar orbit. They've got to fire the SPS engine on the service module to speed up, leave lunar orbit, and head back to Earth. |
| 0:52.3 | There is no redundancy on the SPS engine. If it doesn't |
| 0:55.1 | work, they're stuck in lunar orbit and they're going to die there. Just imagine science fiction |
| 1:00.5 | of the ultimate. They would be run out of air. And of course, they knew that if that was going to |
| 1:05.2 | happen, they could just open the hatch and die quickly. But even way, they would die. So it had to |
| 1:09.6 | work. And it was like going into |
| 1:12.6 | lunar orbit as well. The burn of that engine would occur on the backside when the orbit was |
| 1:17.0 | on the backside of the moon, which means no communications with the Earth. And so everyone knew |
| 1:21.7 | they've been in lunar orbit for 20 hours. They're going around the moon, and it's near midnight on Christmas Eve, and they're |
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