This is John Batcher, conversation with my colleague Bob Zimmerman, the author of the Book of

Apollo 8, Genesis, The Story of Apollo 8, The First Man Mission to another world. This is December of 1968 in the middle of the Cold War.

The Soviets are aiming to get to the moon before the U.S. and vice versa. They're building and planning and

risking everything for that victory. US wins. And in the course of our

conversation I suggested I remember reading something about

NASA having a military culture.

Well, Bob disputes directly, military culture.

He does not see NASA that way.

He did not write his book with that in mind, and he's very convincing.

Here's Bob Zimmerman on how NASA was in 1968 in the middle of the Cold War and why it was a success,

transparency.

More of this later tonight. John, I'm going to interrupt. transparency. were definitely were not military people generally they were civilians engineers managers

uh... they ran it in a sense like the military

they were thinking in terms of world war two we have a big, we've got to organize and we've got to do it smart.

I wouldn't, I dispute the saying that NASA was a military operation because they were not secretive as a general rule they were not

if I just dispute that I'm sorry I have to say that