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The John Batchelor Show

PREVIEW: #APOLLO8: #NASA: An excerpt from the two-hour conversation with colleague Bob Zimmerman re his 1999 story of Apollo 8 at Christmastime, 1968: GENESIS. Ths is the high drama moment when NASA risks everything and the astronauts risk their lives in

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2024

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

PREVIEW: #APOLLO8: #NASA: An excerpt from the two-hour conversation with colleague Bob Zimmerman re his 1999 story of Apollo 8 at Christmastime, 1968: GENESIS. Ths is the high drama moment when NASA risks everything and the astronauts risk their lives in executing an engine firing for which there is no back-up, no Plan B. Either it works. Or eternity.


Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8 Paperback – by Robert Zimmerman (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Story-Apollo-Robert-Zimmerman/dp/0440235561


Houston Mission Control December 1968




Transcript

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What follows is an excerpt from my two-hour conversation with Bob Zimmerman for his book Genesis, the story of Apollo 8 at Christmas time 1968.

1:11.0

And herein Bob describes the tense moment after the success of reaching the moon

1:17.9

Circum navigating the moon taking pictures

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The astronauts knew they had one engine and one engine only to get home.

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That engine had to perform perfectly or, and Bob describes the drama leading up to that moment.

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The detail here is that the engine was going to fire on the other side of the moon,

1:41.0

that is, out of communication, loss of signal with the earth. There would be no

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