Tomorrow is the anniversary of Apollo VIII. Paul Spudis has some thoughts. As he notes, though we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time, that was probably when we won the moon race, in that it resulted in the Soviets dropping out and pretending they had never been racing. Of course, Johnson had already canceled the program even before the flight, though we hadn’t yet achieved Kennedy’s goal. That would happen seven months later, in July of 1969.
5 thoughts on “Forty Years Ago”
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Off Topic:
The anti-space colonization arch-druid, Bruce Gagnon, has re-opened his comments section. Anyone here is free to put their 2 cents in.
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/
The Troofer nut is isolated in Maine now. Don’t validate him with undeserved attention.
“It’s so lonely in the state of Maine”-Cagey Cretins-BOC 1975
I just don’t care. Every time I read Gagnon, I get a little dumber. If Gagnon is the best that the anti-space colonization side can come up with, then they’re doomed.
I did happen to come across a recent image of Gagnon and an unnamed acolyte:
http://www.cinedetour.it/rassegne/ultimouomo/OmegaMan6.jpg
Back OT, I was looking through the Apollo 8 journals:
http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/
trying to find the Genesis reading (it’s in the section labeled orbits 7, 8, and 9, at hour index 86, right after they report flying over the Sea of Tranquility). I hadn’t looked too closely at the items before, but what floored me was the amount of time they spent just requesting attitude changes so they could point the high gain antenna at Earth.
Also, one way to remember the mission would be to watch the episode devoted to it in “From the Earth to the Moon” titled “1968”