Jeffrey Kluger - To the Moon!: the True Story of the American Heroes on the Apollo 8 Spaceship

THE LAST THING Frank Borman needed was a phone call when he was trying to fly his spacecraft. No astronaut ever wanted to hear a ringing phone when he was in the middle of a flight, but when the spacecraft was an Apollo, any interruption was pretty much unforgivable. The Apollo was a beautiful machineso much bigger, so much sleeker than the Mercury and Gemini pods that all the other Americans who had ever been in space had flown. But the Mercurys and the Geminis had a perfect record: sixteen launches, sixteen splashdowns, and not a crewman lost. The Apollo, on the other hand, was already a killer: only eighteen months ago, three very good men had died in the ship before the first one ever got off the launchpad.

So when Borman was trying to fly, he needed to pay complete attention. And now, at precisely the wrong moment, there was a call for him.

In fairness, Borman was not actually midflight when the phone rang. No one had yet taken an Apollo into space; that wouldnt happen until the ship was proven fit to fly, which it most certainly had not been. For now, he was merely sitting in the cockpit of the spacecraft on the factory floor at the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California, where all the new Apollos were being built. If it did fly, Bormans place would be in the left-hand seatthe commanders seatand that suited him just fine. His crewmates, Jim Lovell and Bill Andersexceptional men, bothwould be in the center and right seats. Lovell and Anders were with him today, in fact, and the work they were doing was every bit as difficult as his own.

This spacecraft, Apollo 9, was scheduled to launch in approximately nine months, leaving no wiggle room in the training schedule. That schedule, however, depended on Apollos 7 and 8, the first two crewed flights of the Apollo series; both had to get off the ground and bring their crews home whole and well. All three of the flights were supposed to stay in Earths orbit, and to Bormans way of thinking, that was a shame. It was the boiling summer of 1968, and the world had spent much of the year bleeding from countless wounds: wars, assassinations of American leaders, riots and unrest from Washington to Prague to Paris to Southeast Asia. The Soviet Union and the United States, again and always, were staring each other down in hot spots around the globe as the Cold War raged, while American men died in the war in Vietnam at a rate of more than a thousand each month.

A flight to the moonwhich President Kennedy had once promised would happen by 1970would have been a fine and uplifting achievement right about now. But Kennedy was five years dead by an assassins bullet and three Apollo astronauts were eighteen months dead and the entire lunar project was flailing at best, failing at worst. Most people believed that if American astronauts reached the moon at all, they wouldnt get there for years.

Still, Borman had his mission, and he and his crew had their ship. And today they were inside it, running their flight drills and doing their best to get the feel of the machine. All the Apollos looked the same and were laid out the same, but spacecraft were like aircraft. Pilots could feel their differencesin the give of a seat or the grind of a dial or the stickiness of a switch that had a bit more resistance than it should. Each spacecraft was as particular to each astronaut as a favorite mitt is to a catcher, and you had best know your ship well before you take it into space.

Now, as Borman, Lovell, and Anders lay in their assigned seats in their small cockpit, working to achieve that fliers familiarity, a technician popped his head through the hatch.

Colonel, theres a phone call for you, he said to Borman.

Can you take a message? Borman asked, annoyed at the interruption.

No, sir. Its Mr. Slayton. He says he has to talk to you.

Borman groaned. Mr. Slayton was Deke Slayton, the head of the astronaut office and the man who assigned all the men to their flights. That power came with the understanding that he could always un-assign you to a flight if he chose. When Slayton rang, you took the call.

Borman crawled out of the spacecraft and trotted to the phone. What is it, Deke? he asked.

Ive got something important I need to talk to you about, Frank.

So talk. Im really busy here.

Not on the phone. I want you back in Houston now.

Deke, Borman protested, Im right in the middle of

I dont care what youre in the middle of. Be in Houston. Today.

Borman hung up, hurried back to the spacecraft, and told Lovell and Anders about the call, offering only a who-knows shrug when they asked him what it meant. Then he hopped into his T-38 jet and flew alone back to Texas as ordered.

Just a few hours after he was first pulled from his spacecraft, Borman was sitting in Slaytons office. Chris Kraft, Borman noticed with interest, was there as well. Kraft was NASAs director of flight operations; as such, he was Slaytons boss and Bormans boss and almost everyone elses boss, save NASAs top administrators themselves. But today he remained silent and let the chief astronaut talk.

Frank, we want to change your flight, Slayton said simply.

All right, Deke... , Borman said tentatively.

Slayton held up his hand. Theres more, he said. We want to bump you and your crew from Apollo 9 up to Apollo 8. Youll take that spacecraft since its further alongand youll fly it to the moon.

Then, as if to make clear that the astounding statement Borman had just heard was really what Slayton meant to say, he put it another way: We are changing your flight from an Earth orbital mission to a lunar orbital, he said, adding: The best launch window is December 21. That gives you sixteen weeks to get ready. Do you want the flight?