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Martin W. Sandler - Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything

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Martin W. Sandler Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything
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A nation in need of hope, the most powerful rocket ever launched, and the first three men to break the bounds of Earth: Apollo 8 was headed to the moon.

In 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth, Americas rival in the Cold War claimed victory on a new frontier. The Space Race had begun, and the United States was losing. Closer to home, a decade of turbulence would soon have Americans reeling, with the year 1968 alone seeing the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy as well as many violent clashes between police and protesters. Americans desperately needed something good to believe in, and NASAs mission to orbit Earth in Apollo 8 and test a lunar landing module was being planned for the end of the year. But with four months to go and the module behind schedule, the CIA discovered that the USSR was preparing to send its own mission around the moon another crucial victory in the Space Race and it was clearly time for a change of plan. In a volume full of astonishing full-color photographs, including the iconic Earthrise photo, Martin W. Sandler unfolds an incredible chapter in U.S. history: Apollo 8 wouldnt just orbit Earth, it would take American astronauts to see the dark side of the moon.

About the Author

Martin W. Sandler has written more than seventy books for children and adults, including The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure and Iron Rails, Iron Men, and the Race to Link the Nation: The Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. Martin Sandler is known for bringing history to dynamic life with his narrative nonfiction. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod.

Martin W. Sandler: author's other books


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Apollo 8 The Mission That Changed Everything - photo 1

Apollo 8 The Mission That Changed Everything - photo 2

Pre - photo 3

President John F Kennedy inspired the nation in many ways including when he cha - photo 4

President John F Kennedy inspired the nation in many ways including when he - photo 5

President John F Kennedy inspired the nation in many ways including when he - photo 6

President John F Kennedy inspired the nation in many ways including when he - photo 7

President John F. Kennedy inspired the nation in many ways including when he challenged the United States to put a human on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

Once the members of Congress got over their shock, they broke into thunderous applause. The country was in the midst of one of the most tumultuous and frightening periods in world history. Since 1948, the United States and the communist Soviet Union had been engaged in the so-called Cold War. It was a bitter confrontation, driven by each sides desire to spread its ideology, power, and spheres of influence throughout the world, marked in particular by the tensions caused by the conflict between Russian expansion versus the determination of the United States to halt the spread of communism.

It was a struggle that by May 1961 had already seen the worlds two great superpowers come close to outright war on more than one occasion. In their intense rivalry, the United States and the Soviet Union werent competing just for political control on Earth. Another conflict lay at the heart of the Cold War: a race to dominate space. It would become the most fiercely contested race in history. And, when President Kennedy made his declaration to Congress, the United States was losing badly.

The space race had begun on October 5, 1957, when Americans awoke to the startling news that the Soviet Union had launched the worlds first artificial satellite. Called Sputnik 1, it was circling the Earth every ninety-eight minutes at eighteen thousand miles per hour. It was an unprecedented development, but in the midst of the Cold War, it was not only shocking; it also struck terror and panic into the hearts and minds of millions across the United States.

Sputnik 1 was all anyone could talk about. Two of the nations leading newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, gave the news larger headlines than almost any in their long histories. Newsweek magazine scrapped its freshly printed issue, discarding more than a million copies featuring a cover story about Detroits new line of cars. The replacement Newsweek cover showed an artists interpretation of Sputnik. Inside, headlines included The Red Conquest and Why Were Lagging. That weeks Life magazine had an even more ominous take: The Case for Being Panicky.

The Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 launched the world into the space age and gave - photo 8

The Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 launched the world into the space age and gave Russia an early lead in what became a highly pressured space race with the United States.

Sputnik 1 was a tremendous Cold War setback for America. In the eyes of the world, stated U.S. vice president Lyndon B. Johnson, first in space means first, period; second in space is second in everything. As Sputnik 1 circled overhead, Soviet head of state Nikita Khrushchev boasted that People of the whole world are pointing to this satellite. They are saying the United States has been beaten. Many Americans began to wonder if he was right. And there was something more: both government officials and private citizens were worried that if the Russians could place a satellite high over the Earth, then they might also be able to fire missiles from space. The United States, declared the New York Times, was in not only a space race but also a race for survival. In 1958, the United States government, desperate to win this race, established a new agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to run its space program.

But the situation only got worse. On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. It was an extraordinary Russian triumph. In response to the Soviet success, the New York Times declared that only Presidential emphasis and direction will chart an American pathway to the stars.

At the time, President Kennedy was embroiled in Cold War crises in almost every corner of the world. In Cuba, Russia had established a communist government only sixty miles from the United States; in Germany, Russian-backed communists had taken over half of the capital city of Berlin; and in Vietnam, a civil war threatened to spawn an even greater confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Times was right: presidential leadership was needed for America to advance in the space race. Increasingly, President Kennedy began to ask his advisers, How can we catch up? There is nothing more important.

Kennedys extraordinary speech a month later was the first step. His dramatic call to put an American on the moon by the end of 1969 galvanized NASA. Less than a month before his speech, NASA had launched astronaut Alan Shepard into space, but Shepards suborbital flight paled in comparison to Russian accomplishments. Still, it was a beginning, and it gave Kennedy the confidence to reach for the moon.

Tragically, Kennedy would never live to see that extraordinary goal achieved. On November 22, 1963, he was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. After Kennedys assassination, the goal he had set, to reach the moon, became more than just a rallying cry it became a memorial. As the decade progressed, NASA carried out spaceflights that, despite continued Soviet successes, brought the United States neck and neck with Russia in the space race. In late December 1968, another American mission was about to lift off. Its name was Apollo 8.

Apollo 8 was different from the crewed spaceflights, American and Russian, that had gone before it. Not only was the flight to be launched by the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, but all previous missions had been either suborbital or Earth-orbiting. Now three astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were to attempt to become the first humans to break the bonds of Earth. Apollo 8 was headed for the moon.

A technician works atop the white room perched beside the top of the Saturn V - photo 9

A technician works atop the white room perched beside the top of the Saturn V - photo 10

A technician works atop the white room, perched beside the top of the Saturn V rocket. The Apollo 8 astronauts entered their spacecraft through this special room.

The rocket was unlike anything the world had ever seen. Standing 363 feet tall about the height of a thirty-six-story building and weighing 6.2 million pounds, the Saturn V was truly amazing. Its five first-stage engines produced a combined thrust of 7.5 million pounds (about 160 million horsepower), more than seventy-five times the power of a 747 airliner taking off. The rocket was so powerful that in the first second of its firing, it burned nearly forty thousand pounds of fuel. When the first test was launched, the sound waves it produced were so strong that a full four miles away, at the launch viewing area, news anchors had to keep hold of their television booths to prevent them from collapsing around them.

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