How America REALLY Beat Russia to the Moon

By Carl Austin

Image courtesy flickr

Since the US recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I thought I'd tell you about the little remembered mission that paved the way.

I’m sure all you baby boomers out there can remember where you were on Christmas eve 1968.  That’s because it was the night the crew of Apollo 8 made history by beating the Russians to the Moon. While the 3-man crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders never set foot on the lunar surface, they couldn’t if they wanted to since the Lunar Module wasn’t even aboard at the time of their flight.  But they were the first men to orbit to the Moon.  Not many people remember Apollo 8, since it was overshadowed by the first Moon landing as well as by the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission which almost ended in disaster. (It too included Jim Lovell aboard as spacecraft commander.)

See how We REALLY Beat the USSR to the Moon

The crazy thing is that Apollo 8 was without a doubt the diciest US manned space-shot of all time.  Bear in mind the mission was never supposed to go anywhere near the Moon.  The second of seven-steps toward putting an American on the lunar surface, the space-shot was slated to test the LEM in Earth orbit.  Hell, it was only the second time a crew had flown in the Apollo program. There were a number of imponderables that had yet to be resolved to get any crew safely to the Moon and back.  So, what caused the cautious powers that be at NASA to throw out caution to the wind only to stage a go for broke shot at beating Russia into lunar orbit?  Would you believe the CIA?

Image courtesy NeedPix

That’s right, the  cloak and dagger agency convinced NASA to alter the course of history.  That’s because the CIA’s sister agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, had shown them some startling surveillance photos taken of the Baikonur Cosmodrome where a huge rocket had been wheeled out to the launchpad.  It didn’t take the NRO image analysts long to realize that the 35-story rocket they were looking at could only be the Soviet Union’s answer to NASA’s Saturn V.  Quickly meeting with NASA administrators, the CIA convinced them that if the US didn’t want to wind up being second banana in the race to the Moon, it was now or never. 

When the three astronauts who’d been training for an Earth orbital flight were asked if they were willing to make an attempt at lunar orbit, all three jumped at the chance.  So sudden was the change of plans that the space agency was forced to carry what was called the LM Test Article, which took up the space where the Lunar Module would later be stowed.  The reason for the dummy LEM was to keep the spacecraft weight identical to that of every following Apollo mission so as not to alter the calculations necessary for lunar navigation. (This was because the LEM was not yet ready for flight.)

Image courtesy flickr

In 1968, there were a lot of things that were still unknown about the Saturn V.  Up to Apollo 8, the mighty Saturn V had only twice been flown in space without a crew.  In both cases, a number of mission critical anomalies were encountered.  In its maiden 1968 flight, while the spacecraft made it into orbit, there were severe vibrations that were encountered that may have led to two of the spacecraft’s four second stage engines failing during the flight.  In the second all-up test, a leaky fuel line caused the spacecraft to shut down not one but two first stage engines.  It was only by gimballing the remaining three F-1 engines that the spacecraft managed to limp into orbit.  The first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7, was launched into orbit on a Saturn 1B.   

The reason I’m telling you this was because there were all kinds of reasons that taking a shot at the Moon at this juncture was not only extremely dangerous for the three astronauts involved, but several key systems needed to get them safely there and back had yet to be tested in space.  Everything from the on board computer and space sextant used for navigation were untried.  It was also uncertain how well the astronauts would fare for a week in a tin can only slightly larger than a couple of phone booths. 

It turned out that while the space in the spacecraft was manageable, the noise created by the command module’s systems were such that none of the astronauts was able to get much sleep during the voyage. Another problem was that at least one of the three astronauts aboard wound up with a bad case of space sickness, which caused him to inadvertently foul the interior of the spacecraft.  Yet somehow, the three managed to overcome the difficulties of the arduous maiden voyage that included having a hard time getting a star fix due to the cloud of debris that persistently dogged their spacecraft through much of the voyage. 

Image courtesy flickr

Of greater concern was whether their untested on board computer would be up to the task of getting them into and out of lunar orbit.  To give you an idea of the computing power involved on Apollo, the command module computer had less processing power than that used to operate your automobile’s key fob.  So concerned about this detail was NASA, that nobody knew for sure what to expect when the spacecraft went behind the Moon for the first time.  Out of communication with Earth, the whole flight hinged on a computer-assisted burn of the single engine in the service module.  If the burn failed, the spacecraft would have zipped past the moon into deep space.  If it burned too long, Apollo 8 would inevitably spiral down to crash on the Moon.  Everyone at Mission Control held their breath until Jim Lovell announced as they came out of the Moon’s shadow, “There is a Santa Claus.”  That cryptic response told controllers that they could start breathing again since the burn had gone off without a hitch.

While in lunar orbit, the astronauts held a televised press conference where they showed the viewing public the first images of both the Moon in closeup and the far away image of the Earth floating in the blackness of space.  The Christmas eve telecast also saw all three astronauts read from the book of Genesis and commander Frank Borman close out the broadcast by saying, “From the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you on the good Earth.”

Image courtesy flickr

While the success of this mission was the result of the ill-fated attempt by Russia to land a man on the Moon, none of the four N-1 rockets that would eventually be erected on the Baikonur launchpad ever made successfully it into orbit. In 1974 after the fourth failed launch attempt, the Russian manned moon landing was cancelled by the Kremlin.  The remainder of the rocket motors designed to take the N-1 into orbit were scrapped, only to be sold to a private US consortium that used them to put satellites into orbit decades later. 

On a side note, Russia nearly stole Apollo’s thunder when it launched an unmanned mission called Luna 15 that was supposed to return lunar soil samples to the Earth before Apollo 11 got back from its historic Moon landing.  Incredibly, both Luna 15 and Apollo 11 were in lunar orbit at the same time. The problem was the robotic Russian lander crashed on the lunar surface.  The USSR did eventually manage to not only successfully return lunar samples safely to earth in 1972 & 1976, but they also launched two successful lunar rovers to the Moon in 1970 & 1973. 

In essence, that one small step of Apollo 8, led directly to the giant leap made by Neil Armstrong one year later.  It also led the Russians to throwing in the towel when it came to putting a Cosmonaut on the Moon.

Carl Austin is an author and YouTube personality.  Visit his website and his Mr. Mystery YouTube channel.  If you liked this blog, don't forget to subscribe. Also feel free to peruse Carl's Patreon page.