Apollo Program Volume III - Apollo VIII / 8 Flight: History In Text, Drawings, Photographs And Film

Apollo Goals


"That's one small step for man.  One giant leap for mankind." 

   - Neil Armstrong


The national effort that enabled Astronaut Neil Armstrong to speak those words as he stepped onto the lunar surface, fulfilled a dream as old as humanity. But Project Apollo's goals went beyond landing Americans on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth:


• To establish the technology to meet other national interests in space.

• To achieve preeminence in space for the United States.

• To carry out a program of scientific exploration of the Moon.

• To develop man's capability to work in the lunar environment.


The Apollo Spacecraft


Apollo was a three-part spacecraft: the command module (CM), the crew's quarters and flight control section; the service module (SM) for the propulsion and spacecraft support systems (when together, the two modules are called

CSM); and the lunar module (LM), to take two of the crew to the lunar surface, support them on the Moon, and return them to the CSM in lunar orbit.


The flight mode, lunar orbit rendezvous, was selected in 1962. The boosters for the program were the Saturn IB for Earth orbit flights and the Saturn V for lunar flights.


CONTENT By CHAPTER:


1. TEXT - APOLLO PROGRAM OVERVIEW, MISSION SUMMARIES AND ASTRONAUT BIOGRAPHIES.


2. TEXT - APOLLO 8 MISSION SPECIFIC


3. SPACECRAFT DRAWINGS


4. MISSION PATCHES


5. PHOTOGRAPHS - FLIGHT MISSION SPECIFIC


6. VIDEO - Apollo 8: Go For TLI (NASA; 1969)


7. VIDEO - Christmas Reading Of Genesis By Crew Of Apollo 8  (NASA; 1969)


8. VIDEO - Debrief Apollo 8 (NASA; 1969)