RIP Frank Borman

[Starman]

Astronaut Frank Borman, commander of the first Apollo mission to the moon, has died at age 95

First of the Apollo 8 crew to pass.

Leaves crewmate Jim Lovell as now the oldest surviving astronaut.

 

[Liut]

Astronaut Frank Borman, commander of the first Apollo mission to the moon, has died at age 95

First of the Apollo 8 crew to pass.

Leaves crewmate Jim Lovell as now the oldest surviving astronaut.

Thank you for sharing. Random thoughts:
The Christmas Eve message referred to in the linked report always makes me pause.
IIRC, he was a close friend of Gus Grissom.
On a lighter note, I remember his Eastern Airlines commercials in the 1970s on Ted Turner' superstation, probably during Braves, Hawks and Flames telecasts.
RIP, star voyager

 

[Starman]

The Christmas Eve message was really an epochal event.
Live TV from the actual space flights was brand new -- it had been done on Apollo 7 in October, but most of those clips were pretty dull, three guys sitting in a phone booth.

The Apollo 8 broadcast was something everybody knew was historic as it was happening.

 

[BTExpress]

Apollo 7 crew was pissed off with head colds, too.

 

[Starman]

Wally Schirra made a name as essentially the Don Meredith of CBS space broadcasts. He was witty and easygoing as a color commentator. When he was actually in flight, he was terse and abrupt. As mentioned before, Apollo 7 was the first mission with in-flight telecasts and Schirra regarded them as time wasting grandstanding.

 

[maumann]

Today I learned:

When Shepard was grounded in October 1963, Grissom and Borman became the prime crew of Gemini 3. Grissom invited Borman to his house to talk to him about the mission, and after a long discussion, decided that he could not work with Borman. According to Gene Cernan, "the egos of Grissom and Borman were too big to fit into a single spacecraft". Slayton therefore replaced Borman with John Young.

Jim Lovell flew two missions with Borman, and the only comment I remember was that Borman was sick most of the way to the moon on Apollo 8. Then again, quite a number of astronauts lost their cookies in their first go-round with weightlessness.

And I really think we're not going to have any living astronauts who have traveled to the moon by the time NASA gets there again. That's a shame.

 

[garrow]

Another big man of the space race gone. Borman, of Tucson, had been suggested by Barry Goldwater that he replace him in the Senate. Borman wasn't interested.

RIP.

 

[UPChip]

Unlike Apollo 11 or 13, there was no LM whatsoever on Apollo 8. If the SPS engine didn't work, they didn't go anywhere. Flew all the way to the moon with no backup plan. An American hero if there ever was one.

Also, he spent 14 days in a Gemini capsule the size of the front seat of a VW Beetle.

 

[BTExpress]

If the SPS engine didn't work, they didn't go anywhere. Flew all the way to the moon with no backup plan.

Which is why, upon emerging from the dark side of the moon shortly after firing the engine, their first words to NASA were, "Please be advised, there is a Santa Claus."

Then again, this is where hypergolic fuels are your best friend. As surefire an ignition system as could be.

The Washington Post obit says this was the reason Apollo 8 went around the moon:

Mr. Borman and Lovell were rewarded with leadership roles on Apollo 8. The mission had been planned to orbit Earth, but intelligence reports that the Soviets were readying a crewed mission around the moon led NASA to change its plan, sending Mr. Borman, Lovell and crewmate William Anders more than 230,000 miles away from Earth and to orbit the moon 10 times.

Everything I've read said Apollo 8 was supposed to be a rigorous test of the LM, making its first flight. But the machine was so full of glitches that they had to move it to Apollo 9, leaving Apollo 8 with no LM and no objective --- until the lunar idea sprang from NASA honcho George Low.

 

[Starman]

In addition to the fact that the presidential campaign was coming down to the wire and one of the candidates was Richard M. Nixon, the revenge-bent arch-nemesis of John F. Kennedy, who would have been utterly delighted to pull the plug on the golden triumph and historic legacy of his sainted martyred predecessor and cancel the whole Apollo program the day he took office.

With the Apollo 1 tragedy still fresh in the nation's minds, had Apollos 7 and 8 been anything less than complete successes, Nixon could even have justified the decision as simply concern over the safety of our valiant astronauts. "It has been a tremendous effort by all involved but it appears unlikely this deadline will be met, so rather than put astronauts at additional risk we choose to devote the money to more pressing needs."

But with the historic Apollo 8 Earthrise photos plastered all over every front page in the world three weeks before he took office it would have been politically disastrous for Nixon to pull the plug at that point.

On Dec. 24, 1968, you could turn on the teevee and they were looking out the window at the moon. On that day, landing on the moon became more than just some pie in the sky dream, it became something that was going to happen.

 

[BTExpress]

Of course, this is what the astronauts saw and took with their cameras as they came around the side:

But a NASA PR person flipped it 90 degrees clockwise because it looked better that way, and voila, "Earthrise."

 

[Starman]

Well there really is no up or down in space anyway.