Apollo 8 Earthrise picture - recreation of the event

[DavidDvorkin]

45 years ago, I was at NASA spending 24-hour days working on Apollo 8. We have a giant, framed copy of the Earthrise picture hanging in our living room.

This video simulates and recreates the moment when that picture was taken.

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/nasa-releases-new-apollo-8-earthrise-simulation-video.html

[Demo_Chris]

1. Amazing. Great video. You should be proud that you were a part...

Of something that wonderful. Perhaps our species greatest moment.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. Very, VERY cool!

Thanks for this.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Very cool, and I'm envious

The lunar landing program was the greatest feat of engineering in modern times, in my opinion. A buddy of mine who passed on a few years ago was in NASA from before the first astronauts were selected through the end of Apollo. It sounds like the most incredible, exhilerating and exhausting adventure.

I was just a tyke then, but still it amazed... I just remember Apollo 8 at Christmas time.

Wow.

Thanks!

[DavidDvorkin]

4. I'll always be glad that I was part of it

A tiny part -- vast numbers of people were involved. And a replaceable part; none of us was unique.

But still, I was one of those vast numbers, and I did play my part. It all comes back when I see things like this.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. May I ask what your part was?

My buddy ran tracking stations - first at Canarvon, then Madrid. Almost got into a fist fight with Pete Conrad:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/KranzEF/KranzEF_3-19-98.htm

Thanks!

[DavidDvorkin]

9. Normally, Lunar Module Rendezvous Radar error analysis

I.e., calculating the accuracy of the Lunar Module's radar system during the ascent from the moon, when it was tracking the Command Module as part of the lunar orbit rendezvous.

Apollo 8 didn't have a Lunar Module, and there was no lunar landing or ascent or rendezvous. It was just the Command Module. So I -- and others -- did similar error analysis of the orbit determination for various phases of the mission.

[MannyGoldstein]

12. Wow! I always wondered about ascent from the moon.

When I've seen videos shot from the Command Module of the Lunar Module coming back for rendezvous, it seems so perfect. First a speck, then growing, then... there it is, ready to dock. Vroom, directly to the right point in space, seems to be no fuss or bother.

I'm not an expert on such things, but it seems to me that this process must have very little room for error - everything would have to go really well for the two little craft to find one-another and mate, so far from Earth - lot's of math and great engineering. Must have been incredible.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Your buddy was Gene Kranz?

I remember that name.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. Dan Hunter

Search for the name in the link - he was an awesome, awesome guy.

[BKH70041]

5. Very Nice!

[drm604]

7. Thank you.

I never tire of reading and watching things about the Apollo program. At the time we never dreamed that in a few years we would lower our ambitions and restrict manned missions to low Earth orbit from then on all the way into the 21st century.

[DavidDvorkin]

18. I know

Support for Apollo was falling while I was at NASA, but even so most of us assumed that the effort would just keep on going, with lunar bases and then planetary bases. We thought we were just at the beginning of manned settlement of the Solar System.

[drm604]

23. I understand the economic and scientific reasons for concentrating on robotic exploration,

but I still can't help but feel that we eventually need to somehow have a human presence throughout the solar system. Maybe the Chinese will do what we gave up on.

I do think that the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs gave us technological advances that have more than paid for the cost of those programs. Think were we might be if we had continued.

[DavidDvorkin]

24. Here's another video a former colleague just sent me

This one is about the work of the Mission Planning and Analysis Division. It was made in 1966, the year before I joined MPAD.

Jim McPherson, shown in the video, was the head of MPAD and a really nice guy. I don't remember him as being that young!

There are far more of these old videos than I realized.

[drm604]

25. You're so fortunate that you got to work there during those times.

I was way to young. I later did get to work for a few months as part of a team designing and writing the software for a TDRSS ground station, but that was the closest I've ever come to working on the space program. This was at a GE location in the Philly suburbs so I never worked at NASA proper.

[DavidDvorkin]

27. Yes, I was

It was a unique time in our history -- unfortunately. I was the right age and with one of the right kinds of academic background at the right time.

[DavidDvorkin]

29. At the end of this video

we see a drawing of a small base on the moon, and then a crew in orbit around Mars.

Sigh.

[warrior1]

8. Thank you for sharing that

That was beautiful.

[Recursion]

13. See! I told you it was mocked up in a studio!

Jokes aside, thanks for your work!

[irisblue]

14. As we listened to the astronauts from space...

I was almost 11 as I sat on the scratchy rug, the adults on the couch and chair, as the Astronauts read from the Christian Book of Genesis...."and God saw that it was good. And 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."
There were humans, like my dad... from thousands and thousands of miles away from my Grandmas' house in northeast Detroit, leaving everything behind, their beloveds,their children, their mom&dads, their family and being the among of the first to see a lunar... not earths' sunrise a lunar sunrise, and speaking to all of us on this small blue planet , telling us earthbound humans what it was like for those 3 humans.... it still can make me catch my breath at the daring, at THEIR daring to go so far from the known to the far side of the moon, and then back to this planet. past words...

[calimary]

15. NICE!!!

Thanks for posting this, David!

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. I have one, too, but it's in the office. It's also my desktop on this Ubuntu box. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Automatic Apollo program rec...

America at its zenith.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. Yes

Well said.

[Jim Lane]

20. Thanks! I've added this to Wikipedia.

I was captivated by this video, and I thought that it deserved as much exposure as possible. I've added this section to the Wikipedia article about the photograph.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. Cool!

[krispos42]

22. They synched it to the mission audio recording

Very nicely done. K&R

[seveneyes]

26. A Grand Oasis indeed

[tridim]

28. Damn, youtube just crashed hard. Halfway through the video.

Thanks for posting this, I've never heard the tape recordings during the photo.