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Initially, Apollo 8 intended to stay close to home, test essential equipment in Earth orbit and ensure that everything is ready when it's time to place a man on the moon. Just four months before the launch of the mission, the mission was radically altered and a crew already in training was given a new mission. They were now charged to go farther than anyone in history, in a trip that could, with a miscalculation, leave them stranded in the vastness of space.
With a new mission came a new crew. Astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell, two veterans of the Gemini and William Anders, who had never been to space before, were reassigned to Apollo 8 in August 1968. They were given new objectives, consisting mainly of test the crew, control module and equipment between Earth. and lunar orbit, as well as lunar orbit. On the morning of December 21, 1968, the crew of three men entered the control module above the Saturn V rocket. Three hours after launch, an increase in fuel consumption would increase the speed of the machine. more than 35,000 feet per second, bringing astronauts out of Earth's orbit for the first time.
After Apollo 8 made the journey from Earth to the Moon, it was necessary to enter lunar orbit, a task that had to be accomplished in radio silence on the other side of the Moon – without communication with the Moon. NASA team on Earth. In order to slow down enough to be captured by the gravity of the moon, the Apollo 8 propulsion system would be triggered in reverse for a specific duration. If it burned too long, the machine would slow down too much and collapse. Too little and he would travel too fast, completely missing the moon, drifting into space with no hope of ever returning to Earth.
The maneuver was a success and the module would orbit the Moon ten times before entering the dangerous phase of the mission. To get out of the lunar orbit, they again had to rely on their propulsion system. If it failed at this stage, the crew would be stuck in the moon's orbit and choke and probably perish on New Year's Eve. The propulsion system not only performed well, but the crew returned to Earth and landed within three miles of their rescue vessel.
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