Spacelog Apollo 8

Apollo 8, Houston. What does the ole moon look like from 60 miles? Over.

Okay, Houston. The moon is essentially gray, no color; looks like plaster of Paris or sort of a grayish deep sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn't stand out as well here as it does back on earth. There's not as much contrast between that and the surrounding craters. The craters are all rounded off. There's quite a few of them; some of them are newer. Many of them look like—especially the round ones—look like hits by meteorites or projectiles of some sort. Langrenus is quite a huge crater; it's got a central cone to it. The walls of the crater are terraced, about six or seven different terraces on the way down.

Roger. Understand.

And coming up now, the Sea of Fertility are the old friends Messier and Pickering that I looked about so much on earth.

Roger.

And I can see the rays coming out of blaze Pickering. We're coming up now near our P-1 initial site which I'm going to try and see. Be advised the round window, the hatch window, is completely iced over; we can't use it; Bill and I are sharing the rendezvous window.

Apollo 8, Houston. Roger. Got any more information on those rays? Over.

Roger. The rays out of Pickering are quite faint from here; there are two different groups going to the left. They don't appear to have any depth to them at all, just rays coming out.

Roger.

They look like just changes in the color of the mare.

Bill, if you can tear yourself away from that window, we'd like you to turn off the secondary evaporator. Over.

Roger. Going OFF.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. You can leave that secondary pump on for just a few minutes. Over.

Stand by.

Roger.

Okay. Over to my right are the Pyrenees Mountains coming up, and we're just about over Messier and Pickering right now. Our first initial point is easily seen from our altitude. We're getting quite a bit of contrast as we appear—as we approach the terminator. The view appears to be good, no reflection of the sun back to our eyes; it appears that visibility at this particular spot is excellent. It's very easy to pick out our first initial point; and over this mountain chain, we can see the second initial point, the Triangular Mountain.

And we're coming upon the craters Colombo and Gutenberg. Very good detail visible. We can see the long parallel faults or grabens, and they run through the Mare material right into the highland material.

We're directly over our first initial point now for P-1. It's almost impossible to miss, very easy to pick out, and we can look right over into the second initial point.

Roger, Jim.

I can see very clearly the five crater star formation which we had on our lunar chart —

Roger.

— And right now, I'm trying to pick out visually P-1.

Roger, Jim. Bill, you can turn off the secondary EVAP pump now.

Houston, this is Apollo 8.

Apollo 8, Houston. Go.

Roger. How about giving us a system status, please?

Roger.

Okay. I've got P-1 in sight now, Houston.

Roger, Jim.

It's very easy to spot. You can see the entire rims of the craters from here with, of course, the white crescent on the far side where the sun is shining on it. The shadows are quite lengthy now. Maskelyne B (Marsh of Sleep) has quite a few shadows off of it, but it can be recognized. Just west of the Maskelyne B, we start going to the terminator. The terminator is actually quite sharp over the Pyrenees, and it's—I can't see anything in earthshine at this present time. Bill says that he can see things out the side window when he's not looking down on the sunshine on the moon.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. All systems are GO. We're evaluating the strip charts on your SPS burn, and we'll give you a readout on that shortly. Over.

Roger. Thank you. It seemed smooth. Do you need high bit rate any more?

Roger. We'd like high bit rate. We have dumped your DSE, and we'd like to stick with high bit rate for a while.

Roger.

Well, we're just about over Maskelyne B (Marsh Of Sleep) now, and our target is just directly below us.

Apollo 8, this is Houston. If you want the recorder now, it's yours.

Roger. Thank you.

Apollo 8, Houston. MSFN tracking is comparing very well with your onboard NAV.

Roger.

Houston, for your information, we lost radio contact at the exact second you predicted.

Roger. We concur.

Are you sure you didn't turn off the transmitters at that time?

Honest Injun, we didn't.

While these other guys are looking at the moon, I want to make sure we have a good SPS. How about giving me that report when you can?

Sure will, Frank.

We want a GO for every REV please; otherwise, we'll burn in TEI 1 at your direction.