Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. The voice quality on your tape was just fair-to-middling; we were able to monitor your burn and hear most of that pretty well.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. Did you get a report of the photography accomplished, or is that on the tape at present?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Negative. We haven't heard that.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. We will put it on the tape now.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. You are 4 minutes and 40 seconds away from LOS. I would like a reconfirmation on your S-band AUX switch in the DOWN-VOICE BACKUP position. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Negative; it is in the NORMAL voice. We will go DOWN-VOICE BACKUP.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Request you leave it there forever. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Roger. In DOWN-VOICE BACKUP now.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, this is Houston. All systems are GO. You're still GO for REV 2. Over.

Frank Borman (CDR)

Go ahead, Houston. Apollo 8.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. One minute to LOS.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Ten seconds to LOS. All systems are GO.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Key moment TV broadcast 3: views of the moon: Apollo 8, Houston. Over.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Houston, this is Apollo 8 with the TV going. Over.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, this is Houston. Reading you loud and clear. We see your TV. It is a little bit—little bit clearer.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. The moon is very bright and not too distinct in this area. I will give you a shot of the horizon.

Bill Anders (LMP)

How's that look? Is it on the top of your picture?

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, this is Houston. It's a good picture—the horizon—we can't see many terrain features as yet.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We are beginning to pick up a few craters very dimly; the whole thing is pretty bright.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. There is not much definition up here either out on the horizon. We are now approaching the craters See and Bassett.

Bill Anders (LMP)

I'll shift to the rendezvous window.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, Houston. We want to take the DSE.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Looks like we've got a real good picture now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. That's the crater Brand.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8, this is Houston. We are going to need a cryo fan cycle sometime during this pass.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. Can we wait till sunset?

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. I think we are coming up on Miller right now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

There's a very new bright impact crater; should be in the field of view now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

You see it in the upper part of your screen.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Say, Bill, how would you describe the color of the moon from here?

Bill Anders (LMP)

The color of the moon looks like a very whitish gray, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Some of these craters look like pickaxes striking concrete leaving a lot of fine haze dust.

Bill Anders (LMP)

There's some interesting features out on the other window. Let me switch windows on you now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

You should see the horizon now in the top of your picture.

Expand selection down Contract selection up

Spoken on Dec. 24, 1968, 12:35 p.m. UTC (55 years, 3 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. We have the horizon, Bill.

Bill Anders (LMP)

I believe these are the craters now Bassett and See.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger, Bill. If you have the polarizing filter handy, try flipping it in front, would you?

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Jerry, as a matter of interest, there's a lot of what appears to be very small new craters that have these little white rays radiating from them.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. We see the filter going over it. Apollo 8, this is Houston. Looks like we have too much light. The polarizing filter doesn't help much. Go ahead and remove it again.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Looks like we just got —

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. We're just passing over the crater Borman, and there's Anders out there; Lovell is right south of it.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. The TV is breaking up now. Okay. We are back with a good picture. Looks like we just have too much light. Our definition is rather weak.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Also, we're fogging up the window here, Houston, among other problems.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger, Bill. The other window is better than that one.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Much better picture, Bill; much better.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Alright. The right side of the camera is pointing retrograde. We are now passing abeam of the crater Houston; I will show the camera over there once for the folks in Texas.

Bill Anders (LMP)

It's a big and sprawly one; it's got those two impact craters, one to the right and one to the left.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Still about the same, Bill. It's—the terrain's pretty bright. We are not getting much definition at all; definition on this side is much much better.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. I think—Okay. We are leaving the window; that gives you an idea how bad our window is.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. This picture now is much better; I guess the light levels are decreasing now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Okay. We are coming up on the crater Collins.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. What crater is that just going off.

Bill Anders (LMP)

That's some small impact crater.

Bill Anders (LMP)

We will call it John Aaron's.

Bill Anders (LMP)

If he'll keep looking at the systems anyway.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

Jerry, another ID feature: these small impact craters have dark spots in the center where it appears that they buried in it and hit some new material down below and scattered a lot of fine white dust around them.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Understand, Jim.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Apollo 8. This is Houston. Looks like we can see Collins now.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. There is Collins for you.

Jim Lovell (CMP)

And Collins is right on the edge of Smythe's Sea which we are about to pass over.

Bill Anders (LMP)

We are now going across the Smythe Sea. Go ahead.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. We just saw a Stellenword go by.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. He was really in a hurry.

Jerry Carr (CAPCOM)

Roger. Picture is much improved now; getting better all the time.

Bill Anders (LMP)

Roger. The terrain here is, as you can see, not well defined. We are going to start a roll to the left, in order to come across the target area, with the television —

Bill Anders (LMP)

— landing site area.

Bill Anders (LMP)

How is that crater in—right in the middle look now?