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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Apollo 8, can you tell us which window you are looking out? And there is a large crater, looks like it is sticking up in the upper right hand corner of our picture. Can you identify that one?
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Roger. We are just about to lose our lock; that is why we are slowing up a little bit. We see the Sea of Crises in front of us now. We are looking out the left hand rendezvous window.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Loud and clear.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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The crater you see on the horizon is the Sea of Crises. How are you reading us, Houston?
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Roger. We are getting a lot of static. The Sea of Crises is in front of us on the horizon, and the dark crater Picard can be seen in the middle. We are now breaking the moon's sunrise or the spacecraft's sunset. This is an area that the sun has just recently come up on the moon. The mare we are over now has a mottled look about it, but not very heavily cratered, so it must be relatively new. This is the Sea of Fertility, and we're coming upon a large crater, the delta rim variety; has a strange circular cracked pattern around the middle of it. The crater that you see now is about 30 or 40 miles across.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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There is an interesting rill directly in front of the spacecraft now, running along the edge of a small mountain; rather sinuous shape with right-angle turns.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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This area just to the west of the Sea of Crises is called the Marsh of Sleep and to the west of that the Sea of Tranquility.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Can you see the fracture patterns going across the mare in front of us now, Houston?
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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Key moment Reading from Genesis: Roger. The series of cracks or faults across the middle of the mare: they drop down in about three steps to the south. The parallel fault pattern to the north has a drop down in the center. I hope all of you back down on earth can see what we mean when we say that it is a rather foreboding horizon, a very rather dark and unappetizing looking place. We are now going over—approaching one of our future landing sites selected in this smooth region to—called the Sea of Tranquility—smooth in order to make it easy for the initial landing attempts in order to preclude the having to dodge mountains. Now you can see the long shadows of the lunar sunrise. We are now approaching the lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
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Bill Anders (LMP)
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In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, “let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light and that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, “let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. And let it divide the waters from the waters.” And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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And God said, “let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together into one place. And let the dry land appear.” And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters called the seas. 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—all of you on the good Earth.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Loud and clear, Apollo 8. And thank you for a very good show. We have a maneuver PAD for you when you are ready to copy.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Okay. Now, Ken, we'd like to get all squared away for TEI here. Can you give us some good words like you promised?
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Yes, sir. I have a maneuver PAD. I think we would like to start by dumping the tape. If we can have that, I have your TEI 10 maneuver PAD, and then we will run through a systems brief.
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Roger. TEI 10, SPS/G&N: 45597, minus 040, plus 157 089:19:15.64, plus 35189, minus 01513, minus 00346 180 007 000, November Alfa plus 00186 35223 318 35019 42 0928 253, boresight star Scorpii Delta (another name for it is Dzuba) down 071, left 45, plus 0748 minus 16500 12995 36300 146:50:05; primary star Sirius, secondary, Rigel, 129 155 010; four quads, 15 second, ullage; horizon on the 2.9 window line at T minus 3; use high-speed procedure with minus Mike Alfa. Over.
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Jim Lovell (CMP)
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Okay. TEI PAD as follows: SPS/G&N: 45597, minus 040, plus 157 089:19:15.64, plus 35189, minus 01513, minus 00346 180 007 000, not applicable, plus 00186 35223 318 35019 42 0928 253, Scorpii Delta (Dzuba), down 071, left 45, plus 0748 minus 16500 12995 36300 146:50:05; Sirius, Rigel, 129 155 010; four quads, 15 seconds, 2.9-degree window line at TIG minus 3, high-speed procedure minus MA.
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Frank Borman (CDR)
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Ken, this is Frank. I want to — I want to make one thing certain. This the load that we are to use to burn with, right? This is not just a PAD data for 10 abort?
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Roger. I am reading you with a lot of background noise. Can you read me clearly?
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Okay. I am going to give you a quick summary of systems. Basically, all systems are good. In respect to your return trajectory, we can still get to the mid-Pacific line at 146 hours by waiting as late as the thirteenth REV. After 138 seconds of the burn, you are on your way home. The weather in the recovery area looks good. Apollo 8, did you call?
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Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
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Okay. You are coming in loud and clear now. Did you copy my trajectory information?
Spoken on Dec. 25, 1968, 2:52 a.m. UTC (55 years, 10 months ago). Link to this transcript range is: Tweet
