Rocketjuice and the moon zip

Andrew Chaikin : They're getting up to twenty-five thousand miles an hour which is what it takes to get you out of Earth's gravitational well and onto a path to the moon.

Mission Control : Apollo 8, Houston. Trajectory and guidance look good. Roger, Apollo 8. Looks good here. We're predicting cut-off at and it looks exactly nominal here. Thank you. Narrator : As Apollo 8 embarked upon their six day mission, they left behind a deeply troubled planet. Through , America had suffered through one shock after another: the escalating war in Viet Nam and the rise of Anti-war protests at home; the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Kennedy; Race riots in the cities; and chaos at the Democratic National Convention. As troubles mounted in the outside world, NASA had been struggling for nearly two years with its own problems.

In January , before the first manned Apollo flight had even flown, a flash fire erupted in the Apollo 1 capsule killing the crew during a routine drill. NASA immediately grounded manned flights for 18 months, as engineers furiously redesigned the Apollo capsule. The next five unmanned tests of the massive Saturn 5 rocket system, including flights that were called Apollo 4, 5 and 6, were hampered by technical problems that sent the rocket team back to the drawing board again and again.

And by early , it was apparent that construction of the lunar landing module was also hopelessly behind schedule. Apollo manager George Low spent several months trying to come up with some way to get the program back on track. Low knew that something drastic had to be done to preserve any realistic chance that an American would land on the moon before the end of the decade.

Andrew Chaikin : Low very quietly reviewed the situation and came up with this brilliant idea to take the second Apollo flight, and instead of sending it into Earth orbit with a lunar lander that wasn't going to be ready, send it to the moon without a lander.

Just do the part that says we're gonna go from the Earth to the moon, test out the communications, the navigation, all of those things that you're going to have to do anyway, later on for a landing.

You don't need the Lunar Module for that mission. John Logsdon, Space historian : We haven't flown humans on Saturn 5, we haven't flown the redesigned capsule, but we're supposed to decide now to fly humans on the first Saturn 5 in that capsule to the moon? Chris Kraft : He said, "Can we do a lunar fly-by? Can we fly around the moon and come back? Do you think that is possible to do? Jerry Bostick, Retrofire officer : I thought at first it was a pretty wild idea.

But the more that I thought about it, and we only had a couple of days really to assess it, to see if we really could or not, I changed my mind and thought it was a bold idea, and yes, we could. Chris Kraft : At that point I said, "yes, we want to give it a shot.

But we have to tell you this: if we're going to do it we want to go in orbit around the moon we don't just want to fly around the moon We're willing to start working on these programs; we're willing to start shooting for that time period with building all these things we've got to build.

Webb told his managers that their idea would put the whole program at risk, but in mid-August, he gave tacit approval to a reworked schedule that would send Apollo 8 into lunar orbit at Christmas. Glynn Lunney, Flight director : The whole thing just clicked into place. It was like perhaps it had been out of focus if I'd thought about it.

But the Apollo 8 decision was the gate opener, the gate opener to the landing. Susan Borman : My husband came home. And he as best he could said what he had just volunteered for, and I was trying to absorb what he was telling me. And this is August, you haven't tested the capsule yet. December, that's what, three some odd months. But usually you train for a year. To the moon? Narrator : For four months the flight crew of Apollo 8 and their ground crew trained relentlessly, working with a whole new mission plan and pushing to develop all the technical skills required by the new flight.

Chris Kraft : It compressed everything that we were doing. It compressed building the software in the computers to go to the moon. It compressed measuring the instrumentation that we had to look at the spacecraft when we were going to the moon.

And we convinced ourselves, In mid-September of they sent a capsule looping around the moon carrying turtles, mealworms, and a life-sized mannequin. Then in mid-November Zond 6 carried another payload around the moon.

Knowing that the Russians had a brief window to launch a lunar flight in early December, Americans sensed that the race to the moon was coming down to the wire. NASA's worst fears were realized when the CIA sent word in late November that a Soviet rocket capable of carrying two men was moving into launch position.

Just a month before Apollo 8, it looked like the Soviets would out-maneuver the Americans once again. Alexi Leonov, Soviet cosmonaut : People in our country were convinced that we would be the first to land on the moon, because they were used to the fact that we were always the first, the first the first. Narrator : What no one outside the Soviet leadership knew was that both unmanned Zond flights in the fall had problems during re-entry that would have killed a cosmonaut.

In the upper reaches of the Soviet government a heated debate was underway over whether or not to risk sending men on a December flight to the moon. Alexi Leonov : We could have done it six months earlier.

Two of the crews had passed all of the tests and trials. Certainly, it was only the indecisiveness of our chief designer at the time, Vasily Pavlovich Mishin that caused us to fall behind in this program. Soviet leaders were ultimately unwilling to risk a crew without another test flight. Narrator : While the Apollo 8 astronauts made final preparations for their flight, at Cape Canaveral, their wives were left in Houston, caring for their families on their own.

Marilyn Lovell, Wife of astronaut Jim Lovell : I would say they were probably gone six days out of every week. We had to fend for ourselves, I mean, we didn't expect them to worry about us and I would say that we probably kept many things As much as I tried to hide my fears even from myself it was not easy on any of us.

And it was not easy on our children, especially the older children who understood what was happening. Susan Borman : We'd say how proud we were, how confident we were, and then I'd go inside and kick a door in! I thought And I just sort of figured maybe you'd better face up to that and give it some thought and stop living in this cocoon because this time it is not just another test flight.

Valerie Anders, Wife of astronaut Bill Anders : We thought, we're in this, this is our life, we're military wives, we're not trained for this, but this is the kind of life we live. And there were other wives, in other parts of our country at that time, who were wives of people missing in action in Vietnam, who were wives of fighter pilots, fighting in Vietnam, and that's what our role would have been, had it not been this.

Narrator : Just weeks before lift-off, outgoing President Johnson asked the astronauts to leave Cape Canaveral to attend a gala dinner at the White House. Valerie Anders : The wives were flown from Houston to the White House, and all I remember was being extremely nervous because the Hong Kong flu was going around. And I don't remember anything about what happened in the East Room. There was some operetta or show put on and all I heard was coughing and sneezing and thinking, "this crew will be sick on the flight; they shouldn't be here.

And I think we were very aware when we said good-bye, that this could be good-bye. Narrator : Shortly after breaking out of Earth orbit on December 21, the Apollo 8 crew jettisoned their last booster rocket and watched in awe as the Earth receded in the capsule window.

There is a big swirling motion just off the east coast, and then going on over toward the east, I can still see West Africa. Mission Control : Good grief, that must be quite a view. Apollo 8 : Yes. Tell the people in Tierra del Fuego to put on their raincoats; looks like a storm is out there. Walter Cronkite : So much rested, the hopes of America, the hopes of the world perhaps This was man escaping his environment really, out to the very moon itself, knowing that the moon would never look the same again, that once man had been there and we'd known they'd been there and returned safely.

Everything was there and it all rested in that spaceship. Narrator : Eleven hours into the flight with another two and a half days to go before they reached the moon, Frank Borman was the first scheduled for sleep, but before he turned in, the crew had one crucial maneuver to perform -- a short test of the only remaining engine, the Service Propulsion System or "SPS. After orbiting the moon 10 times, the SPS would have to burn again to send the crew home. Apollo 8 : Houston, Apollo 8. Mission Control : Go Ahead.

The burn was on time -- about 2 seconds. Narrator : Initial readings showed the SPS test looked good. For a couple of restless hours Borman tossed and turned in a hammock below the seats, struggling with nausea. Then, after taking a sleeping pill, he became seriously ill with both vomiting and diarrhea. When doctors in Mission Control learned of Borman's condition, they immediately suspected a virus in the capsule. The doctors alerted the Apollo directors, and they slipped out of Mission control for a private conference about whether to abort the mission.

While they were absent, Mission Control was jolted by more bad news -- closer analysis of the SPS test, showed a slight malfunction. Glynn Lunney : We fired this engine, which was a confidence burn. It was intended to give us confidence that this engine, which we were counting on at the moon, was going to be all right. Lo and behold, the engine didn't behave properly. So we're sitting here looking at that, stuck with, "Oh, my God, is this engine not working right? Does this mean we cannot go all the way to the moon and put the vehicle in orbit?

Do we have to turn around and come back? Narrator : After 10 minutes of anxious debate, NASA engineers reported that the malfunction was likely temporary and they believed the engine would work properly when fired again to go into lunar orbit. Without enough fuel to test the engine again, year-old Flight Director Glynn Lunney made the call to proceed on course.

Narrator : When Kraft and Low returned from their deliberations over Borman's illness, they accepted the decision on the SPS, having made a similar call about the crew's health. By now the commander was feeling a little better, and the other astronauts were showing no signs of infection.

Though off to a rocky start, the mission would continue as planned. Narrator : At 2pm on December 22, the second day of the mission, networks interrupted Sunday programming for the first televised broadcast from Apollo 8. Archival Apollo footage : This transmission is coming to you approximately half way between the moon and the Earth.

We have been 31 hours and about 20 minutes into the flight. We have about less than forty hours left to go to the moon. You can see that Bill has his toothbrush here.

He has been brushing regularly to demonstrate how things float around in zero g. Narrator : The broadcast was supposed to provide an unprecedented view of the entire Earth, but lens problems made that impossible. Archival Apollo footage : This lens doesn't seem to be working. I sure wish we could show you the Earth. It's a beautiful, beautiful view, with predominantly blue background and just huge covers of white clouds. Its very, very beautiful. Narrator : Even without the Earth views Americans were captivated as the drama of the crew's voyage began to sink in.

Narrator : Behind the good-natured banter was the reality that these three men were alone , miles out in space, moving farther and farther away every minute. TV 1 CDR : So we will be signing off here, and we will be looking forward to seeing you all again shortly. Narrator : At in the afternoon Houston time on December 23, the third day of the mission, the crew of Apollo 8 crossed the gravitational divide.

Now, instead of pulling away from the Earth, they were being pulled toward the moon. Mission Control : Mode 1, 5 hours, roll 1.

The new attitudes for the Mode 1, 5 hour Mode 15 minute are as follows: roll 1. Narrator : 12 and half hours later, tension filled the air as the astronauts prepared to fire the SPS engine.

If all went well, it would slow the capsule just enough to safely enter lunar orbit. The crucial maneuver would take place on the far side of the moon, out of radio contact with the Earth.

Distance from the moon now nautical miles. Andrew Chaiken : The moon is moving along in its orbit at thousands of miles an hour. It's twenty-one hundred miles across. You're trying to zip ahead of the leading edge of the moon, whip around the back side, fire your engine, and go into orbit just 69 miles above the surface.

You know, 69 miles out of , miles, is not, doesn't leave you a lot of room for error. Narrator : The back up crews and nearly every flight controller gathered in the control room.

Jerry Bostick : And then we had loss of signal as they went around behind the moon. And it was rather depressing all of a sudden, it was a let down, like, well, what's going on, well, we don't know, we can't talk to them, and the first thing I heard was from Glynn Lunney, who said well "this is probably a good time for everybody to take a break. Narrator : If the burn went well, Apollo 8 would reappear in 36 minutes.

If the SPS malfunctioned, the capsule could be sent hurtling into deep space, or crashing to the lunar surface. Valerie Anders : These things seem to happen at night, always the middle of the night, Houston time And we were sitting around with the squawk box waiting for this thing to occur.

My children were all upstairs asleep. I knew I had the full responsibility of them. And so I did worry, but I tried to not think beyond that, because it was such a huge step for the U.

It really was. Mort : I like heavy lifting! They smile at each other. The scene goes back to the building. Rico was the first out and the other penguins followed behind. Kowalski has a reading disc and Private has a flag with a penguin on it. Skipper : Welcome to the moon, boys.

Lemur population, zip. Kowalski : Oxygen readings, surprisingly high. Moon cheese content Rico tries to lick the ground, but can't with his helmet on. Kowalski : Disappointingly low. Rico moans. Private puts the flag in its place. Skipper : Private, claim this rock in the name of Focus on Max: Max, looking out of the air-duct, notices the Penguins and gasps. Max : Penguins? How did penguins get up here when they Thank you! He jumps up, only to hit his head on the ceiling of the air duct and falls down.

The noise startles the penguins. Focus shifts to the Penguins. Kowalski : I'm picking up a possible alien life-form. The penguins get to their combat positions. Skipper : Game on, boys.

Disperse and investigate. The penguins split up, except Private, who begins walking. Private : looks around Skipper? As Private walks, Max whizzes by. Private whimpers and continues to walk. Max runs up to him and is about to grab him, but Private bends down. Private : Oooh. A moon rock! Private picks it up. It's a baseball. Private : Oh, it's just a baseball, that flew all the way to the moon! He throws it up and the ball hits Max on the head.

Private turns and yelps. Private : Oh. Max throws the baseball off his face and chuckles. Max : Greetings, my little friend. Excuse me. Eh, are you a penguin? Private : Why, yes, I am. Max : A flightless bird? That means no flapping, no flying, no resistance. He laughs, followed by wheezing. He licks his lips and holds out Private's flipper. Skipper : Kudos, Private!

You've discovered an alien life-form. Max : A buffet! He runs to them, only to step on the baseball and fall face-down. Kowalski : Skipper, this alien is oddly catlike in structure. Skipper : A moon cat, eh? Max stares at them questioningly. Max : "Moon cat? We come in peace Max gets up and Private walks to the others.

Max : You really think that you're on the moon? Kowalski : Affirmative. Max : Well, eh, good, because You are! You're on the moon. Welcome to Then, a helicopter sound is heard. Max : Uh-oh! They spotted the crash! They want to take you away. He hides behind the penguins. Skipper : Who exactly is "they? Skipper : We can take 'em. Rico growls, preparing to fight. Max points at the helicopter's light. Max : Yeah, but that beam is their death ray. Skipper : "Death ray"?

The penguins turned to their combat stances. Skipper : Bring it on! Max : Look! I refused to let anything happen to you guys. You're coming with me! He grabs Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico and runs ahead. Private : And to think he just met us. Private follows the four and the green fog reveals the air duct that Max fell into. King Julien : Poor Mort. Here, let me help you. Mort is still pushing. Maurice : You know, your Majesty, I thought for sure the penguins would have this place booby-trapped.

Mort pushes the TV a bit and activates a switch. Private's 1st prize fish plaque opens and shoots out sporks. Julien runs but Mort is caught, but unharmed. He sobs and whimpers. King Julien : Mort, I am starting to think you're not taking this job seriously. Julien looks around the room. He touches the TV and a laundry basket fells on top of Julien and Mort, trapping them.

King Julien : Maurice! Maurice : Hang on! Maurice grabs Julien's hand and tries to pull him out, but tips the basket sending the lemurs to the middle on the HQ. The basket is gone. Julien laughs triumphantly briefly and a crate falls on top on them, trapping them. The penguins and Max are in an abandoned penthouse. The penguins are sitting at a table and Max is going through a box. Skipper : Moon Cat, I'm touched by your hospitality. Max laughs. Max : Yeah. Max pulls out a knife and fork.

Max : It's time to eat! Max laughs again. Private : And now he's making us a meal. You, sir, are a model of kindness. Max chuckles, puts his hand behind in the box and knocks on it. Max : Oh my! Did you hear that? They're coming! You better use my teleportation machine to hide. Max shows them a microwave oven. Kowalski : Teleportation? That's pure science fiction.

Max : Which is exactly why I had to disguise it as a microwave oven. It's top secret. Kowalski : Camouflage. Well played. Private goes to the microwave, but is having trouble getting in because of the helmet.

The result is that the lesser-known performers here end up sounding more like placeholders than specific people: male rapper, female crooner. It's when Albarn sings that the album seems to break its own mold. Despite the variety of styles he's worked in over the years, there is an easy minute CD-R waiting to be made of pretty, dog-eared, rainy-day songs like "Poison", starting with Parklife 's "Badhead" , moving through The Great Escape 's "Yuko and Hiro" , and stopping at just about every one of his projects up through Gorillaz's single "On Melancholy Hill".

What to make of songs like "Poison" in this context, though, I'm not sure: It's one of the album's more singular, coherent moments, but it's also when RJ 's container starts to feel leaky. RJ takes its cues from Fela Kuti, Funkadelic, Sun Ra, and scads of African artists-- most of them from Nigeria, Ghana, and other countries on the western coast-- compiled or reissued over the past 15 years. Okay then-- the album knows what it's doing.

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