Happy 50th NASA : TLI and The Two Towers missions

Wow, I’m nearly as old as NASA.  It’s been around for half a century. I wouldn’t have picked that; I thought it started in the early 60s, not 1958. But hey, congratulations anyway.

Got me thinking back to two of their many achievements that really interest me:

Apollo 8

This was originally ‘just’ meant to be another step in the quest to land on the moon. The plan was to get the Lunar Lander (the LEM) for the first time, attach it to the rest of the craft and fly around the Earth – in low orbit – to test things out. But when it came time, the LEM wasn’t ready. So in a radical and daring move NASA decided to send the craft (minus the LEM) around the moon.

To me this was the BIG leap for mankind. For the first time we left orbit; Trans Lunar Injection (TLI)

On December 21st 1968 we left the cradle. 2 hours and  27 minutes after lift off the crew are told “You are go for TLI”.  They reply: “Roger”

And there it is. No great speech nor fanfare. No quote to go down in history and be remembered by every school child. Roger.

Apollo 8 went on to perform spectacularly well, successfully firing their engine to go into orbit around the moon, snapping the first ever Earthrise picture and – thank goodness – firing the engine again to get out of orbit and back home.

I have read the book Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8 and highly recommend it. Plus NASA has the official mission logs (the Flight Journal) as well as a another site.

Gemini Missions

Gemini refers to two. And this was The Two Towers of missions. It was the middle one, that fits right between Breaking the New Ground (project Mercury, the first Americans in space. 1-man spaceships) and the Final Objective (project Apollo, landing on the moon. 3-man spacecraft)

As such it tends to be forgotten today, or perhaps less remembered. Some recent reading and a documentary reminded me how vital these Gemini missions were.  There were the key steps between (relatively) simple orbital flights on modified nuclear missiles and the full blown man on the moon stuff.  NASA refers to them as the Bridge to the Moon and is justifiably proud of them. Their official Gemini web site is a great place to start reading, with another related site full of information too. As for books. Mmm. Time for me to start looking for a good book on the Gemini Program.