Two of the three NASA astronauts who took part in Apollo 8, the first manned spaceflight mission to reach the moon, will be speaking at the 2018 Wright Brothers Memorial Banquet on December 7 at the EAA Aviation Museum.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, retired U.S. Air Force Col. Frank Borman, EAA Lifetime 300174, and retired U.S. Navy Capt. Jim Lovell, EAA 320945, who were the commander and command module pilot of the mission, respectively, will be interviewed in a panel discussion during the banquet.
Tickets for the banquet go on sale to the public on October 11 at 9 a.m. CDT, and are $60 for EAA members and $80 for nonmembers. A new ticketing system will be used that allows guests to pick their seats at time of purchase as well as a choice of meal for each guest. Guests wishing to sit with each other will need to register at the same time. Charlie Precourt, EAA 150237, who is a member of the EAA board of directors and a former NASA chief astronaut, space shuttle commander, and Air Force test pilot, will be hosting the evening’s panel.
Apollo 8, which launched on December 21, 1968, and returned to Earth on December 27, was the first mission to leave low Earth orbit, reach the moon, orbit it, and return to Earth. Borman, Lovell, and lunar module pilot William Anders were named Time magazine’s Men of the Year for 1968.
With a relatively short period of time to prepare for the mission, Borman said it was a busy few months getting ready for the scheduled launch of Apollo 8.
“Actually it was a very short lead time,” Borman said. “We had another mission that lasted until August of 1968, and we were told that we would go to the moon in December of 1968. So we had training for four months, and normally it takes a year. We were fully occupied for the four months both in planning and using the simulator to equip ourselves for the mission. Of course, we weren’t the only ones under pressure. Mission Control Center and all of NASA were having to hustle.”
Even though he and his fellow crewmembers traveled nearer to the moon than any other human in history to that point, Borman said the moment that sticks out to him wasn’t seeing the moon up close. It was witnessing earthrise as the spacecraft came out from behind the moon.
“The high point of the whole flight for me was when we looked back at the Earth coming over the lunar horizon,” Borman explained. “That was beautiful. It was the only object in the entire universe that had any color. Of course it was a long way away, you could cover it with your thumbnail. As far as visual remembrance goes, that was the main thing for me. Bill Anders captured that first earthrise we saw on film and it’s been acknowledged as one of the most important photographs of the last century.”
Despite the inherent danger of the mission, and the fact that it was attempting to accomplish something never done before, Borman was always very confident that it would be a success and he would return to Earth alive and intact.
“I flew that mission with a 100 percent feeling that we would be successful and certainly I never calculated odds myself,” he said. “I figured I wouldn’t go if I didn’t think I was coming back. I did not have any qualms about it.”
While Borman, Lovell, and Anders were in the process of making history, that wasn’t how Borman looked at it. Yes, they were etching their names into the history books. But more importantly, he was helping the U.S. take a lead against the Soviet Union in the space race.
“I was at NASA basically to beat the Russians to the moon,” he said. “I was very aware of the fact that this would be a major effort in that process. Other than that, I don’t think any of us focused on the historical importance of it, except in the eyes of the world in that we were able to overcome our shortcomings and beat the Russians to the moon.”