Talk:Apollo 8

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This article won the March 2005 International writing contest. Congratulations to all who worked on it that month!

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Apollo_8 article:

• Can link celestial body: ... [[orbit]], and the first time anyone was closer to another celestial body than they were to Earth. ...
• Can link command module: ...== *[[Frank Borman]] (2), commander *[[James Lovell]] (3), command module pilot... (link to section)
• Can link lunar module: ...Lovell]] (3), command module pilot *[[William Anders]] (1), lunar module pilot... (link to section)
• Can link Saturn V: ...ction burn=== *[[December 21]], [[1968]], 15:41:38 UTC The Saturn V, S-IVB third stage, was fired for a second time. It burned ... (link to section)
• Can link S-IVB: ...=== *[[December 21]], [[1968]], 15:41:38 UTC The Saturn V, S-IVB third stage, was fired for a second time. It burned for a t... (link to section)
• Can link third stage: ...[December 21]], [[1968]], 15:41:38 UTC The Saturn V, S-IVB third stage, was fired for a second time. It burned for a total of 318 ... (link to section)
• Can link meters per second: ...as propelled from an earth parking orbit velocity of 7792.8 meters per second to a translunar trajectory velocity of 10,822 meters per se... (link to section)
• Can link low Earth orbit: ... 8 astronauts were the first human beings to venture beyond low Earth orbit and visit another world. What was originally to have been a... (link to section)
• Can link another world: ...st human beings to venture beyond low Earth orbit and visit another world. What was originally to have been an Earth­orbit checkout o... (link to section)
• Can link lunar lander: ... was originally to have been an Earth­orbit checkout of the lunar lander became instead a race with the Soviets to become the first ... (link to section)
• Can link first nation: ...lander became instead a race with the Soviets to become the first nation to orbit the Moon. The Apollo 8 crew rode inside the comman... (link to section)
• Can link Christmas Eve: ...They took photographs, scouted future landing sites, and on Christmas Eve read from the Book of Genesis to TV viewers back on Earth. ... (link to section)
• Can link Zond program: ...ets were trying to preempt the first lunar flyby with their Zond program, which aimed to fly a stripped down Soyuz on a Proton rocke... (link to section)
• Can link Proton rocket: ...Zond program, which aimed to fly a stripped down Soyuz on a Proton rocket carrying 1-2 Cosmonauts. The Soviets conducted a partially ... (link to section)

Additionally, there are some other articles which may be able to linked to this one (also known as "backlinks"):

• In Silly Putty, can backlink Apollo 8: ...apy, and in medical and scientific simulations. The crew of Apollo 8 even used it to secure tools in zero-gravity."...
• In STS-32, can backlink Apollo 8: ...aunch of the Saturn V rocket; the first manned lunar orbit, Apollo 8; the first lunar...
• In Johnson's farewell address, can backlink Apollo 8: ...on, symbolized most recently by the wonderful flight of the Apollo 8, in which all Americans took great pride,...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:30, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Something I want to add

Here is something that I have written to look at the historical importance of the mission. I hope that it catches the idea that I am going for that Apollo 8 was a truly important moment in the history of mankind.

Historical Importance

Apollo came at the end of 1968, a year that had seen much upheaval around the world. Soviet tanks had put a stop to the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia; Martin Luther King, Jr. & Robert F. Kennedy had been assasinated; the Vietnam War had escalated with the Tet Offensive; University campsus's across the United States had seen rioting and occupation of buildings by students; May had seen rioting in Paris that almost lead to revolution.

Yet over all these other events, TIME magazine chose the crew of Apollo 8 as their Men of the Year for 1968, recognising them as the people that most influenced events in the preceding year. They had been the first people to ever leave the gravitational influence of the Earth and orbit another celestial body. They had survived a mission that even the crew had themselves had rated as only having a fifty-fifty chance of success. The affect of Apollo 8 can be summed up by a telegram received by the crew after the mission that simply stated "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968."

One of the most famous aspects of the flight was the Earthrise picture that was taken as they came around for their forth orbit of the Moon. Although it was not the first image taken of the whole Earth nor would it be the last, but this was the first time that humans had taken such a picture. Some regard the picture as being the start of the environmentalism movement, with the first Earth Day in 1970.[1]

The mission was the most widely covered by the media since the first American orbital flight by John Glenn. There were 1200 journalists covering the mission, with the BBC coverage being broadcast in 54 countries in 15 different languages. The Soviet newspaper Pravda even covered the flight without the usual anti-American editorialising. It is estimated that a quarter of the people alive at the time saw either live or delayed the Christmas Eve transmission during the ninth orbit of the Moon.

Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:01, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Data source

Just as a note for anyone interested, all the data for orbits and speeds included in this article are from The Apollo 8 Flight Journal. Any conversions were done using Google Calculator. I have also used miles instead of the NASA standard of Nautical Miles for the distances. Evil Monkey∴Hello 04:49, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Lawsuit?

Is it worth mentioning Madalyn Murray O'Hair's lawsuit? I can't offhand find reference on wikipedia; sum was that she took offence to NASA personnel reading from Genesis on the grounds of separation of Church & State, and sued. (It got dismissed by the Supreme Court in the end, AIUI). It's not directly related to the article, but it is an interesting footnote. Shimgray 20:41, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The story does sound familar. If you can find a good source add it - the article is already quite large, so another paragraph won't be that harmful. Evil Monkey∴Hello 20:55, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

I'll have a dig around tonight or tomorrow, and see what crops up; there doesn't seem to be an obvious resource on the net, but I'm off home tomorrow and my source material's all there. Shimgray 21:07, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

sci.space.history comes through again; here's a couple of notes by Robert Zimmerman. I added the papal comment he quotes; it seems a nice cap on the mentions of the Genesis reading, which is one of the two particularly famous details of the mission (that and Earthrise). Shimgray 00:40, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Number of flights...

The article (and all the other Apollo mission articles) has a section on the crew:

• Frank Borman (2), commander
• James Lovell (3), command module pilot
• William Anders (1), lunar module pilot

(1) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission.

The thing is, this isn't what it says; it's the number of flights the crewmember had completed as of the end of the mission (Lovell later flew a fourth time, on Apollo 13). The problem is, I can't think of a clear way to phrase this... "number of spaceflights each crew member had completed up to and including..." is a bit unwieldy. Thoughts? Shimgray 20:38, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ummm, I can't find the wording that NASA use. Some of their sites use a numbering scheme like above (for example) but they have no explanation of the numbers. You might have to go with the unwielding phrasing as I can't think of any other way to put it. Evil Monkey∴Hello 22:12, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

The ones NASA uses are previous flights - ie, the number of flights experience they had before the mission. It's probably as good a number as any to use... Shimgray 22:30, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Having thought about it a bit more... how would something like this look?

• Frank Borman (Gemini 7), commander
• James Lovell (Gemini 7, Gemini 12), command module pilot
• William Anders (none), lunar module pilot

It seems pretty pointless just to give the number without linking it to anything, and this form seems reasonably clear as to what it shows. Shimgray 16:20, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Be bold. Evil Monkey∴Hello 20:23, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Heh. I do like to check before messing up your nice article, though ;-) - okay, modified version in, listing all flights (and not just previous ones). I've included Apollo 8 as a link; that way it comes out bolded, but it might be best just to have it as a non-link (and thus not bold). If you can come up with a better version, let me know; otherwise, I'll roll this out to the other spaceflight articles next week (when I've some free time). Shimgray 23:17, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. I unlinked them as the bolding made Apollo 8 stand out as if were more important than the others. I also italised all the missions as that is the style used in the article. As for editing my "nice article", people on Wikipedia have got into trouble for thinking that pages are their own. I don't want to be seen as the gatekeeper who is trying to protect his precious baby. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:04, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

Pope

I noticed that the Pope links to Pope John Paul II. This doesn't seem right. The Pope at the time was Pope Paul VI. Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:54, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

'Collins'

The .ogg file linked off "Go for TLI" is captioned as being Michael Collins - in the context it's placed, it clearly is either a) not Collins but Lovell, or b) not an Apollo 8 audio file, surely? Not knowing which, I won't change it. --FleetfootMike 12:49, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The relevant part of the transcript:

002:27:20 Collins: Apollo 8, Houston.
002:27:21 Borman: Go ahead, Houston.
002:27:22 Collins: Apollo 8. You are Go for TLI. Over.
002:27:27 Borman: Roger. We understand; we are Go for TLI.

This from http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/02earth_orbit_tli.htm. Evil Monkey∴Hello 19:39, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Confused by mention of Collins having to scratch from the mission. Might be worth referring to him as Capcom (which I assume is what he was?) in that caption, just to prevent other folks being confused? -20:07, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:33, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Seven Missions Numbers and Letters

Rather than 1 to 7 the missions were A through G with Apollo 8 being C-Prime, since it was added (the original mission for the Borman crew was the cancelled E mission) references from Astronautix.com any objections if I add it?

No problem - I just used Numbers rather than letters as you can't make a alphabet list very easily without using bullet points. Evil Monkey∴Hello 02:34, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

It's fixed, I had to use Bullets, for better or worse. -- John 20:47, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Collins

Collins did not fly on Apollo 10 as stated in the main page, only on Apollo 11. I have only checked the Wiki Apollo 10 page to confirm this, but I am essentially certain it is incorrect as stated. -- Bill@wwheaton.com

--24.205.82.251 04:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Odd, I fixed that error four hours ago. Maybe you were seeing an old cached version. I've purge the cache for this article. Evil Monkey∴Hello 05:10, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Saturn V production number

I think there is an error describing 503 as the third production Saturn V. 501 and 502 that flew as Apollo 4 and 6 were both built under the supervision of Von Braun and Rudolph's Marshall team and differed in instrumentation from the production Saturn V's supervised by Boeing. 503 was the first true production Saturn V. There is also an interesting issue that the Saturn V was man rated by NASA after only two flights.