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the astronauts were exhausted and ready to head home.
With the capsule facing forward,
they would fire the SPS engine again on the Moon's far side,
to gain enough speed to break out of lunar orbit.
ASTRONAUT: Store all the cameras, store everything,
because this burn will be a ***.
Get the whole damn thing in ship shape,
because now she's going to take us home!
CRONKITE: And we're just minutes now from the most critical maneuver
that Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders
have yet to perform on this historic flight of Apollo 8.
CRONKITE: This was it, this was the one that had to go.
...firing their SPS...
This had to work or we had lost those astronauts
and the Apollo 8 mission.
We knew that they had to get this burn to get out of orbit.
Otherwise they'd still be there.
So it was tense.
And it was one of the more critical steps, and...
and we knew the consequences.
MISSION CONTROL: All systems are go, Apollo 8.
MAN ( over radio ): One minute... all systems go.
NARRATOR: Shortly before midnight,
Apollo 8 curved around to the far side of the Moon,
losing contact with Earth for the last time.
MISSION CONTROL: Roger, safe journey, guys.
KRAFT: We lost the signal exactly at the right time,
when they went behind the Moon,
and everybody at that point got up
and started walking around in the room.
And I got on my intercom and said,
"Look, you guys do what you want to do,
"but I'm going to sit here and I want to pray a little bit
"and I'd like to have a little quiet here
"because this is one hell of a tense moment for me
"and for those guys in that spacecraft.
So for God's sake, be quiet for me."
MISSION CONTROL: Apollo 8, Houston.
Apollo 8, Houston.
SUSAN BORMAN: And there was just dead silence.
I mean, you really could have heard a pin drop.
No one was breathing.
No one was moving.
And, uh... waiting to hear something,
because all you heard
was Mission Control saying "Apollo 8."
You know, it was a one-way transmission.
"Apollo 8... Apollo 8..."
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
MISSION CONTROL: Apollo 8, Houston.
Apollo 8, Houston.
ASTRONAUT: Houston, Apollo 8, over.
MISSION CONTROL: Hello, Apollo 8, loud and clear.
LOVELL: Roger. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.
PATTI PAGE: ♪ You better watch out ♪
♪ You better not cry... ♪
SUSAN BORMAN: And then Jim-- bless his heart--
"Please be advised there is a Santa Claus."
I... I thought, "No, it worked."
PAGE: ♪ Gonna find out who's naughty and nice ♪
♪ Santa Claus is coming to town. ♪
NARRATOR: It would take two more days in space,
but the Apollo 8 astronauts were on their way home.
Relaxed and confident, they began to enjoy the ride,
opening a few Christmas presents
and catching up on much-needed sleep.
PAGE: ♪ Better not pout, I'm telling you why ♪
♪ Santa Claus is coming to town ♪
♪ He sees you when you're sleeping ♪
♪ He knows when you're awake ♪
♪ He knows if you've been bad or good ♪
♪ So be good, for goodness' sake. ♪
NARRATOR: Around noon, they re-crossed the gravitational divide
and began to be pulled toward home.
PAGE: ♪ Santa Claus is coming to town. ♪
VALERIE ANDERS: I think when you go out on the edge like we did,
sometimes the rewards are things that you never even anticipate.
This was the one time when I saw
that everybody in the world seemed to admire
what we had done, and that it was for a peaceful purpose.
It was a cold war act, but it wasn't an aggressive act.
You know, Apollo was an adventure
that wasn't just on the scale
of a nation trying to do something great, but really,
all of humanity trying to take a giant leap forward.
The impact of seeing the Earth as a planet,
as a very small, very distant
and apparently to the astronauts, fragile-looking ball
in the blackness of space--
that is a moment that ranks up there
with any in the human species.
ASTRONAUT: Okay, now, we're coming up
on the view we really want you to see--
that's the view of the Earth.
NARRATOR: On December 26, the crew gave one last broadcast
before reentry.
ANDERS: As I look down on the earth here from so far out in space,
I think I must have the feeling
that the travelers in the old sailing ships used to have:
going on a very long voyage away from home,
and now we're headed back,
and I have that feeling of being proud of the trip,
but still... still happy to be going back home
and back to our home port.
MISSION CONTROL: Roger, Bill.
We'll sure be glad to get you back, too.
ANDERS: Until then, this is the Apollo 8 crew signing off.
And... we'll see you back on that good Earth very soon.
CRONKITE: The flight of Apollo 8 is nearing its end...
Ahead for astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders is the fastest
and the hottest reentry that man has yet made
into the Earth's atmosphere in this age of space flight.
ASTRONAUT: Okay, here we go.
NARRATOR: When Apollo 8 began its reentry,
they were traveling at 25,000 miles per hour.
ANDERS: That's airglow we're starting to get;
that's what it is, gentlemen.
MISSION CONTROL: What?
LOVELL: This is going to be a real ride-- hang on.
ANDERS: The spacecraft started to rumble
and it was the first fire coming off the heat shield
and we now could detect the G forces.
And pretty soon it looked like we were inside a blowtorch.
ASTRONAUT: .05 G switch on...
ASTRONAUT 2: Okay, we got it!
ASTRONAUT 3: Hang on!
ASTRONAUT 1: Call out the G's.
NARRATOR: In the command module, after a week of weightlessness,
the astronauts could feel the gravitational forces building.
ASTRONAUT: Ohh!
Five!
BORMAN: We would dig into the atmosphere
until it sustained the maximum amount of G's and thermal load
that the spacecraft was designed to take,
and then we'd start out again.
Then we'd roll over 180 degrees and start back down.
NARRATOR: In the Pacific Ocean, 900 miles southwest of Hawaii,
the crew of the USS Yorktown prepared for the recovery.
MAN: Ken Mattingly just put in a call
and just frankly labeled it a radio check.
He's gotten no response as yet.
NARRATOR: In the predawn darkness, it would be impossible
for TV cameras to pick up the descending spacecraft,
but TV correspondents were there,
reporting to an anxious public.
In Mission Control, the flight team watched silently
as they waited for word that the chutes had opened.
In their homes nearby,
the astronauts' families also waited.
MISSION CONTROL: Apollo 8, Houston.
Apollo 8, Houston.
ASTRONAUT: VHF antenna's recovery.
VHF AM simplex.
Beacon's gone on.
MISSION CONTROL: Apollo 8, Houston.
ASTRONAUT: You got it, Jim.
You got the call.
Give them a call.
LOVELL: Okay.
Houston, Apollo 8, over.
AIRBOSS 1: Apollo 8, Airboss 1-- go ahead.
LOVELL: Roger, Airboss 1.
We indicate 8,000.
We can't see the chutes, but we're going down very slow.
AIRBOSS 1: Roger, this is Airboss 1.
You're sounding very good, very good.
You have been reported on radar
as southwest of the ship about 25 miles.
Welcome home, gentlemen,
and we'll have you aboard in no time.
NARRATOR: At 4:51 a.m. local time,
Apollo 8 splashed down in the dark Pacific.
ANDERS: I can remember hanging from my straps
with all the trash that had been collected on the floor,
thinking, here we are, heroic lunar explorers, you know,
hanging upside down in the ocean
with all this dirt falling in our faces.
It was wonderful.
I mean, I was sick as a dog, from seasick,
but we were lying there reflecting on the fact
that everything had worked and we had done our job well.
It was... it was great.
NARRATOR: In Houston and around the country,
there was a sense of relief and celebration
unlike any mission before.
( crowd applauding )
MARILYN LOVELL: Just to see them being taken out of the space capsule
onto the ship-- it was just, it was wonderful.
I mean, I just... I still remember how exciting it was
to see these men, knowing where they've been
and what they've done and how the country reacted.
I don't think it impacted on me until they came back.
I was just so shocked that they really were heroes, so to speak,
and I never thought of it that way to start with,
but they really were.
NARRATOR: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders
were hailed throughout the world for their heroic feat.
They were given ticker-tape parades
in New York, Houston and Chicago...
named "Men of the Year" by TIME magazine...
and honored before a joint session of Congress.
Even the Russian state newspaper published an editorial
praising their "infinite human courage and daring."
But for Frank Borman, the most memorable accolade came
from a stranger who sent a four-word telegram.
"Thanks," it read.
"You saved 1968."
LOVELL: We did it.
We overcame the obstacles, we overcame the fire,
the problems with the lunar module,
the problems with the Saturn 5 that we had,
and we did get people around the Moon before the Soviets.
We knew that this was the beginning
of a grand new adventure.
CHAIKIN: It was a moment
at which people put aside the trauma of that year
and their own day-to-day concerns
and were just taken out of themselves
as only this kind of an enterprise can do,
to let you see beyond yourself.
That was the real legacy of Apollo,
and the real impact of Apollo 8 was that we had a perspective
that was a mountaintop experience
for the entire human race.
BORMAN: 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.
Stay tuned for scenes from the next American Experience,
but first...