Word: apollo
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...also has served on a number of boards and commissions including the Mayor's Commission on Economic Opportunity in New York, the Apollo Theatre Foundation, the boards of Howard University, the Museum of Modern Art, Citigroup and Estée Lauder...
...Christmas Eve the crew got busy. Settling Apollo 8 into orbit around the moon was a high-wire maneuver that involved turning the ship backward and firing its powerful service propulsion engine for precisely four and a half minutes - an eternity in a business in which barely a breath from a thruster is enough to set a ship spinning off course. The engine burn was designed to slow the spacecraft down just enough to ease it into a lunar orbit without losing so much altitude that it crashed into the moon instead. Orbital mechanics also demanded that the maneuver occur...
...minutes later, Lovell typed the instructions for the engine burn into the on-board computer, and the computer flashed back "99:40," which was code for "Are you sure?" Lovell hit the Proceed button. The engine lit and the burn worked exactly as scripted, inserting Apollo 8 into an initial lunar orbit 169.1 miles high at its peak and just 60.5 miles above the lunar craters at its nadir. Even before the crew re-emerged around the other side of the moon and back into radio contact with Houston, Anders snapped what is surely the most iconic photo...
When they finished, Borman, as the skipper, concluded the broadcast: "And from the crew of Apollo 8," he said, "we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth...
...Houston, Apollo 8," he said. "Please be informed that there is a Santa Claus." And in 1968, at last there...