Word: orbiteer
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...Cape Kennedy, Fla., Borman, Lovell and Anders lay strapped in the 11-ft. command module that was perched atop a 363-ft. Saturn 5 rocket. With a deafening bellow, the rocket inched upward on a rising pillar of smoke and flame, then spurted off into earth orbit. During its second turn around the planet, it accelerated from 17,400 m.p.h. to 24,200 m.p.h., enough to escape earth's gravitational embrace and send Apollo 8 on the road of night that would lead to the moon. Almost 69 hours after liftoff, the three astronauts made their historic rendezvous...
...desolate, pock-marked landscape. In the black sky above hung a half-disk -the earth-its blue and brown surface mottled by large patches of white. Thus, incredibly, they were there, precisely where the mission planners had predicted, finally living the dreams of untold generations of their ancestors. In orbit around the moon and 230,000 miles farther away from home than any humans had ever before traveled, the Apollo 8 astronauts conveyed impressions of their pioneering adventure with words that at times were poetic. Their telecasts gave earthbound viewers an unforgettable astronaut's-eye view of the moon...
...relaxed manner and cheerfulness of the astronauts during lunar orbit was in stark contrast to their mood early Tuesday morning when Apollo was approaching the moon. As time neared for the mission's most important decision-whether to allow the spacecraft simply to whip around the moon and head back toward earth or to fire the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine and place the craft in orbit-both the astronauts and their Houston controllers fell strangely silent. Only essential voice communications were exchanged, and these were monosyllabic and tension-filled...
...leading edge of the moon, ground controllers decided that all spacecraft systems were in perfect working order. Astronaut Jerry Carr, a communicator on duty in Houston, radioed a terse message: "This is Houston at 68:04 [68 hours and four minutes after launch]. You are go for LOI [lunar orbit insertion...
...Roger" from Borman, all was silent. Apollo would be behind the moon and out of contact for 45 minutes. Until it emerged, no one on earth would know if the SPS engine had fired on schedule (25 minutes after LOS) or fired long enough to place the craft in orbit. Too short a burn, the controllers knew, could send Apollo smashing into the moon. But there was another problem that caused concern on the ground. Apollo's third-stage S-4B rocket, jettisoned shortly after it pushed the spacecraft out of earth orbit and toward the moon, was scheduled...