Nation: INTO THE DEPTHS OF SPACE

To the nation and the world, space shots have become routine affairs. There is still a special sort of drama in the trembling instant of decision when the rocket ignites and begins to rise, and in the knowledge of the men strapped down inside the huge projectile —but the drama has become familiar from so many past launchings. The voyage of Apollo 8 was an event, of another magnitude altogether, and it transfixed a blase world Three U S astronauts were about to soar 230,000 miles to the moon, circle it ten times and return to earth In the eleventh year of the space age, man stood on the very threshold of exploration of the solar system

Apollo 8's historic flight had a thundering and auspicious beginning The mighty, 36-story Saturn 5 rocket lifted from tis pad a negligible 65 milliseconds after its scheduled 7:51 am launch time Propelled by an awesome 7,500,000 lbs. of thrust, it soared into the clear Florida sky over Cape Kennedy Two hours and 20 minutes later, as Apollo whirled in orbit around the earth, came the anxiously awaited word to make the translunar insertion—the ma neuver that would send the vehicle to ward the moon.

The tone was laconic and the meaning obscured by space-age jargon, but the message from the Houston ground controller was unmistakably clear to the astronauts "You are go for TLI ' All of the systems aboard their spacecraft and the attached S-4B rocket were operating perfectly, and nothing stood in the way of making the final thrust. As Apollo passed over Hawaii on its second orbit of the earth, the astronauts fired the S-4B engine It was a perfect burn The spacecraft increased its velocity from 17,400 to 24,200 m p h. The speed was enough to enable the spacecraft to escape from the earth's gravitation pull. At long last, man was on his way to the moon.

Uncharted Perils. The drama visibly affected normally imperturbable space officials. "If we hadn't had other manned flights before," said Kennedy Space Center Director Kurt Debus, "the excitement, the stress would be unendurable. To go to the moon is symbolic of mans leaving earth, of opening vast new frontiers." The impending flight inspired Robert Gilruth, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, to deliver a rhapsodic Christmas message to the centers 4,500 employees: "Perhaps the ancient mariners had the same feeling of anticipation as they set sail through the Straits of Gibraltar past the limits of the known world."

There was good reason for both exhilaration and apprehension. As they began their pioneering journey, Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were pushed into space by a rocket that had never before been used in manned flight. Only minutes after they were propelled out of earth orbit toward the moon, they were farther than man has ever been from his home planet (the previous record of 850 miles was set by the US. Gemini 11 mission in 1966)

Ahead lay clearly defined perils, and perhaps some uncharted ones as well, Power-or oxygen-supply failures so far from earth might well doom the astronauts. Failure of the key Service Propulsion System (SPS) at crucial junctures could send them crashing into the moon or leave them stranded in lunar orbit.