In the Shadow of the Moon Page #4

[Voice breaking]

helplessly trapped inside their spacecraft.

[Music playing]

Cernan:

The accident occurred in January,

the end of January 27th.

And we're burying

our guys at Arlington

and I wasn't sure whether we were

burying the entire Apollo program

or three... of our buddies.

[Music playing]

Bean:

That was the period, the late '60s,

when we were fighting in Vietnam

and when a lot of racial

issues were going around.

Collins:

I was not really in tune

with what was going

on in the country.

Our whole culture was changing

markedly in this period.

[Music playing]

The Civil Rights Movement,

the Women's Movement,

the whole movement

toward a greater openness of society.

Collins:
I think we were very aware

of the situation in Vietnam

because a lot of our friends

were flying airplanes in combat in Vietnam.

And there would we have been,

had we not been in

the space program.

I guess I can sort of admit it now,

I've admitted it a little

bit to a few friends.

That... I've always had a guilt complex

to some degree.

That was my war, good or bad.

Whether it was a good war

or a bad war,

we're not discussing that,

but that was my war, to fight for my country,

and my buddies were getting shot at

and shot down

and in some cases captured.

And I was getting my picture

on the front page of the paper.

And I've always felt

that they fought my war for me.

They look at it totally different.

They said, "You were

doing something

that this country needed

more than anything else at the time.

You were part of a program,

the only thing we had

to hold our head high and be proud of."

[Music playing]

Lovell:

was a disastrous year.

We had several assassinations,

Uh, not too good...

[Mouthing]

So we needed something

really to cap it up that was positive,

to give the American people

a sense of... of accomplishment

or at least satisfaction

of something.

If you were a scriptwriter

for the movies,

you couldn't have picked

a better scenario than Apollo 8!

[Music playing]

We hear from the CIA

that the Russians

are going to send a spacecraft

around the Moon with a person in it

and upstage us.

If they orbit the Moon

before we land on the Moon,

then they've gotten there first.

Lovell:

We changed our plans on Apollo 8.

They changed the mission

from an Earth orbital type

to a flight to the Moon.

And it was a bold move,

it had some risky aspects to it,

but it was a time when

we made bold moves.

Capcom:

The engines are off.

Four, three, two, one, zero.

We have commenced...

[Radio chatter]

Capcom:

Apollo 8, Houston.

Your trajectory and

guidance are go, over.

Man:

Thank you, Michael.

Capcom:

Yeah, you're looking real good...

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