Rocketry Planet

To German rocket engineer Konrad Dannenberg, getting men to the moon was just as important as landing on the lunar surface and planting the American flag.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, which was launched on Dec. 21, 1968, and circled the moon on Christmas Eve, which was the first time men had been sent to the moon.

"To me, the one that stands out in my memory is Apollo 8," said Dannenberg, an original member of Dr. Wernher von Braun's rocket team. "That was the first manned flight of the Saturn V, and we circled the moon. We had completed our task with that.

"Landing on the moon was a significant accomplishment, but going there first with the Apollo 8 flight was very important."

Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders made the 250,000 mile trip to the moon, orbited it 10 times and returned to Earth on Dec. 27, 1968. The Apollo 8 mission technically accomplished President John F. Kennedy's goal of sending men to the moon before another nation.

The U.S. Space & Rocket Center plans a yearlong series of events in 2009 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo flights to the moon.

"It's our way of marking what is probably the biggest accomplishment for humanity," said Al Whitaker, spokesman for the center. "Anybody old enough remembers Apollo 8 because it was first, but also because of the moving Christmas Eve broadcast."

The astronauts made a television broadcast marking the Christmas holiday by reading 10 verses from the book of Genesis.

Originally the Apollo 8 mission was going to be an Earth-orbit checkout of the lunar command module and the lunar lander. However, the lander was delayed and NASA decided to send Apollo 8 to the moon.

The mission served several purposes and wasn't just a public relations stunt, Dannenberg said.

"We had to know if it could be done, but we also learned a lot about the Saturn V, checking it out and launching it. That mission taught very valuable lessons and helped us choose landing sites for other Apollo missions," he said.

The Saturn V had been used in unmanned test flights, but had never carried people. The Apollo 7 mission used the smaller Saturn IB on its mission to check out the command capsule.

The mission was also the first time the Marshall Space Flight Center-designed J-2 engine had been used to put astronauts on a path for the moon.

"I think that's about as significant as the actual landing," said Ed Buckbee, who worked for von Braun during the Apollo years. "The J-2 had to be restarted in space and put the Apollo command module on a lunar course. That had never been done before. We accomplished so much with Apollo 8. It really gave us confidence that we could land on the moon."

Now four decades later, Marshall engineers are upgrading the J-2 design and NASA hopes to use it to put astronauts on a new journey from the Earth to the moon by the end of the next decade. It is slated to be the engine used on the Earth Departure Stage of the Ares V rocket.

To Dannenberg, the Apollo program should've been the beginning of a plan to place astronauts on Mars, but lack of public interest changed NASA's missions.

"Von Braun really wanted to get us to Mars and establish a base there. I just wish we hadn't walked away from what we did," Dannenberg said. "It's a shame that we just stopped, and now we are having to reinvent and rediscover a lot of what we originally did for the Saturn V to return to the moon."

Video: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo8_xmas.html

Copyright © 2008, The Huntsville Times.