November 10, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Re: The role that US intelligence on the danger of a Soviet circumlunar flight in December 1968 may have played in NASA management’s decision to make Apollo 8 a lunar orbit mission:
It has been fascinating watch Dwayne Day try to track down a hard documentary trail on this over the past 15 years or so. It has been difficult because so many of the relevant U.S. intelligence records remain (needlessly) classified, while access to Soviet records has more or less slammed back shut in the Putin years. The closest thing we have to a declassified smoking gun seems to be a October 1968 FMSAC memo suggesting that the Apollo 8 decision “is a result of the direct intelligence support that FMSAC has provided to NASA on present and future Soviet plans in space.”
I am of a mind with you, Bob, that it really does seem to be the case that intel on a possible manned Zond mission was one of the two key reasons why George Low was motivated to propose it, and able to persuade other stakeholders to attempt it. Still, it sure would be nice if the remainder of relevant documentation was finally declassified, and we could finally fully understand, with concrete evidence, just how that decision unfolded. It seems to be yet another case of federal bureaucracy mindlessly in action. Or should I say, “inaction.”
Nice podcast, as always.
Richard M: In researching Genesis (in 1997) I found the evidence of that intelligence (of a Zond manned mission possible in early December) to be somewhat easy to trace and hardly secret. There might be still classified documents that would add details, but it wasn’t much of a secret, as multiple people not only mentioned it to me, it was mentioned in a number of oral interviews done by NASA as part of its effort to document what happened. Those oral histories are all publicly available for anyone to read.
As a 10 year old I remember Apollo 8 as the big one. When Armstrong took his big step I think I was asleep.
Hello Bob,
I agree.
I respect Dwayne and so much of the work he has done over the years, but I think his problem is that he is excessively skeptical of oral testimony. But why would Borman and other people at NASA just make this up? Or confabulate? That is just not the Frank Borman we all knew.
But until Dwayne finds the actual intel doc FMSAC actually showed to NASA officials, and a record of who and when and where, he appears to be left insisting that it was just the schedule that drove the decision: “Certainly the race to the Moon with the Soviets established the larger context in which all NASA decisions were made. [But] The preponderance of evidence still supports the conclusion that it was the Apollo schedule that drove the decision, not specific Soviet actions.” https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3617/1
Well, hey, I hope he’s able to beat the docs out of Uncle Sam. It would be worth seeing. But I agree that we seem to have enough evidence to indicate that it was a critical factor in driving the Apollo 8 decision.