Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 691
Document II-62
Document Title: Letter to Robert Gilruth, Director, NASA Manned Spacecraft
Center, from George E. Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned
Space Flight, 4 November 1968.
Source: NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Archives.
Document II-63
Document Title: George M. Low “Special Notes for November 10 and 11, 1968,”
14 November 1968.
Source: Papers of George M. Low, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New
York.
Document II-64
Document Title: Memorandum to Associate Administrator for Manned Space
Flight [George Mueller] from Apollo Program Director [Sam C. Phillips], “Apollo
8 Mission Selection,” 11 November 1968.
Source: Papers of George M. Low, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New
York.
Document II-65
Document Title: Memorandum to Associate Administrator for Manned Space
Flight [George Mueller] from Acting Administrator [Thomas Paine], 18 November
1968.
Source: Papers of George M. Low, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New
York.
One of the boldest decisions made during the Apollo program was to send astronauts into
lunar orbit on the first Saturn V launch with a crew aboard. The result was the 21–27
December 1968 Apollo 8 mission which carried Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Bill
Anders into lunar orbit on Christmas eve and produced the iconic “Earthrise” picture of the
blue Earth rising over the desolate lunar surface.
This series of documents illustrates how this decision was made. Apollo program manager George
M. Low periodically dictated what he called “special notes” as a chronicle of the Apollo program