Michael: Most people think the first human mission to the Moon was a heroic, perfectly planned step for mankind. The truth? It was an act of pure desperation. A secret, last-minute gamble to save a failing program and a nation on the brink of collapse. They weren't even supposed to go. Kevin: Wait, an act of desperation? I always pictured it as this triumphant, logical next step in the space race. Like, of course they went to the Moon, that was the whole point. You’re telling me it was a Hail Mary pass? Michael: It absolutely was. And that's the incredible story at the heart of the book we're diving into today: Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson. Kevin: Ah, Kurson. That makes sense. He's not a typical space historian, right? He writes those gripping adventure stories. Michael: Exactly. He’s the author of Shadow Divers, and he brings that same narrative energy here. He got incredible, unprecedented access to the astronauts and, crucially, their families. And that’s what makes this story so powerful—it’s about the people inside the capsule and the people they left behind on Earth, holding their breath.

Michael: To understand why this mission was such a wild gamble, you have to understand the year 1968. It was, without exaggeration, one of the most chaotic and traumatic years in American history. Kevin: That’s an understatement. You had the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam completely shattered public trust. There were riots in major cities. The country felt like it was tearing itself apart. Michael: And NASA was having its own 1968. The Apollo 1 fire, where three astronauts died on the launchpad, still cast a long shadow over the entire program. Then, in April 1968, they launched the final unmanned test of the Saturn V rocket, Apollo 6. It was a disaster. Kevin: What happened? Michael: The rocket started shaking so violently—a phenomenon they called 'pogo'—that it literally started shedding pieces of itself as it climbed. Then two engines on the second stage shut down early. The third stage engine, the one they'd need to get to the Moon, failed to reignite in orbit. The New York Times basically wrote an editorial saying, "Let's slow down, this thing isn't ready for people." Kevin: Okay, so the most powerful rocket ever built was also a wildly unpredictable death trap. Great start. Michael: And it gets worse. The whole point of the next few missions was to test the Lunar Module, the LM, the little spider-like craft that would actually land on the Moon. But the LM was a technical nightmare. It was overweight, behind schedule, and full of problems. It wasn't going to be ready in time. So NASA was stuck. Their big rocket was unreliable, and their lunar lander didn't exist yet. The Soviets, meanwhile, were rumored to be prepping their own Zond spacecraft to loop a cosmonaut around the Moon before the end of the year. Kevin: So the US was about to lose the moon race. Michael: Precisely. And this is where the story gets incredible. A top NASA manager, George Low, is on vacation, trying to escape the pressure. And he has this crazy, almost heretical idea. He thinks, what if we just... skip the Earth-orbit test? What if we take the one piece that is almost ready—the Command Module—and put it on top of that shaky Saturn V rocket and just... go to the Moon? Kevin: Hold on. So the rocket they needed had never flown with a crew and had just shaken itself to pieces on its last test? And the lunar lander—which was supposed to be their lifeboat in case the main engine failed—wasn't ready? And they decided to go anyway? Who signs off on that? Michael: That's the billion-dollar question. Low brings this secret plan back to a handful of top managers. The director of flight operations, Chris Kraft, a legendary figure, his first reaction is basically, "Are you out of your mind?" But the more they talk, the more they realize it's their only shot. They fly down to Huntsville, Alabama, to pitch the idea to Wernher von Braun, the architect of the Saturn V. Kevin: I can't imagine that conversation. "Wernher, we know your rocket almost fell apart, but we want to put three men on top of it in four months and shoot them at the Moon. Sound good?" Michael: That's pretty much it. And von Braun, after a long, tense debate, says his team can do it. He says, "You don’t give us much time. But it’s a great idea. We will try." It was a decision born of pure desperation, driven by the fear of losing to the Soviets. It wasn't a step in a plan; it was a leap into the void.

Kevin: Okay, so the decision itself was borderline insane. But what about the men who had to actually fly it? How do you go home and tell your family you're going on a mission that, by some estimates, had a one-in-three chance of not coming back at all? Michael: That's the human core of the book. The crew was Frank Borman, the commander; Jim Lovell, the navigator; and Bill Anders, the rookie. And they all reacted differently. Borman was the stoic, mission-first military man. When Deke Slayton, the head of the astronaut office, offered him the mission, Borman said yes on the spot, without even consulting his crew. Kevin: Of course he did. What about the others? Michael: Lovell, who had this boyish enthusiasm for space, was thrilled. He saw it as the ultimate adventure. But Bill Anders, the nuclear engineer and fighter pilot, was the pragmatist. He sat down and calculated the odds. He told his wife, Valerie, that he figured there was a one-third chance of a successful mission, a one-third chance of a failed mission where they'd limp back home, and a one-third chance they wouldn't return at all. Kevin: Wow. A one-in-three chance of dying. And he tells his wife this? How did she react? Michael: This is where the book is so powerful. Valerie Anders, who came from a military family, basically said, "This is the life we signed up for." She was pragmatic and stoic. But Susan Borman, Frank's wife, was the opposite. She was secretly terrified. The book describes how she lived in a state of constant, managed dread. She read this book called The Army Wife which said her job was to strengthen her husband's morale, so she hid her fear completely. Kevin: That's heartbreaking. It puts a totally different spin on that classic image of the smiling, supportive 'astronaut wife'. Michael: Absolutely. There's a devastating scene where Susan goes to a party and corners the flight director, Chris Kraft. She asks him, point-blank, "What are the odds?" And Kraft, trying to be honest but gentle, says, "How’s fifty-fifty?" For him, that was a vote of confidence. For Susan, it was a death sentence. She was convinced Frank was not coming back. She even told a friend she was planning his funeral. Kevin: And Frank had no idea? Michael: None. He was so focused on the mission, on not failing, that he didn't see the toll it was taking on her. This is where some critics have pointed out that Kurson's portrayal of the women can feel a bit one-dimensional, that they're mainly there to be worried. But I think he gives them moments of real agency. Later in the mission, Susan Borman takes it upon herself to write a message of support to the wife of the commander of the USS Pueblo, which had just been released by North Korea. She used her platform to connect with another military family going through a crisis. Kevin: That's a great point. It shows she wasn't just a passive victim of the stress; she was actively navigating it. But the pressure on these families is almost unimaginable. And it didn't stop with the wives. The book talks about Borman getting sick in space. Michael: Oh, it was bad. A few hours into the flight, Borman comes down with what they later called space adaptation sickness. He's vomiting, has diarrhea... in a tiny, zero-gravity capsule. It's a mess. And he's the commander. He tries to hide it from Mission Control because he's terrified they'll abort the mission. Kevin: The commander's code: never show weakness, even when you're literally falling apart. Michael: Exactly. It's Lovell and Anders who have to clean up the mess, take care of him, and convince him to tell Houston. It was a moment that could have ended the mission, but the crew's trust in each other held it together. It shows these guys weren't just superhuman heroes; they were vulnerable people in an impossible situation.

Michael: And that immense human cost, that terror and vulnerability, is what makes the mission's ultimate gift so profound. They went to the Moon as Cold Warriors, as soldiers in a technological battle. But what they found when they got there changed the entire purpose of the mission. Kevin: You're talking about the view. Michael: The view. For the first few orbits, they were completely focused on the Moon. And it was exactly what they expected: desolate, gray, forbidding. Borman called it a "vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing." They were all business, calling out crater names, checking their systems. Kevin: They were test pilots, not poets. Michael: Right. But then, on the fourth orbit, as the capsule rolled, something happened that wasn't in the flight plan. Bill Anders saw it first. He just shouted, "Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" Kevin: Earthrise. Michael: Earthrise. For the first time in human history, people were seeing their own planet rise over the horizon of another world. And it was this tiny, fragile, beautiful marble of blue and white, hanging in the infinite blackness. Anders frantically started looking for a roll of color film. The first shots were in black and white, but he knew this had to be in color. That photo he took became one of the most important photographs ever taken. Kevin: It's incredible. They go all that way to look at the Moon, and the most important discovery they make is Earth. Michael: That's the "Overview Effect" in a nutshell. And it culminated in their final television broadcast on Christmas Eve. A billion people—the largest television audience in history at that time—were tuned in. NASA told Borman to "say something appropriate." Kevin: No pressure. Michael: None at all. They struggled for weeks to find the right words. They rejected patriotic speeches and clichés. Nothing felt right. Finally, a friend of Borman's asked his own wife, and she suggested, "Why don't you read from the beginning of the Bible?" Kevin: From Genesis. Michael: From Genesis. So on Christmas Eve, after showing the world the battered, gray surface of the Moon, they took turns reading the first ten verses of the book of Genesis. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth..." It was completely unexpected. And it was perfect. It wasn't about one country or one religion; it was a universal story of creation, read from the heavens. Kevin: The impact must have been immense. Michael: It was staggering. In Mission Control, people were openly weeping. Walter Cronkite, the voice of American news, was so choked up he couldn't speak. An anonymous person sent a simple telegram to the crew after they landed. It just said: "THANKS. YOU SAVED 1968."

Michael: And that really is the ultimate legacy of Apollo 8. A mission that was born from the fear, chaos, and division of 1968 ended up delivering this incredible, unifying moment of hope and perspective. They went to conquer the Moon for one nation, but they ended up discovering the Earth for all of humankind. Kevin: It's a powerful lesson. Sometimes the greatest discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. The goal was the Moon, but the prize was the perspective of Earth. It makes you wonder, what's our 'Apollo 8' today? What's the big, audacious, seemingly impossible goal we could aim for that would give us that same sense of shared purpose and perspective? Michael: That's a powerful question. And it’s one that feels more urgent than ever. We'd love to hear what you all think. Find us on our socials and share your thoughts on what a modern-day Apollo 8 mission could look like. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.