Customer Reviews

Apollo 8: Leaving the Cradle

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This DVD is not intended to editorialize or state the significance of this event. It is raw footage that has never before been presented in DVD format. In short, it is recorded history that lets the viewer relive an event that was as bold as any in the history of mankind. For those of us who lived this event, it evokes a nostalgia that seems to be forever gone. For those born since, it may seem trivial and primitive by today's standards. Hopefully it will inspire research into the moment that will rekindle and capture that daring of this flight.
It is a must for any historian of space flight and it recaptures a vision for the future that so many have seemed to have lost today. Maybe our leaders should see this.

Apollo 8 was probably the most challenging of all the Apollo missions from a planning and execution point of view (short amount of planning and training time for the lunar mission, second manned Apollo flight, second Saturn V flight [and the first to be manned], no LM available for "lifeboat" contingencies, etc.), yet was utterly successful in meeting all its primary goals. By flying Apollo 8 over Christmas 1968 NASA put itself back on track to achieve Kennedy's mandate on the moon timeline.

This is another brilliant DVD from Spacecraft films. This DVD isn't a conventional documentary; rather it is a collection of all film shot on Apollo 8, as well as multiple camera angles of launch, training, and recovery events. All television broadcasts are also included, although the black and white picture quality is horrible by modern standards. (The fact that they had no monitor for the video camera onboard requiring the CAPCOM to continuously give the crew directions about where to point the camera becomes a bit distracting after a while, but that's the way it was.)

My favorite disc was disc one, and I was especially enthralled by the recovery video, particularly the audio track of the reentry as recorded by the onboard tape recorder. I had read the transcripts of the air to ground transmissions, but hearing the inter-capsule conversation in real time made the events of reentry more comprehensible for me. As an aside, I was very startled at how noisy the RCS jettison was.

This is not for the casual space buff, but serious space enthusiasts will absolutely revel in this set. I highly recommend this set, and thank Spacecraft films for producing this series.

Many of you, like myself, probably only vaguely knew of the Apollo 8 mission from the "And God said, 'Let There Be Light'" phrase made more famous by Mike Oldfield in his music.

However, looking at this set, you quickly realise how significant the orbiting of the moon by Apollo 8 was. This was the first time humans had ever seen the far side of the moon in person, the earthrise, and realtime video (black and white) of the lunar surface.

As usual the Spacecraftfilms people got it right with all the additions from Roll-out, suit-up, multi view launch angles, onboard 16m film, all the transmissions and the spacecraft recovery. Particularly interesting was to hear the reactions of Houston as the pictures were beamed back to earth. In many ways this mission was more significant than Apollo 11, as it really gave the green light to the eventual landing. I also like that President Johnson was the one greeting them upon return. Something about a president (we'll refer to him as RN) who was not supportive of the lunar program sprouting glorious speeches in the name of the spacetravellers irks me badly.

I am really looking forward to the remaining Apollo 10, 12 and 13 missions to be compiled by Spacecraftfilms, for then my set will be virtually complete. Considering less than a year ago I was not aware of these sets at all, I am happy to have stumbled upon them.

(From the boxes):


DISC ONE - A BOLD MISSION

The Apollo 8 mission was the first time human beings had ventured outside of Earth orbit. Mission objectives included a successful journey and return from the Earth to lunar orbit, testing of the Apollo spacecraft and communications at lunar distances, and photography of the lunar surface.


* Preparation

Centrifuge - October 1968 centrifuge runs with the prime crew to familiarize them with accelerations expected during flight. Audio is from the post-flight crew debriefing.

Altitude Chamber -.The prime crew in an altitude chamber run with their spacecraft. No audio.

To The White Room - A unique astronaut-view walkthrough from the base of the launcher to the white room, the rout:* the crew took to board the spacecraft an launch day . Audio commentary from the post-flight debriefing.

Countdown Demonstration Test - Suitup and transfer to pad during the prelaunch Countdown demonstration test. Audio is from post-flight debriefing.

Deluge Test - Pad 39a featured a water deluge system to protect hardware from the Heat and flame of a Saturn V launch. This is a test of the system prior to Apollo 8. Audio is from post-flight debriefing.


* Moonport

Rollout - Transport of the Apollo 8 vehicle from the VAB to Pad 39a. Audio is from natural sound of the crawler/transporter, recorded digitally by Peter Armstrong and used by permission.

Par Operations - Preparation for the first manned flight of a Saturn V. Audio is from post flight debriefing.


* To The Moon

Static Launch Views - 5 angles of the Apollo 8 launch. Audio is air to ground and public affairs officer. Surround.

Tracking Launch Views - 3 angles of the Apollo 8 launch. Audio is from the flight director's loop and continues through SECO. Surround

Pad Camera Views - 4 angles of the Apollo 8 launch. Audio is natural vehicle sound. Surround.

Coming Home - Recovery of Apollo 8. Splashdown occurred in predawn darkness. Audio is from onboard recorder during entry, air to ground transmissions during entry, and President Johnson's call to the crew after splashdown .




DISC TWO - TELEVISION TRANSMSSSIONS

This disk contains the complete television transmissions from the Apollo 8 spacecraft - 6 in all.Apollo 8's television camera was a 4.5 pound RCA black-and-white camera. There was no monitor or viewfinder on the camera - so framing the picture was done by dead reckoning.

Two lenses were carried, 160 degree field-of-view and 9 degree field-of-view. The Apollo 8 television transmissions were conducted with a power of just 20 watts, and were received in Goldstone, California and Madrid, Spain.


TV Transmission #1 took place on Sunday. December 22nd 1968, at 31:08 ground elapsed time. At this point the spacecraft was approximately halfway between the Earth and the Moon. This transmission shows the interior of the spacecraft with an attempt to show views of the Earth. Trouble with the telephoto lens prevented good pictures of Earth. Audio is air to ground with the flight director's loop. (13:50)

TV Transmission #2, on Monday, December 23rd, showed the Earth from a distance of 180,000 miles Audio is air to ground with flight director's loop. 55.07 GET. (21:52)

TV Transmission #3, the first of two transmissions on Christmas Eve, gave television audiences their first close up news of the lunar surface. During this transmission. the spacecraft was in a 168.8 x 59.9 nautical mile orbit of the moon. Audio from air to ground and the fight director's loop. 71:40 GET. (12:40)

TV transmission #4, the second Christmas Eve broadcast, and the most famous, again showed views of the lunar surface. During this transmission, Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon at 60.7 x 59.7 nautical miles. The broadcast ends with a reading from the book of Genesis and a historic sign-off from the first travelers to another world. Audio from air to ground and the fight director's loop. 85:41 GET (25:20)

TV transmission # 5, on Christmas Day. This transmission occurred after the successful trans-Earth injection burn which put the spacecraft on course for home. The broadcast shows the interior of the spacecraft. Audio is air to ground and flight director's loop. 104:24 GET. (10:00)

TV transmission # 6, on Thursday, December 26th, 1968, 128:01 GET. From the day before the return to Earth. Shots of Earth. Air to ground and flight director's loop. (4:20)



DISC THREE - ONBOARD 16MM FILM

This disc contains the complete I6 mm motion picture film exposed onboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft. In addition to footage of life aboard the spacecraft, incredible views of the moon from lunar orbit were captured. This was the first time human beings had orbited the moon, and our views up to this pint consisted of grainy black-and-white photos transmitted from unmanned probes.

Outside of the safe and successful completion of a lunar orbit mission, photography was on of the key goals of Apollo 8. A total of 11 130-foot motion picture magazines were carried on the flight. As it turned out, 6 were exposed.

The onboard film on this disc is accompanied by rare audio commentary, providing unique glimpses into the flight; taken from the air-to-ground transmissions, post-flight debriefings, and the onboard voice recorder.

Magazine H - Taken just after trans-lunar injection, a few hours after liftoff. Shows the Earth and the third stage of the Saturn after separation, along with some views of the lunar surface. Audio is air-to-ground transmission from the TLI and separation.

Magazine I - Lunar surface views. Audio commentary is from the post-flight photo debriefing with Bill Anders.

Magazine J - Lunar surface views. Audio is air-to-ground transmission form lunar orbit insertion and trans-Earth injection.

Magazine K- Lunar surface views and interior spacecraft. Audio is form the onboard recorder during the burn which placed the spacecraft into lunar orbit. Since the burn took place while on the far side, no communication with Earth was possible at the time.

Magazine Q- Lunar surface views. Audio is from the onboard recorder during the taking of the famous "earthrise" photographs.

Magazine R - Interior spacecraft - Audio commentary is from the post-flight debriefing on navigation with Jim Lovell.

Like all the DVD-sets from Spacecraft films, this is a first class historical document. The complete footage of the Apollo 8 flight, the first voyage of humans all the way to the moon. An event comparable only to the voyages of Columbus and Magellan and the like. Much has been said and written about the magnificent and majestic, utterly sublime earthrise that was first observed by the crew of Apollo 8 (and thanks to television, by millions of people back on earth) when they returned in their spacecraft from the far side of the moon , but you will look for it in vain on this DVD-set. Neither the TV transmissions nor the 16 mm films show this famous earthrise. I suspect that it was actually made by Apollo 10 (the famous photographs are probably from Apollo 8, but not the video). Does somebody know this for sure? Really, I have been scanning these 3 DVD's three times, but I couldn't find the famous earthrise footage (there is one on the Apollo 11 DVD set actually, but that is not the famous one).
That being said, this set is a must-have for anyone truly interested in the history of space travel! Infinitely more valuable than any documentary. Praise to spacecraft films!!!

Apollo 8: Leaving the Cradle (2002) provides comprehensive documentation of our first manned lunar orbital mission. We were compelled to schedule this flight when CIA reports indicated the Soviets might make an attempt to steal this record from us.

Since the Saturn V and Apollo Command and Service Modules were all ready to go to the Moon and the Lunar Module was not, we very wisely took a calculated risk and it all went well.

Most sorely missing from this Spacecraft Films box set was a narrated and edited documentary providing a summary of Apollo 8 highlights with musical score and a single speaker. I enjoyed all footage recorded on film but really found it difficult to appreciate disk 2 TV recordings which were terribly grainy.

Although Spacecraft Films has done better work of providing box sets with full narrations, music and nice editing, all the raw launch and flight footage is provided plus lots of pre-launch coverage of centrifuge test, altitude chamber testing, move to the pad, CDDT, and hours of prelaunch coverage.

Instead of repeating other reviewers, let's focus on generally-unmentioned content. Apollo 8 was the first-ever spaceflight that made a deep penetration of space. It flight of 240,000 miles to the moon contrasted with previous flights, none of which had ventured more than 850 miles from the Earth's surface. Indeed, it was a leaving of the cradle.

Besides the full recording of the Christmas Eve reading from the Book of Genesis, there are many other treasured moments preserved. We hear mission control exclaim, "We've got it! We've got it! Apollo 8 in lunar orbit." The astronauts talk about the brown parts and the blue parts of Earth, and identify its geographic and weather features from afar. The moon reminds them of clouds and clouds of pumice stone. They praise the onboard computer--which was incredibly primitive by today's standards. During the post-flight award ceremony with President Johnson in the waning days of his administration, Werner von Braun, standing next to his wife, is brought to tears.

Segments of the post-flight debriefing are also presented. They suggest that the training in the recognition of stars could be better. The toiletry was adequate, but would've been unacceptable on a long flight. The astronauts wish that they had been freer to photograph objects of interest to them, and not only those that they had been told to photograph. They would've liked the cameras to be of a point-and-shoot nature--which of course became reality many years later. They complain about the space food tasting all the same and being unappetizing. More "normal" foods have since been used on spaceflights.

Well do I remember how my 14 year-old self thrilled at this flight. This series brings back a lot of memories. It blows my mind to comprehend that 40 years have passed since then.

I Just finished watching this set. I was 6 years old when Apollo 8 went up, and after watching much of it on TV, this mission, the first space mission I really remember, hooked me as a space junkie, at least through the rest of the Apollo series and into the early days of the space shuttle (when less captured by the mindless enthusiasm of callow youth, I began to see the shuttle as a boondoggle and dead end for NASA).

I remember as a kid waking up at all hours of the night to watch the moon walks, right up to Apollo 17, long after the rest of the nation lost interest (they always seemed to be on at 2AM or some similar hour--probably to keep from interfering with the networks's prime time schedules). But it was Apollo 8 that long lingered in my memory as the "best show"

This set has everything you'd want to see. What might add interest to it and all the others in this series is one additional disc containing highlights of the network news coverage of the missions. It might not add anything to our understanding of the missions themselves, but it would be fascinating to see how they were covered at the time and how they were received by the American public. This would give us a more pop-cultural background to the golden days of the space age.

Some of the memories such highlights might bring back are the "simulations" and "animations" that were created to show what was happening during parts of the missions that could not be covered by TV (such as the crew cabin during take-off, early orbit and re-entry, and the "blast-off" of the LEM from the moon's surface, before they came up with the idea of leaving the moon camera on, I believe during the Apollo 14 mission, so we could see the real thing.) One might also remember that early in the Apollo 12 moonwalk, one of the astronauts pointed the camera at the sun and ruined it (the camera) ending any live coverage of that EVA (dig the fancy space lingo!) and that the rest of that moonwalk was "recreated" by actors in space suits in a TV studio! For those conspiracy theorists who believe the moonwalks were "faked" by Hollywood, it would be instructive to see this again to see how a "faked" moonwalk actually looked.

What was "amusing" about this set was watching the tapes of the live video broadcasts from the command module when the Apollo 8 crew was supplied with a very early camcorder that did not even have a view finder! There was one 15 or 20 minute show that was almost completely taken up by the onerous task of getting a shot of the earth from the CM. I believe it was Frank Borman manning the camera, and since he couldn't see what he was shooting, they could never get the shot right. Houston would say "move it this way-no that way-no the other way" etc., and almost every move made things worse. Here the human race was involved in perhaps its greatest technological achievement up to that time, and the astronauts in a space ship 180,000 miles from earth had to radio back to earth to figure out whether their camera was getting a simple video shot of an item as big as the earth!

These sets are more for those space enthusiasts among us. The general public might be bored by a lot of the stuff, and if you show it to the kiddies who are too young to remember it (that means anyone under 40), they will wonder what the big deal was, not having been there at the time. That's why a bonus disk with highlights of the TV news coverage might add extra interest to an already excellent set.

Mine came shrink-wrapped and brand new in the box, but none of the discs will play. Im furious. Anyone else have this problem?

This whole series from the NASA archives (and I'll review the entire series, not just the Gemini set, since they all pretty mcuh take the same approach) are fascinating only if you are serious devotee of the space program. They are in many cases virtually raw footage from the flights and include plenty of dead air, clicks and beeps and in some cases inane narration by a NASA films employee from back in the day.

Many in the series, especially the Gemini Series, include narrationless launches from different angles and distances. Over and over and over in some cases.

Still, if you want to see and hear EXACTLY what happened on these flights, without editing, interruptions by Walter Cronkite or any other distractions, they are a wonderful and important addition to your library. As a true space program fan, I found them great as pieces of history, if nothing else.

For instance, have you ever wondered what happened AFTER Neil Armstrong took his first step on the Moon? The Apollo 11 set includes film and audio for every minute of every EVA, and you can supposedly switch views from one camera to another, although I have not been able to get that function to work for me.

The Apollo 11 set is also a great companion piece to a book like "First Man," the new biography of Armstrong, which goes into minute detail of each EVA. Being able to synch that up to real footage you'd never find in a Discovery Channel, NOVA or National Geographic DVD is good stuff.

Finally, there are comprehensive post-mission interviews with the crews of these flights, usually backed by footage from the flight itself. The style of interviewing is almost quaint, with such carefully crafted answers from the astronauts, and a generally respectful press gallery. Oh the good old days...

Each set includes three well labeled DVDs that break the missions up chronologicaly. Overall, I say this is a valuable collection of history for a serious NASA afficionado, but at $35 a piece, don't expect the casual fan to enjoy it much.