that is followed by theresa may taking questions from members of the house of commons. later, a discussion on brexit and the future of u.k. foreign policy. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," robert kurson discusses his book ."ocket men ofan: robert kurson, author rocket men. when did you know you had a good story? robert: i was walking through the museum of science and industry in chicago, showing some friends the u-boat on display. , a perfecthe u 505

match for the boat i wrote about in my first book, which was found in new jersey. i had no expectation to do anything but show off this submarine. as i was leaving i wandered through the space center and stumbled across a spacecraft that looked to have come from the past and the future. it was scarred and browned and battered. i looked on the placard and explained this was the command module of apollo eight. i loved astronauts as a kid. about apollo 11, which was man's first landing on 13, whichand apollo almost resulted in a great tragedy. i knew almost nothing about apollo eight. i went home and started researching. within 20 minutes, i realized i stumbled across the greatest space story of them all. it was mankind's first journey away from the earth is mankind's

first arrival at a new world. brian: what did you do next? robert: i started to read all i could. what i wanted to do was get in touch with the astronauts. two were 87 years old. i made phone calls. the first of the astronauts that i reached was jim lovell, who happens to live 15 or 20 minutes away from a. i needed to get the astronauts as soon as possible. brian: a couple days ago in chicago, you had an event with all three of them. frank borman. i had not studied the geology as much as jim and bill had. it wasn't something nobody had ever seen before. it was totally interesting.

i looked at it and i was fascinated, then i went back and looked at what we were supposed to be looking at. [laughter] brian: where did you find frank borman? robert: montana, where his son has a cattle ranch and his wife is being cared for. she is in the advanced stages of alzheimer's. incredibly to be engaging and warm. that was not the reputation he had at nasa. but he became one of the warmest and kindest people i've ever met. brian: apollo eight lifted off toward the moon on what date? robert: december 21, 1968. brian: here is another fellow that was on that flight at your event. >> as we came around the moon, we saw the earth, which was a small blue and white ball. i have said this many times. when i first looked at it, i put my thumb up and i could hide the earth completely behind my thumb

, realizing that behind my thumb , there was about 5 billion people. everything i ever knew was behind my thumb. brian: what are these guys doing to stay alive so long? robert: they are most of all engaged mentally with the world around them, as they were back then. people think of astronauts as these daring test pilots, which is true of almost all of them. they are also great intellectual minds. they were top achievers in scholastics and studies although the way up through graduate levels. also, three of them are very much active physically. they are all completely engaged in the world, thinking into the future about space to this day. brian: what is jim lovell like? robert: one of the sweetest man i have ever met. he is one person who did have that reputation. nobody i spoke to could find a negative word to say about jim lovell in anyway.

when you get to know him, he's going to be one of the sweetest guys you ever make. he was that and then some. a warm, welcoming individual. brian: one more of the three astronauts we need to look at, bill anders. [video clip] >> it was clearly nothing much i could do. everything was in the right positions. [laughter] i figured, no sense getting worked up about this. [laughter] somewhere along the line, i fell asleep. it's probably the longest sleep i had in the whole light. brian: what's the difference between bill anders and the other two? robert: frank borman saw the apollo program as a military mission. he was focused on one thing and believed the space program was focused on one thing. that was to defeat the soviet union in the race to get the first men to the moon. once nasa had accomplished that, he did not have much interest in staying.

was -- he sawally it the same way in terms of military. he was also interested in the scientific aspect and the exploration. this really could be considered, before they lifted off, one of the great explorations in history. anders recognized it as such. brian: here is video of mike 1967.e january 27, you begin your book with this story. [video clip] inside their spacious, buttoned up inside their spacesuits when the fire hit. a closed-circuit television camera was relaying pictures of astronauts lying on their backs inside the spacecraft atop the saturn one. there was a flash and that was it. the father of two teenage boys. one of the original mercury astronauts, mrs. ed white, and , 31 years chaffee

old, preparing for his first spaceflight. you say a relationship that ed white hat with one of the astronauts and one of the astronauts wives had a major impact. frank borman was the closest to ed white, who he considered a brother. and white felt just the same bout frank borman. ed white, as most astronauts were concerned, was the most physically strong. the borman's and the whites were very close, including frank's wife's -- wife susan. when this fire happened and killed the crew, it was devastating to have white -- pat white. nobody realized how devastating it was to mrs. borman, who began to believe her husband would suffer the same fate. brian: did you have a chance to

talk to her since she had alzheimer's? where did you get her feelings? robert: i did spend time with her but she was not able to communicate with me. i was in her presence often. i wasn't so touched by how often frank was in her presence, even though she was incapable of speaking or recognizing people. he took her to get her nails done almost every day. he would keep her company and rise at 5:30 to work out to make sure he was healthy in order to take care of her. i learned most about susan from frank and his sons, from cards and letters he had, interviews she had done in the past. by the time i was finished researching, i felt like a numerous personally as i knew the other wives. brian: the women get a lot of attention in your book. what impact did they have on the business of apollo eight? robert: i never realized until i began to talk to the astronauts

what a major role the wives played. it was impossible to disregard it. that is mostly what they want to talk about. all three of them believed that without their wives they could not have pulled this off. apollo eight was the most courageous space mission nasa had ever run. it looked too many people like near certain death to go on this thing. it was rush to the launchpad. everything was for the first time. these men needed wives who were absolutely supportive. not just supportive, but who did not reveal to their husbands how much they were suffering, how terrified they were. brian: valerie anders. tell us about her. robert: she is alive and one of the loveliest ladies i have met. she was actively engaged intellectually with the space program. she took astronomy programs just because she was interested. in the mission, that it was very important to be the soviets in the space race

and that americans be the first to reach the moon. she was behind bill's new mission. she had five little kids running around the house and very little from her husband -- bill calculated at one point, he told me he was able to spend 11 minutes a week per child with his family. that was it. it was up to valerie. brian: what did you learn from her? robert: i talked to her for many days and learned mostly how engaged she was intellectually with this and how brave she was. she grew up as the daughter of a california highway patrol and. she was used to danger and the idea that there is always a chance someone close to her might not come home at night. she was kind of the perfect partner for bill. she also was brave even dating him, as bill's mother wanted him to date an admiral's daughter, someone higher on the social chain. she was brave as a teenager

forward. brian: where do the anders' live? in --: they used to live but have recently moved. in one of the most beautiful areas. i had not been familiar until i went to spend time with them. brian: what is marilyn lovell like? robert: she grew up in milwaukee. she is a very well spoken, lovely woman who also was behind her husband:. apollo eight was the entire -- the only group of the entire program in which all three of the krugman's marriages survived. ,hen i asked marilyn about that what do you think is behind that? she speculated all three were the result of childhood sweetheart romances. if you see them today together

strolling along lake michigan, maryland and jim, he shows her the moon still as they stroll at night, you can see that have been in love since they were kids. brian: this sounds too good to be true. fell into the academy? -- they all went to the academy? bill went to the academy and jim went the academy. brian: where did they disagree? where they have a confrontation? who was hard to get along with? level was the commander and what he said was going to go. they saw the mission differently. borman never wants to bring television cameras. the other two saw the need and benefit right away. borman relented and allowed. foreman only wanted to make one revolution of the moon, not 10. he just wanted to defeat the soviets and that's it.

the others understood there was scientific value, value to the future flights. they would talk about this, but they were very much connected. i think it is what made them what borman described to me as the best crew nasa ever assembled. brian: go back to your approach to all of this. you met with jim lovell. you met with the other astronauts, the wives. what mattered to you in getting this story? what's the difference between the story you are telling and what everyone else is doing? robert: one of the differences is the important -- importance of the family. you had to understand the role of family. it was the essential. you also had to understand the year in which this happened. this flight happened at the end of 1968, one of the most terrible years in our country's history. of martinination luther king jr., of robert kennedy, dead americans in vietnam, violence in the

streets, including in chicago, the democratic convention and all kinds of other trouble. it seems that nobody could come together. everybody seemed divided against everybody else. 2018.are some echoes to here at the end of the year comes this impossible proposition. man is going to go to the moon, suddenly, in four months time. they're going to pull off something nobody has ever done before, that mankind has dreamed up for millennia. to put you in the capsule with them was essential. two spent hours, days, and weeks with them to get a feel for what it was like to sit next to them. a feeling for the men themselves. all of that is what i tried to bring to the story. in chicago, did they let you get inside the space capsule? robert: no, it is cordoned off.

you lift your head and look in to close -- i don't blame them. you can see inside because the hatches open. that hatch is really interesting. it was the inability to open the hatch that killed the apollo one astronaut. that is something borman took under his wing to make sure that hatch would open and close nonstop. when they came to visit and borman looked at it, the first thing i saw him look at was the hatch. brian: where did you go to get a feeling for this story? robert: i went to houston to see a saturn five rocket. all three astronauts spoke of the incredible power of the saturn five and the immensity of it. it remains arguably the most powerful machine ever built. the astronauts told me that no matter how advanced simulations were, you could not get a sense of that. i wanted to get a sense of the grander of this rocket. nobody had flown this.

it had been tested twice before apollo eight. in the second test, there were near catastrophic failures. a few months later, they put it on the launchpad with three human beings who had families and send them to the moon. brian: what role did the squawk box play? robert: the squawk box was putting astronauts families homes. it was a small box, looks somewhat like a radio, but there was only a volume control. the wives and children could listen to life transitions -- transmissions from mission control in the spacecraft. it was the only lifeline the wives and children had to their husbands and fathers. it was relied on very heavily by by wives and especially susan bormann, who believed that frank would die on the mission. as long as she heard his voice, she knew it had not happened yet.

brian: how many hours do you think you spent talking to the astronauts or their wives? robert: it had to be in the hundreds. i had to be careful not to intrude too much. they had other things going on. i wanted to respect that they have limited schedules. whatever i needed from them, they were happy to give it to me and then some. i ended up getting many more hours and days than i thought i would get. once we connected and they saw i had a feel for the story, the way i explained it to them, i think they were happy to do it. brian: how did you convinced that you had a feel for the story? robert: one of the things that helped me was my first book. when i approached jim lovell i could tell he is approached all-time. he had read shadow divers. he had listened to it on audiobook. he told me something that was one of the great honors of my life. he told me at one point things have gotten so exciting in that

book, he found himself or putting parking lot listening to the audiobook to the end of the chapter. , thei explained to him thing i loved so much about the story was it contained so many firsts, and it was mankind first journey away from home, that it was mankind's first arrival at a new world, i did not want to talk about the technical aspects -- i think that is better left to other writers. once he understood that, we connected. he helps connect me to the other two and we were off to the races. brian: correct me if i'm wrong about these dates. shadow divers, 2004. crashing through, 2007. all of these, the interviews we have had our in our archives. what was crashing through about? robert: about a gentleman from davis california who became the 16th person known to history to live a lifetime fully blind and

get his vision restored. that's the greatest thing that can happen to a human being may be ever. i realized it was the worst thing psychologically that happen to a person. it was devastating emotionally and psychologically to the newly cited. there were suicidal thoughts, clawing at the eyes to tear them out, here he and anger at the surgeon to cure them. it is very different to see if you have not learned to see as a little child. once you try to see as an adult, there are complications. this person from davis california was different than his 15 predecessors. story of mike may, which is a one-of-a-kind story. brian: when was the last time you talk to him? robert: two weeks ago he stayed at my house. brian: how is his site? robert: his vision is almost 2020. part of what the book explains is how he used ingenious tricks and shortcuts to learn to use

the kind of vision he was able to process. you could go out on the basketball course and mike could hit nine out of 10 free throws. he can even write a bike down the street. but if you put him at the top of a 20 story building, he would walk off the top. he would not know there was drop off. certain things work in certain things don't. brian: what impact of the book you wrote about him how him? robert: he became world-famous from it, an inspiration to a lot of black people. he was raised by a mother who would not indulge him in special treatment. many blind children percent away from their families. his mother not only did not send him away, she insisted he do everything. when he wanted to build a ham radio tower climb to the top, she let him even though it probably took years of her life to do it. everythingd he tried

and breed in the entire world. in the entire world. that is a message people take from the book. brian: in 2015, hiring hunters te direct hunters -- pira hunters. which book gave you the most satisfaction? robert: rocket men. because of how humans have dreamed of going there to the men. i believe -- the moon. i believe the moon has a poll. that humans could pull that off under such threat from such an enemy encompassed everything i love about stories. it was a race against time. it had three true heroes. they were unlike the rest of us and yet so like the rest of us. they are very regular guys.

that is a big part of what drew me to the story. i remember looking up at these tiny black-and-white tv is bolted to the wall and just marveling at what was going on. so many things have worn off. the thrill has worn off as i get older. that never did. that seems as exciting to me today as it did then. the opportunity to tell that story for the first time man ever went to the moon, i don't know if i will ever top it. brian: pirate hunters, what was that about? robert: it's a follow-up to shadow divers. it follows one of the divers on a mission to do something more difficult than identifying a lost german sub. he dreams of finding a golden age pirate ship. the golden age went from 1650 to 1720. it is the single hardest thing to find in the world. before he set out on this quest, only one had ever been positively identified.

he set out to find not just the second, but maybe the greatest pirate ship ever lost. the golden fleet. it is the story about his quest to do that. brian: you left the practice of law. graduated from harvard law school. to be able -- a writer. robert: every day i'm thrilled. my wife is a lawyer and every day when i see the binder she brings home, it gives me terrible flashbacks. i had a moment of bravery when instead of taking certain money, i said, even if this costs me everything, i have to be happy. i was miserable as a lawyer. i disliked the work. i was back at it. which is a terrible recipe for life. i jumped ship and have been happy ever since. 1968, theember 3, astros were called to the white house. -- astronauts were called to the white house.

how many days was it? robert: a day or two before the launch. here is video of that. they were called to the white house as they were standing by to go to the moon. [video clip] few days before the apollo eight countdown, at the first white house dinner honoring america's space team, president johnson praised to the leadership of nasa's outgoing director. on hand was charles lindbergh, famed for his solo flight 41 years ago. in the astronauts of apollo seven and apollo eight. 1968 earned their place in history. brian: why would they have interrupted their planning? wives went with them, they put the tuxedos on, when they were just about to launch apollo eight? robert: it was a terrible idea.

it was strictly for propaganda. on top of it being a normal bad idea, the hong kong food was going around -- flu was going around. valerie anders was shocked to see the exposure the astronauts were undergoing and feared for their safety from that. it was just a propaganda event. it should never have been done. the astronauts are there partly to the public relations. it was the reason they were bringing television cameras onboard. i do not know that any of them enjoy doing it. what they did enjoy was one last goodbye with their wives. brian: do you have any idea how many mercury flights there were? robert: i don't member offhand. maybe five or six. brian: those are all just earth orbiters. robert: yes. brian: and the gemini flights. robert: gemini 12 was the last

one. that was jim lovell's second. he also flew with frank borman on gemini seven. int was for two solid weeks a space capsule the size of the front half of a volkswagen beetle. when you see them getting off, lovell says we would like to announce our engagement. gemini was the test program to build up to apollo, which was designed to take men to the moon. brian: how many apollo's were there? robert: apollo one never went. that was a failure and tragedy on the launchpad. two and three never went. four and six were tests of the saturn five. 9, 10, 11, 12, -- 14. how did you get all the quotes?

how much of the nasa transcripts did you read? robert: i read unbelievable amounts of transcript. the transcripts are essential to understanding the flight. i read commentary on the transcripts, i read almost every oral history nasa did with anybody who could have even been involved. they were smart enough to do these histories long ago. 70 people who were involved with apollo eight are no longer with us. nasa was smart enough to interview them. it's almost like you could go back in time 50 years and talk to these people, who never otherwise would be able to reach or might not have had an opportunity in a book for. brian: who also was alive that was deeply involved? robert: mike collins was one of the backup crew members. he was original apollo eight crew member, and he had an injury that took him off the crew but placed him on the first lunar landing. there are several astronauts

still alive who were either controllers for apollo eight, or one way or another in training. the biggest break i got was talking to chris craft, to retrofit flight operations, who was really being -- he was 91 when i interviewed him. he was as sharp as ever. you can really explain the context in the background. he was part of the team that decided in an epiphany to send apollo eight to the moon suddenly in four months time. brian: you said you provided each of the astronauts with a copy of your book before it was published. they did not ask for anything to be changed. really? is i gave themdo the manuscript and i said, i want you to change or correct any factual mistake. i'm not giving this to you for editorial changes. the way i approach this and the

way i treated it, i thought long and hard about. that's my baby. if i have gotten anything wrong factually, you must change it. they saved me several times, each of them. we went page by page. sometimes word by word. it was amazing the things these guys are numbered. the shape of a handle used to abort if there was an emergency. there was a days long argument about that. i wanted to make this book bulletproof. i believe this is one of the most important stories in the history of mankind. the first time we left the world. i wanted it to be right. brian: how much time did they give the apollo eight crowd to prepare for this launch? robert: normally launch would take 18 months to prepare for, trained for, for the planners, controllers, astronauts to get ready. this was conceived and finalized in august of 1968.

they had four months. if you talk to astronauts now, they still can't believe this was rushed. frank borman told me a story i still on having trouble processing. he went in and in one meeting with chris craft and 10 or 12 of the top planners at nasa works out essentially the entire flight plan. he said, can you imagine in this age of bureaucracies and levels of management, that ever happening? in four hours they figured out how to go to the moon. brian: there was a photographer in the lives of these astronauts. what did you learn about that? robert: the astronauts were given $16,000 a year for access to their stories. a lot of other reporters and photographers. . out.otographers felt left get were able to

photographs that most other photographers never would get because they were close to their families. i included as many of those i could because they are and to make lenses. there is a photo of frank and susan holding hands. he said, she was convinced i was never coming home. when she was saying was, i may never see you again. you see those moments. that contract helped the astronauts financially, who were not making much money, but it helped 50 years later much more. brian: if you want to see coverage, is there anywhere you can go? robert: you can do google searches, life magazine. inside lookshese at human beings, the human aspect is what is captured by those photographers. brian: four months. the crew made a decision to go. robert: the decision originally was that of george lowe, the apollo spacecraft manager.

he was a quiet man. he brought his briefcase to the beach when he was out tanning. he was always thinking and planning. he realized so much could be saved if they went in four months time. he pitched the idea to craft. craft thought he was crazy, but then saw the genius. finally they took it to nasa's loss, james webb. james's first reaction was, are you out of your mind? he said, if anything happens, the whole program is at risk. it may not go forward. he reminded them of one other risk nobody had thought of. that's if the astronauts died at whatever lookne, at the moon -- would ever look at the moon again. they were scheduled to orbit the moon on christmas eve and christmas day.

if they died then, who in the world would think of christmas the same again? brian: four months. why were they in a hurry? robert: the reason it changed so suddenly with that the landing craft that would shuttle asterisk from the orbiting spacecraft to the lunar surface was stalled. it threatened to stall the apollo program. was, ifrge lowe thought we send a craft to the moon without a leader later, we can keep the apollo program going and learn the techniques of going to the moon, fix any problems, prepare for the first lunar landing, which would keep the program going such that we might keep president kennedy's promise to the country to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade alive. we have an outside chance of beating the soviets to the moon. there was a top-secret cia memo warnedst, mid 1968, that

the soviets could send men around the moon as early as late 1968. three things could be done if. they rushed this to the launchpad thiss what they did brian: has nothing to do with apollo eight, but you talked about the landers. a test pilot flipping the bird, as you would say, to the soviets. what is that story? robert: he was flying interceptor missions, very daring missions out of iceland. his job was to guard protected areas and make sure the soviets did not encroach. these were fearsome airplanes he was flying. all these guys flew the most dangerous airplanes. he came across soviets very near the place they should not be. he got so close he could identify the colors of their eyes. because they were the enemy and he believed in america, he did what any patriot would do. he flipped them the bird.

i don't know that the pilots, the soviet pilot knew what he was seeing. a long time later, after the report must have gone through kremlin and through so many levels of the soviet. viet bureaucracy, they held up a sign that was an answer to bill anders' gesture. brian: how many days were they away from earth? robert: a little over six days. brian: how many miles to the moon? robert: about 240,000 miles. brian: what was the first moment in the flight there was a concern something might go wrong? robert: liftoff. none of them was prepared for the power and furious the saturn five rocket. in its second tested ailed miserably. -- test it failed

miserably. they felt a violent pogo affect. anders believed in the first moment of the flight the rocket was shearing off the launch tower. it was so violent. they made it into earth worker -- orbit and sent themselves to the men. there was not a try i in mission control when they left earth's gravitational beer. -- sphere. frank borman had never been sick in an airplane. brian: don't tell the story. i have a video of him telling the story. april 23, 2009. [video clip] >> we might as well get it out now. i was motion sick and puked. [laughter]

>> frank, we were not going to say anything. [laughter] clearly,k it was although i did not think so at i had never been sick in an airplane, i was hung over. [laughter] i don't really believe -- i think it was motion sickness. brian: you describe this in detail. has that ever been done before? robert: i don't think so. they described it in detail to me, all three of them. bill anders, when he described the physics of what he was seeing floating around the cabin, it was one of the most poetic things i have ever heard. ,t was a physicist explaining but this was not just an unpleasant thing to laugh about 50 years later. this threatened to turn the entire flight around. nasa considered that. page 200 you say, from

below he could see a greenish brown lob about the size of a golf ball moving toward him. explain what they had to contend with when frank borman threw up. robert: it was floating toward the other astronauts. anders sees it, but level is in the impact area. 'sders describes how lovell eyes narrow as it approached him. it hits him in the chest and flattened like an omelette. globules split. you could see newton's laws applied. one would go one way perfectly, the other would go the other way. the mixture of horror, but also fascination at the beauty of celestial mechanics on display. brian: frank borman also had diarrhea. robert: yes.

nobody understood what was happening. he had never been sick before. you have to remember, the hong kong flu had killed thousands of people. maybe he got it at the white house dinner. ,f he had something contagious there were going to be three sick astronauts. that would not work. the top brass got together and try to figure out what to do. if you ask bormann, i told him, there was a significant consideration about turning you around. he laughed and said, never. if i had a heart attack, i would've told those guys, my last words were keep going. he questioned the medical director's judgment, should we assume dr. barry is dead? robert: i believe so. brian: why would he not trust

the dr.? robert: frank was not the only one. there were several who believed the doctors were trying to insinuate themselves in the picture to make themselves part of the adventure. if they just sat around and let things unfold, they would not be credited with having much to do with the program. a lot of the astronauts distrusted the doctor. when i asked chris, he said that's crazy. he thought that was ridiculous and that they needed to allow experts to help them. the astronauts believed if doctors were given the chance to turn things around, they would turn it around. talking about the sickness of frank borman, you also described how they eliminate body waste. how often had not been described? robert: sometimes people describe it. i like to think i did it most politically. they remembered every bit of it. some of it was risky.

you had to time things correctly. bill anders told me he tried to practice at home and things did not work so well. he determined he just was not going to defecate on the trip. high -- a lowg a -- diet, and was successful. brian: that was six days. robert: six days. brian: here is 16 seconds of the apollo eight command module. one of their television shows they had. [video clip] >> this transmission is coming to you halfway between the moon and the earth. we have been 31 hours, about 20 minutes into flight. we have about 40 hours left to go. it scared them that things might not go right. what were they apprehensive about? robert: one of the primary

dangers they faced was that they went without this lunar module. the lunar module did not just deliver astronauts to the surface. it acted as a backup engine in case anything went wrong. for apollo eight, to get into lunar orbit and get out, the single engine had to work perfectly. if it failed, it could crash into the lunar surface. they could fly off into solar orbit. any number of terrible results. to know that something has worked perfectly and there was no redundancy concerned everybody. a concerned people at mission control. brian: meanwhile, in the middle of this flight, you tell a personal dramatic moment where susan borman, who you say was an alcoholic? robert: these were the early stages. frank did not know, but it was under way. brian: marilyn lovell can to

visit her. this is in the middle when they are on the way to the moon. marilyn went to susan's home for support. this is very frightening for all the women. susan was home but she was upstairs and would not come out. people told marilyn, she will be right out. no idea the suffering susan borman was enduring. had she known, she would have understood completely. she waited for her. i think she waited two hours. susan never appeared. the fetalcurled up in position listening to these lockbox for the inevitable demise of her husband. she was suffering terribly. u.s. maryland today, she'd say, i would not have even bothered her. but these are the stress of the women were undergoing.

robert: frank found out years later. part of what made susan a wonderful wife was that she never let on to him or her son just how much she was suffering. she viewed her obligation to her country. to all eyes but hers she was happy and carefree and supportive. inside she was dying. brian: here is jim lovell from the module telling us what the moon looks like. over.llo eight houston, >> ok, houston. essentially gray. no colors. just like plaster of paris. you can see quite a bit of detail. the graders are all around.

areby meteorites -- craters all rounded off, hit by meteorites. robert: it was the foresight of the planners to send television cameras up. have problems with the windows. they did not realize the things that could go wrong. the footage is breathtaking. you are seeing an arrival of them in. it's all over youtube if you type in apollo eight. some of the video has been restored and enhanced so that it is very sharp. it is lucky for us we have it at the click of a button. brian: he said close to 60 miles. what was the exact distance? robert: 69 miles. brian: how many times did they go around? robert: 10 times.

two hours each orbit. brian: anything go wrong? robert: no, it was virtually perfect. there was anxiety about whether the single engine would work properly. as they went around the moon, it was near flawless. brian: what was the moment in the book where you went on to your wife and said, you can't believe what i just found? robert: they were telling me about -- bill anders the most powerful photograph ever taken during this journey. when they describe that to me, that had me in tears. brian: it's onscreen. it is called an earthrise. robert: it happened on the fourth revolution. anderson told me they had trained all these months to take pictures of the moon and study the moon. the they came in

spacecraft, and to the surprise of all of them, in the infinity of blackness, over the gray featureless terrain of the moon, came this beautiful blue jewel rising. everything all of them held dear in the world. it was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen. frank borman got the first shot off in black-and-white. bill anders, i don't know how he kept his cool. this lasted a matter of moments. he found a long telephoto lens and snap that picture. that is the first time mankind looked back on itself and its entirety. brian: why was bill anders the official photographer? robert: i don't know and i don't know that he knows. he viewed it as a secondary assignment. i argued he was the most famous photographer in the world. he told me they had gone all that way to find the moon and what they really found with beer. brian: -- was of the earth.

brian: is there any way to quantify how many people have used that photo? robert: it was everywhere. it became a symbol of the environmental movement. you saw it on the 100 most important images of the 20th century on the cover of magazines. i think it is the most important photograph ever taken. brian: christmas eve 1968. the television. did all the networks carry this? robert: everyone carried. morestronauts were told people would be listening to that broadcast that had ever listened to a human voice at once in history. nearly a third of the world's population would listen live. they should say something appropriate. they were given no more guidance than that. borman was told face of an appropriate.

.- say something appropriate what would be appropriate to say on christmas eve to a third of the world population? first they started to talk amongst themselves. a lot of their ideas were silly. should they do jingle bells? they knew this was a very serious, historic occasion. they needed to do something to match the gravity of the moment. borman went to a friend of his he considered to be an intellectual and ask him. he could not think of anything. that man passed it to another person and that person couldn't think of anything. that person's wife, right before they needed to get something done, suggested something. as soon as that man hurt it and the astronauts heard it, they knew it was perfect. brian: let's listen to a bit of this. the first voice is bill anders,

then jim level, then frank borman. [video clip] in the beginning, god created the heaven and fear. and of the earth was without form and void. darkness was upon the face of the deep. >> the darkness he called night and the morning of the first day. merry christmas, and god bless all of you on this good earth. brian: did the russians see that? robert: i think they did. it was early in the morning. when the russians were monitoring this flight, they believed this was not true. it could not have happened. they believed it was so rushed to the launchpad nobody would have ever dared this flight in reality. by the time of this broadcast,

they believed and they knew it had occurred. brian: what reaction was there? robert: the worldwide reaction was overwhelming. people poured out into the streets. there were reports of people looking toward the heavens, knowing they could not spot the spacecraft, but looking nonetheless. the men had take something so perfect and unifying for so many people, so appropriate, the story of creation, for the first man who ever arrived at a new world was too much for some people. there were tears of joy around the world. brian: what are some of the things the esther arrested for their wives set up in advance? robert: jim level did one of the most rancid things you will ever hear of -- romantic things you will ever hear of. he arranged to buy a jacket for his wife. he arranged for it to be delivered on christmas day.

there was a knock at the door and marilyn was so tired of reporters knocking, everybody wanted to ask questions, they were camped out on the front lawns. nonetheless she answered, and it was a uniformed chauffeur who had a box for her. it was this for jacket. t. fur jacke there was a card that said merry christmas from the man in the moon. brian: here is a photo of all of them. maybe you have seen this photograph. when you look at it, you see them all dressed up in their tuxedos and all. did they all in the end get along as well as you say? robert: absolutely, and they do to this day. them to bet caused labeled the best crew nasa ever assembled. there is a chemistry between them and an understanding of each one's role in each one's hopes and disappointments.

anders was disappointment -- disappointed because it meant he was not set foot on the moon. he was going to be a specialist who did not walk on the moon. frank borman understood that. borman saw a lot of himself in anders and that helped also. it is impossible not to get along with lovell. brian: did borman fly again? robert: he never flew another space mission. he believed he had filled a death blow to the soviets in the space race and that his job was done. -- torted to sit suspect suspect this was hard on susan and his family. brian: did lovell walk on the moon? robert: no. he would look at the terrain and think, i will be there someday. he went on apollo 13 and was

scheduled to walk on the moon. there was an explosion in an oxygen tank. the crew nearly did not make it back. brian: what did these men do after they were astronauts? robert: frank borman went on to run eastern airlines. i would see him on television commercials all time. he wasn't so much like himself on those tv commercials. in one of them he said, airlines are the same. what does it matter which one you fly? he is a very straight shooter. he was a very successful chairman. jim level went into private industry and became very successful. bill anders went on to run general dynamics, the frank -- french contractor. brian: how did he become an ambassador? >> he was offered -- he was perceived by the government as being very evenhanded.

that of people appreciated . his wife loved norway. him and said, to would you like an ambassadorship? that's the one they chose. brian: will we do this again? go to the moon? robert: i think we will. it may be privately rather than through nasa. whether we will do something impossible again, i'm skeptical. to have done this at the time they did it in such a hurry fashion only can happen when you are looking an existential enemy in your eye and you believe your existence is at stake. is when this country shines the most and when unreal things start to happen. i don't know how far we can be pushed into the impossible. brian: i want to repeat the fact that we have followed you through your writing career. your first book in 2004, crashing through, 2000 seven,

rocket man in 2018. all available in her archives. chives.ar what's next? robert: that is the hardest part of my job. i have talked to friends forever about the right way to find a new story. none of them has any idea. we start to think it is a matter of luck. instead turned one way of another i don't know if i would have found this story. it is exciting because it is always an adventure. brian: so you do not have a next book? robert: not at the moment. brian: do you have anything you are interested in? robert: we find a lot of good stories that would make good magazine stories. to sustain a book you have to find something special. brian: writing has become harder or easier? robert: both.

i know what it takes to get to a good story. because i know it requires an extra interview and more research, it may take more time, but it is all thrilling because it is all learning. brian: once you have all your information researched, what is the length of time it took to write the book? robert: the writing takes me less than the research. in this project, nine months went to the writing and the rest to the research. brian: our guest has been robert kurson. men: theis "rocket astronauts who made the first journey to the moon." we thank you. robert: thank you so much. ♪

food -- announcer: for transcripts or to give us comments, visit us at q&a.org. ♪ next week on q&a, in english professor discusses his book "inseparable: the original siamese twins." ofut the life and times conjoined twins. that is next sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. journal,'s washington live every day with news and policy issues. monday morning, mcclatchy

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top capital punishment legal scholars and a professor at harvard law school. she has argued against the death penalty in a number of cases. she was a former clerk of thurgood marshall. advocating in favor of capital punishment and the criminal justice system. he has written numerous briefs in death penalty cases before the supreme court. landmark cases, monday at 9:00 eastern on c-span. join the conversation and follow us at c-span. we have resources on our website for background on each case, the landmark cases companion book, a link to the national constitution center's interactive constitution, and the landmark cases podcast at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> connect with c-span to personalize the information you get from us.

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caribbean immigrants who migrated to the u.k. after world war ii. they are called the wind rush generation. tribute to the former house speaker who recently died. this is 25 minutes. >> order. questions for the prime minister. --number one, mr. speaker >> mr. speaker, i know members across the whole house will join me and offering our deepest condolences to the family and friends of michael martin, who died this week. he served as speaker for nearly nine years and i'm sure members will remember his sense of public service, his commitment to his constituency in glasgow and his good humour. i particularly remember him for the courtesy he always showed me. this morning, i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. in addition to my duties in the house, i shall have further such