harvard law school. she's argued against the death penalty in a number of cases before the court. she was also a former clerk of supreme court justice marshall. and kent, advocating in favor of capital punishment and a more swift moving criminal justice system. he's written a number of briefs before the supreme court. watch "landmark cases" tonight t 9:00 p.m. on c-span. we have resources on our website for background on each case. lang to the national constitution centers, the landmark cases podcast at c-span.org/landmarkcases.

> this week on "q&a," robert kurson, he discusses his book rocket man." brian: robert kurson, author of "rocket man," 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. they have the u 505, a perfect match for the u-boat i wrote about in my first book, which was found in jersey waters by two recreational scuba divers. 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 at once 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 8. i loved astronauts as a kid. i thought i knew a lot about space but really what i knew was apollo 11, which was man's first landing on the moon, and apollo 13, which almost resulted in a great tragedy before the astronauts made it back safely. i knew almost nothing about apollo 8. i went home and started researching. within about 15 or 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 -- and mankind's first arrival at a new world at the moon. 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. because by this time two were 87 years old. and one was 82. i made phone calls as fast as i could. the first of the astronauts that i reached was jim lovell, who happens to live 15 or 20 minutes away from me.

that's how it started. i felt like i needed to get the astronauts as soon as possible. brian: we have video from an event a couple days ago in chicago, you had an event with all three of them. here is frank borman. april 5, 2018. [video clip] >> any surprises for you when you first laid eyes? >> not really. 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: frank is in billings, montana, where his son has a cattle ranch and his wife is being cared for. she is in the advanced stages of alzheimer's. so frank was in billings and he has for sometime now. i found him to be incredibly engaging and warm.

that wasn't the reputation he had all the time when he was 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. astronaut jim lovell. mr. lovell: 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 were about five billion people and 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 fighter pilots and test pilots which is of course

true of almost all of them. they are also of great intellectual minds behind that. they were top achievers in scholastics and studies although the way up through graduate levels. also, they keep their minds engaged. three of them are have 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: he is one of the kindest, sweetest men i have ever met. he is one person who did have that reputation going back to nasa that nobody i spoke to could find a negative word to say about jim lovell in any way whatsoever. when you get to know him, he's going to be one of the sweetest guys you ever meet. he was that and then some. a warm, welcoming individual. brian: one more of the three astronauts we need to look at, bill anders. here he is in chicago. [video clip] >> it was clearly nothing much i could do. we checked all the switches and 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 it in the whole flight. [end video clip] 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 space race and in the race to get the first men to the moon. once nasa had accomplished that, he did not have much interest in staying. bill anders really was -- he saw it the same way in terms of military. he was also interested in the scientific aspect and the exploration aspect. this really could be considered, before they lifted off, one of the great explorations in mankind's history. anders recognized it as such. brian: here is video of mike

wallace january 27, 1967. you kind of begin your book with this story. [video clip] >> inside their space ship pressurized, inside their space suits when the fire hit. a closed-circuit television camera was relaying pictures of astronauts lying on their backs inside the spacecraft atop the two stage saturn one. there was a flash and that was it. griffin, 40 years old. the father of two teenage boys. one of the original mercury astronauts, mrs. ed white, and years er chaffee, 31 old, preparing for his first space flight. [end video clip] brian: you say a relationship that ed white hat with one of the astronauts and one of the astronauts wives had a major impact. robert: frank borman was the closest to ed white, who he considered a brother.

ed white felt just the same about frank borman. ed white, as most astronauts were concerned, was the most capable and certainly the most physically strong of all the astronauts. the bormans and the whites were very close, including frank's wife susan. best friends with pat white, ed white's wife. when this fire happened and killed the crew, it was devastating to pat white. but nobody really realized how devastating it was also to susan borman, who began to believe from that point forward, that her husband would suffer a similar fate and would not survive the space program. 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 was so touched by how often frank was in her presence, even though she was incapable of speaking or recognizing people. he still took her to get her nails done almost every day.

he would climb in bed with her and keep her company and rise at 5:30 every morning to work out just 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, tapes he made, 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 men and also the whole business of apollo 8? 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. even after a few minutes talking to them because that's mostly what they wanted to talk about. all three of them believed without their wives they really could not have pulled this off. apollo 8 was the most daring and 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. it was done very quickly. everything was for the first

time. so these men needed wives at home who were absolutely supportive but not just supportive but also did not reveal to their husbands just how much they were suffering and just how terrified they really 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 -- courses on the side just because she was interested. not even to share her husband's interest, because she was naturally interested. she believed 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. you know, it was a brave thing for her. 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 to fill in

all of the rest. brian: did you talk to her and if you did 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 patrolman. 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 ocial chain. but she never let any of that bother her. she was brave as a teenager forward. brian: where do the anders' live? robert: they live in washington state. 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 is so lovely. she grew up in milwaukee. the son of a chocolate store owner.

she is a very well spoken, lovely woman who also was behind her husband:. apollo 8 was the only group of the apollo program or gemini program which all three, all the crew men marriages survived. when i asked marilyn about that, what explains it? there are divorces all over the place with astronauts. i asked, 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, marilyn and jim, and 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. they all went to the academy? robert: frank went to west point. bill went to the naval academy and jim went to the naval academy. brian: their marriages lasted.

they are 90, 90, 84. where's the edge? where do they disagree? where did they have the confrontation? where is the edge? where they have a confrontation? who was hard to get along with? robert: borman was the commander of them mission. what he said was going to go. they saw the mission differently. for example, borman never wanted to bring television cameras aboard. and the other two saw the need for that and benefit in that right away. borman, to his credit, relented and allowed. borman only wanted to make one revolution of the moon, not 10. he just wanted to beat the soviets and defeat them. the others understood there was scientific value, value to the future flights. they would talk about this, but they were very much connected. they were of a piece these three guys and i think that's what made them, as 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 everybody else was told? robert: one of the main differences is the importance of the family. you had to understand the role of family. the wives, the children. it was the essential. you also had to understand the year in which this happened. this flight came at the very end of 1968 which is one of the most terrible, fractureous years in our country's history. you had the assassinations of martin luther king jr., robert kennedy. you had 15,000 dead americans in vietnam. sometimes 90% of the evening news was dedicated to vietnam. there was violence in the streets, including in chicago, the democratic convention and all kinds of other trouble. it seemed at the end of the year nobody could come together. everybody seemed divided against everybody else. the nation divided against each other. there are some echos to 2018 and 1968. here at the end of the year comes this impossible

proposition. man is going to go to the moon, suddenly, in four months time. not the usual 12 or 18. they're going to try to pull off something no one has ever done before but that mankind has dreamed of since millennia. to put it in the context of the year and the families and put you in the capsule with them was essential. to spend endless hours and 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. brian: at the museum of science and industry in chicago, where you live, did they let you get inside the space capsule? robert: no, it is cordoned off by plexiglas. they don't even like it when you you lift your head and look in too close. i don't blame them. you can see inside because the hatch is 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 went and 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. that was very important to me because 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. 50 years later still true. and 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 power and the grandeur of this rocket. nobody had flown this rocket manned before. it had been tested twice before apollo 8. both times unmanned. in the second test, there were near catastrophic failures. it looked like that rocket would never fly after that. instead 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? what was it?

robert: the squawk box was put in the family -- in the astronaut's 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 live transmissions from mission control in the -- between houston and the spacecraft and it was really the only lifeline the wives and children had to their husbands and fathers. it was relied on very heavily by the wives and especially by susan borman who believed with 100% certainty that frank would die on the mission. as long as she heard his voice, she knew it had not happened yet. but to her it was still a question of when. 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 on their lives because they had other things going on and i wanted to respect that they had 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. i think 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. i was thrilled to be there. 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 "shadow divers." when i approached jim lovell i could tell he is approached all the time. he had read "shadow divers." in fact, 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 had gotten so exciting in that book, he found himself or in -- orbiting the parking lot listening to the book so he could get to the end of the chapter. once i explained to him, the thing i loved so much about the story was it contained so many firsts, and it was mankind --'s first journey away from home, that it was mankind's first arrival at a new world, i did not want to talk about the mixture of propellants or the

technical aspects. i think it's better left to other writers. i wanted to get to the human story. 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" in 2004. "crashing through" in 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. you would think that's the greatest thing that can happen to a human being may be ever. in fact when i did research it was the single worst thing at least psychologically that ould happen to a person. it was devastating emotionally and psychologically to the newly sighted. there were suicidal thoughts, clawing at the eyes to tear them out, there were fury 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. i tell the story of mike may, which is a one-of-a-kind story. brian: when was the last time you talked to him? robert: not two weeks ago he stayed over at my house for an evening during a business convention in chicago. brian: how is his sight now? robert: his vision is almost 20/20. 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. or you can play frisbee with him, he catches it every time. he can even ride 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 that work and certain things that don't and a lot is in the brain.

brian: what impact of the book you wrote about him have on him? robert: he became world-famous from it, an inspiration to a lot of blind people. he was raised by a mother who would not indulge him in special treatment. he grew up at a time that many blind children were sent 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. when she found the he drove his sister's car, she did not unish them for it. she insisted he tried everything and breathe everything in the entire world. that is the message people took from the book about seeking out adventure and trying, and no matter what obstacles you might face. rian: in 2015, "pirate hunters." of the four books you've done, which book gave you the most

satisfaction? robert: probably this one, "rocket men." because of how humans have dreamed of going there to the moon. i believe the moon has a pull. and the idea that human beings could pull that off under such threat from such an enemy encompassed everything i love about stories. it was a race against time. a terrific enemy. it had three true heroes. they were special heroes unlike the rest of us and yet so much like the rest of us. they are very regular guys. that is a big part of what drew me to the story. when you dream -- i remember looking up at these tiny black and white tv's 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 -- i interrupted my own question. 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 subin new jersey waters. he dreams of finding a golden age pirate ship. the golden age went from 1650 to 1720. it is the single hardest thing maybe to find in all the world. before chatterton set out on this quest, only one had ever been discovered and positively identified. it's almost impossible to do. he set out to find not just the second, but maybe the greatest pirate ship ever lost. the golden fleece. it is the story about his quest to do that. brian: you left the practice of law. graduated from harvard law school. to be a writer. are you still glad you did it? 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 never stop thanking my lucky stars that i had that moment of bravery when instead of taking a certain money i said even if this costs me everything i have to be happy because i was profoundly miserable on the job as a lawyer. i disliked the work very much and i was bad at it which is a terrible recipe for life. i jumped ship and have been happy ever since. brian: december 3, 1968, the astronauts were called to the white house. maybe it's not 12 days before but it looks like it. for a dinner. 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 the space ship to go to the moon. [video clip] >> a few days before the apollo

8 countdown, at the first white house dinner honoring america's space team, president johnson praised the leadership of nasa's outgoing director. jim webb. on hand was charles lindbergh, famed for his solo flight 41 years ago. and the astronauts of apollo 7 and apollo 8 who in 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 8? 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. there was coughing all over the place during that dinner. 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, in my opinion, but the astronauts are there partly to the public relations. it was the reason they were bringing television cameras onboard. so they did it. i do not know that any of them enjoyed doing it. what they did enjoy was one last goodbye with their wives. this allowed them one last kiss. brian: do you have any idea how many mercury flights there were? robert: i don't remember offhand. maybe five or six. brian: those are all just earth objectals? -- orbitals? 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 7. a lot of people don't know that. that was for two solid weeks. in a space capsule the size of a 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 apollos were there? robert: apollo one never went. that was a failure and tragedy on the launchpad. apollos two and three never went. four and six were tests of the saturn five. so there was 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17. 2, 13, 14, 15, so 14. brian: how did you get all the quotes? how much of the nasa transcripts did you read? robert: i read unbelievable amounts of transcripts. the transcripts are essential to understanding the flight. i read commentary on the transcripts, i read almost every oral history nasa did been nyone who could have

periphally lved -- involved with apollo 8. they were smart enough to do these histories long ago. some of these 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 in apollo 8 ? robert: well, mike collins who was one of the backup crewmembers, he was original apollo 8 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 8 or one way or another in training. the biggest break i got was talking to chris craft, to -- director of flight operations for apollo 8 and really the mastermind behind mission control and one of the great nasa legends of all-time. he was 91 when i first interviewed him. i believe 94 now.

he was as sharp as ever. remembered everything. you can really explain the context in the background. he was part of the team that decided in an epiphany to send apollo 8 to the moon suddenly in only 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? robert: well, they corrected -- i gave them the manuscript and i said, i want you to change anything or correct any factual mistake but i am 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. i insist. in fact, they saved me several times each of them. i sat down with each of them. we went page by page, sometimes word by word. things these the

guys remembered. the shape of a handle used to abort if there was an emergency. there was a days long argument about that. we finally figured these things out. 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 8 crowd to -- how much time did they give to prepare for this launch? robert: normally launch would take 18 months to prepare for, train for, for the planners, controllers, astronauts to get ready. this was conceived and finalized in august of 1968. they had four months. it's unthinkable. if you talk to astronauts now, they still can't believe this was rushed. frank borman told me a story i still am having trouble processing. i think he told it at the event the other night. he went in one four-hour meeting with chris craft and 10 or 12 of the top planners at nasa worked out essentially the entire flight plan for apollo

8. 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 and these families. 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 felt left out. but on the other hand that one photographer and one reporter started to gain trust, familial feeling with the astronauts' families so they were able to get photographs that most other photographers never would get and i included as many of those in the book i could because they are very intimate glimpses sometimes. there is a photo of frank and susan holding hands. i asked him about that. he said, she was convinced i was never coming home. what she was saying, i may never see you again. you see those moments.

i'm glad for that contract. it helped the astronauts financially, who were not making much money, but it helped 50 years later much more. brian: if you want to see the "life" magazine coverage, is there anywhere you can find it? robert: you can do google searches, life magazine. type in apollo 8. you can see these inside looks at human beings, the human aspect is what is captured by those photographers. brian: four months. who made the decision finally to go? robert: the decision originally was that of george lowe, the apollo spacecraft manager. he was a quiet man. subjects and verbs always agreed. he brought his briefcase to the beach when he was out tanning. he was always thinking and planning. he realized so much could be accomplished and so much could be saved if they went in four months' time. he then pitched the idea to craft. craft thought he was crazy at first but then saw the drill yens, the genius in it.

finally they took it to nasa's loss, james webb. james's first reaction was, are you out of your mind? he went through the risks. he said, anything happens, the whole program is at risk and may not go forward. he reminded them of one other risk nobody had thought of. it might have been the gravest risk of them all. that is if the astronauts died at the moon, no one, poets, lovers, no one, no one would look at the moon the same again. nd the same was for christmas. 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 lunar lander, the spider landing craft that would shuttle the astronauts were the orbiting spacecraft to the lunar surface was stalled. it threatened to stall the

apollo program. what george lowe thought was, if we send a craft to the moon without a lunar lander, we can do three things at once. we can keep the apollo program going and learn all the techniques of going to the moon, fix any problems there are, prepare for the first lunar landing, which would keep the program going such that we might keep president kennedy's promise to the country in 1961 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. sending the first man to the move because there was a top-secret c.i.a. memo in august, mid 1968, that warned the soviets could send men around the moon as early as late 1968. three things could be done if they rushed this thing to the launchpad which they did. brian: this 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

these interceptor missions, very daring missions out of iceland. his job was to guard protected areas and make sure the soviets id not encroach. these were fearsome airplanes he was flying. all these guys flew the most dangerous, cutting edge airplanes. he was up there and 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 because he believed in america like all the other astronauts did, 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 bureaucracy, they held up a sign -- i won't repeat what the

sign said, but it was an answer to bill anders' gesture. brian: the liftoff was what day? robert: december 21, 1968. 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: when was the first moment in the flight there was a concern that something might go wrong? robert: liftoff. none of them, no matter how advanced training they had, was prepared for the power and fury of the saturn 5 rocket. in the second test it failed miserably. they felt a violent pogo effect. anders believed in the first moment of the flight the rocket was shearing off the launch tower. that the fins was being sheared off, it was so violent. hey made it into earth orbit

and sent themselves to the men. there was not a dry eye in mission control when they left earth's gravitational sphere. frank borman had never been sick once in an airplane, test plane. brian: don't tell the story. i have a video of him telling the story. i did when i asked you about this. april 23, 2009. [video clip] >> we might as well get it out now. i got motion sick and puked. [laughter] >> frank, we were not going to say anything. [laughter] >> but i got over it in a hurry and i think clearly, as though i don't think so at the time, because i flew two weeks in gemini and i never got sick in an airplane except when 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 believe so but i loved it, because 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. it was a physicist explaining, borman's sickness, but this wasn't an unpleasant thing to laugh about 50 years later. this threatened to turn the entire flight around. top brass at nasa considered hat. brian: page 200 you say, from below he could see a greenish brown blob about the size of a golf ball moving toward him. explain what they had to contend with when frank borman threw up. robert: well, here it came down below and it was floating toward the other two

astronauts. anders sees it but lovell is in the impact area. anders describes how lovell's eyes narrow as it approached him. it hits him in the chest and flattened like an omelette. that's how anders described it to me. but also he said, when these globules split, you could see newton's laws apply. 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. he had diarrhea. this was -- nobody understood what was happening. again, he said he had never been sick before ever. you have to remember, the hong kong flu had killed thousands and thousands of people that year. nobody knew he had the flu. if he got it at the white house dinner. if he had something contagious, there were going to be three

sick astronauts. that would not work. the doctors and the top brass got together and try to figure out what to do. if you ask bormann, i told him, chris kraft said there was consideration about turning you around. he laughed and said, never. i would have never turned around. i'm the boss there. if i had a heart attack, i would've told those guys, my last words, we're still going. brian: he did not trust the doctors. especially the agency's medical director -- should we assume dr. barry is dead? robert: i believe he is, yes. brian: why would he not trust the nasa doctor? 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 knew they did that. 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. and they were not about to risk that. brian: talking about the sickness of frank borman, you also described how they liminate body waste. how often has that been described over the years? robert: sometimes people describe it. i like to think i did it most poetically. it was fascinating to me. they described it and 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. he began eating a low-residue diet. high residue diet. it must be low. before the trip and was successful. brian: that was six days. robert: six days.

brian: here is 16 seconds of the apollo eight command module. halfway to the moon. 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 light. we have about 40 hours left to o. brian: what else scared them that things might not go right and what else 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 lunar surface and back. it acted as a backup engine in case anything went wrong. for apollo 8, to get into lunar orbit and get out and come home, their 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 had to work perfectly and there was no redundancy concerned everybody. it 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: they would find that out later. these were the early stages. frank did not know, but it was under way. brian: marilyn lovell can to -- came to visit her. what's that story? this is in the middle of when they are on their way to the moon. robert: this is a particularly ense time and susan went to -- marilyn went to susan's home for support. to have a sisterhood with her. 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. marilyn had no idea the suffering susan borman was enduring. had she known, she would have understood completely. maybe might not have even gone over but she waited for her and i think she waited two hours. susan never appeared. susan was curled up in the fetal position listening to the squawk box just waiting for the inevitable demise of her husband. she couldn't help it. she was suffering terribly. if you ask marilyn today, she'd say, i would not have even bothered her. but these are the stress of the women were undergoing. brian: when did frank find out about this? 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 -- not just to her family but to her country. to all eyes but hers she was happy and carefree and

supportive. but inside she was dying. brian: here is jim lovell from the module telling us what the moon looks like. [video clip] >> apollo 8, houston, what does the moon look like from 60 miles? >> ok, houston. essentially gray. no colors. just like plaster of paris. sort of a grayish-peach band. you can see quite a bit of detail. he craters are all rounded off, hit by meteorites. projectiles of some sort. [end video clip] robert: there is a real good amount of video and thanks to the foresight of the planners to send television cameras and video cameras up. they had problems with the windows, believe it or not. everything was happening for the first time on this trip so they didn't realize all the kinds of things that could go

wrong. the windows were sort of fogged up. but you can see the arrival. it is all over youtube if you type in apollo 8 and 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 rethey went around the moon 10 times. two hours each orbit for 20 hours. 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

-- home to your wife amy 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 on the screen. it is called an earthrise. robert: it happened on the fourth revolution. anders told me they had trained all these months to take pictures of the moon and study the moon. it was all about the moon. here they came, the spacecraft turned, 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. on it was everything all three of them held dear in the world. it was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen. they scrambled for their cameras. 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 had a color film magazine, and snapped 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 still don't know and i don't know if he knows still. he viewed it as a secondary assignment. i argue in the book when he came back he was the most famous photographer in the world. he told me they had gone all and way to find the moon what they really found was the earth. brian: that photograph, called "earth rising," is there any way to quantify how many people used that photograph? 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. it is not just one of them. it is on the cover. as i said, think it is the most important photograph ever taken. brian: christmas eve 1968. the statement, the television. did all the networks carry this? robert: everyone carried. the astronauts were told more people would be listening to that broadcast that had ever listened to a human voice at 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. there were no committees. no levels to pass it through. they were to say something appropriate. it fell to them to figure out what would be appropriate on christmas eve on the moon to say to one third of the world population. brian: how did they decide? >> first they started to talk amongst themselves. a lot of their ideas were silly. hould they do jingle they knew this was a very serious, historic occasion.

they needed to do something to match the gravity of the moment. they could not inc. of anything that fit. 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. and as soon as that man heard it and the astronauts heard it, they knew it was perfect and that's what they took. brian: let's listen to a bit of this. the first voice is bill anders, then jim lovell, then frank borman. [video clip] >> in the beginning, god created the heaven and earth. and of the earth was without form and void. darkness was upon the face of he deep. >> the darkness he called night and the morning of the first day. from the crew of apollo 8, good

night, good luck, and merry christmas, and god bless all of you on this good earth. [[end video clip] 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. so for a while they did not believe it. but, by the time of this broadcast, they believed and broadcast, they believed and they knew it had occurred. brian: what reaction was there? there were reports of people robert: the worldwide reaction was overwhelming. people poured out into the streets. looking toward the heavens, knowing they could not spot the spacecraft, but looking nonetheless. the men had picked something so perfect, so unifying for some many people in the world, so

appropriate. the story of creation. the story of creation. for the first man who ever arrived at a new world word too much for some people. there were tears of joy all around the world. brian: what are some of the things the astronauts did for their wives or earth at thises they set up in advance? robert: jim lovell did one of the most romantic things you will ever hear of. e arranged to buy a jacket for his wife. he arranged for it to be delivered on christmas day. 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 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. t was this fur jacket. there was a card that said merry christmas from the man in he moon.

brian: here's a photograph. nelson rockefeller had them all together at one point. 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. that is what caused them to be 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 disappointed because it meant he would not set foot on the moon. he had to train for a different role on the flight. 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 the younger anders and that helped also. it is impossible not to get along with lovell. so i think these three were

matched perfectly. brian: did borman fly again? robert: he never flew another space mission. he believed he had done everything he set out to do. we had dealt a significant if not a deathblow to the soviets in the space race and that his job was done. i also think at that point he started to suspect this was hard on susan and his family. since he had done his job, he called it a day at nasa. brian: did lovell walk on the moon? robert: no. he dreamed of walking on the moon and when he was on apollo 8 and thought he would be there one day. 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. that is where i have my primary memories of him as a kid because i would see him on television commercials all the time. he was 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 lovell went into private industry and became very successful. bill anders went on to run general dynamics, the defense contractor. and became extremely successful at that. brian: how did he become an ambassador? >> he was offered -- he was perceived by the government as being very evenhanded. a lot of people appreciated that and his wife loved norway. when they came to him and said, 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. o have done this at the time they did it in such a hurry believe your existence is at stake. they did it in such a hurry fashion only can happen when you are looking an existential enemy in your eye and you that is when this country shines the most and when unreal things start to happen. without that kind of threat, 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 in 2007, "rocket man" in 2018's. alt available on our archives where people can watch them. what's next? robert: that is the hardest art 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. if i had turned one way instead of another i don't know if i would have found this story. it is unsettling to think it depends on luck, but it is also 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. rian: 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. an getting to know the astronauts and spend time with them. brian: our guest has been robert kurson. his book is "rocket men: the during the odyssey of apollo 8 and the astronauts who made man's first journey to the moon.â we thank you very much. robert: thank you. information researched, what is â [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] announcer: for transcripts or to give us comments, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available as c-span podcasts.

>> join us four r for our next edition of q and a when our guest will be the university of california santa barbara eng beneficiary professor will talk about his book "inseparable" the original siamese twins. you can see that sunday at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. the u.s. house is back at 2:00 p.m. eastern for more speeches before beginning legislative work at 4:30 today. members will consider unanimous of post office namings. requested votes will take place at 6:30. bill to are week a advance the bill to advance the federal approval process to store nuclear waste in in in nevada. a resolution to overturned an obama era consumer protection bureau auto financing role. the u.s. senate continues debate on u.s. court of appeals nominations. lawmakers have confirmed 15 of the circuit court nomyeas so

far. watch the house live at 2:00 p.m. eastern and the senate at 3:00 p.m. watch the house live at 2:00 p.m. eastern and the senate at 3:00 p.m. on c-span2. join us later today when first lady melania trump announces her policy priorities. that takes place in the white house rose garden in afternoon. we'll have live coverage here on c-span at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> this week on the communicators, house majority leader kevin mccarthy and minority leader steny hoyer talk about the congressional hack-a-thon seminar. >> it's important we take a tep away from the partisan back and forth and find back and forth and find ways like this hack-a-thon to come together to engage the public in a positive way to make congress more open and more transparent. >> this year we have an electronic mail test going to a number of congressional offices. pretty soon it will transform all the district offices at the same time. what happens, we become more efficient. better data. we understand where we can follow it and we become more accountable to our own constituents.

>> watch the communicators, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. night on landmark cases a. case on capital punish, greg v. georgiaa. . a convicted arm robber and murderer challenged his death sentence. his case case on and four other capital punishment cases were considered by the court. the supreme court ruled against him, but established stricter wishing to r states impose the death wishing to impose the death penalty. our guests to discuss this case, carol, one of the nation's top capital punishment legal scholars and professor at harvard law school. she's argued against the death penalty in a number of cases before the court. she was also a former clerk of supreme court justice thurgood marshall. and kent, the legal director of the criminal justice legal foundation. advocating in favor of capital punishment and a more swift moving criminal justice system.

written numerous briefs and death penalty cases before the supreme court. watch landmark cases tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. join the conversation. written s our #is landmark cases 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 centers and the andmark cases podcast at c spafment.org/landmark cases. >> joining us now are andrew and daniel. andrew are larsen.and daniel they are here for our cram for the exam series that we do every students prepare to take their u.s. government ap exams coming up this week. i remember the ap time, so this is a very special episode.