Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  Home was still 200,000 miles away, but now the spacecraft began to fall faster, a gradual acceleration that would take it to a speed in excess of 24,500 miles per hour at reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. But that was a long way off, and for now, when the crew looked out their windows, with no landmarks in sight, they seemed to be standing still. A little more than an hour after crossing the Earth-Moon gravitational divide, the astronauts began to prepare for the first of two television broadcasts scheduled for the return journey. Before showtime, CapCom Mike Collins settled some business. He started by delivering a Christmas message to Anders, who’d finally awoken. “Valerie said to tell you that she and the kids are leaving for church about eleven thirty and eagerly awaiting your return. She said presents are magically starting to appear under the Christmas tree again, so it looks like a double-barreled Christmas.” “You can’t beat a deal like that,” Anders replied. “How was Christmas at your house today?” “Early and busy as usual,” Collins said. “I told Michael you guys are up there, and he said, ‘Who’s driving?’ ” Michael was Collins’s five-year-old son. “That’s a good question,” Anders replied. “I think Isaac Newton is doing most of the driving right now.” Collins informed the crew that Borman’s family was at Mission Control. Susan did not want to distract her husband; instead, she and her boys, and Frank’s parents, just beamed their grins to Collins. “You’ve got a whole row of smiling faces in the back room, Frank,” he said. A few minutes later, the Borman family left to return home. Only then did the public affairs officer announce to the media that a message had been forwarded by NASA that morning to Mrs. Lloyd Bucher, wife of the captain of the USS Pueblo, whose crew had been held captive by North Korea. The message read, “You have been in our thoughts and prayers. Your reunion has brought great joy to our hearts this Christmas. Our best to you personally, and to all the families under your command. Signed, the families of the crew of Apollo 8.” The note, the public affairs officer said, had been Susan Borman’s idea, and she’d written it herself. —Shortly before going live on TV, Borman got ready to institute the planned midcourse correction. At an altitude of about 193,000 miles above Earth, he positioned the ship and fired its thrusters for fourteen seconds. In a short time, planners in Houston would know how much the burn had helped, but already they could see that the Trans Earth Injection maneuver used by the crew to leave lunar orbit had been nearly perfect. Twenty-four minutes after the midcourse burn, Apollo 8 went live on the air. It was 3:15 P .M . Houston time, Christmas Day. The first pictures were of the spacecraft’s complex instrument panel, then of Borman in his commander’s seat.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  Right away, the crew believed the spacecraft had split open from the impact and was flooding with seawater. Anders got ready to pounce on the hatch and open it, then get his crewmates and himself out before the ship sank—they’d trained for that kind of emergency—but a moment later he could see that no more water was running in, and he realized that the crew had been doused not by seawater but by condensation around the various cold parts of the spacecraft’s interior. Anders could only smile at the picture: three conquering heroes returned from the Moon, hanging upside down and dripping in garbage. Borman reached for a button and inflated three large balloons, which flipped the spacecraft back over, blunt side down. The men were now right side up in their seats, but it was too late. Sickened by the impact, the high seas, and the sudden inversion, Borman vomited all over his crewmates. It had been bad enough on the outbound journey when Borman threw up, but now his crewmates let him have it. “Typical Army guy!” the two Navy men yelled at their commander. “Can’t handle the water!” Television cameras showed live images from the recovery ship and one of the rescue helicopters. Cronkite removed his glasses, as if he couldn’t quite believe the journey had ended. “The spacecraft, Apollo 8, is back, and what a remarkable trip and remarkable conclusion,” he told the nation. “The spacecraft has landed within two and three quarters miles of the carrier…Apollo 8 has ended up to this point as perfectly as it began.” At home, the astronauts’ wives were overcome by joy, relief, and wonder. Their children hugged their crying mothers. At Mission Control, applause broke out, and a fifteen-foot-long American flag was unfurled, one that eclipsed the giant wall map that had been used for the mission. All three flight shifts were present to experience the moment. “The Star-Spangled Banner” played in everyone’s headsets. “It is a veritable roar in here,” the public affairs officer announced. “The room is awash with cigar smoke. A number of congratulatory messages are coming across this console…I’ve never seen a degree of this emotional outpouring in any previous mission, including Alan Shepard’s…I’ve seen rallies in locker rooms after championship games, happy politicians after elections, but never, none of them do justice to the spirit pervading this room.” Some of the controllers and personnel had also brought along triangular flags with a white numeral 1 sewn in, to indicate victory over the Soviets. Someone at NASA, however, suggested that that might not be the most magnanimous of displays, and the men agreed. Instead, they waved American flags, which to many of them said it all. In Rome, Pope Paul VI, who’d watched the splashdown on television, knelt in a prayer of gratitude. In Communist Cuba, state news covered the return of the spacecraft. World leaders began writing notes of congratulations to America.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  The next morning, as the Bormans sat down for breakfast at the kitchen table, Frank asked the boys about football and hunting, and demanded to know why dog food had been left in the bowl while he was gone. As for Edwin’s broken thumb—by the look on their dad’s face, they knew there had better be a good explanation for that. When the family opened presents, Susan found a new dress Frank had bought for her before he’d left for the Moon. He’d always loved shopping with her, and knew her style and size. In the days that followed, it seemed the world talked only about Apollo 8. A New York Times editorial called it “the most fantastic voyage of all times.” The Washington Evening Star announced that “Man’s horizon now reaches to infinity.” The Los Angeles Times said the mission “boggles the mind.” And Time magazine rushed to change its iconic Man of the Year cover from THE DISSENTER to ASTRONAUTS ANDERS, BORMAN, AND LOVELL . Even the Soviet Union could not hide its admiration. Apollo 8, the nation said, “goes beyond the limits of a national achievement and marks a stage in the development of the universal culture of Earthmen.” In a congratulatory note, several Soviet cosmonauts lauded their counterparts for “the precision of your joint work and your courage.” Telegrams for the astronauts poured in by the thousands. One, however, stood out from the rest. It came not from a world leader or celebrity or other luminary, but from an anonymous stranger. It had traveled over whites-only lunch counters in the South, through jungles in Vietnam where young men fell, over the coffins of two of the America’s great civil rights leaders. It had blown across streets bloodied by protesters and police, past a segregationist presidential campaign, into radios playing songs of alienation and revolt. It had made its way through ten million American souls who didn’t have enough to eat, alongside generations that no longer trusted each other, into a White House where a no-longer-loved president slept. It read: THANKS. YOU SAVED 1968. EpilogueAs the world celebrated Apollo 8, most didn’t realize just how successful the flight had been. By NASA’s analysis, all mission objectives had been attained. The command and service modules had performed beautifully at the Moon. Deep space communications had been excellent. Mascons—the anomalies in lunar gravity—were better understood. Navigation over lunar distances was proved with exquisite accuracy. Lunar landmarks were confirmed for future missions. And the Saturn V rocket, which had been so troubled on only its second test, performed almost flawlessly on its third. Despite the breakneck pace at which they had been working since August, few at NASA took time off during the last hours of 1968, especially those responsible for analyzing photographs and movies returned by Apollo 8. Experts developed film by hand rather than by machine, a painstaking process that assured the film could be salvaged if mistakes were made.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  “You’re the best ones to know.” At the Borman home, Susan and Valerie threw up their arms and shouted with happiness. A Life magazine photographer captured the moment—the purest expression of simultaneous joy and relief one might ever hope to see. At the Lovell home, Marilyn squealed with delight and laughed out loud. What a perfect thing to say, she thought. What a perfect thing to say today. It was twenty-five minutes past midnight in Houston, Christmas morning. Lovell’s words had been inspired by an article he’d once read, originally penned in the New York Sun in 1897. It told of an eight-year-old girl named Virginia who had asked the newspaper, “Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?” A longtime editor there, Francis Pharcellus Church, answered the girl’s question. Church had been a Civil War correspondent for The New York Times; standing on the front lines with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, he’d seen the terrible things men could do to each other, how a country could lose its heart and its soul when it did battle with itself. But for several paragraphs, Church talked about the realness of love, generosity, devotion, and beauty, even if one couldn’t always see them, and how that proved that Santa, too, was real. And so he replied to the girl: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” Leaving the Moon, Lovell echoed Church’s words, and sentiments, even if he hadn’t intended to. Planners at Mission Control were so thrilled—and relieved—to have Apollo 8 back in contact that no one asked the obvious question: Why had the crew taken so long to respond to Mattingly’s calls? In fact, the explanation was simple: Anders had been so busy confirming shutdown of the SPS engine, and grabbing cameras to shoot photographs, that he had forgotten to activate the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna, which broadcast their signal back to Earth. Once Anders pushed the button, Lovell was clear to reconnect with the world. For all the confusion, the SPS engine had performed flawlessly. The silence the astronauts experienced after Lovell pressed the button to light the engine was due to the time the computer took to digest information and send instructions to open the valves. Though the silence lasted only a moment, it felt like years to Lovell. Once the engine fired, the crew was treated to a singular view, one that even Stanley Kubrick couldn’t have equaled with all the special effects in Hollywood. Outside their windows, as Apollo 8 picked up speed and moved out of its circular orbit, the men could see the Moon receding, growing smaller before their eyes. For most of human existence, people’s ideas about the Moon derived from their imaginations, religious beliefs, and unaided eyes. In 1609, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei peered through his homemade telescope and observed distinct features on the lunar surface, an ancient place that, with the aid of this wondrous new instrument, had suddenly become new to man’s eye.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  In front of him, a pair of legs floated upside down. “Well, good afternoon,” Borman said. “This is the Apollo 8 crew.” “It looks like you’re okay, but somebody else is upside down,” Collins said. “Okay, that’s right. That’s Jim Lovell,” Borman said, as if there was nothing unusual about that. “What we thought we’d do today was just show you a little bit about life inside Apollo 8. We’ve shown you the scenes of the Moon, scenes of the Earth, and we thought we’d invite you into our home.” Anders, working the camera, followed Lovell into the Lower Equipment Bay, where Lovell gave a demonstration of how the crew exercised (and bumped his head on navigation equipment, a detail Borman didn’t fail to point out). Borman showed the command module’s computer and its input keypad, then changed cameras to show Anders, who demonstrated how the crew ate in space, his meal floating before him. “The food that we use is all dehydrated; it comes prepackaged in vacuum-sealed bags,” Borman explained. “You notice that all Bill has to do to keep it in one place is let go of it. Except for the air currents in the spacecraft, it would stay perfectly still. He gets out his handy, dandy scissors and cuts the bag. The food is varied, generally pretty good. If that doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement, it isn’t, but nevertheless, it’s pretty good food.” Anders’s dinner sounded appealing enough: corn chowder, chicken and gravy, sugar cookies, orange drink, and hot cocoa. He showed how to use scissors to open the freeze-dried orange beverage, inject water, and make it drinkable. The men smiled and made jokes. Lovell showed off his navigation gear. Borman wished everyone back home a merry Christmas. Anders zoomed in for a close-up of Lovell’s mission patch—the one showing a figure eight around the Earth and the Moon. Then the screen went blank. Even a few days ago, that design had seemed the fancy of a science fiction writer. Today, it had almost all come true. —After the broadcast, the crew broke out their own Christmas dinner. Each man expected more of what Anders had shown the world—dehydrated kibble—but that is not what they found. Wrapped in colorful holiday ribbons (fireproof, of course) and labeled with Merry Christmas messages, they uncovered a bounty: roast turkey with gravy so thick it didn’t even levitate from the tray, stuffing, cranberry sauce. The topper was a gift smuggled in by Slayton himself—a two-ounce bottle of Coronet VSQ California brandy (100 proof) for each man. “Put it back,” Borman ordered when he saw the liquor. If anything went wrong during the remainder of the flight, no matter how minor, the media would blame it on drinking, and there was no way Borman would risk that. Lovell just smiled. He and Anders had no intention of consuming the brandy; still, he thought Slayton’s gesture was just about the greatest thing in the world.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  A moment later, the chopper dipped its shoulder into the yellow-pink new sky and headed for the Yorktown . On the carrier, hundreds of crew dressed in Navy whites jammed the decks, eager for a glimpse of the returning pioneers. On board the helicopter, a crewman handed Borman an electric razor. NASA had figured out how to get three men to the Moon and back again but still hadn’t perfected technology that would allow men to shave without polluting the command module with stubble. When Borman had asked to arrive at the aircraft carrier clean-shaven, a portable electric razor on board the chopper was the best NASA could offer. Soon, Borman was whisker free. On television sets at their homes, Susan, Marilyn, and Valerie watched as the helicopter slowed to a hover over the deck of the Yorktown and then set down. Ship’s crew ran out, ducking their heads, to secure the chopper to the deck. After the rotors stopped, a short stair platform was brought to the aircraft door, and a red carpet was unrolled at the foot of the stairs. The door opened and the three astronauts stepped forward, first Borman, then Lovell, then Anders. They smiled and waved, overwhelmed by the roar of the hundreds of sailors on board the ship, each of whom was away from home for Christmas, just as they were. A giant American flag held by the Navy color guard danced in the ocean breeze. In the sound and the moment, Borman’s mind traveled back in time, over all the training and planning that had been done for Apollo 8, over the thousands of people who had worked so hard for this audacious mission, and he thought about how so few of them would ever be recognized like this, and how so many of them deserved to be. Anders lost his balance for a moment when the astronauts finally made their way down the stairs, not an unexpected result after more than six days of weightlessness. Watching at home, Valerie thought that her husband looked skinny. It was the smiles that convinced the women that their husbands really were home safe. By now, Marilyn was so spent from the stress of the past week that she had little voice left and even less energy, but she couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. “He’s beautiful,” she did manage to tell reporters. “I know that’s no way to describe a man, but he looks just beautiful.” At a nearby microphone, the Yorktown ’s commander, Captain John Fifield, welcomed and congratulated the men. Taking the microphone, Borman addressed the ship. Millions of people watched around the world.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  The men had just been to the Moon—the Moon— and a little romance was called for. No matter; it was enough just to look at the bottle’s red and brown label, admire its fancy script (“Connoisseurs will delight,” it promised), and dream of California, where the brandy had been awarded first prize at the state fair. Each man’s wife had sent along a Christmas package for her husband (NASA requirements: small, fireproof, under eight ounces), and now it was time for those to be opened. Lovell received cuff links and a tie tack with a moonstone; Anders a tie tack emblazoned with a gold numeral 8; and Borman a set of cuff links fashioned from a Saint Christopher medal worn by a family friend during battle in World War I. The men often dressed formally for official engagements, so the gifts would come in handy. There was another set of cuff links on board. Twenty years earlier, as a plebe at the Naval Academy, Lovell had attended the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. There he met another plebe, just for a moment in passing, this one an Army man from West Point. The two strangers exchanged one of their two cuff links. It was only years later that Lovell learned that the man with whom he’d traded was Ed White, who’d also become an astronaut and who’d died in the Apollo 1 fire. To honor their friendship, Lovell had brought his own mismatched set of cuff links to the Moon. The crew had a long stretch ahead of them, and the flight plan allowed for more downtime than it had for the outbound journey or the orbits at the Moon. That gave the men time to rest, and to reflect on the journey they had taken. To each of them, Earth still appeared tiny, just a far-off speck in an endless galaxy. To each of them, it seemed a miracle that all the events and conditions necessary for life had come together in just the right way at just the right time to create their home planet, and that they had gotten lucky enough to be part of it for just the briefest moment in the universe’s still-unfolding story. Chapter Twenty-Three [image file=Image00007.jpg] HELP FROM AN OLD FRIENDBorman climbed into his hammock for much-needed sleep, and Anders took control of the spacecraft. He found himself a bit bored; after discovering the Moon, even a swan dive to Earth could pale in comparison. Thousand-mile intervals ticked by as if counted off by metronome. All was steady. While Anders controlled the spacecraft, Lovell took sextant sightings. Part of how Apollo 8 kept its attitude—the way it was oriented in space—was by aligning itself with the stars. To do that, Lovell would pick out known stars, then mark their positions through the onboard sextant.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  For the next two years, he answered questions, explained myriad concepts, and offered suggestions, all with a literary sensibility and the warmth and patience of an old friend. Writers sometimes need lucky breaks; one of my biggest came when I found David. My publisher, Random House, continues to be like family to me. I have been extraordinarily privileged to work with Kate Medina, my editor, since 2005, and have learned much from her about writing, storytelling, kindness, integrity, and decency; she remains one of my favorite people in the world. Anna Pitoniak, my other editor for this book, was a revelation. From the start, Anna urged me to view things at new angles and dig into lesser-known elements of the story, all with a gentle grace and deep insight into human nature. She pushed me even when I was convinced I’d gotten things right, and in every instance it made my work better. On top of it all, Anna is a wonderful writer and a lovely person. I was very fortunate to work with her. At Random House, Tom Perry believed in this book from the start and has always believed in me; Sally Marvin has been my champion and friend since 2000; Gina Centrello has warmly supported me since I arrived at Random House; Dennis Ambrose has deftly guided all of my books through production with patience and good humor. Thanks, too, at Random House, to Aaron Blank, Maria Braeckel, Emily DeHuff, Melanie DeNardo, Andrea DeWerd, Joelle Dieu, Benjamin Dreyer, Toby Ernst, Erica Gonzalez, Anna Belle Hindenlang, Emily Kimball, Leigh Marchant, Mary Moates, and Bridget Piekarz. Carlos Beltrán and Edwin Tse designed the gorgeous cover for this book; Elizabeth Eno created its beautiful interior design. My literary agent, Flip Brophy of Sterling Lord Literistic, and my film and television agent, Jon Liebman of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, are two of the best in the game, and have been part of my family for years; when they talk about business they are also talking about life, and I am better for all of our conversations. In Flip’s office, Nell Pierce has been a joy to work with. In Jon’s office, Nicki Beltranena has been incredibly insightful and hardworking, and helped to develop this book for the screen. Many thanks, also, to Brad Weston and Scott Nemes of Makeready for connecting early and intuitively with this book, for their passion, and for recognizing the story’s potential for television. I’m grateful to these people who read early drafts of Rocket Men or have otherwise encouraged and supported my writing: Bill Adee, Dick Babcock, Andrew Beresin, Gabrielle Brussel, Andy Cichon, Josh Davis, Kevin Davis, Katelynd Duncan, Jonathan Eig, Joe Epstein, Robert Feder, Brad and Jane Ginsberg, David Granger, Peter Griffin, Rich Hanus, Elliott Harris, Miles Harvey, Neil Hirshman, John Jacobs, Jon Karp, Len and Pam Kasper, Jennie Lee, Melody Margolis, Gil Netter, Jason Steigman, Gary Taubes, Randi and Rob Valerious, Mark Warren, and Bill Zehme. Thanks, also, to Ken Andre, Dr.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  For seven-year-old Jay Lovell, that was the perfect setup: Ellington was just a few minutes away, and his dad was only too happy to take him along to the airfield to watch the training he and the other astronauts were doing in their T-38 jets. Jay loved it when his dad retracted the landing gear and kept flying just a few feet off the ground, but he stood awestruck when his father once did something radically different. On that day, Lovell pointed the jet straight up after takeoff, and as Jay watched asphalt fly and ground crew scurry, he could see that his dad was aiming right for the Moon. As Lovell learned his way around his new job and his new city, Marilyn settled the family into their new home in a small Houston subdivision called Timber Cove. The sudden celebrity that came with being an astronaut startled both of them. People even recognized Marilyn around town. Lovell understood the slight resentment he and some of the other new astronauts detected from the Original Seven; the new guys hadn’t even entered a spacecraft yet, so who were they to soak up America’s adoration? Soon enough, though, the veterans warmed to the rookies. Once, when Lovell needed a ride, Alan Shepard told him to jump into his brand-new 1963 Corvette, a car that had come complete with the astronaut’s name engraved on a plaque. Shepard had the top down and opened the throttle on I-45 in Houston, showing Lovell what speed really meant. “Boy, how much do these things cost?” Lovell asked. “If you gotta ask, you can’t afford one,” Shepard replied. Lovell made a mental note: Get one . In 1964, Lovell got his first assignment, as one of the two-man backup crew for Gemini 4. His partner would be Frank Borman, whom he’d met during medical exams of astronaut hopefuls. Slayton had named Borman the commander, Lovell the copilot. To Lovell, that didn’t seem quite fair; they were about the same rank, and he couldn’t see why Borman was any more qualified to assume responsibility for a flight than he. But no matter who was commander, there was wonderful news in the assignment. By Slayton’s scheme, Lovell and Borman would be the primary crew for Gemini 7, a two-week Earth-orbital flight, the longest mission ever planned by the space agency. In a matter of months, James Arthur Lovell, Jr., would be going into space. To some, the pairing of Borman and Lovell might have seemed curious—even doomed. Borman didn’t bother with space dreams, spent no energy imagining the heavens. He’d come to NASA for a single purpose—to help America defeat the Soviet Union. In meetings or in training, he could come off as brash or bullheaded if he believed you to be impeding the mission; sometimes he’d walk out on a discussion, even over drinks after work, if he sensed bullshit in the air.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  Opening the box, she moved aside tissue paper decorated with silver stars and found a mink jacket. The best part was the card. It read TO MARILYN, FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON. Marilyn put the jacket on over her pajamas and set about tidying the house, her feet hardly touching the ground as she twirled to dust shelves, glided to straighten pillows. Perhaps inspired by the emotions of the day, her thirteen-year-old son, Jay, kissed his mother for the first time since he’d been in grade school. A few hours later the Lovells were in church. Although temperatures in Houston were heading into the midsixties, Marilyn wore her new mink jacket. Two-year-old Jeffrey, dressed smartly in a tan coat and a hat with a chinstrap, brought along his toy helicopter, which broke while he squirmed during the service. His sister helped calm him by walking him outside. Valerie Anders also took her children to church. All her boys were dressed in suits, and her ten-year-old son, Glen, served as altarboy. During services, Valerie gave thanks for Bill’s successful departure from the Moon and prayed for a safe return to Earth. By this time, the astronauts’ families had composed Christmas wishes for their husbands, which Carr delivered by radio to the crew 209,000 miles away. He spoke first to Lovell. “Christmas morning around your house was kinda quiet, says Marilyn. She said that they’re all thankful the mission has gone so great. They missed having you around the tree this morning, but they wanted to reassure you that your presents are waiting, and the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding will be on the table when you get home.” “Hey, that sounds good, Jerry. Good old roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,” Lovell said. “Hi, Frank,” Carr said, now speaking to Borman. “Christmas morning has come at the Borman house. And the boys and Susan and your mom and dad all send their love. They say for you to stay in there and pitch.” These words meant a great deal to Borman. That had been his father’s motto during the Depression, after he’d lost his gas station lease and things looked bleakest for the family, when he’d taken two jobs, changing tires and driving a laundry truck. In a more private time, Borman might even have cried thinking about all his dad meant to him. But here, on a mission, he remained a commander. “Okay, thank you,” he radioed back to Houston. “Please reciprocate for me.” Carr had a message for Anders, too, but Anders was sleeping and would get his later. Apollo 8 coasted for another two and a half hours, its velocity dropping as lunar gravity continued to act on the ship. At a distance of about 39,000 miles from the Moon was the equigravisphere, the point at which Earth’s gravity became dominant.

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  transport and communication at the disposal of organized religion, and showed a similar institutional and devotional vigour. Cheap print was naturally of huge importance to a Bible-based religion. The sheer numbers of Bibles produced was staggering: between 1808 and 1901 one Protestant anglophone agency alone, the British and Foreign Bible Society, produced more than 46 million complete Bibles and nearly three times as many New Testaments and sections of the Bible. Moreover, the advance of printing technology tempted Protestants away from their long-standing suspicion of the sacred visual image. Bibles became prodigal with illustrations, particularly scenes set in the newly accessible Holy Land, and the ‘Family Bible’ (naturally, the ‘King James’ version for English- speakers) became a symbol of domestic success. It was hawked by salesmen from door to door in the way that encyclopedias would be in the twentieth century, boasting an impressively decorated pseudo-leather cover, opened ceremoniously for children with clean fingers carefully to leaf through its pictures of an idealized ancient Middle East, and linger over its proud entries of family births, marriages and deaths on a handsomely illuminated template page. Certain other pictures gained a special resonance for Protestant Christians. One of the greatest successes was achieved by William Holman Hunt, an English ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ artist and a strenuously if unconventionally devout Anglican, who in 1853 created an endearingly intimate image of the Saviour bearing a lighted lamp, bringing warmth and light to a neglected and melancholy doorway: ‘the Light of the World’. The critics sneered at it, but its triumphant tour of the British Empire on exhibition in 1905 confirmed it as a global rival to any of the classic icons of Orthodox or Latin Christianity.29 Likewise, Christian feminism became as vital a feature of Protestantism worldwide as in Catholicism. Little of it was expressed in terms of vocations to the religious life. That was a difficult concept for Protestants after the Reformation’s monastic dissolutions, although from 1845 onwards a significant number of strong-minded women intimidated or nonplussed male leaders in the Anglican Communion by founding nunneries which exalted episcopal authority while defying actual bishops, persisting with charitable work or the contemplative life in the face of all discouragement.30 Otherwise, visionary Protestant women lacked the opportunities which Marian devotion offered their Catholic counterparts to find a place within existing Church structures. Since Mary was not available to them as a mediator for their messages, they tended to don the mantle of Old Testament prophets, and some of them found themselves excluded from existing Churches as a result. The earliest and most famous of these prophetesses was Joanna Southcott, a gentlewoman from Devon, who passed through Methodist enthusiasm to

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  Vitus Cathedral in Prague on 29 December, the day that the still-Communist Federal Assembly elected the dissident Václav Havel as president. Late victims of police brutality and imprisonment, parliamentary deputies and a jubilant crowd were all swept into a packed cathedral to hear Antonin Dvořák’s Mass and Te Deum. Dvořák’s adaptation of the Western Church’s ancient Latin hymn of praise, performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, was staged with all the sumptuousness of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism. Sitting side by side on ornate chairs, in still-bewildered delight at the sudden eruption of freedom, were the ninety-year-old Cardinal František Tomašék, Archbishop of Prague, born under the Catholic Habsburg emperor, priest since the early days of the first Czech Republic, survivor of Nazi and Communist terror – together with the agnostic playwright President, symbol of all that 1960s culture had brought to Europe, wearing an ill-fitting suit. Behind them were the ranks of parliamentarians who a few weeks before had still been voting through the drab business of a one-party state. They were all happily aware that it was the reversal of a dishonestly conceived ceremony in 1948, when the same work had been staged in the cathedral at the behest of the new Communist leader, Klement Gottwald, to allay the fears of liberal democrats and Catholics about the new People’s Republic. Perhaps only the Czechs could have so stylishly staged this solemn celebration, which was also a light-hearted juxtaposition of historical eras, reminiscences and cultural styles; yet equally, only the centuries of Western Latin ecclesiastical tradition were able to encompass the contradictions. Such happy confusions are worth enjoying and treasuring in memory before the gloomier complications of history crowd back.75 At the centre of the implosion of Soviet-era Communism, another religious anniversary provided the opportunity for the revival of Russian Orthodoxy. In 1988 there fell the putative millennium of Prince Vladimir of Kiev’s conversion (see pp. 505–7). It was a propitious moment for change. The previous General Secretary of the Communist Party, Yuri Andropov, when head of the Soviet security service, the KGB, had responsibility for harassing religion. His recently- chosen Mikhail Gorbachev saw the anniversary as opening another front in his effort to diversify Russian Communism. The state enabled – even encouraged – celebration of the anniversary; church buildings were reopened, religious education and religious publishing permitted once more. Not only the Orthodox benefited; for the time being all those religious groups which had survived in Russia, from Catholics to Baptists, found it possible to operate with steadily fewer restrictions.76 In 1990, as Gorbachev found his reforms creating freedoms which he had not envisaged, the former Metropolitan of Leningrad (St Petersburg) was elected as

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  of our lives, and the work we did together during those years was the best either of us ever did. We quickly adopted a practice that we maintained for many years. Our research was a conversation, in which we invented questions and jointly examined our intuitive answers. Each question was a small experiment, and we carried out many experiments in a single day. We were not seriously looking for the correct answer to the statistical questions we posed. Our aim was to identify and analyze the intuitive answer, the first one that came to mind, the one we were tempted to make even when we knew it to be wrong. We believed— correctly, as it happened—that any intuition that the two of us shared would be shared by many other people as well, and that it would be easy to demonstrate its effects on judgments. We once discovered with great delight that we had identical silly ideas about the future professions of several toddlers we both knew. We could identify the argumentative three-year-old lawyer, the nerdy professor, the empathetic and mildly intrusive psychotherapist. Of course these predictions were absurd, but we still found them appealing. It was also clear that our intuitions were governed by the resemblance of each child to the cultural stereotype of a profession. The amusing exercise helped us develop a theory that was emerging in our minds at the time, about the role of resemblance in predictions. We went on to test and elaborate that theory in dozens of experiments, as in the following example. As you consider the next question, please assume that Steve was selected at random from a representative sample: An individual has been described by a neighbor as follows: “Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful but with little interest in people or in the world of reality. A meek and tidy soul, he has a need for order and structure, and a passion for detail.” Is Steve more likely to be a librarian or a farmer? The resemblance of Steve’s personality to that of a stereotypical librarian strikes everyone immediately, but equally relevant statistical considerations are almost always ignored. Did it occur to you that there are more than 20 male farmers for each male librarian in the United States? Because there are so many more farmers, it is almost certain that more “meek and tidy” souls will be found on tractors than at library information desks. However, we found that participants in our experiments ignored the relevant statistical facts and relied exclusively on resemblance. We proposed that they used resemblance as a simplifying heuristic

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  But we’re worried about this concussion you had in the past.” Anders had never suffered a concussion. Could the doctor be trying to trip him up? Test him? Or maybe the doctor had another applicant’s records and believed he was interviewing a different candidate. Anders’s mother had taught him never to lie. But she’d also reminded him that he needn’t always blurt out the full truth, either. On the spot, he formulated an answer. “Sir, I’ve never been bothered by a concussion.” “Bothered” was the key word. That was true. On his thirtieth birthday—October 17, 1963—the phone rang in the Anders home. Valerie handed him the receiver. It was Deke Slayton calling with a job offer. Anders never did figure out if the doctors had been looking at the wrong guy’s records. And as Slayton offered him a job, he was much too happy to care. —NASA assigned each of its new astronauts to a specialty. Anders focused on radiation and environmental controls—cabin pressure, temperature, carbon dioxide, and so on. He also focused on potholes. After complaining about the condition of the roads near his new house, the town council named him street commissioner, a job he would hold, concurrent with his job as astronaut, for the next two years. Early in training, Anders gravitated toward two of his fellow new astronauts, Walt Cunningham and Rusty Schweickart. All three men had an intellectual bent, and all three were interested in space science. Not one had been a test pilot. Together, the trio tackled the single most vexing question at NASA: How does a new astronaut best position himself to get selected as soon as possible for a space flight? After careful analysis, they determined to increase their physical fitness, become more expert in their specialties, and further master the science of space travel. None of it made a ripple. To Anders, it seemed the more he and his pals tried, the more invisible they became to Slayton, the man who assigned astronauts to flights. And then it dawned on Anders. Slayton considered him, Cunningham, and Schweickart to be nerds. Slayton didn’t seem to give a damn about Anders’s advanced degree in nuclear engineering, or Cunningham’s doctoral work in physics, or Schweickart’s research on upper atmospheric physics at MIT. He certainly didn’t seem to appreciate that Anders had signed up for extra geology field trips. Selection appeared to come down to two criteria: seniority and one’s standing as a test pilot. And that wasn’t good news for Anders or his friends. It all struck Anders as unfair, but he still had to look for an edge. It seemed to him that Slayton, an avid hunter, liked astronauts who joined his hunts. Anders had little interest in shooting game, but when an invitation to an antelope hunt went out, he signed up. Slayton and at least a dozen astronauts packed rifles and flew to Lander, Wyoming.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  moves. Prom night came, the dance floor shook, and Jim and Marilyn became an item. Near the end of his junior year, Jim and some friends planned to build a rocket. Gathering cardboard mailing tubes for the body and #10 tin cans for fuel tanks was a cinch; finding rocket fuel was another matter. Jim got a formula from his chemistry teacher, then found a company in Chicago that sold the ingredients to make the fuel, but when he arrived something seemed amiss—the place, located in a tall building downtown, looked more like an attorney’s office than a hardware store. When Jim placed his order, the receptionist arched an eyebrow. “You want sulfur, potassium nitrate, and charcoal?” “Yes, ma’am, just a few pounds.” She asked for Jim’s name—his full name—then summoned a man from the back. “Do you know what those chemicals make when mixed together?” the man asked. “Yes, sir. Rocket fuel.” “No, son. That’s gunpowder.” No one looked more surprised than Jim. But he told the man he was still willing to buy it. The man, however, was not willing to sell. For one, he told Jim, the company sold its chemicals by the truckful. Second, Jim was seventeen. Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, Jim was seventeen. Back in Milwaukee, Jim’s teacher got a kick out of the story, then helped him and his friends find the chemicals in appropriate quantities. A few days later, a three-foot rocket took shape, complete with wooden nose cone and fins, and a fuse made from a soda straw. Protected by a welder’s mask, Jim took the creation to an open field, lit the fuse, and ran with pals for cover behind rocks. Across the way, Marilyn watched from a safe distance. On ignition, the rocket screamed into the sky, leaving a trail of crooked smoke as it climbed eighty feet before exploding and raining down blackened shards of cardboard tubing. Somewhere, Robert Goddard was smiling. —

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  At the Lovell home, the children scrambled over each other to unwrap their gifts, many of which were delivered by a family friend wearing a Santa suit. When young Jeffrey ran outside to show the gathered reporters the toys he’d received, Marilyn noticed a photographer from the Associated Press, one of the nicer members of the press corps who’d been covering the family, standing in the cold. She walked outside to talk to him. “Why don’t you go home to your family?” she asked. “It’s Christmas.” “I can’t until I get a picture,” he replied. “Okay, wait a minute,” Marilyn said, then went back into her house. A few minutes later, the Lovell children came outside, each holding a new toy—a pogo stick, race cars, a yellow helicopter. The photographer snapped away. When he finally had his fill, Marilyn wished him a merry Christmas—and gently urged him on his way. Although she was sure the man had gone, the doorbell rang again. This time the man standing before her was finely dressed and wearing a chauffeur’s cap. Parked behind him was a Rolls-Royce. In his arms he held a box from the Neiman Marcus department store, beautifully wrapped in blue foil and decorated by two sequined spheres, one colored like the Earth, the other like the Moon. When Marilyn looked closer, she could see a little toy spaceship hovering over the lunar surface. Opening the box, she moved aside tissue paper decorated with silver stars and found a mink jacket. The best part was the card. It read TO MARILYN, FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON. Marilyn put the jacket on over her pajamas and set about tidying the house, her feet hardly touching the ground as she twirled to dust shelves, glided to straighten pillows. Perhaps inspired by the emotions of the day, her thirteen-year-old son, Jay, kissed his mother for the first time since he’d been in grade school. A few hours later the Lovells were in church. Although temperatures in Houston were heading into the midsixties, Marilyn wore her new mink jacket. Two-year-old Jeffrey, dressed smartly in a tan coat and a hat with a chinstrap, brought along his toy helicopter, which broke while he squirmed during the service. His sister helped calm him by walking him outside. Valerie Anders also took her children to church. All her boys were dressed in suits, and her ten-year-old son, Glen, served as altarboy.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  “Is the Moon really made of green cheese?” “No,” Anders replied. “It’s made of American cheese.” Soon after, the Yorktown called to the capsule asking what the astronauts might like for breakfast. The answer was unanimous: biscuits, steak, and eggs. As daylight broke, three swimmers worked to open the spacecraft’s hatch. When it lifted, one of the swimmers stuck his head inside, only to recoil as if repelled by a force field. He soon found his feet and, along with the others, helped the crew of Apollo 8 out of the capsule. As they stepped onto the inflatable platform around the spacecraft, none of the three astronauts could imagine a smell sweeter than the fresh sea air—a smell they’d known forever and yet was new to them today. A helicopter dropped a life raft into the water, and one by one, the astronauts climbed inside. The helicopter then lowered a basket-shaped net for the crew; one at a time, they were hoisted into the chopper. Anders was the last to go. Looking up at the helicopter, it struck him that almost everything on Apollo 8 had been designed with great redundancy, yet here he was, at the very end of his journey, hanging over the ocean by a single wire. It was 11:14 A.M. Houston time when the helicopter closed its door. Looking back down toward his spacecraft, Borman gave thanks to the scalded machine, an exquisite piece of design and daring. A moment later, the chopper dipped its shoulder into the yellow-pink new sky and headed for the Yorktown. On the carrier, hundreds of crew dressed in Navy whites jammed the decks, eager for a glimpse of the returning pioneers. On board the helicopter, a crewman handed Borman an electric razor. NASA had figured out how to get three men to the Moon and back again but still hadn’t perfected technology that would allow men to shave without polluting the command module with stubble. When Borman had asked to arrive at the aircraft carrier clean-shaven, a portable electric razor on board the chopper was the best NASA could offer. Soon, Borman was whisker free. On television sets at their homes, Susan, Marilyn, and Valerie watched as the helicopter slowed to a hover over the deck of the Yorktown and then set down. Ship’s crew ran out, ducking their heads, to secure the

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  Borman, Lovell, and Anders dined on lobster tails and roast beef that evening with Captain Fifield, then collapsed in comfortable beds made up with crisp, fresh sheets, getting their first good sleep in more than a week. The next morning, they enjoyed steak and eggs with some of the Yorktown’s officers. That day, December 28, the astronauts boarded a carrier plane and flew from the Yorktown to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. From there, they transferred to a C-141 transport plane for a flight of more than eight hours to Houston. For Anders, it would be the longest flight he’d ever endured other than the one aboard Apollo 8. The plane reached Ellington Air Force Base after 2:00 A.M. on Sunday, December 29. Hundreds from NASA, and three thousand well-wishers, many holding banners with congratulatory messages, were there to greet the astronauts, who were clean-shaven, dressed in blue coveralls, and wearing baseball caps. Under a half Moon, Borman, Lovell, and Anders found their wives and children, gave them red and purples leis from Hawaii, and pulled them close. Eight-year-old Gayle Anders gazed at her father, grateful to have him back and not sure she should ever let go. The Borman boys wore ties and beamed at their dad. The Lovell kids orbited their father, pushing close for his attention, never staying on his far side for too long. Borman stepped up to a microphone, his wife’s red lipstick smudged across his face. “Thank you for coming out so early in the morning to welcome us,” he said. Lovell added, “At two in the morning, I expected to get in my old blue bomb and go home.” (Lovell’s “blue bomb” was the family’s no-frills 1962 Chevy Biscayne.) The astronauts thanked the crowd and their families at a microphone, greeted NASA’s managers and controllers, and smiled for photographers. One boy in the crowd told his friend, “I know they didn’t have radiation because I just shook their hands.” Then it was time for the astronauts to go home. But that wasn’t proving so easy. The crowd pushed forward, surrounding the crewmen and their families, thrusting dollar bills to be autographed. In the surge, Bill Anders became separated from Valerie; NASA staff scurried to reunite the couple, but no one seemed to mind such a short separation, least of all the two of them. Each of the families finally climbed into their car and drove off. In

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  Injection maneuver used by the crew to leave lunar orbit had been nearly perfect. Twenty-four minutes after the midcourse burn, Apollo 8 went live on the air. It was 3:15 P.M. Houston time, Christmas Day. The first pictures were of the spacecraft’s complex instrument panel, then of Borman in his commander’s seat. In front of him, a pair of legs floated upside down. “Well, good afternoon,” Borman said. “This is the Apollo 8 crew.” “It looks like you’re okay, but somebody else is upside down,” Collins said. “Okay, that’s right. That’s Jim Lovell,” Borman said, as if there was nothing unusual about that. “What we thought we’d do today was just show you a little bit about life inside Apollo 8. We’ve shown you the scenes of the Moon, scenes of the Earth, and we thought we’d invite you into our home.” Anders, working the camera, followed Lovell into the Lower Equipment Bay, where Lovell gave a demonstration of how the crew exercised (and bumped his head on navigation equipment, a detail Borman didn’t fail to point out). Borman showed the command module’s computer and its input keypad, then changed cameras to show Anders, who demonstrated how the crew ate in space, his meal floating before him. “The food that we use is all dehydrated; it comes prepackaged in vacuum-sealed bags,” Borman explained. “You notice that all Bill has to do to keep it in one place is let go of it. Except for the air currents in the spacecraft, it would stay perfectly still. He gets out his handy, dandy scissors and cuts the bag. The food is varied, generally pretty good. If that doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement, it isn’t, but nevertheless, it’s pretty good food.” Anders’s dinner sounded appealing enough: corn chowder, chicken and gravy, sugar cookies, orange drink, and hot cocoa. He showed how to use scissors to open the freeze-dried orange beverage, inject water, and make it drinkable. The men smiled and made jokes. Lovell showed off his navigation gear. Borman wished everyone back home a merry Christmas. Anders zoomed in for a close-up of Lovell’s mission patch—the one showing a figure eight around the Earth and the Moon. Then the screen went blank.

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  His hips thrust and circled in an endless cycle, over and over, sweeping her higher. His touch was oddly gentle, despite the pistoning haste of his movements. His tenderness swept into her heart, bringing tears to her eyes. Olivia whimpered, lost in his possession. He felt so good, the friction so deep, the stretching exquisite. “Yes, love . . .” His voice, thick and slurred with pleasure, enflamed her. “You feel . . . so damn good . . .” He filled her with quick, hard strokes, no longer able to be gentle, and she didn’t care. She didn’t want gentle. She wanted passion—his passion. Deep inside, her womb began to clench, then spasm. Arching her back on a scream, she shattered, her inner muscles clutching greedily at his invading shaft. Sebastian pinned her hips, holding her in place for his thrusts, drawing out her pleasure until she thought she would die of it. Only when she sagged into the mattress did he follow her, shuddering against her, gasping her name, filling her with scalding heat. When it was over, Olivia lay stunned, clinging to her husband as the only anchor in a whirl of decadent pleasure. It was forever before he spoke, his voice still passion-hoarse. “Hopelessly compromised,” he murmured, and promptly fell into a deep sleep. [image file=image_rsrc3ZH.jpg] Sebastian crossed the moonlit wharf in rapid strides. He was late for his meeting, but his tardiness was of little consequence to him. All that mattered at the moment was his sleeping wife and the panic she would feel if she discovered him missing. Olivia was uncertain of his attachment to her, as he was himself, but she had given her body to him regardless, trusting him to be a gentleman and claim her as his bride. Nothing could force him to do the honorable thing. He was certain he could return her to her father and successfully fight the proxy. She was intelligent, and he’d been honest about his history, but she had taken him to her bed despite the risks. She was the first person in his life willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, the first person who truly wanted him, not just for an hour’s pleasure or two, but for the rest of her life. He refused to lose her regard. Especially over the distasteful errand he was presently attending to. Sebastian entered the seaside tavern and paused on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the interior. “You’re late, Phoenix.” He turned his head toward the voice. “Pierre,” he greeted coldly. “Dominique.” The French pirates lounged by the door, and Sebastian felt a twinge of satisfaction. Their position was excellent. After what he planned to say, a hasty egress might well be required. In anticipation of trouble, he had set his own ship to sail that morning, lessening the targets that could be used to wound him.