Relief

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)

  To test it, NASA had fitted each member of the Apollo 8 crew with a Personal Radiation Dosimeter, an ivory-colored device about the size and shape of a bar of soap that Anders had helped to design. It would measure the levels of radiation to which the astronauts had been exposed. (The device had a tiny five-digit analog meter to provide readings.) Now that Apollo 8 had passed through both belts (the first of which extended from about 600 to 3,500 miles above Earth, the second from about 9,300 to 14,000 miles above Earth), Collins wanted a radiation reading from the crew. Borman was eager to learn the results; he’d heard the dire warnings some scientists had made about passage through the belts. Anders, a nuclear engineer who had developed expertise in shielding against charged space particles, felt certain no damage had been done. It was he who radioed back to Mission Control with the results. “Houston. Apollo 8 with a PRD reading.” “Go ahead,” Collins responded. Anders gave the verdict. After passing through both belts, none of the astronauts had received more than about one-tenth the radiation of an average chest X ray. The command module was even better than a lead bib in protecting human beings from high-energy particles. The spacecraft was now about 22,000 miles from home. Out the window, Earth had grown even smaller. The entire planet now fit in Lovell’s center window. “Good grief,” Collins radioed, “that must be quite a view.” “Yes,” Anders said. “Tell the people in Tierra del Fuego to put on their raincoats, looks like a storm is out there.” Apollo 8 was now five hours into its journey. In the two hours since it had left its parking orbit around Earth, its speed had decreased from more than 24,000 miles per hour to just 9,450 miles per hour as Earth’s gravity continued to act on the unpropelled spacecraft. That decrease in speed would continue until Apollo 8 was about five-sixths of the way to the Moon, when lunar gravity would dominate and begin pulling the spacecraft toward its surface, causing the speed to rise again as the astronauts fell toward their target. But even at these decreasing speeds, Earth continued to appear smaller every time the crew looked back. To Anders, it felt like watching the clock in fifth grade: If you stared, it didn’t seem to move, but if you looked away and then looked back a short time later, it had changed. —If Apollo 8 were allowed to fly freely now, without any midcourse corrections to its trajectory, it would coast for about three days, then smash into the Moon. Midcourse adjustments would be necessary, as many as four, if needed. But those would come later. Around six and a half hours into the flight, the first shift change occurred at Mission Control, when the Maroon Team, led by Flight Director Milt Windler and CapCom Ken Mattingly, took over from the Green Team.

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

  he was still as wired as if the spacecraft was just lifting off. Needing to sleep, he requested permission to take a Seconal, which Houston approved. Floating in his hammock, he tried to will himself into oblivion, but his mind was a moving checklist, tuned to the vibration of the spacecraft and its systems. How could he make sure nothing went wrong if he allowed his mental blueprints to go dark? But the Seconal was working, oozing over his brain and melding all the sounds in the cabin— the instruments, the radio, his crewmates—into monotone. Above, Lovell told Houston he was going to throw a switch and... “Jim—not that one!” Anders cried, wide awake, thrusting up a hand and stopping the action. It wasn’t that Anders didn’t trust Lovell. But Lovell had been a later addition to the crew (after replacing Collins) and hadn’t had the opportunity to learn the command module the way he and Borman had. Long ago, Anders had determined not to tolerate much help on systems from Lovell, despite a deep respect for his crewmates’ competence and capabilities. Anders finally drifted off, for perhaps an hour, then shook off the effects of the sleeping pill, climbed back into his seat, and started working again. By now, Houston understood that the sleep schedules they’d engineered into the flight plan had long since drifted away. From this point forward, the crew would sleep according to their needs. The astronauts spent the next several hours cruising, checking their systems and navigation, and looking back at an ever-shrinking Earth. At around forty hours into the flight, CapCom Jerry Carr radioed a news bulletin to Apollo 8. After 335 days of captivity, torture, and starvation, the crew of the American ship USS Pueblo had been released by their captor, the Communist government of North Korea. In January 1968, the Pueblo, a U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship disguised to look like a fishing vessel, had deployed to waters just outside North Korean boundaries. She’d been sent on a covert mission to intercept military communications from that Communist regime, but just a few days into the operation, crews from several North Korean gunboats opened fire on the American ship, killing one crewman before boarding the Pueblo and taking its remaining crew, including the commander, prisoner.

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

  Galileo wrote, “We certainly see the surface of the Moon to be not smooth, even, and perfectly spherical, as the great crowd of philosophers have believed about this and other heavenly bodies, but, on the contrary, to be uneven, rough, and crowded with depressions and bulges. And it is like the face of Earth itself, which is marked here and there with chains of mountains and depths of valleys.” He made beautiful sketches of what he saw, using shadows near the Moon’s terminator—the line that divides dark from light on the lunar surface—to pick out features undetectable to the naked eye, including craters. The dark parts of the Moon, Galileo theorized, were low-lying plains or dry seas, the bright parts mountains and highlands. Now, more than three centuries years later, three men had become the first to see with their own eyes the detail that Galileo had observed through his telescope, and they knew the sketches he made had been perfect. —Kraft finally allowed himself to exhale. He could see Deke Slayton, the man at NASA in charge of astronaut training and crew selection, step forward to speak to the men aboard Apollo 8. Ordinarily, it was just the CapCom who did the talking, but this moment was extraordinary. “Good morning, Apollo 8, Deke here. I just would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas on behalf of everyone in the Control Center, and I’m sure everyone around the world. None of us ever expect to have a better Christmas present than this one. Hope you get a good night’s sleep from here on and enjoy your Christmas dinner tomorrow; and look forward to seeing you in Hawaii on the twenty-eighth.” “Okay, leader,” Borman replied. “We’ll see you there. That was a very, very nice ride, that last one. This engine is the smoothest one.” Several minutes later, the large display in Mission Control shifted from a map of the Moon to one showing Earth—lit up in red and green. A six-foot Christmas tree, twinkling with lights and tinsel, was moved to the front of the room, where everyone could take in its splendor and see its bright blue Earth-shaped ornament at the top. But neither Borman, nor Slayton, nor anyone else took it for granted that Apollo 8 was home free, or anywhere close to it. The crew still had to travel 240,000 miles, make sure the guidance system worked, separate from the service module that had kept them alive, then survive reentry at record speeds. Even if all that worked, parachutes had to open, a landing site had to be hit, and the command module had to survive intact. One hour after lighting the SPS engine for TEI, Apollo 8 was 3,225 miles away from the Moon and traveling at 4,125 miles per hour. That speed would decrease until lunar gravity gave way to Earth’s gravity, and then Apollo 8 would begin falling faster and faster to its final destination.

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

  Not long after, the doctor explained his thinking in a press conference, telling reporters that “this may be the type of thing that we see with motion sickness, it is just going to take some more watching to see.” NASA’s public affairs officer announced the same to America. Listening at home, Fred Borman could only smile. He knew his father. Even if he’d suffered a heart attack and was lying paralyzed in the spacecraft, he would have ordered Lovell and Anders to continue the mission. That was his dad. —Apollo 8 was now 140,000 miles from Earth and just 100,000 miles from the Moon. In about an hour, the crew would be making its first live television broadcast. It had been more than twelve hours since Borman had taken sick. Now he felt better. As the telecast time drew closer, the spacecraft’s high gain antenna was adjusted and communications checked. The antenna, comprising four 31-inch dishes, could swivel to point at Earth to send and receive tracking, voice, and television signals. When the astronauts of Apollo 7 had made their appearance in living rooms across America two months earlier, they had done so from an altitude of about 150 miles. When Apollo 8 would go live for the first time, it would do so from almost a thousand times that distance. No one knew if it would work. Barbecue mode was halted so that the antenna could remain pointed at Earth. In the command module, the crew worked to set up a four-and-a-half-pound black-and-white RCA video camera fitted with one of two available lenses—one to show the inside of the cabin, the other to show the views out the window. If all went well, the broadcast would begin at about three in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time in the United States, when many families would be home watching Sunday’s professional football games. Borman hadn’t wanted to bring television cameras in the first place, and when the flight plan was being made, he had bristled at the idea of interrupting NFL playoff action, which he would now be watching himself if only the high gain antenna could pull in the signal from Earth. Before the scheduled broadcast, Valerie had gathered her children in front of the family’s television and flipped on the special programming, then gone out to answer a few questions from reporters. When she returned, the TV was tuned to cartoons, a situation she quickly remedied. The broadcast began a minute later. “Are you receiving television now?” Borman asked Houston. On millions of sets across America, a gray screen flickered and flashed. Suddenly there was Borman, slightly blurry, diagonal, and seated at the controls of Apollo 8, his right hand on a joystick-shaped thruster control, his left hand waving to the world.

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

  Moments later, Apollo 8 was in orbit around Earth. In Houston, Kraft, Collins, and rows of others exhaled. This was the first time the Saturn V had been asked to deliver men into space, and it had succeeded. — The Saturn’s third stage had worked beautifully, but unlike the previous two stages, it did not separate from the spacecraft. It would be needed again, in about two hours and forty minutes—this time to send Borman, Lovell, and Anders to the Moon. Apollo 8 settled into an easy orbit around Earth. It would circle the planet every 88 minutes and 10 seconds, with a perigee (closest point to Earth) of 113 miles and an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 119 miles. With no more external forces pushing them forward, the astronauts experienced weightlessness inside the cabin. Borman and Lovell were old hands with the sensation, which was caused not by a lack of gravity but by being in the constant freefall that is orbit. Anders couldn’t wait to give it a go. But it wasn’t time to unstrap yet. Apollo 8 was in a parking orbit around Earth for a reason—to allow the crew and controllers to confirm the proper function of the spacecraft’s systems and hardware. Only if all looked flawless would Borman, Lovell, and Anders be allowed to leave the planet. While the astronauts checked their spacecraft, their wives met the press back on Earth. Standing on her front lawn, still wearing pearls and with her hair in a perfect blond flip, Susan Borman told reporters, “This is very much different from Gemini 7. The magnitude of this entire thing is very difficult to comprehend and hasn’t sunk in on me. I’ve always been known as a person who had something to say. Today, I am speechless. I’m too emotionally drained to talk.” Nearby, a tearful Valerie Anders, wearing a bright yellow raincoat and black patent leather shoes, told the press that no one had spoken in her home during lift-off. “It was beautiful and it has remained beautiful,” she said. When the interviews concluded, the women returned to their squawk

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

  In the capsule, Borman, Lovell, and Anders were still covered in vomit and garbage. The spacecraft had come through unimaginable heat with almost no effect on cabin temperatures, but now, bobbing on the waves, it began to grow hot inside, likely from retained heat sizzling upon impact with the water. Temperatures soon subsided, however, and Anders began to appreciate how beautifully the heat shield had worked. The huge chunks he’d seen flying off during reentry had really been just granular in size; surrounded by an ionized haze, and streaking by at thousands of miles per hour, they had appeared through his window like fiery baseballs. The crew worked to remove their straps while helicopters circled above. Recovery forces itched to get to work, but NASA protocol required them to wait for the break of dawn and the onset of natural light, in about forty-five minutes, so all they could do was hover, close in, and shine lights around the bobbing capsule. Men armed with rifles scanned the waters to make sure no sharks were in the area during recovery time. Just before first light, several swimmers dropped from their chopper into the water. When they reached Apollo 8, they affixed an inflatable collar to the spacecraft, stabilizing it and providing a platform on which to step and work. Through a window, one of the swimmers flashed a thumbs-up to Anders, who returned the gesture. While the Yorktown moved toward the recovery scene, one of the helicopter pilots radioed the astronauts with a question. “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.

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

  Now, however, when Mission Control called the spacecraft with their verdict on Borman’s illness, none of the wives could hear it, nor could the media. “We are on a private loop now,” Collins said to the crew, “and we would like to get some amplifying details on your medical problems. Could you go back to the beginning and give us a brief recap, please?” “Mike, this is Frank. I’m feeling a lot better now,” Borman responded. “I think I had a case of the twenty-four-hour flu.” Given that flu viruses could be contagious, that might not have been the best answer to provide. Collins asked the commander to review the history of his illness—when it started, what symptoms he experienced, the works. Borman provided the details. Then Dr. Berry jumped on the line—the man Borman least wanted involved. “Frank, this is Chuck. The story we got from the tape…went like this: At some ten to eleven hours ago, you had a loose BM, you vomited twice, you have a headache, you’ve had some chills, and they thought you had a fever. Is that affirm?” “Everything is true, but I don’t have a fever now. I slept for a couple hours and the nausea is gone, and controlling the loose BM. I think everything’s in good shape now.” “Did you have a sore throat?” “The roof of my mouth was sore, roger.” “And as we understand it at the moment, Frank, neither Bill nor Jim have anything at the present time except some nausea. Is that right?” “No, none of us are nauseated now. We’re all fine now.” Dr. Berry told Borman to take a Lomotil tablet, an antidiarrhetic. If needed, Borman was also to take Marezine, a drug used to counter nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms associated with motion sickness. But Borman and his crewmates were more interested in what Berry had not told them to do. He had not told them to come home. At least not yet. Dr. Berry looked at Kraft, the flight directors, and General Samuel Phillips, director of NASA’s Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program. Ultimately, the decision belonged to Flight Director Cliff Charlesworth, but everyone was involved in this determination. Based on what they’d all just heard, a decision had to be made now, on the spot, about aborting the mission. The men spoke for a few moments, then motioned to Collins to radio back to the crew. “Apollo 8, Houston,” Collins called. “We are closing this circuit down and we will be up in our normal voice loop in about five minutes. And then we will get on with the water dump.” By which NASA meant, “Let’s keep this thing going.” Dr. Berry and the others had determined that Borman’s illness had passed, and that if it recurred, it could be treated.

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

  While Marilyn Lovell remained surrounded by family and friends (and her priest), Susan Borman sat alone in her kitchen, lips pursed, trying to divine good or bad in the radio silence. Valerie Anders, teetering on the edge of sleep (it was not quite four thirty in the morning), believed the crew would appear right on time, a confidence that her nervous friends, who’d gathered to support her this predawn morning, must have appreciated. As the countdown to predicted signal reacquisition reached one minute, Mission Control fell silent. CapCom Jerry Carr began to call to the spacecraft, broadcasting into a silent vacuum. “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” Finally, a voice came through the headsets at Mission Control. “Go ahead, Houston, Apollo 8.” It was Lovell. “Burn complete,” he told his colleagues on Earth. Mission Control exploded in cheers and applause. Apollo 8 had come around to the near side of the Moon. The contact had occurred within one second of NASA’s estimate. Chris Kraft’s eyes began to mist over. He could see Bob Gilruth, the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, wiping away his own tears, hoping no one would see him cry. The two men embraced but couldn’t speak; their throats were too swollen with emotion to talk. Cheers also erupted in the astronauts’ homes. Marilyn Lovell felt proud of her husband—his voice had been the first one broadcast from the Moon. To Valerie Anders, Lovell’s simple statement—“Burn complete”—sounded like an ebullient “We’re still here!” Susan Borman was happy that her sons were happy, but she felt no sense of relief. She’d seen this movie a thousand times in her head, and it always ended the same way. —Sixteen minutes after appearing on the lunar near side, Apollo 8 passed over the Sea of Fertility, an expanse roughly the size of France, visible with the naked eye to observers on Earth as one of the prominent dark patches on the Moon’s eastern limb. “What does the ol’ Moon look like from sixty miles?” Carr asked the astronauts. Lovell took the question. For the first time, man was about to hear man describe the Moon, not as a distant observer, but as an eyewitness. “Okay, Houston,” Lovell said. “The Moon is essentially gray, no color; looks like plaster of Paris, sort of a grayish beach sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn’t stand out as well here as it does back on Earth. There’s not as much contrast between that and the surrounding craters.” He paused for a moment, taking in more of the expanse beneath him. “The craters are all rounded off. There’s quite a few of them, some of them are newer. Many of them look like, especially the round ones, look like [they were] hit by meteorites or projectiles of some sort. Langrenus is quite a huge crater; it’s got a central cone to it.

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

  Putting down the telephone after speaking with President Johnson, he knew he’d made it. After the call, seventeen doctors, researchers, and medical technicians inspected the astronauts, taking blood, conducting tests, making sure all was well. Even a psychiatrist got his turn, looking for signs that such profound separation from home and family and Earth might have disturbed the men’s psyches. Other than some stiff legs—and Lovell’s lingering tendency to let go of things in midair and expect them to float—everyone checked out fine. Following their medical examinations, the crew were allowed to phone their wives; even from a distance of several thousand miles and through the thick static, these women never sounded so close. The astronauts made their way back to the flight deck to thank the crew of the Yorktown and to meet with the swimmers who’d made the recovery. While shaking hands, Anders recognized the man who’d first opened the hatch of the spacecraft. “That was really great, Corporal,” Anders said. “I noticed, though, that when you poked your head in you fell backward. Was it the way we looked?” “No, sir,” the man replied. “It was the way you smelled.” The astronauts had a good laugh about that one. By now, it had been several hours since splashdown. In Houston, Susan, Marilyn, and Valerie tried to adjust to the idea that they needn’t worry anymore, that today was now just a regular Friday. At Mission Control, it was finally time to celebrate. Consoles were unplugged and data secured, and many of the controllers and managers returned to the haunts that had been bridges for the endless nights and years they’d spent working to get to the Moon. Some went to the Singing Wheel, some to the Flintlock, others to the Holiday Inn across from NASA in Houston. Most everyone drank and smoked cigars and raised toasts. At the Flintlock, John Aaron and Rod Loe, who’d worked with Anders to write mission rules and procedures, stood at the bottom of the stairs, not yet ready to go up and join the party. “What are you guys doing?” a friend asked. “Why aren’t you upstairs?” Loe thought it over for a moment. “We’re just standing here thinking how proud we are to be Americans,” he said. —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 .

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

  Kennedy demanded they be removed. Khrushchev refused, but in October 1962, he was facing a different kind of president. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of the island. For thirteen days, the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. But Kennedy refused to call off the blockade. Just as it seemed both sides had no choice but to use their nuclear weapons, Khrushchev backed down and removed the missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis had been among the most tense and dangerous events in American history, but when it ended, the world had a different opinion about the will of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. — In mid-November 1963, Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral, where he was briefed on America’s developing colossus, the Saturn V, the 36-story-tall three-stage booster being built to take Americans to the Moon. Standing outside with rocket designer Wernher von Braun, Kennedy shook his head in wonder at it all. These men in shirtsleeves and ties were building machines to take human beings to new worlds. Six days later, the president was dead from an assassin’s bullet. In the wake of Kennedy’s killing, some wondered whether the nation’s will to land a man on the Moon might have died with him. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, supported the space program and pushed to keep Kennedy’s deadline, but problems with logistics, spacecraft, rockets, and engineering bogged down the American effort. Some NASA analysts put the chances of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade at just one in ten. In 1964, the Soviet Union only widened its lead in the race to the Moon. But NASA wouldn’t give up. Over the next three years, the Americans and Soviets volleyed for supremacy in space. Project Gemini, designed to perfect techniques the Apollo flights would use to land men on the Moon, opened a floodgate of progress. In the Soviet Union, the skies darkened. Its space program had managed a few interesting missions, but nothing close to the game changers that had put them so far ahead for so long. By the end of 1966, the Soviets were panicked. For the first time since the Space Race began, they were losing. The American advantage never looked stronger than on January 27,

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

  life now, it would mean Apollo 8 had come out too soon. Kraft, Bostick, and others watched a clock that was counting down to the time the spacecraft would reappear if the burn had not taken place. It seemed antithetical at NASA to hope for nothing to happen when a countdown reached zero. But that was exactly the prayer in the church- quiet room. When Apollo 8 failed to appear, waves of relief washed over Mission Control. Now Houston had to jiu-jitsu its mindset. In ten minutes, Apollo 8 had to appear, right on time, or it likely meant disaster. A new countdown began, one that could be heard not just at Mission Control but also on the squawk boxes inside the homes of the three astronauts. While Marilyn Lovell remained surrounded by family and friends (and her priest), Susan Borman sat alone in her kitchen, lips pursed, trying to divine good or bad in the radio silence. Valerie Anders, teetering on the edge of sleep (it was not quite four thirty in the morning), believed the crew would appear right on time, a confidence that her nervous friends, who’d gathered to support her this predawn morning, must have appreciated. As the countdown to predicted signal reacquisition reached one minute, Mission Control fell silent. CapCom Jerry Carr began to call to the spacecraft, broadcasting into a silent vacuum. “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” “Apollo 8, Houston. Over.” Finally, a voice came through the headsets at Mission Control. “Go ahead, Houston, Apollo 8.” It was Lovell. “Burn complete,” he told his colleagues on Earth. Mission Control exploded in cheers and applause. Apollo 8 had come around to the near side of the Moon. The contact had occurred within one second of NASA’s estimate. Chris Kraft’s eyes began to mist over. He could see Bob Gilruth, the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, wiping away his own tears, hoping no one would see him cry. The two men embraced but couldn’t speak; their throats were too swollen with emotion to talk.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  children had been girls. Sons were far more important in China; if the third he revealed in detail what child was a girl, the father would have to take a second wife. The third child took place after the first meeting with Pauline: • came: another girl. But the mother was too frightened to reveal the truth, "At the hour agreed on I and made an agreement with the midwife: they would say that the child again proceeded to Neuilly, was a boy, and it would be raised as such. This third child was Pei Pu. made my way to the Over the years, Pei Pu had had to go to extreme lengths to disguise her appointed spot in the garden and stood waiting sex. She never used public bathrooms, plucked her hairline to look as if she at the rockery. I had not were balding, on and on. Bouriscout was enthralled by the story, and also been there very long when relieved, for like the boy in the butterfly tale, deep down he felt attracted to a lady made her appearance, greeted me Pei Pu. Now everything made sense—the small hands, the high-pitched pleasantly and led me voice, the delicate neck. He had fallen in love with her, and, it seemed, the through a side door into the feelings were reciprocated. interior of the rockery where there were several Pei Pu started visiting Bouriscout's apartment, and soon they were rooms and galleries and in sleeping together. She continued to dress as a man, even in his apartment, one splendid salon a but women in China wore men's clothes anyway, and Pei Pu acted more luxurious-looking bath. like a woman than any of the Chinese women he had seen. In bed, she had The adventure was beginning to strike me as a shyness and a way of directing his hands that was both exciting and femi-very romantic, almost like nine. She made everything romantic and heightened. When he was away a fairy tale, and just as I from her, her every word and gesture resonated in his mind. What made was wondering what the outcome might be a woman the affair all the more exciting was the fact that they had to keep it secret. in a robe of the sheerest In December of 1965, Bouriscout left Beijing and returned to Paris. He cambric entered by a side traveled, had other affairs, but his thoughts kept returning to Pei Pu. The door, came up to me, and smilingly asked how I liked Cultural Revolution broke out in China, and he lost contact with her. Be-being there. I at once fore he had left, she had told him she was pregnant with their child. He had recognized Napoleon's no idea whether the baby had been born. His obsession with her grew too beautiful sister, whose strong, and in 1969 he finagled another government job in Beijing. perfect figure was clearly outlined by every

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

  “Longest four minutes I ever spent,” Lovell said. The burn seemed never to end; the rocket just kept firing, the crew hyperaware of the fact that if it lasted even a little longer than necessary, it could smash the spacecraft and its crew into the Moon. “Forty seconds left in the burn,” Lovell called. Anders picked up the countdown. “Five...four...three...two...one...” The computer was ready to shut down the engine. Borman beat the machine to it. “Shutdown,” he announced, pushing the button. The spacecraft, and the men, settled back into weightlessness. In Houston, the controllers weren’t due back at their consoles for another seven minutes, but most of them had already returned and affixed their headsets. On board the spacecraft, the crew checked the delta-v—change in velocity—and could see they’d been captured by lunar gravity. Apollo 8 now belonged to the Moon. Onboard readouts indicated that the spacecraft was in an elliptical orbit, ranging from a low point of 69.6 miles at its perigee to a high point of 195 miles at its apogee. Borman was astonished by the accuracy of the specialists who’d planned the flight. They’d predicted radio cutoff perfectly. And now they’d nailed the dimensions of the orbit to within a fraction of a mile. Knowing their engine had made good, the astronauts were free to take a look out their windows. Below, they got their first clear view of the lunar surface. At the sight, each man forgot his flight plan, even Borman. They leaned forward, pressing their faces against the spacecraft glass. To Lovell, the three of them looked like kids staring through a candy store window. “It looks like a big—looks like a big beach down there,” Anders said. Despite his training in lunar geology, the far side of the Moon startled Anders. Long, oblique shadows showed the terrain to be much rougher than he expected, and with many more mountains, an impressive sight. He thought to himself that Stanley Kubrick hadn’t gotten it right in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which he showed the Moon’s surfaces to

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

  verdict on Borman’s illness, none of the wives could hear it, nor could the media. “We are on a private loop now,” Collins said to the crew, “and we would like to get some amplifying details on your medical problems. Could you go back to the beginning and give us a brief recap, please?” “Mike, this is Frank. I’m feeling a lot better now,” Borman responded. “I think I had a case of the twenty-four-hour flu.” Given that flu viruses could be contagious, that might not have been the best answer to provide. Collins asked the commander to review the history of his illness— when it started, what symptoms he experienced, the works. Borman provided the details. Then Dr. Berry jumped on the line—the man Borman least wanted involved. “Frank, this is Chuck. The story we got from the tape...went like this: At some ten to eleven hours ago, you had a loose BM, you vomited twice, you have a headache, you’ve had some chills, and they thought you had a fever. Is that affirm?” “Everything is true, but I don’t have a fever now. I slept for a couple hours and the nausea is gone, and controlling the loose BM. I think everything’s in good shape now.” “Did you have a sore throat?” “The roof of my mouth was sore, roger.” “And as we understand it at the moment, Frank, neither Bill nor Jim have anything at the present time except some nausea. Is that right?” “No, none of us are nauseated now. We’re all fine now.” Dr. Berry told Borman to take a Lomotil tablet, an antidiarrhetic. If needed, Borman was also to take Marezine, a drug used to counter nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms associated with motion sickness. But Borman and his crewmates were more interested in what Berry had not told them to do. He had not told them to come home. At least not yet. Dr. Berry looked at Kraft, the flight directors, and General Samuel Phillips, director of NASA’s Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program. Ultimately, the decision belonged to Flight Director Cliff Charlesworth, but everyone was involved in this determination. Based on what they’d all

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

  There was only silence. At her home, Marilyn Lovell told herself that Jim had said everything would be okay. This time, Mattingly allowed nearly a minute to pass before making his next call. “Apollo 8, Houston.” Again, nothing came back from the spacecraft. Mattingly tried a fifth time, forty-eight seconds later. Still no answer. Almost four minutes had passed since the ground station in Australia had picked up a signal from Apollo 8 from behind the Moon—an unthinkable delay. Then, over the static and hiss of the radio connection, a voice came through to Mission Control. “Houston, Apollo 8, over.” The voice was Lovell’s. “Hello, Apollo 8,” Mattingly answered. “Loud and clear.” “Roger,” Lovell said. “Please be informed—there is a Santa Claus.” “That’s affirmative,” Mattingly said. “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

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

  appreciated these propositions, and they allied with Catholic Spiritan missionaries when the priests arrived from Europe in the 1950s. Derided and obstructed by their menfolk, many women began developing a spiritual sickness called orpeko, which was caused by an evil spirit. It turned out that the only sure-fire permanent cure for orpeko was Christian baptism. There was not much that men could do in riposte to this: Catholic Christianity had arrived, but it was over-whelmingly female. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most Maasai Christians are inclined to think of the Christian God as a woman, which is not calculated to please the Spiritan Fathers.103 During the same period, Christianity radically diversified in other regions too. Latin America, a culture already overwhelmingly Christian, began to transform its Christianity. Catholic in outlook and Spanish or Portuguese in language in 1900, from the first few decades of the century, Latin America was gaining a Pentecostal presence which marched in step with an increasingly diverse immigrant community, but which also rapidly began penetrating existing communities. Pentecostalism was a new manifestation of its long-tangled relationship with the United States. By the 1950s, there were twenty to thirty different Pentecostal denominations in Brazil alone.104 Then Asia was to produce Christianity’s most spectacular recent success story, although that was not yet apparent in the 1950s. Korea, reduced to ruins in war between 1950 and 1953 and partitioned with a new ‘Hermit Kingdom’ in its Communist north, was to develop in the southern Republic its own mixture of old-established Churches, Pentecostals and indigenous syncretism, which arose alongside the painful rebuilding of Korean society from wartime destitution. Koreans did not forget the witness of premillennial Korean Protestants, who in the last grim years of Japanese colonial rule before its collapse in 1945 had refused to be present at state Shinto ceremonies, considering it idolatry to worship a king who was not Jesus. This was a conjuncture in which patriotism met apocalyptic faith. Koreans were grateful too to the Western powers which in the Korean War had saved them from being overwhelmed by Communism; as a result, they felt very positively towards American-style religion, at a time when many countries in Asia and Africa saw all varieties of Western power as oppressive colonialism. As the 1950s reached their end, it would not have been unreasonable for Christian leaders to feel optimism about the future of their faith after the batterings of two world wars, yet few would have been likely to take a wide enough view to see which parts of the world actually justified that optimism. No one could miss the stirring of Africa, but most attention might be drawn by the healthily full churches of Europe, of its white dominions worldwide and of North America, or the success of European-led Churches elsewhere which were

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

  By midnight, it was clear that nothing had happened at Baikonur. Technically, it was still possible for the Soviets to go, even as late as December 10. But by many assessments, if they were going to go in December, they would have gone already. For the first time since the Space Race began, nothing stood between America and the Moon. — Nearly two hundred members of the media were accredited for an early December press conference in Houston with Borman, Lovell, and Anders. They were shown film of the astronauts training and were then allowed to ask questions of the three astronauts. A reporter asked about recent comments by Sir Bernard Lovell in which the famed British astronomer had criticized NASA for taking undue risk by flying Apollo 8. “I have the highest regard for him and I hope he has his telescope—his radio dishes—beamed on us,” Borman said. “He’s done a great job of tracking in the past.” When asked about the risks of the flight, Borman answered straight, as always. “I think there are sensible risks....If we really believe what we’re doing is worthwhile, then we accept the risk. When we get to the point where we don’t believe it’s worthwhile, I’ll quit.” In fact, Borman had already quit. Several days earlier, he’d told NASA that he wouldn’t fly in space after Apollo 8. Since becoming an astronaut in 1962, his mission had been simple: to beat the Soviets to the Moon. If all went well, Apollo 8 would do that. To risk another lunar journey just to pick up rocks or add a fraction to mankind’s knowledge about the Moon didn’t seem worth it after the battle had been won. As he answered questions and made the media laugh, few could have predicted this sudden turn in Borman’s career. He was the consummate astronaut, a man for whom the mission always came first. Those who knew him best, however, might have guessed that there was an additional reason for his decision to hang it up after Apollo 8. By now, consciously

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

  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. Galileo wrote, “We certainly see the surface of the Moon to be not smooth, even, and perfectly spherical, as the great crowd of philosophers have believed about this and other heavenly bodies, but, on the contrary, to be uneven, rough, and crowded with depressions and bulges. And it is like the face of Earth itself, which is marked here and there with chains of mountains and depths of valleys.” He made beautiful sketches of what he

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  deterioration in my ability to think coherently. As I speed up, my attention is drawn with increasing frequency to the experience of walking and to the deliberate maintenance of the faster pace. My ability to bring a train of thought to a conclusion is impaired accordingly. At the highest speed I can sustain on the hills, about 14 minutes for a mile, I do not even try to think of anything else. In addition to the physical effort of moving my body rapidly along the path, a mental effort of self-control is needed to resist the urge to slow down. Self- control and deliberate thought apparently draw on the same limited budget of effort. For most of us, most of the time, the maintenance of a coherent train of thought and the occasional engagement in effortful thinking also require self- control. Although I have not conducted a systematic survey, I suspect that frequent switching of tasks and speeded-up mental work are not intrinsically pleasurable, and that people avoid them when possible. This is how the law of least effort comes to be a law. Even in the absence of time pressure, maintaining a coherent train of thought requires discipline. An observer of the number of times I look at e-mail or investigate the refrigerator during an hour of writing could reasonably infer an urge to escape and conclude that keeping at it requires more self-control than I can readily muster. Fortunately, cognitive work is not always aversive, and people sometimes expend considerable effort for long periods of time without having to exert willpower. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced six-cent- mihaly) has done more than anyone else to study this state of effortless attending, and the name he proposed for it, flow, has become part of the language. People who experience flow describe it as “a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems,” and their descriptions of the joy of that state are so compelling that Csikszentmihalyi has called it an “optimal experience.” Many activities can induce a sense of flow, from painting to racing motorcycles—and for some fortunate authors I know, even writing a book is often an optimal experience. Flow neatly separates the two forms of effort: concentration on the task and the deliberate control of attention. Riding a motorcycle at 150 miles an hour and playing a competitive game of chess are certainly very effortful. In a state of flow, however, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing activities requires no exertion of self-control, thereby freeing resources to be directed to the task at hand. The Busy and Depleted System 2

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “You refer to Guinevere?” He realized then that their meeting could not have been unplanned. Had the young girl studied in her room, he would never have learned of her existence. For whatever reason, the members of Charlotte’s odd menagerie wanted him to know their secrets. Pursing her lips, she gestured to the nearby settee, waiting until he sat to continue. “Everything I told you was the truth.” “Truth by omission,” he argued. “But the truth nevertheless.” “Was that you in black and shrouded in lace?” “Yes, that was I.” He released a sigh of relief. He’d thought he was insane for feeling aroused by the darkly clad duchess. Knowing it was Charlotte in disguise put the whole encounter in perspective. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Gwen is Carding’s daughter. Since he’s not married, I’m certain you can deduce the nature of her association to him.” Hugh leaned back, noting the sudden weariness that weighted Charlotte’s slender frame. “He left her with you?” “Good heavens, no,” she said, with a bitter laugh. “That man cared nothing for his own father. Think he would care for a bastard? It was Glenmoore who asked me to look after Gwen. He discovered her existence when she was a child, and started a small stipend for her mother. But the mother passed on, and there was no one to care for Gwen. Carding refused to do anything for her, so Glenmoore brought her here. He wanted a grandchild desperately, and Gwen is such a dear. One cannot help but adore her.” “And the marriage?” “It was the only way Glenmoore could ensure Gwen’s future. He could leave me a trust for Gwen, and grant me the rights to claim it, should Carding prove to be a problem.” “A pitiable trust fund,” Hugh muttered. “This place is a disgrace.” Charlotte reached over and claimed his hand, jolting him with a spark of sensual awareness. “Glenmoore was afraid to bequeath too large a trust. Since the marriage was never consummated, as Carding well knows, the duke wanted to give as little provocation as possible for a contest.” She stood and began to pace. “No one can discover who the duchess is, Hugh. We cannot have outsiders questioning who Gwen is. Those were Carding’s only requirements in allowing us the use of this house.” “What future does this place hold for her?” he asked, standing to face her. “What kind of life is this?” “None. Which is why Glenmoore left me the map.” “Bloody hell, Charlotte!” Hugh scrubbed a hand over his face. “’Tis ridiculous to pin all your hopes on that blasted map. Pirate’s treasure and other such nonsense . . . You shall rot out here. And Gwen, as well.”