Part 6: Chapter 20, Voyages to Tsiolkovskia Summary and Analysis

The flight of Apollo 8 took place in 1968 after a twenty-three month stand down following the deaths of Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. The Soviets had also suffered fatalities in their space program when their Soyuz crashed, killing Vladimir M. Komarov. They were also launching Zond rockets and circling the moon. Thomas O. Paine was now heading NASA and on December 21, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders made the historic trip in Apollo 8. Soon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface. The moon shot was pretty much of a dead end mission. Its purpose was science and prestige while most of space was about reconnaissance and communications satellites.

Johnson also believed that space exploration should only be for peaceful purposes and made plans for a U.N. treaty supporting...