Apollo 8 - "All of you on good Kerbin."

[MattJL]

Just a short, simple mission.  In honor of the 49th anniversary of Apollo 8's, I decided to recreate it with the stock Saturn V that I've been working on for the past two months.

SA-503 stands tall on the pad, with Bill, Jeb, and Bob nestled safely in the CSM.

Liftoff!

The S-IC thunders skywards, burning literal tons of propellant every second.

The five KS-25 "Vector" engines on the S-II take over.

Mere minutes later, the S-II exhausts its propellant, and the S-IVB handles the task of circularization.

The single Vector on the S-IVB burns to near-depletion to send Apollo 8 on a course to the Moon.

The SLA is blown clear of the S-IVB, freeing Apollo 8 from the stage.

Looking back on the S-IVB after it performs a short burn to put it on a Munar impact trajectory.  The additional tankage visible at the top of the stage is a mass simulator for the LEM (which IRL wouldn't be flight ready for another two months).

Apollo 8 enters Munar orbit after a six-hour coast.

Surveying the surface of the Mun.

Kerbin rising above the desolate surface of the Mun catches the three Kerbonauts by surprise - a blue jewel against an endless sea of space.  Jeb rushes to get the camera.

"Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here's Kerbin coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" - paraphrased from Bill Anders.

The best shot of the bunch, cropped and rotated to match Earthrise as best as possible.

 

Hope you enjoyed this little read.  Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you out there!

Edited December 24, 2017 by MattJL