S8 Ep954: (2) Bob Zimmerman details the December 21, 1968, launch and the historic trans-lunar injection that sent humans toward another planet for the first time. Zimmerman describes the Saturn 5 ride as surprisingly smooth compared to Gemini rockets, despite the

(2) Bob Zimmerman details the December 21, 1968, launch and the historic trans-lunar injection that sent humans toward another planet for the first time. Zimmerman describes the Saturn 5 ride as surprisingly smooth compared to Gemini rockets, despite the primitive onboard computers that required manual data entry of long number strings. He shares Jim Lovell's perspective of the Earth shrinking until the entire Atlantic could be covered by a thumb. Crucially, the discussion reveals that while the Space Race remained competitive, NASA was unaware that Soviet Zond failures had secretly forced the cancellation of their own manned mission.1939