Apollo 8 was the first mission to take humans to another celestial body – to the Moon and back. An important prelude to actually landing on the Moon was testing the flight trajectory and operations for getting there and back. Apollo 8 did this and achieved many other firsts. But besides the accomplishment of mission goals, Apollo 8 stirred the hearts and minds of millions of people across the world, giving them a reason for hope at the end of a troubled year. This cache is placed in tribute to that great achievement which occurred 40 years ago, in 1968.
Note: The cache is not located at the posted coordinates. To find the actual coordinates, you must first do some research about the Apollo 8 mission.
The following is reprinted from an article by Jeff Jacoby, from The Boston Globe.
IT HAD BEEN a wretched and demoralizing year.
In April, Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis; in Los Angeles two months later, Bobby Kennedy was struck down. The fighting in Vietnam ground bloodily on, pushing the American death toll past 30,000 and fueling massive antiwar demonstrations at home. The United States was humiliated when North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and imprisoned its crew for 11 months. Racial tensions worsened, as segregationist George Wallace launched a third-party campaign for president. Outside the Democratic convention in Chicago, TV cameras broadcast appalling scenes of chaos and police brutality. "Seldom," Time magazine observed, "had the nation been confronted with such a congeries of doubts and discontents."
But in its final days, the annus horribilis of 1968 was unexpectedly redeemed by a dazzling display of intrepidity and ambition and nerve: Apollo 8's flight around the moon - the first human voyage to another world.
Afterward, the decision to send Apollo 8 to the moon would be called the greatest gamble in the history of the space program. The mission had originally been scheduled to test the new lunar landing vehicle while orbiting the Earth; the first moon-orbit mission wasn't planned until 1969. But the lunar lander wasn't ready. And the CIA was reporting that the Soviets were on the verge of upstaging the United States by sending a manned Soyuz spacecraft around the moon.
So NASA decided not to wait. Apollo 8 would go all the way to the moon. It was a gutsy, dangerous decision, and not just because flying without a lunar lander meant that Apollo 8's crew … would be stranded without a lifeboat if anything went wrong. Houston still didn't have the software Apollo would need to navigate to the moon. And the huge … rocket required to launch a spacecraft beyond the Earth's gravity was still being perfected, and had never been used on a manned flight. By today's standards, the risks were unthinkable. Apollo's program director, Chris Kraft, figured the odds of getting the crew home safely at 50-50.
Yet in the end, it was a triumph. Apollo 8 lifted off on the morning of Dec. …. The massive rocket, as tall as a 35-story building and burning 20 tons of fuel per second, performed flawlessly. Two years earlier, Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon had flown Gemini 11 to a record-breaking 850 miles above the Earth. Now (the crew of Apollo 8) were on their way to beating that record by more than 230,000 miles.
They reached their target on Dec. …, easing into orbit around the moon just … hours after leaving home. As an Earthbound audience of hundreds of millions tuned in, the astronauts of Apollo 8 - the first humans to view the lunar surface up close - described what they were seeing.
"The moon is essentially gray, no color," (one of the crew) reported, according to a transcript. "Looks like plaster of Paris, or sort of a grayish deep sand." (Another crew member) described it as "vast, lonely, forbidding," a "great expanse of nothing that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone."
But it was only when they turned their camera away from the moon and back to the heavens that the full emotional impact of their achievement began to sink in.
"Oh, my God," (a crew member) gasped. "Look at that picture over there!"
"What is it?" asked (another crew member).
"The Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty."
Rising above the horizon, over a bleak lunar surface, was the world they had come from, a delicate marble of blue and white, floating alone in the darkness, home to everyone and everything they or anyone had ever known - "the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life," (one of the crew members) later said, "one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me." It was like a glimpse of Creation - like seeing the Earth as God might see it.
The actual coordinates for the cache are: N 35 VW.XYZ 093 QR.STU. To determine the coordinates for the actual location of this cache, first find the answers to these questions and use the number associated with each answer to do the simple math problems below:
A. The Apollo 8 mission was launched on which date in 1968?
a) Dec. 19 (A=1)
b) Dec. 20 (A=2)
c) Dec. 21 (A=3)
d) Dec. 22 (A=4)
B. The launch vehicle for Apollo 8 was:
a) a Gemini Titan rocket (B=5)
b) a Saturn 1B rocket (B=6)
c) a Saturn 3 rocket (B=7)
d) a Saturn 5 rocket (B=8)
C. The crew for the Apollo 8 mission was:
a) William A. Anders, James A. Lovell, Frank Borman (C=9)
b) Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Fred W. Haise, Jr. (C=10)
c) Michael Collins, Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin (C=11)
d) Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Michael Collins (C=12)
D. How many lunar orbits did the Apollo 8 spacecraft make?
a) 5 (D=13)
b) 10 (D=14)
c) 15 (D=15)
d) 20 (D=16)
E. The Apollo 8 crew landed back on Earth on:
a) Dec. 24 (E=17)
b) Dec. 25 (E=18)
c) Dec. 26 (E=19)
d) Dec. 27 (E=20)
F. The naval vessel which recovered the Apollo 8 crew and command module was:
a) USS Enterprise (F=21)
b) USS Yorktown (F=22)
c) USS Kitty Hawk (F=23)
d) USS Hornet (F=24)
G. The name of the Apollo 8 command module was:
a) The module was not named (G=25)
b) Columbia (G=26)
c) Odyssey (G=27)
d) Endeavour (G=28)
H. During a famous television transmission made from lunar orbit, the crew read from the following:
a) Jules Verne’s “From the Earth to the Moon” (H=29)
b) Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (H=30)
c) The Book of Genesis (H=31)
d) A speech from President John F. Kennedy (H=32)
I. The Apollo 8 command module landed back on Earth at:
a) N 27 deg 32 min W 64 deg 4 min (I=33)
b) N 13 deg 19 min W 169 deg 9 min (I=34)
c) S 15 deg 2 min W 164 deg 39 min (I=35)
d) N 8 deg 7 min W 165 deg 1 min (I=36)
J. The trip from Earth orbit to lunar orbit (translunar injection to lunar orbit insertion) took approximately:
a) 58 hours (J=37)
b) 66 hours (J=38)
c) 48 hours (J=39)
d) 72 hours (J=40)
Using the numbers associated with your answers, solve the following equations:
N = A x C x E
O = G x I
P = (N+O) x 10
VWXYZ = P + 1030 (Checksum = 4)
K = B x D x F
L = H x J
M = (K + L) x 3
QRSTU = M - 514 (Checksum = 8)
Now, using the values determined above, the coordinates for the actual location of the cache are: N 35 VW.XYZ 093 QR.STU You are looking for a baby soda bottle.
To help you check your answers for VWXYZ and QRSTU, a “checksum” value is provided. To find the checksum of your answer, you must reduce your answer to a single digit. First, add the individual digits of your answer together. If the resulting number is a single digit value, that is your checksum. If the resulting number has more than one digit, then add its digits again to get a single digit value. Example: Suppose your answer is 25. Sum the digits, 2+5, to get 7. That is your checksum. Another example: Suppose your answer is 585. Sum the individual digits, 5+8+5, to get 18. This is not a single digit value, so sum the individual digits again, 1+8, to get a checksum value of 9. Got it? Now you’re on your own! Good luck!
January 3, 2009 Update: Instead of using the checksum method, you can check your final coordinates for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
September 26, 2020 Update: I checked on the cache today and it was missing. I have replaced it at a slightly different location. Until I have a chance to update the puzzle to provide the correct values for the new coordinates, do the following to the solution you get from the current puzzle -- Add 0.002 to the North coordinate and add 0.003 to the West coordinate. If you put the result into the Solution Checker at the end of the description section, it will tell you whether your new coordinates are correct. The hint and cautions still apply.
NOTE: Once you have the correct coordinates and get to the cache area, PLEASE exercise EXTREME CAUTION!!! The cache can be retrieved safely. However, the general area does present certain hazards which could result in injury or death. PLEASE BE CAREFUL!
Also, please replace the cache back in its hiding spot with care, so that it is secure. If not, it could easily go missing again, and not due to a muggle!
This cache was placed with the permission of
the Park Manager, Old Post Park.
At the request of the Park Manager, DO NOT search for this cache after dark AND please use designated parking areas when you stop to search. Otherwise, HAPPY HUNTING!