it was months behind schedule. instead of falling further behind the soviets nasa officials had a bold idea. >> the lunar module unfortunately was delayed considerably. and so nasa again in one of the, i think one of the great strokes of management substituted apollo 8 from an earth orbital flight to a lunar orbital flight. >> reporter: if it worked, america would actually leapfrog the soviets in the space race an astronaut, not a cosmonaut, would be the first to fly around the moon. >> it was one of the big gambles that nasa at the direction of the president took in order to establish that america was better than the soviet union. >> reporter: a big gamble indeed. after all it was less than two years before that apollo 1 demonstrated how complex every mission was, how the smallest oversight can be fatal. nobody knew that better than frank gorman, point man in the apollo 1 investigation. nasa tapped him for the latest