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Docking was a delicate maneuver, since both ships were traveling at nearly five miles per second, but the docking mechanism itself was one of the simplest on the entire spacecraft, and the docking procedure had been perfected on previous Apollo flights, none of which experienced any significant problems with docking.
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The biggest concern before Apollo 9 was the docking maneuver. In early 1969, at NASA there was little confidence in the docking system. At a January program review, Phillips said that problems encountered during probe and drogue testing worried him…
The Command Module probe and the Lunar Module Drogue
McDivitt & Schweickart practice in the LM simulator
Schweickart in the spacesuit with the backpack
Lithograph print of the negative that flew on Apollo 9, with signatures of Grumman engineers and mechanics
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New York City welcomed the Apollo 8 crew with a ticker-tape parade on the 10th of January, Newark hailed them on the 11th, and Miami greeted them on the 12th during the Super Bowl game. The Astronauts returned to Houston on the 13th for a hometown parade. Incoming President Richard M. Nixon sent Borman and his family on an eight-nation goodwill tour of western Europe. Everywhere they went, the astronauts depicted the earth as a spaceship and stressed international cooperation in space.
Borman, Anders, Lovell, on the flight deck of the carrier U.S.S. Yorktown, recovery ship Dec. 27, 1968.
Lovell, Borman, and Anders (left to right) – back on the earth after their Apollo 8 mission, tell what they saw
The Crew of Apollo 8 on the cover of Time Magazine
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Even a perfect reentry would subject the Apollo 8 command module to extreme stress. With Gemini, the capsule re-entered from Earth orbit, but Apollo 8 would re-enter at approximated 25,000 miles per hour. The forces of heat and deceleration would be much greater.
Kraft, Gilruth, and Trimble in Mission Control
Carr, Slayton, Armstrong (seated), Schmitt & Aldrin (standing) compare Lunar Orbiter photos with Apollo 8 TV pics
Apollo 8 splashdown
