On Christmas Eve in 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts captured the world by being launched from lunar orbit.
It was the night before Christmas in 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts flashed a message for “Good Earth” while orbiting the moon.
NASA Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders made the first lunar orbit on Dec. 24.
Under pressure from President John F. Kennedy challenging the moon landing and the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire, NASA made bold changes to Apollo 8, an urgent human lunar mission.
The plan sent a crew to the moon and without the lunar module on the first human space rocket Saturn V and with one engine in the capsule to bring it back home.
After launching on December 21, 1968, Borman, Lovell and Anders entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, circling the lunar surface 10 times.
Left: A still image from the fifth TV broadcast of the 8 Apollo mission. Right: An image of Earth from the final TV broadcast. (Image: NASA)
(NASA)
When the spacecraft first slipped into orbit, the Apollo 8 astronauts shared images of the Moon and Earth, including a view of Earth more than 240,000 miles away. The image of Earth with the moon below was made from the most famous Apollo-era images, according to NASA.
Fast forward more than 50 years to December 2022, and NASA’s Orion spacecraft, designed to carry the next humans to the moon, also shared a similar view of Terrarise.
NASA personnel told the Apollo 8 astronauts that they were preparing to share some words with the world that would be broadcast around the world. The sailor was given creative freedom to choose what to say but said “what is appropriate to do,” Borman said in a 2008 interview.
So they mentally chose to read the first 10 verses of the book of Genesis.
Lovell said years later, the message was chosen because of its universal significance.
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“The first ten verses of Genesis are the basis of many religions of the world, not only the Christian religion,” said Lovell in 2008. “There are more people in other religions than the Christian religion around the world, and so this would be. What happened and so it happened.”
When the Apollo 8 capsule orbited the moon more than 240,000 miles from Earth, each astronaut read the opposite direction.
“From the song of Apollo 8, we close with goodnight, happy, blessed Christmas, and bless you all, God, all of you on the good Earth.”
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The moon landing was to be the last before the astronauts attempted to return to Earth, and the mission was waiting to find out if the Apollo 8 engine would fire to leave lunar orbit.
After successfully burning the machine, Lovell announced the command mission: “Roger, please be informed that it is a birthday party.”
The Apollo 8 capsule launched on December 27, 1968 in the Pacific Ocean.
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