Christmas 1968

Thoughts of the Moon or Luna have been recently re-awakened in me. With Bay's butchery of Apollo 11 to sell Transformers 3. Then the lunar eclipse some of us got to see. Plus looking through many of the Apollo mission images. All of this made me turn to one special Apollo mission, Apollo 8. It was a bold decision by the likes of Kraft at NASA to say we will orbit three men around the Moon. The deaths of Grissom, Chaffee, and White in the Apollo 1 fire at KSC still hung over the whole Apollo program, filling many in and out of NASA with doubts. Apollo 7 was still in orbit proving the newly redegined Apollo CSM would work when it was decided that Lovell, Anders, and Borman would take their ship CSM-103 around the Moon. And the Saturn V rocket that would carry Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins to the Moon in July, 1969 would have its first manned mission with Apollo 8. Nor was this the last of the firsts recorded by Apollo 8. Apollo 8 performed the first Trans-Lunar Injection and the first Trans-Earth Injection. First men to see an Earthrise while orbiting the Moon. First men to see the darkside of the Moon. And of course the first men in history to orbit another celestial body. And of all these firsts, Apollo 8 is most famous for one broadcast the astronauts did while orbiting the Moon. Here it is.



Merry Christmas everyone.