Apollo 8 (December 21st to 27th 1968) was the first spacecraft to take men to the Moon – 50 years ago on Christmas Eve. They did not land but were looking for future places to land. Seven months later Apollo 11 would land on the Moon.
The three astronauts:
- Colonel Frank Borman (US Air Force);
- Captain James Lovell, Jr (US Navy) – later played by Tom Hanks in “Apollo 13”;
- Lieutenant Colonel William Anders (US Air Force).
Saturn V: They were the first to ride up into the sky on a Saturn V rocket, the most powerful ever made. It was not fully tested, gulp, but the CIA said it had intelligence that Russia was about to send men to the Moon.
The Book of Genesis: When they circled the Moon, they showed it live on television, the most watched television broadcast up to that time. As they showed the Moon below through their window, they took turns reading from the first ten verses of the Book of Genesis from the King James Bible (they were all serious Christians):
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…”
The Moon below was a dead world, no trees, more forlorn than a lost desert road in the night. A “beat-up” world they said.
Discovering the Earth: After the end of the broadcast they turned their ship’s window away from the Moon and towards the stars to find out where they were with a sextant.
Then:
ANDERS: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, that’s pretty.
BORMAN: Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled. (joking)
ANDERS: (laughs) You got a colour film, Jim? Hand me that roll of colour quick, would you…
LOVELL: Oh man, that’s great!
Anders took several pictures.
Borman later said:
“It was the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any colour to it. Everything else was either black or white. But not the Earth.”
Earthrise: NASA turned one of Anders’ pictures it on its side to make it look like an Earth-rise and then cropped it to make the Earth seem bigger and more central. On December 30th they made it public. Time and Life magazines printed it. Stewart Brand put it on the cover of his counter-cultural “Whole Earth Catalog” the following spring. The picture is now known as “Earthrise”.
Stewart Brand:
“A dead planet in front of a living one, the living one in all its fragile smallness. [Earth] is neither small nor fragile, of course, but that’s a helpful way to think about it.”
On Christmas Day 1968 the poet Archibald MacLeish said:
“To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold – brothers who know now that they are truly brothers.”
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- The oneness of mankind
- Christmas
- King James Bible
- Things to Come – a 1936 film which ends with man – and woman – reaching the Moon in 2036.
- The 1960s
- The Next Whole Earth Catalog
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So now there are ignorant people who don’t believe that the astronauts even went into outer space. Famous people like Golden State Warriors Steph Curry. Mr. Curry should schedule a visit to NASA and get educated on this subject and rid himself of this ignorance. Just like those dumb rappers and others who believe the earth is flat. I am astounded by the ignorance on social media these days. Perhaps a book on Earth Science or a crash course would educate these people as well.
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Curry claimed he was just joking. I believe him.
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@ Mary
One piece of this post which supports that idea is when Anders says, “Look at that picture over there!” Huh? What does he mean by “picture”?
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Hanks played Lovell in the movie, not Borman
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@ Nathan Higgers
My mistake. Thank you!
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