Fifty years ago, three NASA astronauts embarked on a journey that would take them “around the moon and back.” The Apollo 8 mission proved the performance of the command and service module. This historic mission launched on December 21, 1968 to demonstrate a lunar trajectory and was the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket. On Christmas Eve, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were the first humans to orbit the Moon and the first to see an Earthrise above its surface.
That night, as Christmas prepared to dawn on a tired and ravaged America in 1968 — worn down by riots, protests and war gone wrong — the astronauts found the words to calm a nation.
Anders began the conclusion of the crew’s Christmas Eve television broadcast with these words:
“For all the people on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you,” he said.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
“And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’: and there was light.
“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
These men represent the best of America . . .
. . . and the world.