Apollo 8 orbits the moon 50th anniversary Christmas, 2018    Christmas, 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 8 around the moon. When Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William A. Anders went into orbit around the moon Christmas Eve, they became the first humans to see the moon's far side directly and the first humans to enter the gravitational influence of another body besides Earth.    Oh yes, they did see the Earth as a whole planet as they left Earth orbit and journeyed to the moon. Halfway to the Moon, on Sunday, Dec. 22, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew glimpsed Earth outside their windows from a never-before-seen vantage point, slowly decreasing in size as they cut away through the deep black. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful view,” Frank Borman said to Mission Control as the spacecraft sped onward toward its destination.    But the view of the Earth rising over the Moon as Apollo 8 came around from the far side of the moon changed the world forever.

The photo of Earth from the moon. Credit: Bill Anders, Apollo 8, NASA

Maybe the most significant result of that mission was the photograph of the Earth above the moon snapped by Bill Anders. It was the first time the majority of the human race had seen our planet as one complete orb hanging all by itself in the sky. (Yes, one of the unmanned lunar probes took a photo of Earth from the moon earlier.) What this photo said more than any other way, we are all in this together. This is home for all of us.    Another defining moment was when the crew of Apollo read from the book of Genesis. As the Apollo flew some 60 miles above the moon's desolate, gray surface, it said where we all came from.    Apollo 8 was a milestone in our reaching out beyond ourselves and our petty arguments. Here was something all mankind could be proud of. Here was something everyone would be part of.

The Apollo 8 uniform patch

Return to main menu