December 1968

Those of us who were alive for the turbulent 60's will remember how the U.S. space program helped us forget the trauma of Vietnam, and violence of the civil rights struggles, and the assassinations of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. One of the high points of the space program came on Christmas Eve, 1968, after what had truly been a terrible year. Jeff Jacoby reminds us of what happened 250,000 miles away in a small capsule circling the moon:

But it was only when they turned their camera away from the moon and back to the heavens that the full emotional impact of their achievement began to sink in.

"Oh, my God," Anders gasped. "Look at that picture over there!"

"What is it?" asked Borman.

"The Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty."

Rising above the horizon, over a bleak lunar surface, was the world they had come from, a delicate marble of blue and white, floating alone in the darkness, home to everyone and everything they or anyone had ever known - "the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life," Borman later said, "one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me." It was like a glimpse of Creation - like seeing the Earth as God might see it.

For their Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit, NASA had instructed the astronauts simply: "Say something appropriate." And so, as half a billion people watched and listened 40 years ago this week, they did. Anders began:
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.

Lovell took up the reading after Anders, and then Borman brought the broadcast to an end.

And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering-together of the waters called He seas. And God saw that it was good.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8," Borman finished, "we close with, Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

Jacoby has more background on the events that led up to the NASA decision to launch this mission. It was fraught with peril.