On their ninth of ten lunar orbits, Apollo 8's crew broadcast live to what was then the largest television audience in history. Each astronaut read verses from the Book of Genesis before signing off with 'good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.' William Anders had captured the iconic 'Earthrise' photograph on this mission, reframing humanity's view of its own planet.
Three men rode a Saturn V rocket farther from home than anyone in history, arriving in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve after a journey NASA had approved only months earlier as a bold gamble to beat the Soviets. As their spacecraft looped around the gray, cratered Moon, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell radioed, 'The vast loneliness up here is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.'
Then came the broadcast. With no script cleared by NASA beyond a suggestion from a friend of Borman's, the three astronauts took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis, their voices crackling back across a quarter-million miles to a planet gripped by a year of assassinations, riots, and war. An estimated one billion people heard it — roughly a quarter of humanity alive at the time.
Days earlier, on the fourth orbit, Anders had swung his camera toward the lunar horizon and captured Earth rising, a fragile blue marble suspended in black void above a barren lunar landscape. Nature photographer Galen Rowell later called it 'the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.' The mission proved humans could survive the round trip to the Moon, clearing the path for Apollo 11 seven months later.
Key people: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders