During one of the most influential live TV broadcasts in the world, the Apollo 8 astronauts sent messages to the earthlings with verses from the Book of Genesis
Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The three-member crew: Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot Bill Anders, was followed by immense interest worldwide. The astronauts' mission was to enter orbit around the Moon.
This was the first crewed mission during which a Saturn V rocket lifted an Apollo spacecraft into the sky – shortly thereafter, a rocket of this type also delivered the astronauts landing on the Moon to their destination.
Two days and nearly 400,000 kilometers later, on December 24, Christmas Day, Apollo 8 finally entered lunar orbit.
NASA already had the technology that allowed the astronauts to broadcast live TV to Earth. On that day, nearly one billion people (a quarter of the Earth's population at the time!) awaited the astronauts' transmission in front of their television sets.
The mission, which was a test of human knowledge, ingenuity, and courage, unexpectedly gained a strong emotional charge. After entering orbit, the lunar module pilot logged into the most-watched American television program of the time and showcased the magnificent lunar surface to the viewers. He then said: „…the Apollo 8 crew would like to send a message to all the inhabitants of Earth."
At that moment, from the tiny spacecraft soaring above the lunar surface, the verses of the Scriptures were heard. Anders began reciting the first lines of the Book of Genesis, and his companions continued.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God said, „Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good. God separated the light from the darkness.
On Christmas Day, humanity, living in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction and the ideological, political, and cultural divisions of the Cold War, was presented with a sincere, ancient, majestic, another world. This vision was celebrated by the astronauts with the verses of Genesis.
After the mission, the crew gave the world another gift: the photograph known as Earthrise, which shows our blue-and-white planet rising above the gray lunar landscape, and nothing better illustrates the fragile beauty of our home, Earth.
„We came to explore the Moon, and what we discovered was the Earth.”
Bill Anders
Are you interested in the topic?
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