December 24, 1968: The Earth As Seen From the Moon

December 24, 1968: Apollo 8 becomes the 1st Earth spacecraft to orbit Earth's Moon. It shows 2 images never before seen on Earth: The far side of the Moon, and Earth as seen from the Moon.

The mission was commanded by Colonel Frank Borman, U.S. Air Force. The pilot of the command module was Commander James Lovell, U.S. Navy. This was the first "space reunion": They had flown together on Gemini 7. Lovell was set to fly on Apollo 9, but was moved up to this mission after the intended CM pilot, Michael Collins, required back surgery. The pilot of the lunar module was Colonel William A. Anders, U.S. Air Force. 

It was Borman's 2nd spaceflight, and Lovell's 3rd, and it remains the only U.S. spaceflight on which the commanding officer was not the most-experienced in space. Lovell had also flown aboard Gemini 12. It was Anders' 1st spaceflight, and, as it turned out, his only one.

The entire setup, with command, service and lunar modules, was being sent even though the lunar module was not going to be separated, much less land on the Moon. Unlike later Apollo missions, neither the command module nor the lunar module had a codename.

The mission was launched on December 21. They entered lunar orbit on December 24, Christmas Eve. They became the 1st humans to see the Far Side of the Moon, and the 1st to see not a sunrise, or a moonrise, but an Earthrise, with the Earth in "phase," like the Moon is usually seen in from Earth.

"Look at that picture over there!" Anders called out. "Here's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" He then took the photo at the top of this post. Borman called it "the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life."

They knew that they would be the 1st people from Earth to spend Christmas away from Earth. They wanted to express a Christmas-style message of "Peace on Earth, good will toward men." But instead of something actually Christmas-related, they instead read back to the people of Earth, through television, the Bible's Creation story.

At 9:30 PM, Eastern Time, Anders said, "We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you: 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."

Lovell: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Borman: "And God said, 'Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. 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, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

After a very hard year, of war, of assassinations, of civil strife, this was a message of hope, a sign that, maybe, just maybe, things would be all right in the years to come. That was not to be, but the people of Earth had reason to believe that it might be. Because of this, in spite of the Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon as the next President of the United States, Time magazine named Borman, Lovell and Anders their Men of the Year.

Apollo 8 was significant for another reason: It made the Soviet Union surrender in the race to the Moon. Their Zond project had originally planned a manned flyby of the Moon in late 1967, and a landing in December 1968. But they fell behind, due to various failures. The success of Apollo 8 showed them that trying to beat the U.S. to a manned Moon landing was pointless, and that their resources would be better spent in other ways.

Michael Collins would become the command module pilot for Apollo 11, the 1st mission to land on the Moon. Borman was offered the role of commanding Apollo 11, which would have made him the 1st human to walk on the Moon. He declined, saying he was done with spaceflights, and retired from the Air Force in 1970. So the 1st Moonwalker was the backup to Borman as the commander for Apollo 8, Neil Armstrong. It happened on July 20, 1969, beating the late President John F. Kennedy's deadline of doing it by the end of the 1960s by 164 days.

Lovell would command Apollo 13, the only Moon landing mission that had to be aborted.

As of December 24, 2022, the entire crew of Apollo 8 is still alive. They are the earliest surviving specific Time Persons of the Year. (Time had named American fighting men in 1950, and would again in 2003; American scientists in 1960, and people age 25 and under in 1966.)

UPDATE: Borman died on November 7, 2023; Anders, on June 7, 2024; Lovell, on August 7, 2025.

None of them lived to see the return of humans to lunar orbit, aboard Artemis II. On April 6, 2026, crewmember Reid Wiseman took a new photo, a companion piece to Anders' Earthrise, naming it Earthset.

It had been so long than none of the Artemis II astronauts had even been born yet when humans last left the Moon on Apollo 17 in 1972.

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December 24, 1968 was a Tuesday. No NBA, ABA, NHL or college football bowl games were scheduled for that Christmas Eve. So there were no scores on that historic day.