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.

April 17, 1970: Apollo 13 Returns Safely

April 17, 1970: Apollo 13 returns to Earth, with all 3 astronauts still alive. It almost didn't turn out that way.

Originally, the mission was supposed to launch from the Kennedy Space Center on the East Coast of Florida on April 11, 1970, with this crew: Commander James Lovell, U.S. Navy, making his 4th spaceflight, following Gemini 7, Gemini 12, and Apollo 8, which had gone around the Moon but not landed on it; Commander Thomas K. "Ken" Mattingly, U.S. Navy, who was to pilot the command module, named Odyssey; and Captain Fred Haise, U.S. Marine Corps, who was to pilot the lunar module, Aquarius, and walk on the Moon with Lovell. For both Mattingly and Haise, it was to be their 1st spaceflight.

This crew had been intended as the backup crew for the 1st lunar landing mission, Apollo 11, in case any of the men set for it -- commander Neil Armstrong, command module pilot Michael Collins, or lunar module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin -- had to be replaced.

As it turned out, Apollo 13 had problems even before the launch date. All 3 astronauts were exposed to rubella, through training alongside their backup crew, which included Charles Duke, who caught it from a friend of his son. Of the other 5 astronauts, Mattingly was the only one who did not have a prior immunity. They couldn't take the chance on him getting sick in space, so he was grounded. Two days before the launch, he was replaced as command module pilot by another space rookie, Captain John "Jack" Swigert, U.S. Air Force.

Despite the replacement, the rocket was launched on time. Because of the mission having been assigned the number 13, long considered an "unlucky number," an urban legend got out, saying that the launch was at 1:13 PM local time -- in military time, 1313 hours. In fact, it was 7:13 PM.

April 15 is normally the deadline for filing an income tax return in America. On April 13, Swigert told Mission Control in Houston that, in the rush to get ready for the mission, he had forgotten to file his return. The men at Mission Control laughed, and decided to figure out what could be done. As it turned out, federal law entitled Swigert to a 60-day extension because, at the deadline, he was out of the country. He wasn't even on the planet. If that had been the biggest problem with the mission, it would have made a cute footnote in history.

It wasn't the biggest problem with the mission. At 10:08 PM on April 13, a routine stir of an oxygen tank on the service module ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the contents of both of the module's oxygen tanks to space. Without that oxygen, its propulsion and life support systems could not operate.

The crew heard what they described as a "bang," and a warning light went on. Swigert told Mission Control, "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." Jack Lousma, later to fly aboard Skylab and the Space Shuttle Columbia, heard this, and responded: "This is Houston. Say again, please." Lovell said, "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a Main B Bus Undervolt."

The 1995 film Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard, not only misquoted the line, with Tom Hanks playing Lovell, saying, "Houston, we have a problem," but made people forget Swigert's original line. (Swigert was played by Kevin Bacon, Haise by Bill Paxton, Mattingly by Gary Sinise, Brett Cullen played a capsule communicator who was a composite of several astronauts including Lousma, and flight director Gene Kranz was played by Ed Harris.)

The command module Odyssey's systems had to be shut down, to conserve its remaining resources for re-entry to Earth. The crew had to transfer to the lunar module Aquarius as a lifeboat. There was no way to attempt the lunar landing: The only priority now was getting those men home alive. As the saying went at the time, and entered into public memory, "Failure is not an option."

An Apollo lunar module was designed to support 2 men on the Moon's surface for 2 days. Mission Control, including Mattingly, improvised, so that it could now support 3 men for 4 days. The limited power meant little light, so that it was darker than intended inside Aquarius; and little heat, so Aquarius was chilly. And there wasn't much drinking water. Because of this, the crew lost a combined 31 pounds, and Haise developed a urinary tract infection.

The craft looped around the Moon on April 15, and re-entered Earth orbit on April 17. The crew climbed back inside Odyssey, and jettisoned Aquarius, which was never intended to leave the confines of the Moon and its orbit. The temperature inside Odyssey had dropped to 38 degrees. Lovell suggested that the astronauts put their spacesuits on, but was told that it would be too hot during re-entry.

Ionization of the air around the command module during re-entry would typically cause a 4-minute communications blackout. Apollo 13's shallow re-entry path lengthened this to 6 minutes. When the 4-minute usual limit had passed, controllers feared that Odyssey's heat shield had failed, and that the reason they hadn't heard from the crew is that they were dead, cooked inside the craft.

Instead, Odyssey regained radio contact, and splashed down safely at 1:07 PM Eastern Time, only 3 1/2 miles from the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Iwo Jima. Millions of people around the world watched on television, with great trepidation, and, finally, relief.

NASA made it up to Mattingly, allowing him to be the command module pilot for Apollo 16, and also putting him on 2 Space Shuttle missions; and also to Duke, allowing him to be the lunar module pilot for Apollo 16.

None of the Apollo 13 astronauts ever flew in space again. In 1982, Swigert was elected to Congress from Colorado, as a Republican. But, in mid-campaign, he had developed cancer. He thought he could beat it, and serve in his office. He was wrong, and died just 7 days before he would have been sworn in.

As of April 17, 2022, Lovell, Haise and Mattingly are still alive. (UPDATE: Mattingly died on October 31, 2013.)

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April 17, 1970 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Danny Carter won the game with a 3-run triple in the top of the 11th inning. Mel Stottlemyre pitched 9 innings, and Lindy McDaniel pitched the last 2 for the win. Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4, and Frank Robinson went 0-for-5. In spite of this, the Yankees finished 2nd in the American League Eastern Division, 15 games behind the Orioles, who went on to win the World Series.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-0 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver pitched an 8-hit shutout, aided by a home run from a surprising source, Bud Harrelson.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Dick Allen hit a home run. Lou Brock went 1-for-4 with a walk. Joe Torre went 2-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs. For the Pirates, Willie Stargell went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Roberto Clemente did not play.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Willie Mays entered the game as a pinch-hitter, moved to center field, and went 0-for-2. Willie McCovey went 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs. The Reds got home runs from Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Pérez, Lee May and Hal McRae.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. In the bottom of the 11th inning, Al Kaline drew a walk, and Jim Northrup doubled him home. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 8-7 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 0-for-4, but Johnny Callison homered for the Cubs. Rusty Staub homered for the Expos.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 4-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 7-5 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-4, but the A's got home runs from Bob Johnson (no relation to the man of the same name who was an All-Star for them in Philadelphia) and Dave Duncan, as Jim Kaat was knocked out of the box in the 4th inning. He was relieved by Steve Barber, who was little better. His arm wasn't sore, it was just a little stiff. (Ball Four reference.)

Catfish Hunter went the distance for the win. For the Twins, Tony Oliva hit a home run, but Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Rod Carew went 1-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers were rained out at Milwaukee County Stadium. The game was made up on June 8. The Brewers won, 5-2.

* The Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers were rained out at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 1. The Dodgers swept, 6-3 and 3-2. Hank Aaron went 1-for-3 with a walk in the opener, and struck out as a pinch-hitter in the nightcap.

* And the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Senators were not scheduled.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled for this day. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The New York Knicks lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 101-96 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

Lew Alcindor, who renamed himself Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the following year, scored 33 points and grabbed 31 rebounds. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 115-114 in overtime at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Jerry West scored 35 points.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 122-118 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Lavern Tart scored 46 points for the Nets.

* The Los Angeles Stars beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 115-103 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas.

* And the Denver Rockets beat the Washington Capitols, 130-111 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. Rick Barry scored 40 for the Caps.