At the height of the 1960s Cold War struggle against a communist nation to win the hearts and minds of the world, America diligently worked to set sail on the cosmic ocean with the flight of Apollo 8, accomplishing the seemingly impossible. In December, 1968, America literally changed our world when it removed a page of history from the middle of the 21st century and placed it in the mid-20th century with this voyage, giving mankind a new perspective of our exciting future possibilities. Clearly, with the epic flight of Apollo 8 sending humans from the Earth to the Moon and safely back again, America ushered in a new era of great promise as we became a human species no longer Earthbound and seemingly without limits.
With great excitement, about one-fourth of the Earth’s population tuned in that Christmas Eve to watch the historic telecast live from the Moon as the Apollo 8 astronauts each read from the Holy Bible, as their black-and-white television camera peered at the ancient, foreboding, blasted and cratered lunar surface which paraded majestically and silently past their spacecraft windows. Apollo 8’s view of the Moon just sixty miles away was a truly awe-inspiring, spellbinding telecast. After his crewmates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders recited passages from the Book of Genesis, Commander Frank Borman completed his passage and signed off that Christmas Eve with, “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.”
An astounding American technological triumph by over 400,000 engineers, technicians, program managers, and scientists, Apollo 8 remains a thought-provoking achievement and a reminder our nation can accomplish extraordinary things when working together on a common goal. While it is true there were many earthbound problems around our world in 1968 just as there are today, there were also all kinds of problems when explorers such as Christopher Columbus first set sail for the New World in 1492, and when Ferdinand Magellan set sail over the edge of all the world’s known maps in 1519. From those expeditions came a tremendous advancement of mankind from the increased knowledge and understanding of our universe around us.
Here is the audio:
https://youtu.be/6vvNxhlP1jA
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I have a copy of that picture signed by Alan Shepard. My wife used to work with him in Houston.
I was a junior in HS when this happened. This was from an era that still used slide rules with help from large main-frame computers. Engineers were white males (HORRORS!) and did what everyone thought was impossible. Yet we still did it and went on to land on the moon 6 months later.
Because of radical feminism, diversity, and set-asides, we will never get to that relative level again.
It was a great run.
F4UCorsair…there was a book and movie that says it was 4 black women. Couldn’t have done it without them.