All of You on the Good Earth: 10 Fun Facts About Apollo 8
- Aeryn Avilla
- Feb 24, 2024
- 22 min read
Updated: Dec 15, 2025
December 21, 2023 was the 55th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8, the second manned Apollo mission and the first manned flight to the moon. The mission's commander was Gemini 7 veteran Frank Borman. The command module pilot was Jim Lovell, Borman's Gemini 7 crewmate and former command pilot of Gemini 12. Rookie Bill Anders of NASA's third class of astronauts was designated the lunar module pilot, despite the mission not having a Lunar Module. Let's take a look at ten interesting facts about Apollo 8!
1. From Russia, With Love
The story of Apollo 8 began in the fall of 1967 on the other side of the world. While flying over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan, the primary launch site of the Soviet space program, a National Reconnaissance Office CORONA spy satellite captured photos of a massive rocket on a launch pad. The CIA concluded that the Soviet Union was preparing for a lunar mission in 1968 and speculation the vehicle, revealed later to be the infamous N1 moon rocket, was manned prompted Apollo program directors to make one of the most crucial decisions in American space history. Unbeknownst to the US, the rocket was only a mockup designated 1M1 and was used to test rollout and launch pad integration methods prior to the vehicle's maiden launch, which would not be until February 1969. The 1M1 was rolled out to the pad and back multiple times over the next few years.
At the time, the objectives and crews of Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 were different. NASA used a seven-step plan for Apollo missions, designated "A" through "G", beginning with unmanned tests of the Saturn V rocket and CSM in low Earth orbit and ending with the first manned moon landing. Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 were "A" missions. Apollo 5 was the "B" mission and tested the unmanned LM in LEO. Apollo 7 was the "C" mission and the first manned test of the Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit.
Apollo 8 was planned as the "D" mission and crewed by James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rusty Schweickart with the objective of testing the new Lunar Module in LEO in December 1968. Apollo 9 was the planned "E" mission and crewed by Frank Borman, Michael Collins, and Bill Anders with the objective of testing the LM in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969. Apollo 10 was the "F" mission to test the LM in lunar orbit, and finally, Apollo 11 was the "G" lunar landing.
Collins was replaced by Jim Lovell, assigned to Apollo 11, when the former was removed from active flight duty to undergo surgery. This swap made the original Apollo 9/actual Apollo 8 the first mission to reunite previous crewmates. It was also the first mission in which the commander was not the most experienced member of the crew, as Lovell had flown twice and Borman had flown only once.
Delays in LM production meant the spacecraft would not be ready to be flown by McDivitt's crew at the end of the year, jeopardizing NASA's probability of landing men on the moon by the end of the decade. Furthermore, news of a possible Soviet moonshot threatened the country's chance of sending the first humans to the moon. Fortunately, the next CSM, CSM-103, would be ready for a flight at the end of 1968.
While no single person took credit for the proposal, Manned Spacecraft Center Director Bob Gilruth, Apollo Spacecraft Program Office Manager George Low, and Flight Director Chris Kraft hatched a plan to ensure that the late president Kennedy's goal was met and that American boots were the first to touch the lunar surface. Since the LM would definitely not be ready to fly until early 1969, the late 1968 flight slot would be filled by a manned mission to the moon with the new letter designation "C-Prime". Because McDivitt and his crew had more experience with the LM than Borman's trio, Director of Flight Crew Operations (and Mercury astronaut) Deke Slayton offered the circumlunar flight to Borman. Accepting the assignment allowed Borman to carry out the real reason he joined the space program— to beat the Ruskis to the moon. Though the US had nothing to worry about since the N1 rocket was not successful whatsoever.
The crews and spacecraft of Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 were swapped: Apollo 8 was crewed by Borman, Lovell, and Anders with the objective of orbiting the moon in December 1968. Apollo 9 was crewed by McDivitt, Scott, and Schweickart with the objective of man-rating the LM in LEO in early 1969. Apollo 9 was now the "D" mission and the original "E" medium Earth orbit mission was discarded. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Fred Haise were the backup commander, CMP, and LMP, respectively. When Mike Collins returned to active flight duty, Aldrin replaced Haise as LMP and Collins filled the empty CMP slot to make up the prime crew of Apollo 11.
I would like to clarify that while NASA Administrator James Webb had access to special intelligence regarding the Soviets' manned lunar mission efforts, and others were aware of what the Soviets were planning, the main reason for this change was delays in Lunar Module production. What the Soviets were planning did influence the decision to some degree, but was not the main driving force.
2. Patch Me Through
The mission insignia for Apollo 8 was sketched by Jim Lovell while riding in the backseat of a NASA T-38 from California to Texas after learning about the mission's new destination and was inspired by two existing emblems. Allen Stevens, the designer of the Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 patches, created an insignia for the "old" Apollo 9 crew prior to the mission's re-designation that featured three horses inside an Apollo command module-shaped triangle [1].
Around the same time, the Mission Planning and Analysis Division of the Manned Spacecraft Center adopted a logo consisting of an abstract stylization of a circumlunar trajectory. Lovell's sketch combined the CM shape with the depiction of a circumlunar trajectory and produced an insignia that reflects the purpose of the mission without excessive detail. Further, the red figure "8" shape indicates the mission number as well as the path the spacecraft will take. Stevens' original design was produced into an embroidered patch for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo program.
Allen Stevens' patch, the MPAD emblem that appeared on the covers of documents, and the official Apollo 8 insignia (Allen Stevens/ Gene Dorr / NASA)
3. Lucky Lindy
The night before launch, the crew, now quarantining in the crew quarters at the Kennedy Space Center, received a visit from famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh [2]. In 1927, "Lucky Lindy" as he was called, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York City to Paris, France, in his aircraft Spirit of St. Louis. He was also Time magazine's first Man of the Year in 1928 (remember that for later) and was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA. According to Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger, Lindbergh spoke to the three astronauts about the earliest days of aviation, his military service, and meeting Robert Goddard, the inventor of the liquid-fueled rocket. As the astronauts talked about the Saturn V, Lindbergh scribbled something on a piece of paper before telling the trio that they would use ten times more fuel in the first second of liftoff than he used on his entire trans-Atlantic flight. a Rather than watch liftoff the next morning in the VIP section, Lindbergh witnessed history being made once again in private on the beach.
4. We Choose to Go to the Moon
Apollo 8 was the first human spaceflight to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Originally called the Launch Operations Center, it was established in 1962 on Merritt Island, located adjacent to the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, to support Saturn V launches for the Apollo program. Cape Canaveral was covered in active launch pads and too small to support the infrastructure necessary for building, transporting, and launching a huge rocket to the moon. Construction of the center began in November 1962 and in November 1963, one week after President Kennedy's assassination, was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center under Executive Order 11129.
Launch Complex 39, as well as the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), Launch Control Center, Crawlerway, crawler-transporters, and Mobile Launch Platforms (MLP), were constructed specifically for the Apollo program and modified over the decades to support other vehicles. Preliminary plans called for the construction of three pads— A, B, and C— running from north to south but only A and B were built and completed by late 1965. Just over 3 miles west of pad A is the VAB, originally called the Vertical Assembly Building, built for the stacking of the Saturn V. It was completed in 1966 and is the largest single-story building in the world with a height of 526 feet (160.3 m), a length of 716 feet (218.2 m), a width of 518 feet (157.9 m), and a volume of 129,428,000 cubic feet (3,665,000 cubic meters).
But how do you get a rocket as big as a Saturn V to the launch pad? Very slowly and with crawler-transporters. These tracked vehicles rolled out the MLP equipped with a launch umbilical tower and a fully-stacked Saturn V to the pad. The rocket was assembled atop an MLP inside the VAB. To begin rollout, the crawler-transporter rolled underneath the Mobile Launcher and picked it up. Connecting the VAB and the pads is the Crawlerway, a 130-foot-wide path specially designed to support the 18 million pounds of the gargantuan stack. It stretches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) from the VAB to LC-39A and 4.2 miles (6.8 km) from the building to LC-39B and its surface is covered in Alabama river rock due to their roundness, smoothness, and durability. The journey to the pad took about five hours and once there, the MLP was set down and the crawler rolled back to the VAB. The Launch Control Center is a four-story building attached to the VAB used to conduct launches from LC-39A and B.
The Kennedy Space Center sits on the 140,000-acre (580 square km) Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The Center supported its first launch, Apollo 4, in November 1967 and its first crewed launch, Apollo 8, in December 1968. The first launch from 39B was Apollo 10 in May 1969. Besides the Saturn V, KSC has supported the launches of the Saturn IB, Space Shuttle, Ares IX, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Space Launch System vehicles. The Space Center has seen countless changes to its 6,000 acres of the past sixty years and remains America's primary launch center.
5. Like a Rat in the Jaws of a Terrier
Apollo 8 was also the first manned launch of the mighty Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V was a three-stage man-rates super heavy-lift launch vehicle that was flown thirteen times from 1967 to 1973.
Its first stage, the S-IC, was built by the Boeing Company and powered by five Rocketdyne F-1 engines producing 7.5 million pounds (33,000 kN) of thrust at sea level. These engines fired for about 150 seconds and carried the rocket to a height of 42 miles (68 km). Its second stage, the S-II, was built by North American Aviation and powered by five J-2 engines producing 1 million pounds (4,400 kN) of thrust. They burned for 395 seconds, or just over 6 and a half minutes, in the upper atmosphere. The third and final stage the S-IVB, was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and powered by a single J-2 engine producing 225,000 pounds (1,000 kN) of thrust. On lunar missions, the S-IVB's engine was fired twice, first for 165 seconds for orbital insertion and second for 312 seconds for translunar injection. The J-2 engines used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen while the F-1 engines used liquid oxygen and Rocket Propellant-1, a highly-refined kerosene fuel.
Atop the S-IVB was the Instrument Unit, a ring that housed the guidance, navigation, and control equipment, built by IBM. It controlled all three stages of the vehicle during flight and also housed communications, telemetry, and crew safety systems. The Lunar Module Adapter housed the LM during launch and its four panels retracted for LM extraction shortly after translunar injection. Though not carried on Apollo 8, the LM was built by Grumman and designed to land two astronauts on the moon. The CSM, built by North American Aviation, carried a crew of three for up to 14 days. Finally, perched at the very top, was the launch escape system built by the Lockheed Propulsion Company designed to pull the spacecraft away from the booster in the event of an emergency. The Saturn V stood a whopping 363 feet (110,6 m), and a payload to LEO capacity of 270,000 pounds (~ 122,500 kg), and a payload to translunar injection capacity of 100,000 pounds (~ 45,356 kg).
The first launch of the Saturn V, Apollo 4, occurred on November 9, 1967 and was surprisingly successful. The same could not be said for its second launch, Apollo 6. Launching on April 4, 1968, the vehicle experienced three major problems— severe pogo oscillations, two second-stage engine shutdowns, and failure of its third stage engine to reignite.
Apollo 8 lifted off at 7:51 AM local time on Saturday, December 21, 1968 from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. Gemini veterans Borman and Lovell noted the g-forces of the Saturn V were lighter than they had been on Gemini-Titan II launches but that the vibration in the cockpit was more severe. In the following decades, Anders would compare the sensation to being a "rat in the jaws of a terrier." Another nine manned Saturn V launches took place until December 1972 and the final Saturn V (and Saturn rocket) launch would carry Skylab, America's first space station, to orbit in May 1973.
For 55 years, the Saturn V was the tallest and most powerful rocket in history. This record was broken by SpaceX Starship in April 2023.
6. It's Not Easy Being Green
The first documented case of space motion sickness (SMS) occurred during Apollo 8 [3]. Although all three crew members experienced slight dizziness and nausea as their bodies adjusted to microgravity, Borman was hit the hardest. On previous missions (aside from Apollo 7), the habitable volume inside of the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were too small for astronauts to float around, instead confined to their couches. The Apollo capsule had a habitable volume of 218 cubic feet (6.2 cubic meters), allowing astronauts to float from end to end of the spacecraft and even over each other with ease.
SMS affects about a third of astronauts during their first few days in space and is caused by sensory conflict, or the mismatch of information sent to the brain by the vestibular system and by the eyes. Symptoms range from mild disorientation and headaches to vomiting. There is no way to tell if an astronaut will experience SMS, as prior space, aviation, or naval experience has no impact. The most severe SMS ever recorded was experienced by Senator Jake Garn, the first sitting member of Congress to fly in space onboard STS-51D Discovery in 1985. Despite being a "veteran Navy combat pilot with more flight hours than anyone else in the Astronaut Office" (Charlie Bolden), he is best remembered in space history as the namesake of NASA's informal SMS measuring tool the "Garn scale", where "one Garn" is as sick as an astronaut could possibly get.
7. I'll See You on the Dark Side of the Moon
The astronauts spent the first two and a half hours after launch in Earth orbit checking their spacecraft's systems prior to heading to the moon while still attached to the S-IVB upper stage. For the first time in history, the confirmation to break free of Earth’s gravitational pull was given when CAPCOM Michael Collins radioed, “Apollo 8, You are Go for TLI.” TLI, or trans-lunar injection, is the orbital maneuver that puts a spacecraft on a trajectory to the moon. The single J-2 engine of the S-IVB fired for five minutes and accelerated the spacecraft’s speed from about 17,400 miles per hour (~ 28,000 km/h) to about 24,226 miles per hour (~ 39,000 km/h). Once on course to the moon, the CSM separated from the S-IVB and pitched 180° to inspect the third stage. On later missions, the crew would perform the transposition and docking maneuver, during which the spacecraft turned around, docked with the lunar module, and pulled it away from the S-IVB. In place of a LM, the boilerplate LM Test Article-B served as a mass simulator.
Apollo 8 broke the human spaceflight altitude record of 850 miles (1,368 km) set by Gemini 11 astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon in 1966 and were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, the zone of charged particles in Earth’s magnetosphere first discovered by Explorer 1, the first American satellite, in 1958. Moon landing deniers like to claim the Apollo astronauts would have died of radiation exposure had they passed through the Van Allen Belts. This is not the case. To start, the Van Allen Belts are not an impenetrable barrier, and the spacecraft were put on a trajectory to avoid its densest regions. The astronauts spent less than 15 minutes passing through the inner belt and less than two hours in total passing through the outer belt. Also, the spacecraft’s hull provided shielding from radiation.
Apollo astronauts wore Personal Radiation Dosimeters to measure cumulative radiation exposure. According to the chapter “Radiation Protection and Instrumentation” from the 1975 NASA publication Biomedical Results of Apollo, the Apollo 8 astronauts received a cumulative average of 0.16 rads, or 1.6 milliSieverts, during their six days in space [4]. For comparison, a chest x-ray delivers 0.1 milliSieverts while a chest CT scan delivers 7 milliSieverts. According to a 2014 NASA report, astronauts onboard the International Space Station receive somewhere between 80 milliSieverts and 160 miliSieverts over a period of six months.
About 55 hours and 40 minutes into the mission, the effect of the moon’s gravitational pull on Apollo 8’s spacecraft was stronger than that of the Earth, and the astronauts became the first humans to enter the sphere of influence of another celestial body. At T plus 68 hours, Mission Control gave the “go” for Apollo 8 to fly behind the moon and out of radio contact with Earth to prepare for lunar orbit insertion. At 69 hours and 8 minutes, the spacecraft’s service propulsion system engine ignited and burned for 4 minutes and 7 seconds, placing Apollo 8 in lunar orbit. They emerged from behind the moon 25 minutes after ignition at T+ 69 hours and 33 minutes, or 5:24 AM Eastern Standard Time on December 24.
Borman, Lovell, and Anders became the first humans to see the lunar surface up-close and the first to see the far side of the moon with their own eyes. The first photos of the far side were taken by Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 in 1959…with American film. During their ten orbits, which lasted twenty hours, the crew photographed planned future landing sites, specifically one in Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility, the targeted site for Apollo 11. Jim Lovell spotted a triangular mountain to the east of the Sea of Tranquility and named it Mount Marilyn, after his wife. The mountain served as a key navigation landmark during Apollo 11's lunar descent.
The crew also became the first humans to view the Earth as a whole disc, as well as an “Earthrise”. The first photo of an Earthrise was taken by NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 in August 1966. As the spacecraft emerged from behind the moon for its fourth pass, the crew witnessed the Earth appearing from behind the lunar horizon. Borman and Anders captured the event in black-and-white and color photographs, and Anders’ color photo Earthrise is still to this day one of the most iconic photos ever taken. During their ninth orbit, the crew made their fourth TV transmission and one of the most watched TV broadcasts in history up to that date— their Christmas Eve Genesis reading.
Two and a half hours after their TV broadcast ended, now shortly past midnight on December 25, Apollo 8 performed the most critical maneuver of the entire mission— trans-Earth injection, or TEI. Just as TLI is the orbital maneuver that puts a spacecraft on a trajectory to the moon, TEI puts a spacecraft on a path to Earth. If the service propulsion system engine failed to ignite, the three astronauts would be stranded in lunar orbit. Once again out of radio contact with Earth when the burn began, the spacecraft emerged from behind the moon at T plus 89 hours and 28 minutes. Lovell announced to Houston, “Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus,” as Apollo 8 began their journey home on Christmas Day. Frances “Poppy” Northcutt was the first woman to work in NASA’s Mission Control and her team calculated the return to Earth trajectory for the mission. The astronauts gave a tour of their spacecraft during their fifth TV broadcast on Christmas afternoon and found turkey dinner and stuffing MRE’s and three mini bottles of brandy courtesy of Deke Slayton. Borman ordered Lovell and Anders to not touch the brandy until they landed.
While Borman, Lovell, and Anders were the first humans to fly to the moon, they were not the first living creatures to do so— that honor belongs to two Russian steppe tortoises, along with fruit fly eggs and microorganisms, who were carried to the moon and back by the Soviet Zond 5 spacecraft in September 1968.
8. The Fighting Lady
The two-day cruise back to Earth was mostly uneventful and Apollo 8 splashed down southwest of Hawaii in the North Pacific Ocean on December 27 after 147 hours in space. When the capsule hit the water, its parachutes dragged it upside-down and the crew had to endure dangling in their couches for six minutes until the capsule flipped itself upright.
43 minutes after splashdown, the spacecraft and its crew were recovered by the USS Yorktown, an Essex-class aircraft carrier built for the US Navy during World War II. She was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name Yorktown, the location final battle of the American Revolutionary War, but was actually named in remembrance of the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier that was sunk at the Battle of Midway in 1942. She was commissioned in April 1943 and nicknamed the “Fighting Lady” for her significant participation in the Pacific Theater, ending with the defeat of Japan in 1945. Yorktown operated as an attack carrier for jet aircraft beginning in 1950 and was re-designated an anti-submarine aircraft carrier in 1957. She received the Presidential Unit Citation and 16 battle stars for her service in World War II and the Vietnam War and was decommissioned in 1970, shortly after serving as the recovery vessel for Apollo 8.
Yorktown is now a museum ship at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and is one of only three remaining space capsule recovery ships [5]. On display are a hook that was part of the tackle used to lift Apollo 8 aboard the carrier and a piece of the spacecraft’s heat shield retained by a crew member. Apollo 8's capsule is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois.
Apollo 8 artifacts on Yorktown's flight deck (Aeryn A. 2023)
9. You Saved 1968
1968 was one of the most turbulent years in modern history across the globe. In the US, police and protesters fought at the Chicago Democratic National Convention while students across the country protested American involvement in the Vietnam War. The political assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and the election of President Richard Nixon added fuel to the fire. In Eastern Europe, Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring while in Vietnam, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive, killing more than 2,600 Americans. Worst of all, the Beatles released "Revolution 9".
Apollo 8 was a shimmer of hope for the future during one of the darkest years in history. As the year came to a close, Borman received a telegram from an anonymous sender that simply said, "Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968." The mission was the most widely covered by the media since John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 in February 1962, the first manned American orbital spaceflight.
Time magazine named Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders as its Men of the Year for 1968, fifty years after its first honoree, Charles Lindbergh. Lovell later appeared on the cover of the April 27, 1970 edition of Time magazine and on the cover of the April 24, 1970 Life magazine, both of which covered the Apollo 13 near-disaster. In January 1969, the three astronauts recited the Pledge of Allegiance during the Super Bowl III pre-game show. Borman’s face was also used on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s second album, Led Zeppelin II, from 1969, because no one embodies hard rock more than a strait-laced Air Force colonel.
10. In the Beginning
Approximately one billion people across 64 countries tuned into the crew's second broadcast on the night of Christmas Eve. Prior to leaving Earth, Borman was advised to "say something appropriate" to not just all the folks back home celebrating Christmas, but that would resonate with as many people as possible. While showing viewers the lunar surface from orbit, the three men took turns reading the first ten verses of the Book of Genesis, which serves as the creation narrative for the three Abrahamic religions. Borman closed the broadcast 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."
Apollo 8’s broadcasts and the broadcasts of Apollo 7, Apollo 9, and Apollo 10 won a special Emmy award, which was accepted by the crew of Apollo 10 in June 1969.
Not everyone was moved by the crew's words, though. Enter Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the president of the American Atheists. In 1969, she and her son attempted to sue NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine and the US government for violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which prohibits the mixing of religion and the government. Her goal was to ban all American astronauts, who were and still are government employees, from practicing religion in space. The Supreme Court rejected the case for lack of jurisdiction in outer space. As of 2023, Christianity, including Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism have been practiced in space. Buzz Aldrin, a Presbyterian, received Holy Communion on the lunar surface prior to the first moonwalk, but refrained from speaking about it publicly for many years.
Post-Flight
Frank Borman served as NASA’s liaison to President Nixon during Apollo 11 and in June 1970, retired from NASA and the US Air Force with the rank of colonel. In July, he joined the now-defunct Eastern Airlines and by 1975, was the company’s CEO. Shortly before midnight on December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades while en route to the Miami International Airport [6]. Borman, now living in Miami, chartered a helicopter to the crash site and helped rescue survivors. He resigned from Eastern Airlines in 1986 and served on various boards of directors until the late 1990s. He spent the next 30 years rebuilding and flying vintage aircraft in Montana and following John Glenn’s passing in December 2016, became the oldest living American astronaut. Frank Borman passed away on November 3, 2023, at the age of 95, from a stroke.
Jim Lovell went back to the moon as commander of the fifth manned lunar mission, Apollo 13, in April 1970. En route to the moon, one of the service module’s oxygen tanks exploded and crippled the spacecraft. Lovell and Apollo 13 lunar module pilot Fred Haise were unable to land on the moon and the crew used the lunar module as a life boat. Lovell retired from the US Navy and from NASA in 1973 with the rank of captain. He worked in the private sector until the 1990s and the Lovell family ran the restaurant “Lovell’s of Lake Forest” from 1999 until 2015. In the 1995 movie Apollo 13, he portrayed the skipper of USS Iwo Jima— the recovery ship of Apollo 13— Captain Leland Kirkemo. Lovell, only eleven days younger than Frank Borman, became the oldest living astronaut after the latter’s passing in 2023.
Bill Anders served as executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council from 1969 to its abolishment in 1973 [7]. He then served on the Atomic Energy Commission due to his background in nuclear engineering and experience in the National Aeronautics and Space Council. When the Atomic Energy Commission split in two— a research and development body and a regulatory body— Anders was appointed as the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. From April 1976 to June 1977, he served as Ambassador to Norway and from late 1977 to 1994, worked in the private sector, most notably as CEO and chairman of General Dynamics. He founded the Heritage Flight Museum, now located at the Skagit Regional Airport just west of Burlington, Washington, in 1996, and like Frank Borman, spent his retired years rebuilding and flying vintage aircraft.
Apollo 8 was depicted in the episode "1968" of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. The Apollo/Saturn V Center at the KSC Visitor Complex is home to a recreation of the Launch Control Center firing room as it was during Apollo 8. Borman and Lovell were inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982 and the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1993 while Anders was inducted into the former in 1983 and the latter in 1997.
Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to the moon and one of the most significant space missions of all time. It ended one of the most chaotic years in history on a hopeful note and prepared NASA for 1969, the year it would land men on the moon.
This post is dedicated to Colonel Frank F. Borman, who passed away less than two months before the 55th anniversary of his historic mission on November 7, 2023.
Author's note: As of 2025, all three Apollo 8 astronauts have passed away. Bill Anders was killed on June 7, 2024 at the age of 90 when the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor he was piloting crashed into the waters of Puget Sound in Washington. Jim Lovell passed away on August 7, 2025 at the age of 97.
[1] I find it interesting that this original Apollo 9/8 patch design contained three horses. Lovell's Apollo 13 mission patch was inspired by Lumen Winter's mural "The Steeds of Apollo", a painting of four horses.
[2] In 1930, she became the first woman to receive a U.S. glider pilot license.
[3] The very first case of SMS is suspected to be Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov who experienced dizziness and nausea during his historic 1961 Vostok 2 flight.
[4] According to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the average American receives about 6.2 milliSieverts of radiation per year. More than half of this exposure comes from natural background radiation, such as comic rays and radon, while the rest comes from man-made sources of radiation, particularly medical procedures like x-rays and CT scans.
[5] The other two are the USS Hornet (recovered Apollo 11 and Apollo 12) and the USS Intrepid (recovered Scott Carpenter but not Aurora 7 and Gemini 3).
[6] The Everglades is a wetland covering two million acres across central and south Florida and is home to more than 2,000 species of plants and animals, including bottlenose dolphins, West Indian manatees, alligators, and the beloved Florida panther.
[7] Now called the National Space Council, the body is chaired by the Vice President of the US and advises the President on matters of space policy and the nation’s civil, commercial, and national security space activities.
Bibliography
Bailey, J. Vernon. "Radiation Protection and Instrumentation." Biomedical Results of Apollo, NASA, 1975. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19760005580/downloads/19760005580.pdf
Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. New York" Viking, 1994.
Day, Dwane. "Chasing Shadows: Apollo 8 and the CIA." The Space Review, April 2016. https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2962/1
Dorr, Gene. "Apollo 8." https://www.genedorr.com/patches/Apollo/Ap08.html
"Doses in Our Daily Lives." United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2022. https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/doses-daily-lives.html
George, Alice. "How Apollo 8 'Saved 1968'." Smithsonian Magazine, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-apollo-8-saved-1968-180970991/
Kluger, Jeffrey. Apollo 8. Henry Holt and Company, 2017. a
Kurson, Robert. Rocket Men. Random House, 2018.
Uri, John. "50 Years Ago: Apollo 8, You are Go for TLI!" NASA, December 2018. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-apollo-8-you-are-go-for-tli/
Uri, John. "50 Years Ago: Soviet's Moon Rocket's Rollout to Pad Affects Apollo Plans." NASA, November 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-soviets-moon-rockets-rollout-to-pad-affects-apollo-plans/
"USS Yorktown (CV-10)." Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum. https://www.patriotspoint.org/explore/uss-yorktown/
Intellectual Properties that I don't own
"Bein' Green" — written by Joe Raposo, originally performed by Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.
"Brain Damage" — written by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd from the album Dark Side of the Moon, 1973.
This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL). The Beatles should've released "Sour Milk Sea" instead of that cursed "Revolution 9"...
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