Spaceflight Insider

News Archive / Tagged: Apollo 8

  • Our spaceflight heritage: A conversation with Fred Haise

    Scott JohnsonDecember 24th, 2021

    Spaceflight Insider spoke with Fred Haise after a ceremony commemorating the 2020 designation of the A-1 Test Stand after the Apollo 13 astronaut.

  • OPINION: 50 years after Apollo 8 NASA is grounded

    Jason RhianDecember 25th, 2018

    On Dec. 25, 1968 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders circled the Moon in their Apollo 8 capsule. This was a dark period in U.S. history and, as one person stated via a telegraph, Apollo 8 had "saved 1968." It was a time when anything seemed possible. It now serves as a reminder of a bygone age.

  • Our SpaceFlight Heritage: Two craters named in honor of Apollo 8

    Tomasz NowakowskiOctober 10th, 2018

    This December marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon. The International Astronomical Union has found a special way to honor the occasion.

  • First to the Moon: Kickstarter campaign working to document humanity’s first voyage to another world

    Press ReleaseMarch 5th, 2018

    CHICO, Ca. - 2-20-18 - Paul Hildebrandt has premiered his trailer and Kickstarter campaign for “First to the Moon”, a feature length documentary film that tells the amazing story of the Apollo 8 mission which carried the first human beings around the Moon and back in December of 1968.

  • Our SpaceFlight Heritage: The atheist and Apollo 8

    Jason RhianDecember 25th, 2017

    When most people think of Apollo 8, they think of how the Book of Genesis was read from the vicinity of the Moon and the well-wishes the trio of astronauts gave the world. The year 1968 was not a good one in terms of U.S. history, and Apollo 8 ended that dark year on a high note – for most Americans. One exception, an atheist who opted to sue the U.S. government over violations of the first amendment by reading from Genesis on a government-sponsored mission. Who was this person and what happened to them?

  • Our Spaceflight Heritage: Saving 1968

    Derek RichardsonDecember 25th, 2016

    The very first Christmas spent in space by humans was in 1968 during the mission of Apollo 8, forty-eight years ago. That flight saw the first people leave Earth’s orbit and go to another heavenly body.

  • Apollo astronaut shares story of NASA’s Earthrise photo

    NASASeptember 9th, 2015

    On Christmas Eve, 1968, not one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 was prepared for the spellbinding moment when they would first see their home planet rise from behind the desolate lunar horizon. The vision of Earth provided them with the first spot of color as they floated in the blackness of space while orbiting above the lunar surface.

  • Opinion: Apollo 8 – An unfinished journey

    Jason RhianDecember 25th, 2014

    Forty-six years have elapsed since mankind first traversed the skyways above the Moon. In 1968 the crew of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders thundered into the Florida skies in their Apollo Command and Service Module which was perched atop a Saturn V booster. Mission planners had opted to go big – and […]