As I age, I am truly amazed at how brief our lives truly are.
Fifty-six years ago, we on Planet Earth were treated to a Christmas like no other before or since then. Recall Dec. 24, 1968, when three brave Americans aboard Apollo 8 orbited the moon and transmitted live video of themselves and the lunar surface. It was the closest encounter with another celestial body that human beings had ever experienced. They narrated and televised their adventure in real time for virtually everyone on Earth to see and share.
In homes across the nation and around the world, people sat transfixed before their TV sets as America’s best and brightest made history.
The Space Race was not, at first, a slam dunk. Indeed, the Soviets — who were thought to be backward and not as sophisticated as the enlightened West — launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, on Oct. 4, 1957. The Russians upstaged America several times during the Space Race, including putting the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in April 1961. A few days later, President John F. Kennedy committed the U.S. to land an American on the moon and return him safely “before this decade is out.”
That became a national goal, and the U.S. achieved it.
Fast-forward to 1968.
Before Apollo 11 clinched the Space Race in July 1969, Apollo 8 pushed the New Frontier to Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor seven months earlier.
Launched from Cape Kennedy Dec. 21, 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders set off on a mission that was a high-risk gamble. Although the nation’s best scientists and engineers had built the missile and its spaceship, and although every conceivable safeguard was factored into the design and testing of the hardware and the planning for the mission, there were lingering fears that something may have been overlooked and could be risky or even fatal for the crew later.
Once the three astronauts were launched and left the pull of Earth’s gravity, there was no plan or hope of rescue from the moon or from deep space if something went wrong. The Apollo 8 crew knew this, and yet they set forth — blazing a trail for Apollo 10’s descent to about 10 miles over the moonscape and Apollo 11’s landing and planting the Stars and Stripes on the moon.
The technological triumph of Apollo 8, and the courage of the crew, however, were not the end of the story. The image of the Earthrise over the moon was awing and unforgettable. The sight of the blue and brown sphere, with splotches and streaks of white, was what Borman called “the good earth.” Their home planet, ascending over the lunar horizon, was a beautiful sight in the blackness of space.
From those pictures came the understanding of Spaceship Earth, a life-sustaining habitat for human beings and other living things. This new perspective of the Earth deeply moved the crew.
As they concluded their telecast in lunar orbit, Borman told viewers, “Apollo 8 has a message for you.”
As an onboard camera showed the desolate gray surface of the moon, Anders began reading the creation account in Genesis.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” he read. “And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
The crew took turns reading the first 10 verses of the Bible.
“And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night,” Lovell picked up the story.
“And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas: and God saw that it was good,” Borman closed the passage. “Good-by, good night. Merry Christmas. God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.”
For a brief time, a nation divided over the Vietnam War, civil rights, poverty in inner cities, rising crime, and economic priorities took pride in a grand endeavor. The celebration, albeit brief, was welcome after a bitter election and the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy.
The good feeling soon passed. Strife returned to the good Earth.
