Apollo Program - Page 4
On Christmas Eve 1968, the Crew of Apollo 8 broadcast from lunar orbit what was, at the time, the most widely-watched television program in history. The ground crew gave the astronauts complete freedom in what to say during this 23 minute transit across the face of the moon.
The closing minutes of their broadcast were commemorated by the United States Postal Service in the stamp shown at right. Here are excerpts of the start and end of their address to the world.
Frank Borman: This is Apollo 8, coming to you live from the Moon... Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and myself have spent the day before Christmas up here doing experiments, taking pictures, and firing our spacecraft engines to maneuver around. What we'll do now is follow the trail that we've been following all day and take you on through to a lunar sunset. The Moon is a different thing to each one of us... I know my own impression is that it's a vast, lonely, forbidding-type existence, or expanse of nothing, that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone, and it certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work. Jim what have you thought most about?
Jim Lovell: Well, Frank, my thoughts are very similar. The vast loneliness up here of the Moon is awe inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.
Frank Borman: Bill, what do you think?
Bill Anders: I think the thing that impressed me the most was the lunar sunrises and sunsets. These in particular bring out the stark nature of the terrain, and the long shadows really bring out the relief that is here and hard to see at this very bright surface that we're going over right now.
...
Bill Anders: 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...
Jim 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.
Frank Borman: And God said, "Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together into 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.
-- the crew of Apollo 8, the first three humans to observe the far side of the moon, Apollo 8 Flight Journal
This image © 2022 TALLabs using a 
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Original Image: United States postage stamp (Scott #1371), via Wikimedia Commons.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
Edited to be a black and white line drawing rather than a color photo.