Astronauts Are Going Back to the Moon For The First Time in Half a Century

Kraft was unmoved. He ordered up the orbital mission—and with that, the great plates of history shifted. On Christmas Eve, the crew reached lunar orbit, turned on their TV camera, and beamed back images of the ancient, ruined lunar surface to a television audience of more than one billion people—or one third of the human population. The three men—Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders—conducted a 27-minute cosmic travelogue and, at the end, on that cold, holy night, took turns reading from the Book of Genesis. When they were done, Borman concluded the show.

“And from the crew of Apollo 8,” he said, “we close with good luck, good night, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

That Christmas wish served as a coda—and a redemption—for a blood-soaked year that saw assassinations and burning cities in the U.S., Soviet tanks in Prague, a North Vietnamese offensive on the holiday of Tet, riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and more. Borman, Lovell, and Anders received uncounted cards, letters, and telegrams when they returned, but the one that moved them most, from a woman whose name is now forgotten, read simply, “Thank you. You saved 1968.”