If you could go back in time and take the place of any person for five minutes who would it be and why?
For me the answer is a no-brainer. I’d go back fifty years to the morning of December 24, 1968 and take Bill Ander’s place in the Apollo 8 Command Module — and get to be the first person, in fact the first living thing from planet earth to take in the view of the Earth rising up over the horizon. Why? That’s a longer story, and one I hope you’ll indulge me and read about. I didn’t fully learn about or appreciate it until thirty years had gone by, because like others I was so enthralled with what took place in the evening. However, something I believe much more important and yes, profound took place roughly ten hours before the Christmas Eve broadcast from Lunar Orbit. I will again beg for your indulgence to set the scene so to speak as I believe it’s the only way to get people to understand the significance of a moment that only decades later I would come to believe is as profound as any in history.
"We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." -- William Anders
It took eons for life to develop on our planet. Biologists can provide actual credible estimates but surely there have been hundreds of billions of species that developed eyesight capable of witnessing a rising (or setting) sun or moon appearing on the horizon. That means untold trillions of insects and animals (including eventually humans) have witnessed a sunrise or moon rise. Like you I’ve seen my share (and sunsets too) that are etched into my memory, most of which are so because nothing man made was in my field of view. Anyway, even with all we know it’s impossible to pinpoint a year, much less a day or a specific spot on the earth where the first human being saw the sun (or moon) come up over the horizon. However we do know that of all the species on earth that evolved to have eyesight only humans, and (on a Russian flight — more on that later) tortoises & wine flies have travelled across the nearly quarter million miles to the moon. We also know since the various Russian biological specimens were enclosed within a capsule inside the main capsule only human beings have been able to look outside the window of the spacecraft in which they were traveling.
Only 24 members of the human race have made the nearly quarter million mile journey to the moon(and of those only 12 walked on its surface), and therefore been able to see a lunar sunrise. And also an Earth Rise. We also know one person alone first saw it, and called attention to the remarkable sight so his two crewmates could get a look. It was Bill Anders Yes, the Christmas Eve broadcast and that remarkable photo he took that’s the title image of this diary were much talked about and even celebrated at the time and since. Although it surely came up here and there what struck me decades later was that I don’t recall any real discussion about that actual moment of the earth coming into view and just who was witness to the first Earth Rise in human consciousness. The first of any biological species from our planet in fact. And realizing that hit me like a thunderbolt.
Let me explain how this epiphany came about. In the late spring of 1998 HBO aired an extraordinary mini series — From the Earth to the Moon. Twelve episodes aired two at a time on Sunday nights. It brought back so many wonderful memories to be sure, but also introduced quite a few new things to ponder and marvel over that I hadn’t known about or really considered before, starting with a scene titled “The Men In This Room” in the very first episode. But the one that didn’t just make me go “wow” and years later still moves me to tears (every time) was in the episode devoted entirely to Apollo 8’s historic flight, specifically the “Earth Rise” scene. Ok, so they dramatized it a bit and changed some details (they didn’t see Earth from Lunar Orbit until coming around the far side for the start of the fourth orbit, and a bit of dialogue was changed) but it captures the moment beautifully:
At the end of this diary I’ll show a remarkable re-creation that uses actual imagery and the actual voice recordings from the cockpit of the spacecraft. First though a trip down memory lane.
In 1968 I turned eleven years old. Like many a kid I dreamed of one day being one of those Americans riding into space, to the moon and even beyond. Ok, by then I was already too tall to be selected as an Astronaut but that didn’t stop me from dreaming. I gulped down every bit of knowledge I could find on our space program from an early age. I even got in trouble in third grade for correcting my teacher who in a history lesson stated John Glenn was the first American to go into space. I pointed out that the first American was Alan Shephard, followed by Gus Grissom and then on the third flight Glenn went not only into space but into orbit. She was clearly mad at me and told me I was wrong. Back in the 1960s (and long afterwards) before there was an internet we had these things called encyclopedias. Multi-set volumes of information. Tomes. Being tall & therefore in the back of the room all I had to do was turn around and pull out the appropriate volume and open it to the proper page and hold it up. Ms. McCann grudgingly read it and then allowed that I was right (my buddies knew it all along but had been too afraid to challenge her) but compounded her ignorance by saying that at least Glenn was the first person to go into orbit. So I had to correct her again by pointing out that the first person in space, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had gone into orbit on the very first human space flight. Third grade was less than fun for the rest of the year.
That’s just part of my history following the space program from as early as I can remember. My first actual memory of any of it was Wally Schirra’s Mercury flight but my mom told a little later she’d had me in front of the TV for every mission so I’d be able to say I saw it all — and like many moms I was kept home from school on launch days during the 1960s. That gives you a sense of how immersed I was in all things space and like countless others I was passionate about all things space related. So much so that when I pleaded to see this movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey that was being talked about my mom drove the two of us all the way up to St. Louis (a two hour drive) to see it. I could write a whole different diary on that, but I mention it because even at that young age a scene sent chills down my spine over the realization that there’s a “first” for everything, including conceiving the use of something as a tool. There was no small irony in the fact that for all my eagerness to get to the space stuff which did indeed enthrall me my takeaway was this moment set before homo sapiens was even a species.
1968 was a bad year by any measure. It started bad with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and got worse from there. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and then Bobby Kennedy. The riots at the Democratic National Convention. So many things went wrong that year. And the Apollo program was struggling. A year earlier on January 27, 1967 a fire on the launchpad killed the crew of Apollo 1 (Gus Grissom, Ed White & Roger Chafee) during a routine test which wound up causing a complete makeover of the Apollo crew capsule — there wouldn’t be a manned flight of Apollo (Apollo 7) until October, 1968. We’d gotten ahead of the Russians in the “Space Race” by the time of the Apollo 1 fire on Pad 13 but the ensuing shakeup of the Apollo program let them get back ahead. And in September 1968 when they sent an unmanned spacecraft on a circumlunar flight and it landed intact in the Indian Ocean it looked like they might actually beat us to the moon, or at least be the first to send humans there. NASA knew the Soviet’s circumlunar flight (like the ill fated Apollo 13 it simply went around the far side of the moon and came back without going into Lunar orbit) was coming. In the summer they secretly decided to attempt a mission to put American Astronauts into Lunar orbit before the end of the year if Apollo 7 (the first manned Apollo flight) was successful. After the Soviet unmanned flight there was actual fear they might send a manned mission (they had a launch window) but NASA figured (hope?) they weren’t quite ready. We’d always kept the public informed about our space efforts back to the time of the first launches of unmanned satellites while the Russian program was veiled in secrecy. They’d let us tout what we were about to do and then without warning announce they’d just done it and since there was proof we were repeatedly upstaged for years. However, the successful completion of an Apollo 7 flight jammed packed with mission objectives allowed NASA drop a bombshell — the U.S. would scrap the prior schedule of flights and send a manned mission to the moon and into orbit on Christmas Eve. For the first time, WE hid our planning and caught the Soviets by surprise as they’d done to us over and over again from the beginning of the “space race.”
Like countless others, my anticipation as December 24, 1968 approached grew ever more fevered. In fact, not just folks in the U.S. but the entire world (well, maybe not the Soviets/Russians!) were excited about NASA’s bold move, especially when they announced there would be a live broadcast from Lunar Orbit on Christmas Eve. It was anticipated to be and in fact was the most watched broadcast in history up to that point. The broadcast was set to start at 9:30pm EST, which for me (living in southern Illinois) meant 8:30pm. It was a big enough deal that my church like many others changed the traditional time of Christmas Eve services to allow everyone to get home and settled in to watch — I wanted to stay home & watch TV in case their was news about the Apollo mission before the broadcast but my mom put her foot down.
Younger folks have to keep in mind that while the telecommunications we now enjoy grew out of the moon program, the technology of the time was crude by modern standards, and there was no 24 hour TV by major networks back then. Virtually everyone had only “over the air” broadcast TV and only three major networks that provided national coverage though a nationwide network of affiliates. The complexities of spaceflight made any TV broadcast a challenge (mission commander Frank Borman actually fought like hell against TV broadcasts being in the flight plan but was overruled by NASA) and with only a total of roughly 20 hours in orbit scheduled and all the work that had to be done there was no live TV being transmitted from the moon in the morning when the first “Earth Rise” was seen. I don’t even recall it being mentioned during newscasts when updates on the mission were mentioned. Anyway it was only a half day in school and pretty much all of the time was spent talking about what was coming that night — a live broadcast from Lunar orbit.
Well, we got home from church and settled in for what was indeed an amazing TV broadcast — since CBS/Walter Cronkite was the preferred option in our house this is what we saw that night. (Here’s the raw feed from Houston that includes a few minutes of pre-broadcast stuff and some interesting mission discussion between the spacecraft & Houston after they stopped the TV feed)
It didn’t matter that our TV was a crappy black & white — the images sent back were in black & white for everyone (technology at the time didn’t allow otherwise) and since the moon’s surface was shades of gray with black shadows color TV wouldn’t have mattered much. However, seeing the surface of the moon roll by from just sixty nautical miles up (a little over 69 miles for you landlubbers) was truly amazing, as was Jim Lovell’s comment that compared to the surface of the moon - “the Earth was a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.” But even though the TV images of the moon were in black and white they were riveting. No one thought that could be topped, and then the crew concluded the broadcast by reading the first few verses of Genesis with Frank Borman (mission commander) closing things out 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.”
Like the moon first moon landing itself the following July, or the “Miracle on Ice” victory of our Olympic Hockey team beating the Soviets at Lake Placid in 1980, no one who didn’t live through the times can really every fully appreciate the magnitude of the moment, any more than I could fully appreciate the magnitude of feeling my elders had when WWII ended. Some things you have to live through to truly “know” but that doesn’t mean they can’t be remembered, appreciated and honored by those who come later.
I’ve already noted that in the aftermath of the mission and the publication of the photo at the top of this diary that the concept of “Earth Rise” was talked about and even celebrated, but the most talked about memory would be the TV broadcast that night and it’s ending with the reading from Genesis — which created quite a bit of controversy in some circles btw. Still, that picture is #1 of Time’s list of most iconic photos and is said to have inspired the first Earth Day. It would go on a postage stamp the next year, and still inspires awe. But there was an important detail about that picture — the mistaken narrative that it was taken by Frank Borman. Given his words at the conclusion of the Christmas Eve broadcast he became a celebrated American hero. However for all the considerable talk about the photo most people’s main takeaway from the flight was the Christmas Even broadcast and the reading of the verses from Genesis. It was mine too for thirty years. And (again) as I’ve already noted virtually no consideration/discussion was devoted to that moment of the first Earth Rise and who first saw the stunning view of our beautiful blue and white ball of a planet shining bright in the blackness of space.
It took thirty years, until 1998, thirty years after it all happened I realized that I, and I think many (if not most) of us had missed what I believe is the most important point - that the most profound thing about the flight was not the reading from Genesis or that iconic picture, but rather a different “image” seen in in the mind of the first person, the first living being of any kind from the planet earth to look back at our beautiful blue and white ball emerging over the horizon.
Almost 20 years after the flight Andrew Chaiken discovered while researching his book A Man On the Moon that it was actually Bill Anders who had not only taken the iconic photo but also was the first to witness that first Earth Rise seen by man. IOW, even the original NASA transcript of the voice recordings from the Command Module suggesting Borman took the famous picture was wrong. Borman wasn’t thrilled about having the record corrected but I agree with Chaiken’s view that no one lied — they were three men who were on a dangerous mission, exhausted and with a high workload. On an earlier orbit (the first view of an Earth Rise and the photos didn’t occur until the fourth orbit due to the spacecraft’s orientation) Borman had wanted to take a “tourist photo” of a crater and Anders who’s primary role was surface photography to help map out landing sites objected. It would lead to Borman’s wise crack at the Earth Rise moment of “That picture’s not scheduled.” And it was an inter-crew joke. Anyway, Borman’s getting credit when as Mission Commander he’d have been a national hero anyway kind of rankled Anders because he knew he’d been the one who took the famous photo. It would be twenty years before someone came along and began the process of setting the record straight. The thing is, all of them were stunned at the view of the earth coming up over the moon’s horizon. As the Anders quote I highlighted earlier indicates, they were there to study the moon and obtain critical information for later missions and all of a sudden found themselves looking back home, awed by the beauty of our blue & white ball looking so fragile hanging there in the blackness of space. IOW, I think confusion over who saw what and when, and who took what picture when (Borman would in fact take a picture of the earth on a later orbit) can and should be forgiven.
I’d learned that the official narrative about who took the famous picture had changed but still didn’t think much of it or the significance of seeing an Earth Rise for years — until the mini series I’ve referenced (and the scene I included above) came out.
As I stated earlier it’s impossible to pinpoint a year, or even hundred (or longer) year span during which the first human witnessed a sunrise. But what’s not impossible is to identify the very moment when a human being witness the stunningly beautiful moment of an Earth Rise. Or who was fortunate enough to have been that first human being. Which is why if I could go back to any time & place in history for even a few minutes I’d go back fifty years to December 24, 1968 at 16:38 Universal Time (that’s 11:38am EST) and trade places with Bill Anders in the right hand seat/station of Apollo 8. Less than a minute later he’d see something no living thing from the planet earth had witnessed firsthand with their own eyes. A full fifty years later, still there are only 24 people who’ve seen it firsthand. The last were the crew of the final moon flight (Apollo 17) in 1972.
More amazing is the variety of unusual factors that came together at just the right time. There were of course a variety of mission objectives (most of which would be accomplished by the eight orbit, finally allowing them to get some rest and as well as engage in a bit of actual sight seeing & contemplation of where they were & what they were doing) but once in Lunar orbit taking photos and nailing down fixed positions on the surface to map out approach vectors and specific landing sites was at the top of the list. That meant orienting the spacecraft’s position to keep the windows pointed down at the Lunar surface to allow the mounted camera (over Borman’s window) and Anders who was tasked with most of the hand held camera work, and Lovell just underneath him at the navigation station taking sightings to do what they went to the moon to do. Changing the orientation periodically allowed them to gather more photos/data — IOW photograph and map a wider swath of the surface than that just beneath the spacecraft’s actual orbital path.
As luck (an incredible amount) would have it, Borman was maneuvering the spacecraft into a new orientation just as Apollo 8 came around from the far side on to start the fourth orbit and briefly bringing the earth (instead of the Lunar surface) into view. On top of that, with all the other tasks on a long checklist Anders just happened to look up out the window at just the right time. He could have (and probably should have) been consulting his checklist and/or checking with Lovell (who was using the sexant below the control panel to map the surface but also helping reload cameras with film) to make sure film was ready for the cameras for the next set of photos. But for some wonderful reason he decided to glance out the window — and as I’ve noted at just the right time.
It was an incredible, against all odds set of coincidences that the moment belonged to Anders. Only because the spacecraft was making a change in orientation (two moves in fact, both a pitch and a roll) maneuver at exactly the moment it was emerging from the far side of the moon he was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and looked out the window at exactly the right time — making the moment unique. Both for him personally and for humanity.
Like most people I’ve had my share of good moments and bad in six plus decades of life. To quote singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett “Good times and riches and son of a bitches, I’ve seen more than I can recall. But I’m confident in saying that even if I’d lived the most charmed life one can imagine, with virtually all good and wonderful experiences and virtually no difficult ones I’d trade it all to be able to swap places with Bill Anders in the Apollo 8 capsule for just those few minutes that morning — December 24, 1968.
Well, I said I could show you a marvelous recreation of the event and I will. It was produced in time for the 45th anniversary of the flight, and combined photos from the original flight, and imagery from several years of work product from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. Andrew Chaiken who’s meticulous research over the years has been the basis for so much of the “details” lost in official NASA narratives/PR narrates. However,the voices you’ll hear during the critical maneuver are the actual Astronauts on the spacecraft’s audio recorder as it happened. Yes, there is a bit of animation to show how the spacecraft was oriented (pointed) and turning but the imagery you see from the window is just as it happened, thanks to the crew’s actual photos and images taken from the LRO which actually did make a pass along the exact same orbital path. This is how, fifty years ago it happened. (This is how you can view it full screen)
On this fiftieth anniversary, we should take a moment or two to remember and celebrate this unique moment/experience in human existence.
The closing scene if the series I’ve referenced several time is a mix of real people (or actors portraying them) and a fictional newscaster who notes the Earth Rise and another iconic picture Gene Cernan took of Jack Shmitt with the Earth over his shoulder
on Apollo 17 (the final manned mission) saying “That’s the reason we went to the moon — to take those pictures.” He goes on a bit and closes by saying “But more than anything else, we went to the moon to see if we could make the journey. Because if we can do that, if we can voyage from the Earth to the Moon then there’s hope for us all. Because we can do anything.” This all took place when not just our country but the world was in the midst of strife, yet we showed what was possible when we summoned the best in us. I’d highly recommend watching the entire Apollo 8 episode of From The Earth To The Moon. Unfortunately HBO no longer offers the series on it’s website. While YouTube has some of the individual episodes the one that covers this mission (Episode 4) isn’t on there. It might be available still on Netflix, and perhaps your local library has it. With shipping this time of year ordering the box set might be too late but you can give it a try, and if there’s a local store that sells DVDs you might get lucky. The whole thing is worth every penny to purchase.
As for this diary, as well as the Mercury, Gemini & Apollo Programs that harnessed some of the best in us and led to so many extraordinary moments/history and technological development that we use everyday without a thought as to how it came about I’ll say “I want us to be that kind of country again.” As Jim Lovell put it after the first moon landing “It wasn’t a miracle — we just decided to go.” It wasn’t easy, or cheap. But we solved the problems and invented what we needed to in order to make it happen. It wasn’t the first time we’d done (as others have done on other matters in other countries) we decided something big and important for all the world needed to be done. I know seemingly impossible things can be accomplished when the will is there.
Fifty years after the extraordinary voyage of Apollo 8, I’d like to encourage people to think about that journey and that specific moment when human beings were first able to look back at our flawed, yet beautiful home. And encourage our leaders to make it as beautiful here on Earth as we appear from a distant world.