Imagine America in 1968: a nation wrestling with deep division, devastating loss, and a challenging war. It was a year desperate for a spark of unity, a glimmer of hope. Just when spirits felt lowest, an incredible journey began. The Apollo 8 mission propelled three astronauts nearly a quarter of a million miles from Earth, aiming for the Moon. This ambitious flight, a critical step in the fierce space race, carried not just men, but the hopes of a weary nation.
High above the lunar surface, on Christmas Eve, the Apollo 8 crew – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders – suddenly saw it: our vibrant blue planet, rising majestically over the desolate lunar horizon. In that breathtaking moment, astronaut Bill Anders quickly grabbed his camera, capturing what would become the universally recognized Earthrise photograph. This iconic image wasn’t just a stunning view from space exploration; it became a powerful emblem of unity and inspiration, offering a much-needed gift of hope to America and the world during a pivotal year in our history.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. Up next, a story I found particularly fascinating. It’s called Earthrise. Here’s the story. The year 1968 was, by any measure, a bad one for America. Senator Robert Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King were assassinated that year. Race riots swept the nation, and America was being torn apart by an ever-escalating presence in Vietnam. By all accounts, the event that saved 1968 from an endless barrage of bad news was a journey that propelled three men nearly a quarter of a million miles from the Earth. That journey to space, and the iconic photograph that would come to define it, Earthrise, provided a moment of celebration, joy, and even hope in a nation desperately in need of all three. How did one of history’s most iconic photographs come to be? Ironically, the very forces that impelled America to send troops to Southeast Asia propelled America into space. Our global struggle with our communist adversary, the Soviet Union. America’s race to space was set in motion when President John F. Kennedy commanded NASA to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade and before the Soviet Union. By 1968, America was losing that race and perpetually seemed to be a step behind the Russian space program. The Apollo 8 mission, thanks to some aggressive updates and flight alterations, finally put America in the league. The Apollo 8 crew hurtled into space on December 21st on a Saturn V rocket that stood over 360 feet tall, the same height as a 36-story building, propelled by the nearly 160 million horsepower produced by its five F-1 engines, and reached the Moon in a mere three days, and on Christmas Eve Day.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: Slip rock at 1:00 a.m. Instant Santa’s high.
00:02:40
Speaker 1: Once the spacecraft entered lunar orbit, it made ten complete orbits before returning home. It was on the fourth pass that the Apollo 8’s flight crew, Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell, witnessed what would come to be known as an Earthrise for the very first time. Here is Bill Anders talking about that moment years later with a NASA official, and you will also hear the real wife audio of the crew back in 1968 talking about what they were seeing themselves.
00:03:17
Speaker 2: So, we were in lunar orbit, upside down and going backwards. So for the first several revolutions, and we didn’t see the Earth, and didn’t really think about that. And then we righted ourselves heads up and twisted the spacecraft so it was going forward. And while Frank Borman was in the process of doing that, suddenly I saw it. In the corner of my eye. This color dude was shocking. The Earth, a…
00:03:52
Speaker 3: …blue and white ball just above the lunar horizon 240,000 miles away.
00:04:04
Speaker 4: Oh my God, look at that picture! On it there, it’s the Earth coming up a while. That pretty! Get a color film. Jim and me had roll a color, quick! The curry, quick!
00:04:16
Speaker 2: So I managed to get Lovell to get me a color magazine, put the long lens on, and started stamping away.
00:04:25
Speaker 4: Take Thermo up here! Give me, man, I’ve got the right bedding. Here, com down, Lovell. Oh, I got it right.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: A beautiful shot.
00:04:35
Speaker 4: Oh, very! I picked you up there. You surely got about… Yeah, we’ll get them.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Come up togning without a light meter. I really didn’t know what to set it, so I just took the f-stop and just took a shot, moved it. Took a shot, moved it. And they really didn’t think that much about it.
00:04:59
Speaker 1: That evening, Americans and the world, nearly one billion in all, watched in all as America’s Intrepid Space Explorers broadcast a live Christmas Eve message while orbiting the Moon. What could they say after seeing what they’d just seen?
00:05:16
Speaker 4: We’re now booking letter for Ryan and for all the people…
00:05:23
Speaker 3: …back on Earth?
00:05:24
Speaker 4: They proved upon 8, haven’t we?
00:05:27
Speaker 1: Really liked it?
00:05:28
Speaker 2: Then? To you?
00:05:30
Speaker 1: Bill Anders then started the largest mass televised Bible-reading in world history, as each of the three crew members took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis. Days later, the negative that would become the world’s most iconic photograph splashed safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 27th, developed and released for the world to see days not long after in Life magazine’s Year in Review edition published on January 10th, 1969, Earthrise graced the cover. Life also printed the photo on a double-page spread, alongside a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate James Dickey, quote: “And behold the blue planet, steeped in its dream of reality, its calculated vision, shaking with the only love.” Years later, Apollo 8 crewmate Jim Lovell recalled the impact that moment had on the crew during his speech at the Washington National Cathedral during the National Air and Space Museum’s 50th anniversary tribute to the Apollo 8 mission. Lovell closed things out with these words about the mission and that iconic photo that embodied it.
00:06:46
Speaker 3: It was the American public, however, that received the greatest gift. After a year of controversy, Apollo 8 gave them a reason to be American. The flight of Apollo 8 can best be expressed by a telegram received by the crew. It only said, “Thanks. You saved nineteen sixty.”
00:07:13
Speaker 1: “…eight,” the story of Earthrise, one of the most iconic photos in history. Here on Our American Stories, Lee Habib. Here, as we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, I’d like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn’t just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go to Hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I’ve ever seen. Again, go to Hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses.
Discover more real American voices.
