Christmas Eve 2025

This year is the 57th anniversary of Apollo 8's lunar orbit mission. The crew, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders, spent almost one full day in lunar orbit, completing 10 orbits of the moon before heading back to Earth. At the moment, it looks like we'll get the Artemis II, "not quite enough like Apollo 8 to call it a re-do" mission no earlier than February of 2026. It won't even orbit the moon once, it will just loop around the moon and return to Earth without going into orbit around our neighbor.

The six-day long Apollo 8 mission full of firsts lifted off on Dec. 21, 1968, and it would feature the first time that humans had looked down on the moon from orbit; the first time that humans had seen the far side of the moon with their own eyes, not an orbiting camera.  And it would mark the first time anyone had ever seen the Earth rise over another world.  

I think any vote on the top 10 photos from the Apollo era would include this famous Earth rise shot from Apollo 8, arguably as the most famous or most important. 

Apollo 8 was originally not conceived as the mission it became; it was intended to be part of qualifying the Apollo spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).  There had been only one prior manned Apollo mission, Apollo 7, and that had been only two months before in October.  While a Saturn V had been test launched, it had never carried astronauts into orbit.

"NASA officials realized that this was risky, since Apollo 7 had not yet qualified the spacecraft when their tentative decision was made," a NASA historical document reported. The decision was further complicated by Apollo 8's need for a more powerful rocket, called the Saturn V, which had never been tested on a crewed launch. But after months of discussion, NASA decided to move forward with an Apollo 8 moon mission on Nov. 10, about a month before the launch.

Space fans from those days will remember that critical rocket burns happened while the Apollo capsule was out of radio contact - over the far side of the moon.  The burn to stop Apollo 8 from looping around the moon and returning to Earth, enabling them to orbit the moon, had to take place while over the far side.  A day later, the burn to get them out of lunar orbit and returning to Earth took place over the far side as well.

All that remained was the return trip home. Mission controllers waited anxiously Christmas morning as the crew turned their engine on again, on the far side of the moon.

As they re-emerged, Lovell called out, "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus," signaling that the ship was headed back to Earth. The crew landed successfully on Dec. 27.

Christmas Eve was the day they orbited the moon, the day that the crew spoke to us of the "stark and unappetizing" look of the lunar surface and read from the book of Genesis, the first book in the Christian bible.  Here on Earth, 1968 had been a tumultuous year. There had been riots in many places, assassinations (including Robert F Kennedy) and troubles all around the globe. On Christmas eve, in awe of what these men were accomplishing, it seemed like the world held its breath and watched. 

As I say every year, hold close the ones you love. Give thanks to the people who work the day so that others won't have to, including, police, fire, emergency workers of all kinds including military and hospital workers. If we're very lucky, this will be the worst Christmas of our lives and everything in life gets better year by year for the rest of our lives. And if things get worse, we'll remember this as the "good old days". Either way, hold tight.