Apollo 8 NASA AS-503 Mission Reports & Technical Documents PDF

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." - President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

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The Apollo 8 Command Module is on display at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, along with a collection of personal items from the flight donated by Lovell and the space suit worn by Frank Borman.

Apollo 8 Mission

Apollo 8 was launched on December 21, 1968 and became the first manned spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and safely return. The three-astronaut crew – Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders – became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, see Earth as a whole planet, and enter the gravity well of another celestial body. They were also the first humans to orbit another celestial body, see the far side of the Moon, witness an Earthrise, escape the gravity of another celestial body (the Moon), and reenter Earth’s gravitational well. Apollo 8 was the third flight of the Saturn V rocket, and its first crewed launch, and was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Originally planned as a second crewed Lunar Module/Command Module test, to be flown in a higher, elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious Command Module-only lunar orbital flight to be flown in December, because the Lunar Module was not yet ready to make its first flight. This led to the swapping of Borman’s crew with Jim McDivitt’s crew, who were planned to fly the first Lunar Module flight in low Earth orbit, which became the Apollo 9 mission. This left Borman’s crew with two to three months less training and preparation time than originally planned, and replaced the need for Lunar Module training with translunar navigation training.

Apollo 8 took 68 hours (2.8 days) to travel the distance to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew members were named Time magazine’s “Men of the Year” for 1968 upon their return.