Apollo 8 ’s ‘Earthrise’ Photo Changed Our Understanding of Our Place in the Universe. Here’s the Story Behind the Picture

It was a bad day for Bill Anders when NASA took away his spacecraft and gave him a camera. The spacecraft was a nifty one: the spindly, four-legged lunar module that would ferry two members of a three-man Apollo crew down to the surface of the moon while the third member minded the Apollo mothership in orbit overhead. Anders was a rookie astronaut, a member of the newest class of recruits, and in the run-up to the Apollo missions he knew it was unlikely he would ever get to command a lunar module; but if he learned every little thing there was to know about the machine — making himself as much of an expert as the people who designed it — he could surely snag himself a number-two slot. On his first flight, he was was handed just the assignment he wanted, test-flying both the Apollo and the lunar module in low-Earth orbit, along with his senior crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. If that went well, Anders’ next flight would surely be a trip to the moon. But in the summer of 1968, those plans got turned upside down. Word from the lunar-module manufacturer was that the ship would not be ready for flight until sometime in 1969. The decision was thus made that Borman, Lovell and Anders crew, the crew of Apollo 8, would fly anyway with what they had — the Apollo orbiter alone — and take it to the place it was designed to go in the first place: the moon. Borman was thrilled at the chance to beat the Soviet Union into lunar orbit, scoring a key win in...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized 1968 Apollo 8 Earthrise History NASA photography space Source Type: news