Page 32 - Apollo 8 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Vehicles before we would go to the moon. >> reporter: apollo viii was a big step forward. america would still be trailing the russians in the race to the moon. >> they sent spacecraft around the moon with animals to test them for cosmonauts. and they were fairly successful. but then in the soviet hierarchy, they had a been controversy, should we send the cosmo mauts, and people said, no we should send them one more time before the cia began getting signals that maybe the soviets were going to try a sir com lunar flight. which would have massively undercut the pr potential of a lunar landing, o...

Our interest was the earth. >> reporter: with the world engrossed in apollo 8's epic journey, they took turns reading from the old testament. >> god said let the waters of the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. and god called the dry land earth. >> the old testament is the basis of the world's religions, not just christians. so we thought that was very appropriate. >> reporter: they relayed a sighting that delighted children worldwide. >> there is a santa claus. >> did your family delay the christmas celebration until you got back? >> partly. i plan...

Could just tell by the look on her face that she knew something was wrong. >> reporter: the three were given hero's funerals. and in their honor, mission af-204 was redesignated apollo i. it could well have been the last apollo. >> that put the apollo program on hold. frank gorman became very instrumental in reviewing the hold issue. >> nasa, especially investigators themselves, that kept the outside without the slightest idea was going on. that was one of the hallmarks of the confidence that the public had in nasa at that time. we were able to get a team together and point out the failures an...

Took one small step back to the future the unmanned orion space capsule to wait orbited the earth before splashing down in the pacific ocean. orion may land astronauts on meteor or surface of mars. but spending on nasa is near historic lows that is literally and figuratively a long ways away. >> maybe by spending a little time looking back we can at least learn anew the lesson that apollo showed us. if we as americans set ourv=;z øhg]e#jy=c/3/lj3 sights on a goal and some will to achieve it, even of the sky isn't the limit. i'm neilfor cavuto.er thanks for watching. $3 billion? $4.5 billion? ...

Mission. >> i was called back, will you volunteer to take apollo 8 to the moon? i said, yes, we would be happy to. >> we were sort of at the last minute, several months before we were scheduled to launch. but that's what we were being asked to do. so ours was not the reason why, it was to do or die. >> reporter: do or die not just for the three astronauts. it was 1968, ending with a disaster it could end america's lunar quest for good. >> it certainly occurred to me that if the flight wasn't successful, it would be a monumental failure. >> reporter: they launched from cape kennedy center in fl...