Page 36 - Apollo 8 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Astronaut, not a cosmonaut, would be the first to fly around the moon. >> it was one of the big gambles that nasa at the direction of the president took in order to establish that america was better than the soviet union. >> a big gamble indeed. and for all, it was less than two years before that apollo 1 demonstrated just how complex every mission was. nobody knew that better than frank hormen, the point man in the apollo investigation. nasa tapped him to man the latest mission. >> i was called back, will you volunteer to take apollo 8 to the moon? i said, yes, we would be happy to. we found ...

And the other people said, no, we should send one more time, just to make sure. >> the cia began getting signals that maybe the soviets were going to try a circum-lunar flight, a big figure eight around the moon, which would have massively undercut the p.r. potential of a lunar landing or even, you know, a lunar orbital flight. >> to make matters worse for nasa, the lunar module wasn't ready to go into space. it was months behind schedule. but instead of falling further behind the soviets, nasa officials had a bold idea. >> the lunar module, unfortunately, was delayed considerably, and so, nas...

And the other people said, no, we should send one more time, just to make sure. >> the cia began getting signals that maybe the soviets were going to try a circum-lunar flight, a big figure eight around the moon, which would have massively undercut the p.r. potential of a lunar landing or even, you know, a lunar orbital flight. >> to make matters worse for nasa, the lunar module wasn't ready to go into space. it was months behind schedule. but instead of falling further behind the soviets, nasa officials had a bold idea. >> the lunar module, unfortunately, was delayed considerably, and so, nas...

Astronauts of apollo 8, the first humans to orbit the moon. described what they saw and read scripture from the book of genesis to the rest of us back here. later that night they took a photo that would change the way we see and think about our world. it was an image of earth. beautiful, breathtaking. a glowing marble of blue oceans and green forests and brown mountains rising over the surface of the moon. while the sight of our planet from space might seem routine today imagine what it looked like to those of us seeing our home, our planet for the first

To do around mars. >> openfully go to mars and come back on a rare opportunity. in 2018 the planets will align so they can shoot this rocket straight this, it will whip around mars, not land, they will come within 100 miles of the planet and come back again. and-- >> of what use is that? >> it's something that's never been done before, now, in the 1960's, when nasa did it with apollo 8, it wowed the world and this would do that except at mars and it's an effort to explore mars and for interest in space and prove it can be done. there are people who say it can't be. >> megyn: already people say...