Page 45 - Bill Anders News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Each other with a spacecraft on the very top with three guys in it. and you knew that that sucker was going someplace. it had a purpose in mind and it was going someplace. >> you get to december of 1968 and frank borman and jim lovell and bill anders have actually been training to fly the first flight around the moon. >> we kind of feel that this flight set the pace to begin the in earnest our lunar landing apollo program. >> the countdown to liftoff for apollo 8 is now t-minus 50 minutes and counting. this will be the first manned flight of the saturn 5, the largest rocket man has ever built....

They fired the third stage and sent them hurling on the three-day journey to the moon. >> what does the old moon like? >> the moon is essentially gray, no color. >> as we came into earth rise we were shocked, dumbfounded almost to see this earth coming up. we hadn't seen it before. we weren't briefed about it. and so there was a scramble for cameras. >> reporter: on christmas eve while orbiting the moon this picture was photographed by the landers. this shot has become one of the most reproduced space photographs in history. >> it was the only thing in space that had any color. everything else...

Pontiff placed a statue of the baby jesus in a replica of a manger in st. peter's basilica. his focus was on the humble beginnings and the vulnerability of the christ child. the ceremony coming as he celebrated his first christmas eve mass as leader of the catholic church. and there is an out-of-this world event many people were talking about christmas morning 48 years ago today. just hours earlier, on christmas eve, the crew of apollo 8 astronauts frank foreman, bill anders and jim lovell took turns reading from the book of gene sis. the view as they circled the moon blending itself beautif...

Why couldn't they get out? >> the hatch was on the inside pressing against the hull. so to remove the hull, you had to turn it in. when the fire started, you have 50,000 pounds pressure holding that door in place. >> all three men were dead. >> we lived near the wife of one of the crewmember, pat white. >> bill anders had the unenviable task of breaking the news to the wife of edward white. >> and that was a pretty tough deal. when i stopped in front of the house, she saw me coming, and even though she had not heard, i could just tell by the look on her face that she knew something was wrong. ...

Cameras. >> on christmas eve, while orbiting the moon, this picture titled "earth rise" was photographed by anders. this shot has become one of the most reproduced photographs in history. >> it was the only thing in space that had any color. everyelse was black and white. the earth was blue, white clouds, and brownish-pink continents, and we were a long way from hole, and it was christmas. it was a nostalgic moment. bill anders said it best, we came all the way to the moon and what perked our interest was the earth. >> i'll take the credit. >> many men and women who have been in space, they're...