In my 20’s in 1968, I heard the live broadcast of the Apollo 8 astronauts reading from Genesis 1 as they rounded the back side of the moon and saw the “earthrise” for the first time. A short time later, I bought some of the new postage stamps (6 cents at that time) with a photo of that earthrise and the words “In the beginning God …” and “Apollo 8”. To memorialize that event, I pasted one of those stamps in my Bible at the start of Genesis 1.
It was a fitting reminder after a horrible year: see The Voice Heard Round the Earth (and the Moon) for the setting. It’s subtitle is “In a year wracked by violence, America’s astronauts sent a biblical message of peace.”
Here is a selection from that article by John S. Gardner in National Review Online. You’ll want to read the whole thing.
As the astronauts flew above the lunar surface on their scientific mission, they gave a live Christmas Eve broadcast to the people of Earth, showing pictures of the Earth and Moon. Then, to conclude the broadcast, Anders said: “We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.” He began reading from the first chapter of Genesis:
. . . Lovell and Borman continued with the passage until Borman reached verse 10:
And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Borman then ended with this: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas — and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
What is really sad is that this Christmas Eve, on the 40th anniversary of that first manned trip around the moon and that broadcast, I heard nothing about it.
The Rocky Mountain News had this one sentence buried in an article about children’s books: “Space fans will love Moon Landing (Candlewick Press, $29.99, ages 8 up), written by Richard Platt and David Hawcock, a celebration of Apollo 11's 40th anniversary.”
This Christmas Eve, 2008, we could have used that reminder.
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