They were told by Houston control, "You can always bring them back if you have any left over. One of Captain Lovell's first comments today was, "Happiness is bacon squares for breakfast." They have been able to sleep and eat according to schedule, although the food, in plastic packets divided into small "bites", apparently tastes as bad as it looks.
The pictures were noisy and indistinct, but because the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth. Luna 3 was the third spacecraft to reach the Moon and the first to send back pictures of the Moons far side. They then signed out: "From the crew of Apollo 8, we pause with good night, good luck and merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good earth."Īll three men appear to be in good spirits and health. In October of 1959, the Luna 3 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Once back in contact, Apollo 8 then fired another engine, sending it into circular orbit 69 miles (110 km) above the Moon's surface.Ībout two and a half hours afterwards, the astronauts beamed back the first television pictures of what they were seeing.Īs the pictures flooded in, the astronauts broadcast the first words of Genesis, describing the creation of the world. There followed a tense 45 minutes in which radio communication was impossible - a drama which will be repeated on each circuit around the Moon. Here in four stories we track their partnership from curtain-up to last act from the mean streets of Mid-Yorkshire to the mountains of the moon. Apollo 11, on the other hand, explores the grandeur of both the journey and the destination, with a particular eye toward the people that made it happen. Shortly afterwards, the spacecraft passed out of contact with mission control in Houston, travelling into the dark side of the Moon - never seen directly by humans before, as it always faces away from the Earth. First Man is a character study first and foremost, an attempt by Chazelle to deeply probe the mind of an achiever, highlighting Armstrong’s motivators and triggers. 24, 1946, soldiers and scientists at White Sands Missile Range launched a V-2 missile carrying a 35-millimeter motion picture camera which took the first shots of Earth from space.
The engine burned for just over four minutes, and then suddenly the avid audience of television-watchers on Earth had the first-ever eyewitness account of the lunar surface from astronaut James Lovell. The Soviets may have been the first to launch a satellite into orbit, but American scientists and researchers in New Mexico captured the first photos from space. Right on schedule, the crew fired their rocket engine to send Apollo 8 into the first of 10 elliptical lunar orbits. The climax of the mission began at 0959 GMT, when Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were about 78 miles (125 km) from the Moon. The Apollo 8 spacecraft has taken its crew of three astronauts safely into orbit around the Moon, the first manned space mission to achieve the feat.