apollo 8 now in lunar orbit. there is a cheer in the room. it is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize what you have back there on earth. when they were coming around from the far side of the moon, bill anders looked through his side window and saw the earth rising. he snapped the picture. when the pictures started coming back of the earth from that distance, the sense of american achievement, the sense of how great the cosmos, how small we are, how fragile the earth is, all of those things began to pounce around like electricity in your brain and touch a very special part in the heart.
go ahead. we ve got it. we ve got it. apollo 8 now in lunar orbit. there is a cheer in the room. it is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize what you have back there on earth. when they were coming around from the far side of the moon, bill anders looked through his side window and saw the earth rising. he snapped the picture. when the pictures started coming back of the earth from that distance, the sense of american achievement, the sense of how great the cosmos, how small we are, how fragile the earth is, all of those things began to pounce around like electricity in your brain and
touch a very special part in the heart. tonight the crew of apollo 8 presents a christmas eve program from the heavens. with a few orbits to go, they made one last television transmission. the public affairs director had said, there will be more people watching that television show than have ever witnessed any event in human history of the say something appropriate. for all the people back on earth, the crew of apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. in the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth. and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. to have the guys reading genesis was so spot on. whatever your concept of god was, the earth is a beautiful
orbit, they have to fire the engine on the far side of the moon where there s no radio control. the engine burn will slow them down from 5,700 to about 3,700 miles an hour. they ll have put themselves into lunar orbit. the first men in history to have done so and the trickiest and most dangerous part of their flight. you could have any one of a number of things go wrong. end up in the wrong orbit or hit the moon. we have to have absolute faith in everything that has ever been done to develop this rocket motor. all they can do is point it in the right direction, press a button and hope it works perfectly. apollo 8 houston, over.
want the apollo eight story unfold and you realize even in a dark year like 1968 some good came out of it. so you re saying you have to watch from start to finish, right? because you re going to see all that led up to that. the drama even for people that remember 1968, you will be surprised. you will have forgotten the collusion between the nixon campaign and the south vietnamese that affected the election. you will have forgotten how close that election was, and you would have forgotten the beauty and the poetry and sadness of martin luther king and the funeral that followed. that train ride through the country with his body. thank you very. definitely worth watching. just ahead, anderson speaks with jimmy hack, seriously winded in a mission. first, though, a preview of