The Flight of Apollo 8

On Christmas Eve, 1968, three explorers gave a Christmas present to the world that was much needed. That year had not been a happy one. The Vietnam War had flared into even greater violence due to the surprise Tet Offensive. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had fallen to assassins’ bullets. Riots had become a common feature of colleges, inner cities, and even at the Democratic National Convention. President Lyndon Johnson, just a few short years ago a hero for his efforts to bring about civil rights for all, had seen his administration fall into ruins.

The decisions that led up to that Christmas Eve had only been taken the previous August. NASA had designed a sequence of test flights that would lead to the Apollo Moon landing the following year. These were an unmanned test of the command module, an unmanned test of the lunar module, a manned test in low Earth orbit of the command module, an manned test of the command and lunar modules in low Earth orbit, a manned test of the command an lunar modules in an elliptical Earth orbit with an apogee of 4600 miles, a manned test of the command and lunar module in lunar orbit, then finally the Moon landing itself.

This sequence was called into question by delays in getting the lunar module ready. So it was decided that after the low Earth orbit test of the command module, which would be the flight of Apollo 7, the next manned Apollo mission would send a crew aboard the Apollo command module into lunar orbit. A number of procedures necessary for the Moon landing would thus be tested. The CIA had also suggested that the Soviets were planning a manned mission around the Moon and NASA officials were keen to beat them to the punch. The lunar orbital mission, designated Apollo 8, was scheduled for late December of 1968.