40 years ago tonight, on Christmas Eve, 1968, Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, in a live television broadcast, announced that they were approaching lunar sunrise, and that he had a message for "all the people back on Earth." He then began to read from Genesis 1:1–10:
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. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." . . .
Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell took up the reading, and read through the creation story in Genesis, until he was relieved by Commander Frank Borman, who finished the creation story, and wished the entire world a merry Christmas. You can see a video of the live telecast here. Lovell, Anders and Borman were the first humans to leave Earth orbit, entering lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. It was Apollo 8 that took the famous "Earth rise" image linked above, showing Earth as it looks from space, something none of us had ever seen before— in a photograph that was an unplanned act of serendipity.
Forty years ago, we were racing to beat the Russians to the moon; now we jointly operate the International Space Station. All three astronauts reminisce about the experience here, and in this official NASA video. Although historically, we were, very much, in a rush to space to "beat" the Russians, when the time came, the successful lunar orbit was treated as a triumph for all of humanity, everywhere, in the true spirit of Christmas, and science.
Merry Christmas, to everyone, everywhere.