Apollo 8

Rare card · No. 68207

Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth. The three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise. Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, and was the second crewed spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program (the first, Apollo 7, stayed in Earth orbit). Apollo 8 was the third flight and the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket. It was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center, adjacent to Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida. Originally planned as the second crewed Apollo Lunar Module and command module test, to be flown in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious command...

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