{"id":17281,"date":"2018-12-12T12:17:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T17:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=17281"},"modified":"2018-12-12T12:17:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T17:17:19","slug":"listening-to-genesis-the-story-of-apollo-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=17281","title":{"rendered":"Listening to “Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8”"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 21st will mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8<\/a>, the first time humans left earth orbit to reach another celestial object. While the landing on the surface of the Moon by Apollo 11<\/a> dominates the public’s view of America’s lunar program, it was the orbiting of the Moon by the terrifically dangerous and milestone-making Apollo 8 mission that actually marked the triumph of the USA in the 1960’s “Space Race<\/a>” with the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

I recently listened to Bob Zimmerman’s book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Mission to Another World<\/a><\/em>\"\". An audiobook version<\/a> was released this year with a excellent reading by Grover Gardner. Bob nicely weaves a narrative of the Apollo 8<\/a> mission, from its conception to capsule splashdown, with captivating portraits of the three astronauts and vivid descriptions of the political and social upheavals of the time, especially the many dreadful events of the tumultuous year of 1968. (The book should disabuse young people of the notion that political polarization in the US today is something new or reaches the levels of other angry periods in the country’s history.)<\/p>\n

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The three astronauts – Frank Borman<\/a>, James Lovell<\/a>, and William Anders<\/a> – were the first to see earth from beyond low earth orbit. How the famous EarthRise photo<\/a> came about is described in the book and answers the question of who actually took the picture.<\/p>\n

The astronauts made a surprising but very appropriate reading during a widely viewed broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve<\/a>. The book tells the background story of how this came about.<\/p>\n