15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, we have ignition sequence start. The engines are on, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. We have commit. We have lift off. Lift off at 7:51 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
We have cleared the tower.
Roger.
I hear you, Houston.
Loud and clear.
Roger, Mode 1 Bravo, Apollo 8.
Roger, you're looking good.
Roger.
Roger, Mode 1 Charlie, Apollo 8.
Roger, Houston. You are go for TLI, over.
Roger, understand. We're go for TLI.
Apollo 8, coming up on 20 seconds to ignition, market. And you're looking very good.
Roger.
Ignition.
Roger, ignition.
Apollo 8, Houston, you're looking good.
Apollo 8, Houston. Trajectory and guidance look good, over.
Roger, Apollo 8. Good here.
Apollo 8, Houston. You're looking good here right down the center line.
Roger, Apollo 8.
Okay, we got seeko. Right on the money.
Roger, understand seeko.
Houston is coming to you personally, halfway between the moon and the earth. We've been 31 hours, about 20 minutes into the flight. We have about less than 40 hours left to go to the moon. Sure is the earth, that's a beautiful, beautiful view with the predominantly blue background and just huge covers of white clouds. Uh particularly one very strong vortex up near the terminator. Very, very beautiful.
Apollo 8, Houston, 1 minute to LOS, all systems go.
Roger, understand going to command reset and safe recorder, forward low bitrate.
Roger, safe journey, guys.
Thanks a lot, guys. We'll see you on the other side.
Apollo 8, Houston, over.
Apollo control Houston, Jerry Carr has placed a call, we're standing by. We've heard nothing yet but we're standing by.
Apollo control Houston, we're looking at engine data and it looks good. The tank pressures look good. We have not talked yet with the crew, but we're standing by.
But we've got it, we've got it, the Apollo 8 now in in lunar orbit. There's a cheer in this room. This is Apollo Control, Houston, switching now to the voice of Jim Lovell.
Go ahead, Houston. This is Apollo 8. Very complete. Our orbit is 169.9 by 60.5. 169.1 by 60.5.
Uh, Apollo 8, this is Houston, Roger 169.1 by 60.5, did hear your voice.
Houston, what you're seeing is the Western Hemisphere, looking, and the top is the North Pole. In the center, just lower to the center is South America, all the way down to Cape Horn. I can see Baja California and the southwestern part of the United States. There's a big cloud bank going northeast, covers a lot of the Gulf of Mexico, going up to the eastern part of the United States, and it appears now that the East Coast is cloudy. I can see clouds over parts of Mexico, the parts of Central America are clear. And we can also see the bright spot, the some silver point on the light side of the earth. Okay, for colors, the waters are all a sort of royal blue, clouds, of course, are bright white. The reflection off the earth is much greater than the moon. The land areas are generally a brownish, sort of dark brownish, to light brown in texture. Many of the cities of the clouds can be seen of various weather cells. And a long band of appears serious the clouds that extend from the entrance to the gulf of Mexico, going straight out across the Atlantic. The terminator of course cuts through the Atlantic ocean right now, going from north to south. The southern hemisphere is almost completely clouded over, and up near the north pole, there's quite a few clouds. South southwestern Texas and southwestern United States is clear. I'd say there's some clouds up in the northwest and over in the northeast portion.
This is Apollo 8, coming to you live from the moon. We've had to switch the TV camera now. We showed you first day view of earth as we've been watching it for the past 16 hours. Now, we're switching so that we can show you the moon that we've been flying over at 60 miles altitude for the last 16 hours. Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and myself have spent the day before Christmas up here, doing experiments, taking pictures, and firing our spacecraft engines to maneuver around. What we'll do now is follow the trail that we've been following all day and take you on through to a lunar sunset. Moon is a different thing to each one of us. I think that each one of each one carries his own impression of what what he's seen today. I know my own impression is that it's a vast, lonely, forbidding type existence, or expanse of nothing. It looks rather like clouds and clouds of hummus fog. And it certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to to live or work. Jim, what have you thought most about? Well, frankly, my thoughts were very similar. The vast loneliness up here on the moon is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space. And what are you saying? I think the thing that impressed me the most were the lunar sunrises and sunsets. These in particular bring out the stark nature, the terrain, and the long shadows really bring out the relief that is here, and hard to see in this very bright surface that we're going over right now. Horizon here is very, very stark. The sky is pitch black and the Earth, or the Moon, rather, excuse me, is quite light. And the contrast between the sky and the Moon is a vivid dark line. Actually, I think the best way to describe this area is a vastness of black and white. Actually, no color. The sky up here is also a rather forbidding, promoting expanse of blackness with no stars visible when we're flying over the over the Moon in daylight. And one of the amazing features of the surface is the roundness of most of the craters. Seems that most of them have a round mound-type appearance instead of a sharp jagged rock. All all these are very newest features of any sharp definition to them, and eventually they get eroded down by the constant bombardment of small meteorites.
And now approaching lunar sunrise and 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. 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. And God called the light, day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, let it divide the waters from the waters." And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament, Heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day. God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. God saw that it was good. And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.
Apollo 8, Apollo 8. This is Houston. 3 minutes LOS, all systems are go, over.
Roger, thank you, Houston, Apollo 8.
All systems are go, Apollo 8.
Thank you.
And at 88 hours 51 minutes, we show loss of signal with the spacecraft. Our next communication with Apollo 8 should come in about 37 minutes. We are now about 28 minutes prior to our trans-earth injection maneuver. As the spacecraft went over the horizon, capsule communicator Ken Mattingly passed along, for the second time, a word that all systems are go, and we got the ready tours, Roger, back from the spacecraft.
Houston, Apollo 8 over. Hello, Apollo 8. Loud, clear.
Roger, please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.
Roger.
You're the best one.

That first status report.
Reported on time.
Burn time 2 minutes 23 seconds.
7/10ths of a second
TGX.
Attitude
Nominal
Residual minus 5/10ths.
TGX
Plus 4/10th TGY and minus 0 TGZ.
Apollo 8, confirm your burn time, please.
Roger. We had 2 minutes 23 seconds.
Our point one.
The accurate, that's 2 minutes 23 seconds.
Thank you.

Apollo 8, Apollo 8, that's affirmative.
Hello Houston, Apollo 8.
Apollo 8, Apollo 8. Loud and clear. Affirmative, we are monitoring.
Okay.
Stand by for the go for pyro arm.
Apollo 8, Apollo 8, you have a go.
Roger.
Okay, everything went fine with the check and we are all armed ready to go here.
Houston, Apollo 8, confirm go for pyro arm.
Apollo 8, Apollo 8, Houston, you're a go for pyro arm.

Good, Apollo numbers.
Go ahead Apollo 8, bring it broken in.

Outstanding.

Well real good shape here.
Real fine.

We have no words or no indication yet whether they are on the attitude of the spacecraft. Whether it's nose down as was the case in Apollo 7 or up.
But nearly everyone agrees it's only 5,000 yards away from the York town.
Frank Borman is making small talk with the crew of that helicopter out there.
It was just relayed to us that he had in chatting with the pilot.
Uh, he'd asked him if anyone had seen the spacecraft on main shooting of course there were several reports and this is become the subject of a continuing chat.
Uh in conversation with the helicopter commander, uh the crew commander, apparently the helicopter asked the crew what the moon was made out of.
Uh whereupon Borman responded that it's not made out of green cheese at all. It's made out of American cheese.

to the tens, near the five centuries ago,
who heard stories of the new world for the first time.
There's just no other comparison that we can make that's equal to what you've done or to what we feel.
I had a memorandum a short time ago from the men who handle the Washington Moscow hotline.
And I thought you would be interested in a portion of that memorandum to the President.
It said that due to the interest of the Soviets in the Apollo program, they we asked them after we heard from them on Apollo 7, if they would be interested in being informed of developments in Apollo 8.
And the hotline personnel in Moscow responded enthusiastically and asked us to keep them posted.
So we informally here at the hotline in Washington, relayed information in regard to the most important aspects of your flight.
And the Soviets were very solicitous about the welfare of you astronauts and expressed a great interest in the success of the flight.
Now we all know that you men were supported by an elaborate technical apparatus and by many brilliant and devoted men and women here on the ground.
And we salute all of them as we salute you.
The first thing I did this morning when the things looked so good was to call your boss Dr. Payne and Jim Webb and to congratulate them and then to call your wives in Houston and to express our gratitude to them for providing the strength and the inspiration to you men that would permit you to accomplish this great feat.
But we know that all the engineering marvels in the world could not take away one whips of our excitement and admiration for the three of you that were out there in the vastness of space.
If I could have exchanged thoughts with you, I was going to ask you whether it felt better going coming down or going up and to have you tell me some of your experiences because you've seen what man has really never seen before.
You've taken us, taken all of us all over the world into a new era.
And my thoughts this morning went back to more than 10 years ago and the Sputnik Valley when we saw Sputnik racing through the skies, and we realized that America had a big job ahead of it.
It gave me so much pleasure to know that you men have done a large part of that job.
So we rejoice that you are well, and we send you congratulations from all of your fellow countrymen, and from all peace loving people in the world.
Well done.