The Earth Behind a Man’s Thumb

At 10:41:37 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, less than three hours after the launch from Florida and an orbit of the earth, Apollo 8 went into what was called "the trans-lunar injection." They were headed for the moon, 240,000 miles and three days away.

"We got the proper course and velocity … and we looked back at Earth. You could see it getting smaller and smaller because our velocity was so high. It reminded me of driving through a tunnel and looking out the back window and seeing the entrance shrink in size."

Early in the morning on December 24, Apollo 8 was within reach of the moon's gravitational pull, but the astronauts couldn't see the lunar surface. The spacecraft's blunt end blocked their view. The crew fired an engine and manipulated the spacecraft to get into position for a lunar orbit. Lovell's voice still rises slightly with excitement forty years later as he recalls the moment. "All of a sudden … just sixty-nine miles below, the ancient craters of the far side of the moon were slowly slipping by. We forgot the flight plan. We were like three kids in a candy store window."

The best was yet to come. "As we kept going, suddenly on the lunar horizon, coming up, was Earth." He remembers the vivid contrast between the lifeless moon and the vibrant earth. "The moon is nothing but shades of gray and darkness. But the earth—you could see the deep blues of the seas, the whites of the clouds, the salmon pink and brown of the land masses."

He says, "At one point I sighted the earth with my thumb—and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet. I realized how insignificant we all are if everything I'd ever known is behind my thumb. But at that moment I don't think the three of us understood the lasting significance of what we were looking at."

Borman, Anders, and Lovell had another gift to the world on that Christmas Eve. Before launching they had wrestled with what they might say with so many people listening in— estimated at a billion—and so a NASA executive contacted a friend in Washington, who in turn got in touch with Joe Layton.