Astronaut William Anders began: “For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send 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.”
On Christmas Eve fifty-one years ago, millions in the United States and around the globe—including this then eleven year old boy—gathered breathlessly around their TV’s to 
While this episode remains a heartwarming moment that celebrates both the universality of the human endeavor as well as the singularity of this accomplishment, it should not obscure the reality of what was really happening on that blue planet viewed from afar, of the wars and famines and cruelty and disasters that did not take a pause while space travelers read aloud from an ancient book that itself once gave witness to its same share of wars and famines and cruelty and disasters. Nor should it fail to remind us that these representatives of the earth blasted off from a badly fractured landscape at home.
The claim that America on this Christmas Eve of 2019 has never been this divided is at once refuted by a glance back to 1968, replete with acts of terror, campus unrest, cities in flames, mass demonstrations, political assassinations, and violence in the streets—the perfect storm of the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam and the revolution of rising expectations among long-disenfranchised blacks frustrated by the pace of change. If there was a kind of unifying force that remained to serve as some sort of glue amid the chaos and dissonance of a splintered national polity it had to be the space program and its race for the moon. The actual moon landing was not until the following year, but 1968 closed with the remarkable Apollo 8 mission, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, made more dramatic by that live Christmas Eve audio-video transmission from space that included those readings from Genesis, and later forever enshrined in our collective consciousness by the iconic photo “Earthrise” that depicts the earth rising over the moon’s horizon, snapped by astronaut Bill Anders, that is said to have inspired the environmental movement.
Martin W. Sandler revisits this existential moment that briefly comforted a troubled nation with the oversize and lavishly illustrated Apollo 8: The Mission That Changed Everything, directed at a young adult (YA) audience but suitable for all. I have read and reviewed Sandler before. The author has a talent for clear, concise writing that while targeting a younger readership does not dumb-down the topic, an otherwise frequent tarnish to this genre of nonfiction. I obtained this book as part of an Early Reviewer program and my copy was an Advanced Reader’s Copy (ARC) with black and white images, but the published edition is full-color and worth the purchase if only for the magnificent color photographs, though these are nicely enhanced by a well-written narrative that encompasses the totality of this highly significant space mission and its ramifications back home. The only caution I would add is that I have detected glaring historical errors in some of Sandler’s other works. I did not stumble upon any here, but then I am hardly an expert on the space program. Thus, the reader should trust but verify!
Some—at the time and since—have objected to the astronauts’ choice of verses from Genesis, as if there was an attempt to impose religion from the beyond, or to celebrate the Judeo-Christian experience at the expense of others. We should not be so hard on them; they were simply seeking some kind of universal message to inspire us all. That they may have failed to please everyone may only underscore how diverse we are even as we transcend the myth of race to acknowledge that we all share the very same DNA, the same hopes and dreams and fears and needs and especially the desire to love and be loved. Astronaut Bill Landers himself returned from space as an atheist, awed by his place in the vast universe. I am not a religious person: I celebrate Christmas as a time for peace and love and Santa Claus. But I can still, like the astronauts on Apollo 8 fifty-one years ago, wish my readers a good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all of you on the good Earth.
Click for: Apollo 8 Live Broadcast
