Earthrise - The First Voyage to the Moon | Free Documentary History 

On Christmas Eve 1968, one of the largest audiences in television history tuned in to an extraordinary sight: a live telecast of the moon's surface as seen from Apollo 8, the first manned space flight to leave Earth's gravitational pull and orbit the moon. The historic journey captivated people around the world.

I was 8 years old and spent Christmas vacation following the flight. What a time it was. Yes, Apollo 8 saved 68.

I had the privilege of being at the Cape for this launch. I was a (very) young USAF Information Officer taking a group of VIPs from Eglin AFB to see the liftoff. My chest vibrated when the rocket roared to life. I recently came across the slides I took, and am still in awe of the technology that was evidenced that day. It did indeed save 1968!

RIP to all the astronauts that have paid with their lives 🙏

The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were real heroes. Very brave men, particularly those that went to the moon. If anything went wrong on the surface, that was it!

I love that near final line "Thanks, you made 1968". And I remember Japanese reporters who'd never heard the Genesis story ask about where to get a copy. They were told in the Bible in each of their hotel rooms.

I remember that Christmas Eve, exactly where I was, and the exultation I experienced as an eleven year old boy sitting on the floor in my uncle's living room. And when they read from Genesis it deeply moved my heart. And I can still hear, like it just happened, their sign off: "Good night, good luck, merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth."

Being 5 years old when Apollo happened, I’ve seen the telling of Apollo a gazillion time; but, I have never experienced the telling of the story like this, purely from the human side (with very little technical jargon to confuse the viewer). Great job.

As a 8 year old I watched the launch and Christmas Eve message on my 12 b/w Tv.

I remember it well as a young man, stayed glued to all the updates, and it was around Christmas😊

Great Doc. I grew up with this program. Any Boomer who came of age during this time went forward throughout their career with this spirit of excellence in mind.We are are pretty much done now... ...I wish current younger generations are able to find an inspiration for their lives that is similar to what we had.

Great documentary of an extraordinary historical achievement. As young as I was this made me so proud to be an American.

As a Canadian, the reason this mission still resonates with me to this day is not only was it an American achievement but you brought the rest of us along with you. In my opinion it had an even greater impact on our civilization than Apollo 11. And that Christmas Eve telecast was one for the ages.

When this happened, I was 10 years old and a believer in the bible, etc. because that's how I was taught. Nowadays, I'm not even close to being a religious man but the reading of the creation story is still over-the-top poignant for me!

Thank you for the very interesting video please keep the great videos coming from Scotland 😊

Superb documentary which brought back wonderful memories of when I was a young teenager and watched theses events as they happened. Nothing can compare with those magic days of the Apollo Space Program. Thank you.

Frank Boreman was in charge of the Apollo 1 fire and how to improve safety.

To those who disbelieve, I would simply say, that’s your right to think so. But, for the remainder of us, we can enjoy knowing what we believe to be so. I don’t believe in God, but I’m happy to let those who do to carry on doing so. See? I don’t need to make comments to them, I happily exist side by side with them. Try it yourselves, you will feel less angry and frustrated. ‘Cause you know what? We just don’t care what you say 😊

Apollo 8 is NASA's boldest mission till this day!

I was in the school when this happened. God bless America 🇺🇸

I remember this mission so well. Fabulous documentary.

Great doc. Uplifting. Thx. So proud of everyone involved and so honored to be alive during this window of time in the Earth’s history. -Shows what we can accomplish when we focus and pull together. Cheers.

The Apollo 11 crew are my hero’s…but honestly if talking guts…the of Apollo 8 took a massive risk…they really were going into uncharted territory which paved the way for the moon landings .❤

We are unable even up to this day to safely do more than 10% of the trip and we want to believe that more than fifty years ago we were able to go to the Moon and came back safely. The irony is that the Artificial Intelligence itself will be the first to set "foot" so to speak on the Moon sometimes in the far future and after that it will take even more until humans will finally be able to reach that place after learning so much from "yours truly".

В священном восторге потомки глядят, Умильно сверкая слезами, На шутку Малевича - «Черный квадрат», Подвесив его вверх ногами. К.Ефетов

I am still mesmerized how inspiring Kennedy's words obviously were, resulting in the USA actually achieve the goal before the decade was over. Goes to show he was loved and admired by everybody. And he deserved to be. In my opinion he was the best human being ever to have been president, with Obama a very close second. I write this from the hart, not motivated by any political point of view. I'm not even American. I am from Europe. Ok, the will to beat the Russians definitely was a very strong motivation, but still... I was six years old when on vacation in Italy, together with my father I watched on a portable black and white tv how Armstrong made his first steps on the moon. Something I will never forget as long as I will live.

Jim Lovell, way to go! Waiting for Artimis to walk on the moon in the 2026 Space Odyssey!

I love how the astronauts read from the book of Genesis in the Bible when they spoke to the world. My respect for them went wayyy past that same moon after that. 🖤🌙

I'm glad they got home safe.

17:00 - I'll never forget that Time Magazine cover!!! I kept our copy of it for years but eventually, I lost it. Most people forget that we (the U.S.) did all of our spaceflights in full view of the world which compounds the embarrassment of any failures, whereas the Soviets hid everything from the public until they had a success! Theoretically, they could have sent thirty men on Moon missions with all of them dying before finally having success and shouting, "Look at how great we are!!" when in fact, they were nothing of the kind. Gagarin didn't fly his spacecraft, it was controlled 100% from the ground, so technically, he did little more than Laika! Still, you gotta give the guy credit! Flying on Soviet spaceflights was the epitome of bravery! I'm amazed that the spacecraft took off considering the size of his balls! He was a true pro and probably could have piloted his craft if necessary, I don't really know how much leeway he was given if things went sideways on him. . Alan Shepherd and John Glenn both controlled their crafts and it took amazing piloting skills for their missions to be successful! One of the reasons, I think, that Apollo 11 was successful, was because we had pilots who could take control and complete missions when a computer was incapable of pulling it off on its own.

I remember the flight like it was yesterday. What shocked me was how audacious it was. NASA was driven by an engineering culture which demands incremental steps towards reaching a goal. Apollo 8 went to the moon after the first Apollo flight which was a test drive of Saturn V and the systems in the command module. ( This, after almost two years of reengineering the command module after the Apollo 6 fire.) The "Space Race" was still real which motivated the decision to try for the moon. How high were the risks? Lovell's wife asked Gene Krantz head of mission control. He told her that it was a fifty percent chance that the astronauts would make it back alive. Apollo 13 v 44:31 erified how dangerous this new technology was.

kaloni mire pushoni qet. vikend. ju pershendes

Very good documentary, thank you for posting it

At Paul’s cathedral couldn’t be easily replicated today either .

Thank you - The memories of this event and the moon landing were indelibly etched on my mind as an 11 year old boy from South Africa following it all on radio (no TV). I will never forget the emotions it brought forth. Feels like yesterday to me.

Amazing Journey 👏👏🙏🙏

Yes this was truly a great mission!! This was yester year and to day

yes, it would be nice to get to the moon one day.

Very moving documentary. Brought me to tears.

It was an amazing time for the USA. What’s sad is we have thousands of times the computing power and propulsion tech today that we had back then. Why haven’t we gone back? The country has lost the drive and pride and cohesiveness to pull it off! Now Congress can’t even make a decision. Opposing sides can’t be in a room together. Everyone in the media seems to have decided their job is to breed hate. I’m not sure we will ever have the capability as a country to pull something like this off again. I’m so glad I’ve lived when I am and remember these wonderful times for the country.

Фантастіка. Всєго через 25 років після полєта першой ракети фон Брауна, Человєк прілєтєл на луну!!!!

All of this was just wonderful and awe-inspiring. Crazy how back then humans had their eyes on the universe and space, and now on their screens and smartphones. @35:00 those were powerful words.

What an amazing generation - always keep God first. Always acknowledge Him in everything you do. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - three in one God.

nice ,i miss the wisdom of george and pete,a la blacks rd.❤from jase

Poor old jim lovell, travelled to the moon more then any other man and never stood on it.

I was living in Honolulu and was watching on my small black and white TV when I heard those tremendous words, those true words from Genesis chapter 1

I liked it when they drove that dune buggy and played golf on the moon!

1:27 Flight operations director says 50/50 chance of safe return? I don’t believe this could be a complete quotation, while the risk was very high, I don’t believe they would have received the go ahead were the odds that bad. A failure would have jeopardized the entire program.

The fact that we did all that with that level of technology is amazing.

Apollo 8 was the only rewarding event of an otherwise disastrously eventful year. He was right--"Apollo 8 did SAVE 1968."

30:06 Oh, silly little lady...THAT'S when the MOON'S out! Now let's get those snacks out there!

Always thing of Filoe Beddoe when I hear the role “FDO” … or Fido the dog… 🐶

It was just a slingshot trip in advance of an actual landing for testing

Thanks for not having Gene Kranz explaining what a great man he is.

Wow this really bluw my mind

Amazin'. Sadly today NASA and corporations, landed a robot on the moon, more than 50 years from this epic journey...

Those were my heroes… only to be topped by Apollo 11

i was born in 57 i watched it

Mais quand je lis les commentaires sur cette mission d'apolo 8 , j'ai eu du mal à comprendre que le niveau intellectuel des Américains était pas plus que 10 ans, la naïveté de ces citoyens ont commencé à douter de la vérité de l'assassinat de JFK et surtout du 11/09/2001..…

"Good Stuff," merci.

The most epic space mission ever

We actually landed on the Moon with a year to spare. The last year of the decade was 1970.

NASA SP287 " WHAT MADE APOLLO A SUCCESS ? " " of course , the way we got this job done was with meeting , big meetings , little meeting hundreds of meetings ! ( " the thing we always tried to do in these meetings was to encourage every one no matter how shy to speak out !!! " ) WHY encourage every one NO MATTER HOW SHY TO SPEAK SOMETHING OUT !!! IS ULTIMATE SECRET TO " MADE APOLLO A SUCCESS ? " you CAN GO TO THE MOON WITH " DON'T SHY TO SPEAK SOMETHING OUT ? "

14:05 historical revisionism added by the same person on every single space film. No, the lunar module (or lander as he calls it) was never intended to be a “lifeboat” at that time. It only became a “lifeboat” by chance on Apollo 13, and was never considered a lifeboat by NASA after 13 either. The lunar module’s engine was also useless to “get home”. It was used in Apollo 13 to speed up the return home, used in conjunction with the third stage or command module engine. Its descent stage engine didn’t have the fuel to “get home”. It’s OMS could be used to help course correct, but that’s about it. If the third stage engine died on the way to or from the moon - so did the crew, unless they’re far enough along (they were always subject to earth’s gravity even at the moon and would always fall back to earth - the concern is how long it takes to get back) to where they’d still be alive on splashdown. Source on the lifeboat nonsense: owning plenty of NASA SP series books written and published prior to Apollo 8. 29:58 - no, if the engine malfunctioned, they wouldn’t hurtle into space. At TLI 2 days earlier, they were always on a free return trajectory. They’d have simply circled the moon using its gravity and come back to earth. The hurtle into space piece would only happen if they a) burned at the wrong time and b) had enough fuel to get to both lunar and Earth escape velocity. They didn’t have enough fuel for b to happen. Free return trajectory btw is what Apollo 13 used. Am not making this sound easy - none of this was, but there’s a lot of inaccuracies in this documentary that make the engineers and scientists who planned for this seem almost callous.

👍👍👍

I remember project Apollo....

Glynn Lunney born and raised in Old Forge Pa.

They did this on orders of magnitudes less computing power than we have in watches today.

What did the first Apollo 1-7 do?

That was awesome!

1:35 picture of a family from the fifties, says it all

W0w, I forgot all about the bible verses being spoken during this. Imagine an alien race listening in on that and thinking what kind of crazy species this must be.

He's working that gum

Awesome picture of Earth from the Moon.

It took big balls.

I have a copy of the National Geographic which wrote up the story of Apollo 8. The headline on the magazine's cover wrote, "A most fantastic voyage." I always thought that to be such an appropriate cover headline.😎

The comments on this video made me lose brain cells. Flat earthers out in force these days.

Apollo 8 came at the end of 1968, a year had seen much upheaval in the United States and most of the world. Even though the year saw political assassinations, political unrest in the streets of Europe and America, and the Prague Spring, Time magazine chose the crew of Apollo 8 as its Men of the Year for 1968, recognizing them as the people who most influence events in the preceding year.

One more reason why I'm proud to have been born in a time to witness great events like this first hand and to be able to relive it using today's technology.

Question everything…we went to the moon in the 60s…right

We will do it again it's inevitable

The myth that Frank Borman had the "24 hour flu" still persists. In reality he was space sick. He was feeling queasy and then took a Seconal sleeping tablet, which then wreaked havoc on his already upset digestive system.

The Age of Space for All Mankind - Began according to Moscow Time. according to the Time of the Country with the Capital in Moscow. Gagarin - The First Earthman who Made a Manned Flight into Space. Titov - The First Earthling who Made a Manned Daily Flight into Space. Leonov - The First Earthling who Made the Entrance into the Open Space. The First artificial satellite of the Planet Earth 🌏 - Russian Sputnik 1. The First stable Signal from Space (which Mankind managed to receive) was Sent to Planet Earth - Russian Sputnik 1. Russians are Pioneers in the Sphere of Space.

When the world still had no doubts about the good intentions of the U.S.....countless imperialist wars later sadly have changed that perception.

One of the best documentaries I've ever watched.

So where are the photos of the stars taken from the command module on the dark side of the moon? Or did we forget the camera...

It's just a blue ball floating in space. Jeeez. Where's the stack of turtles?? We need something.

Buzz Aldrin would slap this entire comment section for the lack of brain cells. Present technology has changed (yes, partly thank the space race for that), those of Apollo are long retired or have passed. Like 2/3 of tech and work for achieving such a goal needs to be totally redone. The massive computer power we have now doesn't solve necessarily more than they were able to do back then with specific calculation programs relying more on manual input using potato power. It's not about how much, but what you do with it. They had it figured out, if you can't comprehend that's on you.

The country that accomplished this is long gone

22,44 bird flying around the “space. 😂

1:36 ...🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Tell me about it, I reel lee want too no.

Photo shop was not invented then your phones tech is much more powerful now, !

❤❤❤ it looks so real! I love it!

JFK put a man on the Moon. FJB put a man in the girl's bathroom.

The true heros were the engineers and technicians who designed an built the machinery. The astronauts were just passengers.

this should show proof for the non believers?

5:04 I can’t be the only one who hears the Goldeneye rocket firing sound here

Man those guys had some serious big ones 😂. 🎩 off to you guys!!

German engineerin at its best