NASA's 1st flight to moon, Apollo 8, marks 50th anniversary

NASA's 1st flight to moon, Apollo 8, marks 50th anniversary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve, a tumultuous year of assassinations, riots and war drew to a close in heroic and hopeful fashion with the three Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the Book of Genesis on live TV as they orbited the moon.
To this day, that 1968 mission is considered to be NASA’s boldest and perhaps most dangerous undertaking. 
That first voyage by humans to another world set the stage for the still grander Apollo 11 moon landing seven months later.
There was unprecedented and unfathomable risk to putting three men atop a monstrous new rocket for the first time and sending them all the way to the moon.
...Lastly, there was the photo named “Earthrise,” showing our blue and white ball — humanity’s home — rising above the bleak, gray lunar landscape and 240,000 miles (386 million kilometers) in the distance.
...“Even more worrisome than all of this,” Bridenstine noted earlier this month, Apollo 8 would be in orbit around the moon on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
“In other words, if there was a failure here, it would wreck Christmas not only for everybody in the United States, but for everybody in the world.”
...As that first moon shot neared, Borman’s wife, Susan, demanded to know the crew’s chances. 
A NASA director answered: 50-50..."
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Amazing days.