My father died in 2015 or a few Decembers ago. I always remember him on certain anniversaries, such as Apollo 8.
On Christmas Eve 1968, our family went to the midnight mass. By the way, very few parishes actually celebrate mass at midnight. Our church today celebrates mass at 9 p.m.!
Nevertheless, it was a rather remarkable ride from church. It took me a while to realize that I was hearing three men reading from the Good Book from a spaceship circling the moon. It was one of those moments that I will never forget.
Years ago, families actually sat around to watch the NASA missions. In our household, it was a lot of fun to gather around the TV and enjoy an Apollo rocket going into space. My favorite part was hearing my father say that he would have never believed it when he was growing up. My mother would usually compliment the U.S., with the Cuban version of “what a country”.
The Apollo 8 mission accomplished some rather big objectives, such as orbiting the moon 10 times and testing out the “trans-lunar injection” system and other electronic networks that would allow future missions to land on the moon over the next three years.
The Apollo 8 crew was Frank Borman, the aforementioned James Lovell, and William Anders.
They became the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. I recall my father talking about all of those science-fiction comic books about the unknown on the dark side of the moon.
Who wasn’t stunned to see that picture of the earth floating is space on the cover of the weekly magazines? It certainly put living in our good earth in a little different perspective.
Last but not least, the crew read from Genesis to everyone back home.
It’s a shame that my sons never watched those space launching in school. Who knows when we will send men to another world again? I was fortunate to see it!
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