Apollo 8 Photo of the Earth, Christmas Eve, 1968
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and for all the people back on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send to you…”
Christmas Eve, 1968. The crew of Apollo 8 send a Christmas message back to the Earth from the other side of the Moon, reading the first ten verses of Genesis and showing images of a fragile Earth hanging in the empty blackness of space. Suddenly the universe felt that little bit smaller.
“A merry Christmas. And God bless all of you, all of you, on the good Earth…”
Crew of Apollo 8 – Genesis MP3
Article on the broadcast from the Guardian
Not Christmas, but the video for Trentemøller’s amazing ‘Moan’ centres on the sadness of Laika, the first dog in space, and is almost as spectral as the Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast
“Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it… We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog.” Oleg Gazenko, 1998.
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