. Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet. So said Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders after flying some 240,000 miles to orbit the moon for the first time in history. Apollo 8 being moved out to the launch pad. In the case of the Apollo 8 disk, it includes a copy of the official NASA film on Apollo 8, an interview with Apollo 8 Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and scans of lots of pictures from the flight. . . The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger—Jim Lovell’s co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13—can do it justice. Robert Zimmerman’s book, Genesis, The Story of Apollo 8, details the events leading up to that historic Christmas Eve in 1968. The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger, Jim Lovell’s co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13 can do it justice. According to the book, a press conference was held a few weeks before the mission’s launch. collectSPACE (cS): How does the story of Apollo 8 stack up against Apollo 13? Similar extras are on the CD-ROMS (or DVDs) on other books … Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet. Anders read verses 1–4, Lovell verses 5–8, and Borman read verses 9 and 10. It includes beautiful archival photographs and an attractive layout with large black "night sky of the moon" pages to start each chapter. Apollo 8 did this and acheived many other firsts including the first manned mission launched on the Saturn V, first manned launch from NASA's new Moonport, first pictures taken by humans of the Earth from deep space, and first live TV coverage of the lunar surface. The Space Race had begun, and the United States was losing. With the first successful launch of a Saturn V Rocket carrying a crew, a feat in an of itself, Apollo 8 was off to the Moon. The book takes us through a slightly alternate version of modern reality: one in which the Apollo 8 capsule failed to make its orbit of the moon, and instead went spinning out into space, lost to mankind, at least until our hero steps onto the scene. By all intents and purposes it was a by the book mission. “With Rocket Men, Robert Kurson tells the tale of Apollo 8 with novelistic detail and immediacy, expertly capturing the urgency and suspense behind the mission that gave America the lead in the Space Race.”—Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian and Artemis “Rocket Men is a riveting introduction to the [Apollo 8] flight. Less… On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon.Astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman, the first humans to travel to the Moon, recited verses 1 through 10 of the Genesis creation narrative from the King James Bible. This nonfiction book is the thrilling story of the space race from 1957 - 1968 leading up to the Apollo 8 mission and the time directly afterward. A nation in need of hope, the most powerful rocket ever launched, and the first three men to break the bounds of Earth: Apollo 8 was headed to the moon. Jeffrey Kluger: Apollo 13 was obviously an easier story to tell because there is innate drama in what happens when everything goes wrong.In some ways it was a good thing that was the first book I ever wrote, because the degree of difficulty was a little lower, it was a natural story to tell. Apollo 8 is a nice reminder of how daring NASA was in the 60’s and 70’s with it’s lunar program. About Apollo 8. In 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth, America’s rival in the Cold War claimed victory on a new frontier. Each book also includes a CD-Rom, with extra material.