Apollo VIII's 'Earthrise' photo almost didn't happen

BILLINGS — On Christmas Eve of 1968, three men captivated the American public as they became the first humans to orbit the moon and snapped what would become one of the most iconic images of the modern era.

Tuesday marked the 45th anniversary of “Earthrise” — a dramatic color photo of the Earth rising over the lunar surface, with the blackness of outer space as a backdrop — which was taken by astronaut Bill Anders and beamed back to Earth as he and the other two astronauts on the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission took turns speaking to an enthralled, spellbound nation.

One of those astronauts, and the mission’s commander, lives in the Billings area and said on Tuesday that it’s still tough to describe the feeling of what he and the two others — Anders and Jim Lovell — on the mission saw.

“We were coming around on the revolution on Christmas Eve, and we looked up over the lunar surface and there was the Earth,” said Frank Borman. “The Earth was so beautiful with all of the different colors. I think all three of us were totally enraptured.”

While the moment wasn’t expected, the mission’s success was. Borman said that while the three astronauts blasted off on Dec. 21 before circling the moon 10 times three days later and heading home, the week-long mission was the culmination of years of hard work, planning and preparation.

Fueled by competition with the Soviet Union and a challenge from President John F. Kennedy to land on the moon by the end of the decade, America threw huge amounts of resources into its space program.

Being the first to orbit the moon with Apollo 8 was the product of much of that work.

However, that view and the famous photograph almost didn’t happen, as it was just by chance that they came across the scene and happened to scan the horizon.

In their spacecraft, the astronauts were focused on the lunar surface, taking pictures of the landscape. Borman began to reposition the craft in order get another look when Earth popped up in the distance.

“We were rotating the space craft to see something else on the moon when that came up,” he said. “We didn’t expect that.”

While Anders’ photo is the most widely-known, the Apollo 8 crew took a number of photos of the Earth rising.