Happy Apollo 8 Day Part Deux

Hi all,
So after the first achievements of Apollo 8 we get to the second stage of their mission and yet more first's in the realm of space travel Apollo 8 was the first human manned space flight to leave earths low orbit and then make its way to the moon and on this day 52 years ago @09:59 UTC it began its journey to a lunar orbit and in doing so became the first humans to do so and see the moon's Far side/Dark side. Another important part of their mission and yet another first was their taking of high definition photos of both the previously unseen Far side/Dark side and the near side which played a major role later in enabling NASA to choose the potentially best landing site for Apollo 11. I know Apollo 11 seems to get most of the glory but IMHO Apollo 8 has much to be proud of as well as recording many first's for humans in space. So here in tribute are now some pictures of the Dark side of the Moon taken from the Apollo 8's laser ablated moon surface in the watch and of course the quote we all remember.

Marc

“And God said, ‘Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered together into one place. And let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth.“ - Frank Borman

I think it was Lunik 3 in October 7, 1959

@blufinz52

You are of course right but those were taken by a unmanned probe not a manned space flight and if you have seen the pictures they were in no way high definition either.

@Bikerwilli
It was in fact the Luna 3 probe.

Marc

Also, dark side and far side are very different things. They do coincide just once a (moon) month (also approximately a moon day!), at full moon.

…and another year has gone by!!! 🤦

Can't imagine Omega bringing out some sort of ISS or lunar mission calculator soon... cardboard got expensive and missions are few...
December 1968 Apollo 8 mission analyzer/calculator to follow the flight from launch to splash-down
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As it's been rather a dark year imho, and as I am pretty glad it is over, i will celebrate NY with a dsotm apollo 8. It is settled.