Forty-four years and four days ago, the second crewed mission of
the United States Apollo space program was launched with James
Lovell, Frank Borman, and William Anders on board. The mission,
titled Apollo 8, was the first manned one to leave Earth’s
orbit, taking humankind beyond its (gravitationally) familiar
confines of the blue marble, and into the yawning depths of
outer space. Okay, we didn’t go far – just a few times around
our moon and back – but for the first time, we'd left home. The
mission took three days to enter Moon’s orbit, and went around
the chunk of rock 10 times over 20 hours. More significantly,
while they entered orbit, on December 24, 1968, Borman, Lovell,
and Anders made a Christmas Eve television broadcast that, at
the time, was the most watched program ever. Beyond igniting an
overwhelming sense of wonderment and adventure among earthbound
mortals, the trip to the heavens was a little more than great
reassurance for ex-President John F. Kennedy’s overarching
mission to land a man on