It was submitted to a three-judge panel, which concluded that the case was not a three-judge matter, and dismissed the case for failure to state a cause of action. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, responded by suing the United States government, alleging violations of the First Amendment. 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 BormanĪnd God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.Īnd God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And the evening and the morning were the first day.Īnd God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.Īnd God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.Īnd God called the firmament Heaven. Jim LovellĪnd God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.Īnd God said, Let there be light: and there was light.Īnd God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.Īnd the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. The text was printed on fire-proof paper and included in the mission flight plan.

The suggestion to instead look to the Old Testament and use the beginning of Genesis came from Christine Laitin, Joseph Laitin's wife. Laitin himself had the same problem his initial drafts centered on the concept of peace on Earth, which felt inappropriate in light of the ongoing war effort, and he began looking through the New Testament to find a good connection between the Christmas season and the biblical accounts of the birth of Jesus. Drafting īorman felt that his initial attempts to draft something appropriate sounded too much like an apology for the United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and Joseph Laitin of the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) was brought in to assist. COMSAT put the satellite into operation a week ahead of schedule so that international audiences could follow the flight. Audiences in North and South America as well as Europe tuned in live thanks to the recently launched Intelsat 3 satellite. Within 24 hours, recorded broadcasts of the address from the moon reached people in another 30 countries. One in four people on Earth-roughly a billion people spread among 64 countries-listened to the reading. Anders read verses 1–4, Lovell verses 5–8, and Borman read verses 9 and 10.Īround the world, television sets glowed with the broadcast. 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. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon. The television viewers saw a grainy black-and-white image. Reading of the Book of Genesis by Apollo 8 crewmembers The Apollo 8 Genesis reading (NASA produced film) Earthrise, a color photograph of the Earth and Moon by William Anders, December 24, 1968.

Genesis 1 read aloud