Thank you
@drrich2! Your daughter is beautiful! Merry Christmas to all the world!
Last night was the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 8 lunar voyage. It was the first time that men had traveled outside of the Earth's orbit to circle another heavenly body, the moon. I remember the Astronauts broadcasting from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve and reading from the Book of Genesis; it was inspiring and moving.
Although the mission was about the moon, it was the vision of the Earth, as a beautiful blue and white ball hanging in the blackness of space that was the real eye-opener. People had never before seen their world as an entity out in space.
I also remember that 1968 was a pretty terrible year, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The Vietnam War raged on the TV News every night. Russian tanks rolled through Prague, and anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago turned into violent police actions.
It was a very bad year, but it ended a hopeful and positive note with the successful Apollo 8 Mission, and the environmental movement was launched because of those beautiful images of the planet Earth.
Earthrise: how the iconic image changed the world
The link below is for the Rocket Men book about Apollo 8 by Robert Kurson, the author of Shadow Divers. I thought it was a very interesting read but then I vividly remember that year and the event, so naturally it would be personal and interesting for me.
https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Men-Odyssey-Astronauts-Journey/dp/0812988701/