On December twenty-first, nineteen sixty-eight, Apollo 8 lifted off from Florida on a Saturn Five rocket. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were headed beyond Earth orbit. Their destination was the Moon. The launch began a six-day mission, and the first test of how a crew would navigate all the way to lunar orbit. The three astronauts entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. From their cabin, the surface looked gray and bare. They photographed the Moon and checked what a later landing crew would need to know. There was no landing on this flight. The crew tested the route and photographed places that future Apollo missions might visit. As Apollo 8 came around the Moon, Earth rose into view above the gray horizon. Bill Anders took a color photograph. In it, the blue planet hangs in black space with nobody and nothing else in sight. The lunar surface gives the image a foreground. Earth takes up only a small part of the frame, but its color makes it the first thing you notice. The crew splashed down in the Pacific on December twenty-seventh. Apollo 8 had proved that people could reach lunar orbit and return safely. The photograph it brought home gave millions a new view of a familiar place. Seven months later, Apollo 11 would land on the Moon. Earthrise still shows what the earlier crew saw while they were simply passing by.