Apollo 8, the second
human spaceflight mission in the United States
Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned
spacecraft to leave
Earth orbit, reach the Earth's
Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-
astronaut crew — Commander
Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot
James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot
William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond
low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, the first to directly see the
far side of the Moon, and then the first to witness
Earthrise. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the
Saturn V rocket and that rocket's first manned launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the
Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.