“Merry Christmas and God Bless all of you on the good Earth,” a message broadcast 52 years ago from three veterans orbiting our moon that we share with all our members and supporters.  Apollo 8 is perhaps best remembered today for this broadcast the three astronauts made when they entered the moon’s orbit on Christmas Eve in 1968. As part of 1968’s Apollo 8 mission, astronauts, U.S. Navy Captain Jim Lovell Jr., U.S. Air Force Colonel Borman, and Major General Anders spent the night before Christmas orbiting the moon.  The operation was originally planned to test out the lunar module—later used in the Apollo 11 moon landing—in Earth’s orbit.  But when work on the module fell behind schedule, NASA ambitiously changed the mission plan to a lunar voyage.  Apollo 8 went on to result in a series of breakthroughs for manned space flight as he three astronauts became the first men to leave Earth’s gravitational pull, the first to orbit the moon, the first to view all of Earth from space, and the first to see the dark side of the moon.  Watch the historic broadcast at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLIq9Amyizo