Earthrise: The Most Famous Photo of Earth

On this episode of Our American Stories, the year was 1968, and the world below was coming apart. Wars raged overseas, cities burned, and faith in the future seemed to flicker. Yet hundreds of thousands of miles away, three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 were witnessing something extraordinary. As their capsule emerged from the Moon’s shadow, astronaut Bill Anders looked out the window and saw the Earth rising above the lunar horizon. He lifted his camera—and in that quiet instant, Earthrise was born. The image would soon be embraced by the peace movement, printed on posters, and carried in protests. But the irony is that it was born out of war—the Space Race, a direct contest with the Soviet Union that began in fear and rivalry. From conflict came a photograph that united the world in wonder. Our own Lee Habeeb shares the story behind this iconic image.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is le Habib and this is our American stories.
Up next a story I found particularly fascinating. It's called
earth Rise. Here's the story. The year nineteen sixty eight was,
by any measure, a bad one for America. Senator Robert

(00:31):
Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King were assassinated that year.
Race riots swept the nation, and America was being torn
apart by an ever escalating presence in Vietnam. By all accounts,
the event that saved nineteen sixty eight from an endless
barrage of bad news was a journey that propelled three

(00:53):
men nearly a quarter of a million miles from the Earth.
That journey to space, and the iconic photograph that would
come to define it, earth Rise, provided a moment of celebration, joy,
and even hope in a nation desperately in need of
all three. How did one of history's most iconic photographs

(01:14):
come to be? Ironically, the very forces that impelled America
to send troops to Southeast Asia propelled America into space
our global struggle with our communist adversary, the Soviet Union.

(01:35):
America's race to space was set in motion when President
John F. Kennedy commanded NASA to put a man on
the Moon before the end of the decade and before
the Soviet Union. By nineteen sixty eight, America was losing
that race and perpetually seemed to be a step behind
the Russian space program. The apolloate mission, thanks to some

(01:56):
aggressive updates and flight alterations, finally put America in the league.
The Apollo eight crew hurtled into space on December twenty
first on a Saturn V rocket that stood over three
hundred and sixty feet tall, the same height as a
thirty six story building, propelled by the nearly one hundred

(02:17):
and sixty million horsepower produced by its five F one engines,
and reached the Moon in a mere three days and
on Christmas Eve Day.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Slip rock at one am instant santas high.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Once the spacecraft entered lunar orbit, it made ten complete
orbits before returning home. It was on the fourth pass
that the Apollo eights flight crew, Bill Anders, Frank Borman,
and Jim Lovell witnessed what would come to be known
as an Earth rise for the very first time. Here

(03:01):
is Bill Anders talking about that moment years later with
a NASA official, and you will also hear the real
wife audio of the crew back in nineteen sixty eight
talking about what they were seeing themselves.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
So we were in lunar orbit, upside down and going backwards.
So for the first several revolutions, and we didn't see
the Earth and didn't really think about that. And then
we righted ourselves heads up and twisted the spacecraft so

(03:39):
it was going forward. And while Frank Borman was in
the process of doing that, suddenly I saw it. In
the corner of my eye. This color dude was shocking
the Earth, a.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Blue and white ball just above the lunar horizon two
hundred and forty thousand miles away.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Oh my god, look at that picture on it there,
it's the Earth coming up a while. That pretty Get
a color film. Jim and me had roll a color quick,
the curry quick.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
So I managed to get level to get me a
color magazine, put the long lens on and started stamping away.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Take TERMO up here, give me man, I've got the
right bedding. Here, com down, level. Oh, I got it right.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
A beautiful shot.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
O very, I picked you up there. You surely got
about Yeah, we'll get them.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Come up togning without a light meter. I really didn't
know what to set it, so I just took the
f stop and just took a shot, moved it. Took
a shot, moved it. And they really didn't think that
much about it.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
That evening, Americans and the world nearly one billion in all,
watched in all as America's Intrepid Space Explorers broadcast a
live Christmas Eve message while orbiting the Moon. What could
they say after seeing what they'd just seen?

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Were now booking letter for Ryan and for all the people.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Back on Earth?

Speaker 4 (05:24):
They prove upon eight haven't we.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Really liked it?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Then? To you?

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Bill Anders then started the largest mass televised Bible reading
in world history, as each of the three crew members
took turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis. Days later,
the negative that would become the world's most iconic photograph
splashed safely in the Pacific Ocean on December twenty seventh,

(05:53):
developed and released for the world to see days not
long after in Life magazines a year and Review edition
published on January tenth, nineteen sixty nine, earth Rise graced
the cover. Life also printed the photo on a double
page spread, alongside a poem by US poet laureate James
Dickey quote, and behold the blue planet, steeped in its

(06:17):
dream of reality, its calculated vision, shaking with the only love.
Years later, Apollo eight crewmate Jim Level recalled the impact
that moment had on the crew during his speech at
the Washington National Cathedral during the National Air and Space
Museum's fiftieth anniversary tribute to the Apollo eight mission. Level

(06:40):
closed things out with these words about the mission and
that iconic photo that embodied it.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
It was the American public, however, that received the greatest gift.
After a year of controversy, Apollo eight gave them a
reason to be American. The flight of Apolloid can best
be expressed by a telegram received by the crew. It

(07:08):
only said, thanks you saved nineteen sixty.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Eight, the story of Earthrise, one of the most iconic
photos in history. Here on our American Stories, leeh. Habib, Here,
as we approach our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,

(07:34):
I'd like to remind you that all the history stories
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the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn't just
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but for you as well. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
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series on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again,
go to Hillsdale dot edu and sign up for their

(07:56):
free and terrific online courses.