posted 08-18-2018 07:23 PM               

Circling the moon at 3,700 miles an hour, a quarter of a million miles from Earth, the captain opened the Bible and began to read. "In the beginning God created heaven and earth..." Sweeping past the three astronauts was a stark black and white terrain, cold and forbidding. Unseen but listening intently was an audience of more than a billion people.

It was Christmas Eve, 1968. And the astronauts of Apollo 8 — Captain Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders — were participants in a mission that took them farther (500,000 miles) and faster (24,000 miles an hour) than any human had ever traveled. Of the 27 previous manned launches, none had ever ventured higher than 850 miles in altitude. Apollo 8 was the mission that broke humanity's bond to the earth: it was the first manned vehicle to leave the earth's orbit. Although it did not land there, Apollo 8 was the first craft to orbit the moon.

Confined within a tiny 11x13-foot spaceship — the size of the interior of a 15-passenger van — the astronauts were aided in their journey by a computer less powerful than the least sophisticated handheld calculator available today. The mission ended flawlesly. It was a triumph for America and its space agency, and assured the public's continued interest in exploring space. Genesis is the true story of human character at its most inspiring.

• Hardcover: 256 pages
  
• Basic Books (November 11, 1998)
  
• ISBN-10: 1568581181
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581187