Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 76, Apollo 8, Part 1. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today. So if you're

familiar with us, this is where we bring it scientists

engineers astronauts sometimes historians and we tell you all the cool stuff

about what's going on right here at NASA. Sometimes we take a moment to reflect on

what we've done in the past.

So again, if you've been listening to us,

you may know that this is an especially good year for anniversaries.

We've celebrated 60 years of NASA, 20 years of the International Space Station, and 50 years of Apollo.

Exactly 50 years ago on the day that we released this episode, so it would be December 21st,

1968, three brave men set course for the moon for the very first time.

They were Frank Borman as commander, Jim Lovell as command module pilot, and Bill Anders as the lunar module pilot.

It was the first time that humans traveled to the moon and the first time humans

launched on the legendary Saturn V rocket putting NASA one small step closer to taking that historic giant leap for all of mankind.

To account this mission, we're bringing in some very special guests.

Returning to the podcast is Dr. Jennifer Ross Nisell, our historian here at the NASA Johnson

Space Center.

We go over not only what happened during the mission, but the landscape of the Apollo program at the time and surrounding details that you may have never heard before.

I also had the honor and privilege to speak with Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman

and Apollo 8 Lunar Module pilot Bill Anders about their historic mission.

We'll kick off today's episode with Commander Borman.

I traveled out to Montana just about two years ago to discuss his involvement in the Apollo One Fire investigation

...