This is

CVS. I in the world. I'm John Bachelor.

Behind the Black, Bob Zimmerman is here.

The book is Genesis, the story of Apollo 8. Bob wrote this in tribute to the three

astronauts who conquered the moon. It was Christmas time, 1968, and the United States and the free world in distress for the geopolitics

of Vietnam, of the Cold War, and of the Moon Race.

However, Bob's story, very dramatic, tells how NASA came together

and achieved an amazing success with Apollo 8 and Bill Anders was one of the three crewmen.

Bob, a very good evening to you.

Introduce Bill Anders again because your book is a wonderful story

of the romance of those three men and their amazing voyage risk-taking 50-50 as I recall

voyage around the moon. Good evening to you. Yes, the odds were considered to be 50-50

they'd get back alive.

Frank Baldwin was the command he died last year.

Jim Lovell was second, a navigator.

He's still around, thank God.

But Bill Anders was originally

the lunar module pilot. This mission was supposed to be testing

the lunar module in Earth orbit. It wasn't ready on time.

And so NASA made the daring decision to instead send it around

the moon, orbit the moon and come back to Earth on land to test avionics, technology, their systems about going to and from the world.

Incredibly risky because they went out of Earth orbit without a lunar module to act as a lifeboat.

...