205 a
The Apollo 8 prime crew (from left to right James Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman) and NASA officials including Robert Gilruth, George Muller and Kurt Debus stand in foreground as the Apollo (Spacecraft 103/Saturn 503) space vehicle leaves the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building on way to Pad A, Launch Complex 39. The Saturn V stack and its mobile launch tower are atop a huge crawler transporter.

“Apollo 7’s achievement led to a rapid review of Apollo 8’s options. The Apollo 7 astronauts went through six days of debriefing for the benefit of Apollo 8, and on Oct. 28, 1968, the Manned Space Flight Management Council chaired by George Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, met at the MSC, investigating every phase of the forthcoming mission. The next day brought a lengthy systems review of the Apollo 8’s spacecraft 103. NASA Administrator Thomas Paine made the go/no-go review of lunar orbit on Nov. 11, 1968. By this time nearly all the skeptics had become converts” (NASA SP-350, p. 178).

205 b
Left to right are astronauts William Anders, Lunar Module Pilot, Frank Borman, Commander and James Lovell, Command Module Pilot, photographed on the deck of a NASA retriever during water survival training in preparation of their upcoming mission.

They would become the first humans to venture beyond Earth’s orbit.

205 c
Borman and Anders aboard the NASA motor vessel retriever after suiting up for recovery operations, the crew in life raft near an Apollo Command Module boilerplate, a member of the crew being hoisted up in the recovery helicopter (third photograph).

[NASA caption, second photograph] The prime crew of the Apollo 8 mission in life raft awaiting pickup by U.S. Coast Guard helicopter during water egress training in the Gulf of Mexico. They had just egressed Apollo Boilerplate 1102A, at left. Inflated bags were used to upright the boilerplate. Left to right are Astronauts William Anders, Lunar Module Pilot; James Lovell, Command Module Pilot; and Frank Borman, Commander. A team of MSC swimmers assisted with the exercice.

205 d
Apollo 8 had been scheduled to test the Lunar Module in Earth orbit, but it was not ready to fly. So the schedule was juggled and William Anders, James Lovell and Frank Borman (seated at their pilot stations of the Command Module spacecraft, left to right) became the first astronauts to ride the gigantic Saturn V booster into space.
Their mission was to break the grip of Earth gravity and to fly around the Moon and back.

205 e
The first astronauts ate food in cubes or squeezed from tubes. Gemini 3 astronauts had protested against the boring choices by smuggling a corned-beef sandwich on board, but the food aboard Apollo was more tasty. Some meals were dried. By adding hot water they could be turned into an (almost) appetizing meal. Because of the weightlessness, astronauts drank from closed cups with straws.

205 f
William Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell would become the first humans to venture beyond Earth orbit and visit another world.

“By having a camera connected to an eyeball connected to a brain, we can really do a job that can not be done by unmanned vehicles.”
William Anders (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 92)