Part 4: Apollo 8 - The Return [50th Anniversary - End of horrible 1968!]

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ^ | 12/21/18 | Stephanie Zeller (NASA)

[SES1066]

Splashdown went as planned on the morning of Dec. 27. The crew, still confined to the Apollo capsule, awaited the Navy men aboard USS Yorktown, who were instructed to rendezvous with the battered spaceship rather than to return home for Christmas.

[SES1066]

We have buried the horrible memories of how bad 1968 was for the United States of America (USofA) up until this final golden moment. Just to list them will bring back nightmares;
North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo in international waters,
North Vietnam launches the 'Tet Offensive',
--- 'Uncle Walter' Cronkite expresses dismay over our Vietnam efforts,
Dr Martin Luther King Jr is assassinated in Memphis, TN,
--- Riots consume portions of over 100 USofA Cities over the next 8 months,
Sen. Robert F Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles, CA,
Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring,
Riots & Protests disrupt the Democrat Party Convention in Chicago,
--- The trial of the 'Chicago 8' protestors lasts 5 months but all convictions are overturned.

Then, at the last gasp of the year, Apollo 8 with its crew of Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, demonstrates that the USofA can do marvelous things! A perfect Christmas gift to the nation and the world!

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump!

Click It!

[rktman]

Thanks. I was still busy during that time period.😆

[Army Air Corps]

I was still a few years away from being born...

[Army Air Corps]

Yeah, I think that were a tad busy at the time. ;)

[rktman]

Funny thing is that I had no clue that a mere 7 years later I’d be working on the shuttle program. Thank you Lord.

[Roccus]

1968...the year America lived a decade.

[cicero2k]

If ever a year morphed into an event, it was 1968.

There are museums dedicated to it.

Side story is that the broken Lyndon Johnson pushed or at least OKayed the Apollo 8 launch to occur while he was still in office. Glad he did. It inspired an engineering career for this future Freeper.

[dragnet2]

I was still a few years away from being born.

Some generations just miss the great historic events.

But hey, at least you got to see Obama Care launch then get fatally broadsided, all while those in government sponsored a violent invasion of our land, while they defecated on our sovereignty here at home. And don't forget 911, where those running the country allowed medieval religious fanatics to attack and kill us with our own aircraft.

[Army Air Corps]

You forgot the spectacle of a sitting president discuss the meaning of the word “is.”

[dragnet2]

Well the greatest thing the generation you described experienced is the election of Trump...The greatest president in modern American history. That makes up for a lot!☺

And for the older guys still alive, they've seen a hell of a lot of history that few would have ever imagined in previous generations.

[NCC-1701]

You missed all the fun.

[NCC-1701]

Thank you Apollo 8. You saved 1968.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Army Air Corps. What I remember from 1968 is returning from a weeklong illness to my 5th grade class and seeing that I'd missed a Christmas ornament building project (had to make that up while everyone else was basically partying) and in the back, on the table where everyone's finished work was, a copy of Life magazine, with "The Incredible Year" and shot of the Moon (by Bill Anders, I presume) on the cover.

1968 (March) also saw the drunken philandering incompetent LBJ refuse to run for election in his own right, opening the way for a Demwit free-for-all in the primary (with RFK taking a lead just long enough to extinguish a bunch of also-rans, before he was assassinated), and the annoying blowhard HHH to lose a squeaker in November to Nixon. It's safe to say that the year ended strong.