 Hey guys, it's Amy and it's Christmas, which means we are talking about Apollo 8 again today on vintage space So to refresh everybody's memories, Apollo 8 was the first Apollo mission to go to the moon Now to the moon not land on the moon, which is why some people kind of forget it happened Apollo 8 was actually a really fascinating mission in the scheme of the greater Apollo program Originally the program was designed to test every element of the lunar landing mission in Earth orbit Then do the whole thing again on the moon and then go for the landing But when the lunar module was falling behind scheduled towards the end of 1968 NASA decided to fast-track Apollo 8 and send it into lunar orbit with just the command and service module There would be no lunar module The purpose of this was to test all the systems inside that main spacecraft, the command service module That would support the crew for the duration of the mission and ultimately bring them back through the atmosphere at the end of a flight And also make up for lost time after the lunar module was falling so badly behind schedule If NASA could get to the moon go into orbit and prove the guidance systems and some of the major systems This would be a step closer towards the landing even without a lunar module on board So that might not ring a bell to everybody out there, but I'll bet this image is pretty familiar This is the iconic Earthrise image that was taken on December 24th of 1968 And that means that it is inextricably linked with Christmas Even if you are, like me, not raised with deep Christian traditions or even celebrate Christmas It's just an amazing moment in history And as those of you who have been watching Vintage Space over the years know I typically talk about some element of Apollo 8 on Christmas Just because it is such a great historic mission and a lovely little seasonal tie-in This year I want to talk a little bit about the visualization from NASA's LRO mission Specifically the lead visualizer Ernie Wright who determined exactly who took that Apollo 8 Earthrise image Because for years nobody knew and it was Ernie Wright who found out that it was Bill Anders I met Ernie earlier this year on a trip to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland And he told me all about how he found out exactly who took that iconic image It turns out that Ernie was inspired to look into the Apollo 8 image After he got a poster of the picture and realized that we didn't really know a lot about the history of the images So he started digging into old Apollo 8 pictures and comparing them with data and images from the lunar reconnaissance orbiter He realized in comparing data from LRO and data from Apollo 8 That the spacecraft was facing down towards the surface with pictures being taken every 20 seconds Around the time that that Earthrise picture was taken So that meant that the spacecraft was rotating and therefore the cameras were seeing something different as the spacecraft slowly moved Since he was able to determine the spacecraft's orientation based on LRO data He was able to figure out which crewman was in which window in the command module and which window would have seen the Earth From there he took on the task of actually matching images of the moon's surface taken Knowing the spacecraft's orientation matched time-wise with clicks heard in the audio recordings taken inside the spacecraft Those audio recordings of course also have the dialogue between the crew And actually gave him some indication of who was where when taking what pictures and who ultimately was the one who saw that iconic Earthrise image Taking LRO data matched with Apollo 8 data and even with data of the Earth phase and also cloud patterns on the Earth He was able to replicate what the spacecraft was doing and what everything around the spacecraft looked like as that image was being taken Then he married that visualization data with the audio recordings from inside the spacecraft to give you an amazing feeling Of what it was like inside Apollo 8 when that iconic image was taken Here, just grab me a color A color exterior There you go That one? Yeah, I'm looking for one C368 Anything, click Here Hey, I got it right here Let me get up this much there No, I got a phrase that's very clear right here You got it? Take several, take several of them here Hey man, let me just get the right setting Calm down, Marvel Oh, I got it right, oh, I got beautiful shots 250 at M11 Very explosion-worthy You sure you got it now? Yeah, we'll come up again I mean, how cool is that? We've seen this image everywhere, it's one of the most iconic images of the 20th century Now we kind of have a better sense of what it was like when that shutter clicked and that image was taken If you have other questions about Apollo 8's mission, leave them in the comment section below And of course, topics you would like to see covered in future episodes If you want to watch Ernie's whole visualization, check it out I've got the link right up here, it's definitely worth watching Be sure to follow me on Twitter and on Instagram for daily vintage-based content And find me on Facebook as well, just look me up by name And of course, with new episodes going up every single week, subscribe right here Don't forget to click that bell so you get notifications because you never want to miss an episode