From the personal collection of one of the Apollo astronauts, this silent film shows the training regime and mission of Apollo 8’s crew and features rare footage of astronauts William Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell. The reason the film is silent is that it was originally used as a presentation reel, with one of the astronauts narrating the journey (wish we had that soundtrack!) The film includes survival and rescue training (28:30), a visit to a volcano (4:15), work in a water tank to simulate weightlessness (11:50), weightless training flights (10:45), simulator work without space suits (16:20), practice with spacesuits (21:45), work with an LEM simulator (23:56) including at 26:11 the near fatal crash by Neil Armstrong, and more. At 34:00 the actual mission is shown underway with a mighty Saturn V on the pad, and the astronauts are shown suiting up at 34:30. The launch is shown at 35:50. At 39:50 footage shows the inside of the capsule and at 39:55 the famous Earthrise image, which was captured on film by Anders. At 46:00 the retrieval of the crew after splashdown is shown. The film ends with a montage showing NASA’s on-going work with Skylab and the proposed Space Shuttle which was then undergoing development.

Apollo 8, the second manned spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Earth’s Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to: travel beyond low Earth orbit; see Earth as a whole planet; enter the gravity well of another celestial body (Earth’s moon); orbit another celestial body (Earth’s moon); directly see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes; witness an Earthrise; escape the gravity of another celestial body (Earth’s moon); and re-enter the gravitational well of Earth. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and that rocket’s first crewed launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com