NOVA Documentary Takes A Look Back At Humans' First Trek To The Moon On Apollo 8

Fifty years ago this week, Apollo 8 became the first ship to leave Earth's orbit and go to the moon — orbiting it 10 times. A new NOVA documentary about the expedition, "Apollo's Daring Mission," airs Wednesday on PBS stations.

Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson talks to the film's director, Rushmore DeNooyer, and John Aaron, who worked in Mission Control for Apollo 8.

"Almost everybody knows about the first moon landing, Neil Armstrong," DeNooyer says. "I would argue that the landing couldn't have happened if 8 hadn't happened."

The Apollo 8 mission capped off an "extremely divisive" year in America, DeNooyer says. That year, 1968, saw the Democratic National Convention break out in race riots, the U.S. military was bogged down in Vietnam, and Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.

"No one expected it, but there they were," he says. "The last week of the year we find this mission at the moon for the first time circling the moon on Christmas Eve, and then the three astronauts read the story of Genesis from the Bible. And it was an unbelievable moment."

But the film starts with a grim moment in NASA history — the launch pad death of three astronauts in the Apollo 1 space module. Aaron says he was working in Mission Control that night.