The episode begins with a promotional segment for another podcast about the Altamont concert before transitioning to the main story. Host Mike Rosenwald introduces the Apollo 8 mission, which marked the first time humans orbited the moon. On Christmas Eve 1968, commander Frank Borman tilted the spacecraft, revealing Earth over the lunar horizon. Lunar module pilot Bill Anders initially missed the view but then spotted it from another window and hurriedly took photographs. The crew didn't realize how iconic the image would become. NASA released the photo as number 68-H-1401, with a brief press release calling it 'This view.' The photo spread widely in pre-internet media. 1968 had been a year of turmoil, marked by photographs of violence like the South Vietnamese general executing a soldier and the aftermath of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. Earthrise offered a different, peaceful perspective that resonated with a divided world. Previous robotic missions had taken blurry, black-and-white photos of Earth, but Earthrise was vivid, colorful, and human-centered due to its tilted angle showing an astronaut's perspective. In 2018, at a 50th-anniversary event, Bill Anders reflected on the experience, noting how small Earth looked and questioning why humanity can't get along. The photograph became NASA's calling card and inspired the environmental movement. Anders concluded that while the mission aimed to study the moon, the real discovery was Earth. The episode credits Christian Davenport of The Washington Post for the original story and includes advertisements for Deloitte and Ask the Post AI.
