Apollo 8: Lunar Orbit With the Lunar Module still in process and reports of Soviet advances in their lunar program, NASA decided to change the mission of Apollo 8. Rather than another Earth orbit ...

Even as late as mid-1968, there was a real chance the Soviets could have preempted NASA’s historic Apollo 8 mission to orbit the moon, which was only added to the schedule in August of that year.

The broadcasts from Apollo 8 invited huge television audiences onboard ... But it was the show broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve that brought a spiritual dimension to the telecasts ...