William Anders took the photo that kicked off the environmental movement

For a while, Bill Anders had high hopes of landing on the Moon. He test-drove the lunar-landing training vehicle and, as a keen amateur geologist, he wanted a closer look at those rocks. Yet the mission he actually went on, Apollo 8, was never intended to land there. It was originally an Earth-orbit checkout of the lunar module and, when the module was delayed, NASA took the bold step of turning Apollo 8 into a manned reconnoitering flight round the Moon. Human beings had never left Earth orbit before. Major Anders reckoned there was one chance in three they wouldn’t come back, and two in three that the mission would be aborted. It wasn’t, mostly because NASA wanted to get a spacecraft into lunar orbit before the Commies did.