On Christmas Eve 1968, as commander of Apollo 8 – the first manned lunar orbital mission – Frank Borman, who has died aged 95, came out with words that, alongside Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind”, from Apollo 11 in 1969, and Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell’s “OK, Houston, we’ve had a problem”, from Apollo 13 in 1970, defined an era.
In that moment before the moon programme became mundane, when astronauts were prime time, Apollo 8’s broadcast ended with the crew – Bill Anders, Lovell and Borman – reading the story of Earth’s creation as written in the book of Genesis.
