By Will Hall, Message Editor ALEXANDRIA (LBM) – Violence in the streets, racial tensions and a clash in social values mark a divide in the nation in 2018, but such turmoil also framed 1968, when the world was rocked by upheavals on a number of levels. Like now, there was a sense of “heaviness” across the country and the globe. But as the year drew to a close, NASA sent three men into space – the first time humans had broken free of the earth’s gravitational pull – mesmerizing the world as their space capsule circled the moon ten times as a prelude mission to a lunar landing by Apollo 11 the next year. The crew of Apollo 8 -- astronauts Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, and Frank Borman -- pose in their spacesuits in front of the Kennedy Space Center simulator in this NASA file shot. Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. That evening, Houston time, the astronauts held a live broadcast while orbiting the moon, showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. They ended the broadcast by reading from the book of Genesis. NASA file photo. The crew of Air Force Colonel Frank Borman (mission commander), Navy Captain James A. Lovell Jr. (command … [Read more...]