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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Write for the BIOGRAPHICAL Genre (12/04/14)
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

On December 24, 1968, James (Jim) Lovell and his fellow crew members on Apollo 8, Williams Anders and Frank Boreman took the Bible from the earth to the heavens. They delivered a Christmas Eve message to people all around the earth, as man orbited the moon for the first time. Buzz Aldrin may have taken inspiration from Lovell and the rest of the Apollo 8 crew. Aldrin had communion on the surface of the moon while sitting in the Lunar Module. While he had planned to broadcast this to earth, he did not due to pressure from NASA. He did, however, write out two verses which he read silently while partaking communion: John 15:5 and Psalm 8:3-4.

Jim Lovell was born on March 25, 1928. He served as a pilot in the Navy before joining NASA.

On the crew of Apollo 8, watching an "earth rise" instead of a moon rise, those words from Genesis one must have seemed especially poignant.

Lovell, however is more well known for his role as commander of the Apollo 13 crew. The famous line, "Houston we have a problem" is actually a slight variation of Lovell's actual words of "Houston, we've had a problem."

On day 3 of the mission, Apollo 13 had an on-board explosion of an oxygen tank. The Apollo 13 crew faced a loss of oxygen and power, and had to use the lunar module as a "lifeboat" of sorts. The crew of Apollo 13, as well as the NASA engineers on the ground had to develop methods that had not been tested before so Lovell and his fellow crew members could make it back to earth safely. Innovations that would normally take about three months to develop were completed in just three days. For example, Lovell and hew crew completed a manual burn without any computer assistance to correct their angle of descent. This had never been done before.

The flight was deemed a "successful failure" because while the crew was unable to complete their moon mission, they did make it home safe, due to the ingenuity and dedication of Lovell, his crew, and the NASA mission staff on earth.

In addition to the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 flights, Lovell flew on Gemini 7 in December 1965, Gemini 12 in November 1966. Until the days of shuttle flights and the Skylab, where astronauts could live in space for months at a time, Lovell also held the record for most hours recorded in space, at 715 hours and five minutes, or 29 days, 19 hours, and five minutes.

For his accomplishments, Lovell has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal for Freedom.

Lovell participated in 40th anniversary commemorations of the Apollo 13 flight, recounting the days of Apollo 13 in his own words, and a special 10th anniversary DVD of the Apollo 13 movie includes a commentary with him and his wife. In December 2013, to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, he participated in a re-enactment of the Christmas Eve Apollo 8 broadcast, reading from Genesis one with high school students while standing in front of the command module from Apollo 8. L

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John 15:5 (NIV)
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Psalm 8:3-4(KJV)
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

Sources:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo8_xmas.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/19/moon-communion-buzz-aldrin_n_5600648.html
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lovell-ja.html
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-13-1.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo13.html
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_13h_Timeline.htm
http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/2011/07/jim-lovell-on-getting-home-in-the-apollo-13-40th-anniversary-special/
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/spacelab.html
Google Time Converter
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/jim-lovell-re-enacts-1968-apollo-8-christmas-eve-broadcast/
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Member Comments
Member
Date
C D Swanson 
12/11/14
Very interesting approach to the topic...well delivered in content and expression.

God bless~
Helen Carr
12/12/14
It's funny, I've read those verses so many times that they have become pretty cliche, a bit old hat and lacking in their meaning. Putting them into this context brought them to life again for me; how extraordinary, sitting on the moon, taking commununion, and reading of how God created the heavens and the earth, the moon and the stars. What a powerful moment, and one I am so very pleased that Lovell did.

I loved the message you brought here, and the information about Lovell. My only critique is that the order of events and the dates had me a tad confused. I think that's a fairly common thing in biographies, and the content about Lovell was compelling enough to overcome this. Well done, and thanks for sharing this with us. Blesings, Helen.