Apollo 15 postal covers incident in the moon landings, the public's fascination with items flown in space increased, as did their value. Although it was not publicly known until September 1972, 15 of the men who entered space as Apollo Program astronauts, before Apollo 15, had agreed with a West German named Horst Eiermann to autograph 500 philatelic items (postcards and blocks of stamps) in exchange for $2,500. This included a member of each mission between Apollo 7 (1968) and Apollo 13 (1970). These items were not taken into space. Covers were prepared by the crews and flown on Apollo 11, Apollo 13 and Apollo
Apollo program Apollo 8 sent the first live televised pictures of the Earth and the Moon back to Earth, and read from the creation story in the Book of Genesis, on Christmas Eve 1968. An estimated one quarter of the population of the world saw—either live or delayed—the Christmas Eve transmission during the ninth orbit of the Moon, and an estimated one fifth of the population of the world watched the live transmission of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The Apollo program also affected environmental activism in the 1970s due to photos taken by the astronauts. The most famous, taken by the Apollo