Apollo 8 placed the mission on course for the Moon, the command and service modules (CSM), the remaining Apollo 8 spacecraft, separated from it. The crew then rotated the spacecraft to take photographs of the spent stage and then practiced flying in formation with it. As the crew rotated the spacecraft, they had their first views of the Earth as they moved away from it – this marked the first time humans had viewed the whole Earth at once. Borman became worried that the S-IVB was staying too close to the CSM and suggested to Mission Control that the crew perform a
Apollo 4 NASA in the Apollo spacecraft, also built by North American. The mission was the first Apollo flight after the stand-down imposed after the Apollo 1 fire which killed the first Apollo crew. It was the first to use NASA's official Apollo numbering scheme established in April 1967, designated Apollo 4 because there had been three previous unmanned Apollo/Saturn flights in 1966, using the Saturn IB launch vehicle. The mission lasted almost nine hours, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, achieving all mission goals. NASA deemed the mission a complete success, because it proved the Saturn V worked, an important step