Apollo 8 8 are the names of the three astronauts. The initial design of the insignia was developed by Jim Lovell, who reportedly sketched it while riding in the back seat of a T-38 flight from California to Houston shortly after learning of the Apollo 8's re-designation as a lunar-orbital mission. The crew wanted to name their spacecraft, but NASA did not allow it. The crew would have likely chosen "Columbiad", the name of the giant cannon that launches a space vehicle in Jules Verne's 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon". The Apollo 11 CM was named "Columbia" in part
HMS Apollo (1794) January, and "Apollo" was turned to give chase. The pursuit was hampered by thick fog, and at 7am on the following morning "Apollo" ran aground on the Haak Sandbank adjacent to Texel. Halkett ordered that the ship's stores and guns be thrown overboard in order to lighten her and float her free, but despite these efforts she remained stuck fast in the sands. In the late afternoon, a Prussian galliot was sighted and hailed by "Apollo"s crew. After some negotiation, the Prussian captain agreed to jettison the bulk of his cargo of wines and take 250 of "Apollo"s crew back