Apollo 8 which they made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew members were named "Time" magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their
Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team The Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team worked at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas during the mission, and was responsible for all aspects of the Apollo 13 flight after it cleared the launch tower after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.. On April 18, 1970, the team was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard M. Nixon. They were awarded these because of their courage during their space mission to the moon. The award reads as follows: "We often speak of scientific "miracles"—forgetting that these are not miraculous happenings at