Apollo 17 The wing of the eagle partially overlays the Moon, suggesting man's established presence there. The gaze of Apollo and the direction of the eagle's motion embody man's intention to explore further destinations in space. The patch includes, along with the colors of the U.S. flag (red, white, and blue), the color gold, representative of a "golden age" of spaceflight that was to begin with Apollo 17. The image of Apollo in the mission insignia is a rendering of the "Apollo Belvedere" sculpture. The insignia was designed by Robert McCall, with input from the crew. Like Apollo 15 and Apollo 16,
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