1928-

American astronaut who commanded Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon. Apollo 8 was the second manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the first to use the massive Saturn V booster rocket. The success of the December 1968 flight ended the Soviet-American "space race" by pre-empting a similar Soviet mission planned for early 1969, and it paved the way for the Apollo 11 lunar landing eight months later.