Hometown Helena Thursday, November 16th: FLEX Student Presentations

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Hometown Helena this Thursday, November 16th: FLEX Student Presentations

November 14, 2023


Greetings Everyone,


Looking forward to seeing you this week, either in person on the 6th floor of the Montana Club, or via the miracle of zoom, thanks to Aja Rail and Pinion Global, Inc. We have the FLEX students coming back to join us. It occurs to me that any one of these students might become an astronaut, go on to a career with NASA, or even be the first human being to set foot on another planet. They are that good, and that motivated.  With that in mind, here’s my message for the week:  


Montana, the USA—and indeed the entire world—lost a true hero last week when USAF Colonel Frank Borman died in Billings, Montana at the age of 95.  Colonel Borman was born in Gary, Indiana, which is where I grew up. He was a pilot, an astronaut and following his retirement from the U.S. Air Force, a successful businessman and President of Eastern Airlines. In 1998 he purchased a cattle ranch on the Bighorn river near Custer in southeastern Montana. He died November 7, 2023 at the Billings Clinic following a stroke. 


Borman commanded the Apollo 8 Moon Mission in 1968. With him were astronauts William Anders and James Lovell (who went on to command the Apollo 13 Moon Mission in 1970). The mission was intended to gather data on humans in space for prolonged periods of time, and to test equipment and technology; in preparation for a successful moon landing (which took place in June 1969).  A year earlier, in January 1967, the Apollo 7 capsule caught fire, killing astronauts Walter Schirra, Donald Eisele and R. Walter Cunninghamin.  Apollo 8 was launched less than a year after the Apollo 7 tragedy. 


Apollo 8 circled the moon ten times on that mission in 1968. From space, circling the moon, Borman, Anders and Lovell broadcast a message that was listened to by an estimated one billion people on planet earth that Christmas Eve in 1968. They read the first verses from the Book of Genesis (transcript below). With the holidays approaching, and the world in seeming turmoil, this seems a good time to recall the good tidings from Apollo 8.


Here’s a little of the backstory from another publication I found today. "As Borman was preparing for that flight in 1968—a process that included memorizing the 566 switches, 71 lights, and 40 indicators so he could locate each of them while blindfolded—NASA’s deputy public information officer, Julian Scheer, told him he should probably plan something to say while in orbit. The crew was scheduled to broadcast from the moon on Christmas Eve and they were expected to have a large television audience—the largest, in fact, ever to listen to a human voice. When Borman asked the public relations professional what he should say in the broadcast, the advice was “something appropriate.”  He asked a Jewish friend named Simon Bourgin for help. Bourgin, a former Newsweek editor who had worked for President Lyndon Johnson, turned to another friend, an official at the Bureau of Budget. He also was stumped by what to say and asked his wife, Christine Laitin, who had been a ballerina and a member of the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation. Laitin suggested the astronauts “go back to the beginning” and read the Creation account from Genesis. The idea was passed back to Borman. He liked it and wrote it into the mission plan."


“It was,” he recalled, “the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white. But not the Earth.”


Here is the Transcript of that 1968 Christmas Eve message from the crew of Apollo 8:

Bill Anders

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.[6]

Jim Lovell

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.[6]

Frank Borman

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.[6] 


Please limit announcements and comments to 2 minutes.

Remembering David McKim and Frank Borman, two excellent men of science.

Hometown Helena - Thursday, November 16th, 7 a.m. @ The Montana Club & Live via ZOOM hosted by Pinion:

  • Crystal Hermanson, Executive Director of the Helena Industry Building Association

  • Amanda Coyle, Program Coordinator of AgCorps

  • Online Meeting Instructions: Please keep your phone or microphone muted during the meeting and note that your camera may be on depending on your ZOOM settings. Please "raise your hand" at the start of the meeting if you will have an opening update or introduction.


  • In-Person Announcements: Please plan on approaching the front of the room to make announcements directly to our host so online attendees can hear. There is time at the beginning of the meeting for announcements. Please limit announcements and comments to 2 minutes.


  • View Program Recording: Hometown Helena is recorded and posted at HometownHelena.news, typically within a day.


  • Hometown Email List: This private email list is not shared. You can join or update your email information at HometownHelena.news or by clicking the button below.

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The Hometown Helena Team is Jim Smith, Rick Hays, Kelly Cresswell, Emily McVey, Emily Frazier, Ali Mandell, Tom McGree, Peter Strauss, Haley McKnight and Matt Elsaesser

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