The TransEarth Injection, TEI, was planned for just after midnight on Christmas Day. A successful burn would put Apollo 8 on its way back home and Houston control listened carefully for the astronauts to come around from the back side of the moon out of LOS, Loss of Signal. At 19 minutes after midnight Houston began to pick up telemetry from Apollo 8 and a cheer went up.
Jim Lovell's voice came over the radio, click here to hear what he said.
The USS Yorktown (CV-10) waited in the western Pacific...