Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits, took the Earthrise photograph, broadcast live TV pictures, and read the first ten verses of Genesis.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. It was conceived in 1960 as a three-person spacecraft during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961.

Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth. The three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits around Earth at an average distance of 384,399 kilometres (238,854 mi); about 30 times Earth's diameter. Its orbital period and its rotation period are synchronized at 29.5 days by Earth's gravity pulling on the Moon. This makes the Moon tidally locked to Earth, always facing it with the same side. The Moon's gravitational pull produces tidal forces on Earth, which are the main driver of Earth's tides.

In astronomy and spaceflight, a lunar orbit is an orbit by an object around Earth's Moon. In general these orbits are not circular. When farthest from the Moon a spacecraft is said to be at apolune, apocynthion, or aposelene. When closest to the Moon it is said to be at perilune, pericynthion, or periselene. These derive from names or epithets of the moon goddess.