'Apollo 8's Christmas Miracle' and Christmas wishes from the ISS for Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve! I'm returning to the subject of Apollo 8's Earthrise 50 years later for Christmas Eve thanks to Amy Shira Teitel of The Vintage Space, who uploaded Apollo 8's Christmas Miracle on Sunday.

I'd intended to make like 10 shorts about Apollo 8, but then ended up rereading the mission transcript and making this 50 minute video!

I'm glad to see Amy creating new space history content and giving it to her fans for the holidays. It makes a great gift!

Watching Amy's video reminds me that I traditionally passed along Season's Greetings from NASA. I'm returning to that tradition with NASA's Space Station Astronauts Deliver a Christmas Message for 2024.

Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Don Pettit wish a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season to Earth in a message recorded on Dec. 23, 2024.

The four astronauts are in the middle of a long-duration mission living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory. The goal of their mission is to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.

And Merry Christmas to all at NASA along with all my readers!

I plan on returning to NASA for this year's version of 2023 in space from NASA, ESA, Reuters, and PBS NewsHour later this week. In the meantime, stay tuned for celebrations of Christmas and Hanukkah, followed by year-end retrospectives through New Year's Eve.