"An outstanding achievement of American space sciences and technology." -- Chairman of the Soviet Intercosmos program on the U.S. Apollo 8 mission, the first flight to take people to the Moon. Apollo 8 was originally meant to be the first test of the lunar lander in Low Earth Orbit. But when delays with the lander began to threaten the goal of landing a person on the Moon by the end of 1969, Apollo 8 was radically changed to a crewed lunar orbit mission just four months before launch. The crew was also completely changed. The mission marked the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket, the first time the Saturn V performed the critically precise trans-lunar injection burn to send a craft outward to the Moon, the first time humans left Low Earth Orbit, the first time humans entered the gravity of another space object, the first time a person saw Earthrise over the lunar surface, the first live TV broadcast of humans from orbit of another celestial body, the first time a crewed spacecraft orbited more than one space body, and the first time any human saw the entire Earth in one view. Apollo 8 is often hailed as the most significant flight leading to the success of the Apollo lunar landings. The flight solidified the U.S.'s lead in the Space Race against the Soviet Union.