Which crewed mission first allowed human astronauts to witness the landscape of the lunar far side in December 1968?
Answer
Apollo 8
The historical moment when humans first laid eyes upon the far side of the Moon occurred during the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. The crew, which included Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders, achieved this milestone as their spacecraft circled the Moon. As they passed behind the lunar body relative to Earth, they experienced the complete obscuring of our home planet and viewed the alien, unfamiliar terrain of the far side directly. This represented a monumental shift from relying solely on robotic transmissions to direct, high-fidelity human sensory observation of that previously hidden hemisphere.
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