After launching on December 21, 1968, Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first human beings to escape Earth’s gravity and first to see the far side of the Moon. The crew took three days to travel to the Moon, reaching the Moon on Christmas Eve which they orbited ten times, 20 hours in total. The mission was also the first manned launch of the Saturn V Rocket.

One of the crew’s major tasks was reconnaissance of the planned landing sites on the Moon, they also saw the Earth rise and by the end of the mission, the crew would take photographs of the Moon and the Earth.

On Christmas afternoon, the crew had ended their final television broadcast and prepared for the re-entry to Earth. The capsule landed at the USS Yorktown deck on December 27, 1968 before sunrise.

TIME magazine chose the crew of Apollo 8 as their Man of the Year for 1968 recognizing them as the people who most influenced events in the preceding year. Also, they were the first people ever to leave the gravitational influence of the Earth and orbit another celestial body.

Two days before Christmas, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and USNS Arctic (T-AOE-8) rescued seven mariners stranded on a raft in the central Persian Gulf. Truman is a Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, while Arctic is a Supply class fast combat support ship.

The latter was notified of the situation by a bridge-to-bridge radio call from the British-flagged cargo vessel MV British Courage, requesting assistance rescuing the stranded sailors. Arctic and Truman were conducting a replenishment-at-sea at the time of the call.

The mariners were transporting cargo from Dubai when their dhow encountered rough seas and broke its keel. The men abandoned ship when the vessel started sinking, and remained on a life raft for two days before the rescue.

Arctic dispatched two MH-60S helicopters to the scene and put one rescue swimmer in the water who recovered the four Pakistani and three Indian mariners. The rescued were then brought on board Truman for food, clothing, and medical treatment.

Harry S. Truman and Arctic are currently deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of the ongoing rotation to support Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the region.

LANGLEY AIRFORCE BASE, Va – The F-22 squadron is ready for combat.

The F-22 Raptor by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Boeing Integrated Defense System under the United States Air Force becomes fully operational and now ready for global engagement said Lt. Col. Mark Hansen, the Air Combat Command F-22 integration officer.

“Crews are now fully organized, trained, equipped and ready for the joint fight.” He said.

The 1st Fighter Wing and the Air National Guard’s 192nd Fighter Wing have dedicated time and resources into finding how to use and maintain the world’s most advanced fighter which has deployed and trained across the world to define its capabilities and tactics.

Though the F-22 has reached full operational capability, Airmen at Langley AFB will continue training to get better every day, said Col. Jay Pearsall, the 192nd Fighter Wing Commander.

“There’s no change in training, everybody is working hard and we’re ready to go to war, on deployment or on exercises.”

The F-22’s combination of stealth, speed, agility, precision and situational awareness, combined with air to air and air to ground combat capabilities gives the airframe numerous advantages over any potential adversary.

Photo of Panama Crash victims, Michael and Talia Klein

Panama City, Panama (AP), December 25, 2007 – The bodies of a California businessman, his teenage daughter and the Panamanian pilot of a plane that crashed over the weekend were found Tuesday in Panama’s mountains, officials said. A 12-year-old American girl survived.

Michael Klein, 37, Talia Klein, 13, and pilot Edwin Lasso, 23, were found dead in a mountainous region of Panama known as Las Ovejas, about 270 miles west of the capital, the civil protection agency said.

Francesca Lewis, a friend of Talia’s who was traveling with the Kleins, survived and was hospitalized with hypothermia and multiple traumas, said the agency in a statement. The severity of her injuries was not immediately clear.

Aviation authorities said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but RPC radio reported that witnesses saw the plane flying at a very low altitude around noon Sunday amid buffeting winds.

The group’s plane disappeared en route from Islas Secas, off Panama’s Pacific coast, to the Chiriqui volcano, about 285 miles west of the capital, Panama City.

The flight normally would have taken about 45 minutes, but controllers lost contact with the craft at about noon on Sunday.

Klein was on vacation with the two girls at an eco-resort he owns in the Central American nation, said ex-wife Kim Klein in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. The three had been scheduled to return to Santa Barbara, California, on Monday, she said.

She traveled to Panama on Monday morning and had offered $25,000 to anyone who could locate it.

Rescue workers and volunteers combed a mountainous area of western Panama on Tuesday looking for the wreckage.

Dense tropical foliage, mountainous terrain and heavy rains had been making air and land searches in the Chiriqui province extremely difficult, Rolando Rodriguez said earlier Tuesday.

Michael Klein was the chief executive officer of Pacificore LLC, a Santa Barbara-based company that manages several hedge funds and founded two companies in the 1990s before becoming president and CEO of eGroups Inc., which was the world’s largest group e-mail communication service.

According to an official of the Panamanian Civil Aviation (AAC), they were searching for a small aircraft which went missing in western Panama on Monday.

The aircraft was reported to be a Cessna 172, which disappeared from radar while flying from the Pacific island of Isla Seca to the town of Volcan in the heavily wooded Chiriqui province in Panama on Sunday, said Victor de la Hoz, an AAC official.

The rescue search earlier was suspended earlier due to bad weather.