Apollo 8

Apollo 8 was a rocket sent by Americans to orbit Earth in 1968. The rocket had taken lift-off while attached to Saturn V, at it was the first shuttle to orbit the moon.

The vessel was boarded by Mission Commander Colonel Frank Borman, Lieutenant Colonel William Anders and Captain Jim Lovell. After sixty-six hours of travel, the shuttle had perfectly positioned itself for Lunar Orbital Insertion. 25 minutes before the important maneuver, the team lost contact with Houston. Despite this, they were able to execute the operation perfectly, leaving them in the precise orbit needed.

When Anders went to retrieve camera equipment to photograph the lunar surface, he was shocked to discover a non-notified parcel with a stamp labelled "UNIT". Directly after this, Anders was shocked to discover that a face was gleaming at him from outside of one of their hatches. All three passengers noticed the figure and were awestruck not only by him being anywhere near them in deep space, but also by him being able to enter the shuttle without causing the vacuum of space to rip them into space.

The figure was the Fourth Doctor, who had opened an Air corridor between the two moving shuttles. The Doctor invited the three back to the TARDIS, which was decorated with stacks of Christmas presents. The Doctor explained that his ship was in need of repair, and that he had pulled the three aside from their historic mission to deliver the tools to fix the ship. The three astronauts discovered that they each had mysterious packages in their suits, and upon gifting these to the Time Lord he began immediately working on his ship, asking them to return to their mission.

Back in Apollo 8, the group then questioned how they would relay this information to Houston. The team initially believed that the ship's recordings would prove that they had not made the story up, but as the Doctor left he also reversed time to before the recording had captured his arrival. This meant that there was no proof of their alien encounter other than their own memories. Noting that claiming to have met an alien would likely ruin their careers and tarnish the reputation of NASA, all three agreed to keep this element of their voyage a secret. Back on track, Anders left to retrieve his camera equipment. (PROSE: Three Wise Men)

The Second Doctor, along with John and Gillian, found it as an exhibit in a museum; the Doctor described it as a "quaint old device". (COMIC: The Time Museum)

Behind the scenes
An important distinction to be made between Apollo 8's appearances in The Time Museum and Three Wise Men is what the shuttle meant to the creators of both stories. Three Wise Men was written long after the mission, meaning that to Richard Dungworth this was a historical event. To the creators of The Time Museum, showing the Apollo and referring to it as a "quaint old device" was a trendy, tongue-in-cheek cultural reference.