I flew all the way to the Moon... and was bored after 30 seconds

HE HAD boldly gone where no one had before. But the first man to fly around the Moon has said it was only interesting for 30 seconds and he couldn’t wait to get back home to his family.

Frank Borman, 90, was unfazed by zero gravity and dismissed the sight of the Moon as just ‘different shades of grey’.

Borman was the commander of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

In a radio interview, the former US astronaut said it was simply a ‘battle’ in the Cold War and he had no desire to set foot on the Moon. Borman recalled his feelings about the mission differed from those of his colleagues, Jim Lovell and William Anders.

He said: ‘Lovell was mesmerised by space and wanted desperately to explore the Moon. I was there because it was a battle in the Cold War.

‘I wanted to participate in this American adventure of beating the Soviets. But that’s the only thing that motivated me – beat the damn Russians.’

Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, orbiting the Moon three days later. Borman said the high point of the flight was looking back on the Earth. ‘It’s 240,000 miles away,’ he said. ‘It was small enough you could cover it with your thumbnail.

‘The dearest things in life that were back on the Earth – my family, my wife, my parents – they were still alive then.

‘That was, for me, the high point of the flight from an emotional standpoint.’ His description of the Moon was: ‘Meteor craters, no colour at all. Just different shades of grey.’