William Anders, NASA Astronaut and US Air Pressure Main Normal, dies at 90

NASA Astronaut William A. Anders Credit score: NASA

William “Invoice” Anders, former Apollo 8 astronaut, died in a airplane crash on Friday, June 7, 2024. Anders was piloting a small plane in Roche Harbor, Washington State. The craft dove into the water and sank, in keeping with a San Juan County press release.  The demise was confirmed by his son, Greg, as reported by Richard Goldstein for The New York Times.

Anders flew the primary crewed voyage across the Moon throughout the Apollo 8 mission, which included Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell. Collectively, the astronauts orbited the Moon for 20 hours and have been the primary people to view the Moon’s far facet.

Anders was born on October 17, 1933. In 1955, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and in 1962 obtained a grasp’s diploma in nuclear engineering from the Air Pressure Institute of Know-how. A yr later Anders joined NASA. He was chosen as a backup pilot for Gemini XI and the Apollo 11 flights. The Apollo 8 mission was Anders’s solely mission into area.

A Christmas decoration

The well-known “Earthrise” picture of a gibbous, marble-like Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon was taken on Christmas Eve 1968 by Anders throughout the Apollo 8 mission. “To see this very delicate, colourful orb, which to me appeared like a Christmas tree decoration developing over this very stark, ugly lunar panorama actually contrasted…,” mentioned Anders in an interview with Paul Rollins for NASA’s Oral History Project. Anders admitted to Rollins throughout the interview that his most important contribution throughout Apollo 8 was taking the Earthrise picture, “which had loads of ecological and philosophical influence on the time.”