Earthrise: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders dies
On Christmas Eve 1968, astronaut William Anders took one of the most famous photos. This week he died in an airplane accident.
(Image: NASA, Public Domain)
William Anders, astronaut on the Apollo 8 mission, has died at the age of 90. A small plane he was piloting crashed into the sea northwest of the US coastal city of Seattle on Friday. According to media reports, he was traveling alone in the plane and the incident is being investigated by the authorities. The Coast Guard later announced that the 90-year-old's body had been recovered by divers.
(Image: NASA)
Anders took a picture on board Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968 that became famous. The spacecraft had just orbited the moon twice when William Anders grabbed a camera, screwed the longest lens he could find onto it, inserted a color film and snapped away. The photo shows the Earth rising in front of the lunar horizon.
Out into space to recognize ourselves
"In 1968, as a member of the Apollo 8 crew, as one of the first three humans to travel beyond the reach of Earth and orbit the moon, Bill Anders gave mankind one of the most significant gifts an explorer and an astronaut can give," NASA acknowledges the event. Together with the Apollo 8 crew, Bill was the first to give mankind such a view of the Earth.
As William Anders put it: "We flew all the way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." We go into space to explore the secrets of the universe and learn about ourselves in the process, as NASA puts it.
Bill Anders began his 26-year career in government service as a US Air Force pilot and was selected for NASA's astronaut corps in 1964. He was a backup pilot for the Gemini XI and Apollo 11 flights and also worked as an engineer, ambassador and consultant. "As America returns astronauts to the moon in the Artemis program and eventually ventures to Mars, we will carry Bill's memory and legacy with us," writes NASA.
(anw)
