This is William Anders, a member of the Apollo 8 mission. He was one of the first to orbit the Moon.
William Anders, Former American astronaut, died in a plane crash at age 90. The family was the one who reported the tragic news and detailed that the man was piloting his small plane when it crashed off the coast of Washington state.
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Furthermore, they stated that he was not with companions. According to international media, the body of the former NASA worker was later recovered by a diving team and the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident.
Who was William Anders and what did he achieve?
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William Anders became one of the first astronauts to orbit the Moon.
Courtesy NASA.
A member of the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, Anders became one of the first humans to orbit the Moon, along with two other Americans, Frank Borman and James Lovell. The crew circled 10 times without landing on the moon, before successfully returning to Earth on December 27, 1968.
In one of the lunar orbits, Anders captured a photograph of the bright blue Earth against the vast darkness of space, with the cratered surface of the Moon in the foreground. During a NASA interview in 1997, the astronaut had recounted: “We had been going backwards and backwards, we didn’t really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we turned around we saw the first sunrise on Earth.”
“It was certainly by far the most impressive thing. Seeing this delicate, colorful orb that to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament emerging over this desolate and ugly lunar landscape,” he added.
The photograph, titled “Earthrise,” frequently appears in digests of key historical images and was included in Life magazine’s book “100 Photographs That Changed the World.”
The message from the head of NASA
After Anders’ death, NASA chief Bill Nelson wrote on the social network X: “In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered humanity one of the most profound gifts an astronaut can give.” And he added: “He traveled to the threshold of the Moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and purpose of exploration. We will miss him.”
William Ander was born on October 17, 1933 in Hong Kong, and Anders graduated from the United States Naval Academy and later earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering. After being an astronaut he held several government positions related to technology, he was the first president of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and served as United States ambassador to Norway.
