Major William A. Anders, who launched the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, the Apollo 8 “Genesis Flight” on Christmas Eve 1968, and made Color photo “Earthrise” considered an inspiration for the modern environmental movement, died Friday when a small plane he was piloting alone crashed into the water near Roche Harbor, Wa., northwest of Seattle. He is 90 years old.
His son Greg confirmed his death.
Major Anders, along with Colonel Frank Borman, both of the Air Force, and Captain James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy, were members of the first group of astronauts to leave the confines of Earth orbit. During their mission, they photographed and filmed the lunar surface in preparation for Apollo 11, when humans first set foot on the moon and they were the first astronauts to reach the Saturn rocket. Huge V raised high.
In addition to those important milestones, their mission was also considered to restore the spirit of an America reeling from the mounting casualties of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as chaotic anti-war protests and racial unrest.
On Christmas Eve, during 10 orbits of the moon, three astronauts, whose movements were televised to millions around the world, photographed Earth as it rose above the horizon of the moon. moon, appearing like a blue marble in the dark sky. But only Major Anders, who oversaw the spacecraft’s electronics and communications systems, filmed in color.
His photo shocked the world. Known as “Earth Rising,” it was reproduced in a 1969 postage stamp that read “In the beginning was God…” It was the inspiration for the first Earth Day, in 1970 , and it appeared on the cover of Life magazine’s 2003 book “100 Photographs That Changed the World.” Just moments before Major Anders began his dash, the astronauts could be heard being captured by the astronauts. Recorder on boardexpressed amazement at what they saw:
Anders: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there. This is the Earth coming up. Wow, so beautiful.
Borman: [chuckle] Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled.
Anders: [laughter] “Do you have color film, Jim? Give me that color roll quickly, can you…
Lovell: “Oh, that’s great.”
Decades later, in a 2015 interview with Forbes magazine, Major Anders said of Earthrise, “The scene shows the beauty of the Earth and its fragility. It helped launch the environmental movement.”
But he said he was surprised how faded the public memory of the figures behind the photo had become. “It’s curious to me that the press and people on the ground have almost forgotten about our history-making trip, and that the symbol of the flight is now the ‘Earthrise’ photo,” he said. “Here we went to the moon to explore the Earth.”
At the end of the Christmas Eve telecast, the Apollo 8 astronauts read the first passage from the Book of Genesis.
Major Anders was the first to read: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the Earth was formless and empty; and darkness covered the face of the deep.”
William Alison Anders was born on 17 October 1933 in Hong Kong, where he lived with his mother, Muriel Adams Anders, while his father, Lieutenant Arthur Anders, a career Navy man, was serving as a officer on the gunboat. Panay patrols along China’s Yangtze River.
After a stint in Annapolis, Md., the family returned to China, with his father posted aboard the Panay, again, as executive officer or second in command. But after the Japanese attack on Beijing in July 1937, which started the Sino-Japanese War, Bill and his mother fled to the Philippines.
In December, as the Panay was evacuating Americans from China, Japanese planes bombed and strangled the ship.
Its captain was seriously wounded and Lieutenant Anders, who was also wounded, nevertheless remained in command and ordered the ship’s machine gunners to fire on the Japanese aircraft. He also oversaw the evacuation of the boat before it sank, for which he received the Navy Cross, the military’s highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor.
The episode, known as the Panay Incident, increased tensions between the United States and Japan, which just four years later would attack Pearl Harbor, drawing America into World War II.
Bill Anders returned to the United States, attended Grossmont High School in San Diego County, California and was fascinated by stories of world-famous expeditions. Following the path his father pursued, he entered the Naval Academy and graduated in 1955, planning to become a pilot. He received a commission in the Air Force, seeing it as more suited than the Navy to breakthroughs in aeronautical science.
He received his pilot wings in 1956 and served as a fighter pilot with interceptor squadrons in California and Iceland tracking Soviet heavy bombers that were challenging America’s air defenses. In 1962, he received a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the United States Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. A year later, he joined the third class of astronauts at NASA, even though he lacked experience as a test pilot, a traditional route to flying for the agency.
While at NASA, Major Anders became an expert on space radiation, the effects of which were considered a potential danger to future astronauts. He also trained on a module that will be used to carry astronauts from a lunar orbiter to the lunar surface, the future lunar lander.
Apollo 8 was designed to orbit the Earth in a module that Major Anders would test fly. But its development was delayed, so the mission was reprogrammed to lunar orbit, without the module, a premature and risky attempt to beat the Russians to circumnavigation around the lunar surface. The mission was a huge success and its astronauts were praised at parades in New York, Chicago and Washington and appeared before a joint session of Congress.
In 1969, Major Anders retired from NASA and the Air Force, after accepting a position as executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, an advisory body to the president.
He later served as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, first Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Ambassador to Norway. After leaving government, he held executive positions at General Electric and Textron and was chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, a major defense contractor.
He retired from the Air Force Reserves in 1988 with the rank of major general.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie (Hoard) Anders; his sons Alan, Glen, Greg and Eric; and his daughters, Gayle and Diana.
Major Anders lives in Washington state, where he and his wife live established a flight museum IN 1996.
Although 12 Americans will walk on the moon, Mr. Anders is not among them, with his only space flight being Apollo 8. But he has never appeared bothered by this. It seems that from his vantage point in orbit, the moon’s terrain is unappealing, contrasting with the beauty of the house he captured in “Earthrise.”
“I use the unpoetic description ‘dirty beach,'” he said of the moon’s grim surface, adding, “you can imagine how the poets threw me into hell. “
Mayor Orlando Quin Contribute reports and Susan C. Beachy contributing research.
