Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who was one of the first people to orbit the moon and took the iconic first photo of the Earth rising above the lunar surface, died Friday when a plane he was piloting crashed ashore near the San Juan Islands. Washington state. He was 90 years old.
The Federal Aviation Administration said he was flying alone when the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor plane crashed into the water near Roche Harbor, Wash., around 11:40 a.m.
“The family is devastated,” retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders told The Associated Press. “He was a great pilot and we will miss him very much.”
US Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Annika Hirschler said that after a search with helicopters and boats, the state diving team recovered the pilot’s body.
The crash is being investigated by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
On December 24, 1968, Anders and the other two astronauts on Apollo 8, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, became the first humans to orbit the Moon. Anders famously read from the Book of Genesis in a live Christmas Eve broadcast from space.
Anders and his crewmates were also the first people to witness the blue Earth rising above the gray surface of the moon.
As the spacecraft rotated, Anders looked out the side window and was taking photographs as the Earth emerged from behind the moon.
“Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” he exclaimed in a recorded conversation. “The world is getting closer. Wow, how beautiful!”
That moment was the iconic “Earthrise” photo captured on film. The image fascinated people around the world and became a profound symbol of the environmental movement, showing the fragility of life on Earth in the vastness of space.
Read more: Getting the big picture on Earth Day
Anders later said that as he looked out from the spacecraft, the Earth “looked like a fragile Christmas tree ornament.” And I thought to myself, it’s too bad we didn’t treat it like a Christmas tree ornament.
Photography had a huge impact on society. Starting from the perspective captured in the photograph, environmentalists organized the first Earth Day in 1970.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Anders “offered humanity among the most profound gifts an astronaut can give.”
“He went to the moon’s doorstep and helped us all see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and purpose of exploration. We will miss him,” Nelson wrote in a social media post.
The International Astronomical Union commemorated the taking of the photo in 2018 by naming one of the moon’s craters Anders’ Earthrise.
In a NASA video interview In later years, Anders reflected on how seeing the Earth from this perspective influenced his thinking about people and the planet.
Read more: It’s a small world for the Apollo crew
“It’s really bad, you know, we’re shooting missiles and rockets and stuff at each other in this tiny place we call home. “For us humans, this is the only home in the universe,” he said. “It’s too bad we didn’t treat this a little better.”
When he captured the image with his Hasselblad camera, he saw that the Earth was emerging from the side of the moon rather than above it. In the original orientation of the photo, the moon is on the right. However, the image is often framed with the Moon’s surface at the bottom, making the Earth appear to be rising.
In an interview, Anders said that the photo “gave a jump start on the environmental movement.”
“This helped realize that the Earth is not only delicate and fragile, but also finite,” he said. “All the images of the Earth seen from the Moon have made the human race realize… that we are all really stuck on a small planet. We better be nicer to him and ourselves, or we won’t be here very long.”
Anders was the lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission. In a 1997 interview about the space program, he said before the flight that he estimated we had “a one-in-three chance of doing a successful mission.”
William A. Anders was born in Hong Kong in 1933 into a military family. His father was a US Navy officer.
Anders attended Grossmont High School in El Cajon in San Diego County. He attended the Naval Academy, then was commissioned by the Air Force.
He retired from the Air Force reserve as a major general. But even decades after returning from space, he never stopped flying.
After Apollo, Anders pursued an executive career spanning the public and private sectors. Known for his tough demeanor and meticulous attention to detail, he served as executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, a commissioner on the Atomic Energy Commission, and the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
He later served as ambassador to Norway, vice president of General Electric Co. and vice president of Textron Inc. In the early 1990s, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of General Dynamics and oversaw belt-tightening at the defense contractor.
In 1996, Anders and his wife co-founded the Heritage Flight Museum, which is now located next to Skagit Regional Airport in Burlington, Washington. In early October, Anders and his son Greg, now the museum’s general manager, flew a pair of T-planes. -34 aircraft in a formation display above the museum.
Anders and his wife, Valerie, split their time between Washington and the Point Loma community in San Diego. He leaves behind six children and more than a dozen grandchildren.
Former astronaut Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly said Anders “forever changed the way we look at our planet and ourselves” through his “Earthrise” photograph.
“He inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends,” Kelly wrote in a social media post.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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This story was first published in the Los Angeles Times.