This photo, taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, is one of the most famous photos ever taken in space. It shows Earth rising over a barren lunar landscape during the first human lunar mission in 1968.
Bill Anders/NASA
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Bill Anders/NASA
This photo, taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, is one of the most famous photos ever taken in space. It shows Earth rising over a barren lunar landscape during the first human lunar mission in 1968.
Bill Anders/NASA
Apollo astronaut Bill Anders, who took one of the most famous space photos of all time, has died aged 90.
His father died in a plane crash in Washington state on Friday, his son Greg Anders told NPR. when the Beech A45 he was piloting crashed into the waters near Jones Island. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating the accident.
“Our family is devastated. He was a great man and a great pilot,” he told NPR.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on On to something else: ourselves.
Bill Anders has only flown into space once. It was a nerve-wracking trip, the first time humans had left low-Earth orbit. The quarter-million-mile flight reached the moon just before Christmas 1968, and controllers in Houston wanted to see what the moon looked like up close.
grey. The astronauts thought it just looked gray—then mission commander Frank Borman flipped the capsule over, and they got a different view.
In this undated photo, astronaut Bill Anders is in a simulator during the Apollo 8 mission.
Associated Press
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In this undated photo, astronaut Bill Anders is in a simulator during the Apollo 8 mission.
Associated Press
“Bollman spun the spacecraft, turned it around, and I was the first person to see the Earth rise, and I said, ‘Wow, look at that!'” Anders told NPR in 2015.
The Earth is blue and white, rising above the barren lunar horizon.
Crews have been taking photos for use in planning future lunar landings, but they are mostly black-and-white images.
Anders’ voice came over the onboard recorder as he scrambled to capture the footage, asking astronaut Jim Lovell: “Give me a roll of color paint, please? … Come on. Come on.”
Anders wasn’t sure what the aperture setting should be to focus on both the Moon and the Earth. “So,” he recalled in 2015, “I machine-gunned it and then rotated the f-stop. As a result, one of the photos was selected by NASA as the iconic Earthrise photo.”
The photo has been immortalized on stamps, countless magazine covers and newspapers. Even now, it remains one of the most famous images ever taken by humans in space.
Author Francis French has written several books about NASA. He said the photo offers people on Earth a new way of looking at the planet.
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders in 2012.
Al Behrman/Associated Press
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Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders in 2012.
Al Behrman/Associated Press
“Human beings will live on earth forever,” he said.[but] We don’t recognize the Earth until we look back at it and realize how small, fragile, precious and finite it is. It has changed human thinking ever since.
Anders said he understands why so many people like the photo: “The only color we could see, contrasting with this very unfriendly, desolate lunar horizon, made me think, ‘You know, we really Living on a beautiful little planet.
Anders graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and rose to the rank of major general in the Air Force Reserves. After leaving NASA, he served as the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. ambassador to Norway and became CEO of General Dynamics.
