Maj. William A. Anders, who took the first manned spaceflight around the moon on Apollo 8's “Genesis” flight on Christmas Eve 1968 and captured the color “Earthrise” photograph that sparked the modern environmental movement, died Friday when the small plane he was piloting alone crashed into the ocean near Roche Harbor, Washington, northwest of Seattle. He was 90 years old.
His son, Greg, confirmed his death.
Maj. Anders, along with Air Force Col. Frank Borman and Navy Col. James A. Lovell Jr., were part of the first group of astronauts to leave Earth's orbit. They took photographs and videos of the lunar surface during the mission in preparation for the Apollo 11 combat mission that would put humans on the Moon for the first time, and were the first astronauts to be sent into space aboard the massive Saturn V rocket.
Beyond these milestones, their mission was seen as briefly reviving the spirit of an America shaken by mounting casualties in the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and violent anti-war protests and racial unrest.
During their ten orbits around the Moon on Christmas Eve, the three astronauts, whose movements were televised to millions around the world, photographed the Earth rising above the lunar horizon and appearing as a blue sphere against the pitch-black sky. However, only Lieutenant Commander Anders, who oversaw the spacecraft's electronic and communications systems, captured color film.
His photograph stunned the world: known as “Earthrise,” it appeared on a 1969 postage stamp with the words “In the beginning God…”, inspired the first Earth Day in 1970, and was featured on the cover of Life magazine's 2003 book, “100 Photos That Changed the World.” Just before Anders began to take the photograph, the astronauts could be heard expressing awe at what they were seeing, as recorded on the spacecraft's recorder.
Anders: Oh my goodness! Look at that picture there. The Earth is floating. Wow, that's beautiful.
Bowman: [chuckle] Hey, don't take that, it's not on the agenda.
Anders: [laughter] “Jim, do you have any color film? Can you give me that color film quickly…”
Lovell: Oh, that's wonderful.
Decades later, in a 2015 interview with Forbes magazine, Anders said of Earthrise, “The view highlights the beauty and fragility of the Earth. It was a catalyst for the environmental movement.”
But he said he was surprised at how people's memories of the men behind the photo had faded. “It's strange that the press and people on the ground have forgotten about our history-making voyage, and that the symbol of that flight is now the 'Earthrise' photo,” he said. “We came all the way to the Moon to discover Earth.”
At the end of their Christmas Eve television broadcast, the Apollo 8 astronauts read the first verse of Genesis.
The first reader was Major Anders: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”
William Alison Anders was born in Hong Kong on October 17, 1933. His father, Lieutenant Arthur Anders, a career naval officer serving on the gunboat Panay, which patrolled along the Yangtze River in China, where he lived with his mother, Muriel Adams Anders.
After a period in Annapolis, Maryland, the family returned to China, where his father served again as first officer, or second in command, on the Panay, but after the Japanese attacked Beijing in July 1937, sparking the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Bill and his mother fled to the Philippines.
In December, while the Panay was evacuating Americans from China, Japanese planes bombed and strafed the ship.
The captain was seriously wounded, and Lieutenant Anders, who was also wounded, took command, ordered the ship's machine gunners to fire on the Japanese planes, and led the evacuation of the ship before it sank, for which he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy's highest award for valor, second only to the Medal of Honor.
What became known as the Panay Incident increased tensions between the United States and Japan, leading to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor just four years later and drawing the United States into World War II.
Returning to the United States, Bill Anders attended Grossmont High School in San Diego County, California, where he became fascinated by stories of world-famous exploration. Following in his father's path, he enrolled in the Naval Academy, graduating in 1955 with the intention of becoming a pilot. Believing he would be more attuned to advances in aviation science than the Navy, he enlisted in the Air Force.
He qualified as a pilot in 1956 and served as a fighter pilot in an interceptor squadron in California and Iceland, tracking Soviet heavy bombers that threatened the U.S. air defense perimeter. In 1962, he earned a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. A year later, he became NASA's third astronaut, although he had no experience as a test pilot, the traditional route to becoming an astronaut at NASA.
During his time at NASA, Anders became an expert on space radiation, the effects of which were considered potentially dangerous to future astronauts, and he also trained on the future Lunar Lander, the module that would be used to carry astronauts from the lunar orbit capsule to the lunar surface.
Apollo 8 was designed to orbit Earth with the module, flight-tested by Major Anders. However, delays in its development meant the mission was reprogrammed to lunar orbit without the module, a premature and risky attempt to get ahead of the Russians in lunar orbit. The mission was a great success, and the astronauts were welcomed with parades in New York, Chicago, and Washington, and attended a joint session of Congress.
In 1969, Major Anders retired from NASA and the Air Force to become Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Astronautics Council, an advisory body to the President.
He later served as a commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commission, the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and as ambassador to Norway. After leaving government service, he served as an executive at General Electric and Textron, and as chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, a major defense contractor.
He retired from the Air Force Reserve as a major general in 1988.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie (Hoard) Anders, sons Alan, Glen, Greg and Eric, and daughters Gail and Diana.
Major Anders lives in Washington state and founded the Museum of Aviation with his wife. 1996.
Twelve Americans have walked on the Moon, but Anders was not one of them; his only space flight was Apollo 8. But that didn't seem to bother him: From his vantage point in orbit, the lunar terrain seemed uninspiring in stark contrast to the beauty of his home planet, captured in Earthrise.
“I use the unpoetic description 'dirty beach,'” he said of the moon's gritty surface, adding, “You can imagine the hell the poets will give me.”
Orlando Mallorquin The report submitted and Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.