SEATTLE (AP) — William Anders, former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo in 1968, showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting crashed into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.
His son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.
“The family is devastated,” he said. “He was a great pilot and we will miss him terribly.
William Anders, a retired major general, said photography was his most significant contribution to the space program, along with making sure the Apollo 8 Command and Service Modules worked.
The photograph, the first color image of the Earth from space, is one of the most important photographs in modern history because it changed the way people viewed the planet. The photograph is credited with sparking the global environmental movement for showing how delicate and isolated Earth appeared from space.
NASA administrator and former senator Bill Nelson said Anders embodied the lessons and purpose of exploration.
“He traveled to the doorstep of the moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves,” Nelson wrote on the X social platform.
Anders took the photo during the fourth crewed lunar orbit, frantically switching from black and white to color film.
“Oh my god, look at that picture over there!” Anders said. “That’s where the Earth comes in.” Wow, that’s nice!”
The Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, he was the first human spaceflight to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon and back. It was NASA’s most daring and possibly most dangerous journey to date, setting the stage for the Apollo moon landings seven months later.
“Bill Anders forever changed our perspective of our planet and ourselves with his famous Earthrise photo from Apollo 8,” Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who is also a former NASA astronaut, wrote on X. “He inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. . My thoughts are with his family and friends.”
A report came in around 11:40 a.m. that an older model plane had crashed into the water and sunk near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said. Greg Anders confirmed to KING-TV that his father’s body was found Friday afternoon.
According to the Federal Aviation Association, only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 at the time.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating the crash.
William Anders said in 1997 An oral history of NASA he said he did not think the Apollo 8 mission was without risk, but there were important national, patriotic and exploratory reasons to continue. He estimated that there was about a one in three chance that the crew would not return, and an equal chance that the mission would succeed, and an equal chance that the mission would fail. He said he suspected that Christopher Columbus had sailed with worse odds.
He recounted how the Earth looked frail and seemingly physically insignificant, yet it was home.
“We were walking backwards and upside down, not really seeing the Earth or the Sun, and when we turned around and saw the first sunrise of the Earth,” he said. “That was definitely the most impressive thing. Seeing this very delicate, colorful orb, which looked like a Christmas tree ornament, rising above this very stark, ugly moonscape, was really a contrast.”
Anders said in retrospect that he wished he had taken more photos, but mission commander Frank Borman was concerned about whether everyone was rested and forced Anders and command module pilot James A. Lovell, Jr. to sleep, “which probably made sense.” .
He served as backup crew for Apollo 11 and for Gemini XI in 1966, but the Apollo 8 mission was the only time he flew into space.
Anders was born on October 17, 1933 in Hong Kong. At the time, his father was a Navy lieutenant aboard the USS Panay, an American gunboat on China’s Yangtze River.
Anders and his wife, Valerie, founded the Washington State Heritage Flight Museum in 1996. It is now located at the Burlington Regional Airport and contains 15 aircraft, several antique military vehicles, a library, and many artifacts donated by veterans. museum website. His two sons helped him with the operation.
The couple moved to Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago in 1993 and maintain a second home in their native San Diego, according to a biography on the museum’s website. They had six children and 13 grandchildren. Their current Washington home was in Anacortes.
Anders graduated from the Naval Academy in 1955 and served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force.
He later served on the Atomic Energy Commission, as the US chairman of the joint US-USSR technology exchange program for nuclear fission and fusion, and as ambassador to Norway. Later, he said, he worked for General Electric and General Dynamics NASA Biography.
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Associated Press writer Lisa Baumann contributed to this report.