May. William A. Anders, who flew the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, the Apollo 8 “Genesis Flight” on Christmas Day 1968 and took the color photograph “Earthrise” that is credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement, died on Friday the small plane he was piloting plunged into the water near Roche Harbor, Wa., northwest of Seattle. He was 90.
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 part of the first group of spacemen to leave the confines of Earth orbit. During their mission, they took photos and movies of the lunar surface in preparation for the Apollo 11 battle, when men first set foot on the moon, and were the first astronauts launched by the giant Saturn V rocket.
In addition to these tremendous milestones, their mission was seen as a brief revival of the spirit of America overwhelmed by the mounting casualties in the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and violent anti-war protests and race riots.
On Christmas Day, during their 10 orbits of the moon, three astronauts, whose movements were broadcast to millions around the world, photographed Earth rising above the lunar horizon, appearing like a blue marble amid the darkness of the heavens. But only Major Anders, who oversaw their spacecraft’s electronic and communications systems, shot color film.
His photo shook the world. Known as “Earthrise,” it was reproduced on a 1969 postage stamp with the words, “In the beginning God…” She was the inspiration for the first Earth Day in 1970 and appeared on the cover of Life magazine’s 2003 book, 100 Photos That Changed the World. ” Just moments before Major Anders began to take off, the astronauts were heard on the flight recorder expressing their amazement at what they had seen:
Anders: Oh my god! Look at that picture over there. Here comes Earth. Wow, that’s nice.
Bormann: [chuckle] Hey, don’t take it, it’s not planned.
Anders: [laughter] “Do you have color film, Jim? Pass me the paint roll quickly, could you…
Lovell: “Oh, that’s great.”
Decades later, in a 2015 interview with Forbes magazine, Major Anders said of Earthrise: “The view highlights the beauty of the Earth and its fragility. It helped start the environmental movement.”
But he said he was surprised by how much the public’s memory of the figures behind the photo had faded. “It’s strange to me that the press and people on the ground kind of forgot about our history-making journey and what’s now symbolic of flight is the ‘Earthrise’ image,” he said. “Here we went all the way to the moon to discover the earth.
At the end of their Christmas Eve telecast, the Apollo 8 astronauts read from the first passage of the Book of Genesis.
Major Anders was the first reader: “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 abyss.”
William Alison Anders was born on October 17, 1933, in Hong Kong, where he lived with his mother, Muriel Adams Anders, while his father, Lieutenant Arthur Anders, a professional sailor, served as an officer on a gunboat. Panay on patrol along China’s Yangtze River.
After a stint in Annapolis, Maryland, the family returned to China, with his father again posted aboard the Panay as executive officer or second in command. But after the Japanese attack on Peking in July 1937, which triggered the start of the Sino-Japanese War, Bill and his mother fled to the Philippines.
In December, while Panay was carrying out the evacuation of Americans from China, Japanese planes bombed and bombed the ship.
Her captain was badly wounded and Lieutenant Anders, who was also wounded, nevertheless took command and ordered the boat’s machine gunners to fire on the Japanese planes. He also oversaw the evacuation of the ship before it sank, for which he received the Navy Cross, the service’s highest decoration for valor after the Medal of Honor.
The episode, which became known as the Panay Incident, heightened tensions between the United States and Japan, which attacked Pearl Harbor just four years later, 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-renowned research. Following the path followed by his father, he entered the Naval Academy and graduated in 1955, planning to become a pilot. He received a commission in the Air Force, finding them more attuned than the Navy to breakthroughs in aeronautical science.
He earned his pilot’s wings in 1956 and served as a fighter pilot with fighter squadrons in California and Iceland tracking Soviet heavy bombers that were attacking American air defense lines. In 1962, he earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the US Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. A year later, he joined NASA’s third astronaut class, even though he lacked experience as a test pilot, the agency’s traditional route to flying.
While at NASA, Major Anders became a specialist in cosmic radiation, the effects of which were considered a potential danger to future astronauts. He also trained in the module that would be used to transport astronauts from a capsule in lunar orbit to the lunar surface, the future lunar lander.
Apollo 8 was designed to orbit the Earth with a module that Major Anders would test. But its development was delayed, so the mission was reprogrammed to orbit the moon, without a module, a premature and risky attempt to defeat the Russians in orbiting the lunar surface. The mission was a huge success, and its astronauts were welcomed 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 the position of Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, an advisory body to the President.
He was later a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, the first chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and ambassador to Norway. After leaving government service, 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 Reserve as a major general in 1988.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie (Hoard) Anders; his sons Alan, Glen, Greg and Eric; and his daughters Gayle and Diana.
Major Anders lived in Washington State, where he and his wife founded an aviation museum 1996.
Although 12 Americans walked on the moon, Mr. Anders was not among them, and Apollo 8 was his only space flight. But he never seemed bothered by it. From his vantage point in orbit, the moon’s topography seemed uninspiring in contrast to the beauty of home he captured in “Earthrise.”
“I use the unpoetic description ‘dirty beach,'” he said of the moon’s grave surface, adding, “you can imagine the poets give me hell.”
Orlando Mayorquin contributed reporting and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.