Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut famous for capturing the iconic 바카라Earthrise바카라 photograph, died in a plane crash on Friday. He was 90-years-old.
His son, retired Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed his passing, stating, 바카라The family is devastated. He was a great father and a great pilot.바카라
The San Juan County Sheriff바카라s Office in Washington said in a statement that a two-seater plane crashed into the waters near Jones Island in the San Juan Channel on Friday morning. Sheriff Eric Peter said that the cause of the crash is under investigation and that Anders appeared to be the only person on board.
On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission in 2018, Anders said in a video, 바카라As I looked down at the Earth, which is about the size of your fist at arm바카라s length, I바카라m thinking, 바카라This is not a very big place. Why can바카라t we get along?바카라바카라 He added, 바카라To me it was strange that we had worked and had come all the way to the moon to study the moon, and what we really discovered was the Earth.바카라
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson paid tribute to Anders, saying, 바카라He traveled to the threshold of the Moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration. We will miss him.바카라
According to Heritage Flight Museum (founded by Anders), Anders was born in 1933 in Hong Kong where his father, a naval officer, was stationed. He later moved to California and graduated high school there. He earned an engineering degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and received his pilot바카라s wings from the Air Force in 1956. In 1962, he graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology with a degree in nuclear engineering, specializing in space radiation, and was selected by NASA the following year.
At the age of 35, Anders became one of the first three people to leave Earth바카라s orbit through the Apollo 8 mission. The spacecraft circled the moon ten times before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after approximately six days of launch, as per NASA. The following year, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would make their historic walk on the moon바카라s surface.
The Apollo 8 crew, including Borman, Lovell and Anders, was named Time magazine바카라s Men of the Year for 1968. In a live broadcast on December 24, 1968, they read the first ten verses of Genesis from space to an audience of half a billion people.
On the same day, Anders took his famed Earthrise photograph. The National Archives describes the image as 바카라the most enduring image of their mission.바카라
In a 2018 interview with the Guardian, Anders shared that the photograph profoundly changed him. 바카라It really undercut my religious beliefs. The idea that things rotate around the pope and up there is a big supercomputer wondering whether Billy was a good boy yesterday? It doesn바카라t make any sense.바카라
After leaving NASA, Anders served on various government commissions and councils and was the U.S. ambassador to Norway. He also had a successful career in the private sector as the CEO of General Dynamics, an aerospace and defense company. He eventually retired to Washington state, where he pursued air racing.
Anders is survived by his wife, Valerie (Hoard) Anders, whom he married in 1955, and their six children.
