Apollo 8 Astronaut William Anders Killed in Plane Crash, Took Iconic ‘Earthrise’ Photo on Christmas Eve in 1968

'Earthrise' photograph is the first color image of Earth from space

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William Anders, 90, the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo on Christmas Eve in 1968 showing the earth as a shadowed blue marble from space, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting solo crashed into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state.

Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the crash.

“The family is devastated,” said his son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders said. “He was a great pilot and we will miss him terribly.”

The “Earthrise” photograph, the first color image of Earth from space, is one of the most important photos in history because of the way it changed how humans viewed the planet.

The photo is credited with inspiring the global environmental movement for showing how delicate and isolated Earth appeared from space.

On December 22, 1966, Anders was assigned to the third Apollo mission, which was to be commanded by Frank Borman, with command module pilot (CMP) Michael Collins; Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were assigned as their backup crew the following year.

Collins was replaced by Lovell in July 1968, after suffering a cervical disc herniation that required surgery to repair. The mission, scheduled for December 1968, was intended to be a second test of the lunar module (LM) in medium Earth orbit, but the delivery of the LM fell behind schedule, and when it arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in June 1968, more than a hundred significant defects were discovered. There was no prospect of it being ready to fly in 1968.

In August 1968, there were reports, including one from the CIA, that the Soviet Union was planning a crewed lunar orbit mission before the end of the year.

Although the LM would not be ready to fly in December 1968, the Apollo command and service module (CSM) would be, so a CSM-only mission could be flown. It could be sent to the Moon, entering lunar orbit before returning to Earth.

Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, and was the second crewed spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program after Apollo 7, which stayed in Earth orbit.

Apollo 8 was the third flight and the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket, and was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center, located adjacent to Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Brevard County, Florida.

Slayton asked James McDivitt, the designated commander of the second mission, if he still wanted to fly it. McDivitt turned it down; his crew had spent a great deal of time preparing to test the LM, and that was what he still wanted to do.

When Borman was asked the same question, he answered “yes” without any hesitation. Slayton then decided to swap the crews and spacecraft, so Borman, Lovell and Anders’ mission became Apollo 8. Anders was less enthusiastic about being the lunar module pilot of a mission without a lunar module.

According to Borman, “Anders was one hell of a worker, a superb technician and all in all a great guy. Anders was always friendly and cooperative, but he avoided the usual astronaut bull sessions. Some of the guys regarded him as a younger version of Frank Borman in his single-minded concentration on work, his aversion to unnecessary conversation.”

Earthrise, taken by Anders on 24 December 1968

In December 1968, Anders flew on the Apollo 8 mission, the first mission where humans traveled beyond low Earth orbit, and the first crewed flight to reach and orbit the Moon.

When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an “Earthrise” for the first time in human history. NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 had taken the first picture of an Earthrise from the vicinity of the Moon, on 23 August 1966.

Anders saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photograph as he did so. Anders asked Lovell for color film and then took Earthrise, which was later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.

Anders stated that the Earthrise photograph “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 doesn’t make any sense. I became a big buddy of Richard Dawkins.”

Anders said, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

On conservation of the planet, he said, “If you can imagine yourself in a darkened room with only one clearly visible object, a small blue-green sphere about the size of a Christmas-tree ornament, then you can begin to grasp what the Earth looks like from space. I think that all of us subconsciously think that the Earth is flat … Let me assure you that, rather than a massive giant, it should be thought of as the fragile Christmas-tree ball which we should handle with considerable care.”

The Apollo 8 command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 27 after a flight lasting 147 hours and 42 seconds and a voyage of 933,419 504,006 nmi. It landed just 2 miles from the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.

– Wikipedia contributed to this report

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