A man who took one of the most iconic photos in history has died. Astronaut William Anders, who was part of the 1968 Apollo 8 crew who were the first three people to orbit the moon, died in a plane crash in Washington. He was 90 years old. While orbiting the moon, he snapped what has been tagged as the “Earthrise Photo”…it shows the earth peeking out from beyond the moon’s surface as they circled. Anders was selected in 1964 as an astronaut by NASA and served as backup pilot for the Gemini 11 Mission in 1966 and the Apollo 11 flight in 1969. Anders logged more than 6,000 hours of flying time. Anders and fellow astronauts Jim Lovell and Mission Commander Frank Borman, who died in November 2023, flew aboard the first lunar orbit mission in December 1968 on Apollo 8. Anders served as the Lunar Module Pilot for the historic flight. He famously said…”we came all this way to explore the moon and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth”.
