Maj. William A. Anders, who flew on the first manned space mission to orbit the moon, the Apollo 8 “Genesis flight” of Christmas Eve 1968, and took the color photograph “Earthrise,” which is credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement, died Friday morning when a small plane he was piloting alone dived into the water near Roche Harbor, Washington, northwest of Seattle. He was 90.
His son Greg confirmed his death.
The crash of Anders’ Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, which happened about 11:40 a.m., is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. A search crew recovered a body from the area of the crash Friday evening, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1968, Anders, who was a major at the time — along with Col. Frank Borman, who like Anders was in the Air Force, and Capt. James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy — was part of the first group of spacemen to leave the bounds of Earth’s orbit.
During their mission, they took photos and motion pictures of the lunar surface in preparation for the Apollo 11 flight, when men first stepped on the moon, and they were the first astronauts sent aloft by a giant Saturn V rocket.
Beyond those tremendous milestones, their mission was viewed as briefly reviving the spirits of an America stunned by rising casualties in the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and tumultuous anti-war protests and racial disturbances.
On Christmas Eve, during their 10 orbits of the moon, the three astronauts, whose movements were telecast to millions around the world, took photos of Earth as it rose over the lunar horizon, appearing as a blue marble amid the blackness of the heavens. But only Anders, who oversaw their spacecraft’s electronic and communications systems, shot color film.
His photo shook the world. Known as “Earthrise,” it was reproduced in a 1969 postage stamp bearing the words, “In the beginning God…” It was an inspiration for the first Earth Day, in 1970, and it appeared on the cover of Life magazine’s 2003 book “100 Photographs That Changed the World.”
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