Apollo astronaut Bill Anders, who captured one of the most famous images ever recorded in space, has died at age 90. His son, Greg Anders, told NPR his dad died Friday in a plane crash in Washington state. He was piloting the aircraft when it crashed into the water off Jones Island.
Bill Anders flew in space just once. It was a nerve-wracking trip, the first time humans ever left low Earth orbit. The quarter-million mile flight reached the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, and controllers in Houston wanted to know what the moon looked like up close.
Borman rotated the spacecraft, turned it around and I was the first to see the Earth coming up and I remarked, 'Wow, look at that!' Anders told NPR in 2015. Earth was blue and white, rising above the barren lunar horizon.
Hustling to capture the shot, Anders is heard on the on-board recorder asking fellow astronaut Jim Lovell, 'Hand me a roll of color quick. Would you? ... Quick. Quick.' Anders wasn't sure what the proper aperture setting should be to have both the moon and Earth in focus.
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