Remembering 2024’s Losses: Bill Anders

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This month I’m saluting the people who left us last year, in both music (a separate list) and the world at large. Today’s entry shows the era in which I was raised, the wide-eyed wonder of looking up, and the amazement of scientific advancement. Bill Anders It was Christmas Eve, 1968. Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon, the first manned spacecraft to do so. As a Christmas message, astronaut William “Bill” Anders read Genesis 1 as he looked at the marvel of the lunar surface. But he did something else: he was assigned as a photographer to document the lunar surface. And, in that capacity, he gave the world one of the greatest gifts ever: Earthrise. You may look at it now (the screenshot) and think “Ho hum,” in this satellite era where something orbiting a few thousand miles in space can take a photograph of a sidewalk and you can see if a coin is “heads” or “tails.” However, this was something that was completely new in 1968. The earth had NEVER been photographed in such a way before. It’s been called one of the most important photos in history. It was something else: in an era of unrest, protest, war, hatred, and political assassinations, Earthrise was a much-needed distraction. For a brief moment, it was GOOD news. Bill Anders retired from the U.S. Air Force as a major general. At 90, he was operating a plane museum and still flying vintage aircrafts on a regular basis. It was only fitting, then, that Anders’ life came to an end when the plane he was flying crashed into Puget Sound, Washington. General Anders was a hero in the Apollo era, and he gave us a photograph for the ages. Bill Anders Born William Alison Anders October 17, 1933, British Hong Kong Died June 7, 1994, Puget Sound, Washington (plane crash) (age 90) HALLS OF FAME: International Space (1983); International Air & Space (1990); Astronaut (1997); National Aviation (2004) A Seattle TV station article about Anders from 2017: