William A. Anders, 90, deceased; Flew the first manned orbit around the moon

On Christmas Eve, during their 10 revolutions around the moon, the three astronauts, whose movements were broadcast to millions of people around the world, took pictures of the Earth as it rose over the lunar horizon, appearing like a blue marble amid the darkness of heaven. But only Major Anders, who oversaw their spaceship’s electronic and communications systems, shot color film.

His photo shocked the world. It was known as ‘Earthrise’ and was reproduced on a 1969 postage stamp with the words ‘In the beginning God…’. It inspired the first Earth Day, in 1970, and appeared on the cover of Life’s 2003 book ‘100 Photographs.’ It changed the world.”

Just moments before Major Anders began blasting away, the astronauts could be heard, as captured by the built-in recorderexpressing their awe at what they saw:

Anders: Oh my God! Look at that photo there. Here the earth rises. Wow, that’s beautiful.

Borman: [chuckle] Hey, don’t assume that, it’s not planned.

otherwise: [laughter] Do you have color film, Jim? Give me that roll of color film quickly, will you? …

Lovell: Oh man, that’s great.

Decades later, in a 2015 interview with Forbes magazineGeneral Anders said of Earthrise: “The view points to the beauty of the Earth and its fragility. It helped spark the environmental movement.”

But he said he was surprised by how much the public’s memory of the figures behind that photo had faded. “It’s curious to me that the press and the people on the ground have kind of forgotten our historic journey, and what’s now symbolic of the flight is the ‘Earthrise’ image,” he said. “Here we came all the way to the moon to discover Earth.”

Concluding their Christmas Eve broadcast, the Apollo 8 astronauts read from the first passage of the Book of Genesis.