Frank Borman, an Air Force test pilot, astronaut, and accomplished businessman who led the first crew to fly to the Moon in 1968, died Tuesday in Montana, NASA said Thursday. He was 95 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we remember one of NASA\u2019s best,\u201d NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. \u201cAstronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero. Among his many accomplishments, he served as the commander of the Apollo 8 mission, humanity\u2019s first mission around the Moon in 1968.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borman, joined by crewmates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, orbited the Moon 10 times over the course of about 20 hours. They were the first people to see the Earth from another world, a memory of \u201cwonderment\u201d Borman recalled decades later. Apollo 8 produced one of the most famous photos ever taken, the iconic \u201cEarthrise\u201d showing a blue orb\u2014the setting for all of human history until then\u2014suspended in the blackness of space over the charcoal gray of the Moon\u2019s cratered surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Earth looked so lonely in the Universe,\u201d Borman said in a NASA oral history. \u201cIt\u2019s the only thing with color. All of our emotions were focused back there with our families as well, so that was the most emotional part of the flight for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borman was born in Gary, Indiana, on March 14, 1928, and raised in Tucson, Arizona. He learned to fly airplanes as a teenager, then attended the US Military Academy at West Point before earning his commission in the Air Force to start training as a fighter pilot. Following a similar career path to that of other early astronauts, Borman became an experimental test pilot, receiving a master\u2019s degree in aeronautical engineering from Caltech, and served a stint as an assistant professor at West Point.<\/p>\n
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NASA accepted applications for a second class of astronauts in 1962 to follow the original Mercury Seven. Borman was one of the \u201cNew Nine\u201d astronauts, and he reported for training in Houston.<\/p>\n
Known for his no-nonsense approach to spaceflight, Borman was razor-focused on mission objectives. For Apollo 8, those were to fly to the Moon, take pictures of future Apollo landing sites, and return to Earth safely, and importantly, do it before the Russians. He didn\u2019t want to take a video camera on Apollo 8, worried that it would distract from more important tasks, but was overruled by NASA management. \u201cI was dumb in that,\u201d Borman later admitted.<\/p>\n
The live television broadcast from Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve became one of the most memorable moments in the history of America\u2019s space program. Borman, Lovell, and Anders read from the Book of Genesis, closing the broadcast with holiday wishes for an audience of a billion people watching on television: \u201cFrom the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n