He and his crew completed the first mission around the moon – paving the way for the landing on Earth’s satellite a few months later: NASA astronaut and Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman has now died.
The US astronaut and commander of the Apollo 8 mission Frank Borman is dead. Borman died on Tuesday in the US state of Montana at the age of 95, the space agency NASA announced on Thursday (local time). “Today we remember one of NASA’s best. Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero,” said NASA Director Bill Nelson.
From the Cape Canaveral spaceport, Commander Borman and his colleagues James Lovell and William Anders were launched to the moon on December 21, 1968 as part of the Apollo program, paving the way for the moon landing a few months later.
Christmas message from lunar orbit
The trio’s journey lasted three days, and Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. The astronauts sent a Christmas message with Bible quotations to Earth via a live broadcast. Operations manager Borman said at the end: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we end with a good night, good luck, and a merry Christmas, may God bless you all – all of you on the good earth.”
Apollo 8 orbited the moon ten times. On the fourth orbit, Anders took the iconic “Earthrise” photo, which showed the Earth rising above the lunar horizon. Borman later described what humanity’s home planet looked like from a distance.
We were the first people to see the world in its majestic totality, an incredibly emotional experience for each of us. We said nothing to each other, but I was sure our thoughts were identical – they were about our families on this spinning globe. And perhaps we shared another thought I had: This must be what God sees
Later head of the Apollo program
A native of Indiana, Borman developed a passion for aircraft at the age of 15, which eventually led him to the Air Force and later NASA.
From 1950 onwards he was a fighter pilot and later also worked as an assistant professor of thermodynamics at the West Point Military Academy. In 1967, he was a member of an investigative committee that investigated the Apollo spacecraft fire that killed three astronauts. He was later named head of the Apollo program and led the team that redesigned the Apollo spacecraft.
Borman with numerous honors
After retiring from the Air Force in 1970, Borman became a consultant for the airline Eastern before holding various management positions there and also becoming its president. Bormann also served as a special envoy to the US President.
He received numerous awards, including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In 1990, Borman was inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame and in 1993 into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame. Borman was married and had two sons and four grandchildren.