Bill Anders

Also known as William Anders, William Alison Anders, William A. Anders, Bill A. Anders

American astronaut and lunar explorer (1933–2024)

AI overview

Bill Anders was an American astronaut who flew on Apollo 8 in 1968, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon. He is remembered for taking the iconic photograph "Earthrise," showing Earth rising above the lunar horizon, which became one of the most influential images in history by changing how people viewed their planet.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works: 1

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Grave Robbers

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Country: United States
Active from: 1933
Active to: 2024

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 4
Total plays: 4

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Moderated estimation of fold change and dispersion for RNA-seq data with DESeq2
· 2014 · cited 85,307x
The ERA5 global reanalysis
· 2020 · cited 22,652x
HTSeq—a Python framework to work with high-throughput sequencing data
· 2014 · cited 19,247x
Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
· 2020 · cited 15,326x
The cBio Cancer Genomics Portal: An Open Platform for Exploring Multidimensional Cancer Genomics Data
· 2012 · cited 14,949x

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Quotes

“I thought the American public was supporting Apollo not because they wanted science or even because they wanted exploration, they wanted to show those “dirty commies” that America [was still #1 technologically].”
“We had simulated essentially everything we could think of or anything anybody could think of on that flight, all previous flights, and in centrifuges, in zero G airplanes, and procedure trainers and that kind of stuff. And yet the very first seconds of the flight were a total surprise to everybody because the Saturn V which is a big tall rocket, kind of skinny, more like a whip antenna on your automobile, [and we were] like a bug on the end of a whip…”
“But, the most impressive aspect of the flight was [when] we were in lunar orbit. We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earth rise. [T]hat certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted...”
“So here was this orb looking like a Christmas tree ornament, very fragile, not [an infinite] expanse [of] granite … [and seemingly of] a physical insignificance and yet it was our home…”
“I’m not that famous, and I’m certainly not glib, so maybe I’d really ought to [get real] work for a living.’... [T]he shareholders at General Dynamics couldn’t have cared less whether I had been at the Moon or not. So it helped me some but not all that much.”
“But sooner or later people will be able to buy a ride into space.”

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Wikidata facts

Image: William Anders.jpg

Show 9 more facts

Commons category: William Anders
date of birth: 1933-10-17
time in space: 8820
floruit: 1969-01-01
date of death: 2024-06-07
name in native language: William Anders
birth name: William Alison Anders
member of the crew of: Apollo 8
P450: Apollo 8

Sources (13)

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Article

William Alison Anders (17 October 1933 – 7 June 2024) was a United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, the first three people to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, he circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth, including the Christmas Eve Genesis reading. During one of the mission's lunar orbits, he took the iconic Earthrise photograph.

A 1955 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Anders was commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF the same year and became a fighter pilot flying Northrop F-89 Scorpions equipped with AIR-2A nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets. In 1962, he earned a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) of Air University, and was sent to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory to manage the technical aspects of the service's nuclear reactor programs.