Astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded the historic Apollo 8 Christmas flight in 1968, which circled the Moon 10 times and paved the way for the following year’s moon landing, has died. He was 95 years old.
Borman died Tuesday in Billings, Montana, according to NASA.
Borman also ran the troubled Eastern Airlines in the 1970s and early 1980s after leaving the astronaut corps.
But he was best known for his duties at NASA.
He and his crew, James Lovell and William Anders, were the first Apollo mission to fly to the Moon and view Earth as a distant sphere in space.
“Today we remember one of NASA’s best. “Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement Thursday. “His lifelong love of aviation and exploration was surpassed only by his love for his wife Susan.”
Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman poses in Billings, Mont., with a photograph of Earth taken while his spacecraft orbited the moon 45 years ago. AP
Launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 trio spent three days traveling to the moon and entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve.
After circling 10 times on December 24 and 25, they returned home on December 27.
On Christmas Eve, the astronauts read from the Book of Genesis in a live broadcast from the orbiter: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.”
The Apollo 8 crew (left to right): Jim Lovell, the command module pilot; Bill Anders, rookie pilot; and Frank Borman, the commander, pose together.
Borman ended the broadcast by saying: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless you all, all of you on the good Earth.”
Lovell and Borman had previously flown together during the two-week Gemini 7 mission, which launched on December 4, 1965, and, just 120 feet apart, they completed the first orbital space encounter with Gemini 6.
“Gemini was a tall order,” Borman told The Associated Press in 1998. “It was smaller than the front seat of a Volkswagen. He made Apollo look like a super-luxurious, super-duper tour bus.”
Borman also ran the troubled Eastern Airlines in the 1970s and early ’80s after leaving the astronaut corps.NASA/AFP via Getty Images
In his book, “Countdown: An Autobiography,” Borman said that Apollo 8 was originally supposed to orbit the Earth.
The success of the Apollo 7 mission in October 1968 to demonstrate the system’s reliability in long-duration flights made NASA decide it was time to try flying to the moon.
But Borman said there was another reason NASA changed the plan: The agency wanted to beat the Russians. Borman said he thought one orbit would be enough.
“My main concern on this entire flight was to get there before the Russians and get home. In my opinion, that was a significant achievement,” Borman explained in an appearance in Chicago in 2017.
It was on the crew’s fourth orbit that Anders took the iconic “Earthrise” photograph showing a blue and white Earth rising above the gray lunar landscape.
Borman wrote about what the Earth looked like from afar: “We were the first humans to see the world in its majestic entirety, an intensely emotional experience for each of us. We didn’t say anything to each other, but I was sure our thoughts were identical: our families on that spinning globe. And maybe we share another thought I had: This must be what God sees.”
Astronaut Frank Broman, command pilot of the Gemini 7 Prime crew, sitting in the equipment trailer at Kenendy Space Center with Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr.Bettmann Archive
After NASA, Borman’s aviation career ventured into business in 1970 when he joined Eastern Airlines, at the time the fourth largest airline in the country.
He eventually became president and CEO of Eastern and in 1976 also became chairman of the board of directors.
During Borman’s tenure at Eastern, fuel prices rose dramatically and the government deregulated the airline industry.
From left to right: Lunar Module Pilot William A. Anders, Command Module Pilot James A. Lovell, Jr., and Commander Frank F. Borman II on the Apollo 8 spacecraft. Getty Images
The airline became increasingly unprofitable, in debt and torn by labor tensions.
He resigned in 1986 and moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
In his autobiography, Borman wrote that his fascination with flying began in his teens, when he and his father assembled model airplanes.
Apollo astronaut Frank Borman, 92, pilots his T-34 Mentor in Billings, Mont.AP
At age 15, Borman took flying lessons, using money he had saved by working as a picker and pumping gas after school.
He made his first solo flight after eight hours of dual training.
He continued flying until he was 90 years old.
Borman was born in Gary, Indiana, but raised in Tucson, Arizona.
He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in 1950.
That same year, Borman married his high school sweetheart, Susan Bugbee. He died in 2021.
Borman worked as a fighter pilot, operational pilot and U.S. Air Force instructor at West Point after graduating.
In 1956, Borman moved with his family to Pasadena, California, where he earned a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
In 1962, he was one of nine test pilots chosen by NASA for the astronaut program.
He received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor from President Jimmy Carter.
In 1998, Borman started a cattle ranch in Bighorn, Montana, with his son Fred.
In addition to Fred, she is survived by another son, Edwin, and their families.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn