EASTSOUND, Wash. — Astronaut William Anders wasn't sure if he would survive Apollo 8.
"I would have probably not done any better than four-to-one or so odds that we would have a successful mission, and maybe five-to-one that we would come back at all," Anders said.
We spoke to Anders in 1995, at the Orcas Island home he shared with his wife, Valerie. He recalled his role in one of history's most daring journeys, the 1968 mission to orbit the moon. It was the first time humans had ever left Earth orbit and and traveled to another world.
"There was this little mamma mud dauber building a nest on the window of the spacecraft," Anders recalled watching just before liftoff. "I kept thinking that she was really in for a big surprise."
The flight around the moon was a bit of a rush job, moved up in NASA's schedule to head off a rumored Russian attempt to orbit first and claim a win in the great Space Race. Anders and his Apollo 8 crewmates, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, would spend Christmas 1968 farther from Earth than any humans had ventured before, watching as their home planet shrunk outside their window.
"It was like looking at the minute hand of a clock. You'd look at it and it didn't seem to be moving. You look away and look back and it's a little smaller," Anders said.
They circled the moon for 20 hours, the first to see the mysterious dark side with their own eyes. One of those orbits revealed the sight that would become humanity's most famous photo, "Earthrise." On a whim, Anders captured the image of our shiny blue planet hovering above the desolate, grey lunar landscape below.
"I looked over there and here was this fabulous view," Anders said. "The only color that you could see was the Earth. Pretty moving."
Anders died in a plane crash last Friday. He leaves behind a legacy that includes his success in space, high achievement as a corporate leader in the aerospace industry, and a beloved founder of Skagit County's Heritage Flight Museum.
But the impact of that one simple photo will outlast us all.
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