William Anders

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Rookie Bill Anders was thirty-five, slightly built, a devout Roman Catholic, and very serious minded. I'm not sure he ever got used to my rough sense of humor or Lovell's free-wheeling spirit. But Anders was one hell of a worker, a superb technician and all in all a great guy. Anders was always friendly and cooperative, but he avoided the usual astronaut bull sessions. Some of the guys regarded him as a younger version of Frank Borman in his single-minded concentration on work, his aversion to unnecessary conversation. [16]

Earthrise

Earthrise, taken by Anders on 24 December 1968 NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg
Earthrise , taken by Anders on 24 December 1968

In December 1968, Anders flew on the Apollo 8 mission, the first mission where humans traveled beyond low Earth orbit, [9] and the first crewed flight to reach and orbit the Moon. [22] When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an "Earthrise" for the first time in human history. [23] NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 had taken the first picture of an Earthrise from the vicinity of the Moon, on 23 August 1966. [24]

Anders saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photograph as he did so. Anders asked Lovell for color film and then took Earthrise , which was later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century. [23] [25] Anders stated that the Earthrise photograph "really undercut my religious beliefs. The idea that things rotate around the pope and up there is a big supercomputer wondering whether Billy was a good boy yesterday? It doesn't make any sense. I became a big buddy of Richard Dawkins." [26] According to Anders:

We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth. [27] [28]

On conservation of the planet, he said:

If you can imagine yourself in a darkened room with only one clearly visible object, a small blue-green sphere about the size of a Christmas-tree ornament, then you can begin to grasp what the Earth looks like from space. I think that all of us subconsciously think that the Earth is flat ... Let me assure you that, rather than a massive giant, it should be thought of as the fragile Christmas-tree ball which we should handle with considerable care. [29]

The Apollo 8 command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on 27 December after a flight lasting 147 hours and 42 seconds and a voyage of 933,419 kilometres (504,006 nmi). It landed just 3.7 kilometres (2 nmi) from the recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. [30] Due to time dilation, he had aged about 300 microseconds more than people back on Earth. [31]

Apollo 11

The Apollo 11 mission was commanded by Armstrong, with Collins as the CMP and Aldrin as the LMP. The Apollo 8 crew became its backup, but without Borman. Lovell stepped up to become the backup commander, and Anders became the backup CMP, with rookie astronaut Fred Haise as the backup LMP. [12] [32]

Post-NASA career

Government service

Anders could see that Project Apollo was coming to a close, and felt that his chances of commanding a Moon mission were slim. [33] On 16 May 1969, President Richard M. Nixon nominated him to become the executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC). This was the highest government post ever offered to an astronaut up to that time. [34] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on 19 June. [35] The Space Council consisted of the Administrator of NASA, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Transportation, and was chaired by the Vice President. [36] Due to his commitment to the Apollo 11 backup crew, Anders was unable to assume the position until August. [33] [37]

Greg Anders sprays his father with the fire hose after completing his last flight in 2008 Greg Anders sprays Bill Anders with the fire hose.jpg
Greg Anders sprays his father with the fire hose after completing his last flight in 2008

In his new role, Anders was responsible for developing aeronautical and space policy. [9] He worked closely with the Office of Science and Technology (OST) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and became a personal advisor to the OMB director, Caspar Weinberger. [33] Anders worked hard to bridge the gap between OMB and OST on the one hand and NASA on the other. He became increasingly pessimistic about the future of the NASC and the space program generally. He opposed the development of the Space Shuttle, urging instead that NASA concentrate on developing the Skylab space station. [38] He argued that a small Space Shuttle would be a better option than a large one, but the large one was approved because it would involve more jobs in California. [2] Frustrated with the NASC's lack of influence, he recommended in 1972 that it be abolished. [38] This was done on 30 June 1973. [39]

Nixon was impressed by Anders, and wanted to retain him in the administration. [40] On 6 August 1973, he appointed Anders to the five-member AEC. Nixon felt that the commission was dominated by lawyers and he wanted an engineer on it. The chairman of the AEC, Dixie Lee Ray, made Anders the lead commissioner for nuclear and non-nuclear power research and development. He also served as the US chairman of the joint US-Soviet Union nuclear fission and fusion power technology exchange program. [9] [2] He spent much of his time dealing with the AEC's problematic research and development programs, particularly the troubled breeder reactor program. [41]

One issue that had dogged the AEC since its inception was its dual role in both developing nuclear energy and regulating it. The perception that there was a conflict of interest between the two roles became acute with the growth of the nuclear power industry. [41] On 19 January 1975, the commission was split in two, with its research and development responsibilities assumed by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), and its regulatory ones by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Some 1,970 former employees of the AEC joined the NRC. [42] President Gerald R. Ford appointed Anders as the first chairman of the NRC. He was the only one of the five AEC commissioners to transition to one of the new organizations. Anders made the decision process of the commissioners of the NRC more transparent than that of the AEC. The NRC inherited nuclear safety and environmental compatibility functions from the AEC, but unlike the AEC's regulatory branch, the NRC had its own safety and security research capability, so it was not reliant on the ERDA. [41]

At the completion of his term as NRC chairman, Anders was asked if he would be interested in an ambassadorship. He did not want to, but asked his wife Valerie. She expressed an interest in Norway, based on their trip there during the Apollo 8 world publicity tour. So Anders asked if Norway was available. Lawrence Eagleburger submitted his name for the position. [2] Anders was appointed Ambassador to Norway on 13 April 1976, and held that post until 18 June 1977. [43]

Private sector

Anders served briefly as a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. In September 1977, he joined General Electric (GE) as its vice president and general manager of its Nuclear Products Division. Based in San Jose, California, Anders was responsible for the fuel, equipment, and instrumentation used in its boiling-water reactors in San Jose and Wilmington, North Carolina. He also oversaw GE's partnership with Chicago Bridge and Iron, which manufactured large steel pressure vessels in Memphis, Tennessee. In August 1979, GE sent him to Harvard Business School to attend its six-week Advanced Management Program. On 1 January 1980, he became the general manager of the GE Aircraft Equipment Division. From its headquarters in Utica, New York, the division controlled more than 8,500 employees in five locations in northeastern United States. Its products included aircraft flight and weapon control systems, cockpit instruments, aircraft electrical generating systems, airborne radars and data processing systems, electronic countermeasures, space command systems, and aircraft/surface multi-barrel armament systems. [9]

Anders taxiing a North American P-51 Mustang at Bergen Air Show in 2005 Bergen Air Show 075.jpg
Anders taxiing a North American P-51 Mustang at Bergen Air Show in 2005

In 1984, Anders left GE to join Textron as its executive vice president for aerospace. Two years later he became senior executive vice president for operations, [9] but Anders did not get along well with the CEO. A perk of the job was that he got to fly Bell helicopters, as Bell was a subsidiary of Textron. [2] During his time in the civil service, Anders had remained in the Air Force as a reservist and had retained his active flight status flying NASA Northrop T-38 Talon aircraft and helicopters, retiring from the reserves as a major general in 1988. He was also a consultant to the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, and a member of the Defense Science Board and the NASA Advisory Council. [6]

Anders became vice chairman of General Dynamics in 1990, and on 1 January 1991, its chairman and CEO. As chairman, he appointed himself as an assistant test pilot for the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. [2] [9] He moved corporate headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, to Falls Church, Virginia, to be closer to its military customers at The Pentagon but then reduced the staff there from 250 to 50. He negotiated a $1 billion settlement over the canceled McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II program, and sold off nearly $3 billion in assets, including the missile systems and Cessna, and sold the military aircraft division to the Lockheed Corporation for $1.5 billion. This reduced the number of employees from 98,600 to around 35,000, and the company's debt from $430 million (equivalent to $800 million in 2022) to $183 million (equivalent to $400 million in 2022). Value was returned to the shareholders in the form of $600 million in dividends. Although annual sales dropped from $10 to $3.5 billion, the value of the company's share price quadrupled. Anders earned over $40 million. [44] [45] He retired as CEO in 1993, and as chairman in May 1994. [2] [9]

In retirement, Anders bought a house on the waterfront in the San Juan Islands. He disliked the winter there so he bought a second dwelling in Point Loma, California. [2] He established the William A. Anders Foundation, a philanthropic organization for educational and environmental issues. He also founded the Heritage Flight Museum in 1996 in Bellingham, Washington, which moved to Skagit Regional Airport in Burlington, Washington, in 2014. The museum was run by his family, with Anders as president, his wife Valerie as secretary, son Greg as vice president, executive director and webmaster, and son Alan as vice president and director of maintenance. Anders was the president and, until 2008, participated in its air shows. [2] [46] From his Air Force career onward, he logged over 8,000 hours of flight time. [47]

Publications

Awards and honors

Anders was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983, [28] [55] the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in 1990, [56] the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997, [57] [58] and the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2004. [59] He is a member of Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society, American Nuclear Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Academy of Engineering and Society of Experimental Test Pilots. [9]

Anders with Icelandic geologist Sigurdur Thorarinsson and Dr. Ted Foss during geology training in Iceland in 1967 Geology training in Iceland 1967.jpg
Anders with Icelandic geologist Sigurður Þórarinsson and Dr. Ted Foss during geology training in Iceland in 1967

Robert John Burke played Anders in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon . [60] Anders appeared as himself in the 2005 documentary Race to the Moon, which was shown as part of the PBS American Experience television series. The film, renamed Earthrise: The First Lunar Voyage in 2013, was about the events that led up to the Apollo 8 mission. [61] He was interviewed in a chapter of the 2015 book No More Worlds to Conquer by Chris Wright. The chapter is roughly evenly split between his life in the Apollo program and his later corporate life. The book's front cover is the Earthrise image. [62] He appeared with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell on the C-SPAN channel book review, Rocket Men. He confirmed the story that he had fallen asleep while awaiting the Apollo 8 launch. [63]

See also

Footnotes

  1. A 1949 agreement allowed up to 25 percent of the graduating classes of West Point and Annapolis to volunteer for the Air Force. Between 1950, when the agreement became effective, and 1959, when the first class graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, about 3,200 West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen chose to do so. [7]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Pace, Eric (31 August 2000). "Arthur F. Anders, 96, Hero Aboard U.S. Gunboat in 1937". The New York Times . Retrieved 8 November 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Freeze, Di (1 April 2007). "Bill Anders: A Love of Afterburners". Airport Journals. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
  3. "Astronauts With Scouting Experience". IEEE. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  4. "Astronauts With Scouting Experience". Boy Scouts of America. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  5. Newland 2010, p. 109.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Bill Anders". United States Air Force. Archived from the original on 14 March 2008.
  7. Mitchell 1996, pp. 60–61.
  8. Nominees to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Hearings Before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States – Part 1: Nomination of William A. Anders (Report). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. 1975. pp. 2–3. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 "William A. Anders (Major General, USAF Reserve, Ret.)" (PDF). NASA. December 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  10. Morse & Bays 1973, p. 61.
  11. 1 2 "14 New Astronauts Introduced at Press Conference" (PDF). NASA Roundup. Vol. 3, no. 1. NASA. 30 October 1963. pp. 1, 4, 5, 7. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  12. 1 2 Brooks, Grimwood & Swenson 1979, p. 374.
  13. Collins 2001, pp. 288–294.
  14. Brooks, Grimwood & Swenson 1979, pp. 231–234.
  15. Brooks, Grimwood & Swenson 1979, p. 256.
  16. 1 2 3 Borman & Serling 1988, p. 189.
  17. "Poised for the Leap". Time . 6 December 1968. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  18. Vick, Charles P. "Unmasking N1-L3 An In-depth Analysis of a Critical Aspect of the Cold War: The Soviet Manned Lunar Programs, from the American and Russian Perspective". GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  19. Brooks, Grimwood & Swenson 1979, pp. 257–260.
  20. 1 2 Brooks, Grimwood & Swenson 1979, p. 262.
  21. Collins 2001, pp. 296–298.
  22. "Chasing the Moon: Transcript, Part Two". American Experience. PBS. 10 July 2019. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  23. 1 2 Woods, W. David; O'Brien, Frank (22 April 2006). "Day 4: Lunar Orbits 4, 5 and 6". Apollo 8 Flight Journal. NASA. Archived from the original on 2 October 2007. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
  24. "The 'Other' Lunar Orbiter 1 Earthrise Image". Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  25. Chaikin, Andrew. "Who Took the Legendary Earthrise Photo From Apollo 8?". Smithsonian. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  26. Sample, Ian (24 December 2018). "Earthrise: how the iconic image changed the world". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  27. "Remarks by the President at the National Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting". White House. 27 April 2009 via National Archives.
  28. 1 2 "Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 8, the first mission to circumnavigate the Moon". nmspacemuseum.org. New Mexico Museum of Space History.
  29. Nicks 1970, p. 14.
  30. Orloff 2000, p. 40.
  31. Science and Technology Division, Library of Congress 1970, p. 71.
  32. Orloff 2000, p. 90.
  33. 1 2 3 Logsdon 2015, p. 51.
  34. Science and Technology Division, Library of Congress 1970, p. 141.
  35. Science and Technology Division, Library of Congress 1970, p. 184.
  36. Logsdon 2015, p. 136.
  37. Slayton & Cassutt 1994, p. 237.
  38. 1 2 Logsdon 2015, p. 200.
  39. "National Aeronautics and Space Council. 7/29/1958-6/30/1973". National Archives. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  40. Logsdon 2015, p. 199.
  41. 1 2 3 Gillette 1975, pp. 1173–1175.
  42. Buck 1983, p. 18.
  43. "William Alison Anders". United States Department of State. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  44. Sims, Calvin (19 March 1993). "Big Payout by General Dynamics". The New York Times . p. D1. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  45. Pearlstein, Steven (19 March 1993). "General Dynamics CEO to Step Down". The Washington Post . Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  46. ""The First Earthrise" Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders recalls the first mission to the Moon". The Museum of Flight. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  47. "Maj. Gen. William A. Anders". Heritage Flight Museum. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  48. "Apollo 8 Wins Collier Trophy". Alabama Journal. Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press. 9 May 1969. p. 18. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  49. "AF Major, 3 Astronauts Get Harmon". Fort Lauderdale News. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. United Press International. 7 September 1969. p. 67. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  50. "Paine Selected as NASA Chief". The San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco, California. Associated Press. 5 March 1969. p. 6. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  51. "The Gen. Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy" (PDF). Air Force Magazine. USAF. May 1997. p. 156. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 March 2022.
  52. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  53. Schulz, Rita. "Lunar craters named in honor of Apollo 8". EurekAlert!. International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  54. "Apollo 8 Crew Honored". Florida Today. Cocoa, Florida. 25 March 1970. p. 12C. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  55. Sheppard, David (2 October 1983). "Space Hall Inducts 14 Apollo Program Astronauts". El Paso Times. El Paso, Texas. p. 18. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  56. "San Diego Air & Space Museum". Historical Balboa Park, San Diego. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  57. "U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame". Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  58. Meyer, Marilyn (2 October 1997). "Ceremony to Honor Astronauts". Florida Today. Cocoa, Florida. p. 2B. Retrieved 3 September 2022 via Newspapers.com.
  59. "Come With Us to Washington DC for the induction of the Class of 2018! – National Aviation Hall of Fame". National Aviation Hall of Fame. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  60. James, Caryn (3 April 1998). "Television Review; Boyish Eyes on the Moon". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  61. Kertscher, Kevin Michael (20 October 2005). "The Making of 'Race to the Moon': Apollo 8 Documentary Producer Tells All". Space.com. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  62. "Anders' Game". Euromoney. June 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  63. "Rocket Men'". C-SPAN. April 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from William A. Anders (Major General, USAF Reserve, Ret.) (PDF). National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Retrieved 8 January 2021.

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References

Bill Anders
William Anders.jpg
Anders in 1964
Born
William Alison Anders

(1933-10-17) October 17, 1933 (age 90)
Education United States Naval Academy (BS)
Air University (MS)
Awards
Space career
NASA astronaut
Rank Major General, USAFR
Time in space
6d 3h
Selection NASA Group 3 (1963)
Missions Apollo 8
Mission insignia
Apollo-8-patch.png
RetirementSeptember 1, 1969
United States Ambassador to Norway
In office
May 11, 1976 June 18, 1977
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by United States Ambassador to Norway
1976–1977
Succeeded by