American astronaut Frank Borman died on Tuesday at the age of 95. In December 1968, he was commander of the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned flight to the moon and back. It was a dress rehearsal for the moon landing the following year.
The American space agency NASA announced Borman’s death on Thursday. NASA Director Bill Nelson calls Borman “a true American hero” and “one of NASA’s best.”
Borman was selected as an astronaut in 1962. His first space flight was the Gemini 7 mission in 1965. Borman spent about two weeks in orbit around the Earth, at the time the longest space flight ever.
Three years later he went back into space on Apollo 8. Borman and the two other crew members, James Lovell and William Anders, became the first people to leave Earth orbit and cross to the moon. They orbited the moon ten times in twenty hours. Borman took a black-and-white photo of the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon. Shortly afterwards, Anders took the same photo, but in color. That photo, ‘Earthrise’, became famous.
Six days after launch, Borman, Lovell and Anders returned to Earth. As commander, Borman then made a tour of allies, including the Netherlands. He showed Queen Juliana around a space exhibition in the Congress Building in The Hague.
Borman was the oldest living astronaut. That is now Jim Lovell, commander of the failed Apollo 13 moon mission.
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