The photograph, the first color image of Earth from space, is one of the most important photos in modern history for the way it changed how humans viewed the planet.astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.“The family is devastated,” he said.
NASA Administrator and former Sen. Bill Nelson said Anders embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration. “Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Anders said. “There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”in December 1968 was the first human spaceflight to leave low-Earth orbit and travel to the moon and back. It was NASA’s boldest and perhaps most dangerous voyage yet and one that set the stage for the Apollo moon landing seven months later.
Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.interview that he didn’t think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free but there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead. He estimated there was about a one in three chance that the crew wouldn’t make it back and the same chance the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission wouldn’t start to begin with.
“It just opened up my brain to realize that we are alone but we are together,” he said, adding that it still influences him today.