NASA announced that American astronaut Frank Borman, commander of the Apollo 8 mission, has died at the age of 95.
NASA said that Borman died last Tuesday in the Billings area, in the US state of Montana.
NASA Administrative Officer, Bill Nelson, confirmed: “Today we remember one of NASA’s best astronauts. Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero. As commander of the Apollo 8 mission, the astronaut led the first manned mission around the moon in 1968 and paved the way for a lunar landing a few months later.
Borman was born in the US state of Indiana and developed a passion for airplanes at the age of 15, which eventually led him to the Air Force and then NASA.
Borman has been bestowed numerous awards, including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Borman wrote about how the Earth looked from afar: “We were the first humans to see the world in its majestic totality, an intensely emotional experience for each of us. We said nothing to each other, but I was sure our thoughts were identical – of our families on that spinning globe. And maybe we shared another thought I had: ‘This must be what God sees.’”
In his autobiography, Borman wrote that his fascination with flying began in his teens when he and his father would assemble model airplanes. At the age of 15, Borman took flying lessons, using money he had saved working as a bag boy and being a petrol pump attendant after school. He took his first solo flight after eight hours of dual instruction. He continued flying into his 90s.
