Commander of NASA’s Apollo 8 space flight in 1968, the astronaut who became the first human to orbit the moon, captured the famous image known as Earthrise, read a passage from Genesis, and fell into disarray. Frank Bowman, who brought a brief period of Christmas cheer to America, died on Tuesday. Billings, Mont. He was 95 years old.
his death is announced By NASA.
Apollo 8 carried three astronauts farther from Earth than anyone had ever traveled before. It orbited the moon 10 times and flew about 90 miles above it, photographing the rugged, rock-strewn terrain and searching for potential landing sites for future moonwalks.
Bowman has never set foot on the moon, and by his own account had no desire to do so, but he has flown through space twice.
In December 1965, he commanded the two-person Gemini 7 spacecraft on a 14-day flight, setting a then-record for time spent in space. Gemini 7 rendezvoused with Gemini 6A in Earth orbit. This was an important step toward perfecting similar maneuvers that astronauts would need to reach the moon.
“Trained as a fighter pilot and known for his lightning reflexes and exceptional decision-making skills, Bowman was one of the best pure pilots at NASA.” Flying with Mr. Bowman on Gemini 7 says James A. Lovell Jr. And as for Apollo 8, he detailed his nearly fatal Apollo 13 mission in Lost Moon (1994), which he co-wrote with Jeffrey Krueger.
“When Frank Bowman walked into the room, I knew he was in charge,” wrote Andrew Chaykin in his book The Man on the Moon (1994).
“He was shaped at West Point,” Chaikin added. “At 40, he still wore his dirty blond hair as short as a cadet’s and lived by Point’s simple motto: Duty, Honor, Country. Mission Comes First.” was.”
Mr. Bowman retired from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, but remained a national figure as chairman of financially troubled Eastern Airlines, appearing in television commercials and telling customers, “We have to earn our wings every day.” No,” he said. He left Eastern Airlines in 1986 after a long battle to reduce labor and administrative costs, and Eastern Airlines was acquired by Texas Airlines.
Frank Frederick Bowman was born on March 14, 1928 in Gary, Indiana. He was the only child of Edwin and Marjorie (Pierce) Bowman, who owned an Oldsmobile dealership there. When Frank was five years old, he visited Wright’s field in Dayton, Ohio, and his lifelong passion for aviation was ignited.
In his memoir Countdown (1988), co-written with Robert J. Serling, he recalled: “I sat next to my father in the front seat and the pilot sat behind me in the cockpit, and I was mesmerized by the feel of the wind and the magical sense of freedom that flight created.”
When he was a boy, his family moved to Tucson, Arizona, in hopes that the dry climate would help alleviate his sinus and mastoid problems. But during the Great Depression, his father struggled to find a good job in the auto industry, and his mother started a boarding house to help with expenses.
Frank remained interested in aviation. With his father’s help, he built model airplanes and obtained his pilot’s license at the age of 15.
He entered West Point shortly after World War II ended and graduated in 1950 to become a fighter pilot in the Air Force, but was not assigned to combat during the Korean War. After earning a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957, he became a test pilot and helped develop a spaceflight test program for future astronauts at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
He was named to the Gemini astronaut group following the original Mercury Seven in September 1962.
In January 1967, the Apollo program suffered a catastrophe when three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, were killed in a cockpit fire on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy, Florida. . Bowman was part of the team that investigated the fire and helped redesign the Apollo capsule to eliminate the flaw that caused the deaths.
He continued training for space flight. Although Lovell’s Gemini 7 flight encountered fuel cell problems, it proved that astronauts can effectively tackle the long flights envisioned for lunar exploration.
Gemini 7 took part in a pioneering rendezvous 195 miles above Earth. That’s when Gemini 6A, carrying his junior Colonel Walter M. Schiller of the Navy and Maj. Thomas P. Stafford of the Air Force, caught up with it and flew with it in orbit. . This type of maneuver needed to be perfect for the lunar module to descend from the orbiting command module to the moon, then lift off from the lunar surface, rendezvous with the mothership, and return to Earth.
The Apollo 8 mission carried Bowman, then an Air Force colonel. Mr. Lovell was a naval captain at the time. Air Force Maj. William A. Anders was only the second manned mission in the Apollo program. Following the Apollo 1 disaster, several unmanned test flights were conducted. This was also the first manned flight to use the extremely powerful Saturn 5 rocket for launch.
Among the many images of the moon’s surface taken from Apollo 8, Major Anders captured a relatively smooth region known as the Sea of Tranquility. As you might imagine, this area was the site of Apollo 11’s spectacular landing in July 1969. Buzz Aldrin became the first man to walk on the moon.
On Christmas Eve 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts, on their fourth orbit around the Moon, saw the Earth rise above the lunar horizon from more than 230,000 miles away, small but blue and white in the darkness. I witnessed the shining earth. Bowman was the first to discover it. Major Anders had been photographing the moon on black and white film, but he soon switched to color film to capture images.
Photos sent for television that night showed the Earth in black and white. But a year later, NASA released a color photo taken by Major Anders, and the image became known as Earthrise. This was reproduced on his 1969 stamp, inscribed with the words “In the beginning God…” from Genesis, and became the symbol of the first Earth Day in 1970, contributing to the birth of the modern environmental movement on that day. .
As the astronauts neared completion of their orbit, they began their second and final television broadcast. The moon, shining in the black ocean of space, could be seen outside the spaceship window. Bowman described it as “a vast, lonely, inhospitable empty space, like clouds and clouds of pumice.”
The astronauts took turns reading Genesis and talking about the creation of Earth. Mr. Bowman concluded the telecast with these words: “Good night, good luck, and Merry Christmas. And God bless you all on the good earth.”
“It was just a telegram from a civilian I didn’t know,” Bowman said in his memoirs. He sent a telegram saying, “To the crew of Apollo 8. Thank you.” You saved his 1968. ”
The astronauts’ reading of scripture came as the end of a shocking year came to a close. The casualties of the Vietnam War rose, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, universities were engulfed by anti-war demonstrations, and protests against racial injustice and economic inequality continued. It intensified.
The Apollo 8 astronaut was named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year,” was hailed in parades in New York, Chicago, and Washington, and appeared before a joint session of Congress.
In contrast to his two NASA flights, Bowman’s tenure in the business world was anything but smooth.
He became chairman in 1976, when Eastern Airlines was on the verge of bankruptcy. Mr. Bowman persuaded airline unions to accept a wage freeze along with an industry-first profit-sharing plan. He also made significant reductions in management positions. In contrast to many of his predecessors who preferred luxury cars, he drove an old Chevrolet to the office.
Miami-based Eastern Airlines became profitable in the late 1970s, but when airline deregulation took effect in 1979, it faced competition from low-cost airlines such as People Express and Air Florida. I fell into a predicament. And Bowman’s decision to spend heavily on modernizing Eastern’s fleet increased debt pressure.
Eastern Airlines’ board of directors agreed to the acquisition by Texas Airlines in February 1986, and Mr. Bowman resigned in the summer of that year. Eastern subsequently went bankrupt and ceased operations in January 1991.
After leaving Eastern University, Mr. Bowman lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He became chairman of Patrex, a patent holder of laser technology, and flew antique airplanes. He then moved to Billings where he had his ranch.
Mr. Bowman married Susan Bagby, whom he met in high school, in 1950. She passed away in 2021. They had two sons, Frederick and Edwin. Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Despite his accomplishments, Bowman seemed uninterested in the experience of space travel.
“I was there because it was a Cold War battle,” he said. in an interview In 2018, she appeared on the NPR program “This American Life.” “I wanted to join America’s adventure in defeating the Soviet Union. But that’s the only thing that motivated me.”
He said he probably could have walked on the moon in a later mission, but he didn’t want that.
“The risks associated with going out to pick up stones would have been unacceptable,” he says. “I love my family more than anything in the world. I would never have put them in danger just because I was an explorer.”
The most awe-inspiring thing for him, he said, was the view of Earth from Apollo 8. As he says, “The contrast between our memory of Earth and the colors of the Earth and the completely dark and dead Moon was striking.”
It was an image that he would “remember until the day I die.”