- Title: Frank Borman
- Author: NASA
- Date: c.1959
- Condition: Good - Slight green hues in photograph due to improper chemical processing or age
- Inches: 4 x 5 [Photograph]
- Centimeters: 10.16 x 12.70 [Photograph]
- Product ID: 308609
Original photograph of Frank Borman printed by NASA.
Frank Borman was an American United States Air Force colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut, and businessman, best known for commanding Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon in December 1968. Born in Gary, Indiana on March 14, 1928, Borman graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, served as a fighter pilot in the Philippines, and later became an instructor and experimental test pilot, earning a master’s degree from Caltech in 1957. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 1962, he first flew as commander of Gemini 7 in December 1965, setting a fourteen-day space endurance record and achieving the first space rendezvous with Gemini 6.
As commander of Apollo 8 in 1968, Borman led crewmates Jim Lovell and William Anders on the first crewed flight to orbit the Moon, which produced the iconic Earthrise photograph and captured global attention with a live Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit. After serving on NASA's Apollo 1 review board and managing Apollo program redesign efforts, Borman retired from the Air Force in 1970 and led Eastern Airlines as CEO and chairman before being inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. He passed away on November 7, 2023, remembered as a foundational leader in space exploration.