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Laffy

Omg.

#RIP Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 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
apnews.com/article/6d3800130ef

29 comments
Gabriel Pettier

@GottaLaff damn, flying solo at 90! Sad, but certainly a fitting way to go for an extraordinary life.

RIP.

blackcoat

@GottaLaff there was a poster in my jr high with the "earthrise" and the quote "one day, I want to be able to look up through a quarter million miles of nothingness and say Gee there's a beautiful Earth out tonight."

It's lived in my head rent free for the last 30 years. RIP

Lamentations Hollerbach

@GottaLaff Rest in peace. I do wonder if he had a heart attack or stroke in the air, ie, basically died before the crash. Overall… he had a good long life, and (presumably) he was doing something he loved just before he died. There are worse ways to go.

Danetteb

@GottaLaff seems almost like kismet - not really a believer in that but if you have to go and this is your life then…
#RIP sir

Elizabeth MacKenzie

@GottaLaff , oh my. That's astounding on multiple fronts.

Greg Johnston

@GottaLaff Yeah crazy, watching it on the local news, video showed him coming out of a steep dive before hitting the water. Sad. More details 👇

seattletimes.com/seattle-news/

Elizabeth MacKenzie

@GPJohnston , I wonder if he had some kind of medical issue.

Greg Johnston

@Dr_Elizabeth97 I hate to speculate, but the film looks like he was doing a roll and misjudged, because it appears he was close to coming out of the dive. But like I say, I'm not an expert and it's all speculation at this point.

Elizabeth MacKenzie

@GPJohnston , I am going to assume that he died doing what he loved, though his family is heart-broken.

Stu Duerson

@GPJohnston @Dr_Elizabeth97

He was coming over the top of a loop, and lost it in the recovery. Hard to say exactly what happened without knowing stuff like the aircraft make. But he was inverted, started pulling into the dive...and seemed to hesitate. That could have been something to do with him, or it could have been mechanical. The sound didn't feel like he was at idle, either. In any event, once you're in that nose down attitude, there's only one way out. He was pulling, but either not enough, or he'd already g-stalled it.

Sad. But I can guarantee he was trying, all the way to impact. All in all, a true pilot's death. Salute.

@GPJohnston @Dr_Elizabeth97

He was coming over the top of a loop, and lost it in the recovery. Hard to say exactly what happened without knowing stuff like the aircraft make. But he was inverted, started pulling into the dive...and seemed to hesitate. That could have been something to do with him, or it could have been mechanical. The sound didn't feel like he was at idle, either. In any event, once you're in that nose down attitude, there's only one way out. He was pulling, but either not enough,...

Greg Johnston

@skydog @Dr_Elizabeth97 I think one of the two stories above said it was a Beech A45, TV guy here said he thought it looked like a P-51.

Stu Duerson

@GPJohnston @Dr_Elizabeth97

I knew it wasn't a Mustang, totally different sound. Seems it was a T-34 Mentor, a WWII Beechcraft trainer. I've seen most of the historic stuff, I think, and I'd never heard of one, but I guess they favored the Navy. It looks like a mini T-6 Texan. It was his private aircraft.

Early '40's construction. I'd put an initial guess at a cable control or elevator problem.

Lisa Hamilton

@GottaLaff His memory will be a blessing to all 💔

Darwin Woodka

@GottaLaff doesn't seem like a 90 year old should be piloting a plane really

⚜️Δρakakiς🍁

@GottaLaff

The 1968 Christmas Eve Broadcast by the Apollo 8 crew (Anders, Frank Borman & James Lovell) is one of my most vivid childhood memories. The world was changed.

J.elgato

@GottaLaff

To the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.

zgryphon

@GottaLaff I remember a documentary in which the Apollo 8 crew all jokingly disputed who took that photo in separate interviews, which the filmmakers edited together into a pseudo-argument. It ended something like,

LOVELL (fake-serious): Anyway, now it can be told: I took that picture.

ANDERS (grinning): All we know for sure is that Lovell didn't take it.

Annie from Canetoad

@GottaLaff That's just not fair. Bad Universe. No Cookie.

SearingTruth

@GottaLaff

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

@GottaLaff

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor...

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