Frank Borman in the context of "Apollo 8"

William Alison Anders (17 October 1933 – 7 June 2024) was an American United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, the first three people to leave low-Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, he circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth, including the Christmas Eve Genesis reading. During one of the mission's lunar orbits, he took the iconic Earthrise photograph.

A 1955 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Anders was commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF the same year and became a fighter pilot flying Northrop F-89 Scorpions equipped with AIR-2A nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets. In 1962, he earned a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) of Air University, and was sent to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory to manage the technical aspects of the service's nuclear reactor programs.

James Arthur Lovell Jr. (/ˈlʌvəl/ LUV-əl; March 25, 1928 – August 7, 2025) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he, along with Frank Borman and William Anders, became one of the first three astronauts to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970 which, after a critical failure en route, looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth.

A 1952 graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Lovell flew McDonnell F2H Banshee night fighters. He was deployed in the Western Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La. In January 1958, he entered a six-month test pilot training course at the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, with Class 20 and graduated at the top of the class. He was then assigned to Electronics Test, working with radar, and in 1960 he became the Navy's McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II program manager. In 1961, he became a flight instructor and safety engineering officer at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and completed Aviation Safety School at the University of Southern California.