William Anders is an American former astronaut and retired United States Air Force officer. He was one of the three astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned mission to the moon, and later served as the Chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA.
Anders was born on October 17, 1933 in Hong Kong, where his father was working as a civil engineer. He grew up in the United States and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1955. He went on to serve in the Air Force, where he became a test pilot and participated in the X-20 Dyna-Soar program, a precursor to the space shuttle.
In 1963, Anders was selected as an astronaut by NASA and participated in the Gemini program. In 1968, he was a member of the crew of the Apollo 8 mission, which was the first manned mission to orbit the moon. During the mission, Anders and his crewmates Frank Borman and James Lovell orbited the moon ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which they conducted scientific experiments and took photographs of the lunar surface.
After the Apollo 8 mission, Anders served as the Chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA, overseeing the selection and training of astronauts for future space missions. He later left NASA and worked in the private sector, serving as a corporate executive for companies including General Electric and Lockheed Martin. He retired from his career in 2002 and currently resides in the Seattle area.