Frank Borman

Frank Frederick Borman II is a retired United States Air Force colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, businessman, and NASA astronaut. He was the commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, and together with crewmates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, became the first of 24 humans to do so, for which he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. As of 2022, he is the oldest living former American astronaut, eleven days older than Lovell. Four days before he graduated with the West Point Class of 1950, in which he was ranked eighth out of 670, Borman was commissioned in the USAF. He qualified as a fighter pilot and served in the Philippines. He earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point. In 1960, he was selected for Class 60-C at the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California and qualified as a test pilot.

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NASA Astronaut Frank Borman, Commander of Apollo 8’s Historic Moon Mission, Dies at 95

Frank Borman, who commanded the first Apollo mission to the moon, dies at 95

Frank Borman, NASA Astronaut Who Risked Everything, Has Died Age 95

Frank Borman, Apollo 8 astronaut who orbited the moon, dies at age 95

Frank Borman, Astronaut Who Led First Orbit of the Moon, Dies at 95

Frank Borman, Apollo 8 astronaut who led first flight to the moon, dies at 95

NASA Administrator Honors Life of Apollo Astronaut Frank Borman

Carl Sagan once ambushed astronaut Frank Borman into a discussion of American atrocities in Vietnam, egging his students to ask him pointed questions on war

In 2018, 50 years after his Apollo 8 mission, astronaut Bill Anders ridiculed the idea of sending human missions to Mars, calling it "stupid". His former crewmate Frank Borman shares Ander's view, adding that putting colonies on Mars is "nonsense"