Former US astronaut Frank Borman, who made history by commanding the first manned flight to circle the moon and later piloted Eastern Airlines as chairman in severe economic turbulence, has died at the age of 95, NASA said on Thursday.
Borman, who spent a total of almost 20 days in space on two trips in the 1960s, died on Tuesday in Billings, Montana, NASA said in a statement on its website.
Born in Gary, Indiana, on March 14, 1928, he was the oldest American astronaut still living; that mantle now passes to Jim Lovell, who is also 95 but eleven days younger.
Borman grew up with a fascination for airplanes and while a schoolboy in Arizona took flying lessons that he paid for by delivering newspapers.
He became an Air Force fighter pilot after graduating from the US Military Academy in 1950. Like most of his fellow generation of astronauts, he trained as a test pilot before being selected for NASA's second astronaut program in 1962. That experience was key, he said in his autobiography.