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Topic: Frank Borman

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Frank Frederick Borman, II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired NASA astronaut and engineer, best remembered as the Commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, making him, along with fellow crew mates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, the first of only 24 humans to do so. Before flying on Apollo, he set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record on Gemini 7, and also served on the NASA review board which investigated the Apollo 1 fire. After leaving NASA, he was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Eastern Air Lines from 1975 to 1986. Frank Borman is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Borman was played by David Andrews.

Borman was born in Gary, Indiana, where the Frank Borman Expressway is named after him. Because he suffered from numerous sinus problems in the cold and damp weather, his father packed up the family and moved to the better climate of Tucson, Arizona, which Borman considers his home town. He started to fly at the age of 15. He is a graduate of the Tucson High School. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1950 where he served as an Army Football Manager, and along with part of his graduating class, he entered the United States Air Force (USAF) and became a fighter pilot. He received his Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957. Later, Borman was selected for the USAF test pilot school and became a test pilot.

Borman was selected by NASA for the second NASA astronaut group in 1962, and was chosen as the Command Pilot for Gemini 7. He was one of just four of this group chosen to command their first Gemini missions, the others being James McDivitt, Neil Armstrong, and Elliot See. (See was killed in a T-38 trainer jet crash three months before his mission. Astronauts Gerald Carr and Joe Engle, selected later, also commanded their first space flights.)

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