See Columbia Space Shuttle Crew
Article
Tom D. Crouch
Armstrong, Neil (05 August 1930–25 August 2012), aerospace engineer, test pilot, and astronaut, was born Neil Alden Armstrong in Auglaize County, Ohio, the first of three children of Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Engel. His father, an auditor with a state agency, moved the family fourteen times before finally settling in Wapakoneta in 1944. Neil was a good student, a voracious reader who skipped a grade in elementary school; he won a freshman science award and represented his school in a state-wide civics program. He was also an Eagle Scout, played in the Blume High School band and orchestra, served as vice president of the student council in his senior year, and graduated at age sixteen....
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Alan Bean, 1971, unknown photographer
courtesy of NASA
Article
Bruce J. Evensen
Bean, Alan (15 Mar. 1932–26 May 2018), astronaut and artist, was born Alan LaVern Bean in Wheeler, Texas, the son of Frances Caroline (Murphy) Bean and Arnold Horace Bean, a scientist who worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. Arnold Bean served in World War II, and his son became fascinated at an early age with combat aircraft. He made model airplanes out of balsa wood, carefully painted them, and hung them by wires from his bedroom ceiling....
Article
Bruce J. Evensen
Carpenter, Scott (1 May 1925–10 Oct. 2013), astronaut, was born Malcolm Scott Carpenter in Boulder, Colorado, to Marion Scott Carpenter, a post-doctoral student in chemistry, and Florence Kelso (Noxon) Carpenter.
When his mother became ill with tuberculosis and his father abandoned them, “Buddy” was raised in Boulder by his grandparents, Victor Irwin Noxon, Progressive publisher of the ...
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Maker: NASA
Scott Carpenter, 1962, unknown photographer
courtesy of NASA
Article
Bruce J. Evensen
Cernan, Eugene (14 Mar. 1934–16 Jan. 2017), astronaut and aviator, was born Eugene Andrew Cernan in Chicago to Czech mother Rose Cihlar Cernan and Andrew George Cernan, of Slovak descent. Cernan revered the combat flyers he saw in newsreels and was deeply impressed by his father’s work making Mark 14 torpedoes at a navy depot in neighboring Maywood during World War II.Cernan graduated from Maywood’s Proviso Township High School in ...
Article
Roger D. Launius
Challenger Shuttle Crew, astronauts, died in the explosion of their spacecraft during the launch of STS-51-L, comprising seven from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at about 11:40
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Challenger Shuttle Crew. Top row, from the left: Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judy Resnik. Bottom row, from the left: Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, and Ron McNair. Courtesy of NASA (JSC S85-44253 /GPN-2000-001173)
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Columbia Space Shuttle Crew. (Clockwise from left)Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Laurel B. Clark, and Rick D. Husband, 24 January 2003. Courtesy of AP Images.
Article
Roger D. Launius
Columbia Space Shuttle Crew, astronauts, refers to seven who died over Texas with the breakup of their spacecraft, the Space Shuttle Columbia, at 9:00:18 A.M. eastern standard time on 1 February 2003 during reentry into the atmosphere prior to landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The mission, STS‐107, had launched on 16 January and had undertaken multidisciplinary international scientific research and experiments. The crew members of the ...
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[left to right] Pete Conrad and L. Gordon Cooper Jr.
on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lake Champlain following splashdown and
recovery from the ocean. Courtesy of NASA (GPN-2000-001494).
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Pete Conrad on the moon. Photograph by Alan Bean. Courtesy of NASA.
(GPN-2000-001104)
Article
Roger D. Launius
Conrad, Pete (02 June 1930–08 July 1999), astronaut, was born Charles Peter Conrad in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Charles Conrad, an investment broker, and Frances V. Sargent Conrad. He was called “Pete” from an early age because his mother liked the name. He was educated at the Haverford School in Haverford, Pennsylvania, and received his high school diploma from the Darrow School, New Lebanon, New York, in 1948. Like his father, who had served as a balloonist in World War I, Conrad was intrigued by flying. As a child, he built model airplanes. As a teenager, he hung around local garages and airfields, neglecting his schoolwork. He worked part time sweeping up in a machine shop to finance flying lessons and flew solo when he was sixteen. Encouraged by his father, he entered Princeton University in 1948 and earned a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1953....
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L. Gordon Cooper. Tempera, pencil and ink on board, 1963, by Boris Chaliapin. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine.
Article
Lisa Ruth Rand
Cooper, L. Gordon, Jr. (06 March 1927–04 October 2004), test pilot and astronaut, was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the only child of Leroy Gordon Cooper, Sr., and Hattie Lee Herd. Young Gordon developed a taste for flying at age five when his father, an early military aviator, started taking his son for airplane rides and occasionally giving him the controls. Growing up among his father's aviator associates, and completing his first solo flight at age twelve, the young man whom friends called "Gordo" assumed that flying was a natural part of being human....
