Alfred Worden
Alfred Merrill Worden ( born February 7, 1932 in Jackson, Michigan ) is a former American astronaut. He was pilot of the command module of the lunar landing mission Apollo 15, which took place in the months of July and August 1971.
The son of Merrill and Helen Worden, he was born in 1932 in Jackson.
Training
Worden attended the Sibble, Friswold, Bloomfield and East Jackson schools and graduated from this school also. The Militärlaureatsgang he attended at the Military Academy at West Point, New York. In 1955 he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in military technology and 1963 as an air and aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan again from a university with a master's degree. In 1971 he was awarded an honorary doctorate as aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan.
Experiences
After Militärslaureatsgang in June 1955, and after the application to the Air Force Worden was trained as a pilot in the aviation base in Moore, Texas. Prior to his admission to the Johnson Space Center Worden served as an instructor at the school for pilot astronaut, where he also obtained a degree in September 1965. Another study completion gained Worden in February of 1965 at the Empire Test Pilot Scholl in Farnborough in England. In addition to visiting the Radolph Air Force Base Instrument Pilots Instructor School in 1963, he served as a pilot and officer from March 1957 May 1961 95a Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Air Force Base Andrews, Maryland. He could have more than 4,000 flying hours, including about 2,500 in a jet plane.
Experience in the NASA
Worden was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966.
He received his first schedule on 22 December 1966, when he was assigned to the Mission D, the second planned Apollo flight as support. After the disaster of Apollo 1 but all plans were put on hold.
On November 20, 1967, this classification was confirmed and Worden again belonged to Support Department of the mission D, which started under the name of Apollo 9 in March 1969. Worden was during this space flight one of the connecting speakers ( Capcom ).
Shortly after, on 10 April 1969, Worden was nominated as a replacement pilot the command module of the Apollo 12 mission. He did not play and was used during space flight in November 1969 again as Capcom.
As expected Worden on 26 March 1970, the main occupation of the next available flight, Apollo 15, divided.
Along with Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin of he launched on 7 August 1971 for the moon. While Scott and Irwin took the fourth manned lunar landing, Worden remained aboard the Apollo spacecraft Endeavour in orbit around the Moon.
On the way back to Earth Worden left the ship to retrieve the film cassettes of the two cameras, with whom he had photographed the moon. This was the first spacewalk outside the Earth's orbit.
The entire crew of Apollo 15, Scott, Irwin and Worden, was assigned as backup crew of Apollo 17. Due to the stamp affair of Apollo 15 they were replaced on May 23, 1972 by Young, Duke and Roosa.
Worden remained at NASA Ames Research Center and moved to the in California, where he was Vice President in 1973.
Alfred Worden left NASA in September 1975. He sat down to rest in 1996. He is married and has two children from his first and one child from his second marriage.