Elliot See

Elliot McKay Lake ( born July 23, 1927 in Dallas, Texas, † February 28, 1966 in St. Louis, Missouri ) was an American astronaut for the Gemini program. He died in a plane crash before he could 9 perform his first space flight with Gemini.

Elliot Lake studied at the Academy of the American Merchant Marine and at the University of California at Los Angeles. From 1949 he worked at the General Electric Company and as a test pilot. In 1953 he went as a pilot in the navy until he returned in 1956 to General Electric, where he flew among other types Starfighter and Northrop T -38.

See competed at NASA and was presented on 17 September 1962 as a member of the second group of astronauts to the public. Lake was one of two civilians in the nine-member group, the other was Neil Armstrong.

His first division to a space flight was Lake on February 8, 1965, when he was assigned as a reserve pilot for the Gemini 5 mission in August 1965. On 8 November 1965 he was nominated as commander of Gemini 9 mission.

During the flights of Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 in December 1965, he served as the connection spokesman ( Capcom ) of the flight control center in Houston.

On February 28, 1966, the main and the backup crew of Gemini 9 flew in two two-seat T-38 Talon to St. Louis to McDonnell, the producer of the Gemini spacecraft. See steered the plane and had a Charles Bassett as co-pilot with him. In poor visibility Lake missed the runway, pulled a building and crashed. See and Bassett were killed instantly

Lake left a wife and three children.