Frank Borman

Frank Frederick Borman, II ( born March 14, 1928 in Gary, Indiana, United States) is a former American astronaut.

Life

After Borman had ended in 1950 at the Military Academy at West Point, his aeronautical engineering degree, he served until 1953 as a fighter pilot of the Air Force in the Philippines, then as a flight instructor in Georgia and Arizona. 1957 Borman received a Master in Aerospace. He then taught until 1960 as an assistant professor at West Point, thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. Then he returned to the Edwards Air Force Base in California back in the cockpit back: first in the Experimental Test Pilot, then as an instructor.

On September 17, 1962, he was selected by NASA in the second astronaut group. As a special task, he took over the missiles, which should bring the spacecraft into orbit.

End of 1963, Borman was intended as a replacement pilot for the maiden flight of Gemini 3. By Fluguntauglichkeit of the proposed Gemini -3 commander Alan Shepard and the displacement of the mission profiles Borman was then, however, replacement commander of Gemini 4, which was communicated to the public on 27 July 1964.

After the flight was successfully carried out in June 1965, Borman was nominated commander of Gemini 7. Borman was so after the second James McDivitt NASA astronaut, the already the command was transmitted via a multi-person spacecraft on the first flight. Together with Jim Lovell orbited on December 4 to December 18, 1965, the earth, a long-term record, which was broken only in 1970.

On September 29, 1966, he was assigned as a replacement commander for the second manned Apollo flight, but this flight was canceled a few weeks later, because it was an unnecessary repetition of the first flight.

After the disaster of Apollo 1, in which three astronauts were killed, Frank Borman was a member of the Commission of Inquiry. As a result, he was given the task to lead the team for the conversion of the Apollo Command Module.

After NASA had received the plans for manned space flights again, the schedule lines for the second and third Apollo flight ( Missions D and E) were announced on 20 November 1967. Borman was assigned as commander of mission e. Along with it, Michael Collins and William Anders were divided. This should be the first manned flight of the Saturn V rocket new and will take up to 11 days.

In the summer of 1968, however, there were signs that the lunar module, which ( the Mission D) should be tested in the second manned Apollo flight, would not be ready in time. In August, NASA decided, for the time being without informing the public that the mission I could be preferred and should circumnavigate Borman's team as a mission C ' the moon. However, Michael Collins had to undergo an operation and was replaced by Jim Lovell.

After the mission C ( Apollo 7 ) was successful, NASA decided on November 10 finally that Borman's team should be the first to fly to the moon. The historic flight of Apollo 8 began on December 21, 1968 and lasted for seven days. For Borman, this was the second and last spaceflight. He was one of the few astronauts of the Gemini and Apollo project, who had worked himself never as connecting speaker ( Capcom ).

In July 1969, just before the moon landing of Apollo 11 Borman officially visited the Soviet Union. He was supported by his wife and 15 - and 17 -year-old accompanied sons. Borman met Nikolai Kamanin, the head of the Soviet manned space flight, and the cosmonauts Feoktistow, Titov, Shatalov, Volynow, Beregowoi and Tereshkova. Kamanin Borman praised as skilled orator and diplomat as well as a born politician.

On July 1, 1970 Frank Borman retired from NASA and went to the American airline Eastern Airlines, first as Vice President, from 1976 as chairman. During his time at Eastern society reach the four most profitable financial statements in its history.

As an Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed on 29 December 1972 in the Everglades in Florida, Borman took part in the same night in person at the rescue.

In 1986, he retired at Eastern. He is currently engaged in the restoration of aircraft.

Honors

Borman was awarded as the second astronaut to Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

He is a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, where few astronauts are a member.

In 1968, he was with his comrades of Apollo 8 Man of the Year in Time Magazine.

The astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole from the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke were named after Frank Borman.

The name of the software company Borland was also inspired by Borman's name.

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