Rusty Schweickart

• Apollo 9 (1969)

Russell Louis "Rusty " Schweickart ( born October 25, 1935 in Neptune, New Jersey ) is a former American astronaut and participated in the Apollo 9 mission in part as a lunar lander pilot.

Life

Schweickart was born on 25 October 1935 in Neptune / New Jersey and attended Manasquan High School, New Jersey. From 1956 to 1963 he served as a pilot in the United States Air Force and the Air National Guard. He completed 3900 flight hours, 3500 of them in jets.

Spaceman activity

In 1963, he was selected with 13 other astronauts from NASA. He flew on 3 March 1969 as the lunar lander pilot with Apollo 9 into space. Along with James McDivitt ( Commander) and David Scott ( Command Module Pilot), he tested the lunar lander for the first time in an Earth orbit. In this case, remote, inter alia, the lunar lander from the Command Module to 100 miles and was then re-docked. Schweickart had a 46 -minute spacewalk. Was the safe splashdown On March 13, 1969 after a successful mission. He spent at his only space flight 241 hours in space. Schweickart still served in the backup crew of the first Skylab mission before May 1, 1974 NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC moved.

According to the NASA

1983 belonged Schweickart the founders of the Association of Space Explorers. He is Chairman of the "Committee on Near Earth Objects " of the ASE astronauts Association ( Association of Space Explorers ) and is engaged in, among other things with the deflection of asteroids that could threaten Earth. Schweickart is the co -chair of a NASA working group, which recommended the establishment of a facility for Planetary Defense in October 2010. From 2001 to 2011 Russell Schweickart was chairman of the B612 Foundation.

Private

Schweickart is married, has seven children and eleven grandchildren.