Deceased--Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield, Jr.

Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield, Jr.
November 21st, 1933 to July 17th, 2014

"Henry 'Hank' Hartsfield Jr. dies at 80; space shuttle astronaut"

by

Steve Chawkins

July 23rd, 2014

The Los Angeles Times

Over his career as an astronaut, Henry "Hank" Hartsfield Jr. spent many years in training and only 20 days in orbit — but they were very good days.

"I've never had so much fun," he once said of his first mission, a test flight of the shuttle Columbia that made a triumphant July 4 touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base in 1982. "We talked about turning the radio off and staying up there."

He was less ebullient in 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded and seven astronauts perished. By then, Hartsfield, who had flown into space on the shuttles Columbia, Discovery and Challenger, learned that NASA officials had failed to inform him and others about a mechanical problem involving malfunctioning seals.

"I was surprised and angry we didn't know this," he told reporters. "If we don't make something better out of this, we're missing a safe bet. I think my friends who died would want us to be better for it."

Hartsfield, an Air Force test pilot who joined NASA in 1969 but had to wait 13 years before going into space himself, died July 17 in League City, Texas. He was 80.

His death was announced by NASA, which described its cause only as an illness.

An unflappable man with an Alabama drawl, Hartsfield was a space rookie at 48.

As copilot of the Columbia, he spent seven days in space with commander Ken Mattingly on a mission described by The Times as "rekindling America's love affair with manned space flight." When they landed, more than 500,000 people jammed Mojave Desert highways for a glimpse of the incoming Columbia. Fascinated by the venture, more than a million Americans had called a special phone line to listen in on the Columbia duo's laconic conversations with ground control.

Showing their support for the space program, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were on hand to greet the returning heroes. "This has to beat firecrackers!" the president joked.

Columbia disintegrated on a mission in 2003, killing its seven-member crew.

In 1984, Hartsfield commanded the space shuttle Discovery on its maiden voyage, a flight that had been delayed by potentially lethal mechanical problems three times, once just four seconds before liftoff. At one point, he decided to keep his frustrated crew in their cramped capsule because of a fire on the launchpad.

"At a press conference we all lied about the tension in the cockpit following the abort and the fire," fellow astronaut Mike Mullane wrote in his 2006 memoir "Riding Rockets."

"Hank took most of the questions and did the 'Right Stuff' routine of 'Aaawh shucks, ma'am. Tweren't nothing."

In an interview, Mullane called Hartsfield "an empowering commander and a fierce patriot."
Hartsfield was so exuberantly right-wing that he deliberately took a bathroom break when the orbiter swung over Havana, Mullane said.

At Hartsfield's 50th birthday party, his colleagues ribbed him with gifts playing off his political leanings. One was an autographed copy of Ms. magazine with an inscription to Hartsfield from feminist publisher Gloria Steinem. It had been arranged by astronaut Sally Ride the first American woman in space.

Hartsfield's Discovery crew included Judith Resnik, the second American woman in space. During their mission, Resnik set up a solar array that led to one now in use on the International Space Station, Mullane said.

Resnik was among the seven who died when Challenger exploded in midair on Jan. 28, 1986, three months after Hartsfield had commanded it.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., on Nov. 21, 1933, Hartsfield grew up near a local airfield. As a newsboy, he won a free ride and was hooked on flying.

Graduating from Alabama's Auburn University with a physics degree in 1954, he joined the Air Force in 1955 and logged more than 7,400 hours of flying time in Germany and elsewhere. He also taught test pilots at Edwards. He later received a master's degree in engineering science from the University of Tennessee.

In 1966, he was assigned to the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory — a project that never got off the ground. Three years later, he joined NASA, where he was on the astronaut support crew before his space flights and an administrator from 1985 to 1998. He worked for Raytheon Corp., a defense contractor, until his retirement in 2005.

Hartsfield's survivors include his wife, Fran; daughter Judy Hartsfield Gedies; two grandsons; and his brother Earl. His daughter Keely, who worked as a contractor to the space shuttle program, died in March.

"Henry Hartsfield Jr. Is Dead at 80; Flew, With Fortune, on 3 Shuttles"

by

Bruce Weber

July 22nd, 2014

The New York Times

Henry Hartsfield Jr., who flew on three NASA space shuttles, including as the pilot of the final test flight of the Columbia and as the commander of the maiden mission of the Discovery, died on Thursday. He was 80.

His death was announced by the space agency, which did not say where he died or specify the cause.

Both courageous and fortunate, Mr. Hartsfield flew on the two shuttles — the Columbia and the Challenger — whose histories ended in calamity.

An Air Force pilot who became a NASA astronaut in 1969, Mr. Hartsfield was a member of the astronaut support team for Apollo 16 in 1972, the fifth mission to land men on the moon, and of three Skylab missions. But he did not make his first spaceflight until 1982, when he was part of the two-man crew (along with the commander, Thomas K. Mattingly II, a Navy captain) of the Columbia, the first of the reusable winged planes known as space shuttles, on its fourth and last test flight.

Over seven days, the two men orbited Earth 112 times and, among other things, studied the effects of long-term thermal extremes on elements of the ship and performed arcane genetic experiments involving fruit flies and brine shrimp. Gliding to a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on July 4, they were greeted by an estimated 500,000 onlookers, including President Ronald Reagan.

The president praised the astronauts for proving that “Americans still have the know-how, and Americans still have the true grit that conquered a savage wilderness.” He declared the Columbia program “the historical equivalent to the driving of the golden spike which completed the first transcontinental railroad.”

The Columbia eventually flew more than two dozen operational missions, with its astronauts repairing satellites (and, in 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope) and conducting myriad scientific experiments. On a flight in 2003, it broke up during its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, and all seven crew members died.

In 1983, Mr. Hartsfield, who had left the Air Force in 1977 and was serving NASA as a civilian, became the commander of a six-person crew — the others had no spaceflight experience — for the third shuttle, the Discovery. (The second was the Challenger.) After 16 months of training, on June 26, 1984, just before 8:43 a.m., the six were awaiting liftoff as the countdown began at Cape Canaveral, Fla. But computers detected an apparent valve failure in one of the main engines, and the flight was aborted at T minus four seconds.

“I honestly had no concern,” Mr. Hartsfield said at a news conference. “There was a moment of being startled. I think I used an ‘expletive deleted’ and said, ‘We’re not going anywhere.’ ”
The Discovery finally took off at the end of August and successfully completed a six-day mission, circumnavigating Earth 96 times before landing at the Edwards base on Sept. 5.

In flight, the crew deployed three satellites and unfolded an experimental solar power array, extending it out into space from the ship in the first test of electricity-generating systems for space stations. Crew members conducted several scientific tests and photography experiments using the Imax motion picture camera. The crew earned the name Icebusters after Mr. Hartsfield used a robotic arm to dislodge a chunk of ice from the side of the craft that could have caused damage on re-entry.

“We’ve got a good bird there,” Mr. Hartsfield said about the Discovery after the landing.

Henry Warren Hartsfield Jr., known to friends as Hank, was born on Nov. 21, 1933, in Birmingham, Ala., where he graduated from high school. His father, a self-educated bookkeeper, was an office manager for a general contractor. Mr. Hartsfield received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Auburn University, where he was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, and did graduate work at Duke and at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

Eventually, after joining NASA as an astronaut, he earned an advanced degree in engineering science from the University of Tennessee. He entered the Air Force in 1955, serving with the 53rd Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bitburg, Germany, and graduated from the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base.

Mr. Hartsfield’s survivors include his wife, the former Judy Frances Massey, and a daughter, also named Judy.

When Mr. Hartsfield’s career as an astronaut ended, he worked for NASA on the ground; he was part of the team that planned the deployment of the International Space Station. After retiring from the agency, he was an executive at the Raytheon Corporation.

Altogether, he logged 483 hours in space. He made his third and final spaceflight in October 1985, as the commander of an eight-person crew aboard the shuttle Challenger, which was carrying a German Spacelab and conducted experiments in the areas of physiological sciences, materials processing, biology and navigation. The flight, 111 Earth orbits in seven days, preceded a catastrophe. On Jan. 28, 1986, less than two minutes after liftoff on its next flight, the Challenger disintegrated in midair. In an eerie foreshadowing, a seven-member crew perished.

NASA Biography

Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield, Jr. [Wikipedia]

Deceased--Scott Carpenter

Scott Carpenter
May 1st, 1925 to October 10th, 2013

Six of the seven of the Mercury Seven have passed away...John Glenn is the last.

"Scott Carpenter, Mercury Astronaut Who Orbited Earth, Dies at 88"

by

Richard Goldstein

October 10th, 2013

The New York Times

M. Scott Carpenter, whose flight into space in 1962 as the second American to orbit the Earth was marred by technical glitches and ended with the nation waiting anxiously to see if he had survived a landing far from the target site, died on Thursday in Denver. He was 88 and one of the last two surviving astronauts of America’s original space program, Project Mercury.

His wife, Patty Carpenter, announced the death. No cause was given. Mr. Carpenter had entered hospice care recently after having a stroke.

His death leaves John H. Glenn Jr., who flew the first orbital mission on Feb. 20, 1962, and later became a United States senator from Ohio, as the last survivor of the Mercury 7.

When Lieutenant Commander Carpenter splashed down off Puerto Rico in his Aurora 7 capsule on May 24, 1962, after a harrowing mission, he had fulfilled a dream.

“I volunteered for a number of reasons,” he wrote in “We Seven,” a book of reflections by the original astronauts published in 1962. “One of these, quite frankly, was that I thought this was a chance for immortality. Pioneering in space was something I would willingly give my life for.”

For almost an hour after his capsule hit the Caribbean, there were fears that he had, in fact, perished. He was 250 miles from his intended landing point after making three orbits in a nearly five-hour flight. Although radar and radio signals indicated that his capsule had survived re-entry, it was not immediately clear that he was safe.

A Navy search plane finally spotted him in a bright orange life raft. He remained in it for three hours, accompanied by two frogmen dropped to assist him, before he was picked up by a helicopter and taken to the aircraft carrier Intrepid.

The uncertainty over his fate was only one problem with the flight. The equipment controlling the capsule’s attitude (the way it was pointed) had gone awry; moreover, he fired his re-entry rockets three seconds late, and they did not carry the anticipated thrust. He also fell behind on his many tasks during the flight’s final moments, and his fuel ran low when he inadvertently left two control systems on at the same time.

Some NASA officials found fault with his performance.

“He was completely ignoring our request to check his instruments,” Christopher Kraft, the flight director, wrote in his memoir “Flight: My Life in Mission Control” (2001). “I swore an oath that Scott Carpenter would never again fly in space. He didn’t.”
Mr. Carpenter was the fourth American astronaut in space. Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Virgil I. Grissom flew the first two Mercury flights, and then Mr. Glenn orbited the Earth. Mr. Carpenter was the fourth man to go into orbit. Two Russians in addition to Mr. Glenn had preceded him.

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was born on May 1, 1925, in Boulder, Colo. His family moved to the New York City region when his father, Marion, got a job there as a research chemist. His mother, Florence, contracted tuberculosis when Scott was a child, and she took him with her when she returned to Boulder to be treated at a sanitarium. The marriage broke up, and Scott was guided by his maternal grandfather, Victor Noxon, who owned and edited a Boulder newspaper. He grew fond of a rugged outdoor life and became enthralled by the prospect of flying.

Mr. Carpenter became a naval aviation cadet in 1943, but World War II ended before he could obtain his wings. He entered the University of Colorado afterward and received a Navy commission in 1949.

He flew patrol planes in the Pacific during the Korean War, then trained as a test pilot, and in April 1959 he was among the seven military pilots chosen as the Mercury astronauts, the beginning of America’s quest to carry out President John F. Kennedy’s goal to put a man on the Moon.

Mr. Carpenter was highly accomplished in communications and navigation in addition to his flying skills. He was also in outstanding physical condition, exceeding several NASA performance standards.

He was Mr. Glenn’s backup for his epic orbital flight and famously exclaimed, “Godspeed, John Glenn,” as Mr. Glenn’s Friendship 7 achieved liftoff.

But Donald K. Slayton was scheduled to be the next astronaut in orbit. When Mr. Slayton was grounded because of a heart irregularity, Lieutenant Commander Carpenter got the flight.

His mission called for greater pilot involvement than Mr. Glenn’s. With photographic tasks to perform and science experiments to oversee, he seemed to be having a grand time, though the cabin became uncomfortably warm. But serious trouble arose when the equipment controlling the way the capsule was facing malfunctioned, requiring him to determine the capsule’s proper attitude visually.

“The last 30 minutes of the flight, in retrospect, were a dicey time,” he recalled in his memoir “For Spacious Skies” (2002), written with his daughter Kris Stoever. “At the time, I didn’t see it that way. First, I was trained to avoid any intellectual comprehension of disaster — dwelling on a potential danger, or imagining what might happen. I was also too busy with the tasks at hand.”

Splashing down 250 miles from the nearest recovery ship, he got out of his capsule through a top hatch, then inflated his raft and waited to be picked up.

Finally the voice of mission control, Shorty Powers, announced, “An aircraft in the landing area has sighted the capsule and a life raft with a gentleman by the name of Carpenter riding in it.”

President Kennedy greeted Lieutenant Commander Carpenter and his family at the White House in June 1962 after the Carpenters had been hailed at parades in Denver and Boulder and honored at City Hall in New York. A few days after Mr. Carpenter’s mission, the University of Colorado gave him a long-delayed degree in aeronautical engineering at its commencement, citing his “unique experience with heat transfer during his re-entry.” He had missed out on his degree by not completing a course in heat transfer as a senior in 1949.

But the issue of the flight’s brush with disaster lingered. A NASA inquiry determined that because of a 25-degree error in the capsule’s alignment, the retro rockets had fired at an angle that caused a shallower than normal descent. That accounted for 175 miles of the overshoot, with the remaining 75 miles caused by the late firing of the rockets and their failure to provide the expected thrust.

Mr. Kraft, the flight director, had been angry that Mr. Slayton was denied the mission because of his heart problem, and he was furious at Lieutenant Commander Carpenter, feeling that he had not paid sufficient attention to instructions from the ground.

Mr. Carpenter’s prospect of obtaining another NASA mission was ended by a motorbike injury that led to his leaving NASA in 1967.

In a 2001 letter to The New York Times in response to a review of Mr. Kraft’s book, Mr. Carpenter wrote that “the system failures I encountered during the flight would have resulted in loss of the capsule and total mission failure had a man not been aboard.”

“My postflight debriefings and reports,” he added, “led, in turn, to important changes in capsule design and flight plans.”

In his book “The Right Stuff” (1979), which told how the original astronauts reflected the coolness-under-pressure ethos of the test pilot, Tom Wolfe wrote that Mr. Kraft’s criticism fueled NASA engineers’ simmering resentment of the astronauts’ status as pop-culture heroes. The way Mr. Wolfe saw it, word spread within NASA that Mr. Carpenter had panicked, the worst sin imaginable in what Mr. Wolfe called the brotherhood of the right stuff.

Mr. Wolfe rejected that notion. “One might argue that Carpenter had mishandled the re-entry, but to accuse him of panic made no sense in light of the telemetered data concerning his heart rate and his respiratory rate,” he wrote.

“The Right Stuff” was made into a movie in 1983, with Charles Frank as Mr. Carpenter.

Mr. Carpenter also carved a legacy as a pioneer in the ocean’s depths. He was the only astronaut to become an aquanaut, spending a month living and working on the ocean floor, at a depth of 205 feet, in the Sealab project off San Diego in the summer of 1965. When he returned to NASA, he helped develop underwater training to prepare for spacewalks. He returned to the Sealab program, but a thigh injury resulting from his diving work kept him from exploring the ocean floor again.

He retired from the Navy in 1969 with the rank of commander, pursued oceanographic and environmental activities and wrote two novels involving underwater adventures.

Mr. Carpenter’s first three marriages ended in divorce. Besides his wife, Patty Barrett Carpenter, Mr. Carpenter is survived by four sons, Jay, Matthew, Nicholas and Zachary; two daughters Kristen Stoever and Candace Carpenter; a granddaughter; and five stepgrandchildren. Two sons, Timothy and Scott, died before him.

Mr. Glenn, the last Mercury 7 survivor, is 92. Mr. Grissom died in 1967 in an Apollo spacecraft fire during a launching-pad test. Mr. Slayton died in 1993; Mr. Shepard, the first American in space, died in 1998; L. Gordon Cooper Jr. died in 2004; and Walter M. Schirra Jr. died in 2007.

Among his many projects, Mr. Carpenter joined with fellow astronauts of the original Mercury 7 to create the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation to aid science and engineering students. In 2006, he returned to the University of Colorado to present a scholarship to a student studying plasma physics.

He used the occasion to reflect on the thrill he experienced. Spaceflights had become “old hat,” he said, but his ardor for space travel remained undimmed.

“The flight experience itself is incredible,” The Rocky Mountain News quoted him as saying. “It’s addictive. It’s transcendent. It is a view of the grand plan of all things that is simply unforgettable.”

Mr. Carpenter attended ceremonial events in his final years, when he was reunited with fellow astronauts.

He joined with President George W. Bush and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, on Veterans Day 2008 in a ceremony on a Hudson River pier aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, formerly the ship whose helicopter had plucked him to safety.

Mr. Carpenter was on hand at Cape Canaveral with Mr. Glenn and veterans of the Project Mercury support teams at events a few days before the 50th anniversary of Mr. Glenn’s pioneering orbital flight.

Both men had expressed hopes that America’s space program would be revived.

“John, thank you for your heroic effort and all of you for your heroic effort,” Mr. Carpenter told the gathering. “But we stand here waiting to be outdone.”

Scott Carpenter [Wikipedia]

Front row, left to right: Walter H. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and Scott Carpenter. Back row: Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. Gus Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper.

Mercury Seven [Wikipedia]

Deceased--Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong
August 5th, 1930 to August 25th, 2012

"Neil Armstrong, 1st man on the moon, dies"

August 25th, 2012

Associated Press

The family of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, says he has died at age 82.

A statement from the family says he died following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures. It doesn't say where he died.

Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the moon July 20, 1969. He radioed back to Earth the historic news of “one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin spent nearly three hours walking on the moon, collecting samples, conducting experiments and taking photographs. In all, 12 Americans walked on the moon from 1969 to 1972.

NASA Administrator Statement on Neil Armstrong's Death

August 25th, 2012

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden regarding the death of former test pilot and NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong. He was 82.

On behalf of the entire NASA family, I would like to express my deepest condolences to Carol and the rest of Armstrong family on the passing of Neil Armstrong. As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own.

Besides being one of America's greatest explorers, Neil carried himself with a grace and humility that was an example to us all. When President Kennedy challenged the nation to send a human to the moon, Neil Armstrong accepted without reservation.

As we enter this next era of space exploration, we do so standing on the shoulders of Neil Armstrong. We mourn the passing of a friend, fellow astronaut and true American hero.

"Neil Armstrong: modest man, large footprint in time and space"

Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon on July 20, 1969, marked the high point of US manned space flight, but the commander of the Apollo 11 mission was wary of the celebrity that came with it.

by

Gail Russell Chaddock

August 25th, 2012

The Christian Science Monitor

Neil Armstrong, who died today following heart surgery, never wanted to be remembered simply as the first man on the moon.

Once credited with the most recognized name in the world,  Armstrong avoided the outsized celebrity of the early NASA astronauts, whose storied missions not only advanced a US profile in space but also helped define the Cold War struggle with Soviet Union, whose 1957 Sputnik launch stunned the world.

The images of the first moon walk with Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969, marked the high point of the US manned space program. His signature, and often misquoted, line – "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" – soared to iconic status.

But Armstrong, who also flew combat missions in Korea, brushed aside all talk of hero status, at least for himself.

"We all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks but for the ledger of our daily work," he said in a 2007 interview with "60 Minutes." As for all the celebrity: "I don't deserve it," he said.

After commanding the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong took a desk job at NASA, then taught engineering at the University of Cincinnati, served on several corporate boards, and worked out of his farm in southwest Ohio. He said he regretted not spending the time he wanted to with his family.

"I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer," he said in a rare public appearance in February 2000, cited by the Associated Press. "And I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession."

He also regretted that US space program did not make more progress than it did. "I fully expected that by the end of the century we would have achieved substantially more than we did," he told "60 Minutes."  The end of the Cold War also marked the end of the drive for space dominance, he said. "When we lost the competition, we lost the public will to continue."

In 2010, he came out of retirement to make a case before the US Congress to restore funding and a vision for the US space program and a workforce he described as "confused and disconsolate" by the termination of the 30-year space shuttle program, layoffs of thousands of aerospace workers, and the absence of a new US space strategy.

Public policy must be guided by the recognition that we live in a technologically driven world, he told a House panel. "Our choices are to lead, try to keep up, or get out of the way" he said. "A lead once lost is very difficult to regain."

"Neil Armstrong understood that we should reach beyond the stars," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, a former NASA shuttle astronaut, in a statement. "His 'one giant leap for mankind' was taken by a giant of a man."

House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio, who also calls Cincinnati his home town, said of Armstrong: "A true hero has returned to the Heavens to which he once flew. Neil Armstrong blazed trails not just for America, but for all of mankind."

"Ohio has lost one of her proudest sons," he said in a statement. "Humanity has gained a legend."
 

"Neil Armstrong, first person to walk on moon, dies at 82"

Neil Armstrong's 'giant leap for mankind' as he set foot on the lunar surface in 1969 climaxed a monumental achievement in human history. Despite his fame, the former fighter pilot shrank from the spotlight and called himself a 'nerdy engineer.'

by

Eric Malnic

August 25th, 2012

Los Angeles Times

Neil Armstrong, the U.S. astronaut who was the first person to set foot on the moon, firmly establishing him as one of the great heroes of the 20th century, has died. He was 82.

Armstrong died following complications from cardiovascular procedures, his family announced Saturday.

When he made that famous step on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase that has been carved in stone and quoted across the planet: "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind."

Armstrong spoke those words quietly as he gazed down at his, the first human footprint on the surface of the moon. In the excitement of the moment, the "a" was left out -- either because Armstrong omitted it or because it was lost in the static of the radio transmission back to Earth.

For the usually taciturn Armstrong, it was a rare burst of eloquence seen and heard by 60 million television viewers worldwide. But Armstrong, a reticent, self-effacing man who shunned the spotlight, was never comfortable with his public image as a courageous, historic man of action.

"I am, and ever will be, a white-sock, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer," Armstrong once told a National Press Club gathering.

Perhaps.

How many other nerdy engineers flew 78 combat missions as a Navy jet fighter pilot during the Korean War? Logged more than 1,000 hours as a test pilot in some of the world's fastest and most dangerous aircraft? Or became one of the first civilian astronauts and commanded Apollo 11, the first manned flight to land on the moon?

In the years that followed the flight of Apollo 11, Armstrong was asked again and again what it felt like to be the first man on the moon. In answering, he always shared the glory: "I was certainly aware that this was the culmination of the work of 300,000 to 400,000 people over a decade."

Neil Alden Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on his grandfather's farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio.

His father, Stephen Armstrong, was a civil servant who audited county records in Ohio and later served as assistant director of the Ohio Mental Hygiene and Corrections Department. The family of his mother, Viola, owned the farm.

For more than a decade, his family lived in a succession of Ohio cities to accommodate his father's job before settling down in Wapakoneta.

After his father bought him a ride in a Ford Trimotor transport plane in 1936, Armstrong rushed home and began building model airplanes and a wind tunnel to test them.

A good student, Armstrong was a much-decorated Boy Scout and played the baritone horn in a school band. But aviation always came first.

In 1945, he started taking flying lessons, paying for them by working as a stock clerk at a drugstore. On his 16th birthday, he got his pilot's license but didn't yet have a driver's license.

Upon graduating from high school in 1947, he was awarded a Navy scholarship to Purdue University. When the Korean War started in 1949, Armstrong was called to active duty.

After flight training, Armstrong was assigned to the carrier Essex, flying combat missions over North Korea. Although one of the Panther jets he flew off the carrier was crippled by enemy fire, he nursed the plane back over South Korea before bailing out safely. Recognized as an outstanding pilot with a flair for leadership, he received three Air Medals before finishing his active duty in 1952.

He returned to Purdue and earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955.

Within months, he was a civilian test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was soon stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, chronicled by author Tom Wolfe as the home to pilots with "The Right Stuff."

Aviators were closely scrutinized there, evaluated carefully as they pushed high-performance aircraft to "the edge of the envelope" and quizzed repeatedly about the scientific implications of their work.

"A lot of people couldn't figure Armstrong out," Wolfe wrote. "You'd ask him a question and he would just stare at you with those pale blue eyes of his.

"And you'd start to ask the question again, figuring that he hadn't understood, and -- click -- out of his mouth would come forth a sequence of long, quiet, perfectly formed, precisely thought-out sentences, full of anisotropic functions and multiple-encounter trajectories or whatever else was called for.

"It was as if his hesitations were just data punch-in intervals for his computer."

Armstrong had dated a sorority beauty queen, Janet Shearon, at Purdue, and they were married in 1956. For a while they lived in a small shack without indoor plumbing in the San Gabriel Mountains overlooking Edwards.

Children soon followed. A son, Eric, in 1957 and a daughter, Karen, two years later. The couple had a second son, Mark, in 1963, a year after Karen died of a brain tumor. True to form, Armstrong did not speak publicly about the tragedy or any other aspects of his family life.

Instead, he concentrated on his work.

By 1963, NASA was striving to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's goal of beating the Soviet Union in the space race and putting an American on the moon. Kennedy wanted some civilian astronauts, and Armstrong was one of the first.

In 1966, he made his first space flight, with fellow astronaut David R. Scott. Their ship, Gemini 8, was docking with an unmanned Agena rocket when a malfunctioning thruster sent the interlocked space vehicles tumbling uncontrollably.

Unperturbed, Armstrong disconnected the two vehicles, brought Gemini 8 back under control and made a safe emergency landing in the Pacific. NASA officials cited his "extraordinary piloting skill."

Two years later, a lunar landing training vehicle he was piloting suffered control failure just 200 feet off the ground. Armstrong ejected, parachuting to safety.

On Jan. 1, 1969, he was named commander of Apollo 11, the first manned spaceship scheduled to land on the moon. His crewmates were fellow space veterans Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Five months later, the massive Apollo 11 spaceship was nudged carefully onto the launch pad at what was then called Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The vehicle was as long as a football field, tipped on end. It consisted of the command module Columbia, which would carry the three astronauts on their 238,000-mile journey and in which Collins would orbit the moon; the lunar lander the Eagle, which would carry Armstrong and Collins down to the lunar surface; and a huge Saturn booster rocket to hurl the whole thing into space.

On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off. Two and a half hours later, after an orbit and a half around the Earth, onboard rockets fired to send the spaceship on its three-day trip to the moon.

Once in lunar orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin clambered into the Eagle and descended toward the lunar surface, leaving Collins to circle above them.

The landing wasn't easy. The lunar surface was rockier than expected, and Armstrong had to pilot the fragile craft horizontally until he found a safe, flat spot.

On July 20, 1969, at 1:04:40 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the small spacecraft came to rest gently near the moon's dry Sea of Tranquillity.

"The Eagle has landed," Armstrong radioed back to Earth.

At New York's Yankee Stadium, 16,000 fans stood up and cheered.

Six hours and 52 minutes later, as an onboard television camera sent grainy but stunning images back for the world to see, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on lunar soil.

There had been some dispute over who would be first, Armstrong or Aldrin, but Donald "Deke" Slayton, head of the astronaut corps, said he made the decision.

"Neil was the commander," Slayton once said. "He had the seniority, and that was all there was to it."

Aldrin stepped out of the Eagle a few minutes after Armstrong. The pair spent about 21/2 hours on the lunar surface, collecting dozens of soil and rock samples, setting up seismic equipment, planting an American flag and taking photographs.

"Isn't this fun?" the usually reserved Armstrong remarked jocularly at one point, patting Aldrin on the shoulder as they bounded about in the low lunar gravity.

As they climbed back into the Eagle, they left behind a plaque that reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon. We come in peace for all mankind."

Within hours, the Eagle had lifted off from the moon, rejoined the Columbia and the three astronauts were on their way back to Earth.

On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific about 950 miles south of Hawaii. To assure they weren't carrying any lunar organisms, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for 18 days. President Nixon waved to them through a window of their isolation chamber.

On Aug. 13, 1969, the nation saluted them. They appeared in a parade in New York City in the morning and another in Chicago in the afternoon. That night, they were honored by 1,400 at a state dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Nixon gave them each the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Then the trio left on a 22-nation tour, during which they met the queen of England, the shah of Iran and the pope.

The public adulation eventually dimmed for Aldrin and Collins — but not Armstrong. He was in demand, and whenever he made a public appearance people clamored for his autograph.

It all made him uncomfortable.

He worked a NASA desk job in Washington for a couple years and after earning a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at USC, he returned to Ohio. For a decade, he taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

He bought a secluded, 200-acre dairy farm near Lebanon, Ohio, and occasionally ventured into town for a quiet lunch at a local cafe. The town respected his privacy and he said he enjoyed doing the moderate physical work required on a farm.

When called by his country, he responded, serving in 1985 on the National Commission on Space and in 1986 as vice chairman of the presidential commission that investigated the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

He continued to fly, piloting a light plane he kept at a nearby airport. He served on the boards of several large corporations, and as chairman of AIL Technologies, an aerospace electronics firm on Long Island, N.Y.

He even surprised everyone and did a television commercial for Chrysler.

In 1994, Armstrong divorced his wife of 38 years. Shortly afterward, he married the former Carol Knight, a woman 15 years his junior, and receded further from public life.

The closest he came to describing what the Apollo 11 mission meant to him was during a Life magazine interview several weeks before the flight.

"The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity," Armstrong said. "It's all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward."

Information on survivors was not immediately available.

[Malnic, a former Times staff writer, prepared a draft of this story before he died in 2010.]

"Inspired Mankind With One Small Step"

by

Marc Santora

August 25th, 2012

The New York Times

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died Saturday.

He was 82 and lived in Cincinnati. His death was announced by his family in a statement, but it did not say where Mr. Armstrong died.

Mr. Armstrong underwent bypass surgery earlier this month to relieve blocked coronary arteries, according to family and friends. His recovery had been going well, according to those who spoke with him after the surgery, and his death came as a surprise to many close to him, including his fellow Apollo astronauts.

As commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Mr. Armstrong, with one short sentence on July 20, 1969, became a hero to the millions of people watching back on earth.

The words he spoke upon stepping onto the lunar surface — “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” — were beamed live into homes around the world, captivating viewers and immediately and indelibly becoming a symbol of America’s resolve and ingenuity in its race against the Soviet Union for supremacy in space.

It was a singular achievement for humanity and the culmination of a goal that President John F. Kennedy had set eight years earlier with his bold statement: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

Mr. Armstrong’s family, in a statement, praised him as a “loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend.”

“Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job,” the family said. “He served his nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot and astronaut.”

Neil Alden Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, near Wapakoneta, Ohio, and he would maintain a connection with his home state his entire life.

In 1947, Mr. Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University on a Navy scholarship, according to his official biography. His studies were interrupted in 1949 when he was called to serve in the Korean War, where he flew 78 combat missions. He left the service in 1952, and returned to college to finish his degree. He later earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California.

In 1955, he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which later became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and worked as an engineer, test pilot and administrator. As a test pilot, he flew some of the most innovative and dangerous aircraft ever developed, more than 200 different models. Perhaps the best known of these was the X-15, which reached speeds of 4,000 m.p.h., according to his biography on the NASA Web site.

He became an astronaut in 1962 and was the command pilot for the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, when he performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space.

Three year later, Mr. Armstrong was 38 years old when he piloted the lunar module to the surface of the moon, a delicate operation that required precise calculations to ensure that the vehicle landed unscathed.

Along with his co-pilot, Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. of the Air Force, the pair landed in a rock-strewn plain near the southwestern shore of the Sea of Tranquillity. The third astronaut on the mission, Michael Collins, remained in the command ship circling the moon.

The world breathed a collective sigh when Mr. Armstrong was heard telling mission control room, “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

“Roger, Tranquillity,” mission control replied. “We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

About six and a half hours after landing, Mr. Armstrong opened the hatch on the four-legged lunar module, slowly made his way down the ladder and planted the first human footprint on the lunar crust. A crater near the site of the landing was later named in his honor.

After leaving the space program, Mr. Armstrong was careful to do nothing to tarnish that image or achievement. Though he traveled and gave speeches — like in October 2007, when he dedicated the new Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering at Purdue — he rarely gave interviews and avoided the spotlight.

“He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits,” his family said in the statement.

He later found success in both business and academia.

Mr. Armstrong married Carol Knight in 1994, and the couple lived in Indian Hill, a Cincinnati suburb. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Eric and Mark, from his first marriage to Janet Shearon. He also had a daughter with Ms. Shearon in 1959, but the girl, Karen, died of an inoperable brain tumor in 1962.

Almost as soon as the news of his death was announced, there was an outpouring of well wishes and fond memorials on Web sites and social media, a reflection of the extraordinary public acclaim that came to a very private man.

“As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life,” his family said. “While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.” 

Statement by the President on the Passing of Neil Armstrong

Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Neil Armstrong.

Neil was among the greatest of American heroes - not just of his time, but of all time.  When he and his fellow crew members lifted off aboard Apollo 11 in 1969, they carried with them the aspirations of an entire nation.  They set out to show the world that the American spirit can see beyond what seems unimaginable - that with enough drive and ingenuity, anything is possible. And when Neil stepped foot on the surface of the moon for the first time, he delivered a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten.

Today, Neil's spirit of discovery lives on in all the men and women who have devoted their lives to exploring the unknown - including those who are ensuring that we reach higher and go further in space. That legacy will endure - sparked by a man who taught us the enormous power of one small step.

Extended NASA statement...

Neil Armstrong: 1930-2012

August 25th, 2012

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, has died, following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures. He was 82.

Armstrong's words "That is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," spoken on July 20, 1969, as he became the first person ever to step onto another planetary body, instantly became a part of history.

Those few words from the Sea of Tranquillity were the climactic fulfillment of the efforts and hopes of millions of people and the expenditure of billions of dollars. A plaque on one of the lander's legs that concluded "We came in peace for all mankind," further emphasized that Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were there as representatives of all humans.

Armstrong is survived by his wife, two sons, a stepson, a stepdaughter, 10 grandchildren, and a brother and sister.

"Neil Armstrong was a hero not just of his time, but of all time," President Barack Obama said via Twitter. "Thank you, Neil, for showing us the power of one small step."

Armstrong's family released the following statement on Saturday:
 
Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job. He served his Nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. He also found success back home in his native Ohio in business and academia, and became a community leader in Cincinnati.

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

The family will be providing further updates at www.neilarmstronginfo.com .

"As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

“Besides being one of America’s greatest explorers," Bolden added, "Neil carried himself with a grace and humility that was an example to us all."

Apollo 11 lunar module pilot and fellow moonwalker Buzz Aldrin on Armstrong's passing: “I am very saddened to learn of the passing of Neil Armstrong today. Neil and I trained together as technical partners but were also good friends who will always be connected through our participation in the Apollo 11 mission. Whenever I look at the moon it reminds me of the moment over four decades ago when I realized that even though we were farther away from earth than two humans had ever been, we were not alone."

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins said simply, “He was the best, and I will miss him terribly.”

"The passing of Neil Armstrong has shocked all of us at the Johnson Space Center," said Center Director Michael Coats. The whole world knew Neil as the first man to step foot on the Moon, but to us he was a co-worker, a friend, and an outstanding spokesman for the Human Space Program. His quiet confidence and ability to perform under pressure set an example for all subsequent astronauts. Our role model will be missed."

“Neil Armstrong was a very personal inspiration to all of us within the astronaut office," said Bob Behnken, Chief of NASA's Astronaut Office. "His historic step onto the Moon’s surface was the foundation for many of our personal dreams to become astronauts. The only thing that outshone his accomplishments was his humility about those accomplishments. We will miss him as a friend, mentor, explorer and ambassador for the American spirit of ingenuity."

Armstrong later transferred to NACA's High Speed Flight Research Station at Edwards AFB, Calif. As project pilot, he was in the forefront of the development of many high-speed aircraft, including the X-15, which flew at 4,000 mph.

He flew more than 200 aircraft models. They included jet and rocket-powered planes, helicopters and gliders.

Armstrong was selected as an astronaut in 1962.

His first space flight was Gemini 8, which he commanded. He was the first civilian to fly a U.S. spacecraft. With fellow astronaut David R. Scott, Armstrong performed the first docking in space, with an Agena target satellite.

Less than an hour later their spacecraft began an unplanned rolling motion. After undocking, it increased to one revolution per second. One of the Gemini's 16 thrusters had stuck open because of an electrical short circuit.

Armstrong used re-entry thrusters to control the capsule, and after a 30-minute struggle, it was stabilized. Flight rules required a return to Earth after use of the re-entry thrusters, so the crewmembers fired retrorockets that sent Gemini 8 to a contingency landing zone in the Western Pacific.

The eventful flight on March 16, 1966, had taken just over 10 hours, 41 minutes.

Apollo 11 lifted off on July 16, 1969, with Armstrong, Aldrin and Mike Collins aboard. Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the lunar module they had named Eagle to their historic landing on the moon's surface.

"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed," Armstrong said, telling a tense and waiting Earth that men had finally reached the lunar surface.

He and Aldrin spent about two hours exploring, gathering more than 50 pounds of moon rocks and setting up three scientific experiments. The next day, after 21 hours and 37 minutes on the moon, they fired Eagle's engine to begin the return to Collins and the command module.

The crew returned to Earth, landing near the USS Hornet in the Pacific after a mission of just over eight days. President Richard M. Nixon was on the aircraft carrier's deck to welcome them

"This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation," Nixon told the three.

After 16 days in quarantine to protect Earth from any returned moon germs, the crew went on U.S. and international tours. Millions greeted them as heroes.

Armstrong later served as deputy associate administrator for aeronautics in the Office of Advanced Research and technology at NASA Headquarters. He resigned from the space agency in 1971. As a professor at the University of Cincinnati from 1971 to 1979, he was involved in both teaching and research.

He later went into the business world. Among other positions, he served for 10 years as chairman of Computing Technologies for Aviation Inc. of Charlottesville, Va. and later as chairman of AIL Systems Inc., an electronic systems company based in Deer Park, N.Y.

Armstrong was a fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and the Royal Aeronautical Society, and an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the International Astronautical Federation.

He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as a member of the National Commission on Space in 1985 and 1986, and in 1985 was vice chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. He also was chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Peace Corps from 1971 to 1973.

Seventeen countries decorated Armstrong. He received many special honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award, the Explorers Club Medal, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Harmon International Aviation Trophy, the Royal Geographic Society's Gold Medal, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale's Gold Space Medal, the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award, the Robert J. Collier Trophy, the AIAA Astronautics Award, the Octave Chanute Award, and the John J. Montgomery Award.

Neil Armstrong [Wikipedia]

 
Neil Armstrong's "One Small step..."...analysis
Neil Armstrong speaks
Apollo 11 crew...doing "what" now
Senior astronauts oppose NASA cuts
Space cowboys speak out
50 years with NASA
Tom Wolfe's thoughts on space travel

Deceased--Sally Ride

Sally Ride
May 26th, 1951 to July 23rd, 2012

Statement by the President on the Passing of Sally Ride

Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Sally Ride.  As the first American woman to travel into space, Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model.  She inspired  generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools.  Sally’s life showed us  that there are no limits to what we can achieve and I have no doubt that her legacy will endure for years to come.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to Sally’s family and friends.

"Sally Ride, Trailblazing Astronaut, Dies at 61"

by

Denise Grady

July 23rd, 2012

The New York Times

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died on Monday at her home in San Diego. She was 61.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, her company, Sally Ride Science, announced on its Web site. Dr. Ride, a physicist, flew on the shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983, and on a second mission in 1984. She was also, at 32, the youngest American in space. Dr. Ride later became the only person to sit on both panels investigating the catastrophic shuttle accidents that killed all astronauts on board — the Challenger explosion in 1986 and the Columbia crash in 2003.

Dr. Ride was finishing studies at Stanford — degrees in physics and astrophysics (and also English) — and looking for a job when she saw a newspaper advertisement that said NASA was accepting astronaut applications. She looked at the qualifications and said, “I’m one of those people,” she told The New York Times in 1982.

She applied, and made the cut.

“The women’s movement had already paved the way, I think, for my coming,” she said.

By the time she began studying laser physics at Stanford, women had already broken through into the physics department, once a boys’ club. And when she applied to the space program, NASA had already made a commitment to admit women.

But there were still rough spots. Before the first shuttle flight, Dr. Ride — chosen in part because she was known for keeping her cool under stress — politely endured reporters’ asking whether spaceflight would affect her reproductive organs, whether she planned to have children, whether she would wear a bra or makeup in space, whether she cried on the job, how she would handle menstruation in space. The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked her to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes.

At a NASA news conference, Dr. Ride said: “It’s too bad this is such a big deal. It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.”

The Soviets had already sent two women into space. One was welcomed aboard a space station by a male cosmonaut who told her the kitchen and an apron were all ready for her.

In her early days at NASA, Dr. Ride trained in parachute jumping, water survival and acclimatization to weightlessness and the huge G-forces of a rocket launch. She learned to fly a jet plane. She also switched from physics to engineering and helped to develop a robotic arm for the space shuttle. The Challenger commander, Robert Crippen, chose her for the 1983 mission in part because of her expertise with the device. She was part of a crew of five that spent about six days in space, during which she used the arm to deploy and retrieve a satellite.

At Cape Canaveral, many in the crowd of 250,000 that watched the launch wore T-shirts that said, “Ride, Sally Ride.”

The next day, Gloria Steinem, then editor of the magazine Ms., said, “Millions of little girls are going to sit by their television sets and see they can be astronauts, heroes, explorers and scientists.”

When the shuttle landed, Dr. Ride told reporters, “I’m sure it was the most fun that I’ll ever have in my life.”

Her next mission, in 1984, lasted about eight days. She was on the roster for another shuttle flight, but then, on Jan. 28, 1986, the Challenger blew up, 73 seconds after taking off.

As part of the accident-investigation panel appointed by President Ronald Reagan, she asked tough questions. The group learned from testimony and other evidence that there had been signs of trouble on earlier Challenger flights, but that they had been dismissed as not critical. Dr. Ride told a colleague it was difficult not to be angered by the findings.

One witness was Roger Boisjoly, an engineer who had worked for the company that made the shuttle’s rocket boosters and who had been shunned by colleagues for revealing that he had warned his bosses and NASA of potentially fatal flaws in the boosters’ seals. Afterward, Dr. Ride — widely considered to be reserved and reticent — hugged him. She was the only panelist to offer him support, and Mr. Boisjoly, who died in February, said her gesture had helped sustain him during a troubled time.

In 2003, after sitting on a shuttle-disaster panel for the second time, Dr. Ride said in an interview with The Times that part of the problem at NASA was that people had forgotten some of the lessons learned from the Challenger accident. But she also said: “I flew the shuttle twice. It got me home twice. I like the shuttle.”

In 1987, Dr. Ride led a study team that wrote a report advising NASA on the future direction of the space program. The team recommended an outpost on the Moon, though not a “race to Mars.” But Mars should still be the “ultimate objective,” the group said. In the report, Dr. Ride wrote that a lunar outpost would combine “adventure, science, technology and perhaps the seeds of enterprise.” She also noted darkly that the Untied States had “lost leadership” to the Soviet Union in a number of aspects of space exploration.

The same year, Dr. Ride retired from NASA and became a science fellow at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. In 1989, she became a professor of physics and director of the California Space Institute at the University of California, San Diego.

She also developed a passion for trying to interest young people, especially girls, in science, math and technology. She wrote six science books for children, including one that explained how to make a sandwich in space. (She advised eating it fast, before it floated away.)

In 2001 she started a company, Sally Ride Science, to “make science and engineering cool again,” as she put it, by providing science-oriented school programs, materials and teacher training. Dr. Ride was known for guarding her privacy. She rejected most offers for product endorsements, memoirs and movies, and her reticence lasted to the end. At her request, NASA kept her illness secret.

In 1983 Susan Okie, a longtime friend and a journalist, wrote an article in The Washington Post in which she described Dr. Ride as elusive and enigmatic, protective of her emotions.

“During college and graduate school,” Dr. Okie wrote, “I had to interrogate her to find out what was happening in her personal life.”

Dr. Okie quoted Dr. Ride’s younger sister, the Rev. Karen Scott, a Presbyterian minister, as saying, “ ‘Closeness’ is not a word that is often used to describe relationships in our family.” Dr. Ride always needed to be in control, her mother told Dr. Okie.

In a statement, President Obama said Dr. Ride was “a national hero and a powerful role model.”
 

“She inspired  generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools,” he said. “Sally’s life showed us  that there are no limits to what we can achieve.”

Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Encino, part of Los Angeles. Her father was a political science professor at Santa Monica College, and her mother worked as a volunteer counselor at women’s correctional facility. Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church.

From an early age, Dr. Ride gravitated toward math and science. She was strong-willed and athletic, and became so obsessed with playing football in the street that her parents pushed her into tennis lessons because it was a safer sport. She was soon playing in tournaments.

Dr. Ride attended Westlake High School, a girls’ prep school in Beverly Hills. Dr. Okie was her schoolmate, and wrote that she and Dr. Ride, both on scholarship, felt out of place among the actors’ daughters and “Bel Air belles” at the school. Dr. Ride did not have to work hard for good grades, called herself an underachiever and refused to feign interest if she was bored in class. But it was at Westlake that Dr. Ride found a mentor and friend in Elizabeth Mommaerts, a science teacher whom she described as “logic personified.” A great enthusiast for research, Ms. Mommaerts invited her favorite students — Dr. Ride among them — to her home to sample French food and wine and to hear stories about her life in Europe.

(Later, in graduate school, Dr. Ride was devastated to learn that Dr. Mommaerts had committed suicide. When she was chosen to be an astronaut, the one person she wanted most to call was Dr. Mommaerts, she told Dr. Okie. “And I can’t,” she said.)

After graduating from high school in 1968, Dr. Ride attended Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania but quit after three semesters. She was homesick for California and was considering a career in tennis. She practiced for several hours a day, and also began taking physics courses at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, she enrolled at Stanford as a junior. She played tennis for Stanford, became the team’s No. 1 women’s singles player and was nationally ranked. She taught at summer tennis camps, and at one of them she met Billie Jean King, who urged her to quit college and become a professional tennis player. She did not take that advice.

Years later, when a child asked her what made her decide to be a scientist instead of a tennis player, she laughed and said, “A bad forehand.”

She received bachelor’s degrees in physics and English in 1973 (her specialty was Shakespeare), a master’s degree in physics in 1975 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1978, all from Stanford. Her graduate work involved X-ray astronomy and free-electron lasers.

In 2003, Dr. Ride told The Times that stereotypes still persisted about girls and science and math — for example the idea that girls had less ability or interest in those subjects, or would be unpopular if they excelled in them. She thought peer pressure, especially in middle school, began driving girls away from the sciences, so she continued to set up science programs all over the country meant to appeal to girls — science festivals, science camps, science clubs — to help them find mentors, role models and one another.

“It’s no secret that I’ve been reluctant to use my name for things,” she said. “I haven’t written my memoirs or let the television movie be made about my life. But this is something I’m very willing to put my name behind.”

Dr. Ride married a fellow astronaut, Steven Hawley, in 1982. They decorated their master bedroom with a large photograph of astronauts on the moon. They divorced in 1987. Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy; her mother, Joyce; and her sister, Ms. Scott, who is known as Bear. (Ms. O’Shaughnessy is chief operating officer of Ms. Ride’s company.)

Dr. Ride told interviewers that what drove her was not the desire to become famous or to make history as the first woman in space. All she wanted to do was fly, she said, to soar into space, float around weightless inside the shuttle, look out at the heavens and back at Earth. In photographs of her afloat in the spaceship, she was grinning, as if she had at long last reached the place she was meant to be. 

Sally Ride [Wikipedia]

Women in space

Deceased--Ronald A. Parise

Ronald A. Parise

May 24th, 1951 - May 9th, 2008

"Former astronaut, UV imaging telescope specialist dies"

by

Richard Stewart

May 11th, 2008

Houston Chronicle

Former space shuttle payload specialist Ronald Parise died at his home in Silver Springs, Md., Friday after a three-year battle with brain cancer. He was 56.

An astronomer and computer specialist, Parise was a developer of the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope. He flew on two Space Shuttle missions in 1990 and 1995 that used the telescope to study stars and other celestial objects.

He was born May 24, 1951, in Warren, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Youngstown State University and master's and doctorate degrees in astronomy from the University of Florida.

Always interested in science and technology, he first earned his amateur radio license at age 11 and remained active in radio using the call sign WA4SIR, his wife, Cecelia said.

As a teenager, he became active in the Mahoning Valley Astronomical Society and built two telescopes. He also learned to fly and enjoyed piloting small aircraft until his disease became advanced, his wife said.

In 1984, he became a NASA payload specialist, working on several technical projects in addition to spending 614 hours in orbit and traveling 10.6 million miles in space. He spent 12 years with NASA before taking several other space, astronomy and computer-related jobs.

He and the former Cecilia Sokol met at Youngstown State University and married in 1973. Their son, Nicholas, is in the U.S. Air Force. Their daughter, Katherine, lives in Silver Springs.


From NASA:

Dr. Parise has flown in space twice as part of the ASTRO missions (ASTRO is not an acronym -- it is short for Astronomy). The first mission, ASTRO-1, was rescheduled for 1990 after the Challenger tragedy and finally launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia in the early morning of December 2. It was the beginning of 215 hours in space for Parise. Dr. Parise and his colleagues, Jeffrey Hoffman, Robert Parker and Samuel Durrance, operated a package of three ultraviolet telescopes housed in the cargo bay of the shuttle. They became the first astronomers to operate telescopes in space and observed 135 objects, including double stars, star clusters, galaxies, the planet Jupiter, Comet Levy and the 1987 supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

ASTRO-2 was launched aboard the shuttle Endeavour in the early morning hours of March 2, 1995. It set the record for longest shuttle flight ever when it landed the afternoon of March 18 after 16 days in space. Parise and Durrance reprised their roles as payload specialists to operate the UIT, the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment and the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope.

Ultraviolet observations identify hot and energetic sources in the universe, including those within our own solar system. Observations in these wavelengths can only be done from space because Earth's atmosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation before it can reach the surface. The telescopes also targeted individual stars, stellar systems, nebulae, distant galaxies, quasars, and clusters of galaxies. One of the major discoveries of the ASTRO-2 flight was the detection of primordial helium in intergalactic space, confirming one of the major predictions of the Big Bang Theory.