Six Most Amazing Astronauts
Posted by Socyberty
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Gus Grissom
Gus was a very experienced astronaut, working in the Gemini program and piloting the Liberty Bell 7. In the Apollo 1 mission, he was the commanding pilot. Grissom, along with his other pilots, were killed in the Apollo 1 accident. Once he was dead, his family passed on his spacesuit, worn during his Mercury 4 mission to the astronaut’s hall of fame.
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Ed White
Born in San Antonio, Texas Ed was considered a “High Flyer” by the NASA cooperation. In his past experiences, he piloted Gemini 4, and was the second command pilot for the mission Gemini 7. He was to be the command module pilot for the first fateful Apollo mission, AS-204. He also died in a failed test of an Apollo 1 space shuttle.
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Roger Chaffe
Chaffe had no previous experience as an astronaut, but had instead worked for NASA mostly on creating the shuttles that were to be sent to space. He is responsible for the satellite that took pictures of missiles over in Cuba, which the president later broadcasted with Chaffe on television. He Apollo 1 was his first mission as an astronaut, and he was killed during a training course.
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Fred Haise
Haise was a pilot on the Apollo missions Apollo 8, Apollo 11, and Apollo 16. He flew as the Lunar Module Pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970. He was also scheduled as commander for the Apollo 19 mission. Then he flew five flights as the Commander of the space shuttleEnterprise, in 1977. He was selected to command the STS-2 mission to rescue the Skylab space station, but was cancelled because of the long pauses in the Shuttle’s development.
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James Lovell
Lovell was the backup pilot for Gemini 4, and his first spaceflight was as pilot of Gemini 7 in December 1965. Lovell was scheduled to be the backup commander of Gemini 10, but after the deaths of Elliott See and Charles Bassett, he became backup commander of Gemini 9A. In November 1966 made his second flight into space as commander of Gemini 12. After these two flights, he had spent more time in space than any other person.
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John Swigert
He was one of three astronauts aboard the Apollo 13 moon mission, which was launched on April 11, 1970. Originally part of the backup crew for the mission, he was assigned to the mission just days before launch, replacing astronaut Ken Mattingly.