Rusty Schweickart
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (also Schweikart; born October 25, 1935) is an American aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, as well as a former business executive and government executive.
Rusty Schweickart | |
|---|---|
Schweickart in 1971 | |
| Born | Russell Louis Schweickart October 25, 1935 Neptune, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, MS) |
| Awards | NASA Distinguished Service Medal |
| Space career | |
| NASA astronaut | |
| Rank | Captain, USAF |
Time in space | 10d 1h 0m |
| Selection | NASA Group 3 (1963) |
Total EVAs | 1 |
Total EVA time | 1h 17m |
| Missions | Apollo 9 |
Mission insignia | |
| Retirement | 1977 |
| Website | Official website |
Schweickart was selected in 1963 for NASA's third astronaut group. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, the first crewed flight test of the lunar module, on which he performed the first in-space test of the portable life support system used by the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon. As backup commander of the first crewed Skylab mission in 1973, he was responsible for developing the hardware and procedures used by the first crew to perform critical in-flight repairs of the Skylab station. After Skylab, he served for a time as Director of User Affairs in NASA's Office of Applications.
Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California Governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology, then was appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years, serving as chairman for three.
In 1984–85 he co-founded the Association of Space Explorers and later in 2002 co-founded the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending Earth from asteroid impacts, along with fellow former astronaut Ed Lu and two planetary scientists. He served for a period as its chair before becoming its chair emeritus.