Re: NASA's list of 'dead astronauts'

From: Jim Oberg (jameseoberg_at_houston.rr.com)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 04:20:21 GMT

Henry's right -- Joe Walker broke 100 km...

For other names, note:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/
Oberg sent me some observations about today's "Day of Remembrance" and
NASA's list of fallen heroes.

"There's a hazy line between qualifying for the list, and just barely not
qualifying. Overall, NASA historical researchers did a respectable job,"
Oberg wrote.

He noted with approval that Administrator Sean O'Keefe mentioned Robert
Lawrence, an Air Force space trainee whom many regard as the first black
astronaut, among the fallen:

"Including Robert Lawrence was proper, because his death was while in an
active human spaceflight program and involved official activities, and he
would likely have transferred to NASA in 1969 when the military program was
canceled. But another astronaut in that program, Jim Taylor, was killed
after the program ended, in a T-38 crash on Sept. 4, 1970, while performing
his duties at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base - he
is not memorialized.

"A third military astronaut, Mike Adams, had left the USAF astronaut program
to become an X-15 rocket plane pilot, and he was killed Nov. 15, 1967, at
the end of an X-15 flight that had flown high enough to qualify him for
'astronaut status.' Another X-15 pilot, Joe Walker, had also flown high
enough (80 kilometers, or 50 miles) to earn this status, and he was later
killed in a midair collision, June 6, 1966. Even though the X-15 was a NASA
program, NASA does not recognize these men as 'NASA astronauts.'

"Another X-15 pilot, John McKay, earned astronaut status, but then was
severely injured in an X-15 crash in 1962. After years of medical treatment,
he died on April 27, 1975, from complications of his original injuries. He
is not memorialized.

"The Air Force had an even earlier spaceflight program, the X-20 (or
'Dyna-soar') space plane, so far ahead of its time it was canceled in 1963.
One of the selected astronauts, Russ Rogers, later died in an F-105 jet
explosion, on Sept. 13, 1967, over Okinawa.

"The most poignant 'almost-astronaut' who wasn't memorialized has to be
Charles Jones, who was selected in 1982 to train as a payload specialist
aboard a shuttle mission. Several of his teammates did make spaceflights,
but he didn't, and the program was disbanded. He was aboard American
Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001, that smashed into the north tower of
the World Trade Center. In this online tribute, note the sad phrase, 'There
are no In Memoriams for Charles Jones.'"

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