Don Leslie Lind with his two sisters, Charlene and Kathleen. He attended Midvale Elementary School and graduated from Jordan High School in 1948. He was an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America, its highest rank. He received a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in physics from the University of Utah in 1953.

As a Naval Aviator, Lind volunteered to take high-altitude photo emulsions of cosmic rays for the University of California, Berkeley during flights. This helped him enroll at Berkeley, where Lind researched pion-nucleon scattering in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and earned a PhD in high-energy nuclear physics in 1964. During a leave of absence from NASA, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1975 to 1976.

Upon completing his undergraduate education, Lind was initially drafted by the United States Army as a potential infantryman amid the Korean War; following "expert maneuvering," he instead enrolled at the United States Navy Officer Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island. After jokingly requesting flight training, Lind was unable to change his assignment and found that he enjoyed flying. He received his Wings of Gold in 1955 at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and served four years on active duty with the Navy at San Diego and aboard the carrier USS Hancock. Lind logged more than 4,500 hours of flight time during his naval and NASA careers, 4,000 of which were in jet aircraft.

NASA career

Pre-astronaut and selection

thumb|Lind with [[Vance D. Brand (left) as a Skylab rescue crew]]

From 1964 to 1966, Lind worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a space physicist.

Lind was selected as a pilot with other "Original Nineteen" astronauts in contrast to the fourth and sixth astronaut groups, which consisted of medical doctors and Ph.D. scientists who were not qualified pilots. However, he and Group 5 colleague Bruce McCandless II (the salutatorian of his United States Naval Academy class and the recent recipient of a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University) were nonetheless treated as scientist-astronauts by NASA due to their academic training and lack of test pilot experience that Deke Slayton, Al Shepard and other NASA managers emphasized; among other factors, this would delay their progression in the flight rotation.

Apollo

Along with geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt, Lind helped to develop and demonstrate the flight plan for the Apollo 11 EVA (including the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages that would continue to relay data following the missions) and other tools used on the lunar surface. He also served as a capsule communicator on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. Schmitt, Lind and Owen Garriott were the only scientist-astronauts to receive advanced helicopter training, a key prerequisite for piloting the Apollo Lunar Module. Due to standard crew rotations, it is believed that Lind would have followed Schmitt as the second scientist-astronaut Lunar Module Pilot on one of the canceled Apollo missions or projected long-range Apollo Applications Program lunar survey missions.

Skylab

Amid the gradual cancellation of the later Apollo missions and the devolution of the AAP into the Skylab program, Lind was formally reassigned to the latter effort in August 1969; according to Slayton, who noted Lind's disappointment, "with the cancellation of [[Apollo 20|[Apollo] 20]], I could see I just wasn't going to have a flight for him". Together, Lind and Group 6 scientist-astronaut William B. Lenoir comprised the Earth Resources Group of the Skylab Branch Office.

Astronauts knew little of why or how they were assigned to missions. By the Skylab era, Lind was informally perceived as a "scientist-pilot" because of his doctorate. According to David Shayler, Lind "could never understand why he was not on the [Skylab 4] crew as science pilot" due to his work on the mission's Earth resources package; this could be attributed in part to seniority and specialization, as all of the prime crew science pilots were drawn from Group 4. Additionally, Skylab 4 science pilot Edward Gibson (like Lind, an atmospheric physicist) had taken on a research program in solar physics and worked on the Apollo Telescope Mount while Lind was still on track to be assigned to a lunar mission. Although he cross-trained with Lenoir and briefly proposed swapping positions with his crewmate, Lind elected to retain his original assignment due to the greater likelihood of the rescue mission (which could only accommodate the commander and pilot) amid the space program's dwindling flight opportunities. However, Abbey—a close friend of Schmitt who would eventually oversee Astronaut Corps assignments as director of flight operations from 1976 to 1988—took umbrage at Lind's cooperation with a 1969 report in The Washington Post that exposed rampant dissatisfaction among the scientist-astronauts. He also alleged that Lind complained about "any and all subjects" related to the space program, associating him with a coterie of scientist-astronauts (including Story Musgrave) who perceived Abbey as a "faceless 'horse-holder' who had worked his way into a powerful job." Although Abbey could not forestall Lind's eventual flight, their acrimonious relationship played a key role in hindering the astronaut's progression in the flight rotation. He was reassigned to the Science and Applications Directorate in 1974, formally codifying his status as a scientist-astronaut.

Shuttle era

thumb|right|The crew of the STS-51-B mission. Lind is at the far left

For the Space Shuttle program, Lind was reassigned as a mission specialist along with McCandless (who, unlike Lind, continued to train as a potential Space Shuttle orbiter pilot until 1983)

STS-51-B, the Spacelab-3 science mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on April 29, 1985. Following several delays, this was the first fully operational Spacelab mission. A space program aficionado has speculated that Lind's science-dominant assignment was a "reward... for sticking around so long," in contrast to the majority of early STS missions that were centered around routinized satellite deployments. The seven-man crew investigated crystal growth, drop dynamics leading to containerless material processing, atmospheric trace gas spectroscopy, solar and planetary atmospheric simulation, cosmic rays, laboratory animals and human medical monitoring. He was also awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1974, and the NASA Space Flight Medal following his Challenger flight. and after STS-51-B spoke in General Conference about his experience. He and his wife Kathleen served as public affairs missionaries in the Europe West Area of the Church, as temple missionaries in the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, and, respectively, as a counselor and an assistant matron in the presidency of the Portland Oregon Temple. During his Astronaut Corps service, Lind frequently spoke at LDS Church events throughout the United States.

Lind's wife Kathleen died on June 12, 2022.

Lind died on August 30, 2022, in Logan, Utah, with many of his children and grandchildren at his bedside. His funeral was planned for September 10 in Smithfield.

See also

  • The Astronaut Monument

References

  • Don Lind's speech to Utah School Children
  • Lind's Utah State biography