Rusty Schweickart

Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (also Schweikart; born October 25, 1935) is an American aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, business executive, and government executive.

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, Schweickart 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.

Early life and education

Rusty Schweickart was born October 25, 1935, in Neptune Township, New Jersey, and grew up on a "hardscrabble" farm of producing hay and vegetables plus raising poultry and cows. As a youth his ambition was to be a pilot and a cowboy.

He was active in the Boy Scouts of America. He earned the rank of First Class. His hobbies include golf, bicycling, and hiking. He was married twice and has seven children. He was the youngest in the group. The third group of astronauts performed jungle training. Schweickart partnered with Clifton Williams. On March 21, 1966, he was named as the backup pilot for Roger B. Chaffee on Apollo 1—which was to have been the first crewed Apollo flight but was destroyed during a ground test accident. His fellow crewmen were backup Command Pilot James McDivitt and Senior Pilot David Scott, both veterans of Project Gemini. In December 1966, this crew was promoted to fly the first crewed Earth orbital test of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), with Schweickart as Lunar Module Pilot.

Spaceflight experience

Apollo 9 was flown in March 1969. Schweickart spent just over 241 hours in space, and performed the first extravehicular activity (EVA) of the Apollo program, testing the portable life support system that was later used by the twelve astronauts who walked on the Moon. The flight plan called for him to demonstrate an emergency transfer from the lunar module to the command module (CM) using handrails on the LM, but he began to suffer from space adaptation syndrome on the first day in orbit, forcing the postponement of the EVA.

Skylab and beyond

Although Deke Slayton (who was responsible for all flight assignments as Director of Flight Crew Operations) opined that Schweickart "would have been a logical lunar module pilot" on subsequent lunar missions—indeed, the standard rotation of the era would have placed him on the backup crew for Apollo 12 and the prime crew of Apollo 15 —"that bout of space sickness had everybody worried ... it didn't seem like a good idea to put him back in ... at this point." Following his mission, Schweickart "basically called the shot that I really didn't want to be assigned to a flight until we knew more about motion sickness" and became "[a] motion sickness guinea pig" for six months; while "[he] didn't learn that much" during the testing, it is now accepted that as many as half of space travelers suffer from space adaptation syndrome to some extent.

The protracted testing period also contributed to Schweickart not being assigned to the Apollo 12 backup crew. When he returned to Houston, "Al Shepard [Slayton's deputy], for whatever reason, instead of putting me back on Apollo, put me on to Skylab ... Al had his own agenda of who went where and whatnot. So I cycled into Skylab at the time." Schweickart has also observed that he was "not one of Al's boys", alluding to the political liberalism that he shared with his then-wife, Clare; Slayton felt that her fervent political stances (including civil rights activism) "caused him a few problems with his colleagues."

Along with backup science pilot Story Musgrave and backup pilot Bruce McCandless II, Schweickart was assigned as backup commander of Skylab 2, the first crewed American space station mission, which flew during the spring of 1973. Following the loss of the space station's thermal shield during launch, he assumed responsibility for the development of hardware and procedures for erecting an emergency solar shade and deploying a jammed solar array wing, operations that saved the space station.

After serving on the support crew of Skylab 4, Schweickart was more interested in cultivating managerial skills than "[going] over to the Space Shuttle development work which was under way ... by that time, I had, you know, done a lot of work on Gemini in a support role, and then, of course, everything on Apollo, and now all of this on Skylab, and to go cycle back into the very beginning of the Space Shuttle, which was not going to fly for, at that point, something like six years and best guess of anybody in the business was maybe eight years, I figured, you know, another eight years of basically going to the same kinds of meetings, making the same kinds of decisions, going to the same places ... it was like 'been there, done that.'"

While retaining his flight status, he was reassigned to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as Director of User Affairs in the Office of Applications in 1974. In this capacity, he was responsible for transferring NASA technology (primarily Landsat 1 applications) to the outside world and working with technology users (including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and water resources managers) to bring an understanding of their needs into NASA. He came to regard this as a "thankless position" and a "very hard sell" to potential clients due to their intrinsic resistance to new processes; this and the dearth of immediate flight opportunities ultimately precipitated his departure from NASA in 1977.

Schweickart retired from ALOHA Networks, Inc. in 1998 where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer from 1996 through 1998. ALOHA was a data communications company specializing in high performance, wireless internet access equipment. The B612 Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to defending Earth from asteroid impacts. He has been an advocate of increasing NASA's annual budget by $250M–$300M over a 10-year period to more fully catalog the NEOs that can pose a threat to Earth and also provide a deflection capability.

Schweickart has also spoken and taught at the Esalen Institute, and currently serves as the B612 Foundation's Chair Emeritus.

Awards and honors

thumb|Rusty Schweickart in 2022

He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (1969) and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale De la Vaulx Medal (1970) for his Apollo 9 flight. He also received the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award (Emmy Award) in 1969 for transmitting the first live TV pictures from space. In 1973, Schweickart was also awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his leadership role in the Skylab rescue efforts. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983 and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997. Main-belt asteroid was named in his honor.

In 2024, Schweickart received The Legendary Explorer Award by The Explorers Club .

In 1892, his grandfather Jacques Schweickart emigrated from Lembach, a small town located in Alsace, France, to the United States. After visiting Lembach several times, Schweickart has been awarded honorary citizenship of the town. He also appeared in the television series The Universe in the episodes "The End of the Earth: Deep Space Threats to Our Planet" and "Stopping Armageddon".

References

External links

Official website of Rusty Schweickart
Astronautix biography of Rusty Schweickart
Schweickart at Encyclopedia of Science
, video, 8:50
No Frames, No Boundaries Connecting with the whole planet—from space by Russell Schweickart
Question & Answer session with Rusty Schweickart after a talk he gave at CERN, June 1969, audio, 46:39