Thomas Patten Stafford (September 17, 1930 – March 18, 2024) was an American Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, and one of 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the Moon. He also served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1969 to 1971.

After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, Stafford was commissioned in the United States Air Force, flying the F-86 Sabre before becoming a test pilot. He was selected to become an astronaut in 1962, and flew aboard Gemini 6A in 1965 and Gemini 9A in 1966. In 1969, he commanded Apollo 10, the second crewed mission to orbit the Moon. Here, he and Gene Cernan became the first to fly an Apollo Lunar Module in lunar orbit, descending to an altitude of .

In 1975, Stafford was the commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) flight, the first joint U.S.-Soviet space mission. A brigadier general at the time, he became the first general officer to fly in space. He was the first member of his Naval Academy class to pin on the first, second, and third stars of a general officer. He made six rendezvous in space and logged 507 hours of space flight.

Stafford flew more than 120 types of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and three types of spacecraft. After the deaths of Wally Schirra, Eugene Cernan, and John Young, he was the last surviving crew member of Gemini 6A, Gemini 9A, and Apollo 10.

In 1993, the Stafford Air & Space Museum was founded in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma. Originally just two rooms, it has grown to over 63,000 square feet (5,850&nbsp;m<sup>2</sup>) of artifact space. It is a Smithsonian affiliate and is the only museum in the world to house test-fired engines that would have been used in the Space Race: a U.S. F-1 engine and a Soviet NK-33 engine. It holds the Gemini 6 spacecraft that he and Schirra flew in a rendezvous with Gemini 7.

Early life and education

Thomas Patten Stafford was born on September 17, 1930, in Weatherford, Oklahoma, to Dr. Thomas Sabert Stafford, a dentist, and Mary Ellen Stafford (), a former teacher. Thomas Sabert Stafford was diagnosed with skin cancer in 1944, and died on June 22, 1948. Mary Stafford remained in Weatherford until her death in August 1987. Stafford became interested in aviation following the start of World War II, as the nearby city El Reno has an Army Air Corps training base. Stafford began making model airplanes, and made his first flight at the age of 14 in a Piper Cub. He attended Weatherford High School and graduated in 1948.

In his senior year of high school, Stafford was recruited to play football at the University of Oklahoma, where he had received a Navy ROTC scholarship. Stafford applied to the United States Naval Academy, and was accepted to the Class of 1952. Stafford intended to play football for the Navy Midshipmen, but sustained a career-ending knee injury during a preseason practice session. After his freshman year, he sailed aboard the battleship , where his roommate was John Young, his future Apollo 10 command module pilot. After his second year, Stafford spent a summer at NAS Pensacola, where he was exposed to naval aviation and flew in the SNJ Trainer. On a trip home to Weatherford, Stafford began dating his future wife, Faye Shoemaker. After his third year, he served aboard , a destroyer escorting USS Missouri. While visiting home during his fourth year, Stafford became engaged to Faye in December 1951. In the spring of 1952, he was selected in a lottery to join the United States Air Force upon graduation. Stafford graduated from the Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering with honors in 1952, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force.

Military service

In high school, Stafford served in the 45th Infantry Division in the Oklahoma National Guard. Soon after, he transferred to the division's 158th Field Artillery Battalion, where he plotted targets for artillery fires.

Stafford attended the first phase of pilot training at Greenville AFB, Mississippi, San Marcos AFB, Texas and Connally AFB, Texas, where he flew the T-6 Texan and the T-33 Shooting Star. While on a training mission at San Marcos AFB, he was involved in a mid-air collision with another student pilot. Stafford and his instructor were able to land, but the other student pilot was killed. He graduated from pilot training on September 1, 1953, and moved to Tyndall AFB, Florida, for F-86 Sabre training. In 1954, Stafford was assigned to the 54th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, where he flew the F-86 mission for Arctic defense. In 1955, Stafford transferred to the 496th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Hahn Air Base (now Frankfurt-Hahn Airport), West Germany, again flying interceptor mission in the F-86 Sabre. In addition, he served as an assistant maintenance officer, developing his interest in applying for the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School. At the end of his assignment, Stafford was accepted at Harvard Business School, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in September 1962. Three days after arriving, he was accepted to NASA Group Two.

Project Gemini

Gemini 6A

thumb|right|Stafford (left) with his Gemini 6A crewmate [[Wally Schirra (1965)]]

Stafford was originally scheduled to fly with Alan Shepard on the first crewed Gemini mission, Gemini 3, but was replaced when Shepard was removed from the flight rotation after being diagnosed with Ménière's disease. Stafford was paired with Wally Schirra as pilot and commander, respectively, and the pair was reassigned as the backup crew for Gemini 3, and primary crew for Gemini 6.

Apollo 10

In the spring of 1968, Deke Slayton announced that the previous backup crew for Apollo 2 would become the primary crew for Apollo 10. In preparation for the mission, Stafford helped design a color camera to replace the grainy black-and-white video broadcast before from space; he felt that public outreach was a vital aspect of the mission. The command module (CM) was nicknamed "Charlie Brown"; the lunar module (LM) was nicknamed "Snoopy". The aircraft became operational in less than five years. During Desert Storm, it was the only plane that secured airspace above Baghdad on the opening night of combat in 1991. The F-117A flew less than two percent of the air-to-ground combat missions, but it was responsible for attacking 43 percent of the Iraqi strategic targets.

In early 1979, before giving a speech at the Chicago chapter of the Air Force Association, Stafford met with the chairman of Northrop whose company had started a low-speed experimental stealth reconnaissance program for DARPA and the U.S. Army using smooth surfaces. On a piece of hotel stationery, Stafford wrote specs for range, payload, radar cross-section, and gross take-off weight for an advanced stealth technology bomber, which later became designated as the B-2. To further enhance his emphasis on stealth, he started a competition between the firms of Boeing, General Dynamics, and also included Lockheed because of their stealth technology, to develop a stealth supercruise missile. Out of that came the AGM-129 Stealth Cruise missile developed by General Dynamics. It was a 2,000 nautical mile super stealth nuclear-armed cruise missile with a W-80-1 warhead and 130 Kilotons yield. He then started the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program to replace the F-15 (now the F-22) as an air superiority fighter. Stafford retired to Norman, Oklahoma, on November 1, 1979.

Stafford and Soviet commander Alexey Leonov, became lasting friends, with Leonov being the godfather of Stafford's younger children. Stafford gave a eulogy in Russian at Leonov's funeral in October 2019.

Personal life and death

In 1953, Stafford married Faye Shoemaker from Weatherford, Oklahoma. Faye and Stafford had two daughters, Dionne (born 1954) and Karin (born 1957). Faye and Stafford divorced in 1985. Stafford later married Linda Ann Dishman in December 1988.

Awards and honors

thumb|Thomas Stafford's Space Medal of Honor display

Throughout his career, Stafford received numerous awards for his accomplishments. He was a recipient of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Award (1969), the Harmon International Aviation Trophy (1966), the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award (1969), the Society of Experimental Test Pilots James H. Doolittle Award (1979) and the Elmer A. Sperry Award (2008). Stafford received recognition from the U.S. and Russian governments, with the U.S. Congressional Space Medal of Honor (1993) and the Russian Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" (2011). the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Octave Chanute Award (1976), the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Space Award, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1976), the National Geographic Society's General Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy (1975), and the A. B. Honts Award as the outstanding graduate from the USAF Experimental Test Pilot School. The RNASA Foundation awarded him with their highest honor, the National Space Trophy, in 1993.

In 2011, Stafford was awarded the National Aeronautic Association Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, and the Air Force Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014. International Air & Space Hall of Fame, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and the International Space Hall of Fame. He was a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and a member of the Explorers Club. In 2019, he was awarded the General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award.

Honoraria: Stafford was the recipient of a Doctorate of Science from Oklahoma City University; a Doctorate of Laws from Western State University; a Doctorate of Communications from Emerson College, and a Doctorate of Aeronautical Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The Stafford Building at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City is named after him.

In September 2018, Stafford was depicted in a corn maze in Hydro, Oklahoma.

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">

File:Dmitry Medvedev 12 April 2011-16.jpeg|Stafford was presented with the Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" from Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on April 12, 2011, at the Moscow Kremlin

File:17 14 128 stafford.jpg|Bust of Stafford at the USAF Museum

</gallery>

In media

  • 1974 TV movie Houston, We've Got a Problem – played by himself
  • 1990 album Impurity by British rock band New Model Army – quotes Stafford in the song "Space"
  • 1996 TV movie Apollo 11 – was played by Tony Carlin.
  • 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon – played by Steve Hofvendahl.
  • 2013 Pilot episode of The Americans on FX, played by an uncredited actor

See also

  • List of spaceflight records

Notes

References

  • Lieutenant General Thomas P. Stafford United States Air Force biography