Joseph Kerwin, born February 19, 1932 in Oak Park, Illinois, went into space aboard Skylab 2. He received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Northwestern University Medical School in 1957 and became a naval flight surgeon in 1958.
NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1965, the first physician to selected for astronaut training. He launched aboard Skylab 2 as science pilot May 25, 1973 and returned to Earth June 22. He performed one EVA during the mission with fellow astronaut Pete Conrad lasting 3 hours, 25 minutes.
Karl Henize, born October 17, 1926 in Cincinnati, Ohio, traveled into space aboard Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51-F) July-August 1985 as mission specialist. Chosen as an astronaut by NASA in 1967, he completed jet pilot training at Vance AFB in Enid, Oklahoma(!) and served as support crew for Apollo 15 and Skylab 2-4 missions.
On Challenger, he logged 188 hours in space.
He passed away in October 1993 from high altitude pulmonary edema during a climb of Mount Everest. He was part of test to study how people's bodies would be affected by radiation for long duration space missions.
STS-6 crew (L-R): Donald Peterson, Paul Weitz, Story Musgrave, Karol Bobko
Mission patch
Space Shuttle Challenger took off on her maiden voyage April 4, 1983. It was the first mission during which an EVA was conducted. Its crew consisted of Commander Paul Weitz, Pilot Karol Bobko, Story Musgrave and Donald Peterson. Weitz, the only non-rookie, had served as Pilot on Skylab 2.
Russell Louis Schweickart, born October 25, 1935, was the Lunar Module on Apollo 9, the first manned flight test of the Lunar Module in March 1969. He was backup commander for the first manned Skylab 2 mission in 1973 and was on the support crew for Skylab 4.
Here Rusty talks about his experience during his EVA on Apollo 9.
Astronaut Paul Joseph Weitz, born July 25, 1932 in Erie, Pennsylvania, passed away yesterday October 23 in Flagstaff, Arizona from myelodysplastic syndrome. He was 85.
His first mission into space was aboard Skylab 2, the first manned mission to the space station from May-June 1973.
He was commander of STS-6, the maiden voyage of Challenger in April 1983.
Paul Joseph Weitz, born July 25, 1932, is a veteran of the Skylab 2 mission and commander of the initial Space Shuttle Challenger flight. It was likely that he would have been chosen as Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 20 mission had it not been cancelled.
He's spent 793 hours in space. He performed an EVA during the Skylab mission lasting a little over an hour and a half.
May 25, 1973, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr., Science
Pilot Joseph P. Kerwin and Pilot Paul J. Weitz blasted off in Skylab 2, the
first manned mission to Skylab, which had been launched 11 days prior. The unmanned portion was damaged during its
May 14 launch. The micrometeorite shield
and one of its primary solar arrays tore loose during lift-off. The other primary solar array, which was to
keep the space station cool, was jammed.
Skylab crew had to train on repairing techniques before they
could enter the station. Upon reaching the station, Weitz performed an EVA to
unjam the solar array while Kerwin held onto his legs. This did not work so they tried a hard dock
to Skylab, but this failed as well, since the lathes did not work.
After a total of eight attempts, Weitz and
Kerwin performed another EVA and were successful at docking by disassembling
parts of the station’s mechanism. Then
they deployed a collapsible parasol through the scientific airlock as a sunshade
to cool the interior to livable levels.
For almost a month, the crew continued to make repairs to
Skylab, conduct medical experiments and gather scientific data. They performed a final EVA to fix the stuck
solar panel and increasing electrical power to the station.
They spent four weeks in space and returned to Earth June
22.
During the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, Pete Conrad, born June 2, 1930, became the 3rd man to walk on the moon. He made his first EVA shortly after the lunar module landed in the Ocean of Storms, followed by Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean. This was Conrad's third space flight having flown on Gemini 5 and Gemini 11. He later commanded the Skylab 2 mission.
When Pete stepped off the ladder onto the landing pad, he said:
"Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
He was referring to his shorter stature compared to Neil Armstrong. Pete made a $500 bet with Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci that he would say those words, proving that NASA does not write a script for the astronauts. He never collected on his bet, though.
