Spaceflight Insider

News Archive / Tagged: obituary

  • Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden passes away

    Laurel KornfeldMarch 19th, 2020

    Alfred M. Worden, a former astronaut who served as the command module pilot of NASA’s Apollo 15 Moon mission, died in his sleep on Wednesday, March 18, at a Sugar Land, Texas, assisted living center, at the age of 88.

  • Astronaut Owen K. Garriott passes away aged 88

    Joe LatrellApril 15th, 2019

    Skylab and Space Shuttle veteran Owen K. Garriott died Monday at age 88 in his home in Huntsville Alabama. The news was released by Garriott’s family to the Association of Space Explorers.

  • Untethered: Humanity’s first free flying astronaut, Bruce McCandless, passes away aged 80

    Jason RhianDecember 22nd, 2017

    The first person to conduct a free, untethered spacewalk, Bruce McCandless II, has passed away at the age of 80. McCandless was a naval aviator and the son of a U.S. Medal of Honor recipient who served as the CAPCOM when Neil Armstrong successfully placed humanity’s first footprints on the Moon and who helped redefine what it was believed astronauts can do.

  • Skylab astronaut Paul Weitz dies at age 85

    Derek RichardsonOctober 24th, 2017

    Former NASA astronaut Paul J. Weitz died on October 23, 2017, in Flagstaff, Arizona, after a battle with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS), a form of cancer, according to Erie News Now. The two-time space flyer was 85.

  • The last man on the Moon, Gene Cernan, passes away at 82

    Bart LeahyJanuary 16th, 2017

    Astronaut Eugene "Gene" A. Cernan died today, Jan. 16, 2017, at age 82. He flew into space three times – aboard Gemini IX in 1966, Apollo 10 in 1969, and as commander of Apollo 17 in 1972. While he resented the hiatus in human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, he is still known by the title noted in his autobiography, “The Last Man on the Moon.”

  • Silent Seven: John Glenn, last Mercury astronaut, dies at 95

    Jason RhianDecember 8th, 2016

    He was the first American to ride fire to orbit – and the last of his Project Mercury brothers to pass beyond the veil. John Herschel Glenn, a NASA astronaut and former senator from Ohio, died on Dec. 8, 2016. He was 95. He leaves behind a legacy of space exploration that extends 36 years.

  • XCOR co-founder Aleta Jackson dies

    Curt GodwinDecember 7th, 2016

    XCOR Aerospace co-founder Loretta “Aleta” Jackson DeLong died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016, from complications stemming from chemotherapy treatments in Midland, Texas. The aerospace pioneer was 68.