RIP Lt. General Thomas Patten Stafford, September 17, 1930 - March 18, 2024
- A small-town (Weatherford, Oklahoma) kid.
- His mother arrived in Oklahoma in a covered wagon and lived to see her son travel to the moon.
- US Naval Academy Graduate.
- US Air Force pilot and test pilot; first in his class in the Air Force Test Pilot School.
- Co-wrote the Pilot’s Handbook for Performance Flight Testing and the Aerodynamics Handbook for Performance Flight Testing.
- Selected in NASA’s second class of astronauts in 1962.
- Pilot of the Gemini 6A mission, December 15 - 16, 1965
- Command Pilot of the Gemini 9A mission, June 3 - 6, 1966
- Commander of the Apollo 10 mission, May 18 - 26, 1969
- Commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission, July 15 - 21, 1975
- First member of his Naval Academy graduating class to pin on the first, second and third stars of a General Officer.
- First General Officer to fly in space.
- Accomplished 6 space rendezvous and logged 507 hours of space flight.
- Managed development of the Air Force XST, which later evolved into the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter aircraft and wrote many of the specifications for the Advanced Technology Bomber, which later became the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
- Recipient of numerous military decorations and civilian honors as well as four honorary doctorate degrees.
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