Conquering Space

There was a time when space exploration kept people glued to their televisions as astronauts and cosmonauts rode the equivalent of flying bombs into Earth orbit and beyond. Six College of Engineering alumni were among those astronauts: Ed White (MSE AA '59, ScD hon. '65), Jack Lousma (BSE AA '59, ScD hon. '73), James McDivitt (BSE AA '59, ScD hon. '65), James Irwin (MSE '57, ScD hon. '71), Alfred Worden (MSE '63, ScD hon. '71) and Theodore C. Freeman (MSE AA '60).

McDivitt and White flew together aboard Gemini 4, a mission in which White became the first American to walk in space.

A second all-University of Michigan crew of Worden, Irwin and David Scott flew aboard Apollo 15 -- Scott and Irwin landed on the moon and became the first astronauts to drive the lunar rover. (Scott attended the University of Michigan for one year. In 1971, he also received an honorary degree.) Meanwhile, Worden remained in orbit and, although he didn't walk on the moon, he did take the most notable spacewalk ever, leaving the orbiter at a distance of 200,000 miles from Earth.

Lousma commanded Skylab and piloted the third space shuttle flight. And McDivitt was commander of Apollo 9. Freeman, selected by NASA in October 1964, died a year later in the crash of a T-38 jet, never having made the leap into space.