Thomas Stafford

Thomas Patten Stafford (born September 17, 1930) is an American former Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, and one of 24 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, Stafford served as the commander of Apollo 10, the second crewed mission to orbit the Moon and the first to fly a Lunar Module in lunar orbit, descending to an altitude of nine miles.

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 has flown more than 120 types of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and three types of spacecraft. Since the deaths of Wally Schirra, Eugene Cernan, and John Young, he is the final surviving crew member of Gemini 6A, Gemini 9A, and Apollo 10. He and Vance Brand are the last two surviving crew members of ASTP.

In 1993, the Stafford Air & Space Museum was founded in honor of Stafford in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma. Originally just two rooms, it has grown to over 63,000 square feet of artifact space. The museum 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. The museum is also the home of the Gemini 6 spacecraft that Schirra and Stafford flew in a rendezvous with Gemini 7.