Astronaut Stafford, on Apollo 10, dies at 93
Also flew U.s.-soviet space mission in 1975
WASHINGTON — Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.s.-soviet space linkup, died Monday. He was 93.
Stafford, a retired Air Force threestar general, took part in four space missions. Before Apollo 10, he flew on two Gemini flights, including the first rendezvous of two U.S. capsules in orbit. He died in a hospital near his Space Coast Florida home, said Max Ary, director of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma.
Stafford was one of 24 NASA astronauts who flew to the moon, but he did not land on it. Only seven of them are still alive.
“Today General Tom Stafford went to the eternal heavens which he so courageously explored as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut as well as a peacemaker in Apollo Soyuz,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said via X, formerly known as Twitter. “Those of us privileged to know him are very sad but grateful we knew a giant.”
After he put away his flight suit, Stafford was the go-to guy for NASA when it sought independent advice on everything from human Mars missions to safety issues to returning to flight after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident. He chaired an oversight group that looked into how to fix the then-flawed Hubble Space Telescope, earning a NASA public service award.
“Tom was involved in so many things that most people were not aware of, such as being known as the ‘Father of Stealth’,” Ary said in an email. Stafford was in charge of the famous “Area 51” desert base that was the site of many UFO theories, but the home of testing of Air Force stealth technologies.
The Apollo 10 mission in May 1969 set the stage for Apollo 11’s historic mission two months later. Stafford and Gene Cernan took the lunar lander nicknamed Snoopy within 9 miles of the moon’s surface. Astronaut John Young stayed behind in the main spaceship dubbed Charlie Brown.
“The most impressive sight, I think, that really changed your view of things is when you first see Earth,” Stafford recalled in a 1997 oral history, talking about the view from lunar orbit.
Then came the moon’s far side: “The Earth disappears. There’s this big black void.”
Apollo 10’s return to Earth set the world’s record for fastest speed by a crewed vehicle at 24,791 mph.
After the moon landings ended, NASA and the Soviet Union decided on a joint docking mission and Stafford, a one-star general at the time, was chosen to command the American side. It meant intensive language training, being followed by the KGB while in the Soviet Union, and lifelong friendships with cosmonauts.
“We have capture,” Stafford radioed in Russian as the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft hooked up. His Russian counterpart, Alexei Leonov, responded in English: “Well done, Tom, it was a good show. I vote for you.”
After, the two teams toured the world together, meeting President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
“It helped prove to the rest of the world that two completely opposite political systems could work together,” Stafford recalled in 2005.
Stafford became an executive for an Oklahoma-based transportation company and later moved to Florida, near Cape Canaveral.
He is survived by his wife. Linda, two sons, two daughters and two stepchildren, according to the museum.