News RIP Donald E. Williams

[Urwumpe]

Just discovered that Donald E. Williams had died last week at the age of 74 years. He was member of the "Thirty-Five New Guys" astronaut group 8, joining NASA in 1978 and flew on two Space Shuttle missions.

He flew as pilot of STS-51D, when a makeshift flyswatter was installed on the RMS for attempting to activate the satellite Syncom IV-3.

Later he was commander of STS-34, deploying the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter.

He had spent 11 days and 23.5 hours in space.

He left NASA in 1990 and was employed at SAIC until 2006.

 

[Star Voyager]

Was talking with Mike McCulley in November and he mentioned for 34 that Don wanted absolutely no identifying factors (shuttle name, mission name, etc.) in the patch because of the nightmare with 41F/51E/51D. I wish there was more stories about him, I always really love reading about the TFNG's and 80's shuttle stuff. Godpeed, Don.

 

[Mafo]

because of the nightmare with 41F/51E/51D.

I wanted to find more info since I didn't know about this:
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=15242

 

[Capt_hensley]

^Wow what a read...

 

[GLS]

I wanted to find more info since I didn't know about this:
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=15242

AFAIK it is mostly correct, but STS 41-F (a.k.a STS-16) was to be the 2º flight of Discovery (not Challenger) sometime in August 1984, right after STS 41-D in June. Challenger was planned for the cancelled STS 41-E (a.k.a STS-15) with the IUS+"spy satellite".