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Alan Bean, Don Peterson Honored in Spaceport Ceremonies

Alan Bean Honored
Alan Bean Deploys the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package
Astronauts Paul Weitz and Don Peterson

By Bob Granath
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Two veteran NASA astronauts who recently passed away were honored on May 30, 2018, in separate wreath-laying ceremonies at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Alan Bean, who flew during the Apollo and Skylab programs, was remembered in a ceremony at the Apollo-Saturn V Complex. Space shuttle astronaut Don Peterson was honored at the Atlantis exhibit.

Bean was the fourth person to walk on the Moon as lunar module pilot on Apollo 12 in November 1969. He went on to command the 59-day Skylab 3 mission in 1973. After his retirement from NASA, Bean became an accomplished artist capturing spaceflight from the eyes of one who has flown in space and walked on the lunar surface. He died in Houston on May 26, 2018, at the age of 86.

Speaking of Bean, Kennedy Director Bob Cabana stated, “Today we honor a great American.

“I sure learned a lot from him,” he said recalling his experiences with Bean. “The world is a lot better place for having had Al in it.”

Peterson served as a mission specialist on STS-6, the maiden flight of the space shuttle Challenger in April 1983. During the six-day mission, Peterson and fellow mission specialist Story Musgrave performed a four-hour spacewalk, the first of the shuttle program.

At the ceremony to honor Peterson, Cabana noted that spacewalks played a crucial role in construction and ongoing operations aboard the International Space Station.

“Don and Story Musgrave performed that first shuttle spacewalk testing out those new pressure suits,” he said. “They set the standard of how we built the space station.”

A native of Wheeler, Texas, Bean earned an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Texas in 1955. He attended flight training as a naval aviator and spent four years with a jet attack squadron. He went on to become a Navy test pilot, flying several types of aircraft before being selected among NASA’s third group of astronauts in October 1963.

Bean went on to lead the Astronaut Candidate Operations and Training Group within the Astronaut Office before leaving NASA in June 1981 to devote his full time to painting.

But Bean and other NASA retirees would return, speaking on the space program in Enrichment Lectures for incoming astronaut candidates.

“Alan Bean was the most extraordinary person I ever met,” said former astronaut Mike Massimino, who benefited from Bean’s mentoring and flew on two space shuttle missions. “What was truly extraordinary was his deep caring for others and his willingness to inspire and teach by sharing his personal journey.”

Born in Winona, Mississippi, Peterson received a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1955. He went on to earn a master’s in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio in 1962. Originally selected for the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program, he became a NASA astronaut in September 1969.

Peterson resigned from NASA in November 1984, after that working as a consultant in human aerospace operations.

As a part of the agency’s Oral History Project, Peterson looked back on his career explaining that he considered it an honor to be an astronaut,

“I’ve had the privilege of working with a tremendous number of really good people,” he said. “The workforce at NASA, the engineering and technical people are just superb.”

First Space Shuttle Spacewalk