65 Facts About David Scott

David Randolph Scott was born on June 6,1932 and is an American retired test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the seventh person to walk on the Moon.

David Scott retired from the Air Force in 1975 with the rank of colonel, and more than 5,600 hours of logged flying time.

David Scott would have been the second American astronaut to walk in space had Gemini8 not made an emergency abort.

David Scott was born June 6,1932, at Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas.

David Scott's father was Tom William Scott, a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Corps who would rise to the rank of brigadier general; his mother was Marian Scott.

David Scott lived his earliest years at Randolph Field, where his father was stationed, before moving to an air base in Indiana, and then in 1936 to Manila in the Philippines, then under US rule.

David Scott was active in the Boy Scouts of America, achieving its second-highest rank, Life Scout.

David Scott wanted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point but lacked connections to secure one.

David Scott took a government civil service examination for competitive appointments and accepted a swimming scholarship to the University of Michigan where he was an honor student in the engineering school.

David Scott still wanted to fly and wanted to be commissioned in the newly established United States Air Force.

The Air Force Academy was founded in 1954, the year David Scott graduated from West Point; an interim arrangement had been made whereby a quarter of West Point and United States Naval Academy graduates could volunteer to be commissioned as Air Force officers.

David Scott did six months of primary pilot training at Marana Air Base in Arizona, beginning there in July 1954.

David Scott completed Undergraduate Pilot Training at Webb Air Force Base, Texas, in 1955, then went through gunnery training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, and Luke Air Force Base, Arizona.

From April 1956 to July 1960, David Scott flew with the 32d Tactical Fighter Squadron at Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands, flying F-86 Sabres and F-100 Super Sabres.

The weather there was often poor, and David Scott's piloting skills were tested.

David Scott served in Europe during the Cold War and tensions were often high between the US and Soviet Union.

David Scott hoped to advance his career by becoming a test pilot, to be trained at Edwards Air Force Base.

David Scott was counseled that the best way to get into test pilot school was to gain a graduate degree in aeronautics.

David Scott reported to the US Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards in July 1962.

The commandant of the school was Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier, whom David Scott idolized; David Scott got to fly several times with him.

David Scott was selected for the Aerospace Research Pilot School, at Edwards, where those intended as Air Force astronauts were trained.

David Scott was accepted as one of the fourteen Group3 astronauts later that year.

David Scott spent most of 1964 and 1965 in residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David Scott was highly regarded by his colleagues for his piloting credentials; another Group3 astronaut, Michael Collins, wrote later that David Scott's selection to fly with Armstrong helped convince him that NASA knew what it was doing.

David Scott found Armstrong something of a taskmaster, but the two men greatly respected each other and worked well together.

One part of the training that David Scott undertook without Armstrong was riding the Vomit Comet, where he practiced in preparation for a planned spacewalk.

On March 16,1966, Armstrong and David Scott were launched into space, a flight originally planned to last three days.

Gemini8 splashed down in the Western Pacific on the day of launch; the mission lasted only ten hours, and the early termination meant that David Scott's spacewalk was scrubbed.

David Scott's competence was recognized by NASA when, five days after the brief flight, he was assigned to an Apollo crew.

The LM was to separate from the CSM during the mission; if it failed to return, David Scott would have to run the entire spacecraft for reentry, normally a three-man job.

David Scott would have to go rescue the LM if it could not perform the rendezvous, and if it could not dock, would have to assist McDivitt and Schweickart in performing an extravehicular activity or spacewalk, back to the CSM.

David Scott was somewhat unhappy, though, that CSM-103, which he had worked on extensively, would stay with Apollo8, with Apollo9 given CSM-104.

David Scott was supposed to do a spacewalk from the LM's hatch to that of the CM the following day, proving that this could be done under emergency conditions, but because of concerns about his condition, simply exited the LM while Scott stood in the CM's hatch, bringing in experiments and photographing Schweickart.

Already having an interest in geology, David Scott made time during the training for his crew to go on field trips with Caltech geologist Lee Silver.

David Scott took panoramic photographs of the surrounding area from an elevated position and scouted the terrain they would be driving across the next day.

Once there, David Scott marveled at the beauty of the scene.

Once this was done, David Scott re-entered the LM, and soon thereafter, Falcon lifted off from the Moon.

David Scott regretted the lack of quarantine, which he felt would have given them time to recover from the flight, as the demands on their time were heavy.

David Scott carried the covers into the CM in his spacesuit; they were transferred to the LM en route to the Moon and landed there with the astronauts.

David Scott sent 100 of them to Eiermann, and in late 1971, against the astronauts' wishes, the covers were offered for sale by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger.

Newsweek reported that "there are no forthcoming missions for which he [David Scott] is being considered".

David Scott related in his autobiography that Alan Shepard, then head of the Astronaut Office, had offered him the choice between backing up Apollo17 or serving as a special assistant on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint mission with the Soviet Union; David Scott had chosen the latter.

In 1973 David Scott was offered the job of deputy director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, located at Edwards, a place David Scott had long loved.

Kraft wrote in his memoirs that David Scott's appointment "pissed off Deke to his eyebrows".

David Scott found the work interesting and exciting, but with budget cuts and the forthcoming end of Approach and Landing Tests for the Space Shuttle, in 1977 he decided it was time to leave NASA and retired from the agency on September 30,1977.

One of David Scott's firms went out of business after the 1986 Challenger disaster; though the company played no part in the disaster, subsequent redesign of parts of the shuttle eliminated David Scott's firm's role.

In 1992 David Scott was found by a Prescott, Arizona, court to have defrauded nine investors in a partnership organized by him.

David Scott was ordered to pay roughly $400,000 to investors in the partnership, which was to create technology to prevent aircraft mechanical breakdowns, but which was never developed.

David Scott was a commentator for British television on the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981.

David Scott was a consultant on the film Apollo13 and for the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, in which he was portrayed by Brett Cullen.

David Scott consulted on the 3D IMAX film, Magnificent Desolation, showing Apollo astronauts on the Moon, and produced by Tom Hanks and the IMAX Corporation.

David Scott is one of the astronauts featured in the 2007 book and documentary In the Shadow of the Moon.

From 2003 to 2004, David Scott was a consultant on the BBC TV series Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets.

David Scott has worked on the Brown University science teams for the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

David Scott sold the Bulova watch in 2015 for $1.625million, after which the company marketed similar timepieces, whose accompanying material mentioned Scott and Apollo15.

David Scott sued in federal court in 2017, alleging Bulova and Kay Jewelers were wrongfully using his name and image for commercial purposes, and in April 2018, a federal magistrate ruled he could proceed on some of his claims.

In 1959 David Scott married his first wife, Ann Lurton Ott.

David Scott subsequently married Margaret Black, former vice-chairman of Morgan Stanley.

David Scott was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the Gemini8 flight.

David Scott earned his second Air Force Distinguished Service Medal for Apollo15.

David Scott presented the Air Force and Air Force Association with items they flew to the Moon: sheet music of "Into the Wild Blue Yonder" and a US Air Force flag.

David Scott was awarded his third NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1978.

David Scott was awarded an honorary doctor of science and technology degree from Jacksonville University in 2013.

David Scott is a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and Sigma Gamma Tau.

In 1982 David Scott was inducted with nine other Gemini astronauts into the International Space Hall of Fame in the New Mexico Museum of Space History.