37 Facts About Edgar Mitchell

1.

Edgar Dean Mitchell was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut.

2.

Edgar Mitchell had three siblings: Joyce Alyene, who died in her infancy in 1933, Sandra Jo and Jay Neely "Coach", who was a member of the inaugural graduating class of the United States Air Force Academy in 1959, and a pilot with the United States Air Force, achieving the rank of colonel.

3.

Edgar Mitchell came from a ranching family that moved to New Mexico during the Depression and considered Artesia, New Mexico as his hometown.

4.

Edgar Mitchell first learned to fly at 13, receiving his private pilot license at 16, and was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout.

5.

Edgar Mitchell was a member of DeMolay International, part of the Masonic Fraternity, and was inducted into its Hall of Fame.

6.

Edgar Mitchell enjoyed handball, tennis, and swimming, and his hobbies included scuba diving and soaring.

7.

Edgar Mitchell received a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial management from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.

8.

Edgar Mitchell was married to Louise Randall from 1951 to 1972.

9.

Edgar Mitchell was father to two children with Randall, adopted Rettig's three children, and later was father to another child, this time with Ledbetter.

10.

Rettig served as chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, while Kimberly Edgar Mitchell was a city commissioner in West Palm Beach, Florida.

11.

Ledbetter and Edgar Mitchell married in 1989 and divorced in 1999.

12.

Edgar Mitchell was survived by five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

13.

Edgar Mitchell completed flight training in July 1954 at Hutchinson, Kansas, was designated as a Naval Aviator and received the Daughters of the American Revolution Award for achieving the highest overall marks during flight training.

14.

Edgar Mitchell accumulated 5,000 hours' flight time, including 2,000 hours in jet aircraft.

15.

Edgar Mitchell was selected in 1966 as part of NASA's fifth astronaut group.

16.

Edgar Mitchell was assigned to the support crew for Apollo 9, then was designated as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10.

17.

Edgar Mitchell worked in an Apollo simulator to help bring the crew back.

18.

Edgar Mitchell then went to serve as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 14, landing with Shepard aboard the Lunar Module Antares on February 5,1971, in the hilly upland Fra Mauro Highlands region of the Moon.

19.

In completing his first space flight, Edgar Mitchell logged a total of 216 hours and 42 minutes in space.

20.

Edgar Mitchell was designated to serve as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 16.

21.

Edgar Mitchell retired from NASA and the US Navy with the rank of Captain in October 1972.

22.

Edgar Mitchell co-founded the Association of Space Explorers in 1983 and later served as chairman of the Mitchell Communications Company.

23.

In 1997, Edgar Mitchell was interviewed for NASA's oral history program.

24.

Edgar Mitchell's position was that NASA had given him the camera as a gift upon the completion of the Apollo 14 mission.

25.

In October 2011, attorneys representing the government and Edgar Mitchell reached a settlement agreement, and Edgar Mitchell agreed to return the camera to NASA, which in turn would donate it for display at the National Air and Space Museum.

26.

Edgar Mitchell claimed that a teenage remote healer living in Vancouver and using the pseudonym "Adam Dreamhealer" helped him heal kidney cancer from a distance.

27.

Edgar Mitchell publicly expressed his opinions that he was "90 percent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets".

28.

Edgar Mitchell further claimed that UFOs had provided "sonic engineering secrets" that were helpful to the US government.

29.

On July 23,2008, Edgar Mitchell was interviewed on Kerrang Radio by Nick Margerrison.

30.

Dr Edgar Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.

31.

Edgar Mitchell appeared in the documentaries In the Shadow of the Moon, The Phoenix Lights.

32.

Edgar Mitchell wrote several articles and essays as well as several books.

33.

Edgar Mitchell was the Advisory Board Chairman of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, co-founded by Carol Rosin, and a member of INREES.

34.

Edgar Mitchell was one of the initial supporters of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, which would be a first step towards a "world parliament".

35.

Edgar Mitchell died under hospice care in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 85, on February 4,2016, the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing.

36.

Edgar Mitchell was a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; the Society of Experimental Test Pilots; Sigma Xi; Sigma Gamma Tau, New York Academy of Sciences; The Explorers Club; World Futures Society; International Platform Association; and he was an honorary member of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.

37.

Edgar Mitchell was the subject of a chapter of Chris Wright's book No More Worlds to Conquer, which asks how people who are famed for one moment moved on with their life.