William Reid Pogue was an American astronaut and pilot who served in the United States Air Force as a fighter pilot and test pilot, and reached the rank of colonel.
33 Facts About William Pogue
2.
William Pogue flew combat during the Korean War and with the USAF Thunderbirds, then served as a flight instructor.
3.
William Pogue retired from the USAF and NASA a few months after he returned from Skylab, after which he taught and wrote about aviation and aeronautics in the US and abroad.
4.
William Pogue was born on January 23,1930, in Okemah, Oklahoma, to Alex Wallis Pogue and Margaret Frances Pogue and is of Choctaw ancestry.
5.
William Pogue attended Lake Elementary School and Sand Springs High School in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, completing his high-school education in 1947.
6.
William Pogue participated in the Boy Scouts of America, earning the rank of Second Class.
7.
William Pogue attended Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education in 1951.
8.
William Pogue was attracted to flying from an early age; he first flew an airplane while in high school.
9.
William Pogue enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1951, underwent the aviation cadet training program in 1952.
10.
William Pogue was later commissioned into the USAF as a second lieutenant.
11.
From 1955 to 1957, William Pogue was a member of the USAF Thunderbirds as an aerobatics pilot.
12.
William Pogue piloted more than 50 types and models of American and British aircraft, and was qualified as a civilian flight instructor.
13.
William Pogue served in the mathematics department as an assistant professor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1960 to 1963.
14.
William Pogue applied to become an astronaut in 1962, but was rejected due to a lack of pilot experience.
15.
In September 1965, William Pogue completed a two-year tour as test pilot with the British Ministry of Aviation under an exchange program between the USAF and Royal Air Force and graduated from the Empire Test Pilots' School in Farnborough, England.
16.
William Pogue was an Air Force major at the time, and went to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, from an assignment at Edwards Air Force Base, California, where he had been an instructor at the US Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School since October 1965.
17.
William Pogue served as a member of the support crews for the Apollo 7, Apollo 11,13 and Apollo 14 missions.
18.
William Pogue replaced Ed Givens, who died in a car accident, as Capsule Communicator for Apollo 7.
19.
William Pogue was the pilot of Skylab 4, the third and final crewed visit to the Skylab Orbital Workshop, from November 16,1973, to February 8,1974.
20.
William Pogue logged 13 hours and 34 minutes in two EVAs outside the orbital workshop.
21.
On September 1,1975, William Pogue retired from the USAF, as a colonel, and NASA, to become vice president of High Flight Foundation.
22.
William Pogue logged 7,200 hours of flight time, including 4,200 hours in jet aircraft and 2,000 hours in space flight during his career.
23.
William Pogue became a consultant for aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and Martin Marietta, helping to create space station technology.
24.
William Pogue continuously presented lectures over a 40-year career, working at more than 500 schools and 100 civic clubs.
25.
William Pogue married three times; his first marriage was in 1952 to Helen Juanita Dittmar, with whom he had three children.
26.
William Pogue married Jean Ann Baird in 1979 and the marriage lasted until Baird's death in 2009.
27.
William Pogue's ashes were sent into Earth orbit using Celestis, a memorial rocket service launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket on June 25,2019.
28.
William Pogue won the Johnson Space Center Superior Achievement Award in 1970.
29.
William Pogue was among nine Skylab astronauts who were presented with the City of Chicago Gold Medal in 1974 after a parade with 150,000 spectators.
30.
Page died eight days before the award was presented and William Pogue used most of his speech to memorialize Page's life.
31.
William Pogue was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1974.
32.
William Pogue was inducted into the Five Civilized Tribes Hall of Fame in 1975, and was one of five Oklahoman astronauts inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in 1980.
33.
William Pogue was one of 24 Apollo astronauts who were inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997.