Alfred Worden

Colonel Alfred Merrill Worden USAF was an American test pilot, engineer and NASA astronaut. He was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. One of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, he orbited it 74 times. He died of cancer in December 2013, at the age of 87.

About Alfred Worden in brief

Colonel Alfred Merrill Worden USAF was an American test pilot, engineer and NASA astronaut. He was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. One of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, he orbited it 74 times. Worden was born in Michigan in 1932; he spent his early years living on farms and attended the University of Michigan for one year, before securing an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. At the time Worden graduated in 1955, he elected to be commissioned in the Air Force, though he had no piloting experience. He proved adept at flying fighter planes, and honed his skills, becoming a test pilot before his selection as a Group 5 astronaut in 1966. He remained at NASA until 1975 at the Ames Research Center, then entered the private sector. He made many public appearances, promoting a renewed space program and education in the sciences, before his death in 2020. He is survived by his wife, Susan, and their four children. He died of cancer in December 2013, at the age of 87. He leaves behind a wife and a son, Michael. He also leaves a daughter, Jennifer, and a step-son, Michael Worden, who also served in the U.S. Air Force and served as an astronaut in the 1960s and 1970s. He will be buried in a private ceremony in Michigan, with his wife and two children, Susan and Michael. His funeral will take place on February 14, 2014. He has a son and daughter, Michael and Jennifer Worden.

He had no children of his own; he was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of First Class Scout. He lived on his family’s farm outside the city of Jackson, Michigan, though the family stayed part of the time at his maternal grandparents’ farm near East Jordan. He attended Dibble, Griswold, Bloomfield and East Jackson grade schools and graduated from Jackson High School, where he was student council president. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in military science from West Point in 1955,. finishing 47th out of 470 in his class. He served on the support crew for Apollo 9 and the backup crew forApollo 12 before being selected for theApollo 15 crew in 1970, with David Scott as commander and James Irwin as lunar module pilot. During Apollo 15’s return flight to Earth, Worden performed an extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, to retrieve film cassettes from cameras on the exterior of the spacecraft. It was the first \”deep space\” EVA in history, and as of 2020 remains the one that has taken place farthest from Earth. After their return, the crew became involved in a controversy over postal covers they had taken to the moon; they were reprimanded by NASA and did not fly in space again. In addition to his studies, he participated in cross country running, gymnastics and cheerleading. He went to Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, for Air Defense Command training, flying F-86D Sabres.

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