Weitz

Personal data:

Birthdate:  25 Jul 1932 Birthplace:  Erie / Pennsylvania Marital status:  married Children:  two Selection date:  04 Apr 1966 Selection group:   Job:  CDR Status:  Ret. Mar 1988 Date of death:  22 Oct 2017 Age:  85 yr Place of death:  Flagstaff, Arizona

Spaceflights:

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Additional information

• Born in Erie, Pennsylvania on 25 July 1932, Weitz had an early interest in mechanics and graduated from Harborcreek High School in 1950, receiving a bachelors degree in aeronautical engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1954. Receiving his commission in the Navy as an ensign, he served a year aboard a destroyer at sea and obtained his wings in September 1956. Gaining experience with several squadrons and units, Weitz obtained an MSc in aeronautical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California, in 1964.
• A year later, encouraged by the enlarging of America′s human space flight programme by the two-man Gemini missions, by the Apollo Moon programme and talk of an Apollo Applications Program envisaging Moon stations and orbiting laboratories, Weitz began the process to join the astronaut corps. Selected in April 1966, he joined the "Original 19" as Iohn Young called them, in a parody of the "Mercury 7". This was the fifth and largest group selected by NASA and included half who would fly to the Moon, including six who would land, and the other half who would serve in the Skylab and Shuttle programmes, incorporating the early command- level crewmembers for the Orbiter.
• Along with Ed Gibson and Ierry Carr, Weitz was selected for the Apollo 12 support crew and was in line for a seat on Apollo 20, the last possible Moon landing, had the programme run that long. But of course, that was not to be, a situation that became apparent in 1969 when NASA struck the last moon landing to use that Saturn V to lift Skylab into space.
• In 1971, Weitz was named as one of the crewmembers to inaugurate manned operations with that station, accompanying Pete Conrad and loe Kerwin on the SL-2 mission. ln this remarkable coincidence, his first flight into space would ride on a Saturn IB visiting the Skylab space station which otherwise could have launched him to the Moon! For two years the crew trained and prepared for what was in effect a transition for NASA - from deep space exploration to Earth-orbit applications.
• When Skylab was launched on 15 May 1973 it suffered damage which ripped off one of two solar array wings and tore loose a micrometeoroid shield which doubled as a thermal barrier. Debris from that mishap fouled deployment of the second solar array and left Skylab overheating and limited power only available from the Apollo telescope Mount (ATM) arrays.
• When Conrad, Kerwin and Weitz launched from LC-39B at the Kennedy Space Center it was to rescue Skylab from this perilous situation by removing debris from the snared solar array wing and deploying a sunshade over the exposed hull. With Kerwin hanging on to his feet out the Command Module hatch, Weitz tried desperately to cut a strap fouling the array but was unable to cut it loose. Rejoining his fellow crewmembers they closed the hatch, docked with Skylab and Weitz helped erect a parasol sunshade through a small scientific airlock. For the remainder of the 28-day flight, Weitz helped restore a semblance of normality to the station, supporting Conrad and Kerwin as they went outside and finally managed to deploy the stuck array. Later in the mission, three days before landing, Conrad accompanied Weitz on another spacewalk to retrieve film cassettes from the ATM. After 404 orbits of the Earth, the crew returned to Earth on 21 Iune 1973 having rescued Americas first space station from disaster. The restoration of confidence in Americas manned space programme was timely. Coming only three years after the nearly fatal flight of Apollo 13, at a time when NASA was recruiting broad support for the Shuttle programme, it helped show that space was hard, uncompromising but that NASA had reached a level of operational maturity that could give it confidence to tackle difficulties previously unmanageable.
• Between 1981 and 1987 Weitz served as deputy chief of the Astronaut Office under John Young but his next and last flight was as Commander of STS-6, the first flight of NASAs second Shuttle orbiter: OV-099 Challenger, on a five-day shakedown flight. Launched on 4 April 1983 it deployed the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRSS). The TDRSS system would lift communications for manned and unmanned flights into geosynchronous orbit, liberating ground stations from the job and providing continuous communication for all slaved satellites and space vehicles. From 1987 to 1993 Weitz served as Deputy Director of the Iohnson Space Center and Acting Director for a year before he retired from NASA in May 1994.
• Weitz contracted a form of blood cancer and died at Flagstaif, Arizona, on 22 October 2017 and is survived by his wife, Suzanne, and their two children, Matthew (59) and Cynthia (56).