Copyright M Live Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MI - Michigan and Purdue will battle on land this Saturday for a football game. They are also longtime competitors in space travel, as well. Numerous Wolverines and Boilermakers have gone to space over the last 60-plus years, consisting of NASA legends from Neil Armstrong to the Apollo 15 crew made up entirely of UM graduates. Here are the astronauts from both universities. This does not include many other alumni that worked on the ground for NASA over the years. University of Michigan A pair of NASA space flights consisted of all UM alumni. Gemini IV’s crew in 1965 included two Wolverines in James McDivitt and Ed White, both 1959 College of Engineering graduates. That mission tasked White with “extravehicular activity,” or going outside the spacecraft to perform work on the shuttle. This was the first time that had ever been done. As mentioned before, Apollo 15 in 1971 was another all-Michigan crew. James Irwin, David Scott and Alfred Worden manned the mission that would be the fourth successful Moon landing in American history. The mission also marked the first space walk in deep space, the first use of a lunar rover and the first satellite deployment by a crewed spacecraft. The crew was honored by the university’s Department of Aerospace Engineering in 2021 on the mission’s 50th anniversary. Other astronaut alumni include: Daniel Barry (NASA Group 14 in 1992) Andre Douglas (NASA Group 23 in 2021) Theodore Freeman, chosen to be a NASA astronaut in 1963 prior to his death in a training flight Karl Henize (NASA Group 6 in 1967) Jack Lousma (NASA Group 5 in 1966) Donald Ray McMonagle (NASA Group 12 in 1987) James Taylor, chosen for the Manned Orbital Laboratory program in 1965 prior to his death in a training flight in 1970 Purdue University The most famous Boilermaker in space is obviously Neil Armstrong, a 1955 graduate of the aeronautical engineering program. He famously was the first man to walk on the Moon with the immortal words “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Indiana university has a full list of its 30 astronaut alumni on its website. See full bios for each here. Another famous alumnus is Gus Grissom, a member of the “Mercury Seven,” or the original seven astronauts selected by NASA in 1959 for the United States’ first attempt at manned spaceflight. He became the second American in space after Alan Shepard with a brief suborbital flight in 1961. Grissom later flew in space in 1967 as a part of the Gemini 3 mission. He died as the commander of the Apollo 1 mission in 1967 alongside fellow Purdue alumnus Roger Chaffee and Michigan alumnus Ed White when a flash fire consumed the spacecraft during a countdown demonstration test. Grissom and Chaffee’s names are on two engineering buildings on the West Lafayette campus to this day. Purdue also boasts six female astronaut alumni, including Sirisha Bandla, Beth Moses, Loral O’Hara, Audrey Powers, Janice Voss and Mary Ellen Weber.
