David Scott

Colonel David Scott USAF was educated at the US Military Academy, graduating with a BS, and received a MS and an Engineer's Degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1962.

David Scott was trained at MIT/IL under Doc Draper and served as the astronaut representative at MIT/IL during the design of the AGC.  He was in residence in Cambridge for two years in the mid-1960s.

As a NASA astronaut, Scott flew on Gemini 8, Apollo 9 and was Spacecraft Commander on Apollo 15. On the Gemini VIII mission in 1966, Scott and Command Pilot Neil Armstrong performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space. As Command Module Pilot for Apollo 9 in 1969, Scott was instrumental in completing the first comprehensive Earth orbital qualification and verification test of a fully configured Apollo spacecraft. In 1971 Scott commanded Apollo 15 which was the first extended scientific exploration of the Moon, doubling the lunar stay time of previous flights and utilizing the first Lunar Roving Vehicle to explore the Hadley Rille and the Apennine Mountains.

In 1972 Scott was named as Technical Assistant to the Apollo Program Manager at Johnson Space Center. Prior to coming to the Dryden Flight Research Center, he was Special Assistant for Mission Operations for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in March 1975 with the rank of Colonel and over 5600 hours of flying time.

Sources

• NASA's image repository, GRIN

• NASA's biography of David Scott

-- A.B., Jan 2002