STS-6: the crew

 CDR Paul Joseph “P.J.” Weitz, Captain USN, ret., was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, on July 25, 1932, where he attended McKinley Elementary School and in 1950 graduated from nearby Harborcreek High School. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1954 and a master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California, in 1964.

Weitz retired from the Navy in 1976 with 22 years of service. In 1954 he had received his commission as an ensign through the Naval ROTC program at Penn State. He served for one year at sea aboard a destroyer before going to flight training and was awarded his wings in September 1956. Weitz was an A-4 tactics instructor at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, from 1956 to 1960, a project officer at China Lake, California, in various air-to-ground delivery tactic projects from 1960 to 1962. After having received his master’s degree in 1964, Weitz also flew combat missions in Vietnam and served as detachment officer-in-charge at Whidbey Island. He logged more than 6,200 hours flying time – 5,100 hours in jet aircraft.

Paul Weitz was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. Michael Cassutt described his first assignments, “Weitz specialized in the Apollo Command and Service Module system. He served as CapCom for Apollo 12 and had been informally selected as backup CMP for Apollo 17 (putting him in line for a flight to the Moon on Apollo 20) when Congressional budget cuts eliminated that mission. In 1970 he began to work on the Apollo Applications Program Saturn Workshop, later known as Skylab, and was officially selected as pilot of Skylab 2 in January 1972.”

Skylab 2, the first manned Skylab mission, was launched on May 25, 1973 and ended on June 22, 1973. Joining Weitz for the initial on-orbit repair, activation and 28-day flight qualification operations of Skylab were spacecraft commander Charles Conrad and science pilot Joseph Kerwin. In logging 672 hours and 49 minutes aboard the workshop, the crew established a new world record for a single mission. Weitz also logged two hours and 11 minutes in extravehicular activities.

Paul Weitz later admitted feeling really glad having been able to take command of NASA’s newest addition to the shuttle fleet in 1983. “As a crew we were glad to have the opportunity. It's a little distinction. Each crew, each mission looks for some distinction you like to hang your hat on. Flying the inaugural flight or the maiden flight with Challenger, we thought it was a good deal.” 

As to the rest of the STS-6 crew assignments, Paul Weitz later explained he didn’t have any input. “The four names were just, ‘There they are. This is the F crew.’ It was Weitz, Bobko, Musgrave, and Peterson. So, no. As opposed to in Apollo, I think – it’s my understanding that the commanders, once they flew, well, they had to fly before. Typically they flew before being assigned as commander, and they had strong input into crew makeup.” He explained, “For example, Pete Conrad's first flight was with Gordo Cooper. After that, Pete's crew was always all Navy. He obviously had a strong input into the crew makeup. Because I wasn't a mission commander; I was the head of this F crew, but if we did fly, then the people were going to fly in these positions. I was going to get to fly. I never did care that much and I had confidence in the other three guys.”

PLT Karol Joseph “Bo” Bobko, Colonel USAF, was born in New York City on December 23, 1937, and graduated Brooklyn Technical High School in 1955. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Air Force Academy in 1959 and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1970. Bobko received his wings in 1960 and from 1961 to 1965 flew F-100 and F-105 aircraft at Cannon AFB, New Mexico, and Seymore Johnson AFB, North Carolina. He then attended the Aerospace Research Pilots School at Edwards Air Force Base and in June 1966 was assigned as an astronaut in the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. 

STS-6 was his first spaceflight, but Karol Bobko had already logged over 4,800 hours of flying time in the F-100, F-104, F-105, T-33 and T-38. In 1970, after he had transferred to NASA after the cancellation of the MOL program a year earlier, Bobko became a crewmember on the Skylab Medical Experiments Altitude Test (SMEAT) – a 56-day simulation of a Skylab mission, enabling crewmen to collect medical experiments baseline data and evaluate equipment, operations and procedures. He was joined by astronauts Robert Crippen and William Thornton. Bobko was also a member of the astronaut support crew for the joint U.S./Soviet ASTP mission in 1975.

Karol Bobko then became support crewmember for the shuttle Approach and Landing Test program and was assigned to the Orbital Flight Test group involved with ground tests and checkout of the orbiter Columbia. He worked as CapCom and chase pilot. But being assigned for his first spaceflight changed his outlook a lot, as he explained in a 2002 interview for the JSC Oral History Project. “It just changes the way you look at things. It’s not something out there in the mist; it’s up close and personal. So I think, you know, there’s a lot to be learned for a spaceflight, and it doesn’t seem like there’s ever enough time. You feel you want to learn it all, and it gives you a lot of incentive to work hard and try to learn as much as you can and get things as squared away as you can.”

 MS1/EV1 Franklin Story Musgrave, MD, was born August 19, 1935, in Boston, Massachusetts, but considered Lexington, Kentucky., to be his hometown. He graduated from St. Mark’s School, Southborough, Massachusetts, in 1953. Musgrave received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Statistics from Syracuse University in 1958, a Master of Business Administration degree in Operations Analysis and Computer Programming from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1959, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Marietta College in 1960, a doctorate in Medicine from Columbia University in 1964, and a Master of Science in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Kentucky in 1966.

Also, following graduation from high school in 1953, Musgrave entered the Unites States Marine Corps and completed basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. He completed training at the U.S. Naval Airman Preparatory School and the U.S. Naval Aviation Electrician and Instrument Technician School in Jacksonville, Florida. He served as an aviation electrician and instrument technician and as an aircraft crew chief while completing duty assignments in Korea, Japan, Hawaii, and aboard the carrier USS Wasp in the Far East.

By April 1979 Musgrave had flown 90 different types of civilian and military aircraft, logging over 10,800 hours flying time, including 4,300 in jet aircraft, and he held instructor, instrument instructor, glider instructor, and airline transport ratings. An accomplished parachutist, he made more than 330 freefalls – including over 100 experimental freefall descents involved with the study of human aerodynamics. He held an International Jumpmaster Class C license and was President and Jumpmaster of the Bluegrass Sport Parachuting Association in Lexington, Kentucky, from 1964 to 1967.

Story Musgrave was employed as a mathematician and operations analyst by the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York, during 1958. He served a surgical internship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington from 1964 to 1965. He continued there as a USAF postdoctoral fellow (1965 to 1966), working in aerospace medicine and physiology and as a National Heart Institute postdoctoral fellow (1966 to 1967), teaching and doing research in cardiovascular and exercise physiology. Musgrave had written 30 scientific papers in the areas of aerospace medicine and physiology, temperature regulation, exercise physiology and clinical surgery.  

Dr. Musgrave was selected as one of 11 scientist astronauts in August 1967, “at a time when NASA was planning an ambitious series of Apollo lunar landings and scientific missions in Earth orbit,” said Michael Cassutt. “Within months budget cuts forced on NASA because of the Vietnam War eliminated most of the scientist astronauts’ flight opportunities.”

Musgrave completed astronaut academic training and a year of military flight training. He worked on the design and development of the Skylab program and became backup science pilot for Skylab 2. He served as CapCom for the Skylab 2 and 3 missions. From 1974 he was working on the development of the Space Shuttle; Musgrave was Mission Specialist on the first and second Spacelab Mission Simulations. He participated in the design and development of all shuttle EVA equipment, including spacesuits, life support systems, airlocks, and Manned Maneuvering Units. From 1979 to 1982 Musgrave was involved in testing computer software at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory.

While preparing for future space missions, Musgrave continued clinical and scientific training as a part-time surgeon at the Denver General Hospital and was a part-time professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Married to the former Patricia Marguerite Van Kirk of Patterson, New Jersey, Story Musgrave also was a father of five children: Lorelei Lisa (March 21, 1961), Bradley Scott (July 3, 1962), Holly Kay (December 13, 1963), Christopher Todd (May 12, 1965), and Jeffrey Paul (June 19, 1967). Among his recreational interests he listed bicycling, chess, flying, gardening, long-distance running, motorcycling, parachuting, photography, scuba diving, skateboarding, and soaring.

MS2/EV2 Donald Herod “Don” Peterson, Colonel USAF, ret., was born in Winona, Mississippi, on October 22, 1933, where he graduated from Winona City High School. In 1955 he received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and later, in 1962, a master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Astronaut biographer Michael Cassutt said, “Peterson elected to serve in the Air Force, and, after pilot training, served as an instructor with the Air Training Command until 1960.” After four years as a military training officer, Peterson continued three years as a nuclear systems analyst with the Air Force Systems Command. He was also a pilot with the Tactical Air Command and graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB before being assigned to the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program in June 1967. 

Also belonging to this third selection group of MOL astronauts was Major USAF James Alan Abrahamson, who since 1981 had been in charge of the Space Shuttle program and was soon to become the head of President Reagan’s “Star Wars” program – the Strategic Defense Initiative. Other than Abrahamson, after the cancellation of MOL in 1969, Donald Peterson had joined the NASA astronaut corps. He served in the astronaut support crew for Apollo 16 before being assigned to the shuttle program.