The Fourteen (1963)
Shooting for the Moon
The third astronaut group, known as The Fourteen. Seated, l-r: Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin; William A. "Bill" Anders, Charlie Bassett II, Alan L. Bean, Eugene "Gene" Cernan, and Roger B. Chaffee. Standing, l-r: Michael Collins; R. Walter "Walt" Cunningham; Donn F. Eisele; Theodore C. "Ted" Freeman; Richard F. "Dick" Gordon, Jr.; Russell L. "Rusty" Schweickart; David R. Scott; and Clifton C. "C.C." Williams. NASA Photo.
The next group of astronauts, selected in October 1963, were likewise pilots with impressive qualifications-although the requirement for flight test experience had been dropped. So while many of "The Fourteen," as they called themselves, did indeed have impressive flight-test credentials, a number of them were "regular" military line pilots, fresh out of fighter and attack squadrons.
Buzz Aldrin (few people called him Edwin; he would officially change his name to Buzz in the 1970s) got his nickname as a kid, when his little sister tried to call him "brother" but it always came out, "buzzer," and the name stuck. A man of great drive, intelligence, and deep thought, Buzz once marched in Houston with civil rights activists when he was an astronaut. Buzz was born January 20, 1930, in Montclair, New Jersery. He shot down two MiG-15s with his F-86 in Korea, and later received a Doctorate of Science from MIT with the thesis "Guidance for Manned Orbital Rendezvous". Pretty handy background for an astronaut to have, don't you think? NASA Photo.
Buzz Aldrin's Missions:
Gemini 12 (Pilot)
Apollo 11 (LMP)
Bill Anders born October 17, 1933, in Hong Kong. His father was an American Navy officer on the Yangtze River Patrol. (The Anders family narrowly escaped Nanking in 1937 when the Japanese invaded.) Bill went to Annapolis, but elected to join the Air Force, where he was an Air Defence Command interceptor pilot, flying F-89 Scorpions out of Iceland. Later, he recieved a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. As the only nuclear scientist in the astronaut corps, he was one of the team that helped prove that astronauts wouldn't die of radiation poisoning if they went to the Moon through the Earth's Van Allen Belts. NASA Photo.
Bill Anders' Mission:
Apollo 8 (LMP)
Charlie Bassett was an Air Force captain from Dayton, Ohio, the Wright brothers' hometown, and was widely regarded as one of the best stick-and-rudder guys in NASA. He was born December 30, 1931. He had been assigned to fly as the Pilot on Gemini 9 alongside Elliott See. Sadly, both men were killed on February 28, 1966, when their T-38 crashed into the roof of the McDonnell factory in St. Louis where their spacecraft was being built (Elliott was flying). He and his wife Jean had two children, a son and a daughter. NASA Photo.
Alan Bean, a die-hard spaghetti lover, had a BS in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas (his home state; he was born in Wheeler, Texas, on March 15, 1932), and after flying attack planes for the Navy out of Jacksonville, went to the Navy Test Pilot School at Pax River, where he was one of Pete Conrad's top students. NASA Photo.
Al Bean's Missions:
Apollo 12 (LMP)
Skylab 3 (CDR)
Gene Cernan, born March 14, 1934 in Chicago, was one of the tallest astronauts at 6 feet even. While flying A-4 Skyhawks with the Navy, he had been part of a squadron-level flight demonstration team, the Stingers. He had a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1956 and a Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He is shown here in 1972, sticking an Apollo 17 emblem to his NASA T-38 prior to leaving Houston for the Cape before the mission; you can see patches from all 3 of his flights on his jacket. Gregarious and enthusiastic, Gene was one of the few astronauts who really seemed to enjoy talking to the press about his job. NASA Photo.
Gene Cernan's Missions:
Gemini 9A (Pilot)
Apollo 10 (LMP)
Apollo 17 (CDR)
Roger Chaffee, born February 15, 1935 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the son of a well-known Midwestern barnstormer, Don Chaffee. Roger had flown dangerous recon missions over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962; another duty he performed in his RA-3D Skywarrior squadron was to photograph the Cape for NASA. In private life, he was artistic and liked to work with his hands; his house was very well-landscaped, complete with a home-made waterfall, and he was an avid gun collector who also built his own guns. His first assignment, after more than 3 years of working and waiting, was to Gus Grissom's crew for Apollo 204/Apollo 1, the first flight of the Apollo CSM. But he lost his life in that spacecraft, along with his crewmates. NASA Photo.
Roger Chaffee's Mission:
Apollo 1 (Pilot)
Mike Collins, born in Rome on Halloween, 1930, was a West-Pointer, class of 1952, and a graduate of the USAF Test Pilot School. Before that, he had flown fighters in Europe, and as a test pilot landed a coveted assignment with Fighter Ops at Edwards. An avid fisherman and handball player, Mike was also articulate and humorous, and had an enthusiasm for good food and fine wines. He had narrowly missed selection as an astronaut in 1962. NASA Photo.
Mike Collins' Missions:
Gemini 10 (Pilot)
Apollo 11 (CMP)
(CDR=Commander; CMP=Command Module Pilot; LMP=Lunar Module Pilot)
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