Service
He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1957, where he served as a reciprocating engine mechanic at Kelly Air Force Base in Texas. While off duty, he attended San Antonio College, and eventually received a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Arizona in 1965; the same year, he was awarded an officer's commission. Afterward, he attended flight school and earned his wings in 1966, serving as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and other decorations.
After his tour of duty, Scobee attended the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, California. Upon graduation in 1972, he became an Air Force test pilot, logging thousands of hours of flight time in dozens of aircraft, including the Boeing 747, the experimental X-24B lifting body, the F-111 Aardvark, and the gigantic C-5 Galaxy.
Selected for NASA's astronaut program in January 1978, Scobee completed his training in August 1979. While awaiting his first orbital spaceflight mission, he served as an instructor pilot for the shuttle's 747 carrier aircraft. In April 1984, Scobee piloted Challenger mission STS-41-C, which successfully deployed one satellite and repaired another.
Read more about this topic: Dick Scobee
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Our chief want in life, is, someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily great.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“Night City was like a deranged experiment in Social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you’d break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either way, you were gone ... though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)