Rusty Schweickart

Schweickart was awarded the NASA DistinguiRusty Schweickartd Service Medal in 1969 and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1973. Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology then was appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years serving as chairman for three. His fellow crewmen were backup Command Pilot James McDivitt and Senior Pilot David Scott both veterans of Project Gemini.

As backup commander of the first Skylab mission he was responsible for developing the hardware and procedures used by the first crew to perform critical in-flight repairs of the Skylab station. Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology then was appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years serving as chairman for three. Schweickart chosen in NASA's third astronaut group is best known as the Lunar Module pilot on the Apollo 9 mission the first manned flight test of the LM on which he performed the first in-space test of the Portable Life Support System used by the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon.