|
Al Crews was born on March 23, 1929, in El Dorado, Arkansas. He obtained a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Southern Louisiana in 1950 and later earned a master of science in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. Crews attended the USAF Test Pilot School. He also attended the USAF astronaut school, the Aerospace Research Pilots School. Twice he was in the final selections for astronaut training with NASA, but was diverted to 2 USAF programs. He was selected as a military astronaut designee in the second group of X-20 Dyna-Soar astronauts on April 20, 1962 and assigned as a Dyna-Soar pilot on September 20, 1962. The X-20 Dyna-Soar was a spaceplane that would gather military intelligenceand destroy enemy satellites. The program program was cancelled in 1963. On November 12, 1965 he was selected as an astronaut in the first group for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, a semi-permanent replacement for Dyna-Soar duties. After building and launching a prototype MOL and naming Crews to be the first to fly the MOL, that project wa cancelled, also. He transferred to NASA Flight Crew Directorate at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas in June 1969. He remained a pilot for NASA , flying such aircraft as the "Super Guppy" Transport, checking out astronauts in the T-38 and flying the WB-57F and other aircraft until he retired in 1994 at age 65. Crews retired from the USAF with the rank of Colonel. SPACEFEST 2009 AUTOGRAPH FEES (Fri-Sat)
|