{"id":18748,"date":"2017-11-07T19:16:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T11:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/godspeed-dick-gordon-seattle-born-apollo-12-astronaut-passes-away-at-88\/"},"modified":"2017-11-07T19:16:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T11:16:41","slug":"godspeed-dick-gordon-seattle-born-apollo-12-astronaut-passes-away-at-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/godspeed-dick-gordon-seattle-born-apollo-12-astronaut-passes-away-at-88\/","title":{"rendered":"Godspeed, Dick Gordon: Seattle-born Apollo 12 astronaut passes away at 88"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_375217\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-375217\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-375217\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/171107-gordon-630x463.jpg\" alt=\"Dick Gordon\" width=\"630\" height=\"463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/171107-gordon-630x463.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/171107-gordon-768x565.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/171107-gordon.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-375217\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dick Gordon was command module pilot for Apollo 12 in 1969. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first Seattle-born astronaut to fly in space, Dick Gordon, passed away on Monday at his home in California at the age of 88, NASA and&nbsp;the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation&nbsp;reported.<\/p>\n<p>He flew into orbit in 1966 as pilot for the Gemini 11 mission. Three years later, he was the command module pilot for Apollo 12, and orbited the moon while crewmates Pete Conrad and Alan Bean went down to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon was born in Seattle in 1929 and graduated from North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo, Wash., in 1947. He received his bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry from the University of Washington in 1951.<\/p>\n<p>After college, Gordon became a naval aviator: He was assigned to an all-weather fighter squadron based in Jacksonville, Fla., and went on to serve as a test pilot and flight instructor at Naval Air Station Miramar in California.<\/p>\n<p>In 1963, Gordon was selected to become part of NASA\u2019s third group of astronauts, known as \u201cthe Fourteen.\u201d His group also included Apollo 11\u2019s Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins&nbsp;\u2014 as well as Apollo 8\u2019s Bill Anders, who now lives north of Seattle.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Astro Chat with Gemini &amp; Apollo Astronaut Richard Gordon, Part 1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B8pGJMirKU4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.75\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"600\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 600px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Gordon retired from NASA and the Navy in 1972. His post-NASA career included stints as executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints and as an executive for several companies in the petrochemical, engineering and technology industries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDick Gordon is an American&nbsp;hero, and a true renaissance man by any measure,\u201d Curt Brown, board chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, said in a statement. \u201cHe was an American naval officer and aviator, chemist, test pilot, NASA astronaut, professional football executive, oil and gas executive and generous contributor to worthy causes. He was in a category all his own.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The foundation said Gordon is survived by six children&nbsp;\u2014 Carleen, Richard, Lawrence, Thomas, James, and Diane \u2014 from his first wife, Barbara, who died in 2012. In addition, there are two stepchildren, Traci and Christopher, from his wife, Linda, who died this September.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight has several artifacts from Gordon\u2019s Apollo 12 mission on display, including a moon rock and rocket engine components that were recovered from the mission\u2019s Saturn V first stage with support from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dick Gordon was command module pilot for Apollo 12 in 1969. (NASA Photo) The first Seattle-born astronaut to fly in space, Dick Gordon, passed away on Monday at his home in California at the age of 88, NASA and&nbsp;the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation&nbsp;reported. He flew into orbit in 1966 as pilot for the Gemini 11 mission. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1651,2950,3133,2584,625,190,4029],"class_list":["post-18748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-apollo","tag-apollo-12","tag-dick-gordon","tag-gemini","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-space-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}