Richard Truly was an astronaut and vice admiral in the U.S. Navy who became the first former astronaut to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was head of NASA when the famous “Pale Blue Dot” photo was captured.
- Died: February 27, 2024 (Who else died on February 27?)
- Details of death: Died of complications from atypical Parkinson’s disease in Genesee, Colorado, at the age of 86.
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Richard Truly’s legacy
Growing up in Fayette, Mississippi, Truly dreamed of being a pilot, but didn’t think he could become one. That changed while he was earning his degree in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined the ROTC, entered the U.S. Navy, and in 1960 went to flight school. Soon he was flying F-8 Crusaders and taking off from aircraft carriers.
In 1965, he began training for orbital work and was officially pulled into NASA in 1969. Truly was part of all three Skylab missions in 1973 and the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. In 1981, he piloted the Space Shuttle Columbia and made history, as it was the first time a spacecraft had ever been reflown into space. He also piloted the Challenger during a 1983 mission.
After the Challenger disaster of January 1986, Truly stepped up to become NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Flight, where he was tasked with rebuilding the space shuttle program. By 1988, when the Discovery took off for the first mission since the Challenger explosion, he had accomplished his mission. Truly then stepped up to become NASA’s administrator, serving in the role from 1989 to 1992. He was head of NASA when the famous “Pale Blue Dot” photo was captured.
Truly left NASA in 1992, joining the Georgia Tech Research Institute as vice president and director, then serving as director of the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and later a vice president with MRIGlobal.
Truly is in the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame and among many other honors received the Society of Experimental Test Pilots James H. Doolittle Award and the Johnson Space Center Superior Achievement Award.
Notable quote
“When I was a kid, I was like all other kids. I was interested in flying, but a hundred other things, built model airplanes, that kind of thing, but I never really intended to be a pilot. It just never occurred to me that that would be a possibility.”—from a 2003 interview for the NASA Oral History Project
Tributes to Richard Truly
Full obituary: SciTechDaily
