May God bless you and your...
I will missed you. Rest in Peace.
Brennen Garcia
March 13, 2017 | Round Lake, IL
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Obituary
William C. McCool was an experienced Navy pilot with more than 2,800 hours in flight. But two weeks into his first trip into space, the 41-year-old astronaut was bursting with amazement.
"There is so much more than what I ever expected," McCool told National Public Radio on Jan. 30 from the space shuttle Columbia. "It's beyond imagination, until you actually get up and see it and experience it and feel it."
McCool, 41, grew up building model airplanes in Lubbock, Texas, and followed in his father's footsteps as a naval aviator.
Navy Capt. Chuck Brady was among those at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station mourning McCool, who was a pilot there.
"He was a person who believed in the dream of a world where we acknowledge truth and goodness," said Brady, a doctor at the base hospital and a former astronaut who flew on Columbia in June 1996.
"It's a horrific day of tragedy. There is a loss beyond imagination for his family."
Known as "Cool Willie" in high school, he ran for the Coronado Mustangs and had taken a school spirit towel on the Columbia shuttle. He won a race in Brownfield, Texas, in 1979 in which one of his competitors was George W. Bush.
An Eagle Scout, he graduated second in his class in 1983 from the U.S. Naval Academy.
He went onto test pilot school, with assignments in Patuxent River, Md., and deployment aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea. He became an astronaut in 1996. His mission aboard the Columbia was his first spaceflight.
A former NASA astronaut, Winston Scott, called McCool "my basketball buddy."
He was married with three sons aged 14 to 22. His mother, Audrey McCool, said Saturday her son's death should not stop the country from sending men and women into space.
"We want the space mission to go on," she said. "We don't want those people to have died in vain."
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press
Guest Book
I put this on fb today and was encouraged to pass it on to you.
Although my degree was in agricultural economics, the meandering course of life that God puts us on brought me for a brief time working at Johnson Space Center in the astronaut office (CB). My first boss there was an unflown pilot named Willie McCool. His background was in A-6s and he bad been to Pax river. He had all the credentials of a right stuff test pilot/astronaut. However, in personal demeanor, he was like a camp...
Jason Crow
February 02, 2016 | Batson, TX
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Prayers go out to the surviving family and friends may the God of comfort continue to bless you and yours especially after such a tragic loss. Please accept my deepest sympathies. 2 Cor. 1:2,3.
April 20, 2014
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I greatly admire Willie McCool. I aspire to be like him. I am confident that he is in heaven, eternally happy. I hope to meet him after my death.
Marie Smith
March 28, 2014 | Salem, MA
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Hey cousin, I'm sure we are somewhere 2nd or third, but were related back somewhere. I don't know why but That flight more than any other since the first excited me. I love science and before I even knew you would be on that flight i was following the progress of pre-flight.
I was super excited when I found out a McCool was on this flight. Everyday I got all the news I could until one early morning when you were comming home. I cried like you were my brother. I mourned and still...
John "Jeff: McCool
June 29, 2010 | Reno, NV
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Mr. McCool,
I have never met you, but you gave me something that I lacked all of my life, someone to look up to. For the first time in my life, I have someone to look up to, someone that inspires me, someone that in some ways I'd like to duplicate. Thank you for helping me to turn my life around. Thank you for being my hero.
Jeremy Watkins
April 25, 2009 | Hacienda Heights, CA
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im so sad that my uncle died in the crash of the space shuttle i still have his face in my mind in my heart
Romnick Rambayon
May 30, 2005 | Kent, WA
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was up diz iz willams niece or lil cuz his my uncle
Romnick Rambayon
May 03, 2005 | Kent, WA
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Willie is sadly missed by all of us at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His legacy lives on in each and every one of our hearts as we go through our daily activities. God speed to you Willie and "I'll see you in the stars!".
Mary Kelley
November 19, 2004 | Houston, TX
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