| Donn Fulton Eisele | |
|---|---|
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| NASA Astronaut | |
| Status | Deceased |
| Born | June 23, 1930 Columbus, Ohio, United States |
| Died | December 2, 1987 (aged 57) Tokyo, Japan |
| Other occupation | Pilot |
| Rank | Colonel, USAF |
| Time in space | 10d 20h 08m |
| Selection | 1963 NASA Group |
| Missions | Apollo 7 |
| Mission insignia |  |
Donn Fulton Eisele (June 23, 1930 – December 2, 1987) was a United States Air Force test pilot and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the command module pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force, he became the United States Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.
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Born in Columbus, Ohio, Eisele graduated from West High School in 1948. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1952 and a Master of Science degree in Astronautics in 1960 from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Eisele was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Society, and a Freemason, belonging to Turner Lodge #732 in Columbus, Ohio.
Eisele was an Eagle Scout. Among the honors he received during his career were the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Air Force Senior Pilot Astronaut Wings, and the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross. He was a co-recipient of the AIAA 1969 Haley Astronautics Award and was presented the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award in 1969.
Although he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, Eisele chose a commission in the United States Air Force. The Air Force Academy was still under construction and would not graduate its first class until 1959; thus graduates of the Naval Academy, Military Academy, and Merchant Marine Academy were all eligible for Air Force commissions at the time. (Eisele's astronaut colleagues Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Ed White chose Air Force commissions on graduating from the U.S. Military Academy.)
Eisele was a project engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. He flew experimental test flights in support of special weapons development programs.
He logged more than 4,200 hours flying time — 3,600 of those hours in jet aircraft.
Eisele was one of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA in October 1963.
On October 11, 1968, he occupied the command module pilot seat for the eleven-day flight of Apollo VII — the first manned flight test of the third generation United States spacecraft. With spacecraft commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and lunar module pilot Walter Cunningham, Eisele participated in and executed maneuvers enabling the crew to perform exercises in transposition and docking and lunar orbit rendezvous with the S-IVB stage of their Saturn IB launch vehicle. They completed eight successful test and maneuvering ignitions of the service module propulsion engine, They also measured the accuracy of performance of all spacecraft systems, and provided the first effective television transmissions of onboard crew activities.
Apollo 7 was placed in an Earth-orbit with an apogee of 153.5 nautical miles (284.3 kilometers) and perigee of 122.6 nautical miles (227.1 km). The 260-hour, four-and-a-half million mile (7.25 Gm) shakedown flight was successfully concluded on October 22, 1968, with splashdown occurring in the Atlantic, eight miles (15 km) from the carrier Essex (only three-tenths of a mile or 0.6 km from the originally predicted aiming point). Eisele logged 260 hours in space.
Eisele also served as backup command module pilot for the 1969 Apollo 10 flight. Eisele resigned from the Astronaut Office in 1970 and became technical assistant for manned spaceflight at the NASA Langley Research Center, a position he occupied until retiring from both NASA and the Air Force in 1972.
In July 1972, Eisele became Country Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand. Returning from Thailand two years later, he became Sales Manager for the Marion Power Shovel Company, a division of Dresser Industries. Eisele then handled private and corporate accounts for the investment firm of Oppenheimer & Company.
Eisele died at the age of 57 of a heart attack while on a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, where he was to attend the opening of a new Space Camp patterned on the one at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was survived by his wife Susan, their two children, and his four children from a previous marriage. Eisele was cremated in Japan, and his ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
A family-approved account of Donn Eisele's life appears in the 2007 book In the Shadow of the Moon.
In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Eisele was played by John Mese.
Susan Eisele Black, on behalf of her late husband, donated a sample of a moon rock to Broward County Main Library on October 23, 2007. Broward County Library, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the only library in the United States to have a real lunar rock on display. The moon rock is exhibited at science museums and schools. http://www.broward.org/library/pdfs/newsrlse_moonrock100907.pdf
In 2008, NASA posthumously awarded Eisele the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Apollo 7 mission.[1]
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