Frank Borman

Frank Borman
Country:	United States
Organization:	NASA
selected on	September 17, 1962 (2nd NASA Group)
Calls:	2 space flights
Start of the first space flight:	4th December 1965
Landing of the last space flight:	December 27, 1968
Time in space:	19d 21h 35min
retired on	July 1970
Space flights
Gemini 7 (1965) Apollo 8 (1968)

Frank Frederick Borman, II (born March 14, 1928 in Gary , Indiana , USA ) is a former American astronaut .

Life

After Borman had finished his aeronautical engineering studies at the Military Academy in West Point in 1950 , he served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force in the Philippines until 1953 , then as a flight instructor in Georgia and Arizona . In 1957, Borman received a master's degree in aerospace. He then taught thermodynamics and fluid mechanics as an assistant professor at West Point until 1960 . Then he returned to the cockpit at Edwards Air Force Base in California : first as a test pilot , then as an instructor.

On September 17, 1962, he was elected to the second astronaut group by NASA . As a special task, he took on the rockets that should bring the spaceships into orbit .

At the end of 1963, Borman was scheduled as a replacement pilot for the maiden flight Gemini 3 . Due to the unfit to fly of the intended Gemini 3 commander Alan Shepard and the shift in the mission profiles, Borman was then substitute commander of Gemini 4 , which was announced to the public on July 27, 1964.

After the flight was successfully carried out in June 1965, Borman was nominated commander of Gemini 7 . Borman was the second NASA astronaut after James McDivitt to be given command of a multi-person spaceship on the first flight. Together with Jim Lovell , he orbited the earth from December 4 to December 18, 1965, a long-term record that was not broken until 1970 by the crew of Soyuz 9 .

On September 29, 1966 he was assigned as a substitute commander for the second manned Apollo flight, but this flight was canceled a few weeks later because it was an unnecessary repetition of the first flight.

After the Apollo 1 disaster , in which three astronauts were killed, Frank Borman was a member of the commission of inquiry. As a result, he was given the task of leading the team to convert the Apollo command module.

After NASA had resumed planning for manned space flights, the classifications for the second and third Apollo flight (missions D and E) were announced on November 20, 1967. Borman was designated as the commander for Mission E. Together with him, Michael Collins and William Anders were assigned . This would be the first manned flight of the new Saturn V rocket and take up to 11 days.

In the summer of 1968, however, it became apparent that the lunar module, which was to be tested in the second manned Apollo flight (Mission D), would not be ready in time. In August, NASA decided, for the time being without informing the public, that Mission E could be brought forward and that Borman's team should orbit the moon as Mission C ' . However, Michael Collins had to undergo an operation and was replaced by Jim Lovell .

After Mission C ( Apollo 7 ) was successful, NASA finally decided on November 10th that Borman's crew should be the first to fly to the moon. The historic flight of Apollo 8 began on December 21, 1968 and lasted seven days. For Borman this was the second and final space flight. He was one of the few astronauts in the Gemini and Apollo project who had never worked as a liaison officer ( Capcom ) himself .

Borman with Jim Lovell and William Anders in December 2008

In July 1969, shortly before the Apollo 11 moon landing , Borman officially visited the Soviet Union . He was accompanied by his wife and his 15 and 17 year old sons. Borman met Nikolai Kamanin , the head of the Soviet manned space flight, as well as the cosmonauts Feoktistow , Titow , Schatalow , Volynow , Beregovoy and Tereschkowa . Kamanin praised Borman as a skilled speaker and diplomat, as well as a born politician.

On July 1, 1970, Frank Borman resigned from NASA and went to the American airline Eastern Air Lines , first as Vice President , from 1976 as Chairman. During his tenure at Eastern, the company posted the four most profitable annual financial statements in its history. Under his leadership, Eastern became the first American airline to purchase aircraft from Airbus .

When a Lockheed Tristar crashed on Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 on December 29, 1972 in the Everglades in Florida, Borman personally participated in the rescue operations that same night.

In 1986 he retired from Eastern. He is currently engaged in the restoration of aircraft .

Honors

• Borman was one of the first six astronauts, which on 1 October 1978. Congressional Space Medal of Honor was awarded
• He is one of the few astronauts to be a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame
• In 1968 he was with his comrades of Apollo 8 Man of the Year of the Time Magazine
• The name of the software company Borland was inspired by Borland's name
• The Borman lunar crater was named after him in 1970

literature

• Frank Borman, Countdown: An Autobiography , Silver Arrow, 1988, ISBN 0-688-07929-6 (English)

Web links

Wikiquote: Frank Borman  - Quotes

Commons : Frank Borman  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Frank Borman in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
• Transcript of a 1999 NASA interview in the JSC Oral History Project (English)
• NASA images