Joseph William Schmitt

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Michael Collins and Joseph W. Schmitt, Apollo 11

Joseph W. Schmitt ( January 2, 1916 - September 25, 2017 ) was a space suit technician for NASA's manned space program in the 1960s and 1970s. As a suit technician, he was close to the astronauts and was usually the last to have direct contact with them before their mission. Schmitt was already responsible for Alan Shepard when he started the Mercury program and continued to work on the Gemini , Apollo and Skylab programs and ended his career in the early stages of the space shuttle program. Due to his presence in the final stages of preparation for these space missions, Schmitt was featured in many photographs, which led to his inclusion in two works on the subject by Norman Rockwell .

Life

Youth and education

Joseph William Schmitt was born on January 2, 1916 in O'Fallon, Illinois, USA, to Benjamin Schmitt and Apollonia Berkel Schmitt. His father, a marshal, was killed on duty shortly after Joseph was born.

In the 1930s, Joseph joined the United States Army Air Corps and became an aircraft mechanic. Soon this work no longer seemed interesting enough to him, which is why he was retrained in rigging parachutes and repairing flight clothing. When he left the army in 1939, he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics as an aircraft mechanic . In this capacity, Schmitt was involved in Chuck Yeager's flight in 1947 , which broke the sound barrier.

NASA specialist

When NASA began its manned space program, Schmitt was appointed an equipment specialist based on his experience and worked with the astronauts' flight suits. In 1958 Schmitt became NASA's chief space suit technician and, together with BF Goodrich, developed a functional spacesuit. Following the Merkur and Gemini programs, Schmitt helped develop the suits that astronauts wore on the moon during the Apollo program. Schmitt worked continuously on the Apollo and Skylab programs as well as in the early phase of the space shuttle program. In 1983 he finally retired.

Shortly after the Mercury flights ended, Schmitt appeared on the American television game show What's My Line in May 1963 (similar to the German television show Was bin ich? ). The players couldn't guess his exact role, but they at least managed to determine that he was part of the space program. In 1965, Norman Rockwell painted a picture of Gus Grissom and John Watts Young getting ready for Gemini 3. Rockwell worked from photographs showing Schmitt helping Young. Schmitt also brought a spacesuit to Rockwell's studio to help Rockwell with the details of the suits.

Joseph W. Schmitt donned Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins before the start of Apollo 11; he can also be seen in the film Apollo 11 (2019) .

Private

Schmitt married Elizabeth Ann Rayfield in 1939. He died on September 25, 2017 at a nursing home in Friendswood, Texas, aged 101.

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Obituary in The Economist
  2. ^ A b c Joseph Schmitt, 101, Spacesuit Technician for Early Astronauts, Dies , New York Times . October 7, 2017. 
  3. ^ A b c Joseph W. Schmitt, spacesuit technician who made astronauts shine, dies at 101 , Washington Post . October 14, 2017. 
  4. ^ National Air and Space Museum Gallery, "Grissom and Young" by Norman Rockwell. Retrieved September 12, 2019 .
  5. ↑ NASA Image Gallery KSC-69PC-373. Retrieved September 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Schmitt, Joseph William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmitt, Joseph W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Space suit technician for NASA's manned space program in the 1960s and 1970s
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1916
DATE OF DEATH 25th September 2017