Thomas Stafford, NASA astronaut who led Apollo-Soyuz joint mission, dies at 93

came after an extended illness, according to Max Ary, director of the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Oklahoma.

Thomas Stafford is pictured in the Gemini 6A spacecraft while atop Pad 19 prior to the hatches being closed for launch.On Dec. 12, 1965, eight days after the Gemini 7 crew had made it into orbit, the Titan II rocket carrying Schirra and Stafford ignited its twin nozzle LR87 engine and then, 1.5 seconds later, shut down. Mission rules stated that the astronauts should have ejected from the capsule, but sensing no movement, Schirra decided not to abort.

Stafford and Schirra returned to Earth the next day, splashing down in the North Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered by the USS Wasp aircraft carrier. Cernan's problems continued to mount. His back hurt due to the rigidity of his suit, he was overheating in the direct sunlight and then his visor fogged up to the point he could no longer see. As a result, Stafford made the decision to call off the AMU test and end the EVA.

"They wanted me to," said Stafford of the possibility of conducting a landing on Apollo 10,"but first we looked at the weight. I had a heavy-weight lunar module, number one, and number two, they also didn't have the software all worked out for that power descent. So, there's no way I could have done it."

"The whole damned spacecraft started to tumble and tried to rotate," Stafford said."I just reached over and blew off the descent stage, because all the thrusters were on the ascent stage, get better torque-to-inertia ratio." Stafford received his pilot wings at Connally Air Force Base in Waco, Texas, in 1953. He then completed advanced interceptor training and was assigned to the 54th Flight Interceptor Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. In December 1955, he was assigned to the 496th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Hahn Air Base in Germany, where he performed the duties of pilot, flight leader and flight test maintenance office, flying F-86Ds.

As astronaut project manager, Stafford demonstrated and implemented the theory of a pilot manually flying the Saturn V booster into orbit and the translunar injection maneuver.

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