Moon-Mars study leader was trained for space
Moon-Mars study leader was trained for space
Associated Press
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Washington — The man chosen to lead the way to the moon and Mars is a one-time astronaut trainee and former Defense Department hotshot who is almost giddy about outer space travel.
“It’s going to be fun,” Pete Aldridge said in an interview. “My goodness, the president says this is what we’re going to do.”
President Bush appointed Aldridge, 65, to head a commission charged with figuring out how to carry out the president’s vision and bring in industry and other countries as partners.
In 1986, Edward Cleveland “Pete” Aldridge was training to fly on a space shuttle as a payload specialist, or non-career astronaut, right before the Challenger explosion. His flight was scrapped after Challenger erupted in a fireball soon after liftoff.
A few months later, Aldridge was appointed secretary of the Air Force under President Ronald Reagan.
Born in Houston, home of most astronauts, Aldridge has degrees in aeronautical engineering and currently serves on Lockheed Martin Corp.’s board of directors. He retired from the Defense Department last spring after working 18 years at the Pentagon.
At the time, he was serving under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Like many retirees, he was enjoying the Florida sunshine when he got the call from Bush just two days before the president announced his new moon-Mars plan and rushed to Washington to be there for the speech.
Bush has asked Aldridge to report back to him within four months of the commission’s first meeting.
Bush wants astronauts on the moon by 2020, possibly as early as 2015, but the president has no time frame for a Mars landing by humans.
Meanwhile, the Spirit rover took a weekend spin on Mars that doubled the distance on the six-wheeled vehicle’s odometer, NASA said Monday.
The slow, nearly 10-foot drive took Spirit 30 minutes, including pauses to let it snap pictures.