Dick Truly in front of the prototype Shuttle, Enterprise.

*****

The obituaries certainly mention that he flew two Shuttle flights, pilot of the second orbital flight, Columbia in 1981, and commander of the eighth flight which made the first night launch and landing, Challenger in 1983.  They of course mention he became NASA’s associate administrator for Shuttle program after the Challenger accident, a position he held through the return-to-flight.  Then in 1989 he was appointed NASA Administrator by President George H.W. Bush, a position he held until February 1992, a booster of the traditional NASA, of the Space Station program, forced out by those seeking to reform the agency.  They’ll mention that.  And likely note that a Naval aviator, he’d been chosen as a military astronaut in 1965 for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project.  MOL would have used a modified Gemini with a 50-ft.-long mini-lab caboose housing spy telescopes.  When the program was canceled in 1969, he was one of seven MOL astronauts to transferred to NASA.  They may mention his long wait for a flight, but skip over the fact that he was one of just four astronauts who flew the prototype Shuttle, Enterprise, in a series of drop tests, the Approach and Landing Tests.

It’s Oct. 12, 1977, over Edwards Air Force Base, California, at an altitude of 22,400 ft. Dick Truly is in the Enterprise’s cockpit bolted above the Shuttle’s 747 carrier aircraft.  He’s in the right-hand pilot’s seat for his second free flight aboard the Shuttle with Joe Engle.  This one will be different, the first without the aerodynamic tail cone covering the dummy main engines to smooth the ride and provide a bit of added lift.  This is the Shuttle as it was meant to be, as it will be returning from orbit.  Yet without the tail cone, Enterprise will drop like a rock.  Instead of a five-minute glide to landing, this free flight will only last only 2 min. 34 sec.  Every millisecond will be filled with maneuver amassing the maximum test data possible from every sinew of the spaceplane.

Speed 278 mph — and release.  Enterprise bites into the air, feels the future out beyond its nose.

Richard F. Truly, age 86, died on Feb. 27, 2024.