We’re joining up two of our features here and offering an Astronaut Friday post this week with our Astronaut Bio Cards from the Apollo 50th celebration. This week, we’re talking about Tom Stafford. He’s one of the Apollo 10 astronauts and also has a history with Space Center Houston. A mannequin of him is prominently displayed in Starship Gallery as part of the Apollo-Soyuz training module.
Stafford was integral to the successful Apollo-Soyuz mission, helping to thaw the Cold War tensions as NASA worked with its Soviet counterparts to dock two spacecraft while in orbit. Missions like this fostered the environment of impressive collaboration which led to the International Space Station.
That wasn’t Stafford’s only contribution to the space program, however. Read his bio card and learn a little about this Apollo hero.