Ken Mattingly

• 1. Introduction

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  Ken Mattingly came closest to the Moon without ever landing on it. Born on the 17th of March, 1936, in Chicago, Illinois, Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II spent a lifetime in aviation, engineering, and space exploration, yet one of his most consequential contributions to spaceflight happened with his feet firmly on the ground. Three days before Apollo 13 lifted off, NASA pulled him from the crew because he had been exposed to German measles. He never contracted the disease. But from Mission Control, he helped save the three astronauts who flew in his place. What kind of person trains for years to reach space, gets grounded at the last moment for an illness he never develops, and then helps rescue the crew he was supposed to join? And what did Mattingly do when he finally got his chance to go?

• 2. A Life Built for Flight

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  Mattingly's earliest memories, by his own account, all had to do with airplanes. His father had been hired by Eastern Airlines shortly after his son's birth, and the family moved from Chicago to Hialeah, Florida, putting aviation in the household from the start. Mattingly earned the rank of Life Scout in the Boy Scouts of America, one step below Eagle Scout. He graduated from Miami Edison High School in 1954, then went on to Auburn University, earning a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering in 1958.

  The U.S. Navy commissioned him as an ensign that same year, and he received his aviator wings in 1960. His first assignment sent him to Attack Squadron Thirty-five at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia, where he flew the Douglas A-1H Skyraider, a propeller-driven aircraft, from carrier decks between 1960 and 1963. He later flew the Douglas A-3B Skywarrior jet at Naval Air Station Sanford in Florida.

  While stationed at Sanford, a fellow officer invited Mattingly on a flight to photograph the launch of Gemini 3 from the air. Aboard that Gemini capsule was a naval officer named John W. Young, who would later command Mattingly on the Moon. That aerial photograph mission was their first indirect connection, years before either man knew they would fly to the Moon together.

• 3. The Road to NASA

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  Mattingly had shown little interest in applying to the astronaut program before attending the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. There, he and his classmates were given the chance to apply to either NASA or the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Mattingly and his classmate Edgar Mitchell applied for the laboratory program and were rejected. The deadline for the NASA astronaut group had passed, but one of their instructors got NASA to accept their applications anyway.

  The NASA interview panel included John Young and Michael Collins, then training for Gemini 10. When astronaut Collins asked Mattingly about the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Mattingly answered honestly: a fun aircraft, he said, but without worth in combat. Collins appeared to dislike the answer, and Mattingly came away convinced he had ruined his chances. He had not. Deke Slayton, NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, called to offer him a spot in the astronaut corps.

  At the time of his selection in April 1966, Mattingly had logged 2,582 total flight hours, including 1,036 hours in jet aircraft. Among the instructors at his Air Force school were Charles Duke, who would later be his crewmate on the lunar surface of Apollo 16, and Henry W. Hartsfield Jr., whom Mattingly would later command on the Space Shuttle. His professional circle, it turned out, was already populated by the people he would spend the rest of his spaceflight career alongside.

• 4. Apollo 13 and the Ground Role

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  Mattingly was originally assigned to fly on Apollo 14, but his crew was shuffled to Apollo 13 to allow Alan Shepard, who had been grounded during Project Gemini, more training time. Then came the exposure to German measles. Three days before the April 1970 launch, Mattingly was replaced by Jack Swigert, the backup Command Module Pilot.

  The explosion that crippled Apollo 13 in flight happened without Mattingly aboard. On the ground, he played a large role in working out how the crew could conserve enough power to survive re-entry. It was precise, focused technical work under extreme pressure, and the crew returned safely.

  His replacement by Swigert did not end his Apollo career. Instead, it positioned him to fly Apollo 16, where his specific skills as a Command Module Pilot would shape one of the lesser-known achievements of the entire program.

• 5. Apollo 16 and the Deep-Space EVA

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  Apollo 16 flew from the 16th to the 27th of April, 1972, and was the fifth crewed lunar landing mission. The crew was John Young as Commander, Mattingly as Command Module Pilot, and Charlie Duke as Lunar Module Pilot. Their target was the lunar highlands near the crater Descartes. While Young and Duke descended to the surface, Mattingly orbited alone aboard the Command and Service Module, which NASA named Casper.

  During those orbits, the scientific instruments aboard Casper conducted photographic and geochemical mapping of a belt around the lunar equator. A combined total of 26 separate scientific experiments were conducted in lunar orbit and during cislunar coast.

  On the return leg to Earth, Mattingly conducted an extravehicular activity to retrieve film and data packages from the science bay on the exterior of the service module. This was the second deep-space EVA in history, performed at great distance from any planetary body. The first had been conducted on Apollo 15. Mattingly completed 64 lunar orbits in total. The mission was cut short by one day due to concern over several spacecraft malfunctions, but all major objectives were accomplished. Mattingly and his commander John Young would later become the only two astronauts to have flown to the Moon and also orbited the Earth on the Space Shuttle.

• 6. Shuttle Commands and a Presidential Greeting

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  After Apollo 16, Mattingly moved into astronaut managerial positions within the Space Shuttle development program. He was named to command STS-4, the fourth and final orbital test flight of the shuttle, launching from Kennedy Space Center on the 27th of June, 1982, with Henry Hartsfield Jr. as pilot.

  The seven-day mission had several objectives: verifying the ascent and entry phases of shuttle flights, studying long-term thermal effects on orbiter subsystems, and surveying contamination in the payload bay. The crew also activated the first operational Getaway Special, a canister holding nine experiments ranging from algae and duckweed growth to genetic studies of fruit flies and brine shrimp. An in-flight repair by Mattingly and Hartsfield made that activation possible.

  STS-4 completed 112 orbits before landing at Edwards Air Force Base on the 4th of July, 1982. President Ronald Reagan greeted the crew on the tarmac. Reagan noted that both Mattingly and Hartsfield were Auburn University graduates and addressed them as "you two sons of Auburn."

  Mattingly flew one more Shuttle mission, STS-51-C, the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense mission, which launched on the 24th of January, 1985. That crew deployed a modified Inertial Upper Stage vehicle for the Department of Defense. The mission landed on the 27th of January, 1985. It was Mattingly's final spaceflight.

• 7. After the Missions

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  Mattingly retired from NASA in 1985 and from the Navy the following year, holding the two-star rank of Rear Admiral. His post-government career moved through several major aerospace firms. He worked as a director in Grumman's Space Station Support Division, then led the Atlas booster program for General Dynamics in San Diego, California. At Lockheed Martin he served as vice president overseeing the X-33 development program. He later worked at Systems Planning and Analysis in Virginia.

  Over his entire career, Mattingly logged 7,200 hours of flight time, 5,000 of them in jet aircraft. In 1997, he was among the 24 Apollo astronauts inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. His name appears on the Astronaut Monument in Husavik, Iceland, commemorating the 32 Apollo astronauts who traveled to Iceland for geological training in the 1960s.

  Mattingly married Elizabeth Dailey in 1970. They had one child, Thomas Kenneth Mattingly III. He died in Arlington, Virginia, on the 31st of October, 2023, at age 87. NASA announced his death two days later, on the 2nd of November.