A member of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1963, Russell (Rusty) Schweickart served as lunar modular pilot for Apollo 9 in 1969, the third manned flight of the Apollo series and the first manned flight for the lunar module. After his Apollo 9 flight, Schweickart served as backup commander for the first Skylab mission. In 1974, he left the astronaut office to accept an assignment at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. as Director of User Affairs in the Office of Applications. In this role, he helped establish relationships with key governmental and industrial organizations that facilitated the use of space technology in fields such as communications, meteorology, Earth resources and space processing.
After leaving NASA, Schweickart served in a variety of business and government ventures including the following: Assistant to California Governor Jerry Brown for Science and Technology; Chairman of the California Energy Commission, CEO of ALOHA Networks, Inc.; Executive VP of CTA Commercial Sytems, Inc. His satellite and telecommunications work has involved him in the development of international communications regulations and policies, including serving as a delegate to the 1995 World Radio Communications (WRC) conference. He has also worked extensively in Russia and the former Soviet Union on scientific and telecommunications matters. In the early 80s Schweickart founded the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the professional society of astronauts and cosmonauts.
Today, Schweickart serves as chairman of the board for the B612 Foundation, a non-profit corporation that is championing the development of a space system to protect the Earth from future asteroid impacts.
Born in Neptune, N.J. in 1935, Schweickart received his BS and MS degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also later worked as a research scientist. Schweickart served as a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and Air National Guard, logging over 3,900 hours of flight time.
Schweickart currently lives in Tiburon, Calif. with his wife, Nancy. They have seven children and 11 grandchildren.