U.S. Astronaut Candidate Robert H. Lawrence Jr. (1967)

Originally shared by Friends of NASA

U.S. Astronaut Candidate Robert H. Lawrence Jr. (1967)
Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., a Captain in the United States Air Force, was chosen for the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL), Group III, in 1967, becoming the first African American astronaut candidate. Lawrence died December 8, 1967, in the crash of an F-104 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, with the rank of Major. 

Maj. Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., was the first African-American to be chosen as an astronaut by either NASA or the military. He was born Oct. 2, 1935, in Chicago. He graduated from high school at 16 and Bradley University at 20 with a Bachelor's in Chemistry. He was Cadet Commander of Bradley AFROTC and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve. He entered flight training, and after graduation became a T-33 instructor, training USAF & Luftwaffe pilots. He earned a Doctorate in Physical Chemistry from Ohio State. He graduated from the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards in June 1967, and was selected for the MOL program.

Sadly, he never got to fly in space. On Dec. 8, 1967, Maj. Lawrence was in the back seat of an F-104D piloted by ARPS Operations Chief Maj. Harvey Royer, practicing "divebomber approaches" used by the X-15 and Lifting Bodies, when Royer misjudged an approach and hit the runway too hard. The landing gear collapsed, and the fuselage bounced back into the air, trailing fire. It hit the ground again 2,000 feet further down the runway and began to disintegrate as it veered off into the desert. Both pilots ejected. Royer survived, but Maj. Lawrence was killed, when his parachute failed to deploy properly. (Source: TheLivingMoon.com)

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), originally referred to as the Manned Orbital Laboratory, was part of the United States Air Force's manned spaceflight program. The project was developed from several early Air Force and NASA concepts of manned space stations to be used for reconnaissance purposes. MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, with which crews would be launched on 40-day missions and return to Earth using a Gemini B spacecraft, derived from NASA's Project Gemini.

The MOL program was announced to the public on December 10, 1963 as a manned platform to prove the utility of man in space for military missions. Astronauts selected for the program were later told of the reconnaissance mission for the program. The contractor for the MOL was the Douglas Aircraft Company. The Gemini B was externally similar to NASA's Gemini spacecraft, although it underwent several modifications, including the addition of a circular hatch through the heat shield, which allowed passage between the spacecraft and the laboratory.

MOL was cancelled in 1969, during the height of the Apollo program, when it was shown that unmanned reconnaissance satellites could achieve the same objectives much more cost-effectively. U.S. space station development was instead pursued with the civilian NASA Skylab (Apollo Applications Program) which flew in the mid-1970s. (Source: Wikipedia)

Image Credit: NASA

NASA Johnson Space Center 

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