Background
Edward Higgins White was born in San Antonio, Tex. , the son of Edward H. White, a career air force officer and a pioneer army balloonist and aviator, and Mary Haller. The family was often transferred and lived in Washington, D. C.
Astronaut aeronautical engineer
Edward Higgins White was born in San Antonio, Tex. , the son of Edward H. White, a career air force officer and a pioneer army balloonist and aviator, and Mary Haller. The family was often transferred and lived in Washington, D. C.
White graduated from high school in 1948. Having no representative in Congress, he won appointment to the United States Military Academy by making himself known to as many congressmen as possible while attending high school. He graduated from the academy in 1952 with a commission as a second lieutenant in the air force
While serving as a fighter pilot in Germany, White followed with interest the development of the manned space-flight program and set out to qualify as an astronaut. With air force support, he earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1959 and then completed the course at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in the same year. He was then assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a test pilot. Among his duties at Wright-Patterson was piloting the KC-135 transport plane in which several of the original seven astronauts trained for the weightless conditions of orbital flight. By the time he was selected as an astronaut, White had spent more time in weightlessness than most of the other astronauts. White applied for the astronaut program as soon as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced openings for a second group of trainees and was accepted on September 17, 1962. He was the pilot on Gemini IV, commanded by James A. McDivitt, the second mission in the Gemini project and the first long-duration flight (sixty-two revolutions on June 3-7, 1965) in the American manned space-flight program. During this mission he became the first American to perform extravehicular activity, floating for twenty minutes over a distance of some 7, 500 miles. On March 21, 1966, White was named to the crew of the first Apollo flight. He died in a spacecraft fire during a launch pad test on January 27, 1967.
He was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots; associate member of Institute of Aerospace Sciences; Tau Delta Phi (Engineering Honorary); and Sigma Delta Psi (Athletic Honorary).
He married Patricia Elaine Finegan shortly thereafter; they had two children.