Air Force Maj. Robert Lawrence Jr. Was Fatally Injured In An Accident Before He Had A Chance To Fly In Space

A ceremony was held late last year at the Kennedy Space Center to honor Air Force Maj. Robert Lawrence Jr., who was selected in June, 1967 for a classified USAF space program.

According to the NASA History Facebook page, at that time the United States was developing the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program; effectively a reconnaissance satellite with a crew of two. The MOL astronaut corps was selected by the Department of Defense and was almost completely separate from the NASA astronaut corps. Major Lawrence was not only an Air Force instructor pilot, but also earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Ohio State University. During the same month that he completed the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School he was selected in the third group of MOL astronauts. Tragically, Lawrence's career was cut short when the F-104 Starfighter he was flying in went down on landing on December 8, 1967, at Edwards Air Force Base - less than 6 months after he'd been selected for the MOL program.

The MOL program was cancelled two years later - in December 1969 - and the separate Department of Defense astronaut corps ended along with MOL. Many of the MOL astronauts were accepted into the NASA astronaut corps and played a significant role in the Space Shuttle program. Had Lawrence lived, it is likely that he would have been the first African-American in space. (Dr. Guy Bluford, also a U.S. Air Force pilot, was the first African-American in space on STS-8 in August 1983.)

In 1997, at the request of the Astronaut Memorial Foundation, the Air Force reviewed Lawrence's records and designated him as an astronaut. On the 30th anniversary of his death, Lawrence's name was added to the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

At the ceremony, held on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lawrence was hailed as a person who inspired all of the African Americans to later become astronauts.

The blog Blavity reports that among those honoring Lawrence was Robert Crippen, who had been a part of the MOL program and moved over to NASA after its cancellation. "He had a great future ahead of him if he had not been lost 50 years ago," Crippen said.

(Image from NASA History Facebook page)

FMI: Original Report