F. Curt Michel, Astronaut from Apollo Era, Passes Away at 80

I'm a bit late on this one, but last March, NASA Apollo era astronaut F. Curt Michel has passed away. Having been selected as part of the fourth group of Astronaut/Scientists in 1965, along with Harrison Schmidt and Owen Garriot, Michel missed being selected for the moon and was assigned to the Apollo Applications Program which ultimately led to Skylab.

As an astrophysicist, Michel took a leave of absence from NASA to do research in radio pulsars and ultimately resigned from NASA one week before the Apollo 11 moon landing. And many believe it was his resignation that cemented Jack Schmidt's rise to the crew of Apollo 17. ""The National Academy of Sciences got all pushed out of shape when I left," Michel said in 2009. "I think that was largely influential in Jack getting his flight. When it looked like their primary idea of getting a scientist to the moon was going to flop, they finally started pushing their weight around.""

He spent the next 37 years at Rice University, resuming his duties as an assistant professor for space science for before retiring in 2000.