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astronautix.com Evans


Ronald Ellwin (Ron) Evans Status: Deceased. Trained as: Astronaut. Profession: Pilot. Sex: Male. Marital Status: Married. Children: Two. Birth Date: 10 November 1933. Birth City: St. Francis. Birth State: Kansas. Birth Country: USA. Nationality: American. Date of Death: 17 April 1990. Cause of Death: Natural causes - Heart attack. Group: 1966 NASA Group. Date Selected: 04 April 1966. Departed: 1977. Number of Flights: 1. Total Time: 12.58 days. Number of EVAs: 1. Total EVA Time: 1.10 hours.

NAME: Ronald E. Evans

BIRTHPLACE AND DATE: Evans was born November 10, 1933, in St. Francis, Kansas.

EDUCATION: Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas in 1956. Master of Science in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1964.

EXPERIENCE: Evans entered the Navy after graduation and completed flight training and served aboard aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific. In 1961 - 1962 he was a combat flight instructor for F-8 fighter pilots. Thereafter he flew combat missions in the F-8 for seven months from the carrier USS Ticonderoga.

NASA selected Evans as an astronaut in April 1966. He was backup Command Module pilot on Apollo 14 and flew as Command Module pilot on Apollo 17, with Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module pilot Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt. This final Apollo lunar mission was launched on December 7, 1972. While Cernan and Schmitt drove their Lunar Rover across the surface in three separate excursions, Evans maintained a solo vigil in the Command Module, mapping the moon from lunar orbit with cameras and scientific instruments. After the Lunar Module docked up with Command Module the astronauts spent two more days in lunar orbit to collect additional data. During voyage back to Earth, Evans took a 1 hour-6-minute deep space walk to retrieve film and data tapes from the Command Module instrument bay. The longest Apollo lunar mission - 301 hours, 51 minutes - ended with a December 19 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Evans served as backup Command Module pilot for the 1975 joint U.S.-Russian space mission, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and was thereafter involved in development of the Space Shuttle. He retired as a captain from the Navy in 1975 and from NASA in March 1977. He was later Director of Space Systems Marketing for Sperry Flight Systems. He died April 6, 1990, in Scottsdale, Arizona, of a heart attack.


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