Edgar Mitchell was dubbed ‘Mr. Unflappable’ for his role in Apollo 14 mission.NASA/Reuters
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who became the sixth man on the moon as part of the first lunar mission focused on scientific research and later devoted his life to exploring physics, the mind, and unexplained phenomena, has died at the age of 85.
He died on Feb. 4 at a West Palm Beach hospice after a short illness, said his daughter, Kimberly Mitchell. His passing coincided with the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 14 mission from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9, 1971.
Dr. Mitchell, one of only 12 people to set foot on the moon, was not a typical strait-laced astronaut. In later years, he said aliens visited Earth and faith healers were legitimate. He attempted to communicate telepathically with friends at home during his Apollo mission. He had what he described as an "epiphany" in space that focused him on the study of physics and mysteries such as consciousness.
"What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness," he wrote in his 1996 autobiography, The Way of the Explorer.
"It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that burned in the heavens about me."
In an e-mailed statement, NASA administrator Charles Bolden called Dr. Mitchell, "one of the pioneers in space exploration on whose shoulders we now stand."
His passion for exploration led him to become an astronaut, and he joined NASA in 1966. He helped to design and test the lunar modules that first reached the moon in 1969 with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Alan Shepard, the first American in space in 1961, picked Dr. Mitchell to be on Apollo 13's crew. But they were bumped to the next mission so that Mr. Shepard would have more time to train.
Apollo 13's astronauts were nearly killed when an oxygen tank exploded as they neared the moon in 1970. They made it home safely, but never set foot on the moon. A year later, Dr. Mitchell, Mr. Shepard, and Stuart Roosa were the first crew to try again amid falling support for the moon missions from President Richard Nixon, Congress and the public.
"Had we blown it, had it failed for whatever reason, that would probably have been the end of the Apollo program right there," Dr. Mitchell said in 1997.
He collected about 45 kilograms of samples in more than nine hours walking the lunar surface. The crew showed for the first time that astronauts could walk long distances on the moon, covering nearly three kilometres on their second expedition on the surface. That proved the crews of later missions could walk back to their spacecraft if the buggy-like Lunar Rover broke down.
Their mission was best known to the public because Mr. Shepard became the first and only golfer on the moon. Dr. Mitchell joked when his crew mate duffed his first shot: "You got more dirt than ball that time." Less well known was that Dr. Mitchell made the only "javelin" throw on the moon when he tossed an unneeded metal rod.
But the two astronauts almost didn't make it to the surface because of problems in the lunar module. First, a loose piece of metal in a switch triggered an abort signal as they prepared to travel down to the moon. Had the descent engine been on at the time, the module would have automatically aborted the landing. They traced the problem's cause by tapping on the switch with a flashlight and a pen.
Computer programmers back home wrote instructions to get around the abort problem and Dr. Mitchell entered them with just minutes to spare. Mr. Shepard later wrote that Dr. Mitchell remained "Mr. Unflappable" during the scare.
Once they started for the surface, though, the landing radar wasn't working correctly. The two men agreed to take the dangerous and rule-breaking step of landing without radar, but didn't have to when the device started working just in time.
It was the telepathy experiment on the ride home that would give Dr. Mitchell notoriety. Even before he left on the mission, he told the Associated Press about his fascination with psychic phenomena and extrasensory perception and that he thought humans weren't the only intelligent life in the universe. He claimed the telepathy experiment was a success, but most news reports dismissed him and some colleagues shunned him.
Edgar Dean Mitchell was born Sept. 17, 1930, in Hereford, Tex., and grew up working on his father's cattle ranch in New Mexico. He joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a fighter pilot, and earned his doctorate in flight sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
He left NASA in 1972 and founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which is dedicated to exploring the mysteries of the human mind and the universe. He also searched for ways to link the spirituality of religion with the hard facts of science.
His two marriages ended in divorce. He leaves four daughters, Karlyn, Elizabeth, Mary and Kimberly, and a son, Paul.
In later years, Dr. Mitchell claimed that the U.S. government covered up evidence that aliens had landed on Earth. He also tried to prove that the supposed psychic spoon bender Uri Geller and faith healers were legitimate.