Донн Ф. Эйзель: Американский астронавт и пилот

American astronaut (1930–1987)

Donn Fulton Eisele (June 23, 1930 – December 1, 1987) (Colonel USAF) was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot for the Apollo 7 mission in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force in 1972, he became the Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.

Eisele was born June 23, 1930, in Columbus, Ohio, to Herman Eugene Eisele (1899–1964) and Lee Ila June Eisele ( Davisson; 1900–1964). He graduated from West High School in 1948. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1952, and chose a commission in the United States Air Force. He received a Master of Science degree in Astronautics from the U. S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, in 1960.

Following his commission, Eisele was sent to flight training. He was trained at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, Williams Air Force Base, Arizona, and Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. After receiving his pilot wings in 1954, Eisele served four years as an interceptor pilot in South Dakota and in Libya until 1958. He attended and graduated from the U. S. Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School (Class 62A) at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in 1962; his classmates included Charles Bassett and Theodore Freeman. Eisele was a project engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. He flew experimental test flights in support of special weapons development programs. He logged more than 4,200 hours flying time, 3,600 of which were in jet aircraft. In December 1966, Apollo 2 was canceled on the grounds that it would be an unnecessary repeat of Apollo 1, and Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham became the backups to Grissom's crew. But after Grissom, White, and Chaffee were killed in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire of January 27, 1967, Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham were named to fly the first crewed Apollo mission instead. It would ultimately be called Apollo 7. As the launch date approached, Eisele's participation was at risk; he was having an extramarital affair with a woman who would later become his second wife. Eisele remained on the crew, and on October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 was launched on an 11 day mission—the first crewed flight test of the third generation United States spacecraft. By this time, the Senior Pilot title was changed to Command Module Pilot. Together with spacecraft commander Schirra and Lunar Module Pilot Cunningham, Eisele performed simulated transposition and docking maneuvers with the upper stage of their Saturn IB launch vehicle, and acted as navigator, taking star sightings and aligning the spacecraft's guidance and navigation platform. The crew completed eight successful test firing maneuvers of the service module's propulsion engine. They also tested the performance of all spacecraft systems and broadcast the first live televised coverage of crew activities.

In July 1972, Eisele became Country Director of the U. S. Peace Corps in Thailand. Returning from Thailand two years later, he became Sales Manager for Marion Power Shovel, a division of Dresser Industries. After Eisele's death, the City of Wilton Manors named Donn Eisele Park in his memory. Eisele was a guide in the 1986 Concorde Comet Chase flights out of Miami and New York City.

In 1987, at the age of 57, Eisele died of a heart attack while on a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, where he was to attend the opening of a new Space Camp patterned on the one at the U. S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Eisele was cremated in Japan, and his ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

Eisele was an Eagle Scout, a member of Tau Beta Pi, and a Freemason, belonging to Luther B. Turner Lodge # 732 in Columbus, Ohio. He was one of 24 Apollo astronauts who were inducted into the U. S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2008, NASA posthumously awarded Eisele the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Apollo 7 mission.

A family approved account of Donn Eisele's life appears in the 2007 book In the Shadow of the Moon. Eisele's posthumously discovered memoir Apollo Pilot was published by University of Nebraska Press in 2017. In the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Eisele was portrayed by John Mese. In the final three episodes of the 2015 ABC television series The Astronaut Wives Club, Eisele was portrayed by Ryan Doom. Susan Eisele Black donated a sample of a Moon rock to Broward County Main Library on behalf of her late husband, on October 23, 2007. Broward County Library, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the only library in the United States to have a lunar rock on display. The precious Moon rock is typically exhibited at science museums and schools.