NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has died. He was 85 years obsolete.
Mitchell was the sixth human to walk on the moon. He died Thursday night after a short illness. It was exactly one day before the 45th anniversary of the day he landed in the Moon's hilly Fra Mauro region,with crewmate Alan Shepard. Mitchell was into the paranormal, and the possibility that ESP (psychic communication) could help humans stay connected out in space. From Bill Harwood at CBS News: Famous for attempting an experiment in extra-sensory insight on his way back from the moon, or Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973 "to support consciousness research and promote awareness of evolving human consciousness," the family said in a statement released by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
Andrew Chaikin, author of "A Man On The Moon -- The Voyages Of The Apollo Astronauts, and " said in a recent interview with CBS News that Mitchell was "super shiny" and "an intellectual."
"Just a genuine lover of ideas," Chaikin said. "It shows in his post-NASA career because he pursued this question of consciousness and the nature of consciousness. On his flight, he had kind of a mountain-top experience where on the flight domestic, or looking at the Earth,he felt that he was experiencing the universe as an clever entity, nearly an organism. And that really changed him." [caption id="attachment_446860" align="aligncenter" width="1500"] Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell in front of a graphic of the mission patch. [NASA][/caption]
Here are NASA Administrator Charles Bolden's remarks on his death: (more…)
Source: boingboing.net