Former Shuttle astronaut, NASA administrator Richard Truly dead at 86

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February 29, 2024 — Richard "Dick" Truly, who was one of the first astronauts to fly on the space shuttle and later led NASA as its eighth administrator, has died at the age of 86.

Truly's death on Tuesday (Feb. 27) was confirmed by the Association of Space Explorers, a professional organization for the world's astronauts and cosmonauts, which counted Truly as a life member.

"In his decades of service — to the Navy, to NASA, to his country — Richard lifted ever higher humanity's quest to know the unknown and to achieve the impossible dream," said Bill Nelson, NASA's current administrator, in a statement released on Thursday (Feb. 29). "He was a personal friend and a mentor to so many of us."

A naval aviator, Truly was among the first candidates chosen for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), but when that program was canceled in 1969, he joined six fellow MOL trainees to form NASA's seventh group of astronauts. They were the last class to be chosen during the Apollo program.

"I never filled out an application [to join NASA]," said Truly in a 2003 NASA oral history, adding that he never applied to be part of the MOL program; the first class was assigned rather than selected. "So I'm the only person who has ever flown in space that never applied."

Truly's first spaceflight was as the pilot on STS-2, the second flight of the Space Transportation System in 1981, but first he was one of only four astronauts to test landing the winged orbiter as part of the Approach and Landing Test program carried out using the prototype shuttle "Enterprise."

Paired with his future STS-2 commander Joe Engle, Truly flew one "captive" flight with Enterprise remaining attached to the top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and two "free" flights, separating at altitude from the modified 747 jetliner to then touch down at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California.

On Nov. 12, 1981, Engle and Truly lifted off aboard the space shuttle Columbia, becoming only the second crew to test the spacecraft in Earth orbit. The mission proved that the space shuttle was reusable. It was also the first to test "fly" the Canadarm remote manipulator system, or robotic arm.

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