NASA astronaut Don Williams, shuttle commander, dies at 74

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Donald Williams, a NASA astronaut who commanded a space shuttle mission that launched the first probe to orbit Jupiter, died Tuesday (Feb. 23). He was 74.

Williams' death was confirmed by the Association of Space Explorers, a society of astronauts and cosmonauts.

"We are sad to pass along the news that former astronaut Don Williams has passed away," the organization wrote on Facebook. "Fair skies and following seas, Cap'n."

Selected with the Thirty-Five New Guys, NASA's first class of space shuttle candidates chosen in 1978, Williams flew into space twice logging 11 days, 23 hours and 34 minutes off the Earth.

His first launch on April 12, 1985 was as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery's fourth mission.

"I looked out the window for the first time ... [and] the first thing I saw was the horizon and blackness of space and the thinness of the atmosphere and everything blue on the Earth," he recalled in a 2002 NASA oral history. "And I just said to myself, 'Wow!'"

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