“I am not in the habit of looking back,” Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford wrote at the end of his memoir. “When I do,” he continued, “I am somewhat amazed… Why me?” He asked. Why and how did he become a renowned pilot, astronaut, and diplomat, he wanted to know.

His answer: “Through it all, through my time as a fighter pilot, my tours at Edwards, at NASA, and the Pentagon, whether I was flying a T-38 across the Western United States or piloting an Apollo around the Moon, whether I was visiting the USSR during the Cold War or Russia in the 1990s, I kept my eyes on the sky.”

Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford (USAF) died at the age of 93 on March 18, 2024. Born in Weatherford, Oklahoma, to a dentist and a former schoolteacher on September 17, 1930, Stafford grew up under the first transcontinental airline route. As a child, he would watch silver DC-3s streak across the sky and think “I want to do that.”

After excelling at the Naval Academy, Stafford joined the Air Force, fulfilling his dream of flying. In 1958, he entered the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base and remained after he graduated as an instructor then chief of the performance branch. In 1962, Stafford joined NASA’s second group of astronauts, made possible, in part, by the increase of the qualifying height limit from 5’ 11” to 6’.

On December 15, 1965, Stafford had his first opportunity to fly a spacecraft. Due to an explosion of an Agena Target Vehicle, and resulting schedule changes, Stafford and Walter “Wally” Schirra’s mission became the first successful rendezvous of two crewed vehicles in space. They accomplished this goal by coming within just one foot of Gemini VII, crewed by Frank Borman and James Lovell. After flying in close formation with Gemini VII for around five hours, Stafford and Schirra accomplished another first: the first musical interlude played in space.

In recognition of the mid-December date of their flight, Stafford and Schirra played “Jingle Bells” with the two small instruments they had smuggled onboard. Stafford jested to mission control: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit,” describing “Santa Claus,” before they broke out into song. Years later, Stafford and Schirra donated these artifacts to the National Air and Space Museum. Visitors to the Destination Moon gallery can view the string of bells and a miniature harmonica mounted near the Gemini VII spacecraft. If you look closely, you will also see thin threads of dental floss and Velcro the two astronauts attached to their musical instruments for mounting on the spacecraft wall while not in use.

Stafford flew again in June 1966, as commander of Gemini IX-A. He wore the same helmet for both Gemini missions, made of fiberglass and epoxy resin with a raiseable Plexiglas visor. Later he commented: “We were so naïve, we didn’t even think about putting defog on the visor,” referencing crewmate Eugene Cernan’s spacewalk and the steep learning curve of the early space program. Cernan endured a visor so fogged over while performing his extravehicular activity (EVA) that his only way back to the cockpit was following Stafford’s step-by-step guidance. After their mission, astronauts started training underwater and the helmets were modified with a defogger on their visors. Gemini IX-A, as the whole of the Gemini program, honed experience essential for the upcoming Apollo program, where the astronauts would apply lessons learned in spacewalks, rendezvous, docking, and long duration spaceflight to their missions to the Moon.

Cernan would be Stafford’s crewmate again on the Apollo 10 mission in May 1969. Joined by command module pilot John Young, the crew of Apollo 10 conducted what is often called the “dress rehearsal” for Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission. Stafford and Cernan flew the lunar module (LM)—nicknamed Snoopy—within 50,000 feet of the Moon’s surface. When naming the LM and their command module, Charlie Brown, the crew was inspired by the beloved comic book characters who had become mascots for NASA’s flight awareness program. The LM’s name seemed fitting for a mission that would “snoop” around the Moon. Stafford proposed color illustrations of the two characters to calibrate the onboard cameras, instead of the standard chart. These comic book character illustrations helped broadcast the first color television from space, another idea advocated by Stafford. “What better way to take viewers along to the Moon than by using color television?” he asked, recognizing the importance of sharing the experience with everyone back home on Earth.

After Apollo 10, Stafford became Chief of the Astronaut Office and then Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations. In 1973, he was named to the crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), a joint mission with the Soviet Union that symbolized détente and improved relations between the two superpowers. It also developed both nation’s space rescue capability by testing a compatible rendezvous and docking system. ASTP began Stafford’s lifelong friendship with Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space and commander of the Soviet spacecraft for the mission. Stafford incorporated Leonov’s history into his own biography, a reflection of the commonalities and close relationship. “He’s like a brother to me,” he noted in a 1997 oral history. After the spacecraft docked in space in July 1975, Leonov said, “Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands now.” Among the ceremonial gifts the crews exchanged was a small box of American hybrid spruce seeds labeled “Superior Tree Seeds for a Better World.” Stafford described it as “a gift from the American people to create a living memorial to the project.” The cosmonauts would go on to plant these seeds in the Soviet Union upon their return to Earth. Stafford would continue to support space cooperation through advisory roles for decades after ASTP, from the Shuttle-Mir program to the International Space Station.

Shortly after ASTP, Stafford became the Commanding General of Edwards Air Force Base. When he retired from the Air Force in 1979, he had had earned over 500 hours of spaceflight and nearly 7,000 flying hours on over 100 types of spacecraft and aircraft. Stafford shared his enthusiasm for flight through his work with the Stafford Air and Space Museum, which opened in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma, in 1993. A Smithsonian Affiliate, the museum showcases Stafford storied career and the history of flight in America. Throughout his life, Stafford kept his “eyes on the sky.”