Robert V. "Pete" Rusk had a fascination with and attachment to flight and aviation from an early age. As a youngster, he often used to cut school and hang around Congressional Airport in Rockville, Maryland, waxing private planes and doing small chores in exchange for rides. Pete's love of flight also extended beyond the atmosphere. He became intrigued by space and space travel, reading the popular science fiction genre of the 1950s and 1960s.

Returning to the Washington, D.C. area after attending Indiana University (Bloomington) on a music scholarship, he completed private pilot training in 1967 with Colgan Airways Flight School at Manassas Municipal Airport in Manassas, Virginia.

Along with the rest of the world, Pete was enthralled watching the first man walk on the
moon and hardly ever missed watching the PBS series "NOVA" and mini-series "Cosmos." He continued his passion for reading science, subscribing to "Scientific American," and never tired of purchasing and reading science fiction paperbacks.

An expensive hobby for a young husband and father, opportunities to fly became few and far between. Several of his opportunities to fly during the 1980s came from his wife Sandra, who gave him gift certificates for hang gliding and ultralight plane trips, and from various friends who would take him up from time to time. Often they even would let him "drive."

Throughout his life, Pete cherished every minute in the air, whether as a passenger in a private or commercial plane or as the pilot himself, and though he only dreamed of space
travel for himself, he always had the pioneering spirit of an aviator and space traveler.