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Jack Swigert
Sign in to saveAlso known as John Leonard "Jack" Swigert, Jr.'''
NASA Astronaut, Pilot (1931-1982)
OverviewAI-generated
Jack Swigert was an American politician, military officer, astronaut, and aircraft pilot. Born in Denver on August 30, 1931, he served in the United States Air Force and was a member of NASA Astronaut Group 5. He worked for NASA and was affiliated with the Republican Party. Swigert received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and induction into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.
He was educated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Hartford. Swigert spent 8,574 units of time in space. He died of natural causes in Washington, D.C., on December 27, 1982.
Synthesized by Vinony from 32 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film & TV
Known for
- Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back — Himself1994
via TMDB
Key facts
- Preceded by
- District established
- Succeeded by
- Daniel Schaefer (as member)
- Born
- John Leonard Swigert Jr. , ( 1931-08-30 ) August 30, 1931, Denver , Colorado, U.S.
- Died
- December 27, 1982 (1982-12-27) (aged 51) , Washington, D.C. , U.S.
- Resting place
- Mount Olivet Cemetery
- Party
- Republican
- Education
- University of Colorado, Boulder ( BS ) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( MS ) University of Hartford ( MBA )
- Awards
- Presidential Medal of Freedom NASA Distinguished Service Medal
- Allegiance
- United States
- Branch
- United States Air Force
- Service years
- 1953–1956 (active), 1956–1965 (reserve)
- Rank
- Captain
- Unit
- Massachusetts Air National Guard (1957–1960) Connecticut Air National Guard (1960–1965)
- Time in space
- 5 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes
- Selection
- NASA Group 5 (1966)
- Missions
- Apollo 13
- Retirement
- August 1977
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Part of
- NASA Astronaut Group 5
- Given name
- Jack
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Denver
- Place of death
- Washington, D.C.
- Occupation
- astronaut
- Employer
- NASA
- Political party
- Republican Party (United States)
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Member of team
- Colorado Buffaloes
- Military branch
- United States Air Force
- Military rank
- captain
- Image
- Jack Swigert.jpg
- Work location
- Washington, D.C.
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Jack Swigert
- date of death
- 1982-12-27
- date of birth
- 1931-08-30
- manner of death
- natural causes
- described by source
- Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia
- time in space
- 8574
- name in native language
- Jack Swigert
- member of the crew of
- Apollo 13
- P450
- Apollo 13
via Wikidata · CC0
~12 min read
Encyclopedic overview
John Leonard Swigert Jr. (August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. In April 1970, as command module pilot of Apollo 13, he became one of 24 Apollo astronauts who reached the Moon. Due to the "slingshot" route around the Moon they chose to safely return to Earth, the Apollo 13 astronauts flew farther away from Earth than any other astronauts until the Artemis II lunar flyby in 2026, though they had to abort the Moon landing.
Before joining NASA in 1966, Swigert was a civilian test pilot and fighter pilot in the Air National Guard. After leaving NASA, he ran to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate but lost in a primary election against Bill Armstrong. He subsequently was elected to represent Colorado's 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, but died of cancer before being sworn into office.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Jack Swigert” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.