He signed one of his official NASA photos for me, and also a copy of his book The Two Sides of the Moon which he co-wrote with Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.
After Apollo 15, Scott held administrative posts with NASA, and retired from the Air Force in 1975 as a colonel. He is married to Margaret Black-Scott, a banking executive and they live in Los Angeles, California.
Scott landed himself in trouble when he took 398 unauthorised 'first day covers' to the moon, which were later sold to a German stamp dealer, with some of the proceeds going to a Scott's family. Scott returned the money after an official reprimand from NASA.
Scott was Commander for the fourth lunar landing in Apollo 15, launched on 26th July 1971. He and James B. Irwin flew their Lunar Module to the moon’s surface while Alfred Worden waited in the Command Module in lunar orbit. This was the first time the Lunar Rover was used. In three separate excursions over three days, they explored the spectacular Apollo landing site, a narrow valley hemmed in on three sides by the 14,000' high Apennine Mountains They returned with 77 kg of rocks, after leaving behind a science station to continue monitoring the lunar environment.
Scott’s next flight was Apollo 9, a ten day orbit test around the Earth. Commander James McDivitt and Lunar Module pilot Russell 'Rusty' Schweickart accompanied Scott on the 1969 launch.
NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1963. In 1966 Scott and Neil Armstrong conducted the first docking in space on Gemini 8. Scott was due to make a space walk, but after problems with one of Gemini's thrusters, Mission Control aborted the flight, and they
David Scott was born in 1932 on the Randolph Air Force base near San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from the US Military Academy with several degrees in engineering and joined the
All this is described in a book called Two Sides of the Moon published in 2004, and written jointly by Scott and former Soviet cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov. It is all about the ''space race" between the America and the Soviet Union, and is an excellent read!
Many years later, Dave Scott worked, as technical advisor, with Tom Hanks on the film Apollo 13 (1995). Scott said, "I spent 9 months on the film and unlike what I've heard about Hollywood, they were real class acts, very professional, and paid great attention to detail."
David Scott's final moonwalk task was to drive the rover out a distance from the Lunar Module to a point where the TV camera could watch the lift off. He left a small Bible on the Rover's dash panel and, beside the Rover, he laid a small 'statuette' of a fallen
David Scott salutes the US flag July 30, 1971 on the
Dave Scott was the seventh man to set foot on the Moon. I met him at Autographica held at Birmingham in April 2008.
US Air Force. His training was
at Edwards Air Force base in California.
splashed down in the Pacific.
McDivitt & Schweickart took the Lunar Module on its first manned test, flying 114 miles away from Scott in the Command Module before flying back and docking. Dave Scott
Scott's EVA in the open Command Module
completed a one-hour
stand-up EVA in the command module hatch, photographing Schweickart performing an EVA of his own outside the lunar module.
hatch of Apollo 9
Alexei Leonov and Dave Scott in the Soyuz
simulator Star City in 1973
astronaut. This was specially made from aluminium
by Belgian sculptor Paul Van Hoeydonck, and smuggled aboard the lunar module without the knowledge of NASA officials. A small plaque recording the names of all the astronauts and cosmonauts that had lost their lives in the furtherance of space exploration, was placed beside it. David Scott and Jim Irwin performed a brief, yet reverent, ceremony on the lunar surface.
Dave Scott & Alexei Leonov signed my copy of Two Sides of the Moon
Dave Scott signed this photo for me at Autographica
Dave Scott in the Gemini 8 cockpit
Scott, McDivitt & Schweickart
Official NASA photo of Dave Scott with a
model of the Lunar Rover
This photo of me with Dave Scott was taken before Autographica's
Gala Dinner at the Birmingham Hilton
Moon during the Apollo 15 mission
'The Fallen Astronaut'
The Apollo 15 Command Module as seen
from the Lunar Module during the mission
and the Lunar Rover on the Moon's surface
Dave Scott took this photo of James Irwin
to the Moon
David Scott
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