Mike Smith
Astronaut
Remembered for piloting the Space Shuttle Challenger during its doomed STS-51-L mission, this NASA astronaut had previously served in the Vietnam War and worked as a United States Navy test pilot.
After graduating from the United States Naval Academy in the late 1960s, he trained as a naval aviator before joining the NASA astronaut program in 1980.
He was a posthumous recipient of both the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Defense Distinguished Service Medal. During his lifetime, he was awarded the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross and several Air Medals.
He was born in Beaufort, North Carolina, and he died in the sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida, at the age of forty.
He was portrayed by actor Brian Kerwin in a 1990 television movie about the Challenger disaster.