TheSpaceRace.com - Charles Bassett

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

John F. Kennedy
Sept. 12, 1962

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Charles Arthur Bassett
Astronaut

Born: December 30, 1931
Birth Place: Dayton, Ohio

Died: February 28, 1966
Cause of Death: Plane crash

Date Joined NASA: October 17, 1963

Space Flights: 0

Charles Bassett

MISSION ASSIGNMENTS

Gemini 7
Assignment: Capcom

Gemini 6A
Assignment: Capcom

Gemini 9
Assignment: Proposed Prime Crew
Mission reassigned to the backup crew after the deaths of Charles Bassett and Elliot See.

HIGHLIGHTS

Earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Texas Technological College.

Bassett was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Bassett was assigned as a member of the Gemini 9A prime crew in 1966, but was killed along with Elliot See when the T-38 jet they were in crashed on February 28, 1966. The crash resulted in Gemini 9 and all following missions being reassigned, and ultimately determined who would be the first crew to go to the Moon.