posted 04-26-2005 09:39 AM               

Howard Benedict, known to some as the "dean" of space reporting and the former Executive Director of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, died Monday at his Florida home.

In the early years of the U.S. space program, Benedict introduced generations to space exploration, covering more than 2,000 missile and rocket launches as the senior aerospace writer for The Associated Press. He covered the first 65 U.S. human space flights from Alan Shepard’s Mercury mission in 1961 to the 34th Space Shuttle mission in 1990 for 31 of the 37 years he worked for the wire service.

Benedict authored three books ("NASA: A Quarter Century of Space Achievement" in 1984; "NASA: The Journey Continues" in 1989; and "At Home in Space" in 1995) and in 1994 cowrote "Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon" with fellow reporter Jay Barbree and astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton.

In 1992, Benedict began inspiring a new generation by providing educational opportunities for college engineering and science students offered through the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. He retired as Executive Director of the ASF in 2004, but continued to serve on their Board of Directors.

He is survived by his wife.

On a personal note, Howard was one of the very first people I "met" online through the Prodigy dial-up service during the early-1990s.

He was always open to sharing his vast knowledge and experience about the space program. I considered it an honor in later years to be able to work with him directly on projects for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

He will be greatly missed.

posted 04-26-2005 09:47 AM               

We had a misunderstanding at an event a while back, that we not only worked out but became friends over and laughed repeatedly about it every time we saw each other.

He and Alan Shepard did quite a tremendous undertaking establishing the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the fruits of their labour are very evident.

Linn LeBlanc who suceeded him is carrying on that tradition very well. Im sure there will be a rememberence this weekend at the Induction, and I know it will be done very well.

There are a lot of sad hearts today - mine is certainly one of them. Godspeed Howard.

posted 04-26-2005 03:47 PM               

In the early and mid 1960s' Howard was a congenial fellow journalist, during the early days at JSC, Houston, where I had built Radio Station KMSC. He, along with me and my fellow on-air colleague, Col. John (Shorty) Powers (former NASA PAO,)were shoulder-to-shoulder at adjacent desks during the long days and nights of Mercury,Gemini and early Apollo.

Howard was a real pro and a supporter of the space program, who along with other of us, like Bill Hines, Al Web, Roy Neal, Jules Bergman, etc. continually pushed NASA for clarity and openess of its missions. And NASA responded well to those urgings....most of the time.

I moved on to other media work in New York City at Westinghouse Broadcasting, RKO,NBC and Madison Avenue.

But decades later, Howard and I renewed our acquaitence, at the Astronauts Hall of Fame where his Astronauts Scholarship Foundation was headquartered. I was proud to introduce my son to my old colleague. We vowed to keep in touch.

Upon his retirment from ASF, we struck up some e-mail correspondence reminiscing over "the old days" back at JSC,

I'm sorry he won't get to finish his AP book, with the awesome accuracy and detail that ONLY Howard Benedict could report.

Still another giant of Space Journalism, has left the stage and will be sorely missed.
bon Voyage, old friend. - JEFF

posted 04-27-2005 05:49 AM            

I met him briefly a couple times out at Cocoa during late Apollo days and Skylab - once at a pre-launch news media party and had some brief email exchanges some months ago.

Condolences to his family and friends.

Phill Parker
UK

posted 04-30-2005 11:26 AM               

Sorry to see that he has passed.

posted 04-30-2005 06:47 PM               

Wasn't it I who introduced you to Howard?

I'm not 100% sure.