Mississippi State University will play host to two astronauts from NASA’s Apollo program next week.
Astronauts Charlie Duke and Fred Haise will speak at a free event in Lee Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium on Wednesday, Oct. 11. The event will also feature MSU alum and Apollo engineer Jerry Bostick.
Haise is a native of Biloxi native and was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 13. His awards include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, among others.
Duke served as lunar module pilot for Apollo 16 and explored the moon’s Descartes region during the 1972 mission. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997
Ray Gildea, an MSU graduate and former assistant director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government, will also speak at the event. Gildea’s gift to ASF will help support this permanent scholarship for MSU students.
Each speaker will talk about about their experiences during the Apollo missions.
The event is also geared toward celebrating MSU’s recent admission to the Astronaut Scholarship Program (ASF), which features 35 other research universities. MSU is now the only university in Mississippi to be admitted into the program.
MSU juniors and seniors will now also be eligible for the ASF merit-based scholarship worth $10,000. Students should apply during their sophomore or junior year.
The ASF is based in Orlando and annually funds $10,000 scholarships for 45 students at participating universities.
MSU’s Director of Prestigious External Scholarships Tommy Anderson said the goal of the event is to allow those in the community to to hear from national heroes about how science and technology made some of the most remarkable discoveries over the past century possible, into the present day.
“NASA has been at the forefront of these discoveries, and the event will tell a small part of this story,” Anderson said in a press release.The event is also sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Bagley College of Engineering, and the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College.