Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (also Schweikart; born October 25, 1935) is an American aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, as well as a former business executive and government executive. Schweickart was selected in 1963 for NASA's third astronaut group. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, the first crewed flight test of the lunar module, on which he performed the first in-space test of the portable life support system used by the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon. As backup commander of the first crewed Skylab mission in 1973, he was responsible for developing the hardware and procedures used by the first crew to perform critical in-flight repairs of the Skylab station. After Skylab, he served for a time as Director of User Affairs in NASA's Office of Applications. Schweickart left NASA in 1977 to serve for two years as California Governor Jerry Brown's assistant for science and technology, then was appointed by Brown to California's Energy Commission for five and a half years, serving as chairman for three. In 1984–85 he co-founded the Association of Space Explorers and later in 2002 co-founded the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to defending Earth from asteroid impacts, along with fellow former astronaut Ed Lu and two planetary scientists. He served for a period as its chair before becoming its chair emeritus. Early life and education Rusty Schweickart was born October 25, 1935, in Neptune Township, New Jersey, and grew up on a "hardscrabble" farm of producing hay and vegetables plus raising poultry and cows. As a youth his ambition was to be a pilot and a cowboy. After graduating from Manasquan High School in 1952, he earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering on scholarship (1956) and an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics (1963) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America. He earned the rank of First Class. His hobbies include golf, bicycling, and hiking. He was married twice and has seven children. His family's stated annual income when he received his Massachusetts Institute of Technology scholarship after graduating high school was listed as $1800 (). Military and NASA career Schweickart served in the U.S. Air Force and Massachusetts Air National Guard (101st Tactical Fighter Squadron) from 1956 to 1963, with over 4,000 hours of flight time, including 3,500 hours