Walker, David Mathieson

▪ 2002

      American astronaut (b. May 20, 1944, Columbus, Ga.—d. April 23, 2001, Houston, Texas), was the pilot of the space shuttle Discovery in 1984 and the commander of three later space shuttle missions. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., in 1966, Walker became one of the navy's “top gun” fighter pilots; he earned six Navy Air Medals for combat duty during the Vietnam War. NASA selected him to become an astronaut in 1978. As pilot of the Discovery shuttle, he played an integral part in the first space salvage mission in history; the crew successfully retrieved two communications satellites that had been stranded in the wrong orbits. Walker later served as mission commander of the Atlantis shuttle in 1989, Discovery in 1992, and Endeavour in 1995.

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