NASA Astronaut T-38 accidents "High Flight" Commemorative

Ted Freeman, Elliot See, Charles Bassett and C.C. Williams are unfamiliar names to all but serious space enthusiasts.

They all died in the line of duty in service to our space program in T-38 aircraft accidents. See and Bassett were the original prime crew for Gemini 9. Bassett and Williams were very likely to walk on the Moon.

In January, 2018 during NASA’s Day of Remembrance service at KSC, the Astronaut Memorial Foundation focused on these men. Their family members spoke and honored the memory of their “loved and lost.”

It inspired me to create a patch that specifically honored them too. In it a T-38 punches holes in the clouds brilliantly lit by the Sun. The common denominator for our early astronauts was they were all military test pilots. Pilots love to fly. So I wanted to depict them doing something they loved.

I was able to consult with the daughter of Charlie Bassett and Ted Freeman on this design. I’ve titled the patch: “High Flight" in honor of the 1941 sonnet written by John Gillespie Magee Jr. and inspired by his experiences as a fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. Magee began writing the poem on 18 August, while stationed at No. 53 OTU outside London, and mailed a completed manuscript to his family on 3 September, three months before he died in a training accident.