Astronaut Robert Franklyn Overmyer

Astronaut Robert Franklyn Overmyer. . Marine Colonel Robert F. Overmyer was born July 14, 1936 in Lorain, but always considered Westlake, where his family had lived since 1941, to be his hometown. He graduated from Westlake High School in 1954. After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics from Baldwin Wallace College in 1957, he entered active duty in the Marine Corps in 1958. He completed Navy flight training and was assigned to Marine Attack Squadron 214 in 1959. Overmyer logged over 7,500 flight hours, with more than 6,000 of those in jet aircraft. After earning a master’s degree in aeronautics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1964, he was chosen as an astronaut for the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program in 1966. , Overmyer was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1969 and was a member of the Apollo 17 support crew in 1972. He piloted the space shuttle Columbia during mission STS-5, the first fully-functional flight of the Shuttle Transportation System. It was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on November 11, 1982. In 1985, he commanded the shuttle Challenger during STS 51-B, the Spacelab-3 mission. Overmyer later served on the investigative team to determine the cause of the 1986 Challenger disaster, after which he retired from NASA and the Marines. He lost his life on March 22, 1996 in the crash of an experimental aircraft he was testing near Duluth, Minnesota. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.