Jim Irwin

James Benson Irwin was born on March 17, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and set his sights on flight from an early age. He earned a degree in naval science from the U.S. Naval Academy and master's degrees in aeronautical and instrumentation engineering from the University of Michigan, then built a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force. As a test pilot and aeronautical engineer he served as chief of the Advanced Requirements Branch at Headquarters Air Defense Command and worked on the Mach 3 Lockheed YF-12 interceptor, logging more than 7,000 flight hours. Selected by NASA in its fifth astronaut group in 1966, Irwin was assigned as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 15, the first of the ambitious 'J-class' missions designed for extended scientific exploration.

Apollo 15 launched on July 26, 1971, and Irwin descended to the Moon in the lunar module Falcon alongside commander David Scott, landing amid the dramatic terrain of the Hadley-Apennine region near the winding gorge of Hadley Rille. He and Scott were the first crew to drive the Lunar Roving Vehicle, ranging far across the surface over three moonwalks that together approached nineteen hours of surface work. Among their finds was a small piece of ancient anorthosite that geologists nicknamed the 'Genesis Rock,' later determined to be roughly four billion years old, a fragment of the Moon's primordial crust. As the eighth person to walk on the Moon, Irwin spent nearly three days on the surface during a single twelve-day mission that logged about 295 hours in space.

Standing on the Moon proved a transformative spiritual experience for Irwin, who returned home describing a renewed sense of God's presence. In 1972 he resigned from NASA to found the High Flight Foundation, a Christian ministry through which he traveled and preached for the rest of his life. His faith also led him on repeated mountaineering expeditions to Mount Ararat in Turkey in search of the remains of Noah's Ark. The physical toll of that later life caught up with him: after suffering several heart attacks, Irwin died on August 8, 1991, at the age of 61, becoming the first of the twelve moonwalkers to pass away. He is remembered as an explorer who carried the wonder of the lunar surface into a very public second life of faith and adventure.