Paul Weitz, former space shuttle commander, dies

Astronaut Paul Weitz, who commanded the first flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, died Monday at a retirement home in Flagstaff, Ariz. He was 85. Weitz became an astronaut in April 1966 after serving as a Navy aviator. He commanded a 28-day mission aboard the orbiting space laboratory known as Skylab in 1973. But he’s best known for heading up the first Challenger mission, which took off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center in April 1983. The four-man crew landed the shuttle safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California five days later. Challenger later exploded shortly after takeoff on its 10th mission, in 1986. Between his two space missions, Weitz returned to the Navy, retiring as a captain in 1976 after serving for 22 years. After rejoining NASA to pilot Challenger, Weitz went on to serve as deputy director of the Johnson Space Center. He retired for good in 1994. “Before it became commonplace to come out of retirement, Paul was a pioneer,” said Curtis Brown, board chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. “He proved 51 was just a number.”