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Edward Higgins White, II ( November 14, 1930 - January 27, 1967) was an American astronaut.
He was born in San Antonio, Texas and earned a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy in 1952, and an M.S. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1959. He later married and had two children.
He was chosen with the second group of astronauts in 1962. As pilot of Gemini 4 was the first American to make a spacewalk, and was backup command pilot for Gemini 7Gemini 7 (officially Gemini VII was a 1965 manned spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 4th manned Gemini flight, the 12th manned American flight and the 20th spaceflight of all time (includes X-15 flights over 100 km). Crew Frank Borman (1), C. He had been selected to be command module pilot for the first Apollo program flight.
He died with fellow astronauts Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1Apollo One is the name given to the Apollo/Saturn 204 AS-204 spacecraft after it was destroyed by fire during a training exercise on January 27, 1967, at Pad 34 atop a Saturn IB rocket. Its crew were the astronauts selected for the initial Apollo program fire at Cape Kennedy.