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Stuart Allen Roosa (August 16, 1933 - December 12,
1994) was a NASA astronaut, who was the command
module pilot for the Apollo 14 mission.  The
mission lasted from January 31 to February 9 1971
and was the third mission to land astronauts (Alan
Shepard and Edgar Mitchell) on the Moon.  While
Shepard and Mitchell spent two days on the lunar
surface, Roosa conducted experiments from orbit in
the command module "Kitty Hawk".  

Roosa was born in Durango, Colorado and grew up in
Claremore, Oklahoma.  He attended Oklahoma State
University and the University of Arizona.  He
started his career as a smoke jumper with the U.S.
Forest Service in the early 1950s.  He joined the
U.S. Air Force in 1953, attended Gunnery School at
Del Rio Air Force Base, Texas, and Luke Air Force
Base, Arizona, and 
is a graduate of the Aviation Cadet Program at
Williams Air Force Base, AZ, where he received his
flight training commission in the Air Force.  From
July 1962 to August 1964, Roosa was a maintenance
flight test pilot at Olmstead Air Force Base,
Pennsylvania, flying F-101 Voodoo|F-101 aircraft.
He was a fighter pilot at Langley Air Force Base,
VA, where he flew the F-84 Thunderjet|F-84F and
F-100 Super Sabre|F-100 aircraft. He graduated
from the Aerospace Test Pilots School and was an
experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base,
CA from 1965 to 1966. Throughout his areer, Roosa
logged more than 5,500 hours of flying time (5,000
hours in jets) and 217 hours in space. He also
served as chief of service engineering at
Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, for two years following
graduation from the University of Colorado, under
the Air Force Institute of Technology Program.

Roosa was one of 19 people selected as part of the
astronaut class of 1966 and served as a member of
the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 9
mission. On Apollo 14 he spent 33 hours in solo
orbit around the Moon, conducting an extensive
series of experiments.  He also carried tree seeds
as part of a joint U.S. Forest Service/NASA
project.  The seeds were germinated on his return
and planted throughout the United States, becoming
known as the Moon tree|"Moon Trees".  Following
Apollo 14, he served as backup command pilot for
Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. He was assigned to the
Space Shuttle program until his retirement as a
Colonel from the Air Force in 1976.  After leaving
NASA and the Air Force, he held a number of
positions in international and U.S. businesses,
and became owner and president of Gulf Coast Coors
in 1981.  Stuart Roosa passed away on December 12
1994 in Washington D.C. due to complications from
pancreatitis.  
He was survived by his wife Joan, three sons and a
daughter.  

Roosa's honors include the NASA Distinguished
Service Medal; the Johnson Space Center Superior
Achievement Award (1970); the Air Force Command
Pilot Astronaut Wings; the Air Force Distinguished
Service Medal; the Arnold Air Society's John F.
Kennedy Award (1971); the City of New York Gold
Medal (1971); the American Astronautical Society's
Flight Achievement Award (1971); the Order of
Tehad (1973); and the Order of the Central African
Empire (1973). Roosa earned a PMD from Harvard
Business School, Cambridge, MA, in 1973 and an
honorary LL.D. from St. Thomas University, Houston
in 1971.

Article based on
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/roosa_pr
.txt NASA press release 94-210

==External links==
*http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/bios/htmlbios/roosa-sa.ht
ml Official NASA biography