This month we break out of our regular mold to remember an American hero, a giant of space exploration, and an extraordinary human being, Apollo astronaut and Air Force General Tom Stafford who passed away in March, at age 93.

Even among the legendary Apollo corps, he was remarkable as an astronaut and as a person. This writer had the unforgettable privilege of talking with him for several hours, years ago, at the Mars Curiosity launch party at Cape Canaveral. We conversed so long and intensely, they were turning over the tables and flicking the lights on and off, to get us to move out of the ballroom after the party had wrapped up.

Some memorable highlights from General Stafford’s career:

Sitting side-by-side on the launch pad with Wally Schirra in the Gemini 6 capsule in 1965, their Titan booster loaded with over 100 tons of fuel and oxygen mis-fired at what was supposed to be lift-off. Protocol called for the two to eject themselves in their twin rocket-seats, from the top of the booster; they each had an escape D-ring between their knees. But they sensed that the Titan wasn’t going anywhere and hadn’t blown. They sat tight. They saved the mission; the booster; the capsule; and most importantly themselves. (“We’d have come out of there like a couple of Roman candles after soaking in oxygen all those pre-launch hours,” he wryly recalled years later.)

Later, in Gemini 9, he probably saved his partner’s life in a harrowing spacewalk. Gene Cernan was supposed to leave the cockpit, strap on a jet pack, and fly it while Stafford filmed from inside.

What actually happened was, Cernan flailed helplessly while trying to reach the jet pack because NASA hadn’t yet discovered handholds and footholds. His temperature soared. Sweat blinded him inside his helmet. His heart rate exploded to the point that flight surgeons on the ground thought he might be dying.

In an unprecedented and controversial call to Houston, Stafford told them it was time to get Cernan back inside, RIGHT NOW.

But the trouble was just beginning.

Engineers had stiffly reinforced Cernan’s pressure-suit legs, to the point that his body wouldn’t slip back through the capsule’s open hatch. Stafford grabbed his legs and worked so hard to jam him down and bend him into his seat that Cernan gasped in pain. But Stafford got his partner back. He didn’t leave him marooned in space as pre-flight planning had said might become necessary.

With Cernan seated and the hatch finally closed and the capsule re-pressurized, Stafford saw his partner’s face, lobster red, inside the helmet. Flipping open Cernan’s visor, he sprayed him with water from a drinking pistol, again in violation of rules. (Weightless water drops and spaceship electronics don’t mix well.) That cooled Cernan’s blood enough to save him.

On Apollo 10, Stafford and Cernan were teamed up again, flying the lunar lander in a dress rehearsal for the upcoming Apollo 11 landing. They were supposed to undock from the Command Module at fifty miles up; descend to nine miles above the moon; jettison the descent stage; and fly the ascent stage back to the Command Module where John Young awaited them.

All went well until it was time to jettison the descent stage. At that point, Cernan flipped a Manual/ Automatic flight-control switch to Manual (called Attitude Hold). Then Stafford reached up and flipped the switch himself, not realizing Cernan had already hit it.

So now, both guys thought they were in Manual while unintentionally having toggled themselves back to Automatic. As they tried manual flight, the automatic mode fought back. The lander went nuts. It tumbled wildly. It rolled end-over-end eight times as they struggled to control it. The gyroscopes were approaching gimbal-lock, where you lose all directional control. Stafford thought maybe a thruster had stuck open. It was the wrong diagnosis, but his corrective action worked. They stabilized and re-joined with Young.

As later estimated by numbers of people, Stafford and Cernan regained control two seconds before the situation would have become unrecoverable and they would have made a new moon crater. I’ve listened to their audio. You can hear some quiver in Stafford’s voice as he tells Mission Control they’re OK.

That wasn’t all. Tom Stafford helped end the Cold War, commanding Apollo 18 when it docked with a Russian Soyuz in 1975. At the flight’s end, toxic gas leaked into 18’s interior as it plummeted through the atmosphere. Hitting the water, the capsule flipped upside down, blocking its cabin-relief fresh-air valve.

With one astronaut already unconscious, Stafford unbuckled himself, dropped down out of his middle seat, stood on the instrument console, stretched upward, balanced himself over the docking tunnel’s pit, and snatched oxygen masks from behind the seats. He got them on his flight crew and himself while they waited for the capsule to slowly right itself and vent-in fresh air.

Years later, Stafford reviewed an accident where a cosmonaut had smacked a Russian space station during docking. His analysis helped exonerate the pilot, pointing out lousy circumstances under which the man had been required to attempt the maneuver.

At age 63, he and his wife Linda Ann Dishman adopted two orphaned Russian boys. His close friend and co-commander from Apollo-Soyuz, Alexei Leonov, was his character witness. Years later Stafford delivered a eulogy, in Russian, at Leonov’s funeral in Moscow.

I asked Stafford that night I met him, why the Apollo moon missions came to an end in 1972, with more Saturn boosters and moon landers still available.

He replied, “Two reasons. First, Nixon was a narcissistic weirdo who couldn’t get past feeling the moon program was about John Kennedy and not him. He wanted the landings ended as soon as he could get away with it. Second, [Apollo] 13 scared the hell out of everyone. We’d made our point and didn’t want to push our luck any further.”

You were a class act, General. We will really, really miss you, Tom.

Frank Sanders, a spectrum scientist at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Boulder, takes astronomy-related inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.