According to NASA, Edgar Dean Mitchell passed away on February 4, 2016. Mitchell was 85 years of age. He died at a local hospice facility located near West Palm Beach, Florida. His death was on the eve of his 45^th anniversary of the lunar landing (February 5, 1971). Edgar Mitchell was one of the twelve human beings to walk on the moon.

According to the Atlantic, Edgar Mitchell was born on September 17, 1930 in Hereford, Texas. When he was young, his family moved to Artesia, New Mexico. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America and obtained his Bachelor of Science degrees in industrial management and aeronautical engineering from Carnegie Institute of Technology. Mitchell was also a Navy recruit. He devoted his life to the mind, physics, and unexplained phenomena.

Edgar was the 6^th man on the moon. He was a part of the Apollo 14 mission with Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa. This was his only spaceflight. Before this, he was on the support crew for Apollo 9 and Apollo 10.  During Apollo 14, Mitchell, Shepard, and Roosa collected 94 pounds of lunar samples and brought them back to Earth. Apollo 14 also lasted the longest on the moon–33 hours. This was also the first time NASA used the Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET). Before retiring from NASA and the U.S. Navy in 1972, Mitchell served as backup for Apollo 16.

According to NASA, Mitchell was influenced to join the spaceflight by President Kennedy’s call on sending astronauts to the moon. In 1997, Mitchell said (in an interview for NASA’s oral history program) that “after Kennedy announced the moon program, [I knew] that’s what I wanted…and I’ve been devoted to that, to exploration, education, and discovery since my earliest years, and that’s what kept me going.”

According to the Atlantic, Two years after the Apollo 14 mission, Mitchell created the Institute of Noetic Sciences. The Institute of Noetic Sciences funds research of the natural consciousness and paranormal phenomena. Mitchell was also co-founder of an organization for space travelers, the Association of Space Travelers. He became very fascinated in UFO sightings. For the last years of his life, NASA politely rejected his theories. Mitchell also published a few books like “The Way of the Explorer” and “Earthrise: My Adventures as an Apollo 14 Astronaut.”