Benedict, Howard (S.) 1928–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born April 23, 1928, in Sioux City, IA; died April 25, 2005, in Cocoa, FL. Journalist and author. Benedict was an Associated Press correspondent known as the "dean of space writing" because of his years of reporting on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from the 1950s through 1990. Serving in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948, and again in 1951, he completed his bachelor's degree at Northwestern University in 1952. He then joined the Associated Press (AP) as a correspondent. His association with the space program began in 1959, when the AP assigned him to report stories from Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy) in the early days of NASA. Benedict thus became one of the first reporters to bring the story of the Mercury program to the public. Over the next forty years he covered over two thousand launches of both manned and unmanned missions, including the historic Apollo 11 moon landing and the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. The reporter was particularly noted for his ability to explain the highly technical world of space flight in language anyone could understand. His writing consequently earned him two Associated Press managing editor awards, in 1969 and 1986. Although Benedict spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s on assignment in Washington, DC, where he focused on political stories, he returned to his NASA roots in 1984, reporting on the space shuttle program until 1990. That year, he continued his involvement with space by becoming executive director of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (formerly the Mercury 7 Foundation). He retired from this post in 1994, but still helped the foundation as a member of the board of directors. He also wrote several books about NASA, including NASA: A Quarter Century of Space Achievement (1984) and A Home in Space (1995). Benedict was honored when NASA named one of the streets at the space center after him.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Grand Rapids Press (Grand Rapids, MI), April 27, 2005, p. B7.

Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2005, p. B13.

Washington Post, April 27, 2005, p. B6.

ONLINE

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.nasa.gov/ (April 27, 2005).

Space.com, http://www.space.com/ (April 26, 2005).