In the first generation of America’s explorers in space, James McDivitt was neither the best known nor the most accomplished among his fellow astronauts. He compiled few personal firsts in his years of service to the space program. He was in the second intake of NASA astronauts, in 1962. Even when his face showed up on the cover of Time magazine, it appeared in the background. He never wrote his memoirs nor ran for political office, and, except for one entertaining exception, he seldom appeared on television.

When he died in Tucson, Arizona, last week at age 93, McDivitt had been out of the space program, and largely out of the public eye, for nearly a half-century. He had left NASA in 1972 and spent the balance of his career in a series of managerial posts in the corporate world, ultimately serving as a senior executive at Rockwell International, the defense and electronics manufacturer.