Editing Rusty Schweickart (section)

=== Spaceflight experience ===
{{Main|Apollo 9}}
{{Quote box|The frontier in space, embodied in the space colony, is one in which the interactions between humans and their environment is so much more sensitive and interactive and less tolerant of irresponsibility than it is on the whole surface of the Earth. We are going to learn how to relate to the Earth and our own natural environment here by looking seriously at space colony ecologies.|width=25%|salign=right|source=Rusty Schweickart<ref name="nmmuseum">{{cite web|url=http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=82|publisher=[[New Mexico Museum of Space History]]|title=Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 9 Mission |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201033842/http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=82 |archive-date=December 1, 2017 |url-status=deviated |access-date=November 20, 2017}}</ref>}}

[[Apollo 9]] was flown in March 1969. Schweickart spent just over 241 hours in space, and performed the first [[extravehicular activity]] (EVA) of the Apollo program, testing the [[portable life support system]] that was later used by the twelve astronauts who walked on the Moon. The flight plan called for him to demonstrate an emergency transfer from the lunar module to the [[Apollo command and service module|command module]] (CM) using handrails on the LM, but he began to suffer from [[space adaptation syndrome]] on the first day in orbit, forcing the postponement of the EVA.<ref name="space" />

[[File:Schweickart spacer kosmiczny GPN-2000-001108.jpg|thumb|Schweickart performs an EVA standing on the lunar module porch, photographed by fellow astronaut James McDivitt inside the LM.]]

Eventually, he improved enough to perform a relatively brief EVA with his feet restrained on the LM "porch" (a platform used in transferring to the descent ladder), while Command Module Pilot Scott performed a stand-up EVA through the open hatch of the CM. During a five-minute pause tethered outside his spacecraft, Schweickart felt he underwent a metaphysical experience as he stared at the Earth, contemplating its place in the universe.<ref name="Pacific Sun-2004.07.07" /> He subsequently practiced [[Transcendental Meditation technique|Transcendental Meditation]] based on his experience.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Klapp|first1=Orrin Edgar|title=Opening and Closing|year=1978|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|page=185|isbn=978-0521293112|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lV04AAAAIAAJ&q=Rusty+Schweickart+transcendental+meditation&pg=PA185|access-date=September 16, 2015|quote=An Apollo 14 veteran, Rusty Schweickart, took up transcendental meditation, saying, 'I'm not the same man. None of us are.'|archive-date=October 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017021914/https://books.google.com/books?id=lV04AAAAIAAJ&q=Rusty+Schweickart+transcendental+meditation&pg=PA185#v=snippet&q=Rusty%20Schweickart%20transcendental%20meditation&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Tribbe|first1=Matthew D.|title=No Requiem for the Space Age: The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture|date=2014|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|page=195|isbn=978-0199313525|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PV-RAwAAQBAJ&q=Rusty+Schweickart+transcendental+meditation|access-date=September 16, 2015|quote=Consider Rusty Schweickart. ... By 1972 he had ... taken up Transcendental Meditation, and was pictured in ''Time'' escorting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ... on a tour through NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center|archive-date=October 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017021830/https://books.google.com/books?id=PV-RAwAAQBAJ&q=Rusty+Schweickart+transcendental+meditation#v=snippet&q=Rusty%20Schweickart%20transcendental%20meditation&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>