Elliot McKay See Jr. (July 23, 1927 – February 28, 1966) was an American engineer, naval aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut.

See rejoined General Electric (GE) in 1956 as a flight test engineer after his tour of duty, and became a group leader and experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, where he flew the latest jet aircraft with GE engines.

Selected in NASA's second group of astronauts in 1962, See was the prime command pilot for what would have been his first space flight, Gemini 9.

He was killed along with Charles Bassett, his Gemini 9 crewmate, in a NASA jet crash at the St. Louis McDonnell Aircraft plant, where they were to undergo two weeks of space rendezvous simulator training.

[4] See applied for military officer training and received an appointment to the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in 1945.

As the end of the war drew near, the USMMA changed its curriculum to a four-year college-level program, which was the minimum requirement to be a merchant marine in peacetime.

degree, his marine engineer's licenses, and a commission as an officer in the United States Naval Reserve.

On September 1, 1949, he joined the Aircraft Gas Turbine Division of General Electric, the firm his father had worked for, in Boston.

[6] There he met Marilyn Jane Denahy from Georgetown, Ohio, who worked at General Electric as a secretary.

[7] He and his friend Tay Haney pooled their funds to buy a Luscombe Silvaire Sprayer aircraft, which they flew on cross-country trips.

[6][8] He married Marilyn on September 30, 1954, before shipping out for a sixteen-month operational tour as a naval aviator, flying the Grumman F9F Panther with Fighter Squadron 144 (VF-144), part of Carrier Air Group 14.

He was deployed to the Mediterranean on the aircraft carrier USS Randolph, which returned to the United States in June 1955.

[9][10] In October, after further training at El Centro Naval Air Station, California, he embarked with VF-144 on an operational cruise on the aircraft carrier USS Boxer, which formed part of Task Force 77.

[15][18] He drove from Edwards with fellow civilian pilot Neil Armstrong to start his new career in Houston, Texas, where the new Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) was under construction.

The knowledge they gathered could then be shared with the others, and the astronaut-expert was expected to provide astronaut input to the spacecraft designers and engineers.

See's special area of expertise was the spacecraft electrical and sequential systems, and the coordination of mission planning.

[21][22] See was tasked with determining if the crewed lunar landing should occur in direct sunlight or using light reflected from the Earth.

To help make the decision, he flew helicopters and airplanes wearing special welding goggles to simulate different lighting conditions.

An extravehicular activity (EVA) that used the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU) was scheduled, and they would rendezvous with an Agena target vehicle.

[31] On February 28, 1966, See and Charles Bassett were flying with their backup crew, Gene Cernan and Thomas Stafford, from Ellington Air Force Base to Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, for two weeks of space rendezvous simulator training.

See and Bassett were buried near each other in Arlington National Cemetery; their graves are about one hundred yards (90 m) from Theodore Freeman, another astronaut who had died in a T-38 crash sixteen months earlier.

[33][36][37] After a reporter had disclosed to Freeman's wife that he had died, NASA enacted new policies to avoid a similar embarrassing situation in the future.

[55] See was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) and an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

[15] See was played by Steve Zahn in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and by Patrick Fugit in the 2018 film First Man.