Following graduation from Oklahoma State University with a Master of Science degree in 1960, he served as mathematics professor at the United States Air Force Academy, and after training at the Empire Test Pilots' School, he was a test pilot whose service included a two-years exchange with the Royal Air Force (RAF).

The mission also had a dispute with ground control over schedule management that news media named The Skylab Mutiny.

Pogue retired from the USAF and NASA a few months after he returned from Skylab, after which he taught and wrote about aviation and aeronautics in the U.S. and abroad.

[8] Pogue enlisted in the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1951, underwent the aviation cadet training program in 1952.

[10] While serving with the Fifth Air Force[11] from 1953 to 1954 during the Korean War, he flew 43 combat missions in fighter bombers while completing a tour of duty.

[26][27] It held the record for the longest spaceflight until 1978, when the crew of Soviet ship Salyut 6 spent 140 days at the space station.

[10] Pogue was accompanied on the 34.5 million miles (55.5×10^6 km) flight by Commander Gerald Carr and science pilot Edward Gibson.

[28] As a crew, they completed 56 experiments, 26 science demonstrations, 15 subsystem detailed objectives, and 13 student investigations across 1,214 revolutions of the Earth.

[30] Pogue later commented that the team was “studying the Sun, the Earth below, and ourselves.”[10] Once radio transmission had resumed, an agreement for the flight to continue; with tensions being significantly diminished.

[10] Pogue commented in 1985 that the flight had made him more empathetic, saying “I try to put myself into the human situation, instead of trying to operate like a machine.”[10] The crew also acquired extensive Earth resources observations data using Skylab's Earth resources experiment package camera and sensor array, and logged 338 hours of operations of the Apollo Telescope Mount that made extensive observations of the sun's processes.

[36] After he retired from NASA, William Pogue was self-employed as an aerospace consultant and a producer of general-interest videos about space flight.

[1] He also became a consultant for aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and Martin Marietta, helping to create space station technology.

It is of interest to collectors because it is the first automatic chronograph in space and unusual because NASA astronauts generally wore their NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster.

[57] Pogue received the City of New York gold medal[36] and the General Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy for the same year.

[62] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.