Flight Helmet

Four astronauts served as test pilots for the space shuttle orbiter Enterprise. One of those astronauts, Richard H. Truly, has a direct connection to two of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum’s major artifacts: Enterprise and the aircraft carrier Intrepid. Truly first served as a naval aviator on board Intrepid in 1961. He then became a NASA astronaut in 1969.

Truly wore this flight helmet while piloting the space shuttle orbiter Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Tests in 1977. Enterprise conducted glide tests from a maximum altitude of 26,000 feet (7,925 meters), lower than the cruising altitude of the average commercial flight. Truly and the other astronauts did not require space suits. His flight helmet was a standard military type.