Shine resident John Fabian has been named a Distinguished Member of the Association of Space Explorers.
The retired astronaut and Air Force officer is only the third astronaut or cosmonaut to receive the honor.
He joins the company of Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who were both founding members of the space explorers’ association.
The association acted at its recent XXIII Planetary Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Fabian has long been involved with the association.
He served for 14 years as international co-president of the group, and for two years as president of the U.S. chapter, ASE-USA.
Fabian co-hosted the VIII ASE Planetary Congress in Washington, D.C., and now serves on the Board of Directors of ASE-USA.
The award is only the latest for Fabian.
The People for Puget Sound honored Fabian for his environmental efforts as one of three recipients of the group’s 2010 Warren G. Magnuson Puget Sound Legacy Awards in May.
In 2002, he co-founded the Hood Canal Coalition amid fears of the industrialization of the canal in opposition to the proposed Thorndyke Resource pit-to-pier project, then proposed by Fred Hill Materials, now known as Thorndyke Resources.
Thorndyke has proposed a four-mile-long conveyor belt to move gravel from the extraction area near the former Fred Hill Materials shine pit to a 1,000-foot pier at Hood Canal where it would be loaded on barges for shipping.
Fabian’s view of the earth during Challenger shuttle flights encouraged a desire to help protect the planet, he said in an interview in May.
“I don’t know any person who has flown in space who hasn’t come home more environmentally aware,” said Fabian, 72.
After flying 90 combat missions during the Vietnam War as an Air Force officer, Fabian flew 98 orbits during his first mission in 1983 and 112 during a second mission in 1985.
After he retired from NASA, he returned to Washington state in 1998, and settled on Shine Road overlooking the Hood Canal.
ASE is an international nonprofit professional and educational organization, founded in 1985, that includes more than 375 individuals from 35 nations who have flown in space.
The Distinguished Member award recognizes people who through long-standing personal and professional efforts have significantly contributed to the mission, goals and objectives of the Association of Space Explorers.
