MIT School of Engineering alumni

Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days.A 1957 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Duke joined the USAF and completed advanced flight training on the F-86 Sabre at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where he was a distinguished graduate. After completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter pilot with the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. After graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, he stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star.
In April 1966, Duke was one of nineteen men selected for NASA's fifth astronaut group. In 1969, he was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 10. He served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon. His distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world, as the voice of Mission Control concerned by the long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagle descent stage's propellant. Duke's first words to the Apollo 11 crew on the surface of the Moon were "Roger, Twank...Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot!"
Duke was backup lunar module pilot on Apollo 13. Shortly before the mission, he caught rubella (German measles) from a friend's child and inadvertently exposed the prime crew to the disease. As Ken Mattingly had no natural immunity to the disease, he was replaced as command module pilot by Jack Swigert. Mattingly was reassigned as command module pilot of Duke's flight, Apollo 16. On this mission, Duke and John Young landed at the Descartes Highlands, and conducted three extravehicular activities (EVAs). He served as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 17. Duke retired from NASA on January 1, 1976.
Following his retirement from NASA, Duke entered the Air Force Reserve and served as a mobilization augmentee to the Commander, USAF Basic Military Training Center, and to the Commander, USAF Recruiting Service. He graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1978. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1979, and retired in June 1986. He has logged 4,147 hours' flying time, of which 3,632 hours were in jet aircraft, and 265 hours were in space, including 21 hours and 38 minutes of EVA.

Edgar Dean "Ed" Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region, and was the sixth person to walk on the Moon.
Before becoming an astronaut, Mitchell earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from Carnegie Institute of Technology and entered the United States Navy in 1952. After being commissioned through the Officer Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island, he served as a Naval Aviator. In 1961, he received his second bachelor's degree, in aeronautical engineering, from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and three years later earned his doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1965 to 1966, he attended the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School and graduated first in his class. During this period, he served as an instructor in advanced mathematics and navigation theory for astronaut candidates.
The legacy of his post-NASA scientific and parapsychology work is carried on through the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

John Peter Costas (1923 in Wabash, Indiana – August 9, 2008) was an American electrical engineer. Costas invented, among other things, the Costas loop and Costas arrays.

León Ávalos y Vez (24 January 1906 – 1991) was a Mexican mechanical engineer who served as the founding director-general of the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM, 1943–1946) and as director-general of the National School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN, 1943).Ávalos y Vez was born in Atlixco, Puebla, on 24 January 1906 into a family composed by Ignacio Ávalos and Amalia Vez. He received a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in the same discipline from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1929).

Albert Sacco Jr. (born May 3, 1949) is an American chemical engineer who flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia on Shuttle mission STS-73 in 1995.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sacco completed a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston in 1973, and then a Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He then joined the faculty of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, becoming a full professor and rising to department head in 1989.Sacco served as the Dean of the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering at Texas Tech University, from January 1, 2011 to August 16, 2022.Sacco flew as a payload specialist on STS-73, which launched on October 20, 1995, and landed at the Kennedy Space Center on November 5, 1995.Sacco was originally chosen as the payload specialist for the ill-fated STS-107 mission, which ended in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. He trained with the other six astronauts for two months until NASA and the U.S. government decided to replace him with Israeli payload specialist Ilan Ramon.

Donald Thomas Scholz (born March 10, 1947) is an American musician. He is the founder, main songwriter, primary guitarist, keyboardist, and only remaining original member of the rock band Boston. He has appeared on every Boston release. Scholz, a multi-instrumentalist, plays guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums.
Scholz is an MIT-trained engineer who designed and built his own recording studio in an apartment basement in the early 1970s. A fan of rock music throughout his teen years, Scholz began writing songs while earning his master's degree at MIT. The first Boston album was mostly recorded in his basement studio, primarily using devices he invented. After the success of Boston, he founded Scholz Research & Development, Inc. to develop and market his inventions, many under the Rockman brand. Scholz holds several patents related to his work at SR&D over the years.He was described by AllMusic as an "un-rock n' roll" figure who did not enjoy the limelight of being a performer, preferring to concentrate on music, production, and inventing new electronic equipment. In more recent years, he has dedicated much of his money and time to charitable work.