Richard E . Lawyer Richard Earl " Dick " Lawyer ( November 8 , 1932 – November 12 , 2005 ) was a USAF astronaut , test pilot , and combat veteran . Although he trained for the USAF Manned Orbital Laboratory ( MOL ) , the program was cancelled before any of the MOL crews reached space . Early years . Lawyer was born in Los Angeles , California . He attended the University of California , Berkeley and received a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955 . Career . After graduating from college , Lawyer joined the U . S . Air Force and trained as a fighter pilot . He was a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Fighter Weapons School and served two combat tours during the Vietnam War . On his first tour early in the conflict , Lawyer served as a forward air control ler directing air strikes against enemy troops . He served his second tour later in the war as an F - 4 pilot and fought in Operation Linebacker . Lawyer became involved in flight test in 1958 when his squadron was selected to test the F - 105B . He attended the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School ( now the USAF Test Pilot School ) at Edwards AFB and graduated with class 63A receiving the school ' s A . B . Honts Award as the outstanding member of his class for academic achievement and flying excellence . In 1965 , Lawyer was selected as one of the first astronauts to the Air Force ' s classified Manned Orbital Laboratory . The MOL program , canceled in 1969 before sending any astronauts into space , was to man a military space station with Air Force astronauts using a modified Gemini spacecraft . Unable to transfer to NASA due to age restrictions , Lawyer did not achieve his goal of space flight , but continued flying for the Air Force . He retired from USAF service in 1982 as a Colonel . Lost spacesuits recovered . In June 2005 , security officers examining a long - unused room at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 5 / 6 museum discovered two spacesuits . The suits were not the usual NASA white but were instead a pale blue color used by the short - lived U . S . Air Force space program . The first suit was labeled 007 , and the second had both a label , 008 , and a name , " Lawyer " . Investigators determined the second spacesuit was one used by Lawyer who had been assigned to evaluate spacesuits for the MOL program . The story of the recovered spacesuits and the history of the MOL program was presented in the Public Television series NOVA episode called " Astrospies " which aired February 12 , 2008 . One spacesuit was sent to the Smithsonian Institution ' s National Air and Space Museum and the other to Florida for exhibition at the Astronaut Hall of Fame . Later years . After retiring from the Air Force , Lawyer worked as a commercial test pilot for a number of firms at the Mojave Airport & Spaceport including the National Test Pilot School . He remained an active pilot up to the time of his death on November 12 , 2005 . Lawyer had just returned from a hunting trip when he died unexpectedly in his Palmdale , California home of a suspected blood clot . He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on January 5 , 2006 . Lawyer is survived by his wife , Gayle , five children , and nine grandchildren .