Astronaut Thomas Stafford, commander of Apollo 10, has died at age 93

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The NASA astronaut who commanded the dress rehearsal mission for the 1969 moon landing has died. Thomas Stafford died Monday in a Florida hospital. He was 93. Before Apollo 10, Stafford also took part in the first rendezvous of two U.S. spacecraft in 1965. A decade later, he because the first American to shake hands with a Soviet citizen in space when an Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soyuz craft. Later, Stafford was the go-to guy for NASA when it sought independent advice on everything from human Mars missions to returning to flight after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident.