Dear Mr. Zaghi,
Your life’s essential dedication to promoting peace and love between all people is needed now more than ever.
41 years ago, as my spacecraft flew toward Earth following my Apollo 14 mission to the Moon, I went through a grand epiphany accompanied by exhilaration. It was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness. I actually felt what has been described as an ecstasy of unity.... I perceived the universe as in some way conscious.
As a pacifist, I believe that consciousness is intelligence.
I thank you for your ongoing work, and am grateful for having met you in June 2011 at the award ceremony sponsored by the Da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking, hosted at the University of Advancing Technology, in Tempe, Arizona.
In service to humanity, Edgar D. Mitchell, Sc.D. Founder, Chairman and Science Director, Quantrek Apollo 14 astronaut Sixth man to walk on the Moon Founder IONS, Institute of Noetic Sciences
Bio:
Dr. Edgar Mitchell
After completing service as Captain in the U.S. Navy, Dr. Mitchell co-founded the Association of Space Explorers, an international organization headquartered in Switzerland for all of those exploring space and committed to peaceful space travel. U.S. headquarters are in Houston, with parallel headquarters in Moscow.
Always an advocate for peace, Dr. Mitchell has addressed the United Nations on two occasions, has guest lectured at many universities including Harvard, Cambridge, and Notre Dame, maintains a speaking calendar of dozens of lectures annually, and is a frequent interviewee on television and radio, worldwide, as well as being the subject of documentary films.
Dr. Mitchell's published books are Psychic Exploration (1974) and The Way of the Explorer (3rd printing). Science publications on a range of topics impacting on space exploration have appeared in many learned journals.
Dr. Mitchell received his Sc.D. Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964 with majors in physics and mathematics which he subsequently instructed. He received his B.S. in Aeronautics at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a B.S. in Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
HONORS AND AWARDS INCLUDE:
Presidential Medal of Freedom
USN Distinguished Service Medal
NASA Distinguished Service Medal
NASA Distinguished Service Award
NASA Group Achievement Award (three times)
USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, First in Class Award
Medal of the City of New York
American Astronautical Society, Flight Achievement Award
Arnold Air Society, John F. Kennedy Award for Space Exploration
Carnegie Mellon University Alumni, Outstanding Man of the Year, 1972
Kappa Sigma, Man of the Year Award, 1972
Adventurers Club, Gold Medal Award for Exploration
Explorers Club, Lowell Thomas Award for Explorations in Human Consciousness, 1980
Drexel University, Engineering and Science Award for Explorations in Consciousness, 1974
Space Hall of Fame, inducted 1979
Astronaut Hall of Fame, inducted 1995
Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005
Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking, inducted 2011
Dr. Mitchell is divorced, has one son, Adam Blakemore Mitchell (deceased) from marriage to Sheilah Ann Sisco Ledbetter; two daughters from his first marriage to Louise Elizabeth Randall: Karlyn Mitchell-Pearce, PhD, Elizabeth Mitchell Kendall; and three adopted children from a second marriage to Anita Rettig: Kimberly Ann, Richard Paul Mitchell, and Mary Beth Johnson; nine grandchildren.