The late Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart, an astronaut who gave his life as part of man's race to the moon and the first female shuttle pilot were inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame on Saturday. Edward White, who made America's first spacewalk in 1965 but was killed in a spacecraft fire two years later, was presented for enshrinement by the man who first set foot on the lunar surface. “Ed had an acute dedication to his work,” Neil Armstrong said. “And he was committed to superiority in the conquest of space.” Joining White as enshrinees in Saturday night's ceremony, which hundreds of people attended, were Eileen Collins, the first woman to command an American space mission; Russell Meyer Jr., former head of the Cessna Aircraft Co., and Stewart, who was a bomber pilot during World War II before starring in such classic movies as “It's a Wonderful Life” and Alfred Hitchcock's “Rear Window.” The aviation hall was founded in 1962 in Dayton, hometown of the Wright brothers, and later was chartered by Congress. Wilbur and Orville Wright were the first inductees. Other enshrinees include Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who were the first to land on the moon on July 20, 1969.
