Edward C. Aldridge Jr.
former U.S. Department of Defense official and defense industry executive
Edward Cleveland "Pete" Aldridge Jr. (born August 18, 1938) is an aerospace engineer and former government official in the U.S. Defense Department. He was also selected as a payload specialist for the Space Shuttle mission STS-62-A, scheduled to launch in July 1986. The mission was canceled after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, and Aldridge never flew.
At the Department of Defense in the 1980s, Aldridge served as the Under Secretary of the Air Force from 1981 to 1986, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office 1981–1988, and the Secretary of the Air Force from 1986 to 1988. Under President George W. Bush, he was the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics from 2001 to 2003.
From 1989 to 1992 he was president of the Electronic Systems Company division of McDonnell Douglas, and later, CEO of The Aerospace Corporation.
Early life and education
Edward Cleveland Aldridge Jr. was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Lillie Idell (Née Radford) and Edward Cleveland Aldridge. Aldridge received a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering from Texas A&M University in 1960 and a Master of Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
“Edward C. Aldridge Jr.” enters the record as former U.S. Department of Defense official and defense industry executive. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Edward, Aldridge and former can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5342126. VIAF identifies the subject as 3803166. The Library of Congress control number is n81118687. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1986, 1981 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward C. Aldridge Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.