Captain Edgar Dean "Ed" Mitchell, Sc.D. is a former U.S. Naval officer, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut, having served as the Lunar Module Pilot of the 1971 Apollo 14 mission and the 6th man to walk on the moon. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970 by Richard Nixon. He is the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) for the purpose of consciousness research and related phenomena. His experience as an astronaut provided some of the inspiration for the phenomenon labeled the "Overview effect" by Frank White.