The next week I spent an entire day photographing NASA student interns from universities all around the country meeting and listening to senior Marshall Space Flight Center management officials and then participating in several challenging engineering projects. Marshall is a research and development site and is primarily tasked with propulsion, along with designing the Ares 1 and Ares V next generation of space vehicles, so most of the students were enrolled in engineering programs. As an aside, there was one student from the University of South Carolina, but not a single one from Clemson! This imbalance should be rectified next year!
There is another program going on at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center for the next couple of days and I have been working long distance with one of the legendary early shuttle astronauts, Story Musgrave. We don't know what his schedule will be like for the project at the USSRC, but he is hoping to break away for a bit and visit with my group for at least a short while. Here are some short bio points from Musgrave's past:
At 18, he joined the United States Marine Corps. While in the Corps, Musgrave served as an aviation electrician and instrument technician. After completing this service, he enrolled at Syracuse University where, in 1958, he received a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and statistics. Upon graduation from Syracuse, he went to work for the Eastman Kodak Company as a mathematician and operations analyst.
In the years that followed, he earned an MBA in operations analysis and computer programming from UCLA. The following year he added a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Marietta College and, in 1964, received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Columbia University. Leaving Kodak, he served a surgical internship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington. He remained at Kentucky on post-doctoral fellowships from the Air Force and the Heart Institute, earning an additional master's degree in physiology and biophysics. High-altitude flight and the then-new space program had created new areas of medicine, and Dr. Musgrave was in the forefront, pursuing research in cardiovascular and exercise physiology and in the medicine of aviation.
[snip]
The first of Dr. Musgrave's six trips into outer space took place on the maiden voyage of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. While on this mission, Musgrave and Don Peterson performed the first space walks off of the Shuttle. On his second Shuttle mission, he served as systems engineer during launch and reentry, and as a pilot during the orbital operations.
Perhaps the most dramatic of Story Musgrave's space mission was the fifth, on the Shuttle Endeavour. Musgrave commanded the mission to repair the damaged Hubble Space Telescope. During this 11-day mission, the Telescope was restored to full functionality. The repairs required five spacewalks, three performed by Dr. Musgrave himself.
Story Musgrave flew his last space mission in January, 1996, on the Space Shuttle Columbia. On this mission, the crew deployed and retrieved reusable satellites for studying the origin and composition of the stars, and to experiment with super-vacuum conditions in which thin film wafers can be grown for use in the semiconductor industry.
Besides his many scientific degree, Dr. Musgrave has also earned a master's degree in literature. His hobbies include poetry, chess, gardening, photography, computer, running, scuba diving, flying and soaring in gliders.
Needless to say I'm looking forward to spending some time with Story!
Oh yeah, here is a photograph of Musgrave during his Extra Vehicular Activity during the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission:
[update] Unfortunately Story got tied up with his duties relating to his appearance at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and was unable to visit. Maybe next time!
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