Story Musgrave

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Franklin Story Musgrave
Story Musgrave
NASA Astronaut
Nationality American
Status Retired
Born August 19, 1935 (1935-08-19) (age 72)
Boston, Massachusetts
Other occupation Medical Doctor
Space time 53d 09h 55m
Selection 1967 NASA Group
Missions STS-6, STS-51-F, STS-33, STS-44, STS-61, STS-80
Mission
insignia

Franklin Story Musgrave (born August 19, 1935) is an American doctor and a retired NASA astronaut. He is currently a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but considers Lexington, Kentucky to be his hometown. He has six children, one deceased.[1] His hobbies are chess, flying, gardening, literary criticism, poetry, microcomputers, parachuting, photography, reading, running, scuba diving and soaring.

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[edit] Education

Story Musgrave attended Dexter School, Brookline, Massachusetts and St. Mark's School, Southborough, Massachusetts, from 1947 to 1953, but left school shortly before graduation and before receiving his high school diploma. He received a BS degree in mathematics and statistics from Syracuse University in 1958, an MBA degree in operations analysis and computer programming from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1959, a BA degree in chemistry from Marietta College in 1960, an M.D. in medicine from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1964, an MS in physiology and biophysics from the University of Kentucky in 1966 and a MA in literature from the University of Houston–Clear Lake in 1987.

[edit] Organizations

He is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Beta Gamma Sigma, the Civil Aviation Medical Association, the Flying Physicians Association, the International Academy of Astronautics, the Marine Corps Aviation Association, the National Aeronautic Association, the National Aerospace Education Council, the National Geographic Society, the Navy League, the New York Academy of Sciences, Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Delta Theta, the Soaring Club of Houston, the Soaring Society of America and the United States Parachute Association.

[edit] Awards and honors

[edit] Military career

Musgrave entered the United States Marine Corps in 1953, served as an aviation electrician and instrument technician, and as an aircraft crew chief while completing duty assignments in Korea, Japan and Hawaii, and aboard the carrier USS Wasp in the Far East. He has flown 17,700 hours in 160 different types of civilian and military aircraft, including 7,500 hours in jet aircraft. He has earned FAA ratings for instructor, instrument instructor, glider instructor, and airline transport pilot, and U.S. Air Force Wings. An accomplished parachutist, he has made more than 500 free falls — including over 100 experimental free-fall descents involved with the study of human aerodynamics.

[edit] Medical career

Musgrave was employed as a mathematician and operations analyst by the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York, during 1958.

He served a surgical internship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington from 1964 to 1965, and continued there as a U. S. Air Force post-doctoral fellow (1965–1966), working in aerospace medicine and physiology, and as a National Heart Institute post-doctoral fellow (1966–1967), teaching and doing research in cardiovascular and exercise physiology. From 1967 to 1989, he continued clinical and scientific training as a part-time surgeon at Denver General Hospital (presently known as Denver Health Medical Center) and as a part-time professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

He has written twenty five scientific papers in the areas of aerospace medicine and physiology, temperature regulation, exercise physiology, and clinical surgery.

[edit] NASA career

Musgrave was selected as a scientist-astronaut by NASA in August 1967. He completed astronaut academic training and then worked on the design and development of the Skylab Program. He was the backup science-pilot for the first Skylab mission, and was a CAPCOM for the second and third Skylab missions. Musgrave participated in the design and development of all Space Shuttle extravehicular activity equipment including spacesuits, life support systems, airlocks and manned maneuvering units. From 1979 to 1982, and 1983 to 1984, he was assigned as a test and verification pilot in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory at JSC.

He served as a spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) for STS-31, STS-35, STS-36, STS-38 and STS-41, and lead CAPCOM for a number of subsequent flights. He was a mission specialist on STS-6 in 1983, STS-51-F/Spacelab-2 in 1985, STS-33 in 1989 and STS-44 in 1991, was the payload commander on STS-61 in 1993, and a mission specialist on STS-80 in 1996. A veteran of six space flights, Musgrave has spent a total of 1281 hours 59 minutes, 22 seconds in space.

Musgrave is the only astronaut to have flown missions on all five Space Shuttles. Prior to John Glenn's return to space in 1998, Musgrave held the record for the oldest person in orbit, at age 62. He retired from NASA in 1997.

[edit] Spaceflights

He first flew on STS-6, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center, on April 4, 1983, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, on April 9, 1983. During this maiden voyage of Space Shuttle Challenger, the crew performed the first Shuttle deployment of an IUS/TDRS satellite, and Musgrave and Don Peterson conducted the first Space Shuttle extravehicular activity (EVA) to test the new space suits and construction and repair devices and procedures. Mission duration was 5 days, 23 minutes, 42 seconds.

On STS-51F/Spacelab-2, the crew aboard Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on July 29, 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on August 6, 1985. This flight was the first pallet-only Spacelab mission, and the first mission to operate the Spacelab Instrument Pointing System (IPS). It carried 13 major experiments in astronomy, astrophysics, and life sciences. During this mission, Musgrave served as the systems engineer during launch and entry, and as a pilot during the orbital operations. Mission duration was 7 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes, 26 seconds.

On STS-33, he served aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, which launched at night from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 22, 1989. This classified mission operated payloads for the United States Department of Defense. Following 79 orbits, the mission concluded on November 27, 1989, with a landing at sunset on Runway 04 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Mission duration was 5 days, 7 minutes, 32 seconds.

STS-44 also launched at night on November 24, 1991. The primary mission objective was accomplished with the successful deployment of a Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite with an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket booster. In addition the crew also conducted two Military Man in Space Experiments, three radiation monitoring experiments, and numerous medical tests to support longer duration Shuttle flights. The mission was concluded in 110 orbits of the Earth with Atlantis returning to a landing on the lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on December 1, 1991. Mission duration was 6 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes, 42 seconds.

STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing and repair mission. Following a night launch from Kennedy Space Center on December 2, 1993, the Endeavour rendezvoused with and captured the HST. During this 11-day flight, the HST was restored to its full capabilities through the work of two pairs of astronauts during a record 5 spacewalks. Musgrave performed 3 of these spacewalks. After having travelled 4,433,772 miles in 163 orbits of the Earth, Endeavour returned to a night landing in Florida on December 13, 1993. Mission duration was 10 days, 19 hours, 59 minutes.

On STS-80 (November 19 to December 7, 1996), the crew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia deployed and retrieved the Wake Shield Facility (WSF) and the Orbiting Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (ORFEUS) satellites. The free-flying WSF created a super vacuum in its wake in which to grow thin film wafers for use in semiconductors and the electronics industry. The ORFEUS instruments, mounted on the reusable Shuttle Pallet Satellite, studied the origin and makeup of stars. During deorbit and landing, Musgrave stood in the cockpit and pointed a handheld video camera out the windows. In doing so, he recorded the plasma streams over the orbiter's hull for the first time, and he is still the only astronaut to see them first-hand. In completing this mission he logged a record 278 earth orbits, traveled over 7 million miles in 17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes. He also claims to have seen UFOs during the flight. [1]

[edit] Quotes

  • "I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism. It's hard to say what drives a three year-old, but I think I had a sense that nature was my solace, and nature was a place in which there was beauty, in which there was order."
  • "Getting out of the comfortable path, that's what exploration is all about."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lenehan, Anne. Space Story: Biography. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.

[edit] External links

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NASA Astronaut Group 6 - XS-11 (The Excess Eleven)
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NASA Astronaut Groups