Jim Wetherbee

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James D. Wetherbee

NASA Astronaut
Nationality	American
Status	Retired
Born	(1952-11-27) November 27, 1952 Flushing, Queens
Other occupation	Test Pilot
Rank	Captain, USN
Time in space	66d 10h 23m
Selection	1984 NASA Group
Missions	STS-32, STS-52, STS-63, STS-86, STS-102, STS-113
Mission insignia

James Donald "Wxb" Wetherbee (born November 27, 1952) is a retired American naval officer and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six Space Shuttle missions and is the only American to have commanded five spaceflight missions.

Wetherbee was raised in Huntington Station, New York.^[1] He earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Notre Dame before receiving his commission in the United States Navy. A test pilot, Wetherbee worked extensively on the F/A-18 aircraft before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1984. He piloted mission STS-32 in 1990 and commanded missions STS-52 (1992), STS-63 (1995), STS-86 (1997), STS-102 (2001), and STS-113 (2002). The final three missions were dockings with Mir and the International Space Station; STS-113 was the last Space Shuttle mission before the Columbia disaster.

Wetherbee retired from NASA in January 2005 and currently works for BP.

Wetherbee is married and has two children.

Special honors

In 2009, Wetherbee was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.^[2]

Records

Only American to have commanded five missions in space.^[3]
Has landed the Space Shuttle more times than anyone (five).^[3]
At 6'4" (1.93 m), Jim Wetherbee is the tallest person to fly in space^[4]

Footnotes

↑ Kerr, Kathleen. Alec is BA "They Began Here: Around the country, leading thinkers in health and science can trace their roots to Long Island", Newsday, July 16, 2008. Accessed September 17, 2008.
↑ U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at KSC Visitor Complex - Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, retrieved 2009-05-04
↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/
↑ http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEM9KW9ATME_LifeinSpace_0.html

References

NASA Astronaut Group 10, "The Maggots", 1984

Pilots

Mission specialists

v t e NASA Astronaut Groups NASA Astronaut Corps

NASA Astronaut Group 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 List of astronauts by selection

Persondata
Name	Wetherbee, Jim
Alternative names
Short description	American astronaut
Date of birth	1952-11-27
Place of birth	Flushing, Queens
Date of death
Place of death

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