F. Drew Gaffney

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Drew Gaffney
Drew Gaffney
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on January 9, 1984
( 4th Spacelab Group )
Calls: 1 space flight
Begin: June 5, 1991
Landing: June 14, 1991
Time in space: 9d 2h 14min
retired on June 14, 1991
Space flights

Francis Andrew "Drew" Gaffney (born June 9, 1946 in Carlsbad , New Mexico ) is a former American astronaut .

Gaffney received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968 and a doctorate in medicine from the University of New Mexico in 1972 . Colonel Gaffney was assigned to the Texas Air National Guard as an airborne surgeon (147th Fighter Interceptor Group at Ellington Air National Guard Base, Houston, Texas).

Astronaut activity

Gaffney's first mission was planned for the Atlantis STS-71-E mission in April 1987, but it was canceled due to the Challenger disaster. In addition to Gaffney, Vance D. Brand , David Griggs , John M. Fabian , James P. Bagian , Rhea Seddon and Robert Phillips were planned as crew members for this SLS-1 mission .

From January 1987 to June 1989 Gaffney worked as a scientist in NASA's Life Sciences division. His 15 years of experience in the field of heart research led to his nomination as payload specialist for the space shuttle mission STS-40 . On June 5, 1991, he took off into space on the Columbia space shuttle . This mission was postponed several times due to various defects on the space shuttle. It was the fifth Spacelab mission, the first to be exclusively about life sciences. The most important experiment was Spacelab Life Sciences-1. Physiological studies were carried out on humans, 30 rodents and thousands of tiny jellyfish. Of the 18 studies, ten dealt with humans, seven with rodents and one with jellyfish.

Private

Drew Gaffney is married with two children.

See also

Web links

Commons : F. Drew Gaffney  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Gaffney, F. Drew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gaffney, Francis Andrew (full name); Gaffney, Drew (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Carlsbad , New Mexico