Laurel Clark

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Laurel Clark
Laurel Clark
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on May 1, 1996
( 16th NASA Group )
Calls: 1 space flight
Begin: January 16, 2003
Landing: February 1, 2003
Time in space: 15d 22h 20m
retired on February 1, 2003
(accident)
Space flights

Laurel Blair Salton Clark (born March 10, 1961 in Ames , Iowa , United States , † February 1, 2003 over the southern United States) was an American astronaut . She died in the Columbia crash in February 2003.

education

Clark attended William Horlick High School in Racine ( Wisconsin ) until 1979 and then studied at the University of Wisconsin – Madison , where she received a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1983 and a doctorate in medicine in 1987 .

After graduating from college, Clark completed a pediatric education at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland . In addition, she graduated from the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in Groton , Connecticut , and the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City , Florida , in the fields of radiology and diving medicine . She was then transferred to the Holy Loch submarine base in Scotland as Head of the Military Medical Service of Submarine Squadron Fourteen . Here she dived together with navy divers and Navy special forces and looked after soldiers in need of American submarines.

Clark then completed a six-month training as an aviation doctor at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola , Florida. After completing her training, she was deployed at various locations and served in the most remote areas of the world. Before she was selected as an astronaut, she worked as an aviation doctor for the Naval Flight Officer Advanced Training Squadron in Pensacola.

Astronaut activity

Clark was selected by NASA as a space pilot in May 1996 and was deployed to the Johnson Space Center in Houston from August 1996 . She completed a two-year astronaut training course that qualified her as a mission specialist.

STS-107

Clark and six other astronauts took off on January 16, 2003 on the Columbia space shuttle for the STS-107 mission . About 80 scientific experiments were carried out on this 16-day research mission. When the space shuttle took off, however, a piece of foam came off the outer tank and hit the port wing of the orbiter. The damage was noticed, but was not classified as critical by NASA. When the shuttle returned to Earth on February 1, hot gases entered the wing through a damaged heat tile and melted it from the inside. The shuttle got out of hand and broke in the atmosphere. Laurel Clark and the other crew members were killed.

Honors

Laurel Clark was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in July 2004 . In addition, the asteroid (51827) Laurelclark , the crater L. Clark on the moon and the Clark Hill, a hill on Mars, were named after her.

particularities

When NASA experts gathered up the debris from several US states after the crash of the space shuttle Columbia , they found a completely intact CD by the Scottish group Runrig . Laurel Clark, a big fan of the band, took the album with him into space.

See also

Web links

Commons : Laurel Clark  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Clark, Laurel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clark, Laurel Blair Salton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Ames , Iowa
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 2003
Place of death over the southern United States