Mark L. Polansky

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Mark Polansky
Mark Polansky
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on May 1, 1996
(16th NASA Group)
Calls: 3 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		February 7, 2001
Landing of the
last space flight: 		July 31, 2009
Time in space: 41d 10h 50min
retired on June 30, 2012
Space flights

Mark Lewis "Roman" Polansky (born June 2, 1956 in Paterson , New Jersey , USA ) is a retired American astronaut .

Life

Polansky is the son of a Caucasian Jew Irving Polansky and a Korean mother from Hawaii, Edith, and was born in Paterson, a town 35 kilometers northwest of New York , and grew up in Edison . Polansky graduated in 1974. John P. Stevens High School off, then went to Indiana to the Purdue University and began to study. In 1978 he received a bachelor's and master's degree as an aerospace engineer.

Polansky then made a career in the US Air Force (USAF) . He was trained as a military pilot for a year and a half at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma , graduated with honors, and was then transferred to Virginia . There he flew for three years on the F-15 "Eagle" . From 1983 he trained pilots in tactical air combat on the F-5E "Tiger II" : first at Clark Air Base in the Philippines , which was the largest US base outside the United States until it was closed in late 1991, and later in Nevada . This was followed by training as a test pilot at the USAF Test Pilot School in California , which he completed in 1987 with distinction. He then continued to develop the weapon and on-board systems of the F-15 for five years at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida .

In 1992 Polansky became a civilian again and found employment at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Texas . As a research pilot, he trained the astronauts on training aircraft in handling the space shuttle during landing.

Astronaut activity

Mark Polansky was a teenager when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon in 1969. He was so fascinated by this event that he has wanted to become a spaceman ever since. His career aspirations were given new impetus when he was accepted by the public Purdue University, as this school has produced many well-known astronauts - including Armstrong. Nevertheless, it took Polansky four attempts to reach his goal. He even made it to the finals twice: in October 1989 he was invited to the JSC for the 13th NASA group and again in June 1994 (15th group).

Polansky, who is often called Roman by his friends because of the similarity of his surname to that of the well-known film director Roman Polański , finally joined the astronaut corps with the 16th group. He was one of a total of 2,432 applicants who met the formal selection criteria. This resulted in 123 finalists who visited the JSC in Houston between October 1995 and February 1996 for interviews and medical examinations. Mark presented himself to the selection committee with the second group of finalists in early November 1995.

The disproportionate size of the 1996 class could be due to an internal NASA study commissioned the year before with the aim of finding out whether the agency could not get by with fewer astronauts. The surprising result was that the astronaut office was understaffed with just over 90 active space travelers at the time. Between 120 and 130 astronauts would be needed for the construction phase of the International Space Station (ISS) . After that, according to the study, the corps could then be decimated again.

In mid-August 1996, Polansky started the two-year basic training with the 43 other applicants (10 pilots, 25 mission specialists and 9 international candidates).

Polansky had barely finished his basic training in autumn 1998 when he was set up as a pilot for his first space flight. As the “right hand man” of STS-98 Commander Kenneth Cockrell , he flew on board the Atlantis ferry to the International Space Station (ISS) in February 2001 . The five-man crew supplied the US laboratory Destiny , which was installed with three external works . (The crew called the flight an AOD mission, by the way, because three members - Polansky, Cockrell and Marsha Ivins - worked in the JSC's Aircraft Operations Division before joining the astronaut squad.)

According to STS-98, Polansky was assigned as the liaison speaker (CapCom) in the control center of the JSC. In April 2002 he was even promoted to Head CapCom. A year later he was entrusted with the management of astronaut training for eight months.

NASA had already nominated Polansky (as a pilot on STS-117 ) for his next mission in August 2002 . However, the training was canceled after half a year because all shuttle flights were suspended after the Columbia crash .

In the spring of 2005, he was given the management of STS-116 . The start of this space flight took place on December 10, 2006 and the landing two weeks later.

He completed his third space flight with the space shuttle Endeavor . The STS-127 mission ran from July 15, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

Polansky left NASA on June 30, 2012.

Polansky is married and has one daughter.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NASA astronaut Mark Polansky Leaves Agency. In: Press Release 12-232. NASA, July 11, 2012, accessed July 12, 2012 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Mark Polansky  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Polansky, Mark L.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Polansky, Mark Lewis; Polansky, Mark Lewis Roman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Paterson , New Jersey , USA