Scott E. Parazynski

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Scott Parazynski
Scott Parazynski
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on March 31, 1992
(14th NASA Group)
Calls: 5 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		November 3, 1994
Landing of the
last space flight: 		November 7, 2007
Time in space: 57d 15h 34min
EVA inserts: 7th
EVA total duration: 47h 5min
retired on March 2009
Space flights

Scott Edward Parazynski (born July 28, 1961 in Little Rock , Arkansas ) is a retired American astronaut .

education

Parazynski grew up in Colorado and California . When he was older, the family followed his father, who worked for the aircraft manufacturer Boeing around the world. That's why Parazynski attended American universities in Africa and the Middle East : first in Dakar ( Senegal ), then the American Community School in the Greek capital Athens and the Tehran American School in Tehran ( Iran ). His high school diploma he received in 1979 from the American Community School in Beirut ( Lebanon ).

He then went back to the USA to study biology (focus on cancer research and sleeping sickness ) at Stanford University in California . After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1983, he went to Stanford Medical School and specialized in human medicine. In addition to his studies, he worked at NASA's Ames Research Center and was also a member of the national luge team during this time . He trained ambitiously for participation in the 1988 Winter Olympics , but narrowly failed to qualify. For this, the Filipino team hired him as a coach, which he looked after in Calgary . In 1989 he received his doctorate “Dr. med. ", put on the US East Coast and graduated at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston ( Massachusetts ) his medical internship. He then went to Colorado and worked as an accident doctor in Denver .

Astronaut activity

Parazynski had been working as an accident doctor since the summer of 1990, when he was introduced as an astronaut by NASA in March 1992. During his free time, the passionate mountaineer had scaled the highest mountains in Colorado. Before receiving approval from NASA that his application would be accepted, he had spent several months preparing to climb Mount Everest . With some regret, he decided on NASA and not on the highest mountain in the world (by the way, he has already been to the highest mountain outside Asia, the Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina ).

Parazynski was one of 15 candidate mission specialists selected from more than 2,000 applicants. The 24-person astronaut group, consisting of 4 pilots and 20 mission specialists (including 5 from abroad), began their one-year basic training in August 1992.

Since January 1994 Parazynski trained for his first flight into space, which was carried out with the orbiter Atlantis ten months later. STS-66 was a Spacelab mission called ATLAS-3 (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Sciences). Parazynski worked as a mission specialist in the blue team - to better utilize the experiments, work was carried out around the clock and the crew was therefore divided into two shifts (red and blue). During the eleven days of the company, Parazynski was mainly responsible for the ESCAPE (Experiment of the Sun for Complementing the Atlas Payload and for Education-II), SSBUV (Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Spectrometer), NIH (National Institutes of Health) and PCG-THS (Protein Crystal) apparatus Growth-Thermal Enclosure System).

In the spring of 1995 Parazynski was selected as a substitute for a long-term stay on the Russian Mir space station . He was preparing to stand in for his colleague Jerry Linenger if he couldn't take off with the STS-81 . Parazynski trained for six months in the “ Star City ” until he was suddenly withdrawn from the Shuttle Mir program . It was too big for the Soyuz-TM spacecraft , it was said from Moscow. The Soyuz spaceships were to be used to return to Earth quickly in the event of an accident at the station. NASA explained that at first they did not see any problems, only a close examination of the data sheets would have shown that Parazynski with a height of 1.88 meters would not fit into the Soyuz seat shells.

Parazynski was nevertheless given the opportunity to fly to the Russian space station. He was part of the crew of STS-86 , which approached and docked with Mir in the fall of 1997. Together with the cosmonaut Vladimir Titov , Parazynski carried out a five-hour outboard activity . They removed parts of some experiments and attached a cover to the Mir, which was supposed to seal the damaged solar panel on it. Before the space shuttle returned to Earth after a week and a half, they changed a crew member: after four months on the Mir, Mike Foale flew back. David Wolf took his place .

On October 29, 1998, Parazynski's third space flight began with STS-95 . The space shuttle Discovery , which was on its 25th mission, contained the Spacehab module and the SPARTAN satellite in the hold . While the team carried out around 80 scientific experiments in the Spacehab, SPARTAN was exposed to solar observation for a few days. Above all, however, all attention was focused on one crew member: The first person in the United States to orbit the earth, now 77-year-old Senator John Glenn , flew as a payload specialist. It was launched into space with “ Friendship 7 ” in February 1962 and landed again after only three orbits around the earth. At his own request, he was recruited for STS-95, found fit to fly and completed the entire training with the rest of the crew. Dr. Parazynski and Glenn worked closely together during the nine-day flight because the Senator was investigating aging processes (metabolic changes, osteoporosis ), which Parazynski was monitoring.

STS-100 was Parazynski's fourth mission in Earth orbit. Actually, Bob Curbeam should take part. However, he had long been training for spacecraft work on the International Space Station (ISS) and was therefore put on STS-98 , where he installed a laboratory on the station after three exits. Parazynski had worked on another space station during his second flight in 1997. Because of this experience, he was transferred to the STS-100 position two years later. The mission took place in April 2001. On two days Parazynski and Chris Hadfield got out to mount the Canadian robotic arm on the ISS.

Parazynski then headed the extravaganza department at the Johnson Space Center until the Columbia crash in February 2003 . He was then appointed to be in charge of work on the space shuttle's heat shield.

From summer 2006 Parazynski trained for his next assignment. He was a mission specialist on the STS-120 shuttle flight , which began on October 23, 2007 and ended after 15 days. During the mission, he successfully repaired an important solar panel on the space station. This field mission is considered to be the most complicated in the nine-year history of the ISS.

Parazynski left NASA in March 2009.

Private

Parazynski has Polish ancestors - his great-grandparents once emigrated to the United States. He and his wife have a daughter and a son. On May 13, 2013, he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by Bronisław Komorowski .

See also

Web links

Commons : Scott E. Parazynski  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Order Zasługi RP dla Scotta Edwarda Parazynskiego . prezydent.pl, May 13, 2013, accessed on October 28, 2013 (Polish, President Bronislaw Komorowski awarded the Polish-American astronaut Scott Edward Parazynski the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.).
personal data
SURNAME Parazynski, Scott E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Parazynski, Scott Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Little Rock , Arkansas