Story Musgrave

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Story Musgrave
Story Musgrave
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on August 4, 1967
(6th NASA Group)
Calls: 6 space flights
Start of the
first space flight: 		April 4th 1983
Landing of the
last space flight: 		December 7, 1996
Time in space: 53d 9h 55min
EVA inserts: 4th
EVA total duration: 26h 19min
retired on September 1997
Space flights

Franklin Story Musgrave (born August 19, 1935 in Boston , Massachusetts , USA ) is a former American astronaut and the only one who flew into space on all five space shuttles .

childhood

Musgrave comes from a shattered background. His parents were alcoholics and eventually took their own lives. Musgrave and his two brothers - one younger and one older - grew up in the 1940s on a 400-acre farm southwest of Boston that specialized in dairy farming. The family lived quite isolated, which was mainly due to the behavior of the drinking and beating parents. Musgrave sought and found his balance in nature. He knows how to remember that at the age of three he roamed the neighboring forest on many a night. In 1945 his mother had had enough of her husband's abuse and moved with Musgrave to live with relatives - the two brothers stayed with their father on the farm.

Education and pre-space activities

In 1953, after six years, Musgrave left St. Mark's School in Massachusetts and entered the United States Marine Corps . He has made learning his passion and has earned no fewer than six academic degrees.

He worked for the ground crew in aircraft maintenance. For this purpose, he was trained as an aircraft mechanic for on-board electronics and instrumentation at the US Naval Aviation Electrician and Instrument Technician School in Jacksonville ( Florida ). As head of the ground crew, he served in Korea , Japan and Hawaii and had also been stationed in the Far East on the aircraft carrier USS Wasp .

Returning to the United States in the mid-1950s, Story Musgrave embarked on an unprecedented career in education - as an "eternal student" (in a positive sense). He enrolled at Syracuse University , New York State, and received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics in 1958 . In the same year he left the USMC and briefly took a job as a mathematician and analyst at Eastman Kodak's Rochester, New York headquarters . He then added to his academic trophy collection: 1959 Masters in Programming and Labor Analysis ( University of California, Los Angeles ), 1960 Bachelor in Chemistry (Marietta College in Ohio ), 1964 Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians & Surgeons at Columbia University in New York city .

In his adopted city of Lexington ( Kentucky ) he then accepted an assistant doctor position as a surgeon at the Medical Center of the University of Kentucky . In 1965 he moved to the US Air Force and worked in aviation medicine . A year later he took a position at the National Heart Institute - since 1969 it has been called the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) - to do research and teach. At the same time he studied physiology and biophysics at Kentucky University (Master 1966).

Until 1989 Musgrave practiced his profession as a medic. As a trauma surgeon, he worked a few days a month at Denver General Hospital in Denver , Colorado to keep in practice, and was visiting professor at the University of Kentucky Medical Center where he taught physiology and biophysics.

Astronaut activity

Musgrave managed to be selected as a science astronaut with NASA's 6th Astronaut Group in August 1967. Until then, the US space agency was only looking for experienced jet pilots. Nevertheless, pilot training on jet planes was part of the astronaut training at the time and so he got his license in 1969 at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock ( Texas ) - as the best in his class. He has flown constantly since then. He has accumulated around 18,000 flight hours on 160 different civil and military aircraft types (a not inconsiderable portion came about through his shuttle flights from Houston , Texas to Denver, Colorado). He is also a flight instructor, stunt pilot and has a commercial pilot license.

After completing his basic training, Story Musgrave was involved in the development of the Skylab program and in early 1972 was appointed Science Pilot for the replacement crew on Skylab 2 , the first mission to the US space laboratory. During Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 , he acted as CapCom at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

Then he put his manpower into the service of the shuttle program : from 1974 he was significantly involved in the development and construction of all devices and equipment necessary for space exits (EVAs) such as spacesuits, life support systems, and air locks. In October 1974 and January 1976 he took part in the first two Spacelab simulations as a mission specialist .

From 1979 Musgrave worked for the next five years in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) at JSC, where the shuttle's instruments and software are tested. This activity was interrupted by the training preparations for his first space flight: since December 1981 he and his partner Donald Peterson have been rehearsing for a space exit with STS-6 . STS-6 was the maiden flight of the Challenger orbiter and Story Musgrave in April 1983 - after 16 years of waiting. Peterson and Musgrave conducted a four hour EVA on the fourth day of flight. After there were problems with a spacesuit on STS-5 and the scheduled three and a half hour exit had to be canceled, the STS-6 EVA was the first of the shuttle program.

Two years later, Story Musgrave again undertook its next space flight with the Orbiter Challenger. STS-51-F was called Spacelab-2 and was the first flight of the European space laboratory without a pressure module - the experiments (mainly in the disciplines of astronomy and astrophysics) had been installed on three pallets in the Challenger's hold. The crew worked in two shifts in order to achieve the maximum possible utilization of the experiments. Musgrave was a temporary pilot on his shift (Blue Team) and carried out small attitude controls if necessary. He supported the two pilots during take-off and landing.

Musgrave then studied literature at the University of Houston in Texas. The focus was on the US and British poets and philosophers. He received his master's degree in 1987.

The next two flights, on which Musgrave was deployed as a mission specialist, were carried out for the US Department of Defense : STS-33 took place in November 1989 with the Discovery and STS-44 exactly two years later with the orbiter Atlantis .

Musgrave's fifth flight was the greatest challenge for him. STS-61 with the shuttle Endeavor in December 1993 was the first maintenance and repair mission for the Hubble space telescope . During the training he had serious doubts as to whether the mission would be a success. The original workflows were somewhat “unrealistic” and the tool was no good. In addition, Musgrave was injured six months before the mission (he suffered frostbite on one hand during a test in a vacuum chamber) and it was not certain that he would get well anytime soon. The planned repairs were carried out by two EVA teams, each consisting of two astronauts. Musgrave, who had planned all of the Hubble work on Earth, worked with Jeff Hoffman and got off three times. After the flight he was CapCom in the control center between July 1994 and February 1996 .

In November 1996, Musgrave made his sixth and final flight. At that time, at 61, he was the oldest person to fly into space. Eight hours after the start of STS-80 , the astronomy platform ORFEUS-SPAS , sponsored by Germany, was suspended. She observed stellar objects for two weeks. Schoolchildren in the Federal Republic of Germany could take part via the Internet. At the beginning of the fourth day of flight, the plate-shaped WSF was deployed. The WSF flew alongside the Columbia for three days . In doing so, it created a particularly pure vacuum in its “slipstream” by removing all molecules of the residual atmosphere out of the way. New semiconductors for electronics were produced on the back of the WSF . The shuttle flight came to an end after almost 18 days.

retirement

Story Musgrave didn't leave NASA entirely of his own free will (he speaks of space as his calling). Already during the training for STS-80 he was told that this would definitely be his last space flight. He considered whether he should continue working as a scientist for the space agency or go into the private sector. At the beginning of September 1997 his decision was made and he left NASA. Since then he has been traveling the world and giving lectures. He also works as a consultant for Walt Disney Imagineering, the development department of the entertainment group in Glendale ( California developed) and for the resident also in Glendale company Applied Minds, ideas and products for American business corporations.

Musgrave started skydiving in the 1960s; he can come up with more than 600 jumps. He is a scuba diver, sailor, likes to take photos and stated that he believed in the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life. For him, learning was never an end in itself. It was not about academic titles, but rather about increasing one's own knowledge. From 1987 he also studied psychology and history in evening classes at the University of Houston. It wasn't until more than a decade after leaving NASA that he left university.

Special features and records

  • second person with six space flights (after John Young )
  • only person who flew into space on all five US space shuttles

Acting

The Berlin filmmaker Dana Ranga , in collaboration with Musgrave, shot a one and a half hour documentary entitled “Story”, which premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Marseille, France, in summer 2003. In it, the eccentric astronaut describes how he became what he is. Musgrave also had a guest appearance in the science fiction film " Mission to Mars " by Brian De Palma from 2000. In it, story can be seen briefly in one scene. He plays himself in it - a CapCom . He also appeared in an episode of " Listen, Who's That Hammering " on.

Private

Story Musgrave was married twice and now lives in Florida . He has seven children: three daughters and four sons. Musgrave has famous ancestors: Joseph Story - Story was still the family name at the time - who was a judge at the United States Supreme Court for 33 years from February 1812 until his death , as well as his son William, who was a sculptor and poet and later to Italy emigrated.

See also

Web links and receipts

Commons : Story Musgrave  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Musgrave, story
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Musgrave, Franklin Story (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts