Scott Parazynski | |
|---|---|
 Parazynski in 2008 | |
| Born | Scott Edward Parazynski (1961-07-28)July 28, 1961 (age 64) Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Education | Stanford University (BS,MD) |
| Space career | |
| NASA astronaut | |
Time in space | 57d 15h 34m |
| Selection | NASA Group 14 (1992) |
TotalEVAs | 7 |
Total EVA time | 47h 5m |
| Missions | STS-66 STS-86 STS-95 STS-100 STS-120 |
Mission insignia |      |
Scott Edward Parazynski (born July 28, 1961, inLittle Rock, Arkansas) is an American physician and formerNASAastronaut. A veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks, Parazynski's latest mission wasSTS-120 in October 2007 – highlighted by a dramatic, unplannedextra-vehicular activity (EVA) to repair a live solar array. In May 2016 he was inducted into theUnited States Astronaut Hall of Fame. He retired from NASA in March 2009 to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities in the private sector, and he is currently the CEO of a technology start-up. He is the first person to have both flown in space and summitedMount Everest, the highest point on Earth.[1] He describes his life's experiences in his 2017 memoirThe Sky Below.[2]
Parazynski is ofPolish descent, as his great-great-grandparents migrated fromKraków to the US.[3] He considersPalo Alto, California, andEvergreen, Colorado, to be his hometowns. He is married toMeenakshi Wadhwa, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University. He has two children with his first wife, Gail. Scott enjoysmountaineering,rock climbing,flying andscuba diving. A commercial, multi-engine, seaplane and instrument-ratedpilot, Parazynski has logged over 2500 flight hours in a variety of aircraft. As a mountaineer, hissummits includeCerro Aconcagua (at 22,841 feet (6,962 m) above sea level, the tallestmountain in the world outsideAsia) and all 59 ofColorado's peaks over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) inaltitude. He first attempted to summitMount Everest in May 2008, but was forced to turn back before the summit due to a severe back injury. Serving as team physician for the Discovery Channel[4] a year later, at 4:00 am on May 20, 2009, he successfully summitted the 29,029 feet (8,848 m) mountain.
Other notable expeditions include a scientific dive into the summit caldera lake atopLicancabur Volcano (19,409 feet (5,916 m) on the Bolivian-Chilean border), one of the world's highest lakes, and setting the first bootprints adjacent Masaya Volcano's lava lake in Nicaragua with Sam Cossman in 2016.[5] He also travelled aboardOceanGate's submersibleTitan and visited thewreck of theTitanic in the North Atlantic.[citation needed]
Parazynski attended junior high school at Dakar Academy inDakar, Senegal, andBeirut, Lebanon. In March 1969 as an eight-year-old, he travelled to Florida to witness the launch ofApollo 9, an event he argued inspired him to pursue a career in science. He attended high school at theCommunity School, Tehran,Iran, and theAmerican Community School,Athens, Greece, graduating in 1979. He received aBachelor of Science degree inbiology fromStanford University in 1983, continuing on to graduate with honors fromStanford Medical School in 1989. He served his medical internship at theBrigham and Women's Hospital ofHarvard Medical School (1990). He had completed 22 months of a residency program in emergency medicine inDenver,Colorado, when selected for the NASA Astronaut Corps.
Parazynski is a Fellow of theAerospace Medical Association andThe Explorers Club. Additionally, he is a member of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology, theWilderness Medical Society, theAmerican Alpine Club, theAssociation of Space Explorers, theExperimental Aircraft Association, and theAircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He is president of the board of directors of theChallenger Center for Space Science Education, and serves on the boards of theHouston Museum of Natural Science, the University of Texas McDonald Observatory andOceanGate.
In 2014, Parazynski was appointed as a professor of practice atArizona State University, and was designated ASU's first University Explorer.[6] He subsequently founded Fluidity Technologies[7] based on his intellectual property, a company aiming to manufacture and distribute novel control devices for mobility in 3-D space, for everything from drones and computer games to VR and surgical robotics.
While in medical school, he competed on the United States DevelopmentLuge Team and was ranked among the top ten competitors in the nation during the 1988 Olympic Trials.[18] He also served as an Olympic Team Coach for thePhilippines during the1988 Olympic Winter Games inCalgary, Canada.
While anundergraduate atStanford University, Parazynski studiedantigenic shift inAfricansleeping sickness, using sophisticatedmolecular biology techniques. Duringmedical school, he was awarded a NASA graduate studentfellowship and conductedresearch atNASA Ames Research Center onfluid shifts that occur during humanspace flight. Additionally, he has been involved in the design of severalexercise devices that are being developed for long-durationspace flight, and has conducted research on high-altitude acclimatization. Parazynski has numerous publications in the field of spacephysiology, and has a particular expertise in humanadaptation to stressful environments.
Selected as an astronaut in March 1992, Parazynski reported to theJohnson Space Center in August 1992. He completed one year of training and evaluation, and was qualified as a mission specialist. Parazynski initially served as one of the crew representatives forextra-vehicular activity (EVA) in the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch. Following his first flight, he was assigned as a backup for the third American long-duration stay aboard Russia'sspace stationMir, and was expected to serve as a prime crew member on a subsequent mission. He spent five months in training at theGagarin Cosmonaut Training Center,Star City, Moscow, Russia.
In October 1995, when sitting-height parameters raised concerns about his fitting safely in theSoyuz spacecraft in the event of an emergency on board the Mir station, he was deemed too tall for the mission and was withdrawn from Mir training. He has served as the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch crew representative forSpace Shuttle, Space Station and Soyuz training, and also served as Deputy (Operations and Training) of the Astronaut OfficeISS Branch. Most recently, he served as Chief of the Astronaut Office EVA Branch. A veteran of five space flights,STS-66 (1994),STS-86 (1997),STS-95 (1998),STS-100 (2001), andSTS-120 (2007), Parazynski has logged over 1,019 hours (8 weeks) in space, including 47 hours of EVA, and traveled over 17 million miles. Parazynski's most recent mission wasSTS-120, during which he performed four spacewalks to continue International Space Station assembly. The fourth EVA is considered one of the most challenging and dangerous ever performed: while perched on the end of a 90-foot robotic boom, further away from the safety of the airlock than anyone had previously ventured, he had to repair a fully energized solar array. He became only the second NASA astronaut to perform four spacewalks during a single shuttle mission. A photo that he took during one of the spacewalks was listed onPopular Science's photo gallery of the bestastronaut selfies.[19]
TheSTS-66 AtmosphericLaboratory for Applications and Science-3 (ATLAS-3) mission was launched fromKennedy Space Center,Florida, on November 3, 1994, and returned to land atEdwards Air Force Base,California, on November 14, 1994. ATLAS-3 was part of an ongoing program to determine the Earth'senergy balance andatmospheric change over an 11-yearsolar cycle, particularly with respect to humanity's impact on global-ozone distribution. Parazynski had responsibility for a number of on-orbit activities including operation of the ATLAS experiments andSpacelab Pallet, as well as several secondary experiments in the crew cabin. He and his crewmates also successfully evaluated the Interlimb Resistance Device, a free-floating exercise he developed to preventmuscular atrophy inmicrogravity.Space ShuttleAtlantis circled the earth 175 times and traveled over 4.5 million miles during its 262-hour and 34-minute flight.[20]
STS-86Atlantis (September 25 to October 6, 1997) was the seventh mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir. Highlights of the mission included the exchange of U.S. crew membersMichael Foale andDavid Wolf, the transfer of 10,400 pounds of science and logistics, and the first Shuttle-based joint American-Russian spacewalk. Parazynski served as the flight engineer (MS2) during the flight, and was also the navigator during the Mir rendezvous. Parazynski (EV1) and RussiancosmonautVladimir Titov performed a 5-hour, 1 minutespacewalk during which they retrieved four experiment packages first deployed during theSTS-76Shuttle-Mir docking mission. They also deployed the Spektr Solar Array Cap, which was designed to be used in a future Mir spacewalk to seal a leak in the Spektr module's damaged hull. Other objectives of EVA included the evaluation of common EVA tools to be used by astronauts wearing either Russian or American-made spacesuits, and a systems flight test of the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER). Space ShuttleAtlantis circled the Earth 169 times and traveled over 4.2 million miles during its 259-hour and 21-minute flight, landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
STS-95Discovery (October 29 to November 7, 1998) was a nine-day mission during which the crew supported a variety of research payloads, including deployment of the Spartan solar-observing spacecraft and the testing of theHubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform. The crew also conducted investigations on the correlation between space flight and the aging process. Parazynski was the flight engineer (MS2) for the mission, as well as the navigator for the Spartan spacecraft rendezvous. During the flight, he also operated the Shuttle's robotic arm in support of the testing of several space-vision systems being considered for ISS assembly. In addition, he was responsible for monitoring several life sciences investigations, including those involving crewmateSenator John Glenn. The mission was accomplished in 134 Earth orbits, traveling 3.6 million miles in 213 hours and 44 minutes.[20]
STS-100Endeavour (April 19 to May 1, 2001) was the 9th mission to the International Space Station (ISS) Alpha during which the crew successfully delivered and installed the Space Station "Canadarm2" robotic arm, to be used for all future Space Station assembly and maintenance tasks. Parazynski conducted two spacewalks withCanadian colleagueChris Hadfield to assemble and power the next generation robotic arm. Additionally, the pair installed a newUHFradio antenna for space-to-space communications during Space Shuttle rendezvous and ISS extravehicular activity. A critical on-orbit spare, adirect current switching unit, was also transferred to Alpha during the 14 hours and 50 minutes of EVA work. Also during the flight, Parazynski operatedEndeavour's robotic arm to attach, and later detach, the Italian-builtRaffaelloMulti-Purpose Logistics Module. Traveling 4.9 million miles in 283 hours and 30 minutes, the mission was accomplished in 186 Earth orbits.[20]
STS-120Discovery (October 23 – November 7, 2007) launched from and returned to land at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. During the mission, the Node 2 module namedHarmony was delivered to the International Space Station. This element opened up the capability for future international laboratories to be added to the station. Parazynski served as EV1 (lead spacewalker) and accumulated over 27 EVA hours in 4 spacewalks. One of the major EVA mission objectives was the relocation of the P6 Solar Array from the top of the Z1 Truss to the end of the port side of the Integrated Truss Structure. During the IVA-commanded re-deploy of the solar array, several array panels snagged and were damaged, requiring an unplanned spacewalk to successfully repair the array. The mission was accomplished in 238 Earth orbits, traveling 6.2 million miles in 15 days, 2 hours, and 23 minutes.
In 2017, Parazynski's book,The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space and Speed,[21] with co-author Susy Flory, was published.Homer Hickam called it “a wonder, a fellow who has packed in more exploits in his lifetime than most of us can imagine.”[22]
NASA Astronaut Group 13 ← NASA Astronaut Group 14 →NASA Astronaut Group 15 | |||||||
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