Story Musgrave

Musgrave was born August 19, 1935, and grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but considers Lexington, Kentucky, to be his hometown.[3] He is the son of Marguerite (Swann) and Percy Musgrave.[4] He has seven children, one of whom is deceased.[5][6][7] His hobbies are chess, flying, gardening, literary criticism, poetry, microcomputers, parachuting, photography, reading, running, scuba diving, and soaring.

In the early 1990s, Musgrave was stalked by Margaret Mary Ray, a schizophrenic woman who had previously served time for stalking comedian David Letterman.[8]

Musgrave attended Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts and St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts from 1947 to 1953. He dropped out of St. Mark's in his senior year when a car accident "caused him to miss a substantial amount of vital pre-graduation exam schooling."[9]

While serving in the Marines, he completed his GED.[10] Following his discharge, Musgrave received a B.S. in mathematics and statistics from Syracuse University in 1958. He went on to receive an M.B.A. in operations analysis and computer programming from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1959, a B.A. in chemistry from Marietta College in 1960, an M.D. degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1964, an M.S. in physiology and biophysics from the University of Kentucky in 1966, and a M.A. in literature from the University of Houston–Clear Lake in 1987.[11]

After leaving high school, Musgrave enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1953. He served as an aviation electrician, instrument technician and aircraft crew chief while completing duty assignments in Korea, Japan and Hawaii, and aboard the carrier USS Wasp in the Far East. Musgrave's aviator brother Percy, who also served on USS Wasp, died on a mission when the carrier "ran over him" after a takeoff crash.[12]

Although he did not qualify as a pilot until completing his stipulated astronaut training, Musgrave has flown 17,700 hours in 160 different types of civilian and military aircraft, including 7,500 hours in jet aircraft. He has earned FAA ratings for instructor, instrument instructor, glider instructor, and airline transport pilot in addition to astronaut wings. An accomplished parachutist, he has made more than 800 free falls, including over 100 experimental free-fall descents involved with the study of human aerodynamics.

Following his graduation from Syracuse University, Musgrave was briefly employed as a mathematician and operations analyst by the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York in 1958.

Upon completing his medical degree, he served a surgical internship at the University of Kentucky Medical Center from 1964 to 1965. He continued there as a United States Air Force postdoctoral fellow (1965–1966), working in aerospace medicine and physiology, and as a National Heart Institute postdoctoral fellow (1966–1967), teaching and researching cardiovascular and exercise physiology. From 1967 to 1989, he practiced clinical medicine on a part-time basis at Denver General Hospital (presently known as Denver Health Medical Center) and served as an adjunct instructor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

He has written or been listed as a co-author of twenty five scientific papers in the areas of aerospace medicine and physiology, temperature regulation, exercise physiology, and clinical surgery.

Musgrave was selected as a scientist-astronaut by NASA in August 1967 as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 6.[13] After completing flight and academic training, he worked on the design and development of the Skylab Program. In 1973, he was the backup Science Pilot for Skylab 2, becoming the first Group 6 astronaut to receive a potential flight assignment.

Musgrave participated in the design and development of all Space Shuttle extra-vehicular activity equipment, including spacesuits, life support systems, airlocks and Manned Maneuvering Units. From 1979 to 1982, and 1983 to 1984, he was assigned as a test and verification pilot in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory at JSC.

Musgrave served as a CAPCOM for the second and third Skylab missions, STS-31, STS-35, STS-36, STS-38 and STS-41. He was a Mission Specialist on STS-6 (1983), STS-51-F/Spacelab-2 (1985), STS-33 (1989), STS-44 (1991), and STS-80 (1996); and the Payload Commander on STS-61 (1993).

A veteran of six space flights, Musgrave has spent a total of 1,281 hours, 59 minutes, 22 seconds on space missions, including nearly 27 hours of EVA.

Musgrave is the only astronaut to have flown on all five Space Shuttles. Prior to John Glenn's return to space in 1998, Musgrave held the record for the oldest person in orbit, at age 61.[14]

He retired from NASA in 1997.

He is a member of Phi Delta Theta, Alpha Kappa Psi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Beta Gamma Sigma, the Civil Aviation Medical Association, the Flying Physicians Association, the International Academy of Astronautics, the Marine Corps Aviation Association, the National Aeronautic Association, the National Aerospace Education Council, the National Geographic Society, the Navy League, the New York Academy of Sciences, Omicron Delta Kappa, the Soaring Club of Houston, the Soaring Society of America and the United States Parachute Association.

Meritorious Unit Commendation | NASA Distinguished Service Medal
NASA Exceptional Service Medal with one star	NASA Space Flight Medal with five stars	National Defense Service Medal

• United States Air Force Post-doctoral Fellowship (1965–1966)
• National Heart Institute Post-doctoral Fellowship (1966–1967)
• Reese Air Force Base Commander's Trophy (1969)
• American College of Surgeons I.S. Ravdin Lecture (1973)
• Flying Physicians Association Airman of the Year Award (1974 & 1983)
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1994)[15]
• International Space Hall of Fame (1995)[16]

Musgrave has made cameo appearances on several documentary TV programs, as well as the movie Mission to Mars (2000) as "3rd CAPCOM" and the TV show Home Improvement by Touchstone Television. In 2012, he appeared at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, as the "Astronaut Guest of Honor." [17]

• "I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism... It's hard to say what drives a three-year-old, but I think I had a sense that nature was my solace, and nature was a place in which there was beauty, in which there was order."[18]
• "When you see a launch from the outside, it's a rather glorious, magnificent thing. Inside, it's the absolute opposite of that. It's 137 decibels. It's shaking. Everything is shaking. You're along for the ride and you want to survive that. So, it's not a joy ride for me. It's what I need to go through to get into the incredible serenity and celestial dance of zero gravity."[19]
• "Getting out of the comfortable path, that's what exploration is all about."[20]
• "People love Hubble images. It tells 'em where they are from, it tells 'em where they're going, it ties it all together."[21]

• List of spaceflight records

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Story Musgrave.

• Musgrave's official NASA biography
• Astronautix biography of Story Musgrave
• Spacefacts biography of Story Musgrave
• Musgrave at Spaceacts
• Musgrave at Encyclopedia of Science
• About Story Musgrave
• Story Musgrave at IMDb
• Musgrave at International Space Hall of Fame
• Story Musgrave Interview On His Abusive Childhood And Motivation

• Appearances on C-SPAN