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Institute of Technology working with Professor Thomas Prince, again because of
the group’s involvement in scientific ballooning. While there I also applied to the
astronaut program and in 1992 was accepted into the 14th group, reporting to the
NASA Johnson Space Center.
Over the course of my career as an astronaut, flying five Space Shuttle missions, including three to upgrade and service the Hubble Space Telescope, I frequently looked back at my time doing scientific ballooning. The NASA scientific
ballooning program provided me with the complete and quintessential scientific
experience, going from concept to hardware, observations and scientific analysis
of the results – all in the time frame of a few years. I’m convinced that knowing
how to build instruments, repair them in the field, the logistics of undertaking a
balloon expedition, and the technology involved in commanding and controlling
the payloads, all prepared me to fly in space and perform spacewalks to fix the
Hubble and my other missions.
Foreword