Byron K. Lichtenberg

Infobox Astronaut
name =Byron Kurt Lichtenberg
type =MIT Payload Specialist
nationality =American
date_birth =birth date and age|1948|02|19
place_birth =Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
occupation =Engineer
selection =1978 NASA Group
time =19d 05h 56m
mission =STS-9, STS-45
insignia =

Byron Kurt Lichtenberg, Sc. D. (Born February 19, 1948 in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania) is an American engineer who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a Payload Specialist.

Personal

Born February 19, 1948 in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Married with five children, two adopted Chinese daughters. He is a U.S. citizen.

Education

*Sc.B., aerospace engineering, Brown University (1969)
*S.M., mechanical engineering, MIT (1975)
*Sc.D., biomedical engineering, MIT (1979)
*Sc.D., Westminster College (honorary)

Awards and honors

*NASA Space Flight Medals (2)
*AIAA Haley Space Flight Award
*FAI Komorov Award.

Organizations

Founding Member:
*Association of Space Explorers
*X-Prize Foundation
*International Space UniversityMember:
*User Panel for National Space Biomedical Research Institute
*Tau Beta Pi (honorary engineering society)
*Sigma Xi (honorary scientific society).

Career

From 1978 to 1984 he was a researcher for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Canadian Vestibular experiments on Spacelab 1, Spacelab D-1, Spacelab SLS-1 and SLS-2, and a co-principal investigator for the Mental Workload and Performance experiment flown on IML-1 to assess human-computer workstation characteristics for the Space Station.

He was a founder of Payload Systems, Inc., a company that has provided hardware and flight support for MODE and MACE experiments for the Space Shuttle and ISS. They also were the first commercial user of the Mir Space Station, flying protein crystal growth experiments to Mir in the early 1990s. He is now President of Zero Gravity Corporation, founded to make parabolic, weightless aircraft flights available to the general public. He was an Air Force fighter pilot for 23 years, flying the F-4, F-100, and A-10. Survived 238 combat missions during the Vietnam War, and received 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, ten Air Medals, and numerous other decorations. He currently flies as a captain for Southwest Airlines.

paceflight experience

Lichtenberg was the first Payload Specialist. He flew on Spacelab-1 (STS-9) mission for ten days in 1983, conducted multiple experiments in life sciences, materials sciences, Earth observations, astronomy and solar physics, upper atmosphere and plasma physics. His second flight was ATLAS-1 (STS-45) Spacelab mission for nine days in 1992; conducted 13 experiments in Atmospheric sciences and astronomy. He flew 310 orbits, and logged 468 hours in space.

External links

* [http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lichtenberg-bk.html NASA Bio]
* [http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/lichtenberg_byron.htm Spacefacts biography of Byron K. Lichtenberg]