Mission Background
STS-9's six-member crew, the largest of any manned space mission at the time, included John W. Young, commander, on his second shuttle flight; Brewster H. Shaw, pilot; Owen Garriott and Robert A. Parker, both mission specialists; and Byron K. Lichtenberg and Ulf Merbold, payload specialists - the first two non-NASA astronauts to fly on the Space Shuttle. Merbold, a citizen of West Germany, was the first foreign citizen to participate in a shuttle flight. Lichtenberg was a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to STS-9, scientist-astronaut Garriott had spent 56 days in orbit in 1973 aboard Skylab.
The mission was devoted entirely to Spacelab 1, a joint NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) program designed to demonstrate the ability to conduct advanced scientific research in space. Astronauts and payload specialists worked in the Spacelab module and coordinated their efforts with scientists at the Marshall Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) then located at the Johnson Space Center. Funding for Spacelab 1 was provided by ESA.
Read more about this topic: STS-9
Famous quotes containing the words mission and/or background:
“Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)