NASA Experience
Gardner was selected as a pilot astronaut by NASA in May 1980. During his 11 years as an astronaut, he worked in many areas of Space Shuttle and Space Station development and support. In 1984, he was assigned as pilot on STS-62-A, the first Space Shuttle mission to launch from Vandenberg AFB, California. That mission was later canceled.
Gardner first flew in space as pilot on the crew of STS-27, aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, on December 2–6, 1988. The mission carried a Department of Defense payload. Gardner next flew as pilot on the crew of STS-35, aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, on December 2–10, 1990. The mission carried the ASTRO-1 astronomy laboratory consisting of three ultraviolet telescopes and one x-ray telescope.
Gardner left NASA in June 1991 to command the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. In August 1992, Gardner retired from the Air Force and returned to NASA to direct the joint U.S. and Russian Shuttle-Mir Program.
Read more about this topic: Guy Gardner (astronaut)
Famous quotes containing the words nasa and/or experience:
“If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of NASA to make one.”
—H. Ross Perot (b. 1930)
“The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we’re born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created.”
—Christopher Fry (b. 1907)