Norman Earl Thagard

Norman Earl Thagard, born in 1943, United States astronaut, pilot, and medical researcher. Trained in medicine, Thagard performed medical experiments aboard four space shuttle flights and aboard the Russian space station Mir.

Thagard was born in Marianna, Florida. He studied engineering science at Florida State University, earning a B.S. degree in 1965 and an M.S. degree in 1966. He entered active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966 and achieved the rank of captain the following year. He was designated a naval aviator in 1968 and flew 163 combat missions from 1969 to 1970 during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). Thagard resumed his academic studies in 1971 and received an M.D. degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1977. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected Thagard as one of 35 astronaut candidates in 1978.

Thagard flew in space for the first time from June 18 to June 24, 1983, as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Challenger. He conducted medical tests and collected data on astronauts’ adaptation to space.

Thagard flew in space for the second time from April 29 to May 6, 1985, as mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Challenger, on the Spacelab 3. Thagard tended 24 experimental rats and a pair of squirrel monkeys.

Thagard’s third flight was from May 4 to May 8, 1988, as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. The crew of this mission deployed the Magellan spacecraft, which ultimately flew to Venus and mapped the planet’s surface for the first time. After the successful deployment of Magellan, Thagard and the rest of the shuttle crew concentrated on experiments in fluid behavior, chemistry, and electrical storms.

Thagard flew a fourth shuttle mission as payload commander from January 22 to January 30, 1992, aboard the space shuttle Discovery. This mission was primarily concerned with materials science experiments. These experiments were used to investigate the effects of the low-gravity environment of the orbiting space shuttle on the growth of protein and semiconductor crystals, plants, tissues, bacteria, and insects.

Thagard’s fifth space flight was the first in a series of joint missions conducted between the U.S. space shuttle program and the Russian Mir space station program. On March 14, 1995, Thagard and two Russian cosmonauts lifted off in a Russian Soyuz craft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and flew to the already-orbiting Mir station. Onboard Mir, Thagard participated in 28 experiments related to long-term human occupation of space and engineering studies related to construction of the larger International Space Station. He returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 115 days in space on July 7, 1995, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Thagard’s mission was the longest to date for a United States astronaut. His record was broken in 1996 by United States astronaut Shannon Lucid, who stayed a total of 188 days in space aboard the Mir space station and returning in the space shuttle Atlantis.