Peggy Whitson
- ISS Expedition 16
Peggy Annette Whitson ( born February 9, 1960 in Mount Ayr, Iowa, United States) is an American astronaut. Since April 2008, she holds a total of 377 days the record as the Americans with the longest total length of stay in space. With a total of 39 hours and 46 minutes she also held until September 2012 the record for the longest total time that a woman was staying outside of a spacecraft.
Born in the small town of Mount Ayr, Whitson grew up in Beaconsfield, where her parents had a farm. 1978 Whitson finished high school and began to study chemistry and biology. She attended the private Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, which is maintained by the Methodists and where already studied the astrophysicist James Van Allen. With "excellent" (summa cum laude) in 1981, she received her bachelor's degree.
Whitson then moved to Houston (Texas ) - a change from the countryside to the city, which they referred to as "culture shock". At Rice University located there, she worked on her PhD in biochemistry. After receiving her doctorate in 1985 on protein building blocks of deoxyribonucleic acid she wanted to take up a position at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC ). For this purpose they had set for her dissertation, even under time pressure because they wanted in their application must specify that it was " Dr. ".
In October 1986, Whitson joined as a research assistant to the JSC. First, she worked for the National Research Council of the U.S. ( National Research Council ), after she led a research group of KRUG International, a company that conducts medical department of the JSC on behalf of NASA. Since the fall of 1989, she worked directly for the JSC. She was technical director of the biochemical laboratories, as they developed an experiment for the Japanese Spacelab mission STS- 47: It flew eight days in September 1992 and explored the bone growth. Subsequently, she was appointed Project Scientist of the Shuttle -Mir program. In addition, it was extraordinary to 1997 assistant professor at the University of Texas.
From 1993, Whitson was three years deputy head of the medical department of the JSC and the last two years ( 1995-1996) Vice- chairman of the Russian-American scientific working group.
Astronauts activity
It was the first moon landing, which in 1969 made a deep impression on the primary school pupil Whitson. Walk around as an astronaut on the moon, would be great, she thought. This was the trigger to want to fly into space for them. Your career aspirations got new food than the first time women were admitted to the astronaut squad nine years later.
Whitson was presented with the 16th group of NASA astronauts in May 1996 to the public. The two-year basic training mission specialist began in mid-August 1996 at the JSC. Then she was sent because of their reputation to Russia. Professionally, she had to do since 1989 always there. This time, their work in writing the bilingual manuals for the ISS and the coaching the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center U.S. astronauts to an advisory capacity.
ISS Expedition 5
After that Whitson was preparing for her first space flight. She was immediately selected for a long-term mission. Aboard STS -111 they started with their commander Korsun and the flight engineer Treschtschow to the International Space Station (ISS). The three formed the fifth long-term crew who worked on the station since June 2002. On August 16, Whitson left with Korsun for outdoor works the ISS. In four and a half hours they collected six shields to protect against micrometeorites. A month later she was appointed the first ISS science officer. NASA wanted to thereby provide the research on the space station more to the fore. After 178 days, the three returned with STS -113 back to Earth.
In summer 2003, Whitson spent together with the astronaut Clayton Anderson and Garrett Reisman and three other volunteers and a half weeks in the underwater laboratory "Aquarius". This excursion was part of the NEEMO program. For years, the U.S. space agency, this " NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations " by. NEEMO provides a good preparation for space flight because the ratios are similar: You have to live together in a confined space with several people for a certain time, you have to make do with the resources and problems must be solved without outside help.
After Whitson has been appointed executive vice president of the Astronaut Office. As of March 2005, it launched six months the department ISS operating at JSC and trained since the end of 2005 for their next flight. She was as commander of the backup crew of Expedition 14
ISS Expedition 16
In February 2007 it was officially called to the commander of the Expedition 16, the launch took place on 10 October 2007. This made her the first female commander of the ISS at the same time. The return was made after 192 days on April 19, 2008.
Chief astronaut of NASA
In October 2009, Peggy Whitson went to the office of chief NASA astronauts. It replaced while Steven Lindsey, who was preparing from that time the command of the shuttle mission STS -133. In July 2012, she gave this office to Robert Behnken.
Private
Whitson is married and childless.