Brewster H. Shaw

• STS -9 ( 1983)
• STS 61- B ( 1985)
• STS -28 ( 1989)

Brewster Hopkinson Shaw ( born May 16, 1945 in Cass City, Michigan, United States) is a former American astronaut.

Training

Shaw graduated in on the Cass City High School in Michigan in 1963. Subsequently, he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin -Madison and graduated in 1968 with a bachelor's degree and in 1969 he obtained a Master just there with brilliant marks.

U.S. Air Force

He joined in 1969 the U.S. Air Force, after having completed the military school successfully. He flew several combat missions then in the Vietnam War.

Later, he was quickly trained as a test pilot and flew mainly doing the fighter aircraft F -100 and F- 4th

He completed a total of over 5,000 flight hours in more than 30 jet aircraft, 644 of them in combat over Vietnam.

NASA

In 1978 he was elected to the 8th group of NASA astronauts and one year trained as a pilot.

STS -9

His first and longest space missions had Shaw as pilot on STS -9 from November 28 to December 8, 1983 with the Space Shuttle Columbia in which for the first time the space laboratory Spacelab was carried. Under the command of astronaut legend John Young, who for the sixth time was the first human on this mission into space, it was the first space flight with six astronauts. At the same time, this was the first NASA mission in which a non-American, the German Ulf Merbold member of the crew was and also his first space flight took it.

The flight was from a scientific point of view a great success, because by the carrying of the Spacelab were more experiments will be carried out successfully than all the Apollo and Skylab missions put together.

STS -61- B

For this mission, the second time was used the Atlantis for a flight into space. Shaw was the commander of this mission, which had the main task to carry three communication satellites into space. Furthermore, in two spacewalks design elements were assembled in free space, to thereby gain experience for the International Space Station (ISS ).

On board was on its maiden flight of astronaut Jerry Ross, who has flown later became the first man into space seven times.

STS 61- N

In December 1985, Shaw was assigned as commander of mission STS -61- N of the U.S. Department of Defense. Another crew pilot Mike McCulley, Mission Specialists James Adamson, David Leestma and Mark Brown and the payload specialist Frank Casserino (MSE ) and Lawrence Skantze (DoD ) were provided. This flight should start in September 1986, but was canceled after the Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986.

STS -28

This mission was the second mission after the Challenger disaster in January 1986. Since the mission had a military character, is still not known which activities were executed by this. It is believed that secret satellites were exposed. It was Shaw's third and final flight, here he was, of course, again assigned as commander.

After the space flight

Shaw was also a member of Roger's Presidential Commission, which should investigate the misfortune of the Challenger between the last flights.

After his last flight, he was Deputy Director for Space Shuttle missions at the Kennedy Space Center. He was then appointed deputy program manager of the Space Shuttle program and stayed for the time being in Florida.

His last job at NASA, he had until 1996 at the Kennedy Space Center as the Director of Space Shuttle missions, in this capacity he controlled all the elements of the shuttle, including the tank, the booster and the engines.

In 1996 he moved after 27 years in the Air Force and NASA to Rockwell, but Rockwell was bought at the end of the same year of its competitor Boeing and thus Shaw was a director of the aerospace division of the Group. Here he was mainly responsible for the individual components of the ISS, where Boeing has worked for a long time.

In mid-2003 he moved to the United Space Alliance and was responsible for the Space Shuttle program and various other regulations.

In 2006 he moved back to Boeing and is now head of the Space Department.

On 26 August 2011, he took leave to retire. Most recently, he was vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration Division at.

Summary

Private

Shaw is one of the founders of the astronaut band Max Q. He is married and has three grown children.