James F. Reilly
- STS -89 (1998)
- STS- 104 (2001)
- STS- 117 (2007)
James Francis Reilly II ( born March 18, 1954, the Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, United States) is a former American astronaut.
Life
Born in Idaho, Reilly grew up in Mesquite (Texas ), a suburb of Dallas located 20 kilometers away. After his graduation in 1972, he took on the University of Texas Geosciences major. Immediately after his bachelor's exam in 1977, he joined as a research scientist of a geological expedition, who studied for two years in Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica.
1979 Reilly was employed by the company Santa Fe Minerals in Dallas as a geologist before moving to Enserch exploration a year later. There he soon brought it from the simple to senior geologists and gained experience in the development of oil deposits in Germany (particularly the Gulf of Mexico) and abroad. During his tenure at Enserch he spent three weeks together in deep submersibles.
His job allowed him also to continue his degree in geology. So he reached the 1987 Master in Earth Sciences at the University of Texas and received in the spring of 1995, just before he came to NASA, his mortarboard in this discipline. His dissertation dealt with the geological controls on the distribution of chemosynthetic communities in the Gulf of Mexico.
Astronauts activity
Reilly knows how to tell a nice story, what led him to become an astronaut: The seven year old Jim was sitting in a dentist's chair, when John Glenn made his historic flight in February 1962. There was a screening in primary school, and of course Reilly Junior wished away very far. When he was just about to make a wish into the distance, asked the doctor whether in his young life he'd ever want to be astronauts. That got the ball rolling, as Reilly said later. He began NASA to regularly write letters. And finally, he wanted to give his career a decisive turn and competed in Houston as a mission specialist. Then it came to him like many others - his application fell through, and not just once. At times he thought he would never make it. But he was persistent and wanted to realize his childhood dream.
Reilly had ten years without success advertised as an astronaut at the Johnson Space Center (JSC ). Only in its fifth application, he was accepted in December 1994 along with 18 other applicants. The computer department of the Astronaut Office, he was assigned, after graduating in 1996 the one-year basic training.
In March 1997, Reilly was scheduled for his first space shuttle flight on STS -89. The Endeavour flew to the Russian space station Mir and led by the eighth coupling of a U.S. orbiter. During the visit, there was a changing of the guard: back to the Endeavour crew was Andy Thomas and landed with David Wolf, who had worked for four months on the orbiting station. The mission was part of the Shuttle -Mir program, and was held in January 1998.
After a short recovery time Reilly went into training for his second flight. Mike Gernhardt and he were the first members of the STS -104 crew, who were nominated in 1997. The space shuttle Atlantis brought in the summer of 2001, the Quest airlock on the International Space Station ( ISS). Reilly and Gernhardt took three exits to install Quest.
Since autumn 2002, Reilly was as a mission specialist on the crew of STS- 117th This two-week flight took place on the International Space Station in June 2007. Main payload of the Atlantis was the S3/S4-Element. Together with Danny Olivas, he led by two of the four spacewalks. Here, the S3/S4-Bauteil were mounted on the station retracted the solar panels and the second wing of the solar module P6.
Reilly, who in 2001 was appointed Honorary Marshal, and his wife Jo Ann have two sons and a daughter.
According to the NASA
In May 2008 it was announced that Reilly is leaving NASA and replaced as Vice President of Research and Development for Photo Stencil.