Laurel Clark

• STS- 107 (2003)

Laurel Blair Salton Clark ( born March 10, 1961 in Ames, Iowa, United States, † 1 February 2003 on the south of the United States ) was an American space traveler. She died in the crash of the Columbia in February 2003.

Clark attended until 1979 the William Horlick High School in Racine (Wisconsin ), and then studied at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where she received a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1983 and 1987, a doctorate in medicine.

After graduating Clark graduated at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland a development pediatrician. She also graduated in 1989 training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in Groton, Connecticut, and at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida, in the fields of radiology and diving medicine from. Then she was transferred as Director of the Military Medical Service of the Submarine Squadron Fourteen to the submarine base in Holy Loch, Scotland. Here she appeared along with Navy divers and Navy special forces and provided needy soldiers of American submarines.

After Clark completed a six month training for airmen doctor at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola, Florida. Upon completion of training, she was employed at different locations and provided in the most remote areas of the world their service. Before she was selected as an astronaut, she worked as a health care professional flyer for the Naval Flight Officer Advanced Training Squadron at Pensacola.

Astronauts activity

Clark was selected by NASA as an astronaut contender in May 1996 and was used from August 1996 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. She completed a two-year astronaut training, she qualified as a mission specialist.

STS -107

Clark and six other astronauts launched on 16 January 2003 with the Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS - 107. On this 16-day research mission about 80 scientific experiments were carried out. At the start of the Space Shuttle, however, a foam piece had come loose from the external tank and hit the port wing of the orbiter. The damage was indeed observed, but was classified by NASA as not critical. As the shuttle returned to Earth on Feb. 1, penetrated by a damaged heat tile hot gases into the wing and melted it from the inside. The shuttle was out of control and broke into the atmosphere. Laurel Clark and the other crew members were killed.

Honors

Laurel Clark was awarded in July 2004, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In addition, the asteroid ( 51827 ) Laurelclark, the craters on the moon L. Clark and Clark Hill, a hill on Mars were named after her.