Scott E. Parazynski

• STS -66 ( 1994)
• STS -86 (1997)
• STS -95 ( 1998)
• STS- 100 (2001)
• STS- 120 (2007)

Scott Edward Parazynski ( born July 28, 1961 in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States ) is a former American astronaut.

Parazynski grew up in Colorado and California. When he was bigger, the family followed the father, who worked for the world's aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Therefore Parazynski visited American universities in Africa and the Middle East: first in Dakar ( Senegal ), the American Community School in Athens, Greece, and the Tehran American School in Tehran ( Iran). He received his high school diploma in 1979 from the American Community School in Beirut ( Lebanon).

He then went back to the U.S. to (focus on cancer research and sleeping sickness) to study at Stanford University in California biology. After completing his bachelor's degree in 1983, he went to Stanford Medical School and specialized in human medicine. Besides his studies, he worked at the NASA Ames Research Center and during this time was also a member of the national team in the sport of luge. He coached ambitious to participate in the Winter Olympics in 1988, but failed short of qualifying. For this, the Philippine team hired him as a coach, he oversaw in Calgary. In 1989, he earned his " Dr. med ", moved to the U.S. East Coast and graduated at Brigham and Women 's Hospital in Boston (Massachusetts ) his medical internship. After that he went to Colorado and worked as a casualty doctor in Denver.

Astronauts activity

Parazynski had been working since the summer of 1990 as a casualty doctor, when he was introduced by NASA as an astronaut in March 1992. During his spare time, the passionate climbers had climbed the highest mountains of Colorado. Before he received the promise from NASA that its application has been accepted, he had spent several months with preparations for the ascent of Mount Everest. With some regret, he opted for the NASA and not the highest mountain in the world ( on the highest mountain outside Asia, Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina, he was way already ).

Parazynski was one of the 15 Mission Specialist candidates who were selected from more than 2,000 applicants. The 24köpfige astronaut group consisting of 4 pilots and 20 mission specialists ( including 5 from abroad), began a one-year basic training in August 1992.

Since January 1994 Parazynski trained for his first space flight, which was conducted with the orbiter Atlantis ten months later. STS -66 was a Spacelab mission under the name ATLAS -3 (Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Sciences ). Parazynski worked as a mission specialist in the blue team - better utilization of the experiments has been working around the clock and the crew therefore divided into two layers ( red and blue). During the eleven-day company Parazynski supervised mainly the equipment ESCAPE (Experiment of the Sun for Complementing the Atlas Payload and for Education -II), SSBUV ( Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Spectrometer), NIH ( National Institutes of Health ) and PCG- THS (Protein Crystal Growth -Thermal Enclosure system).

In spring 1995 Parazynski was selected as a replacement for an extended stay on the Russian space station Mir. He was preparing to substitute itself for his colleague Jerry Linenger, if this is not with STS -81 could start. Parazynski trained for half a year in the " Star City ", until he was surprisingly withdrawn from the Shuttle -Mir program. He was too big for the Soyuz -TM spacecraft, it was said from Moscow. The Soyuz spaceships should be used in case of an accident on the station for a quick return to Earth. NASA has stated that he initially saw no problems, only a close examination of the data sheets have shown that Parazynski would not fit with a height of 1.88 meters in the seat shells of the Soyuz.

Parazynski yet had the opportunity to fly to the Russian space station. He belonged to the crew of STS- 86, which I had approached in the fall of 1997 and docked. Together with the cosmonauts Vladimir Titov Parazynski led by a five-hour outboard activity. They removed parts of some experiments and put a cover on the Mir, which should seal the damaged solar panel on this. Before the space shuttle after a half weeks returned home again to earth, they exchanged a crew member of: after four months on Mir flew Mike Foale back. His place took David Wolf.

On October 29, began in 1998 with STS -95 Parazynskis third space flight. In the cargo bay of Space Shuttle Discovery, which had its 25th use, the Spacehab module and the satellite SPARTAN were. While the team led by some 80 scientific experiments in Spacehab, SPARTAN was suspended for a few days to observe the Sun. Above all, however, the entire attention turned to a crew member: The first person in the USA who has circled the Earth, the now 77 -year-old Senator John Glenn, flew as a payload specialist. It was started in February 1962 with " Friendship 7 " into space and landed after only three orbits of again. At his own request he was recruited for STS -95, found to be airworthy and completed the entire workout with the rest of the crew. Dr. Parazynski and Glenn worked during the nine-day flight together closely, because the senator studies on aging processes ( metabolic changes, osteoporosis ) undertook the monitored Parazynski.

STS -100 was Parazynskis fourth deployment in orbit. Actually Bob Curbeam should attend. This, however, had been training for a long time for outboard work on the International Space Station (ISS ) and was therefore set to STS -98, where he assembled a laboratory with three exits to the station. Parazynski had been working on another space station during his second flight in 1997. Because of this experience him two years later, the position on STS- 100 was transferred. The mission took place in April 2001. On two days Parazynski and Chris Hadfield got out to mount the Canadian robotic arm on the ISS.

Then headed Parazynski to the crash of the Columbia in February 2003, the Department of outboard activities at the Johnson Space Center. Thereafter, he was appointed head of the work on the heat shield of the space shuttles.

From the summer of 2006 trained Parazynski for its next use. He was a mission specialist of the Shuttle flight STS -120, which began on 23 October 2007 and after 15 days came to an end. During the mission, he successfully repaired a major solar panel of the space station. This outdoor use is considered to be the most complicated in the nine year history of the ISS.

Parazynski left NASA in March 2009.

Private

Parazynski has Polish ancestors - his great-grandparents once emigrated to the United States. Together with his wife he has a daughter and a son. On 13 May 2013, was awarded by Bronisław Komorowski with the Officer's Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland.