Stargazing Guy

Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays.

Maybe you share a birthday?!

If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?!

If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you?

Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to improve the world, to explore (to travel to strange new worlds).

____________________________________________________________________

30 October 1946 Robert L. Gibson (NASA) US.

30 October 1953 Aleksandr Poleshchuk (RKA) Russia.

30 October 1957 Aleksandr Lazutkin (RKA) Russia. Lazutkin was on board the MIR station for a period of six months (10 February – 14 August 1997). He and his Russian partner, Vasily Tshibilyev, flew to the MIR station on the Soyuz TM-25 together with German astronaut Reinhold Ewald, who spent almost three weeks with them.

During this period the station suffered major set-backs, including a collision by an unmanned cargo ship resulting in the decompression of the Spektr module on 25 June 1997. One of Mir’s solar panels was badly damaged, causing the power supply to fail. Lazutkin performed the critical task of closing off the leaking module in order to stop pressure air escaping. Shortly afterwards the power went down, leaving the station in darkness. Earlier in the year on 23 February 1997, there was also a fire on board, which the crew put out not without difficulty (some fire extinguishers did not work properly), and which required a major clean-up and the wearing of gas-masks for a while.

30 October 1961 Ronald Garan (NASA) US. Despite what Supercluster state on their bio page for Garan, Pillownaut, Wikipedia and NASA confirm his birthdate is 30 October 1961 – and that’s good enough for Stargazing Guy.

30 October 1964 Sandra Magnus (NASA) US.

31 October 1930 Michael Collins (NASA) Italy. One of the great astronauts from the ‘right stuff’ era. Collins was an American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, made the first crewed landing on the surface. Probably best known for capturing the image of planet Earth and the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle as it returned from the surface of the moon to dock with the command module Columbia. A smooth mare area is visible on the Moon below and a half-illuminated Earth hangs over the horizon. The lunar module ascent stage was about 4 meters across. Collins took this picture just before docking at 21:34:00 UT (5:34 p.m. EDT) 21 July 1969. (Apollo 11, AS11-44-6642). By taking this photo, Collins is the only human, alive or dead that isn’t in the frame of this picture.

Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_11_lunar_module.jpg

31 October 1949 Terrence Wilcutt (NASA) US.

1 November 1953 Jan Davis (NASA) US.

2 November 1944 Jeffrey Hoffman (NASA) US. Hoffman made five flights as a Space Shuttle astronaut, including the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-61 on 2 December 1993, from Kennedy Space Center.

3 November 1954 Kevin Chilton (NASA) US. Despite what Supercluster state on their bio page for Chilton, both Wikipedia and NASA (and Pillownaut) confirm his birthdate is 3 November 1954 – and that’s good enough for Stargazing Guy.

5 November 1948 Robert Cenker (NASA) US. On 12 January 1986, Cenker was a crew member on the seventh flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-61-C, as a Payload Specialist. This mission was the final flight before the Challenger explosion, which ended the Space Shuttle program until 1988. As a result, Cenker’s mission was called “The End of Innocence” for the Shuttle.

5 November 1961 Charles Hobaugh (NASA) US.

5 November 1961 Alan Poindexter (NASA) US.

5 November 1962 B. Alvin Drew (NASA) US. Drew speaking here at SGx2022 in April 2022 on “A Mind Once Stretched — The Overview Effect” – which is the view that lots of astronauts have when they return from space is describing a sense of having this god’s eye view of the planet and how it has somewhat changed their minds, not a profound one but at least a subtle one.

More on the overview effect here and here.

____________________________________________________________________

Thanks to www.supercluster.com for the bios and links.

Also, thanks to www.pillownaut.com for the initial list of birthdays, and the many, many resources on the internet, especially Wikipedia and NASA.      

* = includes cosmonaut, taikonaut, parastronaut, spaceflight participant, space tourist, etc

____________________________________________________________________

PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk