Monday, October 16, 2017

Happy birthday, Space Shuttle astronaut James Newman!

James H Newman.jpg

James Hansen Newman, born October 16, 1956 in what is now the Federated States of Micronesia, is a veteran of four space shuttle flights.  After obtaining his doctoral degree in physics from Rice University, he completed an additional year of post-doc work and began his astronaut training in July 1990.

His first space shuttle mission was aboard Discovery (STS-51) in September 1993. Although manay scientific experiements were carried out, the main focus of the mission was repairing the Hubble Telescope.  Newman and Carl Walz performed a 7-hour EVA as part of the Hubble repair.

His second flight was STS-69, aboard Endeavour in September 1995.  It was the 100th successful manned NASA flights, not counting X-15s. 

Newman's third mission was on Endeavour again (STS-88) in December 1998.  Newman performed 3 EVAs with Jerry Ross completing the Unity module which is the first U.S.-built component of the International Space Station. 

His final flight was on Columbia (STS-109) in March 2002.  He participated in 2 of 5 spacewalks on this mission to do additional repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.


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