yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (06/30/89)
Sarah Keegan
Headquarters, Washington, D.C. June 29, 1989
Jeffrey Carr
Johnson Space Center, Houston
RELEASE: 89-106
NASA SPACE SHUTTLE CREW ASSIGNMENTS ANNOUNCED
USAF Col. John E. Blaha has been named to the flight crew of
Shuttle mission STS-33, a Department of Defense dedicated flight
targeted for November 19, this year. He replaces USNR Rear
Admiral S. David Griggs, who was killed on June 17 when the
private plane he was flying crashed in eastern Arkansas.
Blaha joins crew commander USAF Col. Frederick D. Gregory
and mission specialists F. Story Musgrave, M.D., Kathryn C.
Thornton, Ph.D., and USN Capt. Manley L. "Sonny" Carter, Jr.,
M.D., who have been training since November, last year. The
replacement is not expected to impact the launch date.
Blaha previously had been assigned as the pilot for STS-40,
a space and life sciences dedicated mission (SLS-1). Replacing
Blaha as pilot for STS-40 is USAF Maj. Sidney M. Gutierrez.
Planned for launch in August 1990, the 7-day flight will feature
space and life sciences studies in the SLS-1 laboratory module
aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Gutierrez joins crew commander USMC Col. Bryan D. O'Connor,
mission specialists M. Rhea Seddon, M.D., James P. Bagian, M.D.,
and Tamara E. Jernigan, Ph.D., and payload specialists F. Drew
Gaffney, Ph.D., and Robert W. Phillips, Ph.D, all previously
named.
In another flight crew assignment, Mary L. Cleave, Ph.D.,
and Norman E. Thagard, M.D., have been named as mission
specialists for STS-42, a 9-day flight aboard Columbia, targeted
for December 1990. The partial crew assignment will allow for
long range crew participation in payload training and integration
associated with the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-
1). The remainder of the 7-member crew will be named later.
Blaha made his first space flight as pilot aboard Discovery
on mission STS-29 in March, this year. He was born Aug. 26,
1942, in San Antonio, Texas.
Gutierrez, making his first flight in space, was born June
27, 1951, in Albuquerque, NM. Cleave will make her third space
flight, having flown previously as mission specialist on STS 61-B
in November, 1985, and on STS-30 in May, this year. She was born
February 5, 1947, in Southampton, N.Y.
Thagard will make his fourth space flight. He flew as
mission specialist on STS-7 in June 1983, on STS 51-B in April
1985, and on STS-30 in May, this year. Thagard was born July 3,
1943, in Marianna, Fla., but considers Jacksonville, Fla., to be
his hometown.