Astronaut Charlie Walker Autograph & Biographical Data
Astronaut: Charlie D. Walker
Missions: STS - 41D - 51D - 61B
~ Charlie Walker ~
Charles David "Charlie" Walker (conceived August 29, 1948) is an American designer and space explorer who flew on three Space Shuttle missions in 1984 and 1985 as a Payload Specialist for the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. He is the first non-government individual to fly in space.
STS-4 exhibited the trouble of Walker helping space explorers with the complex CFES gadget. He and others couldn't talk straightforwardly to the space transport; the case communicator and two others supported and handed-off all messages to space. McDonnell Douglas recommended that Walker fly as a Payload Specialist to work the CFES himself. NASA determined that flying Walker would cost McDonnell Douglas $40,000 per flight, and in May 1983 he was alloted to STS-41-D.
Walker's flight was important for a NASA exertion during the 1980s to fly regular folks on the bus. Despite the fact that Europeans were preparing for Spacelab Payload Specialist obligations, he was the first non government-partnered person in space. Walker stayed a McDonnell Douglas worker, and drove between organization central command in St. Louis, Missouri and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Preparing remembered a trip for a Northrop T-38 Talon fly mentor airplane, and around 40 trips on the "Regurgitation Comet". He later expressed that his experience showed that a "working traveler" could fly after a curtailed preparing project of a couple of months.
Despite the fact that Walker accepted at the time that 41-D would be his main flight, he likewise went with the CFES hardware on STS-51-D, and STS-61-B, amassing 20 days of involvement with space and voyaging 8.2 million miles. On board these Space Shuttle missions Walker likewise performed early protein precious stone development tries and partook as a guinea pig in various clinical examinations. Yet again he started preparing individual McDonnell Douglas representative Robert Wood to fly on STS-61-M in 1986, and expected to fly basically himself, maybe on Space Station Freedom, before the obliteration of Challenger in January 1986 finished business transport payloads.
Beginning around 1986 Walker has served in different NASA study and survey group limits including as an individual from the NASA Microgravity Material Science Assessment Task Force, the NASA Space Station Office Quick-is-Beautiful/Rapid Response Research Study Group, the NASA Space Station Operations Task Force, and the International Space Station Strategic Roadmap Committee. He has served on the public boards of the NASA/Industry Manned Flight Awareness Program and the NASA/Industry Education Initiative. He likewise shows up periodically to sign memorabilia at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and furthermore shows up for the intricate's "Lunch with an Astronaut" program.
Astronaut Charlie Walker Autograph & Biographical Data
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