Michael “Rich” Clifford, who as a NASA astronaut flew on three space shuttle missions, together with one after his analysis with Parkinson’s Disease, has died on the age of 69.
Clifford’s death on Tuesday (Dec. 28) was confirmed by the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), an expert group for astronauts and cosmonauts that included Clifford as a life member. He died on account of issues from Parkinson’s.
Clifford was chosen to turn out to be an astronaut in 1990 with NASA‘s thirteenth group of spaceflight trainees (nicknamed “The Hairballs”). He joined the corps three years after being assigned by the U.S. Army to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the place he was serving as a space shuttle car integration engineer on the time of his choice.
After graduating from primary coaching and spending 4 months working with the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch designing and evaluating payload and crew gear, Clifford was named to his first crew, STS-53. On Dec. 2, 1992, he launched with 4 others on the space shuttle Discovery on a labeled mission for the Department of Defense.
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The week-long flight deployed the final main army payload flown on the shuttle, in addition to performed medical research on the results of microgravity on cells from bone tissue, muscular tissues and blood. The astronauts additionally launched three small metallic spheres into space to check ground-based capabilities of detecting particles in low-Earth orbit and examined their very own skill to watch ground-based phenomena from space as a part of a army experiment.
Discovery returned Clifford and his STS-53 crewmates to Earth on Dec. 9, 1992, touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Clifford lifted off on his second spaceflight 16 months afterward April 9, 1994. As a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, Clifford labored along with his 5 STS-59 crewmates to function the Space Radar Laboratory (SRL), a payload geared toward offering scientists with the info wanted to tell apart human-induced environmental modifications from different types of pure change.
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Split into two groups of three astronauts every in on order to work across the clock, Clifford and his crewmates had been capable of picture greater than 400 websites, masking roughly 38.5 million miles (62 million km) of Earth or the equal of about 20 p.c of the planet. The astronauts additionally used a particular cell tradition system as a part of a joint initiative with the National Institutes of Health.
It was after Clifford landed from STS-59 that he was first recognized with Parkinson’s, a power nervous system dysfunction that primarily impacts motion. As he revealed in a collection of interviews years later, he first seen that his proper arm remained limp at his aspect quite than swinging as regular when he walked.
Wanting to fly once more in space, Clifford saved his situation a secret, informing solely NASA’s medical workers and his commander for this third mission. He was monitored all through his coaching, however his signs by no means interfered along with his preparations for the duties he was assigned to finish as a member of the STS-76 crew.
Launching on the space shuttle Atlantis, Clifford and his 4 crewmates delivered Shannon Lucid to stay on board the Russian space station Mir. While docked to the orbiting outpost, he and Linda Godwin turned the primary U.S. astronauts to carry out a spacewalk exterior a shuttle docked with a space station.
During the six-hour, two-minute, 28-second extravehicular exercise (EVA), Clifford and Godwin connected 4 experiments to Mir’s docking module that characterised the atmosphere across the station.
After touchdown again on Earth on March 31, 1996, Clifford determined he wouldn’t search one other spaceflight. He didn’t understand how rapidly his signs would progress and so he resigned from the astronaut corps and NASA in January 1997, having logged a total of 27 days, 18 hours and 24 minutes in space whereas finishing 443 orbits of Earth.
Michael Richard Uram “Rich” Clifford was born on Oct. 13, 1952, in San Bernardino, California, however he thought of Ogden, Utah to be his hometown. He earned his bachelor of science diploma from the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York in 1974, and his grasp of science diploma in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982.
After graduating from West Point, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant within the U.S. Army. He entered the Army Aviation School and was high of his flight class when he was designated an Army Aviator in 1976. He served for 3 years as a platoon commander in Germany earlier than attending Georgia Tech after which reported to West Point as an teacher and assistant professor.
In 1986, Clifford graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and was designated an experimental check pilot. As a Master Army Aviator, he logged 3,400 hours flying all kinds of mounted and rotary winged plane.
Clifford retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1995, between his second and third spaceflights.
After leaving NASA, Clifford went to work for Boeing, managing operations for the burgeoning International Space Station. He later served as the corporate’s deputy supervisor for the space shuttle program by means of to the ultimate mission in 2011.
Clifford was honored for his service to the space program with the NASA Space Flight Medal and the Army Commendation Medal, amongst different awards.
After his analysis, he turned an advocate for individuals residing with Parkinson’s, serving on the Patient Council for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In 2014, a documentary brief about his life with the illness, “An Astronaut’s Secret,” was launched.
“Everyone with PD handles it differently,” Clifford mentioned in a 2015 interview with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. “Don’t let it get in the way of living. Life is too good. Remember, keep going the sky’s the limit.”
He is survived by his spouse of 45 years, Nancy Elizabeth (née Brunson) Clifford, and their two sons, Richard and Brandon.
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