On April 4th 1983 Syracuse University graduate Story Musgrave traveled into space for the first time on the shuttle Challenger. Musgrave received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in mathematics and statistics from S.U. in 1958. He made a total of six trips, his final in 1996 at the age of 61, making him the oldest astronaut to ever fly in space until John Glenn’s return in 1998 at the age of 77. Musgrave spent 53 days outside of the earth’s atmosphere, 17 of which were on his final flight, which also holds the record for longest space shuttle mission. He is the only astronaut to have flown on all five shuttles (Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavor, and Columbia).
More about Musgrave from his website:
Story Musgrave was born in 1935 on a dairy farm in Stockbridge, MA. He was in the forests alone at 3 and by 5 floated his homebuilt rafts on the rivers. He rode combines at 5, drove trucks and tractors at 10 and when alone in remote fields, repaired them by 13.
Story never finished school, ran off to Korea with the U.S. Marines where he was an aircraft electrician and an engine mechanic. He started flying with the Marines and over the next 55 years accumulated 18,000 hours in over 160 aircraft. He is a parachutist with over 800 freefalls. He has 7 graduate degrees in math, computers, chemistry, medicine, physiology, literature and psychology. He has been awarded 20 honorary doctorates. He was a part-time trauma surgeon during his 30 year astronaut career.
Story was an NASA astronaut for over 30 years and flew on six spaceflights. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger’s first flight, was a pilot on an astronomy mission, conducted two classified DOD missions, was the lead spacewalker on the Hubble Telescope repair mission and on his last flight, he operated an electronic chip manufacturing satellite on Columbia.
Today he operates a palm farm in Orlando, FL, a production company in Sydney and a sculpture company in Burbank, CA. He is also a landscape architect, a concept artist with Walt Disney Imagineering, an innovator with Applied Minds Inc. and a professor of design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Story also performs multimedia presentations on topics such as vision, leadership, motivation, safety, quality, innovation, creativity, design, simplicity, beauty and ecology. He has 7 beautiful children: Lorelei, Scott, Holly, Todd, Jeff, Lane and Story, ranging from age 48 to 2 years; 3 beautiful grandchildren, and a beautiful wife Amanda.