Talk:Anna Lee Fisher

Copyright status
The original basis for this article appears to have been this biography from the Johnson Space Center.

According to Copyright:
 * Works produced by employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. However, note that, despite popular misconception, the U.S. Federal Government can own copyrights that are assigned to it by others.

According to the JSC biographies page:
 * Welcome to the astronaut biographies home page, providing biographical information on the members of the space flight crews and candidates for future missions in NASA's space flight program. The links above will direct you to biographical information on the astronauts.
 * These biographies are prepared by the Astronaut Office of the Johnson Space Center and are provided through the Internet as a public service to the World Wide Web community.

Therefore this biography is public domain, having been produced by JSC, and is not a copyright violation. Uncle G 18:13, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)

What used to be in the article
PERSONAL DATA: Born August 24, 1949, in New York City, New York, but considers San Pedro, California, to be her hometown. Anna enjoys snow and water skiing, jogging, flying, scuba diving, reading, photography, and spending time with her daughters. Her mother, Mrs. Riley F. Tingle, resides in San Pedro, California. Father, deceased, July 3, 1982.

EDUCATION: Graduated from San Pedro High School, San Pedro, California, in 1967; received a bachelor of science in Chemistry and a doctor of Medicine from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1971 and 1976, respectively; completed a 1-year internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California, in 1977; received a master of science in Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1987.

SPECIAL HONORS: Awarded a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship in 1970, 1971. Graduated from UCLA cum laude and with honors in chemistry. Recipient of: NASA Space Flight Medal; Lloyd’s of London Silver Medal for Meritorious Salvage Operations; Mother of the Year Award 1984; UCLA Professional Achievement Award, UCLA Medical Professional Achievement Award. NASA Exceptional Service Medal, 1999.

EXPERIENCE: After graduating from UCLA in 1971, Dr. Fisher spent a year in graduate school in chemistry at UCLA working in the field of x-ray crystallographic studies of metallocarbonanes. She co-authored 3 publications relating to these studies for the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. She began medical school at UCLA in 1972 and, following graduation in 1976, commenced a 1-year internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California. After completing that internship, she specialized in emergency medicine and worked in several hospitals in the Los Angeles area.

NASA EXPERIENCE: Dr. Fisher was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978. In August 1979, she completed a one year training and evaluation period, making her eligible for assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews. Following the one-year basic training program Dr. Fisher’s early NASA assignments (pre-STS-1 through STS-4) included the following: Crew representative to support development and testing of the Remote Manipulator System (RMS); Crew representative to support development and testing of payload bay door contingency EVA procedures, the extra-small Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), and contingency on-orbit TPS repair hardware and procedures; Verification of flight software at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) -- in that capacity she reviewed test requirements and procedures for ascent, on-orbit, and RMS software verification -- and served as a crew evaluator for verification and development testing for STS-2, 3 and 4.

For STS-5 through STS-7 Dr. Fisher was assigned as a crew representative to support vehicle integrated testing and payload testing at KSC. In addition, Dr. Fisher supported each Orbital Flight Test (STS 1-4) launch and landing (at either a prime or backup site) as a physician in the rescue helicopters, and provided both medical & operational inputs to the development of rescue procedures. Dr. Fisher was also an on-orbit CAPCOM for the STS-9 mission.

Dr. Fisher was a mission specialist on STS-51A which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 8, 1984. She was accompanied by Captain Frederick (Rick) Hauck (spacecraft commander), Captain David M. Walker (pilot), and fellow mission specialists, Dr. Joseph P. Allen, and Commander Dale H. Gardner. This was the second flight of the orbiter Discovery. During the mission the crew deployed two satellites, Canada’s Anik D-2 (Telesat H) and Hughes’ LEASAT-1 (Syncom IV-1), and operated the Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME) device, and the 3M Company’s Diffusive Mixing of Organic Solutions (DMOS) experiment. In the first space salvage mission in history the crew also retrieved for return to earth the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI satellites. STS-51A completed 127 orbits of the Earth before landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 16, 1984. With the completion of her first flight, Dr. Fisher has logged a total of 192 hours in space.

Dr. Fisher was assigned as a mission specialist on STS-61H prior to the Challenger accident. Following the accident she worked as the Deputy of the Mission Development Branch of the Astronaut Office, and as the astronaut office representative for Flight Data File issues. In that capacity she served as the crew representative on the Crew Procedures Change Board. Dr. Fisher served on the Astronaut Selection Board for the 1987 class of astronauts. Dr. Fisher also served in the Space Station Support Office where she worked part-time in the Space Station Operations Branch. She was the crew representative supporting space station development in the areas of training, operations concepts, and the health maintenance facility.

Dr. Fisher returned to the Astronaut Office in 1996 after an extended leave of absence to raise her family (1989-1996). When she first returned to the Astronaut Office, she was assigned to the Operations Planning Branch to work on the Operational Flight Data File (procedures) and training issues in support of the International Space Station. She served as the Branch Chief of the Operations Planning Branch from June 1997-June 1998. Following a reorganization of the Astronaut office, she was assigned as the Deputy for Operations/Training of the Space Station Branch from June 1998-June 1999. In that capacity, she had oversight responsibility for Astronaut Office inputs to the Space Station Program on issues regarding operations, procedures, and training for the ISS. She next served as Chief of the Space Station Branch of the Astronaut Office with oversight responsibility for 40-50 astronauts and support engineers. In that capacity, she coordinated all astronaut inputs to the Space Station Program Office on issues regarding the design, development, and testing of space station hardware. Additionally, she coordinated all Astronaut Office inputs to Space Station operations, procedures, and training and works with the International Partners to negotiate common design requirements and standards for displays and procedures. She also served as the Astronaut Office representative on numerous Space Station Program Boards and Multilateral Boards. Dr. Fisher is currently assigned to the Shuttle Branch and works technical assignments in that branch while awaiting an assignment as either a Space Shuttle crewmember on a Space Station assembly mission or as a crewmember aboard the International Space Station.


 * The article has since been changed. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

repeated bio
Hello, there are two bios of Anna Fisher in the United States astronauts list, one under the "A" and another under "F" :-?
 * If this is still the case, please fix this. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Should say 'tested space suits for women'?
According to Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles (BHK), in "Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space" ISBN 0-7382-0209-6, published 2003, Fisher was largely responsible for the design of shuttle-era spacesuits tailored to fit women (that is to say that as an astronaut she worked closely with the engineers and tested the results, providing feedback which the engineers used). This is not in the wiki page, and is perhaps notable enough that it should be.

BHK apparently interviewed Fisher (along with many other astronauts and cosmonauts) for the book.

Although this is missing from the wiki, it *is* in the original NASA bio (quoted on this talk page), though it is nearly unrecognizable due to the use of NASA jargon: This bio credits her with work on "the extra small extravehicular mobility unit"! "Extravehicular mobility unit" "EMU" or even "anthropomorphic extravehicular mobility unit" (!) are NASA-speak for what we mere mortals prefer to call a "spacesuit". For example, if you look at the PDF documents referenced from the wikipedia page on spacesuit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacesuit#External_links) you will find these terms used. "Extra small" would seem to relate to the application for women. BHK also refers to the fact that Fisher is physically rather small, so this was of particular personal interest to her.

There's also a quote (or paraphrases perhaps) of Fisher commenting that "Women aren't small men, women are built differently", in the context of this idea being a hard-sell for NASA engineers.

I was using this reference in a paper referencing "personal technology for space", including spacesuits, and came across this bio. I'm not a regular wikipedian, but I would like to recommend putting the EMU design back on the main page, as it was something of a political and social landmark -- even if the NASA bio does rather play it down. ;-)

In fairness, BHK has a definite angle in her treatment of the material. I wouldn't call her 'biased' (indeed she seems to be a very balanced journalistic observer), but obviously she's interested specifically in women's issues related to space, which might make this subject much more important to her than in the general history of space development.
 * All readers can update the page. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Footnote issue
Footnote 1 currently contains this text:

Correction: First photo shoot was on the 27th January 1978 then further shoots on the 30th, 31st of January, also the 1st, 3rd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 14th & 15th of February 1978. Bryson followed Fisher working as an emergency room doctor in hospital, getting measured for her spacesuit, then wearing the whole suit including the iconic photo.

Not only is unsourced, but footnotes are not the place for "corrections". Either the above text should be removed, or the footnote corrected and cited. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:07, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Iconic photo
Can someone upload and add the iconic photo of her that is discussed in depth in the iconic photograph section?

It definitely falls under Wikipedias fair use rules as it is an item of discussion.

Describing it in depth is not good enough. SpaceFan021 (talk) 07:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Ok, an image has just been added to fill this request.
 * I know it's been well over a year, but I only saw your comment today. --Tdadamemd19 (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The comments and captions of the internet posts often reflect confusion about the date. The date the photo was taken has yet to be corroborated. The photographer, John Bryson, died in 2005. Fisher, and her then husband Bill, were photographed at Johnson Space Center in November 1977 when they were both civilians; Bryson is credited as their photographer. It is possible Bryson photographed Fisher on multiple occasions, but that has yet to be verified. There are at least three photos of Fisher in a space helmet that have been credited to Bryson. In two photos she is in almost complete profile (the main difference is her entire left eye can be seen in one and not the other). In the third, she is looking into the camera. The photo of her in near complete profile is the viral shot. In 2011 Bryson's son Scott - who commemorates his dad's work online - posted that he could not verify the provenance of the popular photo. The only publicly available archive of Bryson's work is at The Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas. The guide to the archive, posted online in 2015, has no mention of Fisher, NASA, or visits to Houston. A different photo in NASA's archives, showing Fisher at a NASA publicity event in Houston, is dated January 31, 1978. and the publication history.{{refn|group=note|In addition to the contradictory dates, there is also confusion about its publication history. The photo became massively popular on the internet after it was cross-posted from Blogger to Tumblr on June 19, 2009, by Calvin of Calvin's Cave of Cool. Calvin's original post has been deleted and it is not known where he got it from, but fellow Blogger user Thomas Haller Buchanan posted the photo to Blogger on April 16, 2009, three months before Calvin did. This is the earliest known posting of the image. Buchanan and many subsequent commenters claimed that the image was in (or alternately on the cover of) the May 1985 issue of Life magazine. This was not the case. John Bryson's son, Scott, contacted Time/Life and they rejected those claims. Scott Bryson has speculated elsewhere that the original negative may have been lost by Sygma or lost when "near riots broke out in the Paris office". Sygma has been sued by photographers in the past for losing images.
 * Sooo... why were these very informative footnotes above removed from the article? -- Veggies (talk) 16:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

{{reflist}}