User:Andromeda321/Astronauts

This list serves two purposes: first it's a list of astronaut biographies I've either started or worked heavily on, all of which I plan to keep working on as time permits. It's part a way for me to keep track of them all, so ignore the random notes along the way.

The reason I'm interested in this little project, fyi, is because I think astronauts are just really cool people, and anyone awesomely crazy enough to strap themselves onto a rocket (consequences be damned) deserves something to be said about them. After all, anyone who likes stars as much as I do has to have some heroes...

STS-121

 * Lisa Nowak
 * Mark E. Kelly
 * Michael E. Fossum

STS-115

 * Christopher Ferguson
 * Heidemarie Martha Stefanyshyn-Piper

STS-116

 * Joan Higginbotham
 * William Oefelein

STS-117

 * Lee Archambault
 * Steven Swanson

STS-118

 * Tracy Caldwell
 * Clayton Anderson

STS-120

 * Michael Foreman
 * Alan G. Poindexter

Bonus! Astronauts I've Met/ Stalked/ Whatever

 * Jay Apt (whose daughter I played violin with in high school)
 * Don Thomas (who graduated from my physics dept, albeit a few years earlier)
 * Donald Pettit, who I feel obliged to add as he is my favorite astronaut of all time.  You've never heard of him, I know, but Don was floating above your head for nearly six months in 2002-2003 aboard the International Space Station.  I first heard about him because I felt sorry for him since his main science experiment hadn't worked out, and then doubly so when the Columbia disaster meant he would be stranded up there for an additional few months with little to do.  Don amazed me, however, by making the most of the opportunity in every way whatsoever: he used his skills as an amateur astronomer to take wonderful pictures of the Earth that were truly unprecedented in beauty, he started up Saturday Morning Science and utterly amazed me by simple experiments with what little resources he had (I want to go to space just to recreate his soap bubble experiment).  In a time when I was grieving for seven lost astronauts, he was showing us all what astronauts do best, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for it.