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Whitson, Peggy A.
Date of birth:
February 9, 1960
Profession:
Astronauts; Biochemists; Air pilots; Aviators; Chemists;
Scientists
Biography from Current
Biography (2003) Copyright (c) by The H. W. Wilson Company. All rights
reserved.
Peggy Whitson first
imagined being an astronaut at the age of nine, when, perched eagerly
before the television set, she watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
become the first humans to walk on the moon, in 1969. Thirty-three
years later, on June 5, 2002, the Iowa native fulfilled her dream,
when she and two Russian cosmonauts launched into space on the shuttle
Endeavor, bound for a six-month stay aboard the International Space
Station (ISS). Whitson, a biochemist who worked as a research
scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
for 10 years before being selected as an astronaut, was only the
second woman to live on the space station and the first research
scientist to work in the U.S. lab; in total, she logged 184 days, 22
hours, and 14 minutes in space as part of Expedition Five to the ISS.
During her voyage she wrote for the NASA Human Spaceflight Web site,
"To be a participant in all of this is unbelievable, even to me
as I float here and write this, knowing that you can see a speck of
light speeding by in the early morning sky or at dusk, and knowing
that I am in that bit of light. . . . It is difficult enough to
comprehend the reality of this experience while I float here, and my
fear is that I will not be able to hold onto the threads of this
reality when I return. But I guess it will be, by far, the best dream
I have ever had!"
Born on February 9, 1960 in Mt. Ayr, Iowa, Whitson was
raised on an 800-acre hog farm near the town of Beaconsfield, Iowa
(which, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, has a population of 11 and
is the smallest town in the state). Her parents, Keith and Beth
Whitson, are farmers. Her teachers remember her as a bright, dedicated
student with a positive attitude. During high school she played on the
girls' basketball team and competed in track. In 1978, the same year
NASA selected its first women astronauts, she graduated second in her
class from Mt. Ayr Community High School.
At Iowa Wesleyan College, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa,
Whitson completed a B.S. degree in biology and chemistry in three
years, graduating summa cum laude in 1981. Four years later she earned
a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University, in Houston, Texas.
She chose Rice for her postgraduate studies because Houston is the
home of the Johnson Space Center, the primary research and training
site for NASA's space program. After completing a fellowship at Rice,
she became a National Research Council resident research associate at
the Johnson Center. That same year she applied for the Astronaut
Candidate Program; after being turned down, she applied every year
thereafter for the next decade.
In April 1988 Whitson was hired as a supervisor for
the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a
medical-sciences contractor at the Johnson Center. The following year
she began working for NASA as a biochemist, conducting experiments on
the physical challenges of being in a zero-gravity environment. Three
years after joining NASA, Whitson was promoted to project scientist in
the Shuttle-Mir Program, through which the U.S. provides funding for
research conducted by NASA astronauts aboard Russia's Mir Space
Station. From 1995 to 1996 she served as co-chair of the U.S.-Russian
Mission Science Working Group. In addition to her duties at NASA,
Whitson has served on the faculties of several universities: from 1991
to 1997 she was an adjunct assistant professor in both the Department
of Internal Medicine and the Department of Human Biological Chemistry
and Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston.
She next accepted a position as an adjunct assistant professor at
Rice's Mabee Laboratory for Biochemical and Genetic Engineering.
In April 1996 Whitson was finally accepted as an
astronaut candidate. In August of that year, she began the two-year
training and evaluation program NASA requires of its astronauts, after
which she was assigned to technical duties at the Johnson Space
Center. In the meantime she waited to be assigned to a space flight.
In 2002 Whitson was selected to be one of three astronauts to go on
the fifth expedition to the International Space Station.
Since October 2000 the ISS, which is in orbit 240
miles above Earth's atmosphere, has been continually occupied by a
crew of three astronauts, with new crews arriving every five to six
months. The astronauts oversee the station's ongoing construction and
conduct experiments. NASA usually requires that an astronaut
participate in at least one short-term flight before being assigned to
a longer one, but because of Whitson's 10-year association with the
space agency, that prerequisite was waived. Whitson was thrilled when
she heard she was assigned to the ISS. "I don't think I would
have turned down anything," she told Irene Brown for United Press
International (June 14, 2002), "but my first choice was to fly on
station. I want to get up there, start doing science and help get the
station constructed."
On June 5, 2002 Whitson and two Russian cosmonauts,
Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev, launched into space aboard the
shuttle Endeavor. Two days later, the crew docked with the ISS, and
Whitson began a six-month stay, thereby becoming the first American
with a Ph.D., the first without a military background, the first
research scientist, and the second woman to serve on the ISS. During
her stay Whitson worked on two large installations for the station as
part of the ongoing construction of the ISS, which is scheduled to be
completed in 2008. After her promotion to science officer while aboard
the ISS, Whitson oversaw 25 science experiments in physics, medicine,
and biology. She was the ISS's first science officer, a position
created in response to a report criticizing the limited amount of
scientific research conducted on the station. One of the main
experiments she handled involved growing soybeans as part of a study
on the effects of zero gravity on plant growth and genetics.
"They looked so good, Sergei thought we should eat them as a
salad," she told Julie Bain for Ladies' Home Journal (April
2003). "I managed to stop him and save the science. We'll need
this knowledge because if we go to Mars one day, we'll need a garden
onboard!"
The highlight of Whitson's trip was a
four-and-a-half-hour walk in space, during which she installed
micrometeoroid panels on the exterior of the ISS to protect it from
space debris. On the SpaceRef Web site (August 27, 2002), Whitson
likened the experience to flying, but noted that it was "more
like the one you have in your dreams when you fly from place to place
without the aid of any craft, only the view from space was much better
than anything I had ever dreamed of." Describing the view of
Earth, she told Bain, "My first impression was of the clarity and
richness of the colors that make up our planet and its atmosphere.
It's like having someone turn on the lights after having lived in
semidarkness for years."
Whitson, Korzun, and Treschev returned to Earth on
December 7, 2002, after being repeatedly delayed by shuttle fuel-line
cracks, an oxygen leak, robot-arm problems, and bad weather. Upon her
return she told a crowd of NASA staffers, as quoted in the Houston
Chronicle (December 10, 2002), "I want you to know the space
station is so much more spectacular than any video, than any photo,
than any words we could ever say. I want you to be really proud of
your accomplishments."
On February 1, 2003, two months after Whitson's
return, the shuttle Columbia exploded after reentering the atmosphere
following a mission in space, killing all seven astronauts onboard.
All shuttle launches have been halted pending the completion of an
investigation into the causes of the disaster. Whitson has said that
in spite of the tragedy, she is eager to return to space. "Space
exploration is part of us as human beings, and I think we have to
continue exploration," she told Chris Clayton in an interview for
the Omaha World Herald (April 11, 2003). "I'm ready to go back
into space as soon as they let me."
Whitson has received numerous awards, the most recent
of which are the American Astronautical Society Randolph Lovelace II
Award (1995) and the Group Achievement Award for the Shuttle-Mir
Program (1996). She holds two patents. In June 2003 Whitson led a crew
of three in a 16-day training program in the underwater laboratory
Aquarius, off the coast of Key West, Florida. The program is designed
to accustom astronauts to the close quarters, isolation, and risks of
space flight.
Whitson and her husband, Clarence F. Sam, a research
scientist who also works at the Johnson Space Center, live in Houston;
the couple have no children. In her spare time Whitson enjoys
windsurfing, biking, basketball, water skiing, and, especially,
gardening. "If she couldn't have been an astronaut, she would
have been a farmer," Whitson's aunt, Ann Walters, told Ken Fuson
for the Des Moines Register (June 5, 2002). "She's still the same
old Peggy we've always known. She's still just a farm girl from back
here." -- H.T.
Suggested Reading: Des
Moines Register A p1+ June 5, 2002, with photo, A p1+ Feb. 4, 2003,
with photo; Houston Chronicle A p1+ Nov. 10, 2002, with photo; Ladies'
Home Journal p82+ Apr. 2003, with photo
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