Some Unexpected Difficulties in Microscope Operation in Microgravity

MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2015 Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Ballroom Dr. Donald Pettit is a veteran NASA astronaut and scientist who has spent a total of 370 days in space and over 13 EVA (spacewalk) hours during three separate spaceflights. He received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University in 1978, and a Doctorate in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1983. Before joining NASA, he served as a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. Projects included reduced gravity fluid flow and materials processing experiments onboard the NASA KC-135 airplane, atmospheric spectroscopy on noctilucent clouds seeded from sounding rockets, fumarole gas sampling from volcanoes and problems in detonation physics. He was a member of the Synthesis Group, slated with assembling the technology to return to the moon and explore Mars (1990) and the Space Station Freedom Redesign Team (1993). Selected as a NASA astronaut in April 1996, Dr. Pettit completed his first spaceflight in 2003 as an International Space Station Science Officer, logging more than 161 days in space. The Expedition 6 crew launched on STS-113 Space Shuttle Endeavour and returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-1, after completing more than five months of science experiments and continuing to prepare the orbital outpost for further growth.