A Payload Specialist (PS) is an individual selected and trained by commercial or research organizations for flights of a specific payload on a NASA Space Shuttle mission. People assigned as Payload Specialists included individuals selected by the research community, a company or consortium flying a commercial payload aboard the spacecraft, and non-NASA astronauts designated by international partners.
Contents
- History
- Criticism
- Alternate and back up not flown Payload Specialists
- Payload Specialists who trained later as Mission Specialists
- References
The term refers to both the individual and to the position on the Shuttle crew.
History
Payload Specialists were generally selected for a single specific mission and were chosen outside the standard NASA astronaut selection process. They were not required to be United States citizens, but had to be approved by NASA and undergo rigorous training. In contrast, a Space Shuttle Mission Specialist was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate first and then assigned to a mission.
Payload Specialists on early missions were technical experts to accompany specific payloads such as a commercial or scientific satellite. On Spacelab and other missions with science components, payload specialists were scientists with expertise in specific experiments. The term also applied to representatives from partner nations who were given the opportunity of a first flight on board of the Space Shuttle (such as Saudi Arabia and Mexico), and to Congressmen and the Teacher in Space program.
Other positions on board Space Shuttle were Mission Commander, Pilot, and Mission Specialist. Unlike other Shuttle crew, international or scientific Payload Specialists were generally assigned a back-up who trained alongside the primary Payload Specialist and would replace him/her in the event of illness or other disability.
Payload Specialists were flown from 1983 (STS-9) to 2003 (STS-107). The last flown Payload Specialist was the first Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the Columbia disaster on mission STS-107 with the rest of the crew.
Criticism
NASA's Payload Specialist program has been criticized for giving limited Shuttle flight positions to civilian aerospace engineers such as Greg Jarvis (killed aboard Challenger), politicians such as US Representative Bill Nelson, and others civilians such as Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe (also killed aboard Challenger). Even the rationale for the Shuttle flight of former Mercury astronaut and US Senator John Glenn was questioned. The concern was that these people had replaced career astronauts in very limited flight opportunities, and some may have flown without understanding the level of danger.
A 1986 post-Challenger article in The Washington Post reviewed the issue, reporting that as far back as 1982, NASA was concerned with finding reasonable justifications for flying civilians on the Shuttle as was directed by the Reagan administration. The Post article says that "A review of records and interviews with past and present NASA and government officials shows the civilian program's controversial background, with different groups pushing for different approaches." The article concludes with:
Author Tom Wolfe, who chronicled the early days of the space program in The Right Stuff, wrote after the Challenger explosion that support for the citizen program, and therefore McAuliffe's place aboard the ill-fated shuttle, was part of an insiders' battle. NASA civilians, pitting themselves against the professional astronauts, used the program for the "dismantling of Astropower," which Wolfe described as "the political grip the original breed of fighter-pilot test-pilot astronauts had on NASA."
Alternate and back-up (not flown) Payload Specialists
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Wubbo Ockels, Michael Lampton
Robert W. Phillips
Robert Thirsk
George W. Simon, Diane K. Prinz
Ulf Merbold
Joseph M. Prahl, Albert Sacco
Jean-Jacques Favier
David H. Matthiesen, R. Glynn Holt
Pedro Duque, Luca Urbani
Paul Ronney
Paul Ronney
Alexander W. Dunlap, Chiaki Mukai
Payload Specialists who trained later as Mission Specialists
All were international astronauts.