Sep 20 1982
From The Space Library
NASA announced the selection of a West German physicist, Ulf Merbold, and a U.S. biomedical engineer, Byron K. Lichtenberg, as the first nonastronauts to fly on the Space Shuttle. The two would be part of a crew of six on the ninth Shuttle mission, scheduled for September 1983, and would use the Spacelab workshop installed for the first time in the Shuttle cargo bay to operate 38 scientific packages representing more than 70 investigators from Europe, Japan, and the United States. ESA, which for 10 years had planned and built the $1 billion joint U.S.-European Spacelab unit, had agreed with NASA that one European scientist would be on all Shuttle missions carrying a Spacelab.
Merbold, trained at Stuttgart University, competed for his Shuttle seat with Dutch physicist Wubbo Ockels, trained at the University of Groningen. Lichtenberg, with a Ph.D. from MIT, competed with Michael Lampton, holding a doctorate in physics from CalTech. Winners were chosen in secret ballot by a panel of 36 U.S. and European scientists. (MSFC Release 82-86; ESA Info 31; W Post, Sept 20/82, A-5)
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