posted 09-11-2008 01:19 PM            

• Person with the most flights as a shuttle commander? Number of missions? Is s/he still active?

• Person with the most flights as shuttle pilot? Number of missions? Is s/he still active?

• Person with the most flights as a shuttle crew member other than as pilot or commander? Number of missions? Is s/he still active?

posted 09-11-2008 02:14 PM               

Curt Brown, Kent Rominger and Scott Horowitz each flew three missions as pilot.

posted 09-11-2008 02:17 PM            

As far as most flights in the pilot seat, my memory is telling me that both Curt Brown and Kent Rominger rode in those seats three times. Rominger then served two commands for five total flights and Brown served three commands for six total flights.

posted 09-11-2008 02:23 PM               

Curt Brown was the pilot of three flights before getting his three command flights. I think that's a record for number of missions in the pilot's seat, but I would also need to check further to see if anyone else shares that number.

posted 09-12-2008 08:33 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Tom:
...and while we're on the subject, six astronauts have flown missions as mission specialist, pilot and commander.

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posted 09-12-2008 09:05 AM               

Dave Griggs was headed in that direction when he was killed in a T-6 crash in 1989. He had flown as mission specialist, was training as pilot at the time, and presumably would have commanded a shuttle flight at some point.

Ron Garan flew as mission specialist earlier this year, and will likely fly as pilot before shuttle flights end. There aren't enough flights remaining on the shuttle schedule for him to eventually fly as commander (unless the current situation with Russia changes that).

posted 09-12-2008 11:16 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Delta7:
Steve Nagel, Charlie Precourt and Ken Cockrell went from mission specialist to pilot to commander.

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posted 09-12-2008 12:11 PM            

John Blaha did the same on STS-33 after the death of David Griggs which is why he flew in March 1989 (STS-29) and November 1989 (STS-33). Paul Lockhart also did the same after Gus Loria was disqualified from STS-113 so you have Lockhart serving on both STS-111 and STS-113 in 2002. But both of those cases gave each of them two pilot flights.

I'm not sure what the story was with Curt Brown. (A lack of available commander seats and waiting for one to open up would have left him with a huge non-flying gap perhaps? Or too few flight-ready pilots?)

posted 09-12-2008 07:39 PM            

And, just a correction, the announcement of Rominger's substitution on STS-85 was released on March 18, 1997. Very appropriately, I think, they didn't disclose the reason.

posted 09-13-2008 11:32 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kr4mula:
I was under the imrpession that one flight as pilot was the standard (excepting the first few flight crews), and a second flight as pilot perhaps suggested not being ready for a command, but not uncommon.

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For many years, two flights as pilot was "standard" for most pilot-astronauts... and was by no means an indication of their ability. Exceptions were also common, however and there are a lot of commanders who only flew one flight as pilot.

posted 09-16-2008 12:07 PM            

Alot of the early commanders were Apollo veterans and so had space experience (Young, Lousma, Mattingly, Brand, Weitz).

The rule requiring the commander to be a spaceflight veteran was put in place after STS-2. It was never specified that it had to be more than one flight, just that two flights before promotion started to become the accepted norm by the mid-80's after a stable of qualified commanders was established and was pretty much standard practice after Return To Flight.

posted 09-27-2008 12:29 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kr4mula:
I'm intrigued by the switch you've described and how it reflects the needs of the program and the expectations.

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