Michael Smith (astronaut)

Michael John Smith (Beaufort, North Carolina, April 30, 1945 - Cape Canaveral, Florida, January 28, 1986) was a captain in the United States Navy and an astronaut in the POT.

Semblance

Smith graduated in 1963 from Beaufort High School in North Carolina, and in 1967 received a Bachelor of Science in Naval Science from the United States Naval Academy. In 1968 she received a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the United States Naval Postgraduate School located in Monterey, California. There he was assigned to Advanced Jet Aircraft Training Command (VT-21) where he served as an instructor from May 1969 to March 1971. Over the next two years, Smith flew A-6 Intruders and completed a mission in Vietnam in Attack Squadron 52 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63).

In 1974 he completed his studies at the US Navy Test Pilot School and was assigned to the Attack Aircraft Test Directorate in Patuxent River, Maryland to work on missile guidance systems A-6E TRAM and CRUISE.
In 1976 he returned to the Navy Test Pilot School and completed an 18-month stint as an instructor.

From the Patuxent River, Smith was assigned to the 75th Attack Squadron where he served as a maintenance and operations officer and completed two missions aboard the USS USS Saratoga. Michael Smith flew 28 types of civil and military aircraft, logging a total of 4,877.7 flight hours.

Awards

Michael Smith received the Navy Commendation Flying Cross, three Air Medals, thirteen Attack Flight Medals, the Navy Merit Medal with “v”, the Naval Unit Citation, and the Vietnamese Cross for Bravery with the Silver Star. After his death, Smith was awarded the Defense Commendation Service Medal.

NASA experience

The Space Shuttle Challenger It disintegrates through the air.

Smith was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in May 1980 and in August 1981 completed a year of training and evaluation, qualifying him as an eligible pilot for any future Space Shuttle mission.

At NASA he worked as Commander of the Shuttle Avionics and Integration Laboratory, Deputy Chief of the Aircraft Operations Division, Technical Assistant to the Director, Director of Flight Operations, he was also assigned to the Office of Astronauts and the Astronaut Group Development and Test.

Smith was assigned as the pilot for Challenger mission STS 51-L which lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida at 11:38:00 EST (16:38:00 UTC) on the 28th January 1986. The Challenger crew was composed as follows: Commander Francis Scobee, mission specialists: Dr. Ronald McNair, Dr. Judith Resnik, and Ellison Onizuka; cargo specialist Gregory Jarvis and civil cargo specialist Christa McAuliffe. The 7 crew members died instantly when the cabin hit the ocean, after the vehicle disintegrated 73 seconds after launch, due to a leak of gases from a defective ring of the right solid propulsion rocket. This caused an explosion that disintegrated the ship into a ball of fire.

The cabin module survived intact and was detached from the explosion to fall into the sea for 2 and a half minutes from a height of 15,240 meters.

NASA had estimated the odds of a catastrophic accident during launch (the most dangerous moment of space flight) at a ratio of 1 in 438.

This accident, the most shocking of the Space Shuttle Program, seriously damaged NASA's reputation as a space agency and the proposal of the participation of civilians, promulgated by Ronald Reagan and materialized with the elementary school teacher Christa McCauliffe scuttled all administrative and security structures. NASA temporarily suspended its space flights until 1988.

Michael Smith was married with three children.

Eponymy

• Moon crater Smith carries this name in his memory.
• The asteroid (3351) Smith also commemorates its name.