JPL's First Astronaut - Historical Photo of the Month - May 2005

JPL's First Astronaut
Photograph Number P-28587Bc

In May 1985, JPL celebrated the return of Dr. Taylor Wang to Earth, and to the Lab. Dr. Wang is at the podium, with Dr. Duane F. Dipprey, and JPL Director Dr. Lew Allen on the right. The physicist was JPL's first employee to become an astronaut. He was a payload specialist for the Spacelab 3 mission aboard the space shuttle Challenger (STS-51B), spending 168 hours in space. The shuttle was launched on April 29, 1985 and returned on May 6, after traveling 2.9 million miles in 110 Earth orbits.

Dr. Wang and his co-investigator, Dr. Eugene Trinh, designed the Drop Dynamics Module (DDM) to study the behavior of water and silicone oil droplets in the weightless environment of space. The DDM experiments investigated methods for containerless processing -- the processing of materials while they are suspended, out of contact with any surface that could cause imperfections.

Dr. Wang prepared for two years to take part in this mission. Dr. Trinh was his back-up for the 1985 mission and flew his own mission on the shuttle Columbia in 1992, also as a payload specialist. NASA's current Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory, a former astronaut, was the pilot for the 1985 mission.

For more information about the history of JPL, contact the JPL Archives.

Past Photos of the Month
Thumbnail pages 1996-2002 | 2003+

Past Photos of the Month Subject Index