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NASA's Most Experienced Astronaut Retires, Spent 665 Days In Space (upi.com)
An anonymous reader quotes UPI:
After nearly four decades with NASA, including 22 years as an astronaut, Peggy Whitson is leaving the space agency. Her retirement is effective Friday, NASA announced... Whitson ends her career with multiple records to her name, including most time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut -- 665 days...
The 57-year-old Whitson was a scientist before she was an astronaut, earning graduate degrees in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston before coming to conduct research at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1989. The NASA scientist began training as an astronaut in 1996. She made her first trip to the International Space Station in 2008. During her time in space, including three long-duration stints aboard International Space Station, she helped carry out 21 science investigation and became the agency's first space station science officer... Whitson took a second turn as commander during Expedition 51, part of her most recent -- and last -- stay on the space station, which spanned from November 2016 to September 2017.
The 57-year-old Whitson was a scientist before she was an astronaut, earning graduate degrees in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston before coming to conduct research at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1989. The NASA scientist began training as an astronaut in 1996. She made her first trip to the International Space Station in 2008. During her time in space, including three long-duration stints aboard International Space Station, she helped carry out 21 science investigation and became the agency's first space station science officer... Whitson took a second turn as commander during Expedition 51, part of her most recent -- and last -- stay on the space station, which spanned from November 2016 to September 2017.
Almost the most METAL astronaut ever. Just one day off...
Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing. Get some today!
And the OP thought he was confused, then along comes you, hold my beer, im much nuttier than you.
So close!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
First decade: 1981-1990
Second decade: 1991-2000
Third decade: 2001-2010
Fourth decade: 2011-2020
She actually worked at NASA during four decades! Not to mention two millennia!
Captcha: groaners
Born in literally nowhere Iowa, and became one of the greatest astronauts of all time.
... and not one fucking comment would make a good wart on a slasdotter's ass.
Disappointing.
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Telling, to me, is that I have never heard of her. When someone of her caliber steps out of the dimness into the limelight at the end of her long career, I wonder where she was on the stage.
Hell, I wonder where I was in the audience.
Congratulations to her on a job -- not well done -- but very well done
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I'm happy for her. She's on easy street now, but I doubt she'll take it easy.
This is it.
This is where she will make some big bucks now.
Having such a long established career can only lead to giving talks and making even more money.
Whether it is just talking about day-to-day routines or the expertise she commanded, experiments and any problems. She could even bullshit and talk about how sometimes she felt she could die at any moment just to add a bit of danger and excitement in to the mix.
Book deals certain. Maybe some TV special on Discovery or something, or a short in something related to NASA at the least.
Partial retirement is the best. That space where you can be relaxed and let one-off jobs come to you, usually always high-paying on top.
Look at that prick George Osbourne that destroyed the UK economy, even he's now making silly amounts of money because big business are happy he shit on the economy, with more and more smaller businesses sinking and either dying or being bought up. Brexit just accelerated it even faster in the past year and a half.
Even when you are "hilariously bad at your job", he still used techniques to blatantly lie to the British public while not technically lying, just lying to the pleb-voters that don't understand the very significant differences between financial terms those idiots regularly use interchangeably. That requires dedication and skill to pull off, which big business love.
Average people were clueless as to why he was getting so much work with them, that's why. Scum attracts scum.
He'll never need to lift his finger ever again.
Sadly there are always 2 sides to a coin.
Well, since the original number in the Bible is 616 and was badly translated as 666 in the English version (among e.g "live in celibate/celibrate") she already passed the mark :)
So, 665 days in space - I did some googling, and some calculating - any of which may be wrong or wildly off base. But consider this:
The International Space Station orbits the earth at a speed of ~4.76 miles per second.
Multiplying this out, here are the miles traveled by Peggy Whitson:
60*60*24*665*4.76 = 273,490,560
Almost 275 million miles.
186282 = miles traveled by light in one second
273490560/186282 = 1468 // number of light seconds Whitson's travel represents
Whitson has traveled a distance equivalent to traveling at the speed of light for 24 minutes
That's pretty darned impressive, if you ask me.
You think she would have earned a free flight, or at least a first class upgrade.
"Perhaps one day." Yeah, that will get 'er done vs doing spacewalks and manned flight and having the resources ready year in and out and training know how to do all of this safely. Perhaps one day we'll have automobiles. Perhaps one day we'll have blinking lights on a case people use to compute hard maths. Perhaps one day negative assholes will shove their heads so far up their ass they won't be able to post anymore.
... did we mention that she's a woman?