Veteran Astronaut to Speak on Spaceflight, Space Suit Design at Baylor
Rick Mastracchio, who has served on four missions to space, will give two lectures Dec. 3-4
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WACO, Texas (Dec. 1, 2015) – NASA astronaut, manager and engineer Rick Mastracchio – who has flown aboard American space shuttles and Russian spacecraft and spent time on the International Space Station – will visit Baylor University Dec. 3-4 to give two talks that are free and open to the public.
Mastracchio’s first lecture, “Spaceflight 101: An Answer to All Your Spaceflight Questions,” will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, in the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC), Room 3160. In the talk he will give an overview of his background, his missions and relate how astronauts work and live in space.
He will give a second, more technical lecture at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, in the McClinton Auditorium, room 240, located in the Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation. Speaking on “Extravehicular Activities (EVA) Space Suit Requirements: Tradeoffs and Solutions,” he will supply a short history of how EVA space suits evolved, discuss the high level requirements of a space suit and tell how the current suit meets these requirements.
A native of Waterbury, Connecticut, Mastracchio moved to Houston in 1987 to work with the Rockwell Shuttle Operations Company at the Johnson Space Center before joining NASA’s Flight Crew Operations Directorate as an engineer in 1990. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and first flew into space in September 2000 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist for STS-106. He served on two additional Shuttle flights aboard Endeavor and Discovery, and flew one mission aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Mastracchio spent more than 180 days aboard the International Space Station during his last flight, completing more than 3,000 orbits of the Earth and traveling nearly 80 million miles.
To date, Mastracchio has logged 228 days in space during which he performed nine spacewalks totaling 53 hours.
A casual reception will be held outside the meeting rooms beginning 30 minutes before each lecture.
The event is sponsored by the Baylor Office of Vice Provost for Research, with assistance from the Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics and Engineering Research (CASPER) and the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC).
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Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 16,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.