STS-34

Donald E. Williams

• Birthday: 02/13/1942
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 04/12/1985
• Last Flight: 10/18/1989

Captain Donald Edward Williams was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, mechanical engineer and NASA astronaut. He logged a total of 287 hours and 35 minutes in space.

Michael J. McCulley

• Birthday: 08/04/1943
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/18/1989
• Last Flight: 10/18/1989

Michael James “Mike” McCulley is a retired American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, metallurgical engineer, former NASA astronaut, and was the first submariner in space.

Ellen S. Baker

• Birthday: 04/27/1953
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 10/18/1989
• Last Flight: 06/27/1995

Ellen Louise Shulman Baker, M.D., M.P.H. is an American physician and a NASA astronaut. Baker serves as Chief of the Education/Medical Branch of the NASA Astronaut Office.

Shannon Lucid

• Birthday: 01/14/1943
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 06/17/1985
• Last Flight: 03/22/1996

Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid is an American biochemist and a retired NASA astronaut. At one time, she held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American, as well as by a woman. She has flown in space five times including a prolonged mission aboard the Mir space station in 1996; she is the only American woman to have served aboard Mir.

Franklin Chang Díaz

• Birthday: 04/05/1950
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: American
• First Flight: 01/12/1986
• Last Flight: 06/05/2002

Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz is a Costa Rican Chinese American mechanical engineer, physicist, former NASA astronaut. He is the founder and current CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company as well as a member of Cummins’ board of directors. He became an American citizen in 1977. He is of Chinese (paternal side) and Costa Rican Spanish (maternal side) descent. He is a veteran of seven Space Shuttle missions, tieing the record, as of 2018 for the most spaceflights (a record set by Jerry L. Ross). He was the third Latin American, but the first Latin American immigrant NASA Astronaut selected to go into space. Chang Díaz is a member of the NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame.

STS-34 (Galileo)

• Type: Planetary Science
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-34 was the thirty-first shuttle mission and the fifth for Atlantis. It deployed the Jupiter-bound Galileo probe.

Launch Complex 39B

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Launch Complex 39B has witnessed the launch of 58 rockets, including 57 orbital launch attempts, while Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 232 rocket launches.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.