Aiming for the Stars

Susan Still (BSAE'82), the first graduate of Embry-Riddle to become an astronaut, piloted the Space Shuttle Columbia April 4 for the first mission of the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1). Still received a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University's Daytona Beach, Fla., campus in 1982.

As the second woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, Still navigated the spacecraft from its launch from theKennedy Space Center through its ascent into space. Unfortunately, the shuttle's 16-day mission was cut short after four days due to problems with a power generator. Her responsibilities included serving as the medical officer for the seven-member crew, repairing and maintaining Columbia's navigational and scientific testing, and taking photographs for NASA's earth observation program.

Several combustion experiments focusing on different aspects of burning were conducted aboard the MSL-1. The results of these tests could have important applications in the areas of spacecraft fire safety, hydrogen-burning cars and devices, control of soot as a pollutant, and improvement of soot used in products such as tires, plastic and dry cell batteries. The crew also carried out other investigations in the areas of biotechnology, fluid physics, and materials science.

Before her launch, Still made it clear that her years of hard work and technical training for the mission had not dimmed her excitement about going into space. "I look at it as a camping trip in zero-gravity," she said.

Still showed an early interest in flight. When she was 16, she took a month off from high school and earned a pilot's license. Nancy Fraser, her biology teacher at Walnut Hill School, in Natick, Mass., says, "On the first day, she walked into class and announced that she was going to be a pilot and go to Embry-Riddle University."

Charles Eastlake, a professor of aerospace engineering who taught Still at Embry-Riddle and advised her about careers, recalls a student who was "very capable and self assured. At the time, she seemed to be preparing herself to be an engineer."

Still's achievements do not surprise Mary Janes (BASC'83), her roommate for two years when both were students at Embry-Riddle. "She was taking 20 credit hours while working full time. That blew me away," Janes says. "She always set goals and worked hard to attain them."

After graduating, Still worked as a wind tunnel engineer for Lockheed Corp., received a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and became a fighter jet flight instructor in the Navy. In 1995, she was selected by NASA for training to be an astronaut.

A second Embry-Riddle graduate following Still is Daniel Burbank, who received a master's degree in aeronautical science from the University's Extended Campus in 1990, and is now completing a year of training and evaluation as an astronaut candidate at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.