Education
Bachelor of Science, aerospace engineering, Brown University (1969)
South.M., mechanical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975)
Doctor of Science., biomedical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979)
Doctor of Science., Westminster College (honorary).
Career
Doctorate. (born February 19, 1948) is an American engineer and fighter pilot who flew aboard two National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle missions as a Payload Specialist. In 1983, he and Ulf Merbold became the first Payload Specialists to fly on the shuttle. Born February 19, 1948 in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Married to Tamara Lichtenberg with five children, including two adopted Chinese daughters.
Science Founding Member: Association of Space Explorers X-Prize Foundation International Space University Member: User Panel for National Space Biomedical Research Institute Tau Beta Pi (honorary engineering society) Sigma Xi (honorary scientific society) From 1978 to 1984 he was a researcher for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)/Canadian Vestibular experiments on Spacelab 1, Spacelab Doctorate-1, Spacelab SLS-1 and SLS-2, and a co-principal investigator for the Mental Workload and Performance experiment flown on IML-1 to assess human-computer workstation characteristics for the Space Station. They also were the first commercial user of the Mir Space Station, flying protein crystal growth experiments to Mir in the early 1990s.
He is now President of Zero Gravity Corporation, founded to make parabolic, weightless aircraft flights available to the general public. He was a United States. Air Force fighter pilot for 23 years, flying the F-4, F-100, and A-10, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
He flew as a captain for Southwest Airlines and is now a professor at LeTourneau University in Longview Texas.
Lichtenberg was the first astronaut to serve as a Payload Specialist. He flew on Spacelab-1 (STS-9) mission for ten days in 1983, conducted multiple experiments in life sciences, materials sciences, Earth observations, astronomy and solar physics, upper atmosphere and plasma physics. His second flight was Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software-1 (STS-45) Spacelab mission for nine days in 1992.
Conducted 13 experiments in Atmospheric sciences and astronomy.
He flew 310 orbits, and logged 468 hours in space.