Michael Landon Gernhardt Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Michael Landon Gernhardt (Ph.D.) (born May 4, 1956, in Mansfield, Ohio) is a NASA astronaut and manager of Environmental Physiology Laboratory and principal investigator of the Prebreathe Reduction Program (PRP) at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
I started out with the love of the ocean. And about early high school, or even late junior high school, we were doing Skylab and then the underwater living experiment, Tektite. And I loved the ocean, but I was starting to get interested in physics, so I set a distant goal to do the most I could with the life I had both mentally and physically. And that, to me, was being an astronaut. So, I pursued my interest in the ocean and, you know, engineering, sub-sea engineering, physiology and so forth. But, set that distant goal of being an astronaut and the dream came true. So, it's been great. (Interview with NASA, 03.11.10).
2
Underwater, your world is closer in. I mean, you're looking, you know, two or three feet in front of you. Sometimes there's no visibility at all. So, you're doing everything by feel, and with, you know, sort of imagining things with your brain. When you're out in space, you've got unlimited visibility. You can see, you know, millions of miles. And so, visibility's not a problem. And even at night, we have helmet lights. The biggest difference is that you're in a pressurized spacesuit. And the suit is pressurized to about the same pressure as a football or a basketball, at 4.3 pounds per square inch. So, every time you move, you're working against that inflation pressure. Every time you close your hands in a glove, you're working against that. And that, that is a big factor.
3
The other thing that's very different is, you know, we train underwater. Underwater you have the viscosity and the drag of the water. When you get out in space, there's basically no gravity or microgravity and there is no drag. And so, between you and the suit, you weigh about 500 pounds. And even though you have no weight, you have that mass, and so, you have to move slow. My motto is always, you cannot go too slow. And never let your hands get going faster than your brain. So, the EVA task, you're actually thinking a lot. You're thinking about what you're doing, you're thinking what's next, you're thinking where your buddy is, where the airlock is. So, you're mind is in high gear, but you want your body to move slow and methodically and be very careful with respect to all the actions that you do.
4
[Y]ou're thinking ahead to all the tasks. And it's not very often that you get to pause and reflect that hey, I am really out in space, I'm really above the Earth. And probably the time that it hit me the most was my first spacewalk on STS-69. For 20 minutes one of my tasks was to go up high on the end of the robot arm in the middle of the night. They turned all the lights out. And we had these new glove heaters because we'd had people get cold hands. And so, my only job for 20 minutes was to sit up there to see if I would get cold. And, you know, that's a big departure from most spacewalk activities where you're really working your tail off. So, I was up there in the middle of the night, all the lights out, which doesn't happen very often, if ever, and I remember I can see Jupiter and its four moons with my naked eye. And then, I was looking down and I could see a fine line of white light on the wing of the shuttle. And then a few seconds later, a crescent of blue as the Earth was rising. ... And we came out on the other side, over St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, right on top of Hurricane Marilyn. And I had actually been a diving instructor down there. And I remember looking down and seeing that hurricane and I was overcome by a great sense of pride. Not for myself, but for humankind. That we can have the technology to put me up there, you know, this great team as NASA. And here I was above the hurricane looking down from the heavens.
5
So, most of the time on a spacewalk, I personally am so focused on my task that I, that that's my priority without a doubt. I don't even bother like taking cameras out to take pictures until everything's all done. Having said that, there are moments within a spacewalk where you really don't have that much to do, i.e., we're waiting on the station RMS to position the airlock. And so, we're holding in place just hanging on handholds or riding the arm back and forth from the shuttle to the space station. And during those moments, you know, you go for it. And you look at the stars and the Earth. And, you know, you just ponder where you are, how you got there and the great teamwork it takes to get there. And those are real special moments that I remember very distinctly.
#
Fact
1
Dr. Gernhardt was one of two astronauts to perform a spacewalk to evaluate future Space Station tools and hardware, logging 6 hours and 46 minutes of EVA. Mission duration was 260 hours, 29 minutes, and 8 seconds, traveling 4.5 million miles in 171 orbits of the Earth.
2
His background expertise helped to serve as a submersible pilot on the Pavilion Lake Expedition, which focused on exploring a deep water lake in western Canada, where unusual life forms (called microbiolites) were discovered.
3
A four flight veteran, Dr. Gernhardt has logged over 43 days in space, including 4 spacewalks totaling 23 hours and 16 minutes. He was a mission specialist on (Space Transportation System) STS-69 in 1995, STS-83 in 1997, STS-94 in 1997 and STS-104 in 2001. Additionally he was crew member on the NASA Extreme Enviroment Mission Operations One and Commander of the successive eight multi-day underwater missions.
4
Dr. Gernhardt was selected by NASA in March of 1992. His many projects there included improving the safety and efficiency of space walks from the International Space Station.
5
Has said in an interview that all his deep-sea diving experience helped him to become an astronaut: both jobs require you to think ahead, plan, and get used to unusual atmospheres.
6
From 1984 to 1988, Gernhardt worked as Manager and then Vice President of Special Projects for Oceaneering International. During these times, he led the development of a tele-robotic system for sub-sea platform cleaning and inspection as well as a variety of new diver and robot tools.
7
From 1977 to 1984, Gernhardt worked as a professional deep sea diver and project engineer on a variety of sub-sea oil-field construction and repair projects around the world. He logged over 700 deep sea dives and gathered experience in air, mixed gas, bounce bell and saturation diving.
8
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Vanderbilt University in 1978, a Master of Science degree from University of Pennsylvania, in 1983, and a Doctorate in Bioengineering from University of Pennsylvania, in 1991.
9
His professional honors include 4 NASA Space Flight Medals; 2 Exceptional Service Medals; 1 Exceptional Achievement Medal and 1 Distinguished Service Medal.
10
Dr. Gernhardt is a NASA astronaut and the Manager of Environmental Physiology Laboratory and Principle Investigator of Prebreath Reduction Program at the Johnson Space Center.
Known for movies
Space Station 3D 2002 as Himself (Mission Specialist, STS-104)
$18 Million