The First Stanford Astronaut Returns from Space

After watching the launch of Sputnik 1—the first artificial satellite put into Earth orbit—in 1957, Owen Garriott decided to focus his electrical engineering dissertation on satellites. But it wasn’t until the Soviet Union and the United States began launching manned vehicles in 1961 that he realized a researcher like him might have a place in space.

Garriott, MS ’57, PhD ’60, was accepted into NASA’s flight program in 1965 and helped design Skylab, the first American space station. “Skylab basically was a science program,” he said during an oral history interview with NASA in 2000. On July 28, 1973, while on leave from his position as a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, Garriott became the first Stanford graduate in space, aboard Skylab 3. (Since then, 22 more alum astronauts have been trained.) Most of Garriott’s job there consisted of conducting experiments—including with minnows, mice, and spiders—but he was also the only crew member to go on all three Skylab 3 space walks. He and his two co-pilots took historic measurements of the sun, and their experience aboard the space station advanced the understanding of human adaptability to weightlessness.

Garriott spent 59 consecutive days in space in 1973 (a record at the time), returning to Earth on September 25. The three crew members had orbited the planet for 24.5 million miles, paving the way for future long-duration missions.

Kali Shiloh is a staff writer at Stanford. Email her at kshiloh@stanford.edu.