Colonel Hank Hartsfield Jr., former NASA astronaut and U.S. Air Force pilot, will be the keynote speaker at an event on Sept. 15.

Barry Wilmore (UTSI 1994) was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000.

Donald Peterson attended the UT Space Institute in Tullahoma. He was a crew member of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983 and retired from NASA the following year.

Scott Kelly (Space Institute 1996) is a NASA astronaut who piloted the Discovery Space Shuttle’s 1999 mission to service the Hubble space telescope.

Charles O. Hobaugh (Space Institute 1994) is a NASA astronaut.

Chris Hadfield (1992) made two Space Shuttle flights as a NASA astronaut. From 2001 through 2003 Colonel Hadfield was in Star City, Russia, as NASA’s director of operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

Henry Hartsfield Jr. (Space Institute 1971), was a NASA astronaut. He made three space flights and was mission commander aboard Discovery in 1984 and Challenger in 1985. He is vice president of Raytheon Aerospace Engineering Services.

Dominic Gorie (1990) is a NASA astronaut who has made three space flights. He was commander of Space Shuttle Endeavor’s flight in 2001.

Joe Frank Edwards Jr. (1994) was selected a NASA astronaut in 1994, flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor, and worked technical issues for the Space Shuttle and Space Station. He retired in 2000.

Jeff Ashby earned the master of science in aviation systems at the UT Space Institute in 1993. According to NASA, Ashby, a career Navy pilot, has traveled more than 11 million miles, flown 436 orbits around the Earth, and logged over 660 hours in space. In 1999, he piloted Space Shuttle Columbia; in 2001 he [...]