Peggy Whitson

Peggy Whitson is married to Clarence F. Sams, who is currently, the manager of the Cell and Molecular Research Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. A biochemist by profession, he is currently working on the effects of spaceflight on biological systems.

Peggy Annette Whitson was born on February 9, 1960, in Mount Ayr, Iowa. Her parents, Keith and Beth Whitson, owned a farm in the outskirts of Beaconsfield, a small town located near Mount Ayr. Peggy’s elder sister, Kathy Bretz, now lives in Des Moines.

Keith and Beth Whitson worked all day on the farm and from them, little Peggy learned the value of hard work. As a child, she was also very obedient, persevering and resolute

Peggy had her early education at Mount Ayr Community High School. When she was nine years old, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon for the first time. Watching them walking on the moon on her television set, she too decided to become an astronaut.

All through her student life, she carried the goal in her heart, working hard to fulfill it. She graduated from school in 1978. In the same year, Sally Ride was chosen as the first female astronaut and this made her resolve to become an astronaut stronger.

In 1978, Peggy Whitson enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan College with chemistry and biology and graduated from there in 1981 with a Bachelors degree in Science. Although her professors tried to persuade her to enroll at medical school, she stuck to her goal.

Peggy Whitson completed her postdoctoral fellowship in October 1986 and then joined Johnson Space Center (JSC) as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate. The Center, located in Houston, is a part of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In April 1988, she became the Supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical science contractor at JSC and worked in that capacity till September 1989. Afterwards, she joined Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA-JSC as Research Biochemist and remained at the post until 1991.

From 1991 onwards, Peggy Whitson held number of posts concurrently. From that year until 1993, she served as Technical Monitor of the Biochemistry Research Laboratories in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch.

Parallel to that, from 1991 to 1992, she functioned as the Payload Element Developer for Bone Cell Research Experiment aboard SL-J (STS-47), and was a member of the US-USSR Joint Working Group in Space Medicine and Biology.

In 1992, she became the Project Scientist of the Mir-Shuttle Program (STS-60, STS-63, STS-71, Mir 18, Mir 19) and served in this capacity until the end of the Phase 1A Program in 1995.

Peggy Whitson is best known for her two journeys into the space. The first time she was a flight engineer aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-111. Later she was designated as the NASA ISS Science Officer. Incidentally, she was the first person to hold this post.

The spacecraft was launched on June 5, 2002 and after spending 184 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes in space, they returned to Earth on December 7 aboard STS-113. During these six months on the board of International Space Station, Whitson conducted twenty-one experiments in microgravity and human life sciences.

In addition, she installed commercial payloads and hardware systems. To install shielding on a service module and to deploy a science payload, she had to perform a four-hour and 25-minute Orlan spacewalk.

Whitson next went to the space in October 2007 as the Commander of the Expedition 16. This made her the first female commander at International Space Station.

This time she spent nearly 192 days in space and during this period made significant improvement on the ISS. To carry out maintenance and assembly tasks, she also had to perform five space walks. They returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-11 on April 19, 2008.