![]() In June 1985, NASA invited another public figure on a shuttle mission, this time a foreign dignitary: the then-28-year-old Sultan ibn Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, who went up to photograph the launch of a Saudi communications satellite. ![]() (Bill Nelson, who this year became NASA administrator, similarly flew on a shuttle mission in 1986, when he was a congressperson.) I even flew the B-1 bomber years ago, to decide whether that was something I ought to vote for or not, and I’ve driven the M-1 tank for the same reason.” A Salt Lake City newspaper poll showed 69% of participants supported sending Garn-who was up for re-election the following year-to space. “I can’t think of a better lesson for our children and our country.” When TIME asked Garn whether he was taking a spot away from a teacher (in an Apstory headlined “Jake Skywalker”), Garn characterized his request as part of his oversight function. “When the shuttle lifts off, all of America will be reminded of the crucial role teachers and education play in the life of our nation,” Reagan said in a 1984 speech to schoolworkers. President Ronald Reagan announced that the first truly private citizen in space would be a teacher. In its coverage, TIME noted that the decision to send Garn to space came a few months after then-U.S. NASA granted his wish, giving him a spot aboard the space shuttle Discovery’s fourth flight in 1985. In 1985, Senator Jake Garn (R-UT), then chair of the subcommittee charged with overseeing NASA’s budget, joked that the agency wouldn’t get “another cent” unless they let him go to space. ![]() McDonnell Douglas test engineer Charlie Walker, who flew on three different shuttle missions between 19, was the first such specialist, and ran an experiment designed to help pharmaceutical research. While most in the space community now agree that these specialists deserve to be called “astronauts” as much as anyone else who flew on the shuttle, they were among the first people to travel to space who weren’t on a government payroll. In the mid-1980s, NASA began picking “payload specialists”-people with specialized experience on a particular piece of hardware-to join space shuttle missions. Of course, Armstrong’s flight test experience and NASA training made the distinction mainly technical. Given that Armstrong was no longer in the military and that NASA was a civilian agency, he was dubbed the first civilian astronaut to fly at the time of his 1966 Gemini 8 mission. Armstrong had served as a Naval aviator in Korea, returned to Purdue to complete his degree, and then joined NASA’s predecessor agency as a test pilot. So when Neil Armstrong was selected for the astronaut program in 1962, the choice was notable. Diversity at that point meant how many candidates were drawn from the Air Force versus the Navy (with some Marine pilots thrown in). Back in the heyday of the Cold War and the 1960s Space Race, NASA recruited its astronauts almost exclusively from the ranks of military test pilots. To whom the honor of “first civilian in space” belongs depends on your point of view. Indeed, private citizens have been joining astronauts in space for nearly four decades, a mixture of experts picked to handle specialized equipment being launched into space, members of Congress who had power over NASA’s budget, people selected as publicity stunts or in the name of diplomacy, and billionaires who could afford outrageous sums for the privilege to strap themselves into a Russian Soyuz rocket. ![]() The Branson, Bezos and Inspiration4 missions, while historic in their own rights, also represent new landmarks in a long-evolving effort to open space up to non-professionals. ![]()
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