He also plays basketball, keeps up on electronics and holds a second degree
black belt in Shotokan karate.
By Franklin D. Murphy
FSU Communications Group
Florida State alumnus Norm Thagard was preparing to return from space last month -- with the American space endurance record in hand -- while Winston Scott, another FSU graduate, prepared to go into space.
Scott, a 1972 graduate of the School of Music, is a member of the team supporting space-shuttle launches and landings at the Kennedy Space Center. He has qualified for assignment as a mission specialist and will be aboard NASA's Space Shuttle Mission STS-72, which is scheduled for liftoff on Nov. 30.
Scott still likes music, but it's not for his musical gifts that he's needed on board. He went on from FSU to earn a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He has flown 16 different aircraft -- helicopters to jets -- and accumulated more than 2,300 hours of flight time.
He also plays basketball, keeps up on electronics and holds a second degree
black belt in Shotokan karate.
He's agreed to join Thagard, a 1965 FSU graduate, in a videotaped interview in late July with Scott Atwell of the FSU Communications Group. The interview will be part of a new edition of the Seminole Videogram, which the Alumni Association will distribute to Seminole clubs in August.
Thagard, after more than three months in space, was ready to go home last month when he held one of his regular in-space news conferences.
"I miss my family," he said. "I've got three sons and a wife and two cats, and I like them all and I miss them."
He said the MIR systems were working well -- they're recycling sweat for drinking water and urine for a device that generates oxygen -- and the movies aren't bad. He said he and the Russian cosmonauts who are with him have seen American movies like Pretty Woman and The Man Who Liked Women.
He was scheduled to come back to Earth in early July.