Astronaut Steven Nagel, who flew on four space shuttle missions in the 1980s and 90s, including two as mission commander, has died after a long battle with cancer, NASA confirms.
Nagel, an Air Force pilot who had logged many hours in fighter jets and as a test pilot, joined the NASA astronaut corps in 1978 in the first crop of trainees selected for the space shuttle program.
Although trained as a shuttle pilot, Nagel's first mission, aboard (Discovery) in June 1985, was as a mission specialist.
"I really wanted to fly as a pilot, so at the time — because there was no explanation that went with it — I wondered, 'Are they telling me I'm not good enough to fly as a pilot?'" Nagel told a NASA interviewer about his 1985 assignment to the shuttle Discovery's STS-51G crew, according to . "Nothing against mission specialists. I would trade my pilot's slot to go be a mission specialist and do a [spacewalk], certainly, but it's just that 'What are they trying to tell me here?'"
"But I think what it really was, our class was very large, and they're getting down to the point where I think [they] probably wanted to get us all flown, and this was a way to do it a little quicker," Nagel recalled.
A U.S. congressional committee on Wednesday accused Columbia University's president of failing to protect Jewish students...
The Maine Legislature approved sweeping gun safety legislation including background checks on private gun sales, waiting...
As wildfires ripped across Maui last August, the head of the emergency management agency dragged his...
