Owen Garriott

Lore & Background

Garriott was born in Enid, Oklahoma, and worked at a local radio station while in high school. He served as an electronics officer in the U.S. Navy from 1953 to 1956, then became an engineering professor at Stanford University. After being selected as a NASA scientist-astronaut in 1965, he completed U.S. Air Force pilot training in 1966. His first spaceflight, Skylab 3 in 1973, set a duration record of over 59 days. His second flight, STS-9 in 1983, carried over 70 experiments. During that mission, he operated the world's first amateur radio station in space using a Motorola handheld 2-meter radio. Garriott also participated in a prank during Skylab 3: he had recorded his wife Helen before launch, and her voice was transmitted to mission control, startling the capsule communicator. After leaving NASA in 1986, he worked for aerospace companies, served on NASA committees, and conducted research on microbes from extreme environments, including hyperthermophiles from deep-sea hydrothermal vents and meteorites from Antarctica.

Reader's Guide

Garriott's significance lies in his dual role as a scientist-astronaut and a pioneer of amateur radio in space. His operation of the first amateur radio station from space on STS-9 established a practice that expanded to dozens of shuttle flights, the Mir space station, and the International Space Station, involving scores of astronauts and cosmonauts. His Skylab 3 mission, which set a duration record, demonstrated human adaptability to weightlessness and conducted extensive solar, Earth-resource, and life-science experiments. As the NASA astronaut with the earliest-obtained Ph.D. (1960), he brought strong scientific credentials to the astronaut corps. Post-NASA, he contributed to payload integration for Spacelab projects and the U.S. laboratory for the International Space Station, and his research on microbes from extreme environments advanced knowledge of life in harsh conditions. His son Richard later became a space tourist, making them the first American parent-child pair to both travel to space.

Did You Know?

• Garriott made the first amateur radio contact from space on December 1, 1983, using a Motorola handheld 2-meter radio.
• He was the NASA astronaut with the earliest-obtained Ph.D., earning it from Stanford in 1960.
• During Skylab 3, he played a prank by having his wife's pre-recorded voice transmitted to mission control.
• His son Richard Garriott became a space tourist in 2008, the first American to follow a parent into space.