Michael Landon Gernhardt (born May 4, 1956) was a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut, manager of the Environmental Physiology Laboratory, and principal investigator of the Prebreathe Reduction Program (PRP) at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Gernhardt was selected as an astronaut in March 1992 and flew on four space shuttle missions:

STS-69 STS-69 was a Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' mission, and the second flight of the Wake Shield Facility (WSF). The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 7 September 1995. It was the 100th successful crewed NASA spaceflight, not inc ...

(1995), STS-83 (1997), STS-94 (1997), and

STS-104 STS-104 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. Its primary objectives were to install the ''Quest'' Joint Airlock and help perform maintenance on the International Space Statio ...

(2001). Over his career, he spent more than 43 days in space and completed four spacewalks totaling 23 hours and 16 minutes. He also participated in NASA's first NEEMO mission in an underwater habitat and played a key role in later NEEMO missions that simulated lunar, Martian, and asteroid environments.

Early life and education

Gernhardt was born in

Mansfield, Ohio Mansfield is a city in Richland County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. The population was 47,534 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located approximately from Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, Columbus via Interstate 71, it i ...

to Suzanne C. Winters and George M. Gernhardt. He graduated from Malabar High School in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1974. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University in 1978. In 1983, he received a Master of Science degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 and a Doctorate in Bioengineering in 1991.

Career

Undersea career

From 1977 to 1984, Gernhardt worked as a

professional diver Professional diving is underwater diving where the divers are paid for their work. Occupational diving has a similar meaning and applications. The procedures are often regulated by legislation and codes of practice as it is an inherently hazar ...

and project

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

on a variety of

subsea Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term ''subsea'' is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marin ...

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

construction and repair projects around the world. He has logged over 700 deep sea dives, and has experience in air, mixed gas, bounce bell and

saturation diving Saturation diving is an ambient pressure diving technique which allows a diver to remain at working depth for extended periods during which the body tissues become solubility, saturated with metabolically inert gas from the breathing gas mixture ...

. During his diving career, Gernhardt attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, and developed a new theoretical decompression model based on tissue gas bubble dynamics. He then participated in the development and field implementation of a variety of new

decompression tables There are several categories of decompression equipment used to help divers decompress, which is the process required to allow divers to return to the surface safely after spending time underwater at higher ambient pressures. Decompression o ...

. From 1984 to 1988, Gernhardt worked as Manager, and then Vice President of Special Projects, for

Oceaneering International Oceaneering International, Inc. is a Subsea (technology), subsea engineering and applied technology company based in Houston, Texas, U.S. that provides engineered services and hardware to customers who operate in Marine (ocean), marine, outer s ...

. During this time, he led the development of a telerobotic system for subsea platform cleaning and inspection, as well as a variety of new diver and robot tools. In 1988, he founded Oceaneering Space Systems, a company formed to transfer subsea technology and operational experience to the ISS program. From 1988 until his selection by NASA in 1992, he worked on the development of new astronaut and robot-compatible tools for performing maintenance on

Space Station Freedom Space Station ''Freedom'' was a NASA-led multi-national project proposed in the 1980s to construct a permanently crewed space station in low Earth orbit. Despite initial approval by President Ronald Reagan and a public announcement in the 1984 ...

. He also worked on the development of new portable life support systems and decompression procedures for

extra-vehicular activity Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmental support. EVA i ...

NASA career

At NASA, Gernhardt reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1992. His technical assignments to date include: *Flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) *Development of

nitrox Nitrox refers to any gas mixture composed (excepting trace gases) of nitrogen and oxygen. It is usually used for mixtures that contain less than 78% nitrogen by volume. In the usual application, underwater diving, nitrox is normally distinguished ...

diving to support training for the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

repair, and on a variety of Space Station EVA developments *Member of the astronaut support team at

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, responsible for Shuttle prelaunch vehicle checkout, crew ingress/egress *Spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) at

Mission Control Center A mission control center (MCC, sometimes called a flight control center or operations center) is a facility that manages spaceflight, space flights, usually from the point of launch until landing or the end of the mission. It is part of the gr ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, during various Shuttle missions *Lead an international research team in developing a new exercise prebreathe protocol that improved the safety and efficiency of space walks from the ISS. Gernhardt presently serves as a member of the astronaut office EVA branch, as Principal Investigator of the Prebreathe Reduction Program, and as Manager of JSC's Environmental Physiology Laboratory. A four-flight veteran, Gernhardt has logged over 43 days in space, including 4 spacewalks totaling 23 hours and 16 minutes. He was a mission specialist on

in 1995, STS-83 in 1997, STS-94 in 1997, and

in 2001.

Gernhardt served as an

aquanaut An aquanaut is any person who remains underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as sat ...

on the first NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) crew aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory in October 2001. In April 2005, he was the commander of the NEEMO 8 mission. Gernhardt drove the lunar rover prototype at President Barack Obama's inaugural parade on January 20, 2009. On September 19, 2011,

announced that Gernhardt would participate in the NEEMO 15 mission in October 2011 from the DeepWorker

submersible A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger ship, watercraft or dock, platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent ope ...

. The DeepWorker is a small

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

used as an underwater stand-in for the Space Exploration Vehicle, which might someday be used to explore the surface of an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

. In June 2012, Gernhardt piloted the DeepWorker as part of the NEEMO 16 mission, for which he was principal investigator.

Spaceflight experience

took place from September 7–18, 1995. Its prime objective was the successful deployment and retrieval of a

SPARTAN Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the valley of Evrotas river in Laconia, in southeastern Pe ...

satellite and the Wake Shield Facility (WSF). The WSF was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of using this free-flying experiment to grow

semiconductors A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping levels ...

, high temperature

superconductors Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases ...

and other materials using the ultra-high

vacuum A vacuum (: vacuums or vacua) is space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective (neuter ) meaning "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressur ...

created behind the spacecraft, near the experiment package. Gernhardt was one of two astronauts to perform a spacewalk to evaluate future Space Station tools and hardware, logging 6 hours and 46 minutes of EVA. Mission duration was 260 hours, 29 minutes, and 8 seconds, traveling 4.5 million miles in 171 orbits of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. STS-83 took place from April 4–8, 1997. This was the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1) Spacelab mission, and it was cut short due to problems with one of the Shuttle's three fuel cell power generation units. Mission duration was 95 hours and 12 minutes, traveling 1.5 million miles in 63 orbits of the Earth. STS-94 took place from July 1–17, 1997. This was a re-flight of the Microgravity Science Laboratory (MSL-1) Spacelab mission, and focused on materials and combustion science research in microgravity. Mission duration was 376 hours and 45 minutes, traveling 6.3 million miles in 251 orbits of the Earth.

took place from July 12–24, 2001. This was the 10th mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). During the 13-day flight, the crew conducted joint operations with the Expedition-2 crew. Gernhardt was one of two astronauts to perform three spacewalks to install the joint airlock "Quest" (including the first US spacewalk from the ISS), and to outfit it with four high-pressure gas tanks. The mission was accomplished in 200 Earth orbits, traveling 5.3 million miles in 306 hours and 35 minutes.

Awards and honors

NASA Space Flight Medal The NASA Space Flight Medal is a decoration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. According to its statutes, it is awarded "for significant achievement or service during individual participation as a civilian or military astronau ...

s (4) *

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, a ...

s (2) *

NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronauts. To be awarded the medal, a NASA employee ...

NASA Distinguished Service Medal The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award that can be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. The medal may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both milita ...

Personal life

He enjoys running, swimming, flying, fishing, and

scuba diving Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...

References

External links

Biographical Data from NASAPDF Version
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gernhardt, Michael L. 1956 births Living people American medical researchers American underwater divers Aquanauts People from Mansfield, Ohio University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Vanderbilt University alumni NASA civilian astronauts Space Shuttle program astronauts Spacewalkers