Education
Like most astronanuts Don Lind is a specialist in his
field. He graduated with a B.S. (Physics) degree with High Honours from
the University of Utah in 1953, gained his Ph.D. (High Energy Nuclear Physics)
degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 and completed
his education with a postdoc at the Geophysical Institute, University of
Alaska (1975-76).
Military Experience
Dr Lind holds the rank of Commander in the US Naval Reserve.
He has logged more than 4,500 pilot flight hours, mostly in high performance
jet aircraft.
NASA Experience
Just prior to joining the Goddard Space Flight Centre
as a space physicist, Dr Lind worked at the Lawrence Livermore Radiation
Laboratory, Berkeley, doing research into pion-nucleon scatttering, a basic
type of high energy particle interaction. At Goddard, Dr Lind was involved
in experiments to determine the properties of particles in the earth's
magnetosphere and interplanetary space. After Dr Lind joinded the astonaut
programme in 1966, he was the astronaut representative on the team which
designed and tested all of the equipment and wrote the procedures to be
used on the lunar surface. He was on the support crew for the Apollo 11
moon landing -the most famous flight in the history of space travel. He
also served as a back-up space pilot for the the Skylab 3 and 4 missions
and as a member of the Skylab rescue crew for all the Skylab ventures.
Dr
Lind finally got his turn into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger
on 29th April 1985 (the same vessel that was so tragically to explode just
9 months later killing 7 of his closest frineds). During his mission Dr
Lind acted as the payload commander and was in charge of 15 experiments
whilst in space as well as conductingn a unique experiment to take three
dimensional video recordings of the earth's aurora. After 7 days in space,
completing 110 orbits of the earth and travelling just under three millions
miles, the space shuttle landed amongst a blaze of publicity on 6th May
1985.
Post-Flight
Professor Lind joined the Faculty of Utah State University
after a 22 year career with NASA. At the University, he taught physics
and astrophysics. He also conducted an experiment aboard the LDEF satellite
called the Interstellar gas experiment. Collectors in this experiment entrapped
one of the first samples of matter from outside the solar system. He retired
in 1995.
A new mission
Dr Lind is now based in London and has a new mission
as goodwill ambassador for his Church -The Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter-day Saints.
Don Lind will be
in DCU on Thursday 18th January 2001 in room N115, Block 2, at 15.00 hrs
He will present the official
video footage of the Challenger flight and talk about his experience as
an astronaut.