Michael Richard Clifford (October 13, 1952 – December 28, 2021) was a United States Army officer and NASA astronaut. Clifford was a Master Army Aviator and logged over 3,400 hours flying in a wide variety of fixed and rotary winged aircraft. He retired from the U.S. Army at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He logged six hours of spacewalk time over three Space Shuttle missions. He was also one of the first people to conduct a spacewalk while docked to an orbiting space station: that spacewalk was conducted during STS-76, while docked at the Russian space station Mir.

Early life and education

He was born in San Bernardino, California, on October 13, 1952, the son of Lenore (née Chaffin) and her first husband John Michael Uram. His mother subsequently married Gordon Clifford. Rich Clifford graduated from Ben Lomond High School in Ogden, Utah, in 1970. He was a First Class Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. As a youngster, he worked in a gas station using degreasers to clean car engines as well as on a farm.

Clifford received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York, in 1974, and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982.

Army career

Clifford graduated from West Point in June 1974 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Clifford was selected to join NASA Astronaut Group 13 in July 1990. He also served in a variety of technical assignments. From April to August 1991, Clifford was assigned to the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch where he participated in the design, development, and evaluation of Shuttle payloads and crew equipment having extravehicular activity (EVA) interfaces. STS-59 in 1994, and STS-76 in 1996. He has logged 665 hours in space, including a 6-hour spacewalk.

STS-53

Flying on the crew of STS-53 which launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 2, 1992, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, He also conducted the Battlefield Laser Acquisition Sensor Test (BLAST) on a novel laser energy detector for the U.S. military. After 116 orbits of the Earth, Clifford returned with the rest of the STS-53 crew, which landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on December 9, 1992. The mission concluded on April 20, 1994, with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base after orbiting the Earth 183 times.

STS-76

thumb|upright=1.0|left|Clifford after the spacewalk in STS-76, getting out of his [[Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) suit]]

Despite the Parkinson's diagnosis, Prior to the spacewalk, he woke up to music composed by his two sons. Following 145 orbits of the Earth, he returned as Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California on March 31, 1996.

Post-NASA career

Clifford resigned from the astronaut corps and left NASA in January 1997 He later oversaw Boeing's shuttle program till it was winding down. He received the Award for Public Leadership in Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology in 2012.

Personal life and death

Clifford married Nancy Elizabeth Brunson of Darlington, South Carolina; they had two sons. According to his wife Nancy, their first granddaughter was "named Eva, which stands for extra vehicular activity. That's his spacewalk". Filmmaker Zach Jankovic, son of Dr. Joseph Jankovic who helped diagnose Clifford, made a documentary detailing Clifford's experiences with the disease; the short film entitled The Astronaut's Secret won the American Academy of Neurology Foundation's 2012 annual "Neuro Film Festival" competition and was released in 2014.

Clifford died from complications of Parkinson's on December 28, 2021, at the age of 69.

See also

References

  • Spacefacts biography of Michael R. Clifford