Linteris '79 tells of his time in space

An astronaut alum gave his audience a taste of outer space yesterday, showing slides and recounting experiences from beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Dr. Greg Linteris '79, a former astronaut and payload specialist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) who is currently an engineer for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), gave a half-hour video presentation of his time in space followed by a slide show of pictures he and his crewmates took during their missions.

"I want to give you a sense of how important the Earth and our environment is," he said. "The Earth is a tremendously beautiful planet, and those of us who go away and come back have a greater sense of just how lucky we are."

Linteris is a seasoned space traveler, having flown two missions aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in addition to spending over 471 hours in space. As a chemical engineer specializing in combustion research, Linteris was selected to accompany the Microgravity Science Laboratory into space to conduct research.

As Linteris presented pictures of the Earth that he and his fellow crew members had snapped from space, he pointed out sights like the Strait of Gibraltar, a dust storm over the Red Sea, a thundercloud complete with striking lightning and an upside-down sunset.

"When you fly around the entire Earth in an hour and a half, you can see the effects of human activity," Linteris said. "You see that it's really just a small, contained place."

Between showing clips of floating astronauts and experiments, Linteris recalled anecdotes and memories of his experience as an astronaut.

Once, he said, his NASA trainers told him and some fellow astronauts that they would be testing an emergency-exit vehicle and then proceeded to cram them into a small ball. In reality, they were undergoing a stealthily conducted claustrophobia test.

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Stories aside, Linteris said that viewing the Earth from above reinforced his belief in the need to protect the planet's environment.

"When you're up in space, even with all of the galaxy around you, the Earth is the most interesting thing to look at," he said. "And it becomes startlingly obvious that we need to protect it."

Now that he's back on the ground, however, Linteris said the lessons of space — especially the ones learned while he conducted scientific research — carry over to his earthly activities.

"[Traveling in space] taught me the greatest form of human endeavor is to work together to accomplish something larger than [oneself], be it to go into space, to do research in science or whatever," he said. "Even now, when I'm on Earth, I'm still part of that."

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The lecture was hosted by the Princeton section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The section's co-president, Frank Mycroft '07, said Linteris' talk appealed to those already fascinated with space and also served to bring others into the fold.

"A lot of us are space nuts — it's a lot of fun," he said. "We want to get people more interested in space."