Richard Noel "Dick" Richards (born August 24, 1946), (

Capt Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

, USN, Ret.), is a retired American

naval officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent contextu ...

and

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

test pilot A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.Stinton, Darrol. ''Flying Qualities and Flight Testin ...

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

, and a former

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. He flew aboard four

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...

missions in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early life and education

He was born on August 24, 1946, in

Key West, Florida Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Isla ...

, but considers

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

to be his hometown. He is married to the former Lois Hollabaugh of

Amarillo, Texas Amarillo ( ; Spanish for " yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall Cou ...

. He graduated from Riverview Gardens High School in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1964. He received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials in ...

from the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

in 1969, and a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

degree in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida in 1970. While at the University of Missouri, he became a member of the

Lambda Chi Alpha Lambda Chi Alpha (), commonly known as Lambda Chi, is a college fraternity in North America which was founded at Boston University in 1909. It is one of the largest social fraternities in North America, with more than 300,000 lifetime members a ...

fraternity.

Military service

Richards was commissioned as an

Ensign An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be diffe ...

in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

upon graduating from the University of Missouri in 1969 and was designated a

Naval Aviator Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases. Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-bas ...

in August of the following year. From 1970 to 1973, he flew support missions in the

A-4 Skyhawk The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a single-seat subsonic carrier-capable light attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s. The delta-winged, single turbojet engined Skyhawk was designed ...

and

F-4 Phantom The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and Bo ...

airplanes while assigned to Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 33 ( VAQ-33) at Norfolk Naval Air Station,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

. He subsequently reported to Fighter Squadron 103 ( VF-103), and deployed to the

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe a ...

and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

aboard the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

s and , flying F-4 airplanes. Selected for test pilot training, he reported to the

U.S. Naval Test Pilot School The United States Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), located at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Patuxent River, Maryland, provides instruction to experienced United States Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, and foreign military experi ...

at NAS Patuxent River,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

in 1976. A tour in the

Naval Air Test Center Naval Air Station Patuxent River , also known as NAS Pax River, is a United States naval air station located in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River. It is home to Headquarters, Naval Air Sys ...

's Carrier Systems Branch and F/A-18A Program Office of the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate followed Test Pilot School graduation. Over the next years, Richards served as a project

for automatic carrier landing systems development work in F-4 and A-7 aircraft and also conducted approach/landing/catapult flying qualities and catapult minimum end speed performance testing of a prototype "slatted" F-4S airplane. As carrier suitability project officer for the

F/A-18A Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...

airplane, he made the first shipboard catapults and arrested landings during Initial Sea Trials of the F/A-18A on board USS ''America'' in 1979. He was reassigned to Fighter Squadron 33 ( VF-33) in May 1980 and was

en route ''En route'' may refer to: * ''En Route'' (novel), an 1895 novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans * ''En Route'' (film), a 2004 German movie directed by Jan Krüger * En-route chart, in aeronautics * enRoute (credit card), Air Canada's credit card divisio ...

to that assignment when notified of his selection as an astronaut candidate.

NASA career

Selected as an astronaut candidate by

in May 1980, Richards became an astronaut in August 1981. He served as ascent CAPCOM for STS-51F, passing up the "Abort ATO" call when ''Challenger's'' centre engine went down. Richards flew on four missions: STS-28 (August 8–13, 1989), STS-41 (October 6–10, 1990),

STS-50 STS-50 (U.S. Microgravity Laboratory-1) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission, the 12th mission of the ''Columbia'' orbiter. ''Columbia'' landed at Kennedy Space Center for the first time ever due to bad weather at Edwards Air Force Base caused by ...

(June 25 – July 9, 1992), and STS-64 (September 9–20, 1994)--and logged a total of 33 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes, 15 seconds in space. In April 1995, Richards left the Astronaut Office, and was assigned to the Space Shuttle Program Office at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late ...

. He was designated as the Mission Director/Manager for the second

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

Servicing Space Shuttle Mission ( STS-82), and Mission Manager for the second Tethered Satellite System Space Shuttle mission ( STS-75).

Spaceflight experience

On his first space flight, Richards was pilot on the crew of STS-28 aboard the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'', which launched from

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 National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 196 ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

, on August 8, 1989. The mission carried

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

payloads and a number of secondary payloads. After 80 orbits of the Earth, this five-day mission concluded with a dry lakebed landing on Runway 17 at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, on August 13, 1989. Mission duration was 121 hours 9 seconds. Slightly more than one year later, Richards commanded the crew of STS-41. The five-man crew launched aboard the Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' on October 6 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 10, 1990. During 66 orbits of the Earth, the STS-41 crew successfully deployed the Ulysses spacecraft, starting this interplanetary probe on its four-year journey, via

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, to investigate the polar regions of the Sun. In June 1992, Richards commanded the crew of

aboard the Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. STS-50 was the first flight of the United States Microgravity Laboratory and the first extended duration Orbiter flight. Over a two-week period, the STS-50 flight crew conducted a wide variety of experiments relating to materials processing and fluid physics in a microgravity environment. At that time this was the longest Space Shuttle flight in history. In September 1994, Richards commanded the STS-64 crew aboard the Space Shuttle ''Discovery''. Mission highlights included: the first use of a space based laser for environmental research; deployment and retrieval of a spacecraft in support of

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...

and corona studies; robotic processing of semiconductors; maneuvered the

robotic arm A robotic arm is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm; the arm may be the sum total of the mechanism or may be part of a more complex robot. The links of such a manipulator are connected by join ...

in proximity to over 100 Shuttle reaction control system jet firings to measure forces imparted to a plume detection instrument in support of future Space Station/Shuttle rendezvous flights; first untethered spacewalk in 10 years to test a self-rescue jetpack. Mission duration was 10 days, 22 hours, 51 minutes.

Post-NASA career

In August 1998, Richards left NASA to join the

Boeing Company The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

. Between 1998 and 2007 he supported NASA via Boeing's Space Shuttle Sustaining Engineering Support Contract. Boeing has over 1,000 employees across the United States involved with Space Shuttle flight operations. In 2007, Richards retired from Boeing as the Deputy Program Manager for Space Shuttle, and now lives in Houston, Texas.

Awards and honors

Defense Superior Service Medal The Defense Superior Service Medal (DSSM) is a military decoration of the United States Department of Defense, which is presented to United States Armed Forces service members who perform superior meritorious service in a position of significant ...

* Distinguished Flying Cross *

Defense Meritorious Service Medal The Defense Meritorious Service Medal (DMSM) is an award bestowed upon members of the United States military by the United States Department of Defense. In the order of precedence of the United States Armed Forces, it is worn between the Purple ...

National Defense Service Medal The National Defense Service Medal (NDSM) is a service award of the United States Armed Forces established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. It is awarded to every member of the US Armed Forces who has served during any one of four ...

s (2) *

Vietnam Service Medal The Vietnam Service Medal is a military award of the United States Armed Forces established on 8 July 1965 by order of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The medal is awarded to recognize service during the Vietnam War by all members of the U.S. Arm ...

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 ...

* NASA Exceptional Service Medal *

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 astrona ...

s (4) *Distinguished Graduate of

Test Pilot of the Year for 1980.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Richard N. 1946 births Living people United States Navy astronauts University of Missouri alumni University of West Florida alumni United States Navy officers United States Naval Aviators Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) Recipients of the Defense Superior Service Medal Recipients of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal Recipients of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal United States Naval Test Pilot School alumni Space Shuttle program astronauts