Richard Michael Linnehan (born September 19, 1957) is a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

veterinarian A veterinarian (vet) or veterinary surgeon is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, veterinarians also play a role in animal r ...

and 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 An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

Personal

Linnehan was born September 19, 1957, in

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, United States. Alongside Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, it is one of two traditional county seat, seats of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in ...

, and was raised by his paternal

grandparent Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, or Grandma and Grandpa, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maxi ...

s, Henry and Mae Linnehan. He grew up in the state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. He is single and enjoys various sports, outdoor activities and natural history.

Education

* 1971–1974: Attended Alvirne High School,

Hudson, New Hampshire Hudson is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is located along the Massachusetts state line. The population was 25,394 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-largest municipality (town or city) in the state, by populatio ...

* 1975: Graduated from Pelham High School,

Pelham, New Hampshire Pelham is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,222 at the 2020 census, up from 12,897 at the 2010 census. Pelham is a part of the Merrimack Valley. History Originally part of Lowell, Massachus ...

* 1980: Graduated from the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant coll ...

with a

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

degree in

Animal Sciences Animal science is described as "studying the biology of animals that are under the control of humankind". It can also be described as the production and management of farm animals. Historically, the degree was called animal husbandry and the ...

and a minor in

Microbiology Microbiology () is the branches of science, scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular organism, unicellular (single-celled), multicellular organism, multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or non-cellular life, acellula ...

* 1985: Received the degree of

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Doctor, Doctors, The Doctor or The Doctors may refer to: Titles and occupations * Physician, a medical practitioner * Doctor (title), an academic title for the holder of a doctoral-level degree ** Doctorate ** List of doctoral degrees awarded ...

from The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

College of Veterinary Medicine * 1988: Completed two-year

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

in exotic animal medicine and comparative

pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...

at the Baltimore Zoo and the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

* 2009: Received the

Master of Public Administration A Master of Public Administration (MPA) is a specialized professional graduate degree in public administration that prepares students for leadership roles, similar or equivalent to a Master of Business Administration but with an emphasis on the ...

degree from

Harvard Kennedy School The John F. Kennedy School of Government, commonly referred to as Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), is the school of public policy of Harvard University, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Kennedy School offers master's de ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Organizations

* American Association of Zoo Veterinarians *International Association of Aquatic Animal Medicine *

Association of Space Explorers Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

* Adjunct Professor at the

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

College of Veterinary Medicine in

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

* Board member, Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute ]

Awards and honors

* Navy Group Achievement Award (1991) *

Navy Commendation Medal The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. Each branch of the United States Armed Forces issues its own version of the Commendation Medal, with a fift ...

(1992) *

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 (1996, 1998, 2002, 2008) * The American Veterinary Medical Associations President's Award * The University of New Hampshire Distinguished Alumni Award (1999) *

NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal The NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal is awarded to US government employees only for notably outstanding leadership which affects technical or administrative programs of NASA. The leadership award may be given for an act of leadership, for sustain ...

(1999) * The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine Alumni Society President's Award (2002) and Distinguished Alumni Award (2002) *

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 ...

(2003) *

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 ...

(2009) * Honorary PhDs,

Suffolk University Suffolk University is a private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. With 7,560 students on all campuses, it is the List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston, tenth-largest university ...

, the University of New Hampshire and

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...

Career

After graduating from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine in June 1985, Linnehan entered private veterinary practice and was later accepted to a two-year joint internship in zoo animal medicine and comparative pathology at the Baltimore Zoo and

. After completing his internship, Linnehan was commissioned as a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps and reported for duty in early 1989 at the Naval Ocean Systems Center,

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, as chief clinical veterinarian for the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

’s Marine Mammal Program. During his assignment at the Naval Ocean Systems Center, Linnehan initiated and supervised research in the areas of

cetacean Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...

and

pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant families Odobenidae (whose onl ...

anesthesia Anesthesia (American English) or anaesthesia (British English) is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prev ...

orthopedics Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics (American and British English spelling differences, alternative spelling orthopaedics) is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgic ...

, drug

pharmacokinetics Pharmacokinetics (from Ancient Greek ''pharmakon'' "drug" and ''kinetikos'' "moving, putting in motion"; see chemical kinetics), sometimes abbreviated as PK, is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to describing how the body affects a specific su ...

and reproduction in direct support of U.S. Navy mobile marine mammal systems stationed in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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 ...

, and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

NASA career

Selected by NASA in March 1992, Linnehan reported to the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight controller, flight control are conducted. ...

in August 1992 where he completed one year of astronaut candidate training, qualifying him for

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, 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. ...

flight assignments as a mission specialist. Linnehan was initially assigned to flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL). He was subsequently assigned to the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch, working on payload development, and mission development flight support for future Space Shuttle missions. He first flew as a mission specialist in 1996 on STS-78, the Life Sciences and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission. In 1998, he served as the payload commander on the STS-90 Neurolab mission. In 2002, he was a member of the four-man EVA crew on STS-109 the fourth Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. In 2008, he was the lead spacewalker on STS-123)1JA, an ISS assembly mission where he performed three EVAs and supervised the remaining two during the installation of the JEM module and Canadian SPDM. A veteran of four space flights, Linnehan has logged over 59 days in space, including six EVAs (

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environme ...

s) totaling 42 hours and 11 minutes. As of 2020, Linnehan is a management astronaut and no longer eligible for NASA Space flight assignments. Dr. Linnehan splits his time between the Astronaut Office Exploration and Integration branches and the NASA Institutional Review Board (IRB) and JSC Institutional, and NASA Flight, Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs).

Spaceflight experience

STS-78 LMS (June 20 to July 7, 1996). The Life Sciences and Microgravity Spacelab mission was flown aboard Space Shuttle '' Columbia''. The 17-day flight included studies sponsored by ten nations and five space agencies, and was the first mission to combine both a full microgravity studies agenda and a comprehensive life sciences payload. STS-78 orbited the Earth 271 times, and covered in 405 hours and 48 minutes. STS-90 Neurolab (April 17 to May 3, 1998) was Linnehan's second

Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, ...

mission. During the 16-day flight the seven-person crew aboard Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' served as both experimental subjects and operators for 26 individual life science experiments focusing on the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system. STS-90 orbited the Earth 256 times, and covered in 381 hours and 50 minutes. Both missions served as a model for future life sciences studies on board 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 ...

STS-109 STS-109 (SM3B) was a Space Shuttle mission that launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 1 March 2002. It was the 108th mission of the Space Shuttle program, the 27th flight of the orbiter ''Space Shuttle Columbia, Columbia'' and the fourth serv ...

HST Servicing Mission 3B (March 1 to March 12, 2002) was the fourth

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 ...

(HST) servicing mission and Linnehan's third flight aboard ''Columbia''. The crew of STS-109 successfully upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope's systems over the course of five consecutive EVAs, leaving it with a new power control unit, improved solar arrays, the new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and an experimental refrigeration unit for cooling the dormant Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). With his teammate John Grunsfeld, Linnehan performed three of the five spacewalks totaling 21 hours and 9 minutes. STS-109 orbited the Earth 165 times and covered in just over 262 hours.

STS-123 STS-123 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour, Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. STS-123 was the 1J/A Assembly of the International Space Station, ISS assembly mission. The orig ...

(March 11 to March 26, 2008) was Linnehan's fourth spaceflight, and his first aboard the Space Shuttle '' Endeavour''. The mission delivered the Japanese Logistics Module and the Canadian

Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator Dextre, also known as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM), is a two-armed robot, or telemanipulator, which is part of the Mobile Servicing System on the International Space Station (ISS), and does repairs that would otherwise ...

to the

. Linnehan performed three of the five scheduled spacewalks on STS-123 with

Garrett Reisman Garrett Erin Reisman (; born February 10, 1968) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was a backup crew member for Expedition 15 and joined Expedition 16 aboard the International Space Station for a short time before becoming a mem ...

, Mike Foreman and Bob Behnken.

References

*
Spacefacts biography of Richard M. Linnehan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linnehan, Richard M. 1957 births Living people American veterinarians United States Army officers United States Army astronauts People from Lowell, Massachusetts People from Hillsborough County, New Hampshire University of New Hampshire alumni Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine alumni Harvard Kennedy School alumni North Carolina State University faculty Recipients of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal Recipients of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal Space Shuttle program astronauts Spacewalkers Military personnel from Massachusetts