NASA Astronaut To Speak At Governor’s Banquet

Pacific Northwest native Bonnie Dunbar, a veteran of five space flights on the Space Shuttle, will be the featured speaker at the Governor’s Banquet at the 86th Annual Pacific Northwest District Convention in Yakima,Washington on Saturday, August 16th. Dunbar, who logged over 1208 hours (over 50 days) in space, was the first American woman certified by the Russian Space Program to fly on the Space Station Mir. As Payload Commander on her fourth mission in the Shuttle Atlantis, Dunbar was a member of the first U.S. crew to dock with, and exchange crew members with, Mir during the summer of 1995.. She paid a return visit to Mir on her fifth shuttle mission aboard Endeavor in January 1998. Dunbar, whose first three missions were on the Challenger and two flights on Columbia, graduated from Sunnyside,Washington High School in 1967. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a Masters from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1971 and 1975, respectively. She was awarded her PhD in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering in 1983 from the University of Houston. Prior to joining NASA in 1978 as a payload officer/flight controller at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in 1978, Dr. Dunbar was a Senior Research Engineer with Rockwell International Space Division where she helped to develop the equipment and processes for manufacturing the thermal protection system for the Space Shuttle. Dunbar served as a guidance and navigation officer/flight controller for the Skylab reentry mission in 1979 before becoming a NASA astronaut in August 1981. Dr. Dunbar currently serves as Assistant Director to the NASA Johnson Space Center for University Research and Affairs. Dr. Dunbar has been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, the NASA Exceptional Leadership Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. In 2002, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineers.