FRIDAY FOTO (March 6, 2020)

Army Astronaut.

(Photo by Luca Parmitano, European Space Agency)

This photo shows Army Colonel Andrew Morgan, a NASA astronaut, pausing for a photo outside the International Space Station before going back to work at the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer site on January 25, 2020.

Until a few years ago, your 4GWAR editor usually did not think “Army” when someone mentioned  “Astronaut.”

But Morgan is one of three soldiers currently in NASA’s astronaut program. He and fellow astronaut, Lieutenant Colonel Anne McClain, were featured in a  November 30, 2018 FRIDAY FOTO. The third current Army astronaut is Lieutenant Colonel Frank Rubio. All three are West Point graduates. Rubio and Morgan are both physicians and Rubio and McClain are former combat helicopter pilots. Morgan, a former demonstration parachutist, served as a physician with Army Special Forces.

Right Stuff indeed.

Most of the early astronauts were Air Force or Navy pilots. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, was a Marine. Deke Slayton, one of the first seven astronauts in Project Mercury, started out in the Army Air Forces during World War II.  But he was serving in the Air Force when selected to be part of the first class of astronauts. Unfortunately, he was grounded because of an erratic heart beat and did not make it into space until the 1970s with the Apollo  program.

In 1976, Brigadier General, then-Major Robert L. Stewart became the Army’s first astronaut. Another combat helicopter pilot (Vietnam), he flew on two Space Shuttle missions and was preparing for his third when he was promoted to general and left NASA to become deputy commander of Army Strategic Defense Command.