Story Musgrave, M.D.

Story Musgrave was born in 1935 on a dairy farm in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his curiosity and independence took root at an early age. By age 3, he was exploring forests alone, and at 5 he was building and floating rafts on nearby rivers. He learned to operate combines by 7, drive trucks and tractors by 10, and repair machinery in remote fields by 13. That same year, he soloed his first aircraft. Over the following decades, he logged more than 18,000 flight hours, including 7,000 in supersonic aircraft, and earned both U.S. Air Force and NASA Wings. At 14, he launched his first business, the Berkshire Maple Syrup Company.

Musgrave left school early and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at 17. He served as an aircraft engine mechanic, crew chief, and plane captain at Marine Airbase K-6 in Korea and aboard the USS Wasp. Later, as part of the Marine Corps Active Reserve, he operated and repaired M47 and M48 tanks. An avid parachutist, he completed more than 800 jumps, including 100 experimental freefalls that contributed to the first aerodynamic studies of the free-flying human body.

Despite his unconventional path, Musgrave went on to earn six graduate degrees in mathematics, computers, chemistry, medicine, biological physics, and literature. He has received 22 honorary doctorates. Throughout his astronaut career, he also worked as a part-time trauma surgeon at the University of Colorado Medical Center.

Musgrave spent more than 30 years as a NASA astronaut, flying on six space shuttle missions. He performed the first shuttle spacewalk on Challenger’s maiden voyage, piloted an astronomy mission, and took part in two classified Department of Defense missions. He was the lead spacewalker on the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission and later operated a satellite that manufactured electronic chips aboard Columbia. Beyond his flights, he served as lead communicator in Mission Control for 25 additional missions.

Following his retirement from NASA, Musgrave has pursued a wide range of ventures. He is a producer and director of multimedia projects, a landscape architect, and a heavy equipment operator. He works as an artist, designer, and engineer with Applied Minds LLC, and serves as a professor of design at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. He also consults and speaks on design-driven innovation, problem-solving, operational excellence, human performance, and safety.

Musgrave is the father of seven children — Lorelei, Scott, Holly, Todd, Jeff, Lane, and Story — whose ages span from their 60s to their teens. He has three grandchildren and lives with his wife, Amanda.