George “Pinky” Nelson
JUL 13, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031006
Happy birthday George “Pinky” Nelson! Born in 1950 in Charles City, Iowa, Nelson attended Harvey Mudd College, where he majored in physics. He then went on to the University of Washington to earn a master’s degree and then a PhD in astronomy. In 1978 he joined NASA’s astronaut program. Nelson went on three space shuttle missions between 1984 and 1988. The photo shows Nelson on the second of those missions, STS-61-C, operating a camera for the Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program (CHAMP) experiment. Nelson now directs the Science, Mathematics and Technology Education program at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
Date in History: 13 July 1950
© 2015. American Institute of Physics