Space shuttle astronaut and Davidson College grad Thomas Marshburn will be back at his alma mater Jan. 27 to talk about his experiences in free public lecture. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. at Duke Family Performance hall in the Alvarez College Union.

a Davidson College graduate who spent more than two weeks on the International Space Station this past summer as a crewmember for the Space Shuttle Endeavour, will talk about his experience in a public lecture to be held Wednesday, Jan. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the Duke Family Performance Hall at Davidson College.

Public tickets may be picked up at the College Union ticket office weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The office also will be open until 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19. An additional 100 tickets will be available beginning at 6:30 p.m. the night of the lecture.

Tickets are not available online or by phone, and there’s a limit of two per person.

ENDEAVOUR CREW MEMBER

Dr. Marshburn flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s mission, STS-127, last July. The crew’s task was to deliver Japanese-built Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) and the Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section (ELM-ES) to the International Space Station.

The mission launched on July 15, 2009, after five failed launch attempts, and returned on July 31, after a 16-day mission. This was the 23rd flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. When Endeavour docked with the ISS, it set a record for the most humans (13) in space in the same vehicle at the same time. It also tied the record of 13 people in space at any one time.

A native of Statesville, Dr. Marshburn graduated from Henderson High School in Atlanta, then received a bachelor of science degree in physics from Davidson College in 1982. He holds a master’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia, an M.D. degree from Wake Forest University, and a masters in medical science from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).

After completing medical school, Dr. Marshburn trained in emergency medicine and worked as an emergency physician before being accepted into the first class of the NASA/UTMB Space Medicine Fellowship in Galveston, Texas. After completing the fellowship in 1995, he worked as an emergency physician in area hospitals in Houston and Boston, and served as an attending for the emergency medicine residency for the University of Texas-Houston.

Dr. Marshburn joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 1994 as a flight surgeon, and over the next 10 years supported various NASA programs in the U.S., Russia and Kazakhstan. He was selected for NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Training program in 2004 and completed the program in 2006.

RELATED COVERAGE

See all of DavidsonNews.net’s previous coverage of Dr. Tom Marshburn under the Tom Marshburn tag, CLICK HERE>

July 15, 2009, “8-min. flight takes Endeavour, Marshburn into space.”

June 12, 2009, “Davidson grad Tom Marshburn heads to space.”