Bonnie J.

Bonnie J. Dunbar - Biography. American astronaut Birth March 3, 1949 Place of Sunnyside, Washington Birth Known as One of the first two Americans to train at the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center A veteran of five space shuttle missions Career 1980 Was accepted into the NASA astronaut program; completed her training and was selected as an astronaut the following year 1983 Received her Ph.D. in mechanical and biomedical engineering from the University of Houston October 30-November 6, 1985 Acted as mission specialist on the West German D-1 Spacelab mission, the first shuttle mission in which activities were planned and controlled by non-U.S. citizens January 9-20, 1990 Served as mission specialist on the space shuttle Columbia, and was principal investigator on two of the shuttle's major experiments June 25-July 9, 1992 Served as payload commander on Columbia, in a mission dedicated to microgravity experiments March 1995 Following 13 months of training in Russia, Dunbar was qualified by the Russian cosmonaut training program to fly longduration missions on Mir, the Russian space station. June 27-July 7, 1995 Served as mission specialist on Atlantis, the first space shuttle to dock with Mir January 22-31, 1998 Served as payload commander on Endeavour, where she was responsible for 23 experiments Did You Dunbar logged more than 1,208 hours (more than 50 days) in space. Know Both Dunbar's bachelor's and master's degrees are in ceramic engineering, from the University of Washington. In addition to being an astronaut, Dunbar is a private pilot. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.